I would sign-up for this game so damn fast if it wasn't for their "real-time-you-will-never-catch-up" leveling system. I know it's an old complaint that many vets try very hard to convince everyone is not important but I wonder how many of those same vets would embrace any significant change to the leveling system. It'll never happen.
Obvious troll is obvious.
This has been asked and answered thousands of times on the EVE forums. There is absolutely no need to catch up. And by the time you've been in the game a year you're "older" than half the pilots in the game anyway.
"catch up" is a myth spawned by people too lazy to figure out the game mechanics and why "catching up" is irrelevant.
Disagreed.
There is a huge problem for new players and that is simply that no corps worth a damn will invite you for at least 6 months-1year. This leaves you trying to learn the game solo, which is a very difficult thing to do. The only option most players who actually want to be decent in combat is to mission for a couple months (which gets incredibly boring) - and the problem here is that even after that they will only be skilled for missioning.
It isnt very appealing for new players the only see the missoning portion of the game for their first 2 subsciption cycles.
Sure, they can get in a Domi in a few weeks.. but they wont be skilled enough to actually do good. They have to do ALOT of grinding to afford rigs etc to make it worth it. As they approach the point of getting able to mission successfully for a profit, their going to randomly lose ships here and there because their tank cant hold up. This ends up being like an 100m hit for new players due to loss of rigs, which is effectively a couple days of work. And their stuck with an unrigged Domi, that their skills are NOT good enough to successfully mission in.
As someone said earlier, if your a solo player then Eve is not the game for you. Yet your only choice is to solo or join small corps of people who dont know what they are doing, where you wont have enough total skill points or enough manpower to achieve very much.
It's easy to say you can just hop in a frig and play the role of tackler, but try making a new character, talk to none of your old friends, completely cut yourself off from yuor other characters assistance and ISK, and see how much fun you actually have for the first few months... being a tackler is worthless without decent players by your side.
What a complete load of nonsense. You can be very competitive in this game in a minimum of three months and that is just not tackling. Nothing like stamping the "clueless" monicker on your forehead with that diatribe.
There are plenty of good corporations that take anyone not on trial. Best you get in a small one to start that has experienced members. Trying to claim no one will let you join just shows you did not even try.
I would sign-up for this game so damn fast if it wasn't for their "real-time-you-will-never-catch-up" leveling system. I know it's an old complaint that many vets try very hard to convince everyone is not important but I wonder how many of those same vets would embrace any significant change to the leveling system. It'll never happen.
Obvious troll is obvious.
This has been asked and answered thousands of times on the EVE forums. There is absolutely no need to catch up. And by the time you've been in the game a year you're "older" than half the pilots in the game anyway.
"catch up" is a myth spawned by people too lazy to figure out the game mechanics and why "catching up" is irrelevant.
Disagreed.
There is a huge problem for new players and that is simply that no corps worth a damn will invite you for at least 6 months-1year. This leaves you trying to learn the game solo, which is a very difficult thing to do. The only option most players who actually want to be decent in combat is to mission for a couple months (which gets incredibly boring) - and the problem here is that even after that they will only be skilled for missioning.
It isnt very appealing for new players the only see the missoning portion of the game for their first 2 subsciption cycles.
Sure, they can get in a Domi in a few weeks.. but they wont be skilled enough to actually do good. They have to do ALOT of grinding to afford rigs etc to make it worth it. As they approach the point of getting able to mission successfully for a profit, their going to randomly lose ships here and there because their tank cant hold up. This ends up being like an 100m hit for new players due to loss of rigs, which is effectively a couple days of work. And their stuck with an unrigged Domi, that their skills are NOT good enough to successfully mission in.
As someone said earlier, if your a solo player then Eve is not the game for you. Yet your only choice is to solo or join small corps of people who dont know what they are doing, where you wont have enough total skill points or enough manpower to achieve very much.
It's easy to say you can just hop in a frig and play the role of tackler, but try making a new character, talk to none of your old friends, completely cut yourself off from yuor other characters assistance and ISK, and see how much fun you actually have for the first few months... being a tackler is worthless without decent players by your side.
What a complete load of nonsense. You can be very competitive in this game in a minimum of three months and that is just not tackling. Nothing like stamping the "clueless" monicker on your forehead with that diatribe.
There are plenty of good corporations that take anyone not on trial. Best you get in a small one to start that has experienced members. Trying to claim no one will let you join just shows you did not even try.
Umm, if you notice, I said "for their first 2 subscription cycles.
In other words, that means everything I said was before three months. So what you said is pretty much in agreement to what I said...
I would sign-up for this game so damn fast if it wasn't for their "real-time-you-will-never-catch-up" leveling system. I know it's an old complaint that many vets try very hard to convince everyone is not important but I wonder how many of those same vets would embrace any significant change to the leveling system. It'll never happen.
Yeah catching up level wise is un important. Sure those vets from beta can fly fancy pants jump frieghters and titans but within a week or so of playing you can get together a decent frig. You may not have known this but its like absolutly impossible for someone to kill a frig in a frieghter. The thing I love most about Eve is that players new or old are all just as important on the battlefeild.
Although this expansion sounds exciting, a WoW type of population does not... Just think of the gate camps in Eve with 2 million ship population! Imagine how crowded 0.0 and lowsec will be! And ponder the massive armies of noobs GoonSwarm will obtain! Oh the horror!!!
One of the points of EVE to keep in mind: A 2 month nOOb has the ability to kite a 3 year vet'. Let's look at this. Here I am... In a Fleet op.. No one stepped up to take on the role of tackler, so I fit out a cheap frigate with a micro-warp drive and some warp jammers and webifiers so I can help hold down the targets. Up high I might have a couple light missile launchers or small turrets... Nothing that's going to cause much damage, but just enough to pew-pew with. At this point, I'm no stronger than anyone else in a frigate, and I'm certainly no stronger than anyone else in a bigger ship. Maybe my skills allow me to use better micro-warp drives, or allow me to "use" my equipment more efficiently. Maybe I'll get a few more points of CPU or Powergrid, or Cap'. But really, I'm still in a frigate... I'm still _very_ squishy, and if I'm not paying attention anyone will be able to take me out, be it another 3 year vet' or a 2 month nOOb in a ship of their own. Try making that claim in an XP-grinding, "level-based" MMO. Go ahead and put a level 10 warrior up against say a level 50 or level 80 warrior in your basic Hack'n'Slash game. The vet' could stand in an open field nekkid, with no armor and no weapons, and that poor level 10 player would never be able to kill him. And even weaponless and armorless that vet' would most-likely 1-hit-dead or 2-hit-dead that level 10 player.
EVE is level based, it is just hidden, or rather expressed in such a way that is not as apparent as a Level number besides your life Bar.
In essence, the more skills you have the higher level you are, and the way to get more skills is unfortunately time based not action based.
All other factors being equal,
If you are level 20 million skill points in a Frigate, and go against a 2 million skill-points guy in another frigate, you will win.
If you are a 20 million skill points and go against a 3 million skill-points in a Cruiser, you will lose.
But if you go on a cruiser, and go against the same 3 million skill points guy on a cruiser you will win.
Your example with the noob acting as a Tackler is a nice way for new players to get their feet wet in Fleet ops, but, ultimately these players want to be able to fight, and don;t want to wait months before they can fight in (at least a a Battleship), and definitelly are very dissapointed when they find out that they have to wait even many more months in order to efficiently use that batleship, and are additionally dissapointed when they realise that..
When Equal sized ships are involved, the guy with the more skill points (level) will most often win the fight.
And the worse thing is, that as long as that guy with more skill points is active you can never catch up to them.
In most other level based games, you may not be able to kill that lvl 50 or 80 as a level 10, but, you can catch up in a reasonable time, and he will still be 50 or 80 when you raise and equal the playing field, and then you use your "player skill" and can win.
In EvE, it takes what....25 years to max all skills, and reach the highest possible level?
Sorry, EVE maybe a Sandbox game, which I love, but it is not a Character Skill Based System either, it is a Level Based system, a very long level based system at that.
EvE needs a fundamental change in its mechanics if it wants to accomplish mainstream popularity (level based Systems are not the best suited for PvP - Shadowbane is a prime example of how counterproductive a Level based system is with a PvP focus).
Or,
A shift in gameplay direction, become more PVE oriented (WoW is level based and a PVE game first and foremost).
As long as neither of these two things happens, it will remain a niche game..
- Duke Suraknar - Order of the Silver Star, OSS
ESKA, Playing MMORPG's since Ultima Online 1997 - Order of the Silver Serpent, Atlantic Shard
One of the points of EVE to keep in mind: A 2 month nOOb has the ability to kite a 3 year vet'. Let's look at this. Here I am... In a Fleet op.. No one stepped up to take on the role of tackler, so I fit out a cheap frigate with a micro-warp drive and some warp jammers and webifiers so I can help hold down the targets. Up high I might have a couple light missile launchers or small turrets... Nothing that's going to cause much damage, but just enough to pew-pew with. At this point, I'm no stronger than anyone else in a frigate, and I'm certainly no stronger than anyone else in a bigger ship. Maybe my skills allow me to use better micro-warp drives, or allow me to "use" my equipment more efficiently. Maybe I'll get a few more points of CPU or Powergrid, or Cap'. But really, I'm still in a frigate... I'm still _very_ squishy, and if I'm not paying attention anyone will be able to take me out, be it another 3 year vet' or a 2 month nOOb in a ship of their own. Try making that claim in an XP-grinding, "level-based" MMO. Go ahead and put a level 10 warrior up against say a level 50 or level 80 warrior in your basic Hack'n'Slash game. The vet' could stand in an open field nekkid, with no armor and no weapons, and that poor level 10 player would never be able to kill him. And even weaponless and armorless that vet' would most-likely 1-hit-dead or 2-hit-dead that level 10 player.
EVE is level based, it is just hidden, or rather expressed in such a way that is not as apparent as a Level number besides your life Bar.
In essence, the more skills you have the higher level you are, and the way to get more skills is unfortunately time based not action based.
