Player Features and Ideas Discussion

There isn't a day without someone posting tears on this forum because his shiny was suicide ganked. They usually demand suicide ganking to be removed. Even more victims just quit silently.

I've never lost cargo to suicide gankers, despite most of my income comes from hauling implants and other small but expensive stuff between trade hubs. Why? Not because the game taught me, but because I've read up, asked around and sit behind EFT a lot. My suggestion is to fix that with a simple mission from the career agent.

The mission looks normal and innocent enough. A courier mission to transport cargo in the T1 industrial you got as reward in the previous step. The mission text has fitting advice and warns of suicide gankers. The trick is that the cargo is so large that with newbie skills, you have to take two turns in a tanked industrial. Or you can fit nothing but cargo expanders in the lows, instead of the Damage Control and armor tank for Gallente and Amarr, fitting modules for the shield tank for Caldari and Minmatar (remember, newbie, low skills). The time bonus of the mission is large for a newbie (2M for example), but the time to complete it for the bonus is only possible if he makes the transport in one run. There is also a "high" collateral (1M is a fortune for a newbie, that's two T1 frigs).

In the target system he has to warp to a deadspace complex (to lock out random players interfering) with a mock stargate to deliver the cargo to. NPC pirates named "Capsuleer suicide ganker" jump on him as he approaches the "gate". If he followed the fitting advice, he has enough EHP with newbie skills to survive in deep hull. If he fitted full cargo expanders, he is dead before Concord arrives (Concord responds as they would to a player suicide ganker). He isn't podded though, so he can watch as "Hauler of the gank crew" goes suspect on his wreck and steals what's dropped. Then the Concord Police Captain messages him "Warp your pod off and read my mail!". In the first half of the mail, he get the fitting advice repeated and some more info about suicide ganking. This time he'll read it, since he lost his ship, the mission collateral and probably an underwear. After he returns to the career agent, the mission is acceptable again, so after he farmed for a new hauler, he can complete it - if he tanks his hauler properly. He can keep the mail of the Concord Police Captain and read the second half with fitting ideas to other haulers, EHP/ISK ratios, typical gank ships and other useful info when he'll need it.

This idea would utilize the "learn while doing" and force the player to not ignore gankers, without the punishment being devastating. Losing a ship, fitting, 1M collateral stings a newbie but doesn't ruin him, like flying everything he has in a zero tank Iteron. Also, the mission finally ends with him surviving a suicide gank in hull and being able to loot the ganker ships for meta blasters, faction antimatter ammo and such usual ganker drops.

There are a lot of things that could be introduced in tutorials. Besides this the new player training sessions need to be converted to tutorials.
+1 anyways

No need to be so detailed with the mission...

Standard courier mission, your granted some random frigate before the mission, given 5m3 of whatever and sent to a mock Stargate to deliver the item and then an NPC blows you up, a pop up can then explain suicide tankers and how you shouldn't fly what you can't afford, even in high sec.

+1 though. Good idea.

The tutorials do a fair job of explaining that you're not safe, and the advanced military career agent goes into stuff like ship loss and various aspects of PVP play. You already can't read any overview about Eve without mention of suicide ganking or "griefing". Just how much hand holding do you want here Gevlon? I have zero sympathy for people mewling over losing stuff. Live and learn.

Or you could channel some of your goon rage into educating the masses about these easily preventable situations in highsec. Unfortunately, we both know it wouldn't make a lick of difference, and neither would plastering it on the gate billboards of every system or blasting it all over the TV in the CQ. There is no logi in this game for lazy ignorance.

CCP and us need these kids. They buy PLEX and bring us content.

Besides, there's no amount of education that prevents this from happening.


There's no reason to make these people not waste tons of money on PLEX. If they were reasonable,
they wouldn't have thrown it away invested it in the first place. They would have informed themselves.

As they obviously aren't and haven't, no amount of education will change anything.


Gevlon Goblin on his clueless quest.

I did, but I accept that I'm the minority. Overall though I am pretty much in agreement with Funky in that I don't believe we need a whole elaborate mission setup to get the point across...or worse, confuse the point. Last thing we need is newbies falsely believing that NPC "suicide gankers" are out to get them (even if their name is "capsuleer suicide ganker"). I would be fine with a popup explaining the nature of EvE however (as mentioned in the above linked blog post). Something to click through when making a new character.

If the real nature of Eve was relayed to John Q. Neverplayedorheardofitbefore, There would never be any new players, ever.

If I had not had it explained to me in no uncertain terms by a friend on TS before I ever played, and blindly went about what I thought I was supposed to do based on the tutorials, (mine, explore, mission) , I would have lasted a month max beyond the trial.

And never came back. Since I had this knowledge relayed to me ahead of time, and vast amounts of info about how to survive and prosper, now I have 4 active accounts.


The Op's idea for a complex mission/tutorial is a good idea, thumbs up there.

But if there was truth in advertising, Eve's brochure would read

"The game where everyone, and everything, is trying to kill you, scam you, steal your stuff, loot your wreck, and then sell you new ships so they can blow you up again. And all of this is not only condoned by the game developer, but actively encouraged. So Harden The F*** Up"

Funny how the guy scoffed at the idea of being an informed consumer lol. Like the idea of being knowledgeable and responsible was so foreign as to be down right alien.

I'd heard of EVE but didn't try it to 2007 after talking to friends who played and reading everything I could Google about it. That's how I new the game was for me.

I applaud your intelligence and preparation. However if being intelligent and prepared is a pre-requisite of playing EVE... I hope CCP can live on 5-10K customers.

And not all current players are happy with the current "balance", we have no intention of rage quitting, are aware of the issues, and avoid and work around them as much as possible, Much in the way that ones avoids dogshit when walking down a pavement where no one cleans up and no one stops the dogs crapping everywhere.
It does not mean we like dogshit, we just accept than no one is cleaning up, and they do so much **** that it is too much to deal with, in much the same way we need bylaws in real life, without them, well, we see what happens.

Some however will disagree with that summation.

But that does not change the fact that most dislike the situation, but are just dealing with it. perfectly safe HS? No thanks. That is not a good idea. But remembering it is a game, It should have fun as a priority.

But does it matter that so many players leave? Or that many do not even try? Is it only a game for tough elites?
I wonder if CCP are even asking those questions at all?
Possibly they should.