EVE General Discussion

I didn't know if this belonged in the New Citizens forum or somewhere else, but since I hope this will start a discussion I am posting here.

TL;DR
Racial selection needs to be better explained, skill training for newer characters reworked and ship availability reconsidered.


I have recently invited a bunch of friends to this game and have been helping them on their first few steps through Skype. Across the three people I invited a couple of things have popped up consistently which I now consider to be either bad design, forgotten or missing.

The first thing to pop up was the race selection and avatar/name. I was asked quite some times which race was the best, or which on did what. The short trailers previewing each race didn't cut it here. I think they should be remade or have an addition to them where some of their racial ships and possibly some gameplay added to them. This would probably help the decision making for new players easier. And the bloodline selection could be better described since it at the moment is only cosmetic. (That is a whole other subject because I find personally that they should have an impact, albeit small). And PLEASE add a popup at the end saying that the body(?) and name cannot be changed if there isn't one already.

The next part is skill training. This is less about how it works and more about the gameplay is shows. The problem here is that skill training is boring and people come here expecting it to be fun. I had all three of my friends say to me on skype: "Oh, ok, I'll just go afk for 15 mins while I wait for this skill to finish so I can put on this afterburner and start the next mission.". I probably won't have to tell you that this is bad for immersion and exciting gameplay or keeping someone hyped for a new game. I could think of two solutions for this:

1. Make rank 1 skills instatrain to lvl1. OK this will upset some people but we are talking maybe on an average 10 minutes shorter skill training to get something to lvl5. It is not really game breaking or unfair in any way.
2. Add about 100k SP unallocated to every new character. No one gets hurt and new players get it easier.
3. Give new characters more skills to begin with. This is a bit meh since it doesn't introduce player to the concept of skill training until later.

One thing that one of my friends was really disappointed in was the restriction on trail characters and skillbooks. About 3 seconds after I told him about the market he realized how much money you could make there. So he set out to create a trader. Those plans were scrapped about 1 hour into the tutorial since the Indy ships require the racial industrials to lvl1 and those are non-trail skills. I find it kind of weird that ships in the newbie-tutorials are not available to trail characters... Kind of disappoints people. The solution here could vary but here are my ideas:

1. Remove the restriction on skills for trails. They'll play for 21 days at the most anyhow. (or 60 for some lucky people)
2. Change which ship type is given in that tutorial (the industry one) to something else, say the Primae which currently has no use at all...

And you should really make the interface to set up the overview more user friendly... Try to explain it to someone who is new to the game, it's damn hard.
And add max missile flight range to showinfo since having to use a calculator on your first day in eve might be hardcore and all, but it isn't really newbie-friendly.

Just my thoughts

Removing the trial restrictions would be hugely exploited to have free alts.

I did infact subscribe when I found that I couldn't fly an indy... then again the trial was only 14 days back then and you didn't get ships from the tutorial... Giving away free haulers in the tutorial is what should be removed.

Non paying accounts being able to trade large volumes is exactly the reason for the limitation.

Also i've seen the npe and there is no point where you need to train a skill to start a mission, without getting the skill in advance of the mission. Your friends must have not found the skillbook, that's not the game's fault.

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I agree with the character creation improvements mostly, though I think it should just be explained that you can just go buy other race's skillbooks straight away if you want to train something else.




edit: explaining the different types of tank in the tutorial would be amazing in reducing the failfits in eve.

luckily i had guidance when i started player. i was actually told to play cause my friends needed more pilots (ha) . but one friend sat me down and broke down


armor vs shield

projectiles vs lasers vs blasters vs missles


cap use vs no cap use etc...


i think it really helped and something like this built into the game would be pretty sweet.

Bitter old people: the EVE version

It wasn't that way in my time, why should it be easier now?

Because **** your time, it's better if the newbies have it easier.

Took me a while to realize "trail" = "trial".

That said, I'm cool with most of this.

Just in the last couple of weeks, I started a Mimmatar pilot for something different to do. There were about 4 points along the mission chain Cashflow for Capsuleers where you were expected to use a particular module..which you didn't have the skill for and no skill book was provided, nor is it even apparent that you need that skill until you attempt to equip one you just bought. It also seems like Aura really likes the statement "equip this particular module. You may have recevied one from your agent, if not, you will need to buy one." Three of four races I've gone through the NPE with in recent months and she might as well drop the "You may have received one from your agent" part of that...because you invariably end up having to buy one.

The removal of starter skills was a bad move. Even though CCP runs around saying it adds to the immersion it actually removes it. It also makes it harder for new players to get a understanding on what direction they should go with that particular faction and profession they want to do. While most players starting the game don't know what is in store for them, a lot have at least some idea of what route they want to go initially(whether that is Mining, Combat, Trading, etc). Having the initial skills as a guide has always been benificial to a new player. So long as they realize that they can in fact train away from it if they want.

To the bittervets(I'm one also) who ***** saying "I started with only 5k dealwizit" . You fail to account for the changes that have been made over the years. Many skills have been changed and added which makes things A LOT more confusing on what direction to go. Add to the fact that game play has also changes. No longer can you fire torps from a kestrel for example. Which makes for a harder learning curve when it comes to skills. Lastly the player base has increased and aged, which means since this is a PvP based game the starting bar is set higher and Eve is a lot less forgiving.

Having new players start out at a higher bar has very little drawbacks while at the same time can have a very positive impact. This is one thing that I never understood when it came to CCP when they changed the NPE.