All other factors being equal,
If you are level 20 million skill points in a Frigate, and go against a 2 million skill-points guy in another frigate, you will win.
If you are a 20 million skill points and go against a 3 million skill-points in a Cruiser, you will lose.
But if you go on a cruiser, and go against the same 3 million skill points guy on a cruiser you will win.
Your example with the noob acting as a Tackler is a nice way for new players to get their feet wet in Fleet ops, but, ultimately these players want to be able to fight, and don;t want to wait months before they can fight in (at least a a Battleship), and definitelly are very dissapointed when they find out that they have to wait even many more months in order to efficiently use that batleship, and are additionally dissapointed when they realise that..
When Equal sized ships are involved, the guy with the more skill points (level) will most often win the fight.
And the worse thing is, that as long as that guy with more skill points is active you can never catch up to them.
In most other level based games, you may not be able to kill that lvl 50 or 80 as a level 10, but, you can catch up in a reasonable time, and he will still be 50 or 80 when you raise and equal the playing field, and then you use your "player skill" and can win.
In EvE, it takes what....25 years to max all skills, and reach the highest possible level?
Sorry, EVE maybe a Sandbox game, which I love, but it is not a Character Skill Based System either, it is a Level Based system, a very long level based system at that.
EvE needs a fundamental change in its mechanics if it wants to accomplish mainstream popularity (level based Systems are not the best suited for PvP - Shadowbane is a prime example of how counterproductive a Level based system is with a PvP focus).
Or,
A shift in gameplay direction, become more PVE oriented (WoW is level based and a PVE game first and foremost).
As long as neither of these two things happens, it will remain a niche game..
First of all, this is all a bunch of BS. If there are levels then they are based on ships only. I tend to fly Recons/Battleships. Maxing out those skills will take time, but a 60 millions skill point character with no recon skills is a crappy recon pilot. Where as my 15 million skill point focused recon pilot will take them easily in a 1v1 recon (of course depends on what racial ship they are flying as well). You can easily max out skills for a particular ship role. Capitals are about the only ships in the game that vets will have easy access to. But no newer player is going to want one (really you don't) because all of them are only beneficial in experience corps/alliances otherwise you'll lose them easily.
As for the battleship argument: Yes you are right. Getting a fleet fitted battleship takes time and most alliance (not all though) expect T2 Large guns. But most newer players, at least I highly suggest, don't bother themselves with 0.0 politicals BS. Within my corp we have members who roam/pirate in cruisers. Not T2 high sp required ships, but with T1 cruiser. Usually with crap or really basic fits. I've seen them take out battleships easily. In some cases they were easily able to solo battleships or other ships. Based on tactics, predicting a players next move and knowing the surrounding region. Sometimes its just plain luck. But still you can see it is quite a valid tactic. There are kill mails to prove it.
To me it doesn't sound like you want a sandbox game. Most, if not all of them, do not have cap offs that you speak of. Eve in a sense does, you can easily get the max skills for a particular ship and out play vets that have double your sp.
Stop spreading this BS.
Why is it that Eve threads always end up like this?
------------------- If ever there was a time to rise if ever there was a time to join hands with our brothers that time is now. At this exact junction in history we have within our grasp the means to loosen our tormentors hold and win freedom for our kin. Opportunities are there to be taken.
One of the points of EVE to keep in mind: A 2 month nOOb has the ability to kite a 3 year vet'. Let's look at this. Here I am... In a Fleet op.. No one stepped up to take on the role of tackler, so I fit out a cheap frigate with a micro-warp drive and some warp jammers and webifiers so I can help hold down the targets. Up high I might have a couple light missile launchers or small turrets... Nothing that's going to cause much damage, but just enough to pew-pew with. At this point, I'm no stronger than anyone else in a frigate, and I'm certainly no stronger than anyone else in a bigger ship. Maybe my skills allow me to use better micro-warp drives, or allow me to "use" my equipment more efficiently. Maybe I'll get a few more points of CPU or Powergrid, or Cap'. But really, I'm still in a frigate... I'm still _very_ squishy, and if I'm not paying attention anyone will be able to take me out, be it another 3 year vet' or a 2 month nOOb in a ship of their own. Try making that claim in an XP-grinding, "level-based" MMO. Go ahead and put a level 10 warrior up against say a level 50 or level 80 warrior in your basic Hack'n'Slash game. The vet' could stand in an open field nekkid, with no armor and no weapons, and that poor level 10 player would never be able to kill him. And even weaponless and armorless that vet' would most-likely 1-hit-dead or 2-hit-dead that level 10 player.
EVE is level based, it is just hidden, or rather expressed in such a way that is not as apparent as a Level number besides your life Bar.
In essence, the more skills you have the higher level you are, and the way to get more skills is unfortunately time based not action based.
All other factors being equal,
If you are level 20 million skill points in a Frigate, and go against a 2 million skill-points guy in another frigate, you will win.
If you are a 20 million skill points and go against a 3 million skill-points in a Cruiser, you will lose.
But if you go on a cruiser, and go against the same 3 million skill points guy on a cruiser you will win.
Your example with the noob acting as a Tackler is a nice way for new players to get their feet wet in Fleet ops, but, ultimately these players want to be able to fight, and don;t want to wait months before they can fight in (at least a a Battleship), and definitelly are very dissapointed when they find out that they have to wait even many more months in order to efficiently use that batleship, and are additionally dissapointed when they realise that..
When Equal sized ships are involved, the guy with the more skill points (level) will most often win the fight.
And the worse thing is, that as long as that guy with more skill points is active you can never catch up to them.
In most other level based games, you may not be able to kill that lvl 50 or 80 as a level 10, but, you can catch up in a reasonable time, and he will still be 50 or 80 when you raise and equal the playing field, and then you use your "player skill" and can win.
In EvE, it takes what....25 years to max all skills, and reach the highest possible level?
Sorry, EVE maybe a Sandbox game, which I love, but it is not a Character Skill Based System either, it is a Level Based system, a very long level based system at that.
EvE needs a fundamental change in its mechanics if it wants to accomplish mainstream popularity (level based Systems are not the best suited for PvP - Shadowbane is a prime example of how counterproductive a Level based system is with a PvP focus).
Or,
A shift in gameplay direction, become more PVE oriented (WoW is level based and a PVE game first and foremost).
As long as neither of these two things happens, it will remain a niche game..
All that long post did was reaffirm to any reader that has played Eve that you have not played the game. If you do not understand a game, making illinformed comments is a pretty dumb thing to do. There are no levels in Eve, nothing even close. That account that posted the 100k skillpoints can easily lose to one with a couple million.
Next time pick a subject you have even a little bit of knowledge about.
Originally posted by Suraknar If you are level 20 million skill points in a Frigate, and go against a 2 million skill-points guy in another frigate, you will win.
No, not entirely true. Just because you have 20 million skillpoints, doesn't mean that all those skill points are going to assist you with piloting your frigate. You're limited by many factors what you can fit, hence what you can use, on each individual ship.
With a Frigate, setup up for combat, you'll be lucky to fit a couple light missile launchers and a couple small turrets. Maybe a Civilian or a 1MN A/B or MWD. Probably a Civ. or a Small shield booster. And probably a couple other mods here and there. Depending on your race, ship, wallet, will determine what you mount up on your frigate.
So you see, just because you can fly a buttload of fancy ships with your 20 or 30 million skill points, if you hop into a frigate, you're certainly not taking advantage of those 20 or 30 million skillpoints.
Experience, know-how, and paying attention to your situation will often help _MUCH_ more than simply having more skillpoints than the other guy.
Originally posted by Suraknar Your example with the noob acting as a Tackler is a nice way for new players to get their feet wet in Fleet ops, but, ultimately these players want to be able to fight, and don;t want to wait months before they can fight in (at least a a Battleship), and definitelly are very dissapointed when they find out that they have to wait even many more months in order to efficiently use that batleship, and are additionally dissapointed when they realise that..
In my example, I mentioned playing the role of tackler, yes. But that doesn't mean that's all a frigate is good for. Far from true. Especially since that last couple updates. Frigates are making a big comeback lately.
I mentioned the role of tackler, because my example happened pretty much word for word as I offered it. I fit myself with a frigate for a certain fleet op I was a part of. I could have simply said screw it, and stayed in my Nighthawk (command ship), but I stepped up to play the role of tackler. _ALL_ roles in fleet ops are important! Tackler, logistics, damage-dealers, and so on, you need them all for a successful outcome.
Of course, since I was playing the role of tackler I setup a cheap Merlin, with all T1 equipment. You know why? Cause Tacklers die. That's our job. We fly in. We pretty much have no offensive damage. We're there to pin down, hold, and in my case weapon scram the target. So guess what happens to the Tacklers when you're target is another corp's Carrier, or Titan? They tend to target the Tacklers and pop them off.
It doesn't matter that I had over 30 million skillpoints when this fleet op went down. I still eventually got target-locked and taken out. By other frigates mind you, since we're not exactly easy to hit by the bigger ships. The opposing corp didn't like the fact that us Tacklers were holding down their most expensive pilots, and eventually they popped us. Not before we did our job, though, and assisted our fleet with taking out a number of their BS, numerous Cruisers, and a few of their Logistic ships.
We simply zipped back to the station in our pods, hopped in more frigates and ran back out to continue helping.
Originally posted by Suraknar And the worse thing is, that as long as that guy with more skill points is active you can never catch up to them.
So wrong. There is only so many skillpoints you can learn in any given category, so this statement is so far from the truth. As you train the more advanced skills it takes you longer and longer to finish them off. The fact that you have no idea about the skill training mechanics in EVE is very obvious, so I won't even bother expanding on the issue.
Originally posted by Suraknar A shift in gameplay direction, become more PVE oriented (WoW is level based and a PVE game first and foremost).As long as neither of these two things happens, it will remain a niche game..
Umm.. How about this idea. For people who want hand-holding, story-based PvE games, they can just go play something other than EVE. Seriously, if every game was like WoW, what good would that be? The people that like the WoW-type game would simply play WoW, and all the other copycats would just curl up and die.
