EVE General Discussion

Hello all.

As a player who has tried and tried and failed to get into this game, I finally came to the realization of what went wrong. In most games soloing is OK. I understand that it is in this game as well, but the learning curve is just too great. I first came into this game and got into missions after lots of reading on how to do it. That went well because, well, it's pretty simple (atleast to get to level 4's, i'm still a noob so I might be wrong.) I never got into a mission alliance and it got boring. I tried pvping, got podded many times and never figured out what went wrong(LOL flying to lowsec looking for an even fight, i'm an idiot.). Even after reading tons of things about pvp I could not figure the mechanics and left for a year.

I came back, got into a nullsec alliance and flew out. I found someone friendly who taught me some things, but was always in fleets warping off with battleships and logistics. I was underskilled for flying anything decent, got bored ratting in null and I joined RvB right before I left again. I was frustrated with the game and didn't care about the game anymore. Another year later I came back to RvB. I decided I don't care about missions, rats or nullsec. I just want to figure out the mechanics of pvp in this game. I jumped in a tier 1 frigate and off I zoomed with the fleet. I was getting blown up quite a bit but I still wasn't figuring it out and was getting frustrated again.

About two days ago I met someone who has been changing the game for me. He doesn't only give me "loadouts," he asks me what the weakness and strengths of the loadouts are and why they are that way. We have flown out in a 2 man fleet looking for people to blow up. He explains what the people are doing, and why they are doing it. I am not where I would like to be, but i'm learning.

I've heard of people quitting right after the tutorial because they have no idea what to do (and you have too.) I know many veterans when new players ask them what to do after that they tell them, "well, whatever you want. It's a sandbox after all." I don't think that's the way to handle that question. I believe that we should have volunteers in different aspects of the EvE life. After the tutorial let them pick a mentor in different catagories (you can always go back and get more mentors in different aspects of the game.) Playing the game solo and reading about it is totally different than flying with someone who is SHOWING you what you've read about. (And the mentors don't have to really change what they are doing, just explain what they are doing and WHY they are doing it. But if they actually want to make a change and make a friend, show them around a bit and show them what they can do at the stage they are in.)

Cliffs:

-CCP should include a mentor program after the tutorial

-mentor program includes pvp, wormholes, missions, ratting, 0.0, trading, hauling, piracy, etc etc etc.

-all players can utilize the mentors and go back to them if they are interested in something else

-showing something what they've read about is alot better than reading it and doing it solo and not realizing what the hell is going on.


Thank you for your time.

Thoughts?

I certainly would love an official mentor program with some incentives at the end.

I help people in this sorta fashion all the time but finding the right people to mentor is hit and miss. And while there is always the certain level of satisfaction for helping people it's be nice to have a little compensation xD

What would be interesting would be COSMOS Agents who teach these things and who dispatch NPC ships to guide you through them. It could be a psuedo mission and an extension of the first training/newbie intro.

There are some things that NPCs can't teach. If the player has questions about why the ships are doing something a certain way, the NPC can't answer it. NPC's can't teach the art of stringing players along in a faster ship then they have, coming back and blowing up the one who is pulling away. What ships are the merlin good against, and which ones should you avoid, etc. I'm sure the same goes for wormholes, probing, etc. I'm not sure because i've never done those things (although i'm interested in seeing them done.)

To the OP, and others who enjoy logical, none bigoted discourse, ignore anything Jenn aSide posts. They are so narrow minded and believe that everything is a black and white case (as a simpleton does) that it is useless to argue.

My roommate tried to get into EVE University twice and both times they lost his application.

Sounds like you have too high expectations of yourself or that you are trying too hard. Maybe you get side-tracked, lose focus of your own ideas, follow others and allow them to dictate your game and then don't learn much from it.

Don't expect other players in a game to teach you how to play it. Rather realize that playing the game is how one teaches oneself. Put your own learning above others and only when you make progress do you follow others. If you don't make a progress then you are following the wrong players.

While a mentor program sounds great on paper and in the press.

You would ultimately end up with dozens of noobs trained wrong by blow hards and stubborn asses.

(over powered this, that, and whine)

The mentor would have to be neutral and able to answer on a wide range of aspects of EVE.
These areas would have to be Mining, PI, FW, Missions, Pirates, Null, Scammers, Exploration, and Industry.

Also able to give advise as to fittings.
Gank/Tank. Yield/Protection.

In the end we need EVE UNI to step up and get these new players into their fold.
(blatant EVE UNI advert)

I have never been in EVE UNI but have fought them on a couple of occasions and know they have some very skilled and intelligent players.

I say remove NPC corps after a week or two and give them options for joining qualified high sec corps/alliances that fit their interests.

NPC corps are full of idiots. Having been in and out of them on numerous occasions in my corp hopping i have seen some
bad advice. This needs to stop.

When I got started, I read a lot, and asked questions on the new pilot forums, but I agree that being shown something in person by somebody is extremely helpful.

The starter corps and rookie help are there for a reason ... to get you immediately into the social aspect of the game. You'll find out quickly who are the jerks and who are the helpers. You find out right away, that there are people who have nothing better to do with their time than to try and grief you. It's a great teaching tool that too many vets squash by telling everyone they need to get into a player corp ASAP.