Player Features and Ideas Discussion

I run a corp and teach people stuff all the time. One thing I notice is that many people who join never grasp essential concepts despite plenty of time in the game on their own. I think that says something about the game itself.

I'm not trying to win an argument with you. I'm putting forth a suggestion to develop it. You've pointed out one of the most likely flaws with it. So I'm curious if you might see a way around it. I suspect there's some potential in linking it to subscriptions or isk value.

Now if someone stuck around long enough to train up a T1, that's great, but at that point the player only has a single skillset. More flexible rookie ships would allow them to dabble in scanning, wormholes, tackling, dps, ecm, logi and on and on to some degree without having to train each up. It lets someone new experience, to a restricted degree, many aspects of the game rather than being forced into a single role.

That's the problem, there is no point to the suggestion. No one should be capable of WHing, ECM, logi, etc on day one. If they pick one role, there is no reason why they can't join fleets doing that in the first month.

You should absolutely be forced to specialize a bit as a new player. There is a steep learning curve for a reason.

They can dabble with many aspects of the game out of the box. They are called career missions and the SOE arc. At the end of those, a new player has around 20 million ISK and a handful of ships. That's more than enough to get started.

As someone who joined a new player friendly corp when I first started a year ago, I can safely say that if people aren't grasping the concepts even after joining a new player friendly corp, it says a lot more about that corp than it does the game.

I am probably going to give up after this, since you are just posting the same thing over and over, without listening to what people say.

This would take a LOT away from the NPE. Most of the fun of my first month was killing something and waiting/hoping for that module to drop so I could FINALLY have all my low slots full. It was actually trying out an armor repairer for the first time, since I just assumed shields = better and armor was just a 'backup'. I loved testing that out, even though I tried (and failed miserably) to do early missions in a half armor half shield rifter. The sheer size of the universe was amazing, and I loved trying everything.

It was a blast to realize for the first time that I could *actually* make my cargo hold bigger on my little wreathe. If someone blindly handed me ships, that sense of discovery and excitement over figuring out how to conquer the unknown goes out the window. I had no clue logi even existed for a long time. It was exciting to see someone use it for the first time and go back to figure it out. I didn't want a guide, and I didn't want my hand held. That takes the fun out of a game like this.

As evidence of how clueless I was a month in, have some proof

https://zkillboard.com/kill/38035459/

But I ended up having a 45 minute conversation with those guys where they explained to me how to not be so awful at hauling. (They gave me 15 mil too, for listening/learning) That was a great experience, and it would have been a lot less fun if I was just handed a properly fit wreathe and read a manual on how to fit it.

Not to put words in anyone else's mouth, but I suspect most people who play long term feels more like I do than you.


(And new players already start with skillpoints today. They don't start at zero any more, that coupled with a few dozen skillbooks as rewards for career missions gives them a great start)

Edit: if we really want to help new players, write a guide for them on how to better navigate the UI, if anything.

If I may, you remind me soo much of early months of discovery

My first thrill was to open the market on the neocom for the first time since I like to experiement a lot and was just mindblown by the the character creator with twelve deep stories to listen to and read about before you even see a station or a ship.

The market was the first big thing I just had to explore, bajillions of modules, ships, ammo, drones and whatnot to read, analyse or try out - errm no, need x-skill at level 2 to fit (aww man, okay that's 25 minutes well spend I guess) and so on.

Nine years later I still find plenty of stuff to explore and figure out. Xenophobia kept me from the wh-space thing I am doing now. A thing that doesn't look important at first can be the most important thing of all - talking to people. Ask and you shall receive.

I do not know of any other mmo very people give you back stuff or even ships when they recognize you for doing videos or blogs or other stuff you liked.

I killed a Caracal in lowsec and gave the poor guy 10 million isk and brought the modules it dropped back to the station he docked on and told him how to improve his Caracal for ratting next time.

A few jumps over I jumped into a smartbombing Rokh - no good deed..