It's true EVE is a niche game, as you say. But so is any other game that's not simply following along like a fricken lemming. It's the copycats that come and go quicker than they can turn a profit. Why would anyone want to play the same game with a different skin? What a waste.
EVE is EVE, and with all luck it will always be EVE. Same as WoW is WoW.
You don't like EVE? Well, I didn't enjoy WoW. Nor did I enjoy LOTRO. Why? Because I don't like to be lead by the hand in my safe little box-of-a-world. The openness, the vastness, the excitement of taking out the other guy before he gets you, the real danger and sense of loss when you get popped instead, the limitless possibilities that I have before me in EVE. _THAT_ is why EVE is EVE, and why we who are part of that world enjoy it.
Well, guys for the record, and for those that try to make a point that I do not know the game instead of actually bringing forth counter arguments upon what I said.
I beta tested EvE, and I been around in it for a long time. I may not be active in its forums etc, but i am there, reading, and playing, and experiencing it.
My current character is almost 3 years old. As for WoW, I do not like that game and I did give it a fair chance too. I started playing these games with UO, the playground type of game is my type of game, and I do not play themepark games for more than 6 months usually, that is about how long they keep my attention.
Now,
Some interesting points were brought up, and I won't say that these do not have merit, I am not disputing, Combat tactics and mechanics here. I am simply stating that EvE, even if a Sandbox game, does not have a Skill based system. And this doe snot come out of my ignorance hat, it comes from actual experience, playing EVE and many other MMORPG's since Ultima Online.
What I have been observing in EVE for the Past 2 years or so, is an increassing number of people prefering Mission running rather than what EVE used to be an "eat or be eaten" kind of game.
I also observe resentment from the Vets towards the "new" players. But, player politics asside. It wondered, why is it like that.
The fact is because most people tryed PvP and got their buts handed to them, by far more experienced ones, and then the answer was "you need more skills here and more skills there" etc etc. Skill in EVE however, are only gotten through time. And there comes a point where people simply log on to change a skill and log off to play some other game. Then many start wondering, Why am I even subscribed to that game I am not even playing?
See, people don't want to wait 3 months before their character is ready to matter, because what they want to do is have fun, yet, the Level at which they are told they could be having an average success vs Risk result is in 3 months from today, in many case more, depending what one wishes to do and what ship they want to be effectively be flying.
Another reason is that Mission Combat (EvE PvE) is actually very fun to many people, more fun than PvP Combat. Not because the AI is Dump but because it is a straight up Fight, Big lvl 4 Missions with a small Fleet are lots of fun. But I am now diverging too much from the topic, which is the Level system, Combat mechanics are a whole different story and an area needing improvement as well.
Suffice it to say that the above reasons is why I presented the PvE approach alternative, it is not my prefered solution however.
I would prefer that CCP actually sits down for once and rethinks their approach to this system and comes up with a more streamlined approach to Skills, that permits players to reach the point they want to faster and within a more reasonable time frame, that also permits people to catch one another in some given area within that reasonable time frame, so that they don't have to worry about their skills anymore and focus instead on the many and diverse activities of a playground.
I know one of the major reasons they haven;t touched that is because there will be an outcry by the vets who actually did spend years perfecting their characters, and that it will cause many to rage quit, yet, it depends on what CCP wants too. If CCP is happy with the current player bas, then no changes are needed, if not, they can start at the bottm with the Skill/Level system.
While I would agree with many of you that 14 days is not enough really to fully grasp EVE, some of the long terms points he makes are valid.
At least the Certification planner, helps, this is one of the best features since EVE's launch, it does help players to have a better idea of how to go where they need to go in order to accomplish that which they want to be doing.
However, It still takes months, if not years ....of waiting (instead of playing).
- Duke Suraknar - Order of the Silver Star, OSS
ESKA, Playing MMORPG's since Ultima Online 1997 - Order of the Silver Serpent, Atlantic Shard
Well, guys for the record, and for those that try to make a point that I do not know the game instead of actually bringing forth counter arguments upon what I said. I beta tested EvE, and I been around in it for a long time. I may not be active in its forums etc, but i am there, reading, and playing, and experiencing it. My current character is almost 3 years old. As for WoW, I do not like that game and I did give it a fair chance too. I started playing these games with UO, the playground type of game is my type of game, and I do not play themepark games for more than 6 months usually, that is about how long they keep my attention. Now, Some interesting points were brought up, and I won't say that these do not have merit, I am not disputing, Combat tactics and mechanics here. I am simply stating that EvE, even if a Sandbox game, does not have a Skill based system. And this doe snot come out of my ignorance hat, it comes from actual experience, playing EVE and many other MMORPG's since Ultima Online. What I have been observing in EVE for the Past 2 years or so, is an increassing number of people prefering Mission running rather than what EVE used to be an "eat or be eaten" kind of game. I also observe resentment from the Vets towards the "new" players. But, player politics asside. It wondered, why is it like that. The fact is because most people tryed PvP and got their buts handed to them, by far more experienced ones, and then the answer was "you need more skills here and more skills there" etc etc. Skill in EVE however, are only gotten through time. And there comes a point where people simply log on to change a skill and log off to play some other game. Then many start wondering, Why am I even subscribed to that game I am not even playing? See, people don't want to wait 3 months before their character is ready to matter, because what they want to do is have fun, yet, the Level at which they are told they could be having an average success vs Risk result is in 3 months from today, in many case more, depending what one wishes to do and what ship they want to be effectively be flying. Another reason is that Mission Combat (EvE PvE) is actually very fun to many people, more fun than PvP Combat. Not because the AI is Dump but because it is a straight up Fight, Big lvl 4 Missions with a small Fleet are lots of fun. But I am now diverging too much from the topic, which is the Level system, Combat mechanics are a whole different story and an area needing improvement as well. Suffice it to say that the above reasons is why I presented the PvE approach alternative, it is not my prefered solution however. I would prefer that CCP actually sits down for once and rethinks their approach to this system and comes up with a more streamlined approach to Skills, that permits players to reach the point they want to faster and within a more reasonable time frame, that also permits people to catch one another in some given area within that reasonable time frame, so that they don't have to worry about their skills anymore and focus instead on the many and diverse activities of a playground. I know one of the major reasons they haven;t touched that is because there will be an outcry by the vets who actually did spend years perfecting their characters, and that it will cause many to rage quit, yet, it depends on what CCP wants too. If CCP is happy with the current player bas, then no changes are needed, if not, they can start at the bottm with the Skill/Level system. Take a look at this: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/208-Eve-Online While I would agree with many of you that 14 days is not enough really to fully grasp EVE, some of the long terms points he makes are valid. At least the Certification planner, helps, this is one of the best features since EVE's launch, it does help players to have a better idea of how to go where they need to go in order to accomplish that which they want to be doing. However, It still takes months, if not years ....of waiting (instead of playing).
Sorry, just reading your posts make it almost impossible to believe you are an actual veteran of the game. They are so full in inaccuracies and pure nonsense trying to push forth that levels exist in this game that the only logical conclusion is you just like to argue over nonsensical things.
By the way please explain to me a game where you don't have to develop your character to pvp? And I am not talking about small BG's either. That is right none, which completely obiviates your entire argument. Depending on the development path you take, you can be in t2 frigates in a month and very competitive at that. Remember they upped the starting skill points a lot.
If you actually do play the game, I feel truely sorry for your corpmates to have someone so uninformed about the game.
Originally posted by Suraknar I know one of the major reasons they haven't touched that is because there will be an outcry by the vets who actually did spend years perfecting their characters, and that it will cause many to rage quit
Or... And call me crazy... Maybe things are working as intended...
Originally posted by Suraknar However, It still takes months, if not years ....of waiting (instead of playing).
I was part of player-corp very soon after I started my life inside EVE. Within the first month, if I remember correctly. And I was helping out with combat and non-combat ops from day 1 of my being with them.
I'm not understanding the whole "waiting (instead of playing)" way of thinking. If a player is not currently in a player corp, and is currently residing in Empire, why wouldn't you at least run missions or mine to earn ISK and LPs until you find a corp' to join? I'm currently between player corps myself, and in the mean time I'm fattening up my wallet solo-running level 4 missions. It's not like you get rich just from being in a 0.0 corp, so you might as well pad the bank account until you decide where you want to go.
Name one other MMO where a player just waits around until he/she joins a player-run guild to accomplish anything. I'm thinking ... NONE
Why would you even pay a subscription to a game at all, if you were just going to sit around and do nothing?
Yea the current mission system in EVE is pretty boring and repetitive, but the same thing can be said for pretty much any MMO's mission system. Most combat missions in any MMO are simply "go here, kill this guy, collect that loot, come back when you're done". Same thing for courier missions, "go here, pick this up, go there, drop it off, come back when you're done". Not really surprising, really, since MMO does not mean single-player. But still, to simply do nothing?
EVE is level based, it is just hidden, or rather expressed in such a way that is not as apparent as a Level number besides your life Bar. - No, its not.
In essence, the more skills you have the higher level you are, and the way to get more skills is unfortunately time based not action based. - I'll agree with the 2nd half of your statement, but I don't think time-based training is a bad thing.
All other factors being equal,
If you are level 20 million skill points in a Frigate, and go against a 2 million skill-points guy in another frigate, you will win. -
You cannot train 20M sps that would benefit a Frigate. At most, 5M tops, (if that) then any additional training is minor in terms of impact. Since any player can train 5M SP's in frigs they reach parity with the veteran, who probably has his 20M SP's spread out among 1/2 dozen ship types.
If you are a 20 million skill points and go against a 3 million skill-points in a Cruiser, you will lose.
Frigs vs Cruisers usually a bad bet, assuming both are fitted for PVP equally. However, many a cruiser has gone down to a pack of cruisers, which is how players in EVE generally fight, in packs. Stop looking at EVE as a one vs one pvp game. Also, pvp frig vs cruiser fitted from mining, no contest.
But if you go on a cruiser, and go against the same 3 million skill points guy on a cruiser you will win.
Again, if both players have the same number of SP's trained up in cruiser skills (and there is a max value here as well) the outcome usually comes down to the skill of the pilot and who fitted what on their ships before the fight. So many variables go into determining who wins a fight in EVE, and you keep boiling it down to its most simple component, SP's.
