Player Features and Ideas Discussion

CCP have mentioned adding EFT-lite to the game client.

Kenrailae - Look to this man for inspiration. This is how you develop a coherent argument.
Notice how he doesn't mention that you don't "have" to train any skills.
In a game of choice, optimization is what sets you apart from others.

Now, onto the conversation at point. IMO, the skill list you linked is too much.
I personally feel that a newbro should start in a rookie boat, and should start with no skills.
That said, the point in removing these skills


is that they are essentially a pay wall. You must put time into these skills in order to play with the vets.
I totally get your side of the argument, but I'm looking past the "earn to play" and looking towards the "learn to play".
Many of these skills are a lockout from competitive play, even for vets.
Sure, it will be annoying to have players get into an optimized dessy to gank someone that much faster, but this, and the fact that I feel newbros need to come into the universe with at least some sense of understand, is why I'm suggestion this.
This isn't nurturing them, but instead introducing them into a world of many possibilities and giving them basic knowledge on how to perform these tasks, and then podding them in the end to let them know that death and destruction are a way of life in Eve.
Think of it like tutorial missions in a RTS game. Give the players some basics and it will greatly increase the potential outcome, which includes retention.

For many of us, progression is what addicts us to Eve. Getting that next ship, that next big kill, SOV, POS, etc. etc.
The way the system currently is, you're thrown into a raging inferno, to which the majority of the player base would rather kill you than help you, and expected to learn. On top of that, you also have these skills blocking your way.

See, I'm not suggesting to remove these skills because I don't like them... I've already trained all of them, so that doesn't matter to me. That said, as a player that had a hard start with no friends playing Eve, dyslexia (makes reading texts annoying, thus trying to learn through a pop ups or google is hideous), I was having all kinds of hell getting into the game and was already trying to fly BS's before someone explained the importance of these skills to me.
So, here I was thinking I was doing good, only to find, I had this wall of skills blocking my way for the next month, on top of still needing to train for t2 modules, and still having no clue that there were specialization skills for everything that you're basically crap without (tracking/damage/fitting optimization skills as an example).

With the removal of the skills I list above, there are still TONS of specialization skills for tanking, rig fitting, guns, ewar, mining, etc. etc. etc..
Clear these skills out of the way, not to appease me, but to allow new players to enjoy the game without feeling like there's a wall in the way.

But there is. And it is not these skills, it is their lack of knowledge about how the game works. With the removal of these skills, you remove your interpretation of the wall, but you leave the more important and actually existing wall intact, even increase its height and traps and defenses. Without these skills, players can fly and use bigger and "better" things way before they have spend a single thought on all the necessary information, knowledge, scenarios, dos and don'ts, advantages and disadvantages of these things. By having to train these skills, the new players get the necessary time to get to know all these aspects.
Time seems to be something that new players are in dire need of when it comes to learning these things. It might just be one example, but the reddit poster mentioned by Phoenix Jones was already overwhelmed by a simple thing such as slots (in my opinion easily accessible information if you look around a bit) twenty minutes into the game. What do you think, being able to do even more than they are capable of with the current version of NPE, right away after finishing the character creation will do?

This I entirely agree with. I got one of these when I signed up and between that and decent help from luckily falling in with a good crowd in a corp on my 3rd day helped me way more than any of the career paths.

If CCP could work out a way to reliably apply these two conditions then the new player experience would be so much better.

So you want to force players through a 2 week tutorial? Who will run the training program? NPCs?

Thers 1 thing i think CCP did wrong regarding skills and that is splitting up ship skills in to factions for the 4 factions empiers,granted som ship skills have shorter training time now but dont make up for all the sp you need for all 4 factions in any waye,its not that mutch of a game changer but limet your options for a mutch longer time.I learned a lott about the game just watching help chanal when playing to. and from reading info on moduls ships ect on marked,and som more advanced info from player corp maits,ther are a lott of videos on the web to.

Got it in one.
And this is especially toxic. I agree that SP does not correlate with a player's understanding of the game. But that doesn't mean we should restrict SP on new characters with the belief they don't know what to do with it.

The time gated SP system has its roots in "theme park" MMOs, and single player RPGs before that. As I said a few posts back, it's there so that a player can learn how to use each ability in their arsenal slowly as these games will often end up showing the player with dozens of swords/spells/guns/stats/party orders/etc. RPGs aren't the only game type that does this, even the far more "instant gratification" FPS genre will gate its single player this way. But MMORPGs are the only example that comes to mind of a game genre that takes this progression system into a multiplayer environment. Just imagine how silly it would be to tell somebody they had to play StarCraft for three weeks/400 matches before they could build air units.

EVE, along with most MMOs, have taken this single player game progression mechanic and just plopped it in their game. Not even adapted it for MMO use really, just took the idea and ran with it because it's tradition for an RPG. And it hurts EVE on two levels.

1. The time gate mechanic was innovative when players could expect similar grind times out of other MMOs. 6 months to 'git gud' in EverQuest vs 6 months in EVE seemed like a slam dunk when EVE didn't make you grind. MMOs have evolved and have started dropping the idea of the grind entirely, so not having to log in doesn't seem like a great deal when EVE is demanding an order of magnitude more time.

There are people who find pleasure in nothing more than knowing they waited for something to happen. EVE has been very good at finding that personality type over the years, but that same system is also very good at pushing out people who are looking for other challenges to overcome.

