Skill Discussions

I was going to post this in that “other” thread, but I don’t want the OP’s attitude to sully what I believe to be a very important issue for new players.

Being a new player let me add my point of view. This will be the third time I’ve come back to EVE, but the first time I’ve lasted longer than a month. I’m actually going on 3 months now, but here’s the catch – I’ve barely played at all these past 3 months, why? Because the sheer volume of SP needed to put oneself in a Battleship with Tech II weapons is overwhelming to say the least. Also yes, I joined a corp with a veteran player, he showed me all the ropes, gave me a taste of the good life, even if I couldn’t do it all myself – which makes this entire debacle even worse... New players read about all the awesome things going on within the game or see them, sign up to get a taste of it, then promptly cancel because they realise just how long it will take to do all those awesome things, they realise just how long it will take to actually fly what they really want to fly.

And yes, Tech II weapons, not Tech I. Tech II weapons with Tech II Ammo and the appropriate skills can have as much as a 50% advantage over Tech I, and that is not something to be taken lightly (I googled many forum posts about the difference between Tech I & Tech II with appropriate skills levelled, up to 50% was the general consensus). The advantage may not always be as much as 50% I know, but this brings me to my second point.

Most people who play MMO’s are of a particular breed, they want to be the best they can be in the physical sense, i.e. be wearing the best gear possible regardless of player skill. EVE is the only MMO out there, that has such a punishing “gear grind” for new players. I’d say it’s a fairly safe bet to assume the majority of people who try EVE and then give up within the first month, do so because the difference in SP between new and veteran players is simply far too overwhelming. The length of time it takes to fly a decent ship with Tech II weapons can take 2-3months if not longer, and that’s doing nothing but skill up for the Battleship you want to fly. If you want to skill up other core skills it is going to take you even longer... That, to new players, is THE proverbial brick wall.

This finally brings me onto the title of this thread – EVE’s greatest strength, the ability to skill-up whilst off-line, has ironically become the game’s greatest weakness. Now I love the fact I can skill-up off-line, the feeling of progressing whilst not playing is absolutely glorious. However, in the ten years this game has been out, not a lot has been done to bridge the SP gap between new and veteran players. The fact the game literally forces you to have more than one character/account if you want to specialise speaks for itself.

Don’t get me wrong, I really enjoy EVE, I enjoy everything it stands for. But, I also can’t see any logical reason, any at all, for not putting better measures in place to really help bridge the gap between new and veteran players. Here is a simple fix that I would propose:

Now that the game has been out for 10 bloody years, give all Tech I requirements, ergo the appropriate skills and level, to new players, but ONLY in the field they choose to specialise in when creating their character, be it in Combat, Trade, ect. This would leave in the requirement to have a second character if you want to specialise into something else, whilst helping to break down that seemingly unbreakable wall for new players. Allow the new players to use all the Tech I goodies from the get go, so they can actually try the game out properly and decide what Tech II fits they want to specialise into. This would go a long long way into retaining A LOT of players. Hell I’m only still here because I’ve grown stubborn over the years

What harm will it do? Veteran players will still woop all the newbies bottoms, so no problem there. What good will it do? It will keep the new players that want to play the game seriously, well playing, by making the game feel more accessible. You know those players that currently quit because they feel the game is insurmountable.

10 years... 10 bloody years worth of SP and skills, yet the game is pretty much using the same model for new players now, that is was 10 years ago! Now if that doesn’t scare away new players, well it certainly should do and it does. I should know. CCP should know.

That doesn't really make any sense. In other MMO's, when gear becomes obsolete, i.e. Tech I skills, they are either sold at a greatly reduced price or given away for free. It is done to stop the game from becoming inaccessible for new players and it makes sense.

It makes sense to do it here. It makes absolutely no sense to keep the current system as is and continue to have the game be inaccessible for new players.

I, too, was once a new character. I got lucky & joined a great corp about 3 days into this game.

I met some great guys that I still fly with almost 5 years later. They helped me out & showed me how to enjoy the game right from the start.

Could I do everything & kill everyone, No. But I think that the way Eve works, the skill progression is awesome.

Now almost to my 5th year anniversary & almost 100 mil Sp, I still do not have any Battleship to Level 5. Am I not having a great time? No

A new player can have great fun from day one, if you get involved with a great corp. Too many things to do in this game.

If CCP were to become a WoW, where whoever plays the most levels the fastest. I would quit.

As a new player, I'll just say that this is an extremely stupid idea.

Eh. I've said before that I think new player retention is a real issue that should be dealt with in a fairly serious way. But this, like so many similar tirades, lacks perspective. (It's better stated than most though, so I'll have to give it that.)

My main is dated from early March 2006, halfway between Red Moon Rising and Revelations. And the barrier to entry was already monumental. War dec threats were generally assessed by how many T2 ships your opponent could field. Learning skills ate up a huge chunk of training time, attributes were locked in place (and mine were horrible; mem/per? really?), and starting skills could leave you all over the place. Evefit was just coming out; EFT was a thing of the future. EVEMon wasn't out yet and all skill planning was manual. There was no skill queue, so you had to set a skill long enough to cover your time away from the game or you'd lose training time.

All in all, progression was slow. Very slow. "Catching up" was insanely hard because you couldn't just train towards something from the get go; you more or less had to train skills based on your time afk -- and that was after you had your learning skills where you wanted them.

