These forums have been archived and are now read-only.

The new forums are live and can be found at https://forums.eveonline.com/

EVE New Citizens Q&A

 
  • Topic is locked indefinitely.
 

Menus, so many menus
Author
Previous Topic Next Topic
Ookami Kansene
University of Caille
Gallente Federation
#1 - 2012-03-17 19:12:28 UTC
Okay, I've come from a WoW background. I haven't played that in a while as I got bored and discovered first person shooters.
Recently I started SWTOR but I found the servers so sparsely populated it wasn't worth playing much.
So I'm back here.

Last time I tried Eve I lasted about ten minutes. Trying to play on a MacBook meant everything was too small to see.

Now, I have a big screen to play it on. Yay.
Anyway, the main issue I have with my brief amount of time played today is that there are soooo many menus and menu trees, and duplications of menus. What should I be focusing on? Also, am I going to be longing for another gaming keyboard for playing, are macros going to save my sanity?

That's my main worry so far - trying to remember where everything is.
I need a cheat sheet.

Also - my ship becomes, er, invisible after I use a inter-galaxy jump gate thing. I think this may be a graphics error on part of my iMac, it catches up when I put it into warp or whatnot.

Anyway that is all.
Hello.
Kahega Amielden
Rifterlings
#2 - 2012-03-17 20:10:35 UTC
Quote:
Okay, I've come from a WoW background. I haven't played that in a while as I got bored and discovered first person shooters.
Recently I started SWTOR but I found the servers so sparsely populated it wasn't worth playing much.
So I'm back here.

First, don't even try to think about that. EVE is not even remotely similar to SWTOR or WoW and trying to think of it in those terms will just lead to frustration. EVE has about as much similarity with WoW as it does with Call of Duty.



Quote:
Anyway, the main issue I have with my brief amount of time played today is that there are soooo many menus and menu trees, and duplications of menus. What should I be focusing on? Also, am I going to be longing for another gaming keyboard for playing, are macros going to save my sanity?


EVE doesn't have a learning curve, it has a learning cliff. Most commonly-used interface mechanics are pretty quick/easy to access...What specifically are you doing often that has you digging through infinite menus?


Quote:
Also - my ship becomes, er, invisible after I use a inter-galaxy jump gate thing. I think this may be a graphics error on part of my iMac, it catches up when I put it into warp or whatnot.


Nope. When you jump through to the other side of a gate you are cloaked. As long as you don't move, this cloak will hold for about a minute. This means that if you're jumping into a system with hostiles waiting (say you're in lowsec, or in a hisec war) you can't be ganked before you even load the grid.

Quote:
Hello.


Hi.
Ookami Kansene
University of Caille
Gallente Federation
#3 - 2012-03-17 20:17:19 UTC
I like the idea that I actually have to think about more than mashing four number keys in order to kill something, and that there's a lot more behind the background of each player playing than on any other game I've looked at. I know this is nothing like games I have played previously.

So far I've only reached the end of the main first tutorial and I've noticed that certain things seem to be accesible from two or three areas, like the menus to the left and right of the screen depending on where I am, and when I click on an object or in space. I'm sure they'll make a bit more sense when I starting playing out of the tutorials.
I think my concern is, despite only touching the surface of the puddle, I might be missing something hidden away somewhere.

There's already a lot to think about.

Thanks for the info about the cloaking, the tutorial didn't explain that.
Kessiaan
Sebiestor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#4 - 2012-03-17 22:56:50 UTC  |  Edited by: Kessiaan
Back in my day we had to walk uphill in the snow both ways to open our overviews and stuff.

I wish I could say there's some kind of logical consistency to the UI, but really the only advice I can give other than to just stick with it and you'll get used to it eventually is that you can always right-click some weird, obscure, and tiny little widget to find what you're looking for. At least the tutorials are a lot better these days and you don't have to go through a bizarre 10+ step process to get an in-game agent listing (I don't even use eve-agents.com anymore)

KB Link
Utsen Dari
Sebiestor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#5 - 2012-03-18 08:04:06 UTC
Regarding the gaming keyboard question: EVE is the first mmo I have played where I felt one could be competitive using only the mouse. Keyboard shortcuts improve ship responsiveness, but most of the combat in EVE is about situational awareness and broad tactics rather than twitchy reaction times.

That said, if you are a big fan of combat where your moment to moment reaction times are critical to success, that exists in EVE too: train for interceptors or interdictors !
Otrebla Utrigas
Iberians
#6 - 2012-03-19 00:10:33 UTC
From a rookie to a rookie: Hi!

The only advice I can give you after 4 days playing is: Don't be afraid to ask.

I have found plenty of players in forums and ingame who are more than open to questions and even to advice you. Today I was wandering happy with my little Condor in Hi-sec space, and I though visiting a cosmic anomaly to get rid of some pirates would be an easy shooting practice.

Somebody in the tutorials forgot to said that real cosmic anomalies had like 20 pirate ships on them... I arrived in time to watch another rookie ibis to die helplessly, and another pilot in a Cormoran to get rid of all the pirates from the distance with long range missiles while I was trying to get a single kill with my humble rocket launcher.

After asking the girl about some advices, I asked if I could see which one of the looting hulls were mine and which ones were not, so she gladly told me "everyone" and set all loot to blue so I could get them.

