EVE General Discussion

Hello,

I want to take a stab at the idea of what might be throwing off the new player experience. I don't think this is necessarily a singular problem, so simply fixing one thing or adjusting it will not usher in the masses. EVE is a game that apparently does require quite a bit of intelligence. You obviously do not have to have a high IQ however to be successful. One problem I have is with combat. I guess you could say that I am one of those 'morons' that doesn't get how to monitor angular velocity, sig radius, distance (optimal + falloff), tracking speed... and whatever the heck else all at the same time . Every engagement requires a lot of know how in order to properly assess an upcoming encounter, know the weaknesses of the opponent, and also when it just isn't worth wasting your time.

Combat in EVE is hard. I'm not exaggerating, it is hard and the more players on the field the harder it gets as then logistics are added, fleet management, ship doctrines, and who knows whatever else. This is something some people will get and do fine with, others will somewhat grasp but not be able to completely handle due to perhaps feeling overwhelmed, and the latter will just give up entirely and do something else. But why on earth do I bring this up? I bring this up because combat in EVE is something everyone needs to know how to do and do well enough in order to succeed. Currently I think EVE fails utterly at teaching this. I don't think it should be watered down a lot, made stupid easy with an overhaul, but there has to be some way to better explain to newer players how the combat system in this game works.

A new, new player experience is needed. This experience needs to warm up players to the aspect of proper ship fitting, watching Dscan, how to fight another ship while paying attention to the information in the overview, and knowing your ships strengths and weaknesses. My introduction however was via career agents that sent me out to do various tasks and showered me with ships and items. After that I joined a mining corp and started collecting ore while eventually getting skilled up enough to fly a retriever. A few weeks in we were war dec'd by a solo player corp and couldn't do a thing. We had no idea how to stand up for ourselves and ended up loosing quite a few ships attempting to fight back. Eventually we just laid low and sat in our own station until they left. I didn't like that feeling so I joined up in Minmatar faction warfare to try and learn the ropes. I lost ship after ship trying to understand the ropes, but failed time and time again trying to learn and fight back.

After awhile I just became frustrated. I figured that despite all of the effort others tried to put into teaching me it was lost on me because frankly I sucked. And yet that is the biggest problem, if I feel that I have no chance to successfully defend myself then why should I waste my time playing a game that already has inherent risk built into it? Anything I do can be undone in a heartbeat in the name of content creation for others. I then feel relegated to nothing more then some type of insanity where I know I will lose but continue to push on despite the sheer hopelessness of it all. And this is all because I don't know how to combat. I get the mechanics enough, but I can't quite grasp all that is going on. And I say this because as we all know combat is the lifeblood of this game. Stuff gets exploded, used up, or whatever else and the economy keeps churning.

But by and large combat is the center of it all. You either get it or you don't, and if you don't you may still succeed at EVE but you're missing out obviously on the best part of the game. And so with that I beg CCP to one day improve upon how they introduce new players to this aspect of the game. You may not be able to just throw them into the deep end, but at least trying to get them comfortable enough with combat may reduce turnover quite dramatically and improve on retention. Anyway, it wasn't easy for me to share this cause it makes me feel like an idiot, but perhaps this is useful feedback. Perhaps it's also in the wrong forum...but hey whatever.

/endrant

Players don't leave the tutorial with a proper understanding of what eve is or how dangerous space can be, hence your run in with the decer and your response to it. I propose that as they finish the tutorial and exit that system Aura flies in on a gank catalyst, kills and pods em, and then taunts them. And then they get moved to a npc corp that is perma decked by drifters or something. Then they get a yuuuuuge message in the middle of their screen ( with that popup style 'are you suuuuure you wanna close this window?' message) that explains how nowhere is safe and the game is best enjoyed in a good corp. I meet so many guys hauling around 450m on autopilot in stuff I can pop with a 2 mill thrasher because that's what the tutorial teaches them to do.

We also need an additional 'dark side' career agent that encourages them to get into shenanigans. Even just letting them know that shenanigans are possible would be a huge step up

Just put a lot of purple mods on your ship. Then you don't need to look at all of the incoming statistics.

I don't think it's really so easy to introduce players to PVP through a new player experience.

The best way for anyone to learn about PVP will always be from other actual players and the EVE community.

Honestly after teaching the basics and giving new guys a general idea of what their options are, the best thing the NPE could do is encourage them to go join a corp/alliance and speak to people about what they need to know.

I spent far too long of my EVE life in hi-sec doing the mining/missioning nonsense. Took me far too long to jump into low sec and now I'm having the best gaming experience of my life with a group of awesome people of which I consider many to be close friends.

Partly this was due to my own social shyness, and reluctance to interact with people that hi-sec teaches you are evil and want your stuffs. I mean that's all true... but still.

The best thing you can do in EVE is engage with the community and let it show you how deep you can really get into this game. The best thing CCP can do is facilitate this experience, rather than try to replace it with a tutorial.

By the way I'm talking about PVP and low-sec because that's my own experience, I don't mean that this is the best way to play or the correct one. Whatever you're into I would suggest engaging with others is the best way to learn and get better, and ultimately enjoy it more, even if that means mining or PVE or industry. There's groups out there waiting to help make things awesome for you.

Content is driven by the community and it's a shame when people try to blame CCP for not somehow inserting all of EVE's knowledge into someone's brain within a few weeks of them starting. Not that I think the NPE is perfect, far from it, I just think it's also up to us to help out the newbros rather than just demand CCP tells them everything they need to know in a way they can all get on with.

TLDR: Friendship best ship

Hi.

Yes, combat in EVE is hard. And yes, "EVE" - that is, the game itself, including the career agents and opportunities - fails at teaching combat. But there are two things in EVE that teach combat extremely well.

• Other players.
• Practice, practice, practice.

Here are, in my opinion, the two absolute best ways to get as much exposure as possible to the above two teachers:

Method one:

1. Stay in your starter corp, or at least go back to an NPC ccorp.
2. Join the activities of an NPSI community. CAS, Spectre Fleet, Redemption Road, etc.

Method two:

• Join a new-player oriented corp like Pandemic Horde, Karma Fleet, or Dreddit.

I do not believe that being part of a highsec mining corp, or joining FW on your own, will do anything to help you learn PvP combat. I also do not believe that you have put in enough time to learn PvP combat. In my 2+ years of playing I've done nothing but PvP and I'm still learning. I lost a lot of ships first starting out. Just like I fell over a ton when learning to ride a bike. But I kept at it and can do reasonably well and I have a lot of fun while doing it. And I still lose ships.

imho CCP should just pay Suitonia (and give him a better mic) or Chessur to make a series for armor and shield kite/ brawl fit and pew basics, 4-6 videos, 10 min each should do the trick. Include videos ingame in the combat part of the tutorial. Something to watch while running early missions or mining. It would vastly improve pve fits too.