2. The SP system attracts single player focused gamers. This is why 80% of the players that EVE does manage to keep are just "leveling their Ravens". The SP system is actually fairly well balanced against the progression of mission difficulty. If all I want to do is keep to myself and blow up Angel Cartel for 3 hours every afternoon, then I can do that without feeling held back. But "Single Player Syndrome" is also bad for retention; it's the players who interact with other players that stay with the game.

What I want to do is get players involved with other players, as quickly as humanly possible. Getting them engaged with player corporations would be ideal. I have no doubt that EVE owes its longevity to the social bonds created out of the necessity of trying to overcome the hostility of the game itself. But WoW provides a definitive example of the fact that even in an easy game, those social relationships can extend a game's life by decades.

Just having them out there doing something with/against/for other players is great though. Be it market dominance, FW, high sec griefing or sov battles. Explain the rules of the game (i.e. "What's a mid slot?") and point people towards activities that will put them in conflict with others. Show them how to team up with people to achieve their goals. There are things out there to do, go do them!

But I don't conflate "fleeting with people who are doing things" with "doing things". Being fodder tackle is not a selling point of joining EVE. EVE is a PvP game, don't bog it down with single player progression mechanics. It hurts retention, it encourages the 'wrong' sort of people to stay (note: I don't have an issue with people leveling a Raven, but they aren't really playing an MMO), and it provides no benefit to the game beyond the most shallow form of 'achievement'.

Citation needed.


Terrible example. Players in WoW are so alienated, they might as well be playing with bots (when they're not actually playing with bots).

I remember my first week in EvE, getting skills and ships was not the problem for me...the problem was understanding how things fit together to be workable in the sense that i could do something now. Compounded by the attitude of not being able to talk to anybody and get a direct straight answer or help in any form. That is until i met someone in RL who introduced me to my first player corp.
Over the years I have seen the growing veteran community get better at that, but the underlying problem still exists.

And that problem is that tutorials and things like that do no reflect the point that being in a Player corp is the best thing a player especially a newbie player could do. EvE can be played solo, but by its very definition it is not a Solo game. and that must be stressed at the beginning, should be stressed at the beginning....if your alone you die...quite simply.

Not sure how CCP can do it, but I am against the removal of attributes, I started this character whose skills and attributes were determined by my character creation choices. I suggest:

Attributes should remain, make them so either you can select where your points go at the beginning like some stand alone games and even other MMO's and they never change when your done, while also getting rid of remaps.

This makes a choice permanent and allows value for Attribute Implants (i so despise the term learning) to later on be useful in fixing any percieved holes a player may think they have.

In this type of setting, a player can decide if informed right from the get go (again CCP needs to better inform players on their choices during character creation) what they wish to do.
Want a combat pilot: join a war college, set attributes to things like perspective and willpower higher than the rest maybe leave your charisma at 1....what do you care about being a leader(for now) you just want to shoot stuff.

Same would go for making an industrial or science character
and for diplomat or those really wanting to be in leadership and fly command ships....well Charisma would be an important attribute to have as opposed to the others...at least until OGB is eliminated, your gun skills would take second priority.

Implants are a reward for Veterans and those that have learned how to make ISK that they can easily be replaced. I rarely fly with 5's...but i definitely have 4's and i use hardwires only to game specific types of fits like my orthrus that is cap stable and can land missiles at 110km onto a target in 4 seconds.

Now giving new players 1-2 million starting SP....what are they going to do with it? I say give it to them....but still what are they going to do with it...they will stay die to those that take advantage of the fact they are newbies. They will still be regulated to FNG grunt roles in bigger organizations...and they still will quit for being inexpierenced and thinking every one here is an asshat.

Those advocating removal of attributes ont understand that attributes in game are important...they are your base abilities of who you are..maybe more should be added with a new system, not take them away.
Those advocating removal of Attribute Enhancers...well I have seen the excuses and they are lame.
Using them on an Alt that stays logged of for training....thats because a player already understands what is needed to fly a particular specific way.
Using them at all, well in my personal experience...i have the ISK and the time in this game to know I require them to keep an edge on the mob mentality that permeates this game...but I am a Vet...Vets need the implants newbies do not. They are also my reward for being a long time player, and in some others cases....being better.

It boils down to this....players quit when they have nothing to do. They have nothing to do when they are not immersed in the community properly. That is the problem that requires fixing, all these symptoms people cry about...thats all they are symptoms. Political demographics of the game are an issue. Figure a better way to get newbies out of the npc corps faster and keep them out of there is what must be addressed. From the get go it should not be hinted at you can gain power or will be hunted by those that have some...it should be straight up told to new players they can get power but will be hunted from day one by other player corps and the only way to survive is to be part of something greater than themselves.

Yes and no.

The point im making is that within a given faction, sure there are subtle differences maybe between racial classes. More so the school you pick, (more familiar with caldari thes days)...you pick SWA you get primarily combat skills towards ships and stuff similiar, SAK woul be more like for miners and industry, and Science & Trade wold be a leg up on science and trade(social) skills.

But before all that.....
You give idk a player 50 Attribute point pool...they put the pts where they want them...and can make no changes to them after exiting the creation screen.
As to actual bonuses for a particular race...maybe make the standings reflect from the get go based on their race...thnk i heard once that Lai Dai maybe had something to do with their ceptro missing so maybe the Achurans naturally despise Lai Dai corp and vice versa.

And also in my experience letting you ASSIGN your attrib pts....i never heard of that done before...so no CCP hasnt had that before.
Allow this and get rid of remaps...there will be no reason for getting rid of Attribute Implants but a reason for using them.