"Just remember not to come here with frigates, they will kill you for free" and then warped out.

Play paranoid, but in the end, there are a lot of friendly players here.

PS: I don't thik the UI is so bad, it is just deep, but everything is "one click" in distance, just right click and select what you want to do or to know about the thing you want to do.
Tau Cabalander
Retirement Retreat
Working Stiffs
#7 - 2012-03-19 08:31:10 UTC  |  Edited by: Tau Cabalander
Otrebla Utrigas wrote:
Somebody in the tutorials forgot to said that real cosmic anomalies had like 20 pirate ships on them... I arrived in time to watch another rookie ibis to die helplessly, and another pilot in a Cormoran to get rid of all the pirates from the distance with long range missiles while I was trying to get a single kill with my humble rocket launcher.

Not all of them are like that.

But to make you feel better...

Early in my days I was clearing a site in a Kestrel (frigate), and had to warp out at one point. When I warped back in, I guess I picked the wrong bookmark, and warped into a different site.

It was filled with ships. Much bigger ships too. Cruisers, battlecruisers, and battleships!

I think I got to say, "Oh cool!" just before my Kestrel was popped.

EVElopedia has a great guide on them, telling you what to expect:
http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Category:Cosmic_Anomalies

And for everything else there is:
http://eve-survival.org/wikka.php?wakka=HomePage

Wish I knew about those references back in the day!
Petrus Blackshell
Rifterlings
#8 - 2012-03-19 13:59:59 UTC
Utsen Dari wrote:
Regarding the gaming keyboard question: EVE is the first mmo I have played where I felt one could be competitive using only the mouse. Keyboard shortcuts improve ship responsiveness, but most of the combat in EVE is about situational awareness and broad tactics rather than twitchy reaction times.

That said, if you are a big fan of combat where your moment to moment reaction times are critical to success, that exists in EVE too: train for interceptors or interdictors !


Twitchy reaction times are incredibly important if you focus on interdictors, interceptors or other frigates. I would never fly one of those in serious PvP without a keyboard.

Accidentally The Whole Frigate - For-newbies blog (currently on pause)
Bo Bojangles
Interstellar Renegades
#9 - 2012-03-20 04:00:37 UTC
You've been playing a FPS and WoW on a Mac.

Of course Eve would seem like a helluva lot more menus.

Don't worry about absorbing it all at once. Being a title that someone can pick up and figure out all aspects in a short amount of time is not exactly what the devs were shooting for here. But in return for that 'inconvenience', you get a pretty damned deep rabbithole to dive into for awhile.
Ettu Brute II
Republic Military School
Minmatar Republic
#10 - 2012-03-20 12:21:18 UTC  |  Edited by: Ettu Brute II
Otrebla Utrigas wrote:
Somebody in the tutorials forgot to said that real cosmic anomalies had like 20 pirate ships on them...

Not so. The tutorial clearly warns that the real sites contain rats and then goes on to say that all rats have been cleared from the training sites.
Otrebla Utrigas
Iberians
#11 - 2012-03-20 15:03:14 UTC
Ettu Brute II wrote:
Otrebla Utrigas wrote:
Somebody in the tutorials forgot to said that real cosmic anomalies had like 20 pirate ships on them...

Not so. The tutorial clearly warns that the real sites contain rats and then goes on to say that all rats kave been cleared from the training sites.

Yes, but nobody expect the Spanish Inquis... oh sorry. Nobody expects so much rats in what is supposed to be hi sec training grounds.

At least I didn't.
Sin Pew
Ministry of War
Amarr Empire
#12 - 2012-03-20 16:41:53 UTC
I remember Aura mentioning that you enter a live environment and it's not a simulation, the first time you undock... but I might be wrong, been a little while already since I been through this.
However, some anoms are clearly harder to tank, but before you warp in, check eve-survival, might get you an idea of what's in store for you.

[i]"haiku are easy, But sometimes they don't make sense, Refrigerator."[/i]
Jouron
Hadon Shipping
#13 - 2012-03-20 20:05:06 UTC
Eve.

The menus keep out the rif raff.

Some people think the goons and test members are annoying.

Clearly they've never played COD on an XBOX with a headset.

Trash.

Trust me. There are key bindings you can use for certain activities but you will always use menus.
Once you've played eve long enough all the menu clicking just disappears into the background.

Its like jumping into a pool.

You just got to get acclimated to it.
Invictra Atreides
Toward the Terra
#14 - 2012-03-21 13:23:37 UTC
Kessiaan wrote:
Back in my day we had to walk uphill in the snow both ways to open our overviews and stuff.

OMG that was a good read *_*

Blog | Tutorials | Youtube "I don’t know everything, I just know what I know."
Tau Cabalander
Retirement Retreat
Working Stiffs
#15 - 2012-03-21 19:27:26 UTC
Invictra Atreides wrote:
Kessiaan wrote:
Back in my day we had to walk uphill in the snow both ways to open our overviews and stuff.

OMG that was a good read *_*

You might enjoy the The Eve Online 0.0 Experiment

The links are pretty messed-up after all this time, but if you are resourceful, you can edit the URLs or Google for the next posting in the series.

http://00experiment.blogspot.ca/2006/07/eve-online-00-experiment-post-001.html

http://00experiment.blogspot.ca/