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My propsal on how to make eve "easier" for new players
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Zi-know Watchalike
Doomheim
#1 - 2014-05-09 13:26:24 UTC
As we all know from CCP, 50% of the new players leaves Eve after a month of playing.
The Mittani explains this very well FANFEST: NEW PLAYER EXPERIENCE

Though my proposal has nothing to do with tooltips, but it has the same goal.
We all know in eve there is no total safety. A fact that a new player may not know or know but not take it seriously enough.
A new player that is being ganked may rage-quit (and come back after a while) or worst rage-quit and hate the game.
A new player need a little time to understand the basic game mechanics.

To counter this I have a range of proposal that does not affect the gameplay too much, but may also encourage NPC corp players to join a "real" corp.

My proposal consist of two parts... The "buff" and the "nerf" part... So please read it to the end before judging it :)


First the buff side of the proposal
1) Make NPC corp players invalid targets in High sec. Means you cannot target them and shot at them.
2) Make NPC corp players invurnable to Smartbombs in High sec

-> This means if a NPC corp player leaves high sec, he will become a regular "target"


Now the nerf side of the proposal
1) Make everything you earn in a NPC corp taxed. Everything means also direct Trade! Every piece of ISK that enters the wallet of a NPC corp player must be taxed. If double taxing is inevitable, then so be it.
2) Make taxing of a NPC corp dependent to players age. Means... A one month old player will be taxed with 0% and a 2 year old player will be taxed with 80%... If you dont want the 80% tax you have to leave the NPC corp and join a player corp or make your own corp, which makes you to a regular target for ganking and wardecing :).
3) A NPC corp player has certain limitations:
- Cannot target players of a non NPC corp (will also get rid of neutral un-wardec-able reppers)
- Cannot duel with non NPC corp players
- Cannot use cloak
- Cannot use Capital ships
- Cannot loot / salvage if the owner of the wreck is not in a NPC corp
- Cannot recieve ISK from a non-NPC corp player
- Cannot trade / recieve items from a non-MPC corp player
4) If you leave the NPC corp, you will not be able to join a NPC corp again. Never ever again...
-> The current mechanics will assign you to a NPC corp if you leave a player corp. This must be changed, so that these players will be assigned to thier own corp (maybe temporary corp that can be deleted if closed).

Constructive comments would be nice...
And if Devs comments to this.. That would be also nice :D


Problems and solutions:

P: I want to help a new player by buying him a ship. But since I cannot trade it to him, what should I do?
A: Leave it in space and let him board the ship. This mechanic does not stop you from putting items in the ship and "trading" items this way, but this will hinder people from using NPC corp alts to jump in a freighter to Jita (during Jita burns for example) and

trading the stuff to a non NPC corp alt.

P: What about Bot miners?
A: Bot miners in a NPC corp will have serious problems. Giving the mined Minerals to a non-NPC corp alt will be very troublesome, since they will not be able to fly an orca. I think the highest Ore hold on a non-capital ship is about 63000m³. Thats just 6 Hulk loads. Refining the minerals with an NPc-corp alt will lead to high taxiations.
But bumping them from the belt seems to be also working great.

P: I don't like to join a corp, but I like to chat with other players and sometimes do mission with them.
A: Create your own corp and find a good channel, chat with those guys and do missions with them.
Karen Avioras
The Raging Raccoons
#2 - 2014-05-09 13:34:53 UTC
Zi-know Watchalike wrote:


First the buff side of the proposal
1) Make NPC corp players invalid targets in High sec. Means you cannot target them and shot at them.
2) Make NPC corp players invurnable to Smartbombs in High sec
.


lol no
Kaarous Aldurald
Black Hydra Consortium.
#3 - 2014-05-09 13:44:11 UTC
So basically, highly incentivize botting?

Nope.

"Verily, I have often laughed at the weaklings who thought themselves good because they had no claws."

One of ours, ten of theirs.

Best Meltdown Ever.
Maximus Aerelius
PROPHET OF ENIGMA
#4 - 2014-05-09 13:46:09 UTC
So can't ever rejoin an NPC Corp...what do you do when your Corp is disbanded?

And WTF is this "Cannot recieve ISK from a non-NPC corp player". I can't gift off my ISK to the poor noobs when I feel like it? Mmm I don't think so.

Cost of 80% Tax = shed tonnes, posting in a "Nerf ALTs to the ground" thread, priceless.

[b]Fast Character Switching "XP Stylee" Undocking - More Routes Out of Station[/b] Here's my tear jar > |_| < Fill 'er up!
Gawain Edmond
Khanid Bureau of Industry
#5 - 2014-05-09 13:46:51 UTC
it's nice in theory but wouldn't it be easier to just put a warning the first half dozen times they log in with big letters in bold that says "WARNING: Eve is a cold heartless place other players can kill and steal from you if you're not carefull" and be done with it if people then still don't get the message then it's possibly not the game for them in the first place
Zi-know Watchalike
Doomheim
#6 - 2014-05-09 13:50:50 UTC
Kaarous Aldurald wrote:
So basically, highly incentivize botting?

