EVE General Discussion

So first, a bit of background. Skip the first paragraph if you want the suggestion.

I recently tried recruiting some IRL friends into eve. I'm having some success, but teaching combat is proving surprisingly difficult. Tracking, Signature Resolution, Explosion Velocity. They're not overly complicated concepts, but while you can teach them in principle, I'm finding that the players I'm teaching are having trouble conceptualizing them in actual gameplay. Having gone back and looked over the combat tutorials, they really don't touch on this at all. I also recently joined factional warfare and have been having great fun killing and losing ships on the Minmatar front. But I'm noticing this same lack of understanding of how damage is resolved from a lot of my opponents. I'm still facing lots of good pilots who remind me how much I suck, but a huge percentage of people I fight don't seem to have even the most basic grasp of how to position themselves in a duel. Most of these players have been playing for a year at least.

I think the problem here isn't in so much in the tutorials, but in the lack of any sort of visual feedback of when you're getting good hits or taking bad hits. I'd like to propose some basic UI changes to the tactical overlay which could really help new players to get a grasp of combat.

First of all: When the tactical overlay is pulled up, there should be a line between your ship and the ship you're targetting. This line would have a color gradiant based on optimal + falloff which would give a visual indicator of where you're getting good hits. Closer to your ship, the line would be solid bright green, but it would shift to yellow then red as your target gets further away. Ideally, you would want to have combat take place so that this connecting line stays bright green.

Second: When an enemy ship begins to move at a speed faster than your angular velocity, a second smaller line or angle curve would appear beside the first line. It would shift along the same color spectrum(green for good tracking, red for bad) giving visual feedback of how well your guns are tracking.

Third: Combat is often resolved based on split second turns and changes of direction. Nowhere is there more apparent than when flying or fighting skirmish ships, such as the Imperial Navy Slicer, Artillery Wolf, Vagabond, or even the Ishkur. I propose a visual velocity indicator on the tactical overlay. It would show an arrow coming off that little box that shows a ship's location, oriented towerds the ship's direction of travel. Either a velocity number would sit next to it, or the arrow's length would shift based on the speed of the ship. If the enemy changes directions, even if you're zoomed out or not watching the UI, you get immediate feedback as the line shrinks and then begins to extend again in a different direction.

Fourth and last: As an extension of the velocity arrow, possibly have the enemy velocity arrow shift between green or red based on their speed, IF you are firing missiles at them. Also a circle inside of the target box indicating signature radius and how it affects missile damage.

A final note: All of this would be toggle-able, and I recommend that these indicators either only show for ships you're actively targetting, or only appear on ships you begin to fire at, to eliminate screen clutter.

TLDR;
Give new players better visual feedback so that they can understand combat and enjoy the game more when they realize it's not just "turn on guns, orbit at 500". It's too difficult for new players to both find the rules of the tracking algorithm and understand how it works in actual combat, especially since PvE largely doesn't teach these skills.

I have included a *very* crudely drawn MSpaint example:
http://i46.tinypic.com/2gxrb52.png

We could have better player retention if soundwave didn't do interviews where he said he plays diablo and that he was happy that some new players got wtfbbq'd by the learning curve.

Ok, that was tinged with sarcasm of course but here is my honest thoughts on player retention;

There's people dedicated to griefing in this game, AND the learning curve is hard as hell. Both of those things combined keep the player retention a little bit *too* low. Eve needs to find some kind of balance between the learning curve and the "player driven content".

I think CCP should link some kind article right on the "news feed" for the first 6 months of your 1st toon/account that helps you deal with that.

The first sticky post in our corp forum is how to use EFT, Evemon, and the api system, with links to them all. Something like that, with an article on how to avoid being blown up when you are at a stage where you cant afford to lose your ship.

CCP could mail them and have YOU WILL DIE. Only bigger and painted in blood.

I really like this idea. I don't have much too add or pick apart because it's a really good idea. As long as it is separate from the current tactical overlay, so I can still bring up distance grid without bringing up all this, then I don't see how anyone can be against it. It would help those who don't fully understand Eve combat mechanics participate in good fights, instead of just being free kills. It could also motivate those who don't fully understand the mechanics too do a bit more research and see why they're not getting good hits. So yeah I like it.



Please go away with your crybaby whine crap. Nobody cares about you deep-seeded hatred for CCP Soundwave, go see a psychiatrist and work out your problems. Don't pollute a good thread with good ideas with your personal issues.

Most people who start playing Eve now, 9 years after launch, know what type of game they're getting into. If you try and soften the world of Eve instead of seeing massive new subs you will see massive unsubs. Sci-fi games have come and gone in the last 10 years, Eve has lasted not because it's spaceships but because it's sandbox-ness. Just watch this wave of current spaceship MMOs (I know of 2) games fall on their face.

All you need to do is throw them into a cheap tackle frigate, give them a 30 min lesson on flying and tackling and they soon pick up the rest.

I like soundwave, and think his vision of eve is epic.

If you think keeping players isn't an issue for CCP, maybe you should watch the video where the C.E.O. of the company says it is, and promises to fix it. Or read his apology.

If you think my idea is bad, you should post why the idea is bad rather than why you hate me based on my name. If you were really pro you would make a better suggestion.

I would love the ability to see more informations in space, instead of the overview... simply the ability to see how the speed/angular velocity of the target you have selected... perhaps some better indication of who is damageing you... and for how much (instead of that sility box that quickly becomes spammed if more than 1 target is shooting at you + drones... + your own drones + your own weapons)...

Brackets also needs some love... (brackets in space)

New players dont need a new UI, they need a good corp. Its no coincidence that most of the nubs who get taken into the goon training programme stay in the game while a lot who join and stay in the NPC corps end up leaving.

I like this idea. Angular velocity and transversals are the reasons I use missiles almost exclusively. +1

I would strongly encourage that you get this moved or reposted in Features and Ideas though. That is where these kinds of suggestions should be going.

Confirming here that video game players playing video games is bad for video games.