EVE New Citizens Q&A

Alright, so I'm a few days into playing this game, and I have to say: it's interesting. That having been said, I think the tutorials could use some work.

In general, I think the game could do a better job of teaching you about how space is arranged (for example, what the difference between warping in-system and jumping between systems is). Showing players how to set destinations to their "home bases" and quickly read the route security status indicators would be a good idea - I was lost the first time a mission ended and I had to find the route home.

Exploration as a tutorial is okay, but as a profession can still confuse people outside of the tutorial thanks to the numerous steps involved (load probes, launch probes, move probe formation, tighten probe formation, manually adjust probes.) I don't know if this is a solvable problem, really. You might want to tell people what equipment they should buy, as the Civilian analyzers don't work outside the tutorial AFAIK.

Industry is okay, but fails to teach a few critical basics: how to find asteroids and job slots for production. Every once in a while I look at rookie chat, and it's almost guaranteed that someone is asking how to find asteroids because the ones in the starting area are all gone. The tutorial needs to emphasize that you NEED to jump to other, lower-traveled areas to find free asteroids. Similarly, the Industry tutorial never tells you to jump around to find job slots (as the tutorial area slots are always taken.) In both cases finding the right system is simply a matter of knowing how to use the right map filters - I would highly recommend teaching newbies how to use them here.

Combat and Advanced Combat are pretty good, though I do think that the importance of using the right type of ammo for the job is understated (same goes for the importance of optimal ranges). You might also want to introduce people to the tactical display here as it really does help when learning your weapon engagement envelope. Also, why does it never tell you you can double-click to set a course when you don't have anything convenient to align to?

Business is probably the worst offender for me, as it only "teaches" you one thing - how to use the market, and it doesn't even do that well. Everything else is a rehash of Industry information or a courier job, and courier jobs are dull as ditch water. If the goal here is to teach players how to manipulate the market, it fails miserably - it doesn't even stress that the market is important.

As a whole, liking the game so far - gonna start stepping into lowsec soon and when that happens I'll probably have more to give feedback on.

Idea in sig. Doing so will expand options devs have when it comes to training new pilots, and allow for a initial level playing field when learning the basics of pvp.

Ok, what do you think about giving the players Goals like piloting Ships?

For Security Missions: Skilling up to Battlecruiser
For Distribution: Blockade Runners
For Mining: Mining Barges

and from experience the worst thing in the game is the time based Skill point system, i know its good if you dont have much time to play, but its a pain with the new Players who want to Try it for the first time, and want to play 4 hours sessions during the week.

Maybe the final tutorial Missions you could Pilot Complete Fited Battleship or some tech III, Exhulmer or Jump Freighter under attack just to get the feeling of the actual game. Its a simulation of course with no loot or outside interation during this experience.
You dont need to use Titans or Super Carriers... but Piloting a Loki, Nemesis or Pilgrim is a very good experience that people would only experiment in 3+ months.

Its the time of waiting that is killing those 90% more than anything else.

From my experience i Quit this game 3 times and i am only back because i have the Skills to try diferent aspects of the game, not mastering those aspects, But just Trying them is the thing you should do before compromise all your time and money for subscription.

Please I am asking, to let the New Players feel the Game they will be playing in 2+ months from the Start.

I will elaborate more later.

Hi All,

So this was mentioned in a TMC interview with Grath. Grath was basically saying trying to fix the NPE was useless. The conversation then turned to ISIS and how he actually thought it was a good thing. And then added that there should be a "test drive" button for all sub-capitals so you have an idea of what they're llike. My idea was to take that another step.

When I was younger I liked to play chess. I checked some books out from the library. Chess books teach you how to play by introducing each piece and showing you how it moves. Then they'll place a scenario in front of you and tell you to "checkmate in two moves" or "castle" or some other tactic. So what if we did that in Eve? Give the player a scenario and have then select the correct ship for the job and have them put together the correct fitting. I dunno, maybe that takes away the excitement of skilling up for a ship. The test drive scenario would have to be outside of the true Eve environment so not sure if CCP wants to do that kind of thing. Just an idea.

I would like to see something like an "Advanced Tutorial" Something that you can take say 15 or 30 days after starting, or even better trigger when you sub the account. My thought is to then make new tutorials with Aura, that kick of at that point and dive into some of the topics that aren't trainable to trial accounts. Here are some more advanced tutorials I'd love to have seen.

PI (already mentioned)

Research

Invention

Blockade Running (teach them to fit, have them run some NPC blockades then gank the ship out form underthem in the last mission)

Market/Trading (or at leat one that explains all the skill books and how they interact with a couple test sales to NPCs)

PvP (yeah I know really hard) but ideally have me mission send you to dead space room where others on same mission are sent. You have to kill someone to complete and you have to die to leave. If you fail the mission can give new ship and maybe reset back to a PvP Fitting tutorial or something.


Again though I think a lot of this we need to be some time after inital tutorial to allow player time to learn. So I think triggering this tutorial with the 1st Sub would be the best bet. Or like 14 days of total game time after sub.


P.s. Edited to add I'd like a short tutorial for n00bs in the regular turorial series that covers tanks and weapon support skills. Not asking for quicker skills or even free books. but something as simple as explaing the difference between support skills and fitting skills. More depth in tanks (buffer vs active, armor vs shield) and a couple missions to try out each tank style.

idea is great, but how are you going to adress that each ship can be fitted in dozens of different ways and each fits affect how the ship is / should be flown.

