EVE New Citizens Q&A

So, line by line:

-I haven't been able to put in 20 hours a week into EVE for many, many months and that hasn't stopped me from doing anything. What specifically do you think requires that much time?

-There is absolutely a cap in doing any particular thing. There's only a limited number of skills that apply to any particular ship or activity, and the further along that track you are, the less of an increase you get per unit of time spent. A newbie can get the 'core' skills to III or IV fairly quickly, at which point the distinction between him and a vet who has them at V is minimal. Using myself as an example...I primarily fly frigates in PVP, but I haven't trained any frigate-relevant skills in awhile. I've been playing long enough to sort of 'cap out' on that, so I've been training things that give me absolutely no benefit in that field recently (things like battleship guns and such)

-you say that EVE is well past the middle of its lifespan, but I don't think anyone can accurately predict that. EVE has been growing consistently since it released in 2003. More people are playing it than have ever played it before, which is not typically the case.



this is the mindset that makes lots of people quit. You can actively contribute now, and trying to learn all of the various game mechanics on your own is a recipe for frustration.



EVE's dynamic market ensures that, for the most part, any particular activity will always be profitable. It's not really a 'nerf' or 'buff' thing, it's about how many other players are doing it vs what the market can support.



Well, EVE is neither going to shut down any time soon, nor turn into generic psuedoFPS, so...

I understand your apprehension. I was similarly looking for a new game, about this time last year. World of ______ had lost its appeal, and the people I played with, laughed, cried and cheered with all had moved on.

Your basic question breaks down into three parts:

1. Eve has continued to expand its player base using a subscription model in the face of the free to play movement. I think its important to understand that the game has appeal and a very sticky hook once it is set. One of the reasons Eve continues to be so popular is the nature of the game itself. Its a sandbox that performs best with a group of people. Eventually that group develops pretty strong bonds, which will continue to keep you interested. Bottom line, the game has grown steadily over the years and doesn't depend on huge outlays of developers constantly finding the next biggest and baddest raid. Its cost efficient and will continue long into the future.

2. Absolutely a few hours a week is enough time. The training que is forgiving of long absences from the game. On the 14 day trial, the training que requires constant baby sitting. However a month or so into the game, you cycle into longer and longer training ques. Personally I am in Sentry Drone Interfacing V with 16 or so days to go. I could log in or a few seconds to keep tabs on the character and not miss a beat.

3. Exploration is a great solo based activity and has a competitive ISK to hour ratio, especially in some of the vast under inhabited areas of null sec. A loop through Cloud Ring, while avoiding the SOE systems can net over 100 Mill ISK on a good night, and maybe 20-30 on a bad night. Focus on Frigs V, Covert Ops IV and Cloaking IV and your hacking skills to III and you can be on your way in the matter of a few weeks.

Finally eventually you get what you put into the game. Eve can be very hard on the solo. Its a large space with very unforgiving rules of conduct. But if you are willing to put in the time, and energy to develop relationships. Not so much ship skills although they can be important. But its the personal relationships you must develop, then logging on to Eve, chatting with friends becomes the joy of the game.

Good luck

Edit:

I think one other important issue needs to be addressed. Eve has done a great job of keeping its old content relevant. Older ships are still as powerful (roughly speaking) as they were when they were introduced. Sure you can fly bigger and more expensive ships but you don't have to in order to be effective. The most impressive pvp pilot I have known flies a Tristan and pulls out remarkable feats of pvp.

Reserving for when i get off of work in 7 hours. I have a (hopefully) informative wall of text just for the OP.

There are a lot of skills in EVE (breadth = very wide), but they all max at level 5 (depth = very shallow). This is the exact opposite of most other MMOs! EVE skill points are not the same as experience points in other games!

In about an hour or so you are useful in a PvP fleet (see "tackle", "light tackle", or "hero tackle"), though you should really be doing the tutorials at that point. You can master a ship in at most a few months (more or less, depends on how similar it is to other ships you can already pilot), and be functional it in in a very short amount of time:

Without implants, and with default attributes (not so good, can do much better):

• Time to train all races of frigate / destroyer / cruiser / battlecruiser / battleship to level 3: 17d 20h 52s
• Time to train small / medium / large / hybrid / laser / projectile turrets & support skills to level 3: 13d 11h 39m 30s
• Time to train rockets / heavy assault / torpedoes / light / heavy / cruise missiles & support skills to level 3: 12d 23h 6m 40s

Of course you'll want a few other skills to fit rigs, defences, drones, and such.

