Player Features and Ideas Discussion

This concept is for new player ships that:

1. Have fixed stats that are not linked to skills
2. Have a fixed, non-changeable fitting
3. Provide a reduced but non-terrible amount of utility at their roles

The reasons for a concept like this would be:

1. Easy for a player to join the game, jump in a ship, and get going.
2. Is an alternative approach to radically modifying Skill Training
3. Lets players experience different roles in the game without having to commit to a major train

Some of the obvious hurdles:

1. Plenty of ways to abuse such a system
2. Pricing of this type of ship


The concept is intentionally left vague so that it can be refined. It's purpose is to let a player start experiencing the game right away without having to learn how to fit a ship, train skills, wait for implants and the other hundreds of things a player has to do. It imagine that the concept may even be useful to more experienced players who have never tried a segment of the game but could experiment with it. It may also be useful to smaller groups who are hurting to fill in roles when they don't have their one logi or scanner logged in.

These ships could really look like anything, and could be restricted to a handful of trainer ships, or many different flavors. An example would be a 'light tackle'. The ships power should probably fall somewhere below that of a solid T1 fit, but still be useable. Another example could be a 'brawler' which again would be worse than it's T1 counterpart.

This concept lets the player eventually learn to train their skills in the direction they want to go, and buys them time to either learn about fitting or be taught about it.

So is this concept worth refining further? Do you all have any ideas of how it would be abused and how they might be avoided?

P.S. I think an obvious hiccup would be designing new models. I think a simple alternative is to just keep the newbie ship models, place a single slot in the fitting menu, and have those be filled with (training module: tackler) which could vary in cost and only be changed out in stations.

I think this is a concept which needs to be dismissed. Doing such a thing simplifies the game to the point where it just, well, isn't eve. It would also seem to require a lot of dev time, and lots of work from the balance team.

Eve is a game which is largely about preparation and overcoming the coase cost of most things, and once you overcome the coase cost, the game is mostly just showing up and pressing f1. This removes much of the coase cost of doing little things like figuring out how to fit your ship (or finding a good fit from an experience player if a smart newbie) and picking out the tank, prop and similar for cost benefit analysis and ability to use.

As for hurdles, it would take a moderate-severe rework of the existing module and UI system if I have grasped enough of what they said about how it handles being object oriented (all the modules are objects in the code, independent of the ship, with inter-relations etc) and the long delay with brain in a box shows how tricky it can be to do a rework at that level. If this is the case, it would personally sink the entire concept from my point of view.

As for the balance team's involvement, while these ships would be strictly fixed in base stats, we have several other force multipliers which are likely to make this sort of project a special kind of hell, because if the ship ends up out performing any conventional t1 ship which isn't shiftit then people will complain about it with the sort of rage usually reserved for ishtars and supers.

This idea is based in the assumption is so high, particularly at the beginning, that it discourages people from playing. The idea is not about reducing the complexity of the game for those of us who have been here for years and years. It's about flattening out the left half of the curve to make it climbable.

In the long run, to be become more effective a player still has to learn the complicated concepts. However in the beginning, someone with zero knowledge and potentially no friends has to figure out which of the 6 variations of the 4 non-faction T1 frigates they should fly. As long as I've been playing most people bee-line for mining or for battleships; both of which are actually niche ships and take forever to train up. For the few of them that stick around for a year or two, you get to eventually blow up their faction fit messes and laugh your ass of for the rest of the day.

I would much rather give the newbies a leg up so that I have someone to fight, at the risk of allowing 'dumb F1 monkeys' into the game. Making eve more digestible in the early days isn't going to make Eve -> not eve. It's just going to mean more people for you to play with.

Relevant

Your misconception that you cannot get into PvP early in your career does not validate your suggestion.

No dude, just no.

The "curve" is perfectly "climbable" already.

We ALL started at day 0, we ALL had to learn to train skills, learn how to fit ships, learn how to use those ships, etc.

If a new player looks at the SAME THINGS WE ALL SAW and goes "oh man this game is too complicated for me"... then EVE is not for them. Simple.

More, or just better new player tutorials on how to fit ships and generally learn to play... that's fine. I totally support that.

But new ships that don't require fitting? Just get out.

I fail to see how fixed fit ships would improve anything.
How are you supposed to learn how to fit if you can't fit? Furthermore, some roles are already group oriented roles anyways.
For instance, tackle exists to catch and hold a ship so the rest of the GROUP can catch up and kill them. if you're already flying with a group, then it's easy to ask for a fit from them.

On the other hand, suggested fittings may not be a bad idea, nor would suggested trains be a bad idea if handled well.
Good newbie friendly corps already handle much of that already though, and targeted advice is generally better than a cookie cutter template.

Heck, I bet that idea could probably be implemented just by adding 'suggested fits' to the NPC corps corporate fittings. The key would be getting it implemented in some sort of common sense approach, unlike how the mastery system was done for skills.

Part of your post deserves a special star for really bad unintended consequences. I have bolded it for emphasis


How it would play out in most cases, seen by a newb, rather than a newbie:*
Newb gets into eve, is bewildered by choices and tries a few fits with the stuff out of NPE.
Newb hears about ship pre-fitted, and sees that right now, it is much better for them.
Newb exceeds the SP cap for the pre-fitted newb frigate.
Then newb falls off a sudden learning cliff and leaves the game, with an even worse review than "I just couldn't get with it" or "It's really complex" because of the false sense of simplicity.

*Newbies are those people who come into eve eyes open, knowing that it is complex as all get out and still want to play, and are willing to learn and exert *effort* to get good. Newbs are those who come in lured by a silly meme or a post on reddit who don't know the flavor of eve and don't want to have to learn, and are thus without climbing equipment for the game's notorious learning cliff.

The idea that the only players who deserve to play Eve are those who can overcome its dismal new player experience is a senseless argument. The ability to overcome a learning curve is a measure of how much someone values their free time, not a measure of someones ability or whether they're a newb or not. A lower curve still ends up at the same level of knowledge and ability, its just is less painful to get there.

Extremely valid criticism. The only ideas I can think of here would be perhaps making these ships available to full accounts only? Use them as bait to push people into a full subscription... I honestly think that's a half-assed solution however. The other idea is to price them in a manner that makes them affordable but not expendable. Sort of like a really dumbed down T3 ship or Gnosis.

Do you have any thoughts on a solution?