Player Features and Ideas Discussion

BLUF: I would like to remove the entry skill requirement for Tech 1 mods/ships for the sake of opening the sand box to players with less than 3 months of skill points. --I would also like a continued discussion on items/functions of the game that detract from the sandbox elements throughout.

This word is being thrown around a lot lately with regard to the game play that exists in eve. While arguably this is true for a player who has already specialized and started to branch out, it's not really true from the start (feels like 3-6 months of game play). This is what appears to be required to overcome before the sandbox is truly visible and playable. IMO it is arguably why veteran players (I use that term loosely) and newbros seem to speak different languages and is also why recruiting for the game is difficult. Most people I know don't have the attention span to spend 3-6 months learning/grinding before they can actually play the game in the manner advertised.

--I'm not suggesting getting rid of specialization, but rather to expand on the starting points prior to specialization. I've noticed that only trading, mining and frigate (arguably also industry, but oddly not industrial ships) are available to a new player at birth or upon completion of the 8 or so hour tutorial. Every other item, mod, ship, has a skill requirement that is largely just a grind that limits that player for a given amount of time and provides a meaningless bonus as it is a requirement for entry. Allowing all players to jump in and fit mods at the most basic subset without training should provide meaning to that entry skill training while opening the entry into the sandbox elements a bit sooner.

So think about ships flying about with no role bonuses or class bonuses with mods that have no base fitting/usage bonuses. It would affect the game for sure, but how much? For the better or worse? Are there some skills that would completely lose value if this was implemented (perhaps--Hull upgrades?).

lemme guess.....eve u is planning on a massive campaign of collapsing wh entrances and your lower sp members cba to train a bs for this.


All a t1 bs with t1 mods would be good for imo with no skills.

Show them this this (suitonia's Kestrel video, the channel in general) or this (Clahim's Velator fun, and the channel in particular). There is no need for much spec to play the game and to PVP, you just need personal skills. If they can't sit through watching these 2 videos and others in at least these 2 channels, these "newbros" are not needed for the game and can get lost back to Angry Bird, Farmville, COD or other games that don't require skills and are made for casual, quick fun.

Then you are trying to recruit the wrong type of players.

It would take my alt--who is anti-specced for this save for implants--about four and a half days to get into a Tempest (just to pick one) from absolutely nothing. Then a little more than six days for the guns. It might take another four or five days to fit the tank. During this time, I would be working my way up the ship ladder from frigate to destroyer to cruiser to battlecruiser.

So, in a little over two weeks, not two or three months, I can sit in a battleship and work the mods. I'll still be terrible at it, but I'll be much better than your no-skill newbie would be.

And here's the thing: at this stage, time isn't my limiting factor. It's ISK. Yes, there are guides out there that show how to make a hundred million ISK in a week with nothing but starting funds, but we're talking your average newbie here. They're going to still be too poor at the end of those two weeks to afford a battleship.

Under your system, what changes? Well, we lie to newbies and tell them they can fly a class of ship right out of the gate when they won't be able to afford one, let alone afford to lose it. We remove encouragement to start small and learn the basics first, learn that EVE is a harsh mistress and there's a CODE. agent around every gate ready to blow up your Merlin, let alone Raven, if they think they can get away with it. We make them think big ships are newbie friendly and that you don't really need those support skills. And in exchange for doing this? Well, maybe we get an influx of new PLEX from gullible P2Wers and the price drops in Jita...

...crap. Brilliant. +1 supported.




(not really)

Yes, lets allow fresh people out of the gate to spend 3 PLEXes to buy battleships, lose them in the next undock and then go and cry over how much money they spent and gained nothing.

This would be extremely bad marketing. No, it wouldn't be good marketing, bad.

Well done.. you have successfully pulled me away from my objective when starting this post.

Perhaps it would be better to discuss my actual goal in this mindset and allow you or others with your vast knowledge of the game play in eve discuss the current limitations with regard to recruiting modern players.

I myself am not a modern gamer and had, for years, the exact same mindset of working for your play. While this is important and necessary in the long run of game play and reaching whatever the definition of EVE is for "endgame" mechanics.. it has occurred to me that making a game that is not fun for the beginner is larger impact in modern times when there is so many other options.

10 years ago, we sat through these grinds and socialized with players in our same circumstance largely because there weren't many other options. MMOs at the time required a huge grind to reach anything that was considered fun, but it was lessened because there were plenty of new players around to group together with. Those old games died off largely because the new player experience was still not fun and there were fewer and fewer new players that could get together with the same comradery. WOW's only saving grace was that they very creatively added advantages to veteran players making alts, which sustained traffic in newbie zones. Currently, when a new player logs into eve for the first time --the zone is empty --EXCEPTION right now--CCP handed out free skill training for 20 days and there are tons of alts in newbie zones, this will pass eventually.

This social void continues to compile upon itself as more corps are forced to consolidate. Proposed changes to Sovereignty seem to suggest that this will not get better as the requirement to live in your sovereign becomes more present. --So how do you fill the void of giving noobies a social element to continue playing. --either give veterans motivation to do newbie things with newbies or modify game play to open up the "fun" elements of the game sooner to keep newbies doing newbie things.

So.. the question is, how to attract the modern gamer. There are other options nowadays as more and more developers move to the FTP model (or P2W if you prefer). The most successful of course figure out how to have a fun and interesting game without a requirement to pay and also don't make the fatal mistake of cash exclusive items that add power beyond what a player could ever achieve for free. This does not mean dumbing down the game.. that is not my intent. But there must be some way to add more new player content without completely alienating the veterans....

The type of player we are looking for isn't one who will stick around doing little to nothing for hours and hours. I got plenty of people at my work like that, they are not fun to work with/for. -- We want players that will participate and are creative to contribute to existing sandbox content. I hope we can at least agree on that point.

I am going to say no, because newer players believe bigger ships = better ships... By flying smaller ships for a longer time, they realize what use they have in the game compared to the bigger ships.

By removing the requirement, you "push" the newer players to easier pursue the larger ships.

This.

In general people learn player skills slower than their characters learn skills.

wasn't trying to be insulting tbh....I have an odd sense of humor. If that was your plan or someones's plan it be kind if different to see tbh. Low, 0.0 and empire massively disruptive ops are old hat. I don't recall a mass interdiction op on wh space so would be interesting lol.


And since you want intelligent and open minded.....pray tell what do you expect these players to do in BS' with nowhere near the skills needed to fly them now to do? I am not being an sp elitist here...I am being a jaded BS pilot who knows CCP doesn't have the req's in place to weed out the noobs. They are there to have BS' actually run half decent. As many shake and bake BS trainers find out even in pve. Have the BS very low skill and they go...umm, I'd though this be a lot better, why does this suck so bad.



What role are you really seeing here is the take away. Roles they'd be effective at. WH collasping and cannon fodder is all I am seeing. Not seeing firewall or disco duty if you say that. There are reasons why rokh liked for this. 16-20% resists boosts ship bonus alone would be one of them.


Also what videos are saying the noobs can't live the dream of. If the latest one I know of Imo the best scenes in were the bombers bar ones. You know, t2 frigates readily accessible to lower sp. I did bs fleet with titans (even the old days of AOE DD). It gets boring. Now the bombers bar scenes...if I could get my damn mac os client to be stable (I can't trust it to not crash just after logging in and not pressing a key after that) I'd get me some of that now that in Rhea my clone doesn't cost more than the damn ship tbh.