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EVE New Citizens Q&A

 
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New Player Feed Back - The first month (long rant)
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Viserys Anstian
Sebiestor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#21 - 2016-04-20 13:24:28 UTC
Solonius Rex wrote:
[quote=Magnolia Arch]

But I specifically wanted to touch on this subject of fitting. The problem with this is that there are a myriad of ways to fit your ship and many people use different doctrines. Sure, there are what people call baseline things you shouldnt do, but even then, its not necessarily always going to be a bad thing to, for example, fit dual tank. I remember someone talking about going Arties on a merlin(Which only gets bonuses to hybrid weapons), and completely catching an opponent off of his game.

There are just so many ways to fit a ship, and not all of them are necessarily wrong even though they arent normal practice. A better thing to do is to just understand how ships work and how weapons work through actually playing the game, and forming your own fits.


I agree. Some nights I spend more time using EFT tweaking fits than I do actually playing eve. There is so much that the tutorial can not teach without being a month long and actually keeping people in the game.
Ankor Grammaten
Dragonhold Enterprises
#22 - 2016-04-20 19:04:04 UTC
This has been a most interesting read. Many thanks to the OP!

I'm about at the same place (time wise) in the game as the OP, but a lot less knowledgeable. Why I wonder? I have pursued this approach ...

ergherhdfgh wrote:

In my opinion a much better way to approach this game is to just dabble in things to get a feel for them and do more of what you like. You can do most things in this game with very low skill investment and by very low I am talking minutes in many cases. There is absolutely no need for you to become fully educated and fully skilled on something before you even try it. This is not rocket surgery here where you need to go to school for a decade to get a PHD in something before you are even allowed to try it out.


"Rocket surgery" Big smile

I did this mainly (switching from this to that), because I found that in each "discipline" I soon hit a wall where I needed to train skills that took days to complete if I wanted to explore past the really basic fits, so I would go off to something else, not in frustration usually, but simply to give myself something to do. Of course I soon hit another wall, needing more time-heavy training which had to go behind the previous set of skills ... well you get the picture.

Currently I'm pushing an alt through mining up to Barge level, just to see what it's like, and still experiencing enough wait time to need to keep mining my venture just to have something to do.

I'm not sure what we should deduce from this, I'm getting fits off the web which are maybe "best" fit and need too much skill? Anyway, I have found training has been my main obstacle to progression so far.

The best "skill" I've learned so far? How to set up for a quick exit, and not to leave it too late.

I'd like to add something that I noted while getting through the first week or so. The most valuable asset is the Rookie help channel (many thanks to those patient souls who answer the same simple questions over and over ... ). This is an implied criticism of the training setup in one way that stands out. I see the same very simple questions asked repeatedly. For example, "how do I find my ISK balance?". This is just one example that tells me we need something that teaches the basic basics to very new newbs. It shouldn't take much effort to set up. I would recommend analyzing the Rookie help channel, noting the "basic" questions most frequently asked, and setting up something Newbs can read.
Iria Ahrens
Space Perverts and Forum Pirates
#23 - 2016-04-20 19:18:28 UTC  |  Edited by: Iria Ahrens
The thing you have to understand about EVE's player base, is this is a very niche game. The one thing that long term players all have in common is taking pleasure in solving their own problems and creating unique solutions. Like Memphis said, they used to have a great, or at least much better tutorial, but that appealed to the wrong player base, so it didn't help retention at all. CCP did a bunch of studies and to their surprise the less information in the tutorial the greater the player retention was. Actually, every time CCP changes the new player experience, they compare it to all the other iterations and go with whatever has the highest retention.

Yea, there FAQs are all well known, but EVE is also a social game. The players that seek social solutions are again the ones that stick around, but when EVE provided more indepth answers, players left sooner. Heck, CCP just took down the wiki, again because they felt that community answer sites did more for retention than official guides.

That's the kind of game EVE is. After many different attempts, it looks like CCP has settled on a less-is-more strategy of instruction. The figure-it-out-yourself theme isn't due to lack of concern for the new player, it is actually a response to the niche playerbase to slowly increase retention. Making the tutorial appeal to players that are not compatible with the theme of EVE just increases dissatisfaction when players complete the tutorial and think they know a lot, and then slam into wall of the sandbox.

If you stay, than that is the type of player you will be playing against. Not a bunch of copy-cat kids that went to some site and got the "best" build, but a bunch of players that toss the "best" builds out the window and win anyway.

My choice of pronouns is based on your avatar. Even if I know what is behind the avatar.
Tau Cabalander
Retirement Retreat
Working Stiffs
#24 - 2016-04-20 20:45:17 UTC  |  Edited by: Tau Cabalander
Nice, detailed lists of stuff. I hope a dev sees it.

For what it is worth, there are no tutorials, only Opportunities now.

You discovered and completed the old tutorials of your own accord. They were replaced because it was boring, and most new players didn't want to read that much, nor deal with that much info, they just wanted to start playing.

I agree though that some sort of comprehensive reference for the UI at least would be a good idea.


For what it is worth, I started back when it was referred to as the "Rubix Cube Tutorial", or the "FU Tutorial": you were dumped in space near an asteroid with an orbiting red + and the rest was up to you. There were no other tutorials nor Opportunities.

"How did you Veterans start?"
ergherhdfgh
Imperial Academy
Amarr Empire
#25 - 2016-04-20 23:39:39 UTC
I am up to post 4 on your text wall.

I just wanted to comment on your comments about missioning, standing and the skill point system. Much of what you ask for already exists. The fact that you are asking for it to me shows that you should probably spend more time getting to know the game before comment.