Your example with the noob acting as a Tackler is a nice way for new players to get their feet wet in Fleet ops, but, ultimately these players want to be able to fight, and don;t want to wait months before they can fight in (at least a a Battleship), and definitelly are very dissapointed when they find out that they have to wait even many more months in order to efficiently use that batleship, and are additionally dissapointed when they realise that.
Why shouldn't they wait to fight? Who said anyone "deserves" to fight in a T2 BS in a few months? Who says everyone must fight in a BS in few months. Its called patience, and learning how to fly the other ships. Go fit yourself a Blackbird or Scorpian and see how much havoc you can cause in a fleet situation. Its true, the big fleet engagements are best flown by pilots with 9 months or more experience, but hey, all games require a learning curve, you're just unhappy with the speed EVE lets you progress at.
When Equal sized ships are involved, the guy with the more skill points (level) will most often win the fight.
But do you know why this is? Usually because the person with more SP's has more practice PVPing than the other, and its the real deciding factor. I assure you, there are vets who create an alt and with only 5M SP's they'll tear you apart, not from their SP's but how well they fight the ship.
And the worse thing is, that as long as that guy with more skill points is active you can never catch up to them.
And as we've explained, you don't need to. Right now, I fly a Tempest Sniper about as good as it can be fit, and I doubt many players would waste the time getting an extra 5% in the few gunnery areas I don't have level 5's in.
In most other level based games, you may not be able to kill that lvl 50 or 80 as a level 10, but, you can catch up in a reasonable time, and he will still be 50 or 80 when you raise and equal the playing field, and then you use your "player skill" and can win.
Generally, those veterans you speak of in other games will have a huge edge of you in terms of gear, which will give them a big advantage over you right from the start. Toss in any skill they might have by playing at their level longer than you, and you're pretty much going to lose more often than not.
In EvE, it takes what....25 years to max all skills, and reach the highest possible level?
Sigh.....except there is no 'max level'. You don't need all of those skills to have fun in EVE. If you want them all, recommend you start making 2nd, 3rd, 4th accounts....then you can experience it all. See, there's the rub, you can't do it all on one character in EVE..unlike many games... they want you to pay for more accounts...sneaky bastards, trying to get more of your money, go figure.
Sorry, EVE maybe a Sandbox game, which I love, but it is not a Character Skill Based System either, it is a Level Based system, a very long level based system at that.
No, you're flat out wrong, you just never understood the mechanics of the game, no matter how long you said you've played. (little more than 19 months for me actually)
EvE needs a fundamental change in its mechanics if it wants to accomplish mainstream popularity (level based Systems are not the best suited for PvP - Shadowbane is a prime example of how counterproductive a Level based system is with a PvP focus).
No, it doesn't. EVE is not perfect, and lets hope they never try to get WOW like sub numbers or they'll screw the game all up for the rest of us for sure. You are correct though, SB is a good example why levels/Pvp don't work.
Or,
A shift in gameplay direction, become more PVE oriented (WoW is level based and a PVE game first and foremost).
I'd like to see some better PVE options to be honest, for those who prefer to focus on them, but not at the expense of the pvp system, rather to support it instead.
As long as neither of these two things happens, it will remain a niche game..
There is a chance players will get a bit more discriminating in their tastes, and CCP will continue to add features such as ambulation that might draw in more of the casual PVE market.
But ask yourself, EVE has 250K subs now, which continue to grow yearly, so at what point is it no longer a niche game? 500K, a milliion?
Yowza, I know in a later post you take offense when people quesiton your understanding of the game instead of addressing your points, so that's what I went ahead and did here.
If you had come in these forums and said, EVE is nothing but a big blob fest and the side with the most ships generally wins you would have found far more people in agreement with you. (but gotten some serious argument as well).
But to say that EVE is level based, and not understand the SP training system when a majority of the posters in these forums clearly are of a similar mind set as my own, well, expect your ideas to be rejected outright.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I would sign-up for this game so damn fast if it wasn't for their "real-time-you-will-never-catch-up" leveling system. I know it's an old complaint that many vets try very hard to convince everyone is not important but I wonder how many of those same vets would embrace any significant change to the leveling system. It'll never happen.
i'd sign up for wow so damn fast if it wasn't for their "grind to max level (first 60, then 70, now 80), then grind reputation with 20 factions, then grind 5 profession type skills to max level, then grind dungeon after dungeon 50+ times in order for everyone to get that tier's gear and then rinse/repeat times another dozen dungeons, AND THEN grind thru pvp gear in arenas and battlegrounds,". i know it's a complaint that many wow vets try hard to whitewash and convince everyone that it's not important, but i wonder how many of those same vets would embrace any significant change to the grinding system. It'll never happen.
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
It's funny when the "haves" of Eve try to say that everything is completely easy and that the average player isn't completely pigeonholed into boredom...
i'd recently made a new toon, no help from me, no one in my corp/alliance know it's me...
given, i have played eve for a while and i DO go and read on what is/isn't good to do.
got into a decent corp, good guys. yeah, i'm sorry, i have to completely disagree with the quoted.
again, eve isn't wow/eq/etc, you do need to read and research and unless you just want to be self-sufficient; you need to be part of a larger group.
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
I would sign-up for this game so damn fast if it wasn't for their "real-time-you-will-never-catch-up" leveling system. I know it's an old complaint that many vets try very hard to convince everyone is not important but I wonder how many of those same vets would embrace any significant change to the leveling system. It'll never happen.
Obvious troll is obvious.
This has been asked and answered thousands of times on the EVE forums. There is absolutely no need to catch up. And by the time you've been in the game a year you're "older" than half the pilots in the game anyway.
"catch up" is a myth spawned by people too lazy to figure out the game mechanics and why "catching up" is irrelevant.
Disagreed.
There is a huge problem for new players and that is simply that no corps worth a damn will invite you for at least 6 months-1year. This leaves you trying to learn the game solo, which is a very difficult thing to do. The only option most players who actually want to be decent in combat is to mission for a couple months (which gets incredibly boring) - and the problem here is that even after that they will only be skilled for missioning.
It isnt very appealing for new players the only see the missoning portion of the game for their first 2 subsciption cycles.
Sure, they can get in a Domi in a few weeks.. but they wont be skilled enough to actually do good. They have to do ALOT of grinding to afford rigs etc to make it worth it. As they approach the point of getting able to mission successfully for a profit, their going to randomly lose ships here and there because their tank cant hold up. This ends up being like an 100m hit for new players due to loss of rigs, which is effectively a couple days of work. And their stuck with an unrigged Domi, that their skills are NOT good enough to successfully mission in.
As someone said earlier, if your a solo player then Eve is not the game for you. Yet your only choice is to solo or join small corps of people who dont know what they are doing, where you wont have enough total skill points or enough manpower to achieve very much.
It's easy to say you can just hop in a frig and play the role of tackler, but try making a new character, talk to none of your old friends, completely cut yourself off from yuor other characters assistance and ISK, and see how much fun you actually have for the first few months... being a tackler is worthless without decent players by your side.
there is this forum on the official eve-o forums... it's called recruitment or corp recruitment, or something along those lines.
you go in there, you look at the different corps recruiting. you pick half a dozen you find interesting.
you visit their websites. once you find one that sounds to your liking, you then talk to them ingame.
in other games, you get a random blind invite to join their guild and you just go along.
other games don't control vast areas of the gaming environment. other games don't have wars between the guilds, where one guild CAN displace another guild and take over the first guild's home. other games don't have 1,000+ people in a single political entity which may be engaged in multiple wars and may turn against former allies in a few months.
you can not treat eve as other games, when it comes to joining a guild/corp. this part of the game requires just as much research as deciding on what line of ships you want to fly, or if you really do want to specialize in exploration or invention.
this is not elitism. this is fact stated. you can NOT treat any aspect of eve, as you would any other MMO currently on the market; BECAUSE eve is not like any other game on the market currently.
there's a reason that people harp on finding the right corp for your playstyle and/or personality -- it really is THAT important.
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
I would sign-up for this game so damn fast if it wasn't for their "real-time-you-will-never-catch-up" leveling system. I know it's an old complaint that many vets try very hard to convince everyone is not important but I wonder how many of those same vets would embrace any significant change to the leveling system. It'll never happen.
Obvious troll is obvious.
This has been asked and answered thousands of times on the EVE forums. There is absolutely no need to catch up. And by the time you've been in the game a year you're "older" than half the pilots in the game anyway.
"catch up" is a myth spawned by people too lazy to figure out the game mechanics and why "catching up" is irrelevant.
Disagreed.
There is a huge problem for new players and that is simply that no corps worth a damn will invite you for at least 6 months-1year. This leaves you trying to learn the game solo, which is a very difficult thing to do. The only option most players who actually want to be decent in combat is to mission for a couple months (which gets incredibly boring) - and the problem here is that even after that they will only be skilled for missioning.
It isnt very appealing for new players the only see the missoning portion of the game for their first 2 subsciption cycles.
Sure, they can get in a Domi in a few weeks.. but they wont be skilled enough to actually do good. They have to do ALOT of grinding to afford rigs etc to make it worth it. As they approach the point of getting able to mission successfully for a profit, their going to randomly lose ships here and there because their tank cant hold up. This ends up being like an 100m hit for new players due to loss of rigs, which is effectively a couple days of work. And their stuck with an unrigged Domi, that their skills are NOT good enough to successfully mission in.
As someone said earlier, if your a solo player then Eve is not the game for you. Yet your only choice is to solo or join small corps of people who dont know what they are doing, where you wont have enough total skill points or enough manpower to achieve very much.
It's easy to say you can just hop in a frig and play the role of tackler, but try making a new character, talk to none of your old friends, completely cut yourself off from yuor other characters assistance and ISK, and see how much fun you actually have for the first few months... being a tackler is worthless without decent players by your side.
What a complete load of nonsense. You can be very competitive in this game in a minimum of three months and that is just not tackling. Nothing like stamping the "clueless" monicker on your forehead with that diatribe.
