EVE New Citizens Q&A

My previous experiences with MMO's has been sorta.......******.

For example take World of Tanks, I put soooo much time into reaching my favorite tanks like STUG III,Tiger I, VK3601 etc just to feel like it wasn't worth it, sure the tanks were a lot more fun than the ****** tier 1's but they weren't that much more fun for it to be worth spending so much time on grinding.

It's why almost all my main games are FPS's and grand strategy games (Battlefield series,Paradox games etc etc). I'm good at them and it doesn't feel like I have to put much effort into something to achieve the fun part....it's always fun.

Anyways, now I'm in the process of trying this game. I've always liked the idea of EVE, the ships, the massive sandbox, the mining, the fleets, the cooperation...everything.....except possibly one thing. I'm afraid it's going to be like my previous experiences with MMO's in that it takes so god damn long to get anywhere and the process of getting there is horrifically boring and repetitive. Like it feels so slow, constantly at a snails pace dragging a 100 ton weight just for the promise of having "fun".

So is it different from the rest? Is progression to something big and powerful like a Battleship fast enough that it doesn't feel like you are doing this massive boring grind? (oh and exactly how many hours would it take to get a decent battleship?)

Oh and another newby question, I much prefer the Caldari ships over the Gallente ships but I picked Gallente (based on their ideals) do I have to make another character to play using the Caldari ships or can I just use them anyway? and if I do have to make a new character, can I delete my current one?

Follow the links in my signature.

One will give you information that will hopefully show you how different EVE is in terms of progression ("The Skillpoint System and You").

The other one will be pages, upon pages of stories from various veterans about how THEY started the game and got to where they are now. This should give you ideas on what you can do ("How did you Veteran start?").


Now let me give you some freebies.


Okay... let me ask you something; how do you define "get somewhere in the game?"

If you define it as "getting your desired results" then you might have problems here.
If you define it as "learning and not getting stomped on all the time" then you might flourish.

EVE is a "process game." The "results" are not really what matter.
And the reason for this is that if you find some way to get the biggest, most expensive spaceship in the game... if you do not understand what it can do or how it fits into the general context of warfare in the game... you WILL lose that ship... probably to people flying ships worth a tenth of the value of your "uber-ship."

The same applies with economics in this game. CCP does not set any prices you see on the in-game market. Those are player-set prices. And if you do not understand basic "free-market" economics (EVE is basically a Libertarian's economic wet dream) you might find yourself being gouged in ways that makes the real life pharmaceutical industries blush.

Which, by the way, brings me to two other points;

- Scamming is legal in this game. If a player tricks you out of a large sum of your in-game money... the GMs will not reimburse you.
Protection Rackets, Ransoming, and Blackmail are also legal tactics in this game (as long as they stay within the context of the game).

- "Griefing" as defined in other games does not apply here. If someone blows you up (even in "high-security" space) or declares war on you "just because"... that is legal.
BUT... if they repeatedly blow you up / declare war on you for an extended period of time, for no good reason, despite your best efforts to avoid them (you have to move more than 1 system over to be considered "trying to avoid them")... THAT is "griefing."


Skills take awhile to train... which means you are not going to be flying "the sexy stuff" right away. But this does not mean you are impotent. It just means you have to think a little harder on how you can take on people flying/doing "sexy stuff."

Teaming up with others is usually the easiest method (or not the easiest, depending on your social skills).
Understanding how and when to apply Electronic Warfare (see: de-buffs) can give you that edge needed to win.
Using the right tactics against other tactics will certainly help.
Maybe you are just good at making money? Pay someone to be your muscle.



I'm going to quote a "Cardinal Rule" of EVE: "Bigger is not always better."

Battleships do indeed have some pretty sexy stats... but if you look more closely at the details and compare them to other ships... you will notice some very obvious patterns.

Namely:
- the larger a ship is, the slower and less mobile it is. This means it has less of an ability to pick and choose engagements.
- the larger a ship is, the more it relies on in-game "character skills" rather than "player skills" to be used to its fullest potential.
- the larger a ship is, the more it requires (and gains from) teamwork.
- the larger a ship is, the less options it has in terms of tactics.
- the smaller a ship is, the less fitting options it has (because it relies more on player skill to operate).
- power scales linearly in EVE, but cost (in terms of ISK and/or time invested) goes up exponentially.


Re-rolling is not a thing in EVE.

A character's race only affects...
- where you start
- what your starting skills are
- what you look like
- role playing (if you are into that).

Beyond this, you can train any skill, use any ship/module you desire (assuming you have the necessary skills) without penalty or disadvantage.