Of the stuff that does not exist in game most of it is for a reason. Your post seems to be able to be summarized with " dear CCP here's how you can make your game more like WoW".

When I first came to this game I had nearly an identical view point to yours. As time went on and I let go of my preconceived notions and learned the game for what it was I came to appreciate it much more.

With regards to the skill point system:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=de1hwoFYA_k

That is a video of a vet on a trial account alt that was between 10 - 17 days old during the filming and that was before the changes that gave new players 400K SP to start so his average skill points during the filming of this video are nearly exactly what new characters are born with on day 1.

To me that video proves that it is not your skill points that matter but how well you know how to play the game. I keep seeing posts from new players talking about how their skill points are holding them back and they provably are not. As a rule if you think that you need more skill points to do something in this game you are probably playing it wrong.

OP I'm not trying to chew you out here just trying to provide some insight from a guy who was where you are and now has 7 years of playing this game under his belt. This game is not WoW. Further it is not trying to be, or at least I hope it's not trying to be. If you give this game a chance and try it for what it is and don't try to play it as if it were some other game then you might like it.

However if you insist on playing this game as if it were every other WoW clone out there then you probably aren't going to like it.

TL;dr
Stop trying to point out how this game is not like WoW and give it a try for what it is. Judge Eve for what it is and please don't try to rate it on how well it cloned or did not clone WoW.

For the record Eve is older than WoW by about 6 months.

Want to talk? Join Cara's channel in game: House Forelli
Mark O'Helm
Fam. Zimin von Reizgenschwendt
#26 - 2016-04-20 23:41:52 UTC
Viserys Anstian wrote:
. Some nights I spend more time using EFT tweaking fits than I do actually playing eve.

Afaik this is called Meta-Gaming. You are playing the game. EVE is real. Bear

"Frauenversteher wissen, was Frauen wollen. Aber Frauen wollen keine Frauenversteher. Weil Frauenversteher wissen, was Frauen wollen." (Ein Single)

"Wirklich coolen Leuten ist es egal, ob sie cool sind." (Einer, dem es egal ist)
ergherhdfgh
Imperial Academy
Amarr Empire
#27 - 2016-04-20 23:53:19 UTC
Magnolia Arch wrote:


I dont want the tutorial to be just a fitting list and go "train these, buy these, fly this, and dont ask why".

I want a tutorial that gives the player some modules and a ship with a fair number of slots and go "mess with this until you think it may work, go try it out, then mess with it some more to improve it".

The thing i'm trying to say is that, new players will have fail fits that have modules that conflict with each other and is inefficient. But I feel like new player should atleast be aware of what type of modules on what slot can do what. A tutorial that says: On low slot you can fit these, and this is it's draw backs.

Example: Cap recharger, Cap battery, Power relays, cap booster all helps a ship's cap. I don't want the tutorial to say: use cap rechargers because its optimal, but say "if you have cap problems, these could help".

All of this could be accomplished by you getting some cheap ships and cheap modules and going out and playing around with different fits to get a feel for how they work. Then ask your vet friends some questions and try some more, rinse and repeat.

You are looking for this game to hold your hand and walk you through every aspect of gameplay like WoW does with breadcrumb questlines and Eve intentionally does not do that.

This game is a sandbox it's not a linear progression game. There is no right way to do anything. There is no best in slot. There is no elietistjerks.com for Eve. There is no best raiding spec or best PvP spec or anything of the sort. You don't get locked into roles. There is no level cap. There is no balanced or queueable game play.

Eve is a game about what you know and who you know. You can choose to learn more about the what and make more friends to cover the who or you can choose to come here and complain about how Eve is not like WoW when it never intended to be so.

I said it in the previous post and I'll say it again. Eve is older than WoW. Eve was Eve before WoW was WoW. This game was not built to try and compete with WoW unlike almost every other MMO in existence today.

So let go of WoW and try Eve or let go of Eve and go back to WoW but please stop telling us how this game is different from WoW when those differences are the reason that many of us are here and not there.

Want to talk? Join Cara's channel in game: House Forelli
Sitting Bull Lakota
Poppins and Company
#28 - 2016-04-30 00:41:17 UTC
Magnolia Arch wrote:
A well developed and detailed list of many things that are important to understand in EvE Online that the ingame tutorial barely touches on and the game leaves players to figure out all by their lonesome.

Along with your list, you demonstrate a surprisingly sophisticated understanding of the mechanics the game did not hold your hand through. At least well enough that you have recognized their importance and sought them out on your own.

(Trigger warning: Artsy Fartsy Bullshit)

This is what EvE's new player experience does masterfully. It drops you in the middle of a very complicated game and let's you explore it yourself. The game taunts you with its complexity and you, clearly, fell for it.
You picked up a working knowledge of the game's mechanics in your first few weeks through, I assume, a combination of player made guides, asking in corp and help, and most importantly through experimentation in spite of the game's obtuseness.

The cold, dark, complex nature of EvE's universe compels its citizens to bind together and experiment.
I think the tutorial helped you just fine. You're stuck with us, probably on and off, for the next decade.


In addition to the resources you've already found, I'd add Feyd's guides to bumfingering. There's some pretty detailed stuff about making your hud work for you, and how to go about "creating content." I'd also recommend R&K's Clarion Call 4 which showcases how you can never age out of experimentation.
Magnolia Arch
Duo Rook
#29 - 2016-05-09 22:44:28 UTC
Thanks to all of your replies and taking your time to read my opinion to the new players experience.

I think the most valuable thing I learned from this, is that interaction with other players will speed things up and a too well rounded tutorial somewhat prevent interaction.

I made more friends in the last few weeks due to this, and EvE is definitively more fun.
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