There are plenty of good corporations that take anyone not on trial. Best you get in a small one to start that has experienced members. Trying to claim no one will let you join just shows you did not even try.
Umm, if you notice, I said "for their first 2 subscription cycles.
In other words, that means everything I said was before three months. So what you said is pretty much in agreement to what I said...
for the first 3 subscription cycles in wow, you're pretty much useless to the regular max level crowd who are grinding for their next tier of dungeon gear. you have to level up to 80, get at least a couple of the professions to a reasonable level that a lvl 80 can benefit from your profession skills. you have to grind up reputation with various factions. then you have to try to find guild members that haven't advanced far in the tier equipment gear, in order to allow you to join in on the tier-gear-dungeon-farming grind.
but, after several months of begging onto raids, you might get to the point where you can contribute to a lvl 80 pvp instance or possibly do a decent job in a raid dungeon.
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
One of the points of EVE to keep in mind: A 2 month nOOb has the ability to kite a 3 year vet'. Let's look at this. Here I am... In a Fleet op.. No one stepped up to take on the role of tackler, so I fit out a cheap frigate with a micro-warp drive and some warp jammers and webifiers so I can help hold down the targets. Up high I might have a couple light missile launchers or small turrets... Nothing that's going to cause much damage, but just enough to pew-pew with. At this point, I'm no stronger than anyone else in a frigate, and I'm certainly no stronger than anyone else in a bigger ship. Maybe my skills allow me to use better micro-warp drives, or allow me to "use" my equipment more efficiently. Maybe I'll get a few more points of CPU or Powergrid, or Cap'. But really, I'm still in a frigate... I'm still _very_ squishy, and if I'm not paying attention anyone will be able to take me out, be it another 3 year vet' or a 2 month nOOb in a ship of their own. Try making that claim in an XP-grinding, "level-based" MMO. Go ahead and put a level 10 warrior up against say a level 50 or level 80 warrior in your basic Hack'n'Slash game. The vet' could stand in an open field nekkid, with no armor and no weapons, and that poor level 10 player would never be able to kill him. And even weaponless and armorless that vet' would most-likely 1-hit-dead or 2-hit-dead that level 10 player.
EVE is level based, it is just hidden, or rather expressed in such a way that is not as apparent as a Level number besides your life Bar.
In essence, the more skills you have the higher level you are, and the way to get more skills is unfortunately time based not action based.
All other factors being equal,
If you are level 20 million skill points in a Frigate, and go against a 2 million skill-points guy in another frigate, you will win.
If you are a 20 million skill points and go against a 3 million skill-points in a Cruiser, you will lose.
But if you go on a cruiser, and go against the same 3 million skill points guy on a cruiser you will win.
Your example with the noob acting as a Tackler is a nice way for new players to get their feet wet in Fleet ops, but, ultimately these players want to be able to fight, and don;t want to wait months before they can fight in (at least a a Battleship), and definitelly are very dissapointed when they find out that they have to wait even many more months in order to efficiently use that batleship, and are additionally dissapointed when they realise that..
When Equal sized ships are involved, the guy with the more skill points (level) will most often win the fight.
And the worse thing is, that as long as that guy with more skill points is active you can never catch up to them.
In most other level based games, you may not be able to kill that lvl 50 or 80 as a level 10, but, you can catch up in a reasonable time, and he will still be 50 or 80 when you raise and equal the playing field, and then you use your "player skill" and can win.
In EvE, it takes what....25 years to max all skills, and reach the highest possible level?
Sorry, EVE maybe a Sandbox game, which I love, but it is not a Character Skill Based System either, it is a Level Based system, a very long level based system at that.
EvE needs a fundamental change in its mechanics if it wants to accomplish mainstream popularity (level based Systems are not the best suited for PvP - Shadowbane is a prime example of how counterproductive a Level based system is with a PvP focus).
Or,
A shift in gameplay direction, become more PVE oriented (WoW is level based and a PVE game first and foremost).
As long as neither of these two things happens, it will remain a niche game..
wow, play eve much?
niche game would be 250,000 subs? so how many other western games have less subs? that would make them even more niche, yes?
nooooooooooooooow, i am an advocate that NO, you will never catch up in total skill points. no, you will not.
if i'm flying a frigate, i DO have every skill that i could utilize in a frig to at least lvl 4, and most all of them to lvl 5 (rigs would only be lvl 4).
so, there is some advanced gear i could use in pvp; but if i'm going into a fight that's not going to be small; why would i want to fit 50 million isk worth of gear on a frig that i'm going to lose? odds are it'll be a fairly cheap fit, so that it's easily replaced.
so, yes, a fairly new toon (under a month of age, player actually did some research when creating the toon, OR joined a good corp), or two or three new toons ganging up, CAN take my frig out. make that group of new toons into say 5 or 6 total and let them ambush someone in a dessie, cruiser or bc and see who comes out on top.
take 30 lvl 50 wow toons and let them fight a lvl 80. make those toons lvl 60 and let them take on that 80.... make those toons lvl 70, and let them take on that lvl 80 decked out in the latest raid and pvp gear (which he WILL wear at all times, because he can't lose it). what are their chances? don't forget that once those toons get to level 80, they've got a LOT of grinding in a lot of areas BEFORE they can be competitive to that max geared lvl 80 (don't forget that's what you were talking about, a veteran eve player with tons of skill points)
seeing as eve has more subs than any western game other than WOW, and eve is completely pvp centric (wow is not not by any stretch of the imagination), AND eve bought out white wolf.... your entire argument seems to be based upon faulty logic.
honestly, honestly all the way to goodness -- posts like the quoted simply can not be from people that treated eve as a unique game. people love to say it's a niche game. fine, if that's what you believe; then TREAT IT THAT WAY. if it's a niche game, that means it's NOT like the other games you've played, and eve is NOT like the other games you've played -- SO STOP TREATING IT LIKE IT IS.
basic intelligent reasoning gives us this line of thinking. so follow that line of thinking to its logical conclusion and you have the player actually doing a little research into the game, game mechanics, a good corp/alliance to join, etc. instead of the willy nilly dowhateveriwantwheneveriwant approach you get in the non-niche game (wow).
if you have someone doing all of that, and they're making a negative post; odds are, the post will be "i didn't like the game, i just couldn't get into the constant wars and the vastness of space and i just want a simpler game where i can totally relax and play afk a lot."
when i say eve isn't for everyone, i DO mean that -- currently, eve is unique on the market. treat it as a unique entity (i.e. not like other MMOs), and your experience will be radically different than if you go at it like it's wow in space.
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
Well gents thank you for the replies and retort, specially Danag and Kyleran, we will just have to agree to disagree.
I understand from where you come from and you have made good points on the multilateral nature of EVE's skill system, to me it is still Levels it is how I perceive it, but my biggest annoyance is the fact that it is time based.
I will only say this, since you guys mentioned it, in relation to games that "take you by the hand" of sorts, I feel like being taken by the hand too when my next skill takes 60 days+. So that ain't different from any other scripted character evolution path to follow. Additionally, the system pushes one to specialise, how different is that from a Class based system?
In any case, it may simply not be the game for me, or I may not be a player for it, which ever way you prefer it.
I love sandbox games, I love the Sci-Fi setting, and I have tryed all these years to like EVE, it always causes frustration, I find myself logging on just to change skills, and going to play another game till I build enough nostalgia to actually play for a while again, over and over, but I am fed up.
I am the kind of player that likes to Explore, not only physical locations but also gameplay and game mechanics, and I just perceive its leveling system as an impediment to that which gives me fun.
So, I will be departing from this game, and trying not to look back (yet I'll still keep an eye in case it ever changes, it has great potential in my eyes but it lacks in many areas as it is now).
Cheers to you, wishing you fun! (I'll be hopefully be playing Darkfall soon enough).
EDIT: As for the "niche" I used that term in a provocative way a bit, I am sorry, I do not think it is a Niche game, played UO for 5 years and it had 150k with much less per server and that was a success, so I am taking this back in the spirit of eliminating ...ahem...mainstream (WoW) rhetoric.
- Duke Suraknar - Order of the Silver Star, OSS
ESKA, Playing MMORPG's since Ultima Online 1997 - Order of the Silver Serpent, Atlantic Shard
Well, guys for the record, and for those that try to make a point that I do not know the game instead of actually bringing forth counter arguments upon what I said. I beta tested EvE, and I been around in it for a long time. I may not be active in its forums etc, but i am there, reading, and playing, and experiencing it. My current character is almost 3 years old. As for WoW, I do not like that game and I did give it a fair chance too. I started playing these games with UO, the playground type of game is my type of game, and I do not play themepark games for more than 6 months usually, that is about how long they keep my attention. Now, Some interesting points were brought up, and I won't say that these do not have merit, I am not disputing, Combat tactics and mechanics here. I am simply stating that EvE, even if a Sandbox game, does not have a Skill based system. And this doe snot come out of my ignorance hat, it comes from actual experience, playing EVE and many other MMORPG's since Ultima Online. What I have been observing in EVE for the Past 2 years or so, is an increassing number of people prefering Mission running rather than what EVE used to be an "eat or be eaten" kind of game. I also observe resentment from the Vets towards the "new" players. But, player politics asside. It wondered, why is it like that. The fact is because most people tryed PvP and got their buts handed to them, by far more experienced ones, and then the answer was "you need more skills here and more skills there" etc etc. Skill in EVE however, are only gotten through time. And there comes a point where people simply log on to change a skill and log off to play some other game. Then many start wondering, Why am I even subscribed to that game I am not even playing? See, people don't want to wait 3 months before their character is ready to matter, because what they want to do is have fun, yet, the Level at which they are told they could be having an average success vs Risk result is in 3 months from today, in many case more, depending what one wishes to do and what ship they want to be effectively be flying. Another reason is that Mission Combat (EvE PvE) is actually very fun to many people, more fun than PvP Combat. Not because the AI is Dump but because it is a straight up Fight, Big lvl 4 Missions with a small Fleet are lots of fun. But I am now diverging too much from the topic, which is the Level system, Combat mechanics are a whole different story and an area needing improvement as well. Suffice it to say that the above reasons is why I presented the PvE approach alternative, it is not my prefered solution however. I would prefer that CCP actually sits down for once and rethinks their approach to this system and comes up with a more streamlined approach to Skills, that permits players to reach the point they want to faster and within a more reasonable time frame, that also permits people to catch one another in some given area within that reasonable time frame, so that they don't have to worry about their skills anymore and focus instead on the many and diverse activities of a playground. I know one of the major reasons they haven;t touched that is because there will be an outcry by the vets who actually did spend years perfecting their characters, and that it will cause many to rage quit, yet, it depends on what CCP wants too. If CCP is happy with the current player bas, then no changes are needed, if not, they can start at the bottm with the Skill/Level system. Take a look at this: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/208-Eve-Online While I would agree with many of you that 14 days is not enough really to fully grasp EVE, some of the long terms points he makes are valid. At least the Certification planner, helps, this is one of the best features since EVE's launch, it does help players to have a better idea of how to go where they need to go in order to accomplish that which they want to be doing. However, It still takes months, if not years ....of waiting (instead of playing).