I started 10 days ago with Eve and have done 4 Career Agents missions so far. I still need to do the Advanced Military. Before I started playing Eve I watched two different You Tube series on the Career Agent Missions (from Scott Manley and Seamus Donohue). The in-game missions and the You Yube videos together make up a good tutorial. I also read this complete thread. It looks to me that a lot of things in the Career Agent missions improved in the last two years.

A few suggestions and remarks:

1. Combine the Industry Agent and the Business Agent. Make one basic course and add a Advanced course. Now some missions overlap and the missions for both agents are not so different that they should be in a different career.
2. I think the market needs more explanation. After watching two video series from Eve veterans I had no problem but without these I would have been stuck.
3. The first Exploration Agent missions were tough for me. Maybe because I started with this agent. But I get the feeling that these missions are tough for most players.
4. A proper tutorial for fitting is missing. Not that I want a complete tutorial on fitting, that is impossible. But I think in the current missions there is room to explain more. In the Military Agent missions I first got a shield booster to use in a mission. In a later mission I got a armor booster. I think you get told not to use both at the same time and I think as a Gallente I get told that using a shield booster is not really clever. But without wiki/You Tube I would not have understand why (or even what the agent is saying).
5. I think the importance (or possibilities) of salvaging should be more clear in the Career missions.

One last thought: So far I find the NPC's not really dangerous and I have not been in any danger of losing my ship. In all the missions up to the last mission in the Military Career I did not loose my shield completely to NPC actions and I play as a Gallente so I should armor tank When doing the last Military mission I forgot to take my two drones with me through the last acceleration gate so I had to kill the last targets with my ship. That was the first time I saw my armor go down and even then I would have probably survived without my armor repair. I don't believe NPC's are so bad in the rest of the game. Maybe I am too prepared after watching the You Tube series but I think the NPC's in the Career missions could do some more damage.

I would like to add 2 deep concerns i have with the tutorials:

1. It is bad practice to get used to the auto-pilot. One mission basically encourages a new player to use it without actively pointing out the danger of using it (approach times to a gate) - it would be great if this could be changed as it would simply reduce the need to explain players over and over again why it is a bad idea in general. Point at the risk the same way as in other tutorial missions please.

2. One mission requires the player to both equip a shield generator and a armor repairer. Another very bad practice - dont even lead the new player into bad habits please. Its one or the other later on - dont mix shield and armor is a standing rule for fitting ships.

Those are 2 examples that will make the transition from a noob to a understanding player a lot easier for all of us. Its hard for us to convince a player that something is bad when the tutorial explained it differently.

Hey guys
since I dont know how to move a previously created thread I'll just have to copy/paste a text i wrote. I was told that this secton of the forum fits better for what i wanted to say:

hi guys

i dont know how you think about it but i'm of the opinion that i ran into a pretty annoying thing that just shouldnt happen in a tutorial mission since it's just gonna brainfuck players who are new to the game and have zero experience with it.

I was running the tutorial career missions for the third time to gain a quick faction standing increase. Int the exploration branch i was told to find a gas site, which is nothing unusual. The big problem here is that sites despawn from time to time and i had bad luck three times in a row: Whenever i found a gas site and was upping the percentage of signal strength to around 60% the site just despawned and i had to start all over again.

I have to admit i'm not a very patient person and i hate stuff like that but thats not the point. The important thing about this is that there are new players in the game who have no experience in scanning for sites at all. When they find a signal and try to increase its strength by narrowing the whitish probe bubbles and the signal just disappears afterwards they will be pretty confused. They made nothing wrong but are just not aware of the fact that the site just despawned.

Would I be a guy who tried this the first time i would have thought i made a mistake and that i dont understand this garbage. Why can't those tutorial sites just be permanent with respawning loot in the containers? That would eliminate the confusion caused by a despawning site.

I'd also like to mention that I did many site scans since i play eve and i always discovered what i was looking for. So it's not me just being too stupid

I'm going to be blunt and say this: The tutorial majorly sucks, including the new one.

I've just got a new friend to try the game, and coaching her trough the first steps has been a nightmare, i even made a fresh character to accompany her during the tutorial, and i can honestly say CCP is oblivious to the concept of making new players familiar with their game. EVE is massive, and it's not intuitive at all. I caught myself spending 30 minutes with her trough voice just to explain the basic concepts of the game UI like the overview. The overview is a CORNERSTONE, of playing EvE online, how little effort the tutorial makes into presenting it to new players baffles me! The general flow of the new system is not too good either, they ask you to buy skills off the market on a newbie wallet, when hull upgrades alone costs 60k on the starter system, and you start out with 2.5k isk on your wallet. But that's not even that bad, since you can get help on that, what is extremely hard to help new players with, is passing these basic concepts of operating the EvE UI, that the tutorial should absolutely focus on.

For example, she got a mission, and had no idea how to get to the mission, i fleeted up with her and warped to her to find her on a pod near a POCO (she probably warped there trough the overview). So i had to explain to her where to look at her mission, and how to warp into the mission, how to use accel gates so on and so forth.

So my first suggestion to CCP would be: TROUGHLY EXPLAIN THE GAME UI. Handholding style, like flashing yellow boxes highlighting UI elements people are supposed to interact with, that should be baseline. You can't expect new players to get confortable with EvE when they're spending their first days wrestling with the complexity of the UI itself.