It is a lot faster to specialize and focus on one race and one weapon system.

The people that have been playing since beta ended have more ships to choose from, and a lot more expensive medical clone upkeep, but in a given ship they have no advantages other than experience and resources (ISK and assets). All those other skill points are wasted on ships they are not currently piloting.

Dr Caymus is the character with the most skill points in EVE. He has 47m skill points in Science (roughly 2 years worth of training), which really don't help him pilot any ships [Graviton Physics 5 is the only skill I can think of that applies to a ship module]. He also has 21m (roughly a years worth of training) in Resource Processing, which doesn't help him blow-up other ships. He's not really even a combat pilot; he's more of an industrialist.

I have less than half his skill points, and I can pilot many more ships, and more effectively. Others with even less skill points than me can pilot some ships more effectively than I can.

posting in stealth EVE is dying thread.

thanks for all of the replies.

I just hit a wall like I did on the last attempt at this game. I did my exploration tut, then went to business. first mission in business, and I run out of ammo. not really a problem, aside from the fact that I can't get small size ammo for whatever gun is in my bantam. And that probably isn't a huge problem either. The biggest issue I have, is that the mission will give me isk if I complete it quickly. Now that I've jrked around and have to fly back or whatever, and I need to get to bed sometime, I lose out on the isk part of the training mission. And frankly, that pisses me off and is driving me away from the game already.

Thats the learning cliff, keep climbing and it will flatten out.

As tau said, join a good corp. Search for NightCrawler 85's post on how to find one on this new player forum.

I'm sorry, but if that's enough to drive you away from this game, how do you expect to have fun and enjoy it? It's just a mission and the payout loss for not completing it in time will make no big difference on a trial. Also, have you tried to join a corp? The best thing in EVE is the interaction, if you are not willing to find people who can help guide you or simply fly around with you having fun, you're losing the most important aspect of the game, in my opinion.

There are quite a few Corporations that help teach the new players, such as EVE University, Brave Newbies, RvB...Just find the one that you feel will teach you the most and if you don't enjoy it, apply to another.

I'm sorry but I cant help but think the problem here is not with the game. If you dont reserve enough ammo how can you blame the game? If you dont get the bonus ISK, so what? Get it on the next mission! Or the one after that! It's not like you lose on some grand scale, there is an endless amount of missions for you to run. Also we are propably talking here about few jumps for your ammo fetching incident, not using auto-pilot but actually jumping manually takes 2-3 minutes to do several jumps.

It's a sandbox game, there will be setbacks, even in hi-sec space. You might lose your ship in a blink of an eye. You must realize this before it happens, and ask yourself if you can take it? If forgetting to reserve enough ammo is pushing you out of the game, you have to make some preparations to lose a ship that cost potentially millions.

Also, since the game is a sandbox, I dont think it matters if you join the game in year one or year ten. There's no level cap or the latest raid you have to catch up to do and be on same level with others, there's no set of endgoals that everyone is expected to do. In sandbox games everyone is doing their own thing so you basically cant even catch up, just start doing what you want to and you're there.

It's a sandbox, just prepare to lose sometimes and to fail somtimes, potentially big time, then you will have fun in the game since victories and achievements feels that much better when there's an option for actual failure and losses unlike most mmorpgs.

***
Edit; I want to add an example of this "having fun because of potential losses".

I started doing some newbie scanning on a 0.8 system, and found something with my probes. Took a while to pin it down with basically zero skills and combat ship. I finally got it, and made the jump.

Turns out it's a wormhole. I have no idea of the wormhole game. My hands were almost shaking after I decided to look what's on the other side, I had no idea if they are rare or no, or what can be inside, I just got this huge urge to make my biggest exploration step since I was sitting next to wormhole. There I went, even after another explorer turned back on the entrance, and boom landed on the other side, it was a -0.2 system.

I sat in my cloack for a moment trying to figure out the situation and came into conclusion that I'm in no kind of unique place, but in a nullsec system I had no idea about, and propably dead in a minute if I went out there to noob around, and for what? I could not answer the question so I went back through the WH.

It was exciting as heck though and got me more into exploring, which led me to find in the same day merely minutes later a pirate base where I got loot worth 200+ million ISK! Yay!

Nothing wrong with finding out EVE just isnt the game for you.

EVE attracts a small specifuc type of gamer and you arent the first and wont be the last one to findout that EVE isnt made for your gaming needs.

Best of luck in what ever game you will end up playing