you mean like bumping new character skill points from like 30/50k to a couple hundred thousand to like 700-800k? starting new characters off with all those skills compared to how few previously?
i totally agree that if a character has trained for combat from the word go, that a 50m sp toon WILL have an advantage over a week old character...
however, two points i have, that dispute everything you are advocating....
eve is not a single player game, it IS a group based game (unlike wow/eq/whatever where you can "max level" completely solo).
second point - goonswarm
not goonswarm today; but goonswarm when it was 90% noobalicious.
the very existence of goonswarm (might i add PRE-800k skillpoint starting characters) is all the argument needed to show that in actuality (not theoretically), new players can make a huge difference and engage the big boys in pvp.
again, eve is NOT like any other game on the market. the fact that you can take and lose systems/regions is proof of that. this isn't stuff just changing hands during an rvr battle, this is stuff that can be outrightly destroyed and/or replaced.
stop treating it like all the other games out there. even dread lord UO was not like eve... housing wasn't around in UO at that time and even after housing was introduced -- you could always ban people from your house and be safe there.
yes, goons took a beating back in the day, with bob chestbeating so proudly that they'd beat a bunch of noobs and that bob would henceforth forever control the goon game.
then you turn around and an alliance here and an alliance there and you saw bob driven back from being mighty overlords down to controlling what? some npc system where they, literally, couldn't be forced from the base?
if goonswarm had never existed; then the arguments presented in the quoted COULD be theoretical only... goonswarm has proven, thru actual gameplay, that a bunch of noobs in a leaky boat can change the political landscape in eve.
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
Well gents thank you for the replies and retort, specially Danag and Kyleran, we will just have to agree to disagree. I understand from where you come from and you have made good points on the multilateral nature of EVE's skill system, to me it is still Levels it is how I perceive it, but my biggest annoyance is the fact that it is time based. my biggest annoyance with games like wow, is that i HAVE to participate in their dueling-arena-system, or the boringly repetitive BGs and dungeon raids, in order to get the GREAT gear. and that's only after hitting max level, and leveling up profession skills and reputations and on and on. i WANT to goof off when i play a game, i don't want to be stuck with a schedule. and on eve... if that POS is coming out of reinforced at a time i'm sleeping, oh well, it's not getting my help... HOWEVER, my brosefs reside all over the world, so whenever that POS IS coming out of reinforced, will be someone's prime time. I will only say this, since you guys mentioned it, in relation to games that "take you by the hand" of sorts, I feel like being taken by the hand too when my next skill takes 60 days+. So that ain't different from any other scripted character evolution path to follow. Additionally, the system pushes one to specialise, how different is that from a Class based system? you only have one profession/sub profession/type of ship/playstyle (missioning, pvp, recon, exploration, etc), in which you CAN engage, that you have nothing to do while a 60 day skill trains? if you've got good learning skills and a clone with decent implants (or even throwaway +3s, which you SHOULD have if you're to the point you're training 60 day skills), then that 60 day skill is.... what exactly? lvl 5 dread? it sure isn't a racial battleship to lvl 5. how is it different than a class based system? i already alluded to that in my response -- in wow, you're always a warrior. in eve, i can have tons of skills in any area, and once i reach a certain point, then i'm 'da uber' in yet another profession/sub profession in eve. if i get an average of 2m sp per month... how many months do i need to train to say that i'm pretty darned good in trading (skillpoint-wise, not player-skill-wise)? 1? how many months to be damned good with leadership skills? 2? what about corporation management? 768k on anchoring and i've got anchoring 5 and can start training for pos guns. drones? guns? missiles? 2 months of training ~4m sp, and i can be pretty specialized in the type of drone/gun/missile that my ships favor. seriously, in a year's time, you can be the equivalent of a warrior/mage/rogue/jester in wow. In any case, it may simply not be the game for me, or I may not be a player for it, which ever way you prefer it. I love sandbox games, I love the Sci-Fi setting, and I have tryed all these years to like EVE, it always causes frustration, I find myself logging on just to change skills, and going to play another game till I build enough nostalgia to actually play for a while again, over and over, but I am fed up. don't treat eve like other games. you've stated it's niche, treat it like its niche. I am the kind of player that likes to Explore, not only physical locations but also gameplay and game mechanics, and I just perceive its leveling system as an impediment to that which gives me fun. you've played the game how long? why are you NOT expanding your skill sets to include multiple professions? So, I will be departing from this game, and trying not to look back (yet I'll still keep an eye in case it ever changes, it has great potential in my eyes but it lacks in many areas as it is now). with any luck, ambulation will open up a whole new world. Cheers to you, wishing you fun! (I'll be hopefully be playing Darkfall soon enough).
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
Originally posted by Suraknar So, I will be departing from this game, and trying not to look back (yet I'll still keep an eye in case it ever changes, it has great potential in my eyes but it lacks in many areas as it is now). Cheers to you, wishing you fun! (I'll be hopefully be playing Darkfall soon enough).
Wishing you the best. Hope you find the MMO that fits you,
And of course, what type of MMO player would I be if I didn't ask;
I'm a little worried about all this... Tech III sound alot like increasing gear grind rather than really expanding a game... New Player Experience sounds frightening when I enjoy the current player experience... but we shall see.
[holds breath]
Err what game are you talking about?
EVE has never ever had a 'gear grind' at all. In fact it's frighteningly easy to afford things these days. Hell... I can solo my way to a Titan in just a few months if I really wanted to (you can easily make ~2bil a week just doing level 4 missions) and I'm by no means an expert at making isk. There are folks who make 1bil a day.
Yes EVE has it's pros and cons... but gear grind? Really? Since when? I can buy any T2 sub-BS ship in 1 days missioning... fitted... if I had/wanted to. For a T2 BS it'd take me maybe 3 days to get the funds for one.... For a Carrier? About 2 weeks given how I make isk.
Seriously don't get where people think EVE has any sort of "grind" to it. The only grind is the 'faction' grind to get to the level 4 agents in any given corp. And even that isn't really all that bad if you train the right skills.
Congratulations, you make a hell of alot more ISK then I do. But, I am not to the point that I can solo level 4's yet and when I consider my cash flow, and some of the astronomical prices on the Market... it feels a bit like gear grind when you look at Tech II or faction gear. So when they start talking about Tech III - my first response was "damn, how much is that going to cost?" In my case, I am hoping to be in a Megathron with just a Tech I (starter) fit by the end of the week. I can only play maybe 4 hours or so a couple of days during the week and longer on Sat-Sun. So making 2 Billion ISK in a week seems insane to me. But if you are pulling that from level 4's then hopefully things will be improving for me soon.
I just started crafting last week so my ISK situation does seem to be improving. But not to 2bil ISK.
So I would argue that yes, EVE does have gear grind. Although in comparison to WoW - or some other MMO's it is negligible - it doesn't rule the game. Which is why I said Tech III worried me - I don't want gear to rule EVE.
I would sign-up for this game so damn fast if it wasn't for their "real-time-you-will-never-catch-up" leveling system. I know it's an old complaint that many vets try very hard to convince everyone is not important but I wonder how many of those same vets would embrace any significant change to the leveling system. It'll never happen.
It's a fact ... skill trumps SkillPoints. EVE is a big place with an almost infinite amount of stuff available to learn, but the simple fact of the matter is, what seperates new from old is the ability to diversify. Within one month, your character can be extremely deadly. I've done it, myself, with alts. Make an alt, hop in an incursus or a rifter, slap on some guns, and raise a little hell.
Of course skillpoints matter, but what really makes the difference, what really decides whether you win or lose, is how you handle the stick. And a healthy thirst for blood and carnage certainly contributes.
Millions of skill points will make your life easier in EVE. It'll give you a more varied set of options, allowing you to perform just about any role you see fit. But within 2 months, you'll be on a competitive level with the ship you choose to fly, and within 6 months, you'll be downright deadly, and it won't matter that the guy you're toed up against has 40 mil sp.
What counts is how good you are, not how many hours you've spent accumulating SP. I've totally crushed people who had 50+ mil SP with less than 10 under my own belt. Skill and viciousness is what wins killmails, not time spent docked in a station training.
Get some advice, streamline your training, and make some friends. Those are the keys to success in EVE. Pick something you like and concentrate your efforts there. Trying to do EVERYTHING right out of the gate is what prevents people from getting a head start. 2 or 3 strong frigate pilots can wreak havoc. I've done it, I've seen it done. Hell a time or two, I've had it done to me. Don't let the "vets" intimidate you based on pure time served alone. Make them shoot you down. Then learn from the experience and get better.
Suraknar my hats off to you for your informed & insightful posts admidst a thread of diehard EVE fanbois(gotta love that block option). As a 3 year veteran of the game myself I can also confirm the time-grind for this game is beyond the pale and why I abandoned it. It just stopped being FUN anymore and I came to the same conclusion.... that logging in to purely kick off another skill was not worth subscribing for.