For example: My character here is Gallente in origin. I have lived in Caldari and Minmatar space for long periods of time. I even joined up with the Minmatar Militia (Faction Warfare) and fought the Amarr using Amarr ships!!


But... if you insist on deleting your current character... right click him/her in the character screen, send to biomass or something. You will be able to fully delete said character in 10 hours.

Problem and the beauty of EVE is that the game can be as much grinding as you like to make it.

Most of the time grinding lvl 4's in high sec however is the safest way of making isk, it repetitive, boring and sometimes a bit slow but it does pay your bills.
However it's not the only way to make isk just the most obvious one and in EVE obvious usually means that everyone else are doing it as well, eating you profits and once your profits go down you have to spend more time on grinding and there you go.

That being said there are other ways to make isk but they require a good corp interested in those activities, alone you end up going no where, so finding a newbie oriented group should be your first priority.

It's only horrifically boring and repetitive if you do boring and repetitive things.

It's hard for new players to know what to do exactly, but to resolve that all you need to do is have a concept of what you think fun is in the game. Then go do that.

Is it pvp? Is it life in sov space? Level 4 mission running? Incursions?

There is nothing in the game that you really can't try from the point you first join. The only limitation initially is on what expectations you should have as to the outcomes (eg. pvp) and/or you need to make friends initially to access some of that content (eg. level 4 missions).

The thing about Eve, is that the game is really better described as a game environment. It doesn't feed you content to enjoy. That's what other players do and what you do for yourself.

So my best advice would be, stop doing the boring and repetitive things and figure out how you can go about doing the things you think will be fun. There are plenty of people that will help.

It's a slow methodic game, but you CAN avoid grinding.

To fly any other empire's ships just buy the skills at a school, plug them in, and voila. There are no racial bonuses or anything like that; anyone can pilot equally well, based on skills. The only thing to keep in mind is that a different empire's ships may have different bonuses (and thus you should train the weapons that match the ship bonuses).

Roaming New Eden with 200 fellow pilots in fast frigates listening to AC/DC music on comms while traveling and killing shiny stuff like carriers and faction battleships ... this is fun. And all you need is an interceptor frig, which you can fly in a few months of skill training.

EvE provides little pre-defined content, but a set of rules and tools the players use to create the fun content.

if you play it that way, yes it can be

eve is more "what you make of the opportunities available to you"

whilst certain systems can feel like "quest hubs" from certain other games .. you can, if you decide to, ignore them completely, or go facestomp the people using the agents there...

the choice is yours

choose wisely

Grinding is entirely optional and only as a means to get money.

I personally don't actually need a lot of personal income because my alliance is effectively communist. All of the income earned by our alliance is redistributed back to the members in the form of the material we need to serve our functions. High-Grade implant sets, pirate faction battleships, strategic cruisers, logistics ships, all of these things are purchased via the collective wealth we, as an alliance generate through mercenary work.

Therefore if anyone has personal income due to any loot drops from kills, or through PVE they do is entirely discretionary, they don't need the money, because anything they need will be provided for them. So we all do very little grinding, if any at all.

On the flip side many of the people we blow up, or who hire us to blow up other people grind relentlessly doing some of the most repetitive activities in the game over and over again with no apparent desire to do anything else.

I'm happy to take the money other people gain through doing mindless repetitive tasks and use it to explode other people who do noting but gain money though doing mindless repetitive tasks.

This is not like other MMOs. There is no best ship. Progression does not exist in the way that you think it does. Advancing in this game is much more about your personal knowledge and understanding of the game and much less to do with your character's skill points.

To hopefully add some perspective on this probably the most tracked PvP stat is kill efficiency. That is the ratio of the value of ships that you have lost compared to the value of the ship that you destroy. So in that context it often comes down to doing more with less.

The end result of this is that the game is not about any end result. There really is no end game in eve. There also are no fair fights. There is no queueable PvP. It's a game about tricking and / or outsmarting your opponent.

As far as grindy the game does not have to be grindy at all. As other PvPers have pointed out in the past you can buy a PLEX and sell it in game for enough isk to PvP in cheap ships for a long time. That would be absolutely zero grinding. On the other hand you could grind PvE content endlessly just for the sake of grinding if that's what you're into.

EVE is the first MMO I have played (and been happy playing) for more than 6 months. Up until this, MMO's were 'not my type of game', regardless of how many friends I had in game to join in with.

It really is a game of your own making. Best part is, if you get bored of something, you can just try something else! (Yeah, ok, it'll take time to train new skills, but its worth it).

Thing that keeps me here? The other players. Whether I know them or not, whether they're trying to kill me or help me. You never have the same day twice over, and that is what's keeping me happily putting the hours in. So yeah, definitely agreeing with the calls to join a corp/alliance and get talking to people :)