EVE General Discussion

This is not a problem with the game but with the new player's perception and expectation that EVE will work like some other class/leve-based game where higher/better = automatic win. Solution: teach them that EVE does not work that way — that it, in fact, works almost the exact opposite way by making it impossible not to “catch up” to older players (and quite quickly too), and that, all told, “catching up” isn't really an applicable concept to this game.

Again, user error. Back in my day, there was no PLEX; there were no 17-base attributes; there were no remaps; there was nothing to suggest what your attributes did when you assigned them… and yet I squeezed more than double that out of my first year, was able to PvP from very early on, and found a very decent corporation.

Potentially problematic except for one thing: any corp that has those kinds of requirements isn't really worth joining.

Because elitism works. It's pure psychology and has nothing to do with what you can do in the game.



Wrong. What matters is if you are the attacker or if you let others attack you. Any attacker can choose not to attack and as such greatly lower the chance to lose a fight. A defensive carebear ... err ... player can only choose to stay dock and as a result can't win a fight.

No matter how many SP a player got -- a bad player stays a bad player.

I think that we are not playing the same game.

Any number of reasons: because they think it matters; because it pads their epeen to have enough to qualify; and, most commonly, because SP is a good measure of time in the game, which (hopefully) roughly translates into general familiarity with game mechanics and ability to take care of oneself.

The thing is, it's not 5% between a lvl IV and a lvl V skill.

First of all, it's a difference between a 1.20 and a 1.25 multiplier — it may be 5 percentage points, but the difference is only 4%. Second of all, to get those additional 4%, you have to waste 5× as much time as it took you to get the first 20% bonus, and in that time, you could often instead get a bunch of support skills that could give you upwards of 200% bonuses instead. Third of all, there are always roughly a bajillion ways to turn that 4% disadvantage around by simply changing tactics and dictating the fight. And then there's the actual ability to make use of that last percent (which requires player competence, not character age). And then… and then… and then.

The actual effect of lvl V skills is far more in the equipment (T2) they tend to unlock and added versatility they allow, and a whole lot less in the bonuses they provide. Yes, there are indeed a couple of skills where that last level makes a significant contribution, bonus-wise, but those are few and far between.

Sure. What's not set in stone, though, is what you unlock and how quickly, nor what combinations you can get for your investment and how well they will work together.

You're not really forced to specialise — it's just the best way of getting very good at something. If you can settle for less than very good, you can go wide very early and try a bit of everything. Also, a large part of this problem is that the concept of “trying” is often a bit… off… Outside of capships, “trying” entails training a couple of skills to lvl III or so — you can try pretty much everything in the game in a matter of weeks.

The issue here is often the classic “train to V or else!!” philosophy that is voiced in newbie corp chats, which is nothing short of griefing on a scale that can flippers can only dream of. A lot of new players get in their head that they can't try something unless they go all-in (or at least ¾), and that's simply not true — you can get a very good sense of what it's all about even with minimal skills, and going beyond that is just making it more of the same. This is also the root of the classic “I will start doing X when I get Y” reasoning you see so often: a belief that unless you have some arbitrary skill or amount of SP or piece of equipment, it's not worth engaging in a particular activity. Alternatively, it's the notion that, once you unlock some specific item or ability, an activity will suddenly drastically change.

This is pretty much never the case, and people who think like this tend to just get to their goal and then promptly quit, since it turns out that “after Y” is exactly the same as “before Y”, and that if you didn't enjoy it before, you won't enjoy it after either… Put another way: it's the journey, not the goal — if you can't enjoy the former, the latter will be equally (or even more) horrid. Conversely, if you find something interesting with just lvl II skills, you will find it interesting later on, and you now have a positive (or negative, for that matter) result of your test.

…and even on the off chance that it does happen, it's not nearly as simple as “higher SP = advantage”. What matters is where those SP are placed. Even if we look past the trivial case where one of the 'cane pilots have 90% of his skills in Industry rather than gunnery and spaceship command, it's still a matter of what you can get from the SP combination you've picked. And that's before we get to the scenario Roime describes where you simply make the wrong decision.

Hell, you can the effect even in the equal-SP scenario: one of them has trained Energy Emission Systems to V rather than just IV, the other has trained Motion Prediction to V rather than just IV. Same SP, same ship, same fittings, and both get a 5% bonus that the other guy doesn't. Who wins?

Corp I'm in has a 4 or 5m SP minimum requirement (can't remember off-hand right now), and will make exceptions if people show they've got a head on their shoulders. Honestly, the only reason for this requirement is so that we don't have to worry about getting people who bail shortly after joining (realise that EVE isn't for them, whatever).




it can help, but honestly, if you're smarter than the other guy ... that helps more. For example, if we're both in "good" thorax fits (yours is range, mine is blaster), if you're better at controlling range than I am, I'm gonna be the one in trouble regardless of how much more paper DPS I should be able to apply.

Granted, the only time you'd be in an "honourable" 1v1 with is if we're in the same corp, and even then, there are no guarantees (our crew will sometime have fun with it, and bring logi/dps to help the losing guy)


I ******* hate the short skills. I'm just about done with a 60d one, and am dreading the need to manage the next batch of 1d 12h skills that I've got in my plan.

Thing is, you don't have to just sit there and watch your SP tick ... you're just choosing to.



Funny, it took me about 9 months to be "viable" in Battlecruisers whilst training to mine at the same time, and this was back in the days of learning skills. Sure, if you're the type to think you need L5 skills across the board in order to do anything, then you're gonna be waiting a long time to reach that level of "flexibility". However, if you want to dabble in something else ... 2-4 weeks should be enough time to get all the relevant skills to at least level 3, with some being L4.

Sure, after a month, you might not be as good of a miner or researcher as someone who has spent a year at it ... but on the other side of that coin, they may have only spent a month on PvP stuff (whereas you've spent a year at it).

I dunno. Maybe we can have some sort of killrights-system where a victim can go after the griefer for longer then just 15 minutes?

I agree with him fully as an old time player btw and what to me comes out most is QUANTITY IS NOT QUALITY something you seem to have missed given your reply.


So let me ask you a question ; If we get a much larger playerbase will it benefit our player experience?If you can't say it does then why would you want it?




And this is an example of just that question , the playerbase has grown a LOT since 2004 yet null seems emptier then it used to be back then.I did a solo nullroam a week or 2 ago and did about 40 jumps through null wich after the chokepoint entries mostly was empty or just an encounter with another lonely traveller/ratter.

Dump 5K more players to null and what do you get , even more blobsystems yet still the same empty 20 nullsec jumps towards it.

SP requirement by corps. You must have at least XX million skill points to be accepted. Double digit. No noobs. Go mission until you get 12 mill SPs and can fly a battleship/hac.

You can not ever win vs player with greater SPs and assets. You can be a good strategist, good warrior, good thinker. But millions of ISK, extra SP and double gank always wins. (If you disagree, say hello to that tech 3 badass pilot, who has the upper hand in conflict, net worth 1 bill isk with perfect implants)

You can not trust people, they show no respect. Scams are disturbing.

Unfair environment. Bots are there to stay. This is not game feature. This is an exploit. Can't beat exploiters. Don't want to beat exploiters.

I've quit EVE 4-5 times now. I've never unsubbed though.

No, they'll still not accept you after that. The actual request here is “go learn about the game until you get 12M SP” (and missions are not likely to let you do that).

Funnily enough, T3 is one of the better examples of when less SP can give you more… It has been the main criticism from day one against T3: what you get for your training is quite out of proportion compared to what you get with most other ship types.