I also concur with comments about being VERY solo UNFRIENDLY and a community that is self serving and ultimately detrimental to its long term future. (which is why its user numbers increases so slowly)
I will say one thing that EVE was great for near the end - an awesome solution for Insomnia - if I couldn't sleep all I had to do was boot up EVE for 10 mins and I was drifting off and ready for bed.
DEFINITION OF REALITY: Graphics ok, Sound ok, Gold drops need more work...
Well gents thank you for the replies and retort, specially Danag and Kyleran, we will just have to agree to disagree. I understand from where you come from and you have made good points on the multilateral nature of EVE's skill system, to me it is still Levels it is how I perceive it, but my biggest annoyance is the fact that it is time based. I will only say this, since you guys mentioned it, in relation to games that "take you by the hand" of sorts, I feel like being taken by the hand too when my next skill takes 60 days+. So that ain't different from any other scripted character evolution path to follow. Additionally, the system pushes one to specialise, how different is that from a Class based system? In any case, it may simply not be the game for me, or I may not be a player for it, which ever way you prefer it. I love sandbox games, I love the Sci-Fi setting, and I have tryed all these years to like EVE, it always causes frustration, I find myself logging on just to change skills, and going to play another game till I build enough nostalgia to actually play for a while again, over and over, but I am fed up. I am the kind of player that likes to Explore, not only physical locations but also gameplay and game mechanics, and I just perceive its leveling system as an impediment to that which gives me fun. So, I will be departing from this game, and trying not to look back (yet I'll still keep an eye in case it ever changes, it has great potential in my eyes but it lacks in many areas as it is now). Cheers to you, wishing you fun! (I'll be hopefully be playing Darkfall soon enough). EDIT: As for the "niche" I used that term in a provocative way a bit, I am sorry, I do not think it is a Niche game, played UO for 5 years and it had 150k with much less per server and that was a success, so I am taking this back in the spirit of eliminating ...ahem...mainstream (WoW) rhetoric.
Interesting Duke,
You seem to play all the games I play. I too will be playing DF since it's most like UO, the best MMO of all time (pre-trammel that is). Eve is my part time game. The leveling system in Eve irks me as well but then again I'm not heavily invested into this game so I really can't say I lose sleep over it. It's fun to log on every now and then to do some massive op and then log off.
Hopefully i'll see you around in DF, my gaming organization intends to be quite active.
Comments
Obvious troll is obvious.
This has been asked and answered thousands of times on the EVE forums. There is absolutely no need to catch up. And by the time you've been in the game a year you're "older" than half the pilots in the game anyway.
"catch up" is a myth spawned by people too lazy to figure out the game mechanics and why "catching up" is irrelevant.
Disagreed.
There is a huge problem for new players and that is simply that no corps worth a damn will invite you for at least 6 months-1year. This leaves you trying to learn the game solo, which is a very difficult thing to do. The only option most players who actually want to be decent in combat is to mission for a couple months (which gets incredibly boring) - and the problem here is that even after that they will only be skilled for missioning.
It isnt very appealing for new players the only see the missoning portion of the game for their first 2 subsciption cycles.
Sure, they can get in a Domi in a few weeks.. but they wont be skilled enough to actually do good. They have to do ALOT of grinding to afford rigs etc to make it worth it. As they approach the point of getting able to mission successfully for a profit, their going to randomly lose ships here and there because their tank cant hold up. This ends up being like an 100m hit for new players due to loss of rigs, which is effectively a couple days of work. And their stuck with an unrigged Domi, that their skills are NOT good enough to successfully mission in.
As someone said earlier, if your a solo player then Eve is not the game for you. Yet your only choice is to solo or join small corps of people who dont know what they are doing, where you wont have enough total skill points or enough manpower to achieve very much.
It's easy to say you can just hop in a frig and play the role of tackler, but try making a new character, talk to none of your old friends, completely cut yourself off from yuor other characters assistance and ISK, and see how much fun you actually have for the first few months... being a tackler is worthless without decent players by your side.
What a complete load of nonsense. You can be very competitive in this game in a minimum of three months and that is just not tackling. Nothing like stamping the "clueless" monicker on your forehead with that diatribe.
There are plenty of good corporations that take anyone not on trial. Best you get in a small one to start that has experienced members. Trying to claim no one will let you join just shows you did not even try.
Obvious troll is obvious.
This has been asked and answered thousands of times on the EVE forums. There is absolutely no need to catch up. And by the time you've been in the game a year you're "older" than half the pilots in the game anyway.
"catch up" is a myth spawned by people too lazy to figure out the game mechanics and why "catching up" is irrelevant.
Disagreed.
There is a huge problem for new players and that is simply that no corps worth a damn will invite you for at least 6 months-1year. This leaves you trying to learn the game solo, which is a very difficult thing to do. The only option most players who actually want to be decent in combat is to mission for a couple months (which gets incredibly boring) - and the problem here is that even after that they will only be skilled for missioning.
It isnt very appealing for new players the only see the missoning portion of the game for their first 2 subsciption cycles.
Sure, they can get in a Domi in a few weeks.. but they wont be skilled enough to actually do good. They have to do ALOT of grinding to afford rigs etc to make it worth it. As they approach the point of getting able to mission successfully for a profit, their going to randomly lose ships here and there because their tank cant hold up. This ends up being like an 100m hit for new players due to loss of rigs, which is effectively a couple days of work. And their stuck with an unrigged Domi, that their skills are NOT good enough to successfully mission in.
As someone said earlier, if your a solo player then Eve is not the game for you. Yet your only choice is to solo or join small corps of people who dont know what they are doing, where you wont have enough total skill points or enough manpower to achieve very much.
It's easy to say you can just hop in a frig and play the role of tackler, but try making a new character, talk to none of your old friends, completely cut yourself off from yuor other characters assistance and ISK, and see how much fun you actually have for the first few months... being a tackler is worthless without decent players by your side.
What a complete load of nonsense. You can be very competitive in this game in a minimum of three months and that is just not tackling. Nothing like stamping the "clueless" monicker on your forehead with that diatribe.
There are plenty of good corporations that take anyone not on trial. Best you get in a small one to start that has experienced members. Trying to claim no one will let you join just shows you did not even try.
Umm, if you notice, I said "for their first 2 subscription cycles.
In other words, that means everything I said was before three months. So what you said is pretty much in agreement to what I said...
Yeah catching up level wise is un important. Sure those vets from beta can fly fancy pants jump frieghters and titans but within a week or so of playing you can get together a decent frig. You may not have known this but its like absolutly impossible for someone to kill a frig in a frieghter. The thing I love most about Eve is that players new or old are all just as important on the battlefeild.
Although this expansion sounds exciting, a WoW type of population does not... Just think of the gate camps in Eve with 2 million ship population!
Imagine how crowded 0.0 and lowsec will be! 
And ponder the massive armies of noobs GoonSwarm will obtain! 
Oh the horror!!!
__________________________
Played:WoW, Darkfall, Warhammer, Shadowbane, Anarchy Online, Last Chaos, Runescape, Maplestory, Planeshift
Loved: Guild Wars, Eve, Darkfall
Playing:(none)
Waiting for: I don't know
EVE is level based, it is just hidden, or rather expressed in such a way that is not as apparent as a Level number besides your life Bar.
In essence, the more skills you have the higher level you are, and the way to get more skills is unfortunately time based not action based.
All other factors being equal,
If you are level 20 million skill points in a Frigate, and go against a 2 million skill-points guy in another frigate, you will win.
If you are a 20 million skill points and go against a 3 million skill-points in a Cruiser, you will lose.
But if you go on a cruiser, and go against the same 3 million skill points guy on a cruiser you will win.
Your example with the noob acting as a Tackler is a nice way for new players to get their feet wet in Fleet ops, but, ultimately these players want to be able to fight, and don;t want to wait months before they can fight in (at least a a Battleship), and definitelly are very dissapointed when they find out that they have to wait even many more months in order to efficiently use that batleship, and are additionally dissapointed when they realise that..
When Equal sized ships are involved, the guy with the more skill points (level) will most often win the fight.
And the worse thing is, that as long as that guy with more skill points is active you can never catch up to them.
In most other level based games, you may not be able to kill that lvl 50 or 80 as a level 10, but, you can catch up in a reasonable time, and he will still be 50 or 80 when you raise and equal the playing field, and then you use your "player skill" and can win.
In EvE, it takes what....25 years to max all skills, and reach the highest possible level?
Sorry, EVE maybe a Sandbox game, which I love, but it is not a Character Skill Based System either, it is a Level Based system, a very long level based system at that.
EvE needs a fundamental change in its mechanics if it wants to accomplish mainstream popularity (level based Systems are not the best suited for PvP - Shadowbane is a prime example of how counterproductive a Level based system is with a PvP focus).
Or,
A shift in gameplay direction, become more PVE oriented (WoW is level based and a PVE game first and foremost).
As long as neither of these two things happens, it will remain a niche game..
Order of the Silver Star, OSS
ESKA, Playing MMORPG's since Ultima Online 1997 - Order of the Silver Serpent, Atlantic Shard
EVE is level based, it is just hidden, or rather expressed in such a way that is not as apparent as a Level number besides your life Bar.
In essence, the more skills you have the higher level you are, and the way to get more skills is unfortunately time based not action based.
All other factors being equal,
If you are level 20 million skill points in a Frigate, and go against a 2 million skill-points guy in another frigate, you will win.
If you are a 20 million skill points and go against a 3 million skill-points in a Cruiser, you will lose.
But if you go on a cruiser, and go against the same 3 million skill points guy on a cruiser you will win.
Your example with the noob acting as a Tackler is a nice way for new players to get their feet wet in Fleet ops, but, ultimately these players want to be able to fight, and don;t want to wait months before they can fight in (at least a a Battleship), and definitelly are very dissapointed when they find out that they have to wait even many more months in order to efficiently use that batleship, and are additionally dissapointed when they realise that..
When Equal sized ships are involved, the guy with the more skill points (level) will most often win the fight.
And the worse thing is, that as long as that guy with more skill points is active you can never catch up to them.
In most other level based games, you may not be able to kill that lvl 50 or 80 as a level 10, but, you can catch up in a reasonable time, and he will still be 50 or 80 when you raise and equal the playing field, and then you use your "player skill" and can win.
