Player Features and Ideas Discussion

I know, I can't wait for the hate mail on this one. But this isn't a 'give alpha pilots super powers and T2 ships' post. What it is though, is the taking of the alpha pilot, and look at what CCP designed them to be, a stepping stone into Omega account for new players.
This is something that happens more times than not, the Newbie Alpha pilot exploding in space, becoming extremely frustrated with the game and then quitting it all together. This has the potential to kill Corporations that allow alpha pilots, and dismantle the future alpha pilot from ever getting the experience to want to pay for omegahood.
So is the answer bigger better ships? No. Offering additions skill points? No. What if the Alpha pilot had a PVP invulnerability until 3,000,000 skill points or until that pilot commits a suspicious or criminal offense? I think so. That would give the new player a 'safety' feature that they can control and could also be manipulated to control.
They need to time to learn the game before thrown to the wolves or PVP pirates and wardec's that truly take there tolls on new players. This game has lost a lot of potential omega pilots by this kind of actions occuring on a day to day basis. Just my 2 cents worth.

Pvp invulnerability is both ridiculously op and the complete opposite of what eve is about. Sheltering noobs from pvp just makes them mission runners (which is 80x more likely to put them off the game than ship loss).

Engaging noobs when they are online is by far the best way to keep them coming back. Loltastic low sec roams, running high end missions in small ships, disposable ships ready for them to lose. Things like that. Fw warfare missions are easy to blitz, pay extremely well (using a 1mil sp alpha to solo level 3's in a t1 frig atm) and will teach players basic fleet skills and survival tactics.

Unfortunately there are a lot of corps out there that promise noobs everything but are ******* incompetent, lazy or trying to leach corp tax off their members. Make sure to wardec these and poach their membership.

Actually CCP looked into this and they found that people who engage in combat are more likely to subscribe. So your idea would probably directly hurt the player retention: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A92Ge2S8M1Y

I think the alpha accounts don't necessarily need love so much as the early player game (alphas or not).

Eve now has a fairly competent way to introduce players early on.

1. Tutorial.
2. Career Agents
3. SOE story arc

But then it kind of ends. As the training has a lot of "mission running"... I think most players go straight to lvl 1 or lvl 2 missions... and those missions are pure grind without much in the way of story.

Eve does have pretty interesting story. There's not a whole lot drawing the players into it unless they seek it out themselves, but it's there.

So... in many other games you have a LOT of main-storyline type missions and many players would go through those missions as they level up and then arrive at the "end game" afterwards, with some sort of skill level developed from following the story. Eve's end game is pretty much from the start... but there's not a long story arc to get you comfortable in the universe first.

I don't see why that couldn't be added.

Right now we have the tutorial and career agents and the SOE epic arc. Then you have 4 empire faction and 2 pirate faction epic arcs... which require ships an Alpha player can't fly and a new omega player can't afford for a while... and a high faction standing.

If we add some intermediate epics to bridge the gap between the two, that might prove useful in keeping new players around long enough so their familiarity (and investment) with the game reaches the point they may not want to leave.

Effectively... SOE is a destroyer based set of missions. The faction ones are BS level mission. So why not add epic arcs at the Cruiser and BC levels? Draw them into the story of eve... have them stick around longer so they try to complete the epic arcs. Make them want to sub to get a BS to finish their faction epic arc. By then... maybe they're hooked.

The problem is not that some leave the game in frustration. Perhaps they will come back later as I did.
Perhaps they will never come back.
Maybe it's not for them.
The problem is that some see this as a fault of the game that must be fixed.

Invulnerability is not a smooth transition, it is a completely different game. As soon as it drops and people are introduced to the actual game, you'll run into whatever problem you think invulnerability will solve.

Also every vet will use an invulnerable alpha clone in an itty V to haul things.

it worked for the first 10+ years of the game, and that is the experience that most of the people posting on the forums went through, which is why that tends to be the common consensus.

Maybe form a Corporation called The Alpha Player's Club to make it all better inside.

Last time I checked the new NPE, it looked somewhat like this:
1: naturally
2: was mentioned as a side note in the same sentence that sends people to mine - CCPlease stop sending people to mine!
3: never was mentioned

Also
4: the COSMOS mission chain that barely anyone is talking about, even if it has potential as something that new people are more familiar with*
By the way cosmos, my experience isn't the best either, I accidentally found an agent floating in space, when I talked to him he was giving me a mission (not offering as station agents do, so I couldn't delay/reject it) about an item that I didn't have, then I had to spend some time on google, figuring out where the cosmos chain starts, and then do the missions in order, and about 5-10 missions later I got back to the agent I started with.

*The funny thing is that these missions are probably the things most people who played other MMOs will find engaging, and they also give more time to get used to the game, meet people, etc.

You know, COSMOS are probably more appropriate for EVE than pretty much any of the other PVE in the game. The agents say "Go find this thing, I don't care how you get it." and then you have to battle your way through a bunch of static sites behind size restricted gates until you find what you need (or just buy it, the agent really doesn't care). They are rough and you can permanently ruin your chances which sucks, but that they are mostly a hook for you to go find your own adventure, really is probably the kind of philosophy that is needed to save EVE. And that's what the rookies need... not a protected theme park, not a series of missions you can't really fail. A hook that draws them into an actual adventure with risks and mastery. Shoot, even established players seem to go inactive because they can't find any worthwhile adventures.