Nope.


Even read the complete post?

Quote:
P: What about Bot miners?
A: Bot miners in a NPC corp will have serious problems. Giving the mined Minerals to a non-NPC corp alt will be very troublesome, since they will not be able to fly an orca. I think the highest Ore hold on a non-capital ship is about 63000m³. Thats just 6 Hulk loads. Refining the minerals with an NPC-corp alt will lead to high taxiations.
But bumping them from the belt seems to be also working great.


- NPC corp players will not be able to use capital ships (ex: Orca)
- NPC corp tax = 80%
- NPC corp players cannot trade with non-NPC corp players
- Trading for NPC corp players will be taxed

Now tell me... How will that incentivize botting?
Maximus Aerelius
PROPHET OF ENIGMA
#7 - 2014-05-09 13:53:10 UTC
Counter proposal: Stop newbies AKA 'ALTs' from posting on the Forums until they are 6 months old.

Job done. /thread.

[b]Fast Character Switching "XP Stylee" Undocking - More Routes Out of Station[/b] Here's my tear jar > |_| < Fill 'er up!
Zi-know Watchalike
Doomheim
#8 - 2014-05-09 13:56:42 UTC
Maximus Aerelius wrote:
So can't ever rejoin an NPC Corp...what do you do when your Corp is disbanded?

Create your own corp?

Maximus Aerelius wrote:
And WTF is this "Cannot recieve ISK from a non-NPC corp player". I can't gift off my ISK to the poor noobs when I feel like it? Mmm I don't think so.

No.. But you can buy him stuff :)
Quote:
P: I want to help a new player by buying him a ship. But since I cannot trade it to him, what should I do?
A: Leave it in space and let him board the ship. This mechanic does not stop you from putting items in the ship and "trading" items this way, but this will hinder people from using NPC corp alts to jump in a freighter to Jita (during Jita burns for example) and


Maximus Aerelius wrote:
Cost of 80% Tax = shed tonnes, posting in a "Nerf ALTs to the ground" thread, priceless.

You can still have your alt in your own corp... Where is the problem?
Swiftstrike1
Swiftstrike Incorporated
#9 - 2014-05-09 14:01:14 UTC  |  Edited by: Swiftstrike1
Even your intentions are wrong - we don't want to make EVE easier for new players. We want to make it more intuitive, not easier. There's an important difference.

The problem is that people rate their success by comparing themselves to the "best" players in the game. If a new player isn't making billions of ISK by the end of their first month, they might think that they're no good at the game and quit for that reason.

What we need to do is make sure that people understand that we play to have fun. It doesn't matter how much ISK you have or how many skills you learned or what your K/D ratio is.... so long as you are having fun, you are doing it right.

Casual Incursion runner & Faction Warfare grunt, ex-Wormholer, ex-Nullbear.
Xequecal
Ministry of War
Amarr Empire
#10 - 2014-05-09 14:04:32 UTC
The best thing CCP can do for new players is to remove attribute bonuses from implants. As a new player with no SP, you can't afford not to plug them in, but at the same time you can't afford to lose them. A new player can't go PvP with a bunch of cheap frigates in lowsec because he risks losing his 100m worth of +4 implants. This railroads players into the boring PvE for months which is why they all quit. Jump clones help but the long cooldown and standing requirement to install them in highsec make them a poor option.
Gully Alex Foyle
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#11 - 2014-05-09 14:06:26 UTC
Zi-know Watchalike wrote:
A new player need a little time to understand the basic game mechanics.

Being ganked is a great way to understand basic game mechanics. Big smile

Seriously, if:

. You aren't willing to research and enact basic safety measures
. You fuss about a ship going boom

EVE is definitely NOT the game for you. Playing in 'safe mode' for a month or two will NOT magically make you a happy EVE player, actually it would probably have the opposite effect.

Make space glamorous! Is EVE dying or not? Ask the EVE-O Death-o-meter!
Zi-know Watchalike
Doomheim
#12 - 2014-05-09 14:18:15 UTC
Gully Alex Foyle wrote:
Zi-know Watchalike wrote:
A new player need a little time to understand the basic game mechanics.

Being ganked is a great way to understand basic game mechanics. Big smile

Seriously, if:

. You aren't willing to research and enact basic safety measures
. You fuss about a ship going boom

EVE is definitely NOT the game for you. Playing in 'safe mode' for a month or two will NOT magically make you a happy EVE player, actually it would probably have the opposite effect.