So what? Well, for one it actually is easier to catch up now than it was then. You can plan out a ship/fit/role you want to fly/fill and train straight to it, picking up skills to 5 as needed rather than cramming in whatever fit. And trust me, skill training is faster now than it was then. Between learning skills, remaps, and the skill queue, it takes far less time to reach the same point in game today than it did in 2006.

We also need to look at the current balance between T1 ships that take little training and T2s -- which of course take quite a bit more to sit in and even more to fly effectively. Right now, T1 ships are actually in a very, very strong position. Are the "better" than T2s? No, not really. But they are more competitive than ever. And that lowers the SP barrier to a new player by default.

It is indeed hard to take seriously cries that it's just too hard to catch up these days. Because it's really not. Skills still cap out at 5 -- and I'd personally hate to see that changed. I happen to have 162 skills at 5, but at a given time it's hard to see how I'm using more than two dozen of those -- and that's in a T3.

What about that perceived gap that seems to be the real problem? Well, in a sense it is real. A character born today probably won't overtake me in SP. A player can of course trade up characters, which is of course popular and I think healthy. But overall, SP is actually worth less than it used to be simply because there's a whole lot more of it floating around. Increasing that supply doesn't seem like the right way to mitigate the issue.

I think what I'd like to see would be along the lines of a mild to moderate improvement to starting skills that could be allocated by chosen profession. This would help a new player at least get underway slightly faster without overwhelming the field with fresh SP. This could -- perhaps -- be accompanied by a slight reduction in skill requirements for T2 modules (but not hulls). These modules would still be a ***** to fit for new players, but you have to have something to aim for, right? And it would at least mitigate some of the griping about the gap in how many orange badges you can play with on your ship. Hell, it would even teach new players that meta 5 isn't always a good choice.

This all comes at a cost, of course. Alts would be easier to create (and they're ridiculously easy to train up now), giving older players a bit of advantage there too. But presumably older players wouldn't be so hypnotized by the orange in the corner; the perception advantage would be intact for truly new players while older players would get a relatively minimal boost.

I don't know. It's not a fully formulated thought. But it's a fairly serious issue on all fronts. Simply increasing the rate of SP acquisition is a horrible idea, but finding an effective workaround requires some subtle footwork and a clear definition of the actual problem (which again, is not merely a lack of new player SP).

I have a friend in a major nulsec sov holding alliance, and he stopped training ships after medium-sized hulls. He most recently trained for an interceptor for tackling blap-dreads (most recently 6 dreads destroyed at the cost of 2 'ceptors). He also pilots a Interdictor a lot, which are valued in every fleet, and those are T2 destroyers (also small hulls).

My current personal favourite ship is a Harpy Assault frigate, which I like to do level 3 missions with. I do level 4 missions in a strategic cruiser (have done w-space sites up to C6 with capital escalations in a SC too). I also try to specialize in medium-sized hulls, as that covers the majority of all ships in EVE.

You don't need to be in a battleship.

I myself am a new yet returning player I only played short burst my first two times and this time in sticking to it. Why? Because I have a great corp and alliance behind. I am training for indi at the moment to build a bank to later train towards what I want or I will use my alt that I'm cooking. I think the idea you have is no good fix at all it ruin the game. Why give those that joined late to a game an advantage to progression to start. Its like in BattleField 3 I pre ordered the game just so a few months after launch all the late buyers could start with everything that I gained through pre order and playing at launch. Vet players have what they have because they spent the time to do it. If I were to get a sp boost because I was new the game would have no value to it for, I play this mature MMO to be around other mature players in a game with a lvl system that works. Also in Eve Bigger is not always better.

Even with a nice fit Battleship a nice fitted Frigate could take it out. T2 is only good if you have the skill to back those things up.

An alliance member of mine took out a well fitted frig in his Procurer proofing that it isn't all about equipment.

So end result is it would kill value and would care are eve like every other mmo out there.

In a easier solution how about maybe add a new tier to weapons that give you a slight boost ship stats but not quite T1 so you at least have stuff to learn with as a newer player so maybe adding a career path at the start could work, my concern is the exploit to the bazaar because of the option to buy a playable character. I just don't want to see another mmo fall because of lower tier players upset about being left behind. (that wasn't Kent to be rude.)by lower tier I mean new players. Like I said in new myself but I take it with a grain of salt . I enjoy my time in eve with frie ds a d reading about eve as I mine or do what it is in doing. :)

Veteran players have all the incentive to not wanting to change this system, whilst newer players have the exact opposite incentive. I think this is reflected in the debate.

-"Oh you're new, how cute. Go sit in the corner and play with your T1 frig until you've waited as long as we did. You can also mine while you watch tv shows."

Now I can also wait. Although it bugs me that I'm paying for this, I don't have many months left until I can fly one or two doctrine-ships with T2 guns for my alliance. So almost "there" soon I guess.

I just wished I could have brought at least one of my gaming buddies along with me to EVE. Alas all of them rofled at idea of playing the waiting game. The reason I'm still here is because I wanted to play with my brother. After half a year, maybe I soon can.


edit: spelling

New player

wants to fly battleship immediately

skips most of the game

finds out battleships not his style

goes back to wow

instant gratification achieved there

gets bored

comes back to eve

makes another thread in 5 months with 98.6% same content.