Player Features and Ideas Discussion

I post here , to post suggestions, and gather other people suggestions for CCP , as they noticed that people leave eve just after starting playing it.

From my experience - those few times that i tried to get new people to eve, and why i failed.

First simple question that i didn't managed to answer in all of those cases:
"I know that eve is a fine game, many people play it, but i play for fun. I don't want to wait a week, or even two just to start doing something , and all this time wait for some basic stuff to skillup. I play for fun - and i want to have some fun now."

Now the longer version ( you can skip it )

When they start to play eve - they got a noobship, few dozen million from a friend , and a 51 day account, and my help.
They where not newbies to MMO games, or SCIFI gender
The first thing they are noticing that they can start to skillup, undock, learn how to control their ship ... and dock again.

Why?
New people that come to eve have to be very, very , very patient.
After undocking and learning few tricks with their friend they have almost nothing to do.

They lack skills to fit their ships properly, noobships are booring , unless you have a lot of SP and Tech 2 equipment.
They cannot fight , they cannot mine , they cannot produce (or should i say - they should not try to do it unless they want to earn isk)

They have to wait , more than few hours just to fit basic stuff , then they skill this item for a few days in order to use it in a proper way.
Eve then becomes something that can bring fun to them , but until they try to do something else - then they again notice that in order to do it they have to start again wait few fays to take them into real entry level.

Then there are implants, something that is speeding up the SP they get, but at the same time is blocking them from PVP.
Why - they will loose ship, pod , and implants are very expensive for a newbites.

What im suggesting (read again)

Make first missions more meaningful - yes ccp gives them stuff , ships, skill books - but that don't change that they cannot do this thing after those missions.
So why not add free skills after completing those missions?

(after completing those career missions you get)
Exploration:
- probing / hacking skills at lvl 3, racial frigate at lvl 5 ( yes 5)

Production:
- industry skills at level 4 (including ME lvl 4) and pack of random BPC

Combat:
- racial frigate at level 5 , race weapons to lvl 5 , and support skills to lvl 3

Trade :
- racial industrial to lvl 4 , bpc for ship and rigs , base trade skills / contracting to level 3

Mining:
- base mining skills at lvl 4, mining frigate to lvl 5

(after completing of all of those missions )
- basic core supporting skills to lvl 3
etc.

We are talking about real entry skills , and around 20 days of subscription.

People will have fun doing those missions - as they will learn basic eve mechanics.
They will also have the reason why to login next day - to try something else , and get again some free skills.
When they complete all those missions they will also have skills on entry level to most of those items , so they will not become bored in one thing - without ability to trying something else.

If they leave - what is the difference if they had those skills or not?
But if they stay ... whole eve will benefit it.

*if sp for skills already trained during this time should be moved to unallocated "pot", or just ignored - this is something that CCP have to decide. Free skills only once per character of course.

Yes - you are right , but you just stated that someone created content for you.
You found a person that was helping you a lot - not only by advice , but also being with you on the same grid.

I am talking about people that don't will not go this way , or will not get this kind of help.

EVE is a game that gives great rewards in exchange for patience and dedication.

Even 100M SP players may spend days setting up a supercarrier gank.

If your friends had some free skills, they would probably just get bored and impatient while waiting for the next chunk of skills.

It's just not the game for them, I think.

Yeah. I have 90mil and I can't fly a Broadsword.

Well i have 2 characters well over 50mil ( i think one is around 70mil ) , and 2 characters well over 20mil.
It is not about what people that play have, can do, or can or cannot do.

This is about what we can do to keep new players in game.
Yes , if someone find other person that will keep to create content - then this person will probably stay.
What about others?

What harm to eve we will get from a newbies getting after set of missions ( for them probably 4-5 days , unless they play 8h/day) :
- (one) T2 small weapon system
- (one) lvl 5 frigate
- industrial ship to lvl 4
- LvL 5 Ore Mining Frigate.
- LVL 3-4 support skills
- basic industrial skills
- basic mining skills
- basic trade skills

Those skills are very spread out , and only first two have some PVP application, but after all - that is what we want.
They will not make this game unbalanced.
Newbies just get PROPER basic skills

I'm not saying give them Broadsword skills , just basic one.

Ok so you will get my story.

I always wanted to play eve, i like scifi, spaceships ...
I had two approach earlier - but they both failed , because similar reasons that i stated before.

Third approach worked , as i broke my leg , and i was sitting home for very long time.
So i had plenty of time.

All of those people didn't play WOW then , and don't play WOT now ;)

Because we will not have Atrons and lasers, triple tanked ships, hybrid weapon upgrades and missile launchers.

I know thats fitting issue.

Still at some point i asked one of those newbites why did he put lasers on his atron.
The answer was funny :
"Because i have gallente frigate and laser skills"
Those are not proper way, use hybrids.
"I know 5 days more to T2"

Something that may help with early growing pains in this game would be an in-game recommended skill plan. These days races have two weapon types so say you start Gallente the game will present you with either a drone focused skill plan that roles from Tristan to Algos to Vexor while training most of the core skills to 4 then moves on to the Myrmidon and Dominix.

Alternatively if you chose Hybrids you'd still get some drones as they are core skills but there'd be less focus on the drone support skills, just as the drone plan should have some basic gunnery. The hybrid plan would take you through Incursus to Catalyst to Thorax to Brutix to Megathron getting in your appropriate support skills along the way mostly in between Thorax and Brutix.

It would of course be up to the player to actually buy the skillbooks and follow the plans but it would allow them to become effective as quickly as possible without wasting money and effort on skills you won't use by giving them a solid reference to work off of. The certificate system is meant to kind of work this way but even as a vet I found them somewhat confusing but since I generally knew what I was doing by the time certificates were brought in they didn't really end up on my radar at all.

It would probably also be beneficial to have a similar generic skill plan for an industrialist which goes through your chosen race's industrial as well as the ORE ship line and leads into Manufacturing and Invention, for those who join the game to get into the industrialist side of things.

Failing any of these a simple recommended skill to train dialogue box could even go a long way to easing initial confusion over what to train.

Make it Navy training plan and take players up to flying navy variant ships maybe, then the tech II specializations are open if the player wants them

I will exploit this so hard, renters across all of EVE will be dying from loss of blood due to ruptures in the rectal area.
It's a ******** idea, but goddamn I would have so much fun with this implemented.


Tl;dr - No.