Thats is true... Thats why the 80% tax to force players out to a wardec-able player corp. That also insures that NPC corps only contains new players.
Ganking will still work... But not on new players... Sooner or later they will also be forced out of the NPC corp because of the taxing issues.
And as a new guy in Eve, you still have the option to join Eve Uni.
NPC corp at the end will only be used as starting corp. To introduce the Universe of eve. And then the NPC corp will show you the door to the open world by making being in the NPC corp a hassle.

So basically its like making you confortable with the universe first, then give you the option to swim in the sharked filled water. But if you dont want to, you have to pay a high price for that.
Velicitia
XS Tech
#13 - 2014-05-09 14:32:25 UTC
Swiftstrike1 wrote:

What we need to do is make sure that people understand that we play to have fun. It doesn't matter how much ISK you have or how many skills you learned or what your K/D ratio is.... so long as you are having fun, you are doing it right.



This, right here.

The reason that 50% of people leave is a mix of the NPE still being "meh" -- if you're coming from WOW (or other MMO), you'll do ... what, 3 days or so of missions, and then the game is like "OKAY, TUTORIAL'S OVER! GO HAVE FUN!". They're then like "WTF am I supposed to do now?"


On top of that, maybe they finish the tutorials .. have a run-in with "forced PVP" (which EVE is built on), decide they don't like it and rage (then leave, and tell everyone they know that eve sucks).

One of the bitter points of a good bittervet is the realisation that all those SP don't really do much, and that the newbie is having much more fun with what little he has. - Tippia
Daichi Yamato
Jabbersnarks and Wonderglass
#14 - 2014-05-09 14:32:44 UTC
oh my god no. This would just make new players even more ignorant of game mechanics.

Help players find social groups. There could be emphasis on finding established corps with active memberships and experienced leadership rather than small, barely active, no hopes with a CEO that doesnt have the first clue about anything other than PvE. How about some way to quantify activity in a recruitment advert beyond time zone sliders? Active members in last seven days or something and/or Average hours per week per member.

I also believe new players have a lot of misconceptions about the game. Educate players to show them that this isn't a safe universe. Explain that PvP is not optional, CONCORD is not protection and players are responsible for their own safety and carrying out their own justice. (could go on massive rant here, but the general idea is that many ppl dnt even understand what they are playing. Despite all the advertisements and news in the media that shows EvE is a ruthless, back stabbing sand box where anything goes, ppl still come here expecting their hands held and arbitrary mechanics to keep the bad ppl away.)

Clearing this up right from the get go might go toward solving a lot of ignorance, but teaching noobs about the game is best handled by players. Many new players dont even read information from CCP, they don't read the forums and some don't even do the tutorials. If keeping new players matters to u, perhaps the best thing to do is to get into a recruitment channel and take noobs under ur wing. Put lots of effort into engaging them and making sure they always have something to do and above all else, tell them to HTFU.

EVE FAQ "7.2 CAN I AVOID PVP COMPLETELY? No; there are no systems or locations in New Eden where PvP may be completely avoided"

Daichi Yamato's version of structure based decs
Zi-know Watchalike
Doomheim
#15 - 2014-05-09 14:37:01 UTC
Well... That is already what is Eve University is doing. But seems not to change much.
Daichi Yamato
Jabbersnarks and Wonderglass
#16 - 2014-05-09 14:46:43 UTC
do u think its their players that make up some of the 50% that leave or the 50% that stay?

EVE FAQ "7.2 CAN I AVOID PVP COMPLETELY? No; there are no systems or locations in New Eden where PvP may be completely avoided"

Daichi Yamato's version of structure based decs
Corraidhin Farsaidh
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#17 - 2014-05-09 14:47:50 UTC
Best thing to do would be to improve the training career missions nd include various warnings about being ganked. Nothing else will help and changing the SP rate/training mechanism/attribute implants won't make a difference. Besides +3's are fine for training, I still haven't upgraded them yet. Also the booster new players get lasts 35 days and is fine for boosted training. If a player doesn't get the basics in 35 days they probably never will
Jur Tissant
Garoun Investment Bank
Gallente Federation
#18 - 2014-05-09 17:10:15 UTC
So I can just make a hauler alt and have him autopilot around in a Charon without a second thought? It would certainly make Red Frog's job easier. What's more, your proposed solution of balance is making it even harder on players who voluntarily stay in NPC corps.

I don't think the ganking is what drives new players away. To be honest there isn't that much of it, and popular gank targets are going to be the ones worth sacrificing a gank ship and sec status over. What turns players away from EVE is complexity and lacking some structure. When I finished the career missions and epic arcs I had no idea what to do. The empires and factions just felt like puppets for offering the same missions over and over.

To reign in new players, I think EVE needs a bit more story (yes, PVE) content, at least for newer players. It also needs to adjust players to the sandbox better than just dropping them in with a basic skillset. Oh, and the UI could be a bit more new-player friendly... I'm still learning new things about it every day.