In EvE, it takes what....25 years to max all skills, and reach the highest possible level?
Sorry, EVE maybe a Sandbox game, which I love, but it is not a Character Skill Based System either, it is a Level Based system, a very long level based system at that.
EvE needs a fundamental change in its mechanics if it wants to accomplish mainstream popularity (level based Systems are not the best suited for PvP - Shadowbane is a prime example of how counterproductive a Level based system is with a PvP focus).
Or,
A shift in gameplay direction, become more PVE oriented (WoW is level based and a PVE game first and foremost).
As long as neither of these two things happens, it will remain a niche game..
First of all, this is all a bunch of BS. If there are levels then they are based on ships only. I tend to fly Recons/Battleships. Maxing out those skills will take time, but a 60 millions skill point character with no recon skills is a crappy recon pilot. Where as my 15 million skill point focused recon pilot will take them easily in a 1v1 recon (of course depends on what racial ship they are flying as well). You can easily max out skills for a particular ship role. Capitals are about the only ships in the game that vets will have easy access to. But no newer player is going to want one (really you don't) because all of them are only beneficial in experience corps/alliances otherwise you'll lose them easily.
As for the battleship argument: Yes you are right. Getting a fleet fitted battleship takes time and most alliance (not all though) expect T2 Large guns. But most newer players, at least I highly suggest, don't bother themselves with 0.0 politicals BS. Within my corp we have members who roam/pirate in cruisers. Not T2 high sp required ships, but with T1 cruiser. Usually with crap or really basic fits. I've seen them take out battleships easily. In some cases they were easily able to solo battleships or other ships. Based on tactics, predicting a players next move and knowing the surrounding region. Sometimes its just plain luck. But still you can see it is quite a valid tactic. There are kill mails to prove it.
To me it doesn't sound like you want a sandbox game. Most, if not all of them, do not have cap offs that you speak of. Eve in a sense does, you can easily get the max skills for a particular ship and out play vets that have double your sp.
Stop spreading this BS.
Why is it that Eve threads always end up like this?
-------------------
If ever there was a time to rise if ever there was a time to join hands with our brothers that time is now. At this exact junction in history we have within our grasp the means to loosen our tormentors hold and win freedom for our kin. Opportunities are there to be taken.
Brothers, we must rise.
-Malaetu Shakor
didn't they only just release their last expansion?
wow these guys must be working overtime
MMO wish list:
-Changeable worlds
-Solid non level based game
-Sharks with lasers attached to their heads
EVE is level based, it is just hidden, or rather expressed in such a way that is not as apparent as a Level number besides your life Bar.
In essence, the more skills you have the higher level you are, and the way to get more skills is unfortunately time based not action based.
All other factors being equal,
If you are level 20 million skill points in a Frigate, and go against a 2 million skill-points guy in another frigate, you will win.
If you are a 20 million skill points and go against a 3 million skill-points in a Cruiser, you will lose.
But if you go on a cruiser, and go against the same 3 million skill points guy on a cruiser you will win.
Your example with the noob acting as a Tackler is a nice way for new players to get their feet wet in Fleet ops, but, ultimately these players want to be able to fight, and don;t want to wait months before they can fight in (at least a a Battleship), and definitelly are very dissapointed when they find out that they have to wait even many more months in order to efficiently use that batleship, and are additionally dissapointed when they realise that..
When Equal sized ships are involved, the guy with the more skill points (level) will most often win the fight.
And the worse thing is, that as long as that guy with more skill points is active you can never catch up to them.
In most other level based games, you may not be able to kill that lvl 50 or 80 as a level 10, but, you can catch up in a reasonable time, and he will still be 50 or 80 when you raise and equal the playing field, and then you use your "player skill" and can win.
In EvE, it takes what....25 years to max all skills, and reach the highest possible level?
Sorry, EVE maybe a Sandbox game, which I love, but it is not a Character Skill Based System either, it is a Level Based system, a very long level based system at that.
EvE needs a fundamental change in its mechanics if it wants to accomplish mainstream popularity (level based Systems are not the best suited for PvP - Shadowbane is a prime example of how counterproductive a Level based system is with a PvP focus).
Or,
A shift in gameplay direction, become more PVE oriented (WoW is level based and a PVE game first and foremost).
As long as neither of these two things happens, it will remain a niche game..
All that long post did was reaffirm to any reader that has played Eve that you have not played the game. If you do not understand a game, making illinformed comments is a pretty dumb thing to do. There are no levels in Eve, nothing even close. That account that posted the 100k skillpoints can easily lose to one with a couple million.
Next time pick a subject you have even a little bit of knowledge about.
No, not entirely true. Just because you have 20 million skillpoints, doesn't mean that all those skill points are going to assist you with piloting your frigate. You're limited by many factors what you can fit, hence what you can use, on each individual ship.
With a Frigate, setup up for combat, you'll be lucky to fit a couple light missile launchers and a couple small turrets. Maybe a Civilian or a 1MN A/B or MWD. Probably a Civ. or a Small shield booster. And probably a couple other mods here and there. Depending on your race, ship, wallet, will determine what you mount up on your frigate.
So you see, just because you can fly a buttload of fancy ships with your 20 or 30 million skill points, if you hop into a frigate, you're certainly not taking advantage of those 20 or 30 million skillpoints.
Experience, know-how, and paying attention to your situation will often help _MUCH_ more than simply having more skillpoints than the other guy.
In my example, I mentioned playing the role of tackler, yes. But that doesn't mean that's all a frigate is good for. Far from true. Especially since that last couple updates. Frigates are making a big comeback lately.
I mentioned the role of tackler, because my example happened pretty much word for word as I offered it. I fit myself with a frigate for a certain fleet op I was a part of. I could have simply said screw it, and stayed in my Nighthawk (command ship), but I stepped up to play the role of tackler. _ALL_ roles in fleet ops are important! Tackler, logistics, damage-dealers, and so on, you need them all for a successful outcome.
Of course, since I was playing the role of tackler I setup a cheap Merlin, with all T1 equipment. You know why? Cause Tacklers die. That's our job. We fly in. We pretty much have no offensive damage. We're there to pin down, hold, and in my case weapon scram the target. So guess what happens to the Tacklers when you're target is another corp's Carrier, or Titan? They tend to target the Tacklers and pop them off.
It doesn't matter that I had over 30 million skillpoints when this fleet op went down. I still eventually got target-locked and taken out. By other frigates mind you, since we're not exactly easy to hit by the bigger ships. The opposing corp didn't like the fact that us Tacklers were holding down their most expensive pilots, and eventually they popped us. Not before we did our job, though, and assisted our fleet with taking out a number of their BS, numerous Cruisers, and a few of their Logistic ships.
We simply zipped back to the station in our pods, hopped in more frigates and ran back out to continue helping.
So wrong. There is only so many skillpoints you can learn in any given category, so this statement is so far from the truth. As you train the more advanced skills it takes you longer and longer to finish them off. The fact that you have no idea about the skill training mechanics in EVE is very obvious, so I won't even bother expanding on the issue.
Umm.. How about this idea. For people who want hand-holding, story-based PvE games, they can just go play something other than EVE. Seriously, if every game was like WoW, what good would that be? The people that like the WoW-type game would simply play WoW, and all the other copycats would just curl up and die.
It's true EVE is a niche game, as you say. But so is any other game that's not simply following along like a fricken lemming. It's the copycats that come and go quicker than they can turn a profit. Why would anyone want to play the same game with a different skin? What a waste.
EVE is EVE, and with all luck it will always be EVE. Same as WoW is WoW.
You don't like EVE? Well, I didn't enjoy WoW. Nor did I enjoy LOTRO. Why? Because I don't like to be lead by the hand in my safe little box-of-a-world. The openness, the vastness, the excitement of taking out the other guy before he gets you, the real danger and sense of loss when you get popped instead, the limitless possibilities that I have before me in EVE. _THAT_ is why EVE is EVE, and why we who are part of that world enjoy it.
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Danag
Well, guys for the record, and for those that try to make a point that I do not know the game instead of actually bringing forth counter arguments upon what I said.
I beta tested EvE, and I been around in it for a long time. I may not be active in its forums etc, but i am there, reading, and playing, and experiencing it.
My current character is almost 3 years old. As for WoW, I do not like that game and I did give it a fair chance too. I started playing these games with UO, the playground type of game is my type of game, and I do not play themepark games for more than 6 months usually, that is about how long they keep my attention.
Now,
Some interesting points were brought up, and I won't say that these do not have merit, I am not disputing, Combat tactics and mechanics here. I am simply stating that EvE, even if a Sandbox game, does not have a Skill based system. And this doe snot come out of my ignorance hat, it comes from actual experience, playing EVE and many other MMORPG's since Ultima Online.
What I have been observing in EVE for the Past 2 years or so, is an increassing number of people prefering Mission running rather than what EVE used to be an "eat or be eaten" kind of game.
I also observe resentment from the Vets towards the "new" players. But, player politics asside. It wondered, why is it like that.
The fact is because most people tryed PvP and got their buts handed to them, by far more experienced ones, and then the answer was "you need more skills here and more skills there" etc etc. Skill in EVE however, are only gotten through time. And there comes a point where people simply log on to change a skill and log off to play some other game. Then many start wondering, Why am I even subscribed to that game I am not even playing?
See, people don't want to wait 3 months before their character is ready to matter, because what they want to do is have fun, yet, the Level at which they are told they could be having an average success vs Risk result is in 3 months from today, in many case more, depending what one wishes to do and what ship they want to be effectively be flying.
Another reason is that Mission Combat (EvE PvE) is actually very fun to many people, more fun than PvP Combat. Not because the AI is Dump but because it is a straight up Fight, Big lvl 4 Missions with a small Fleet are lots of fun. But I am now diverging too much from the topic, which is the Level system, Combat mechanics are a whole different story and an area needing improvement as well.
Suffice it to say that the above reasons is why I presented the PvE approach alternative, it is not my prefered solution however.
I would prefer that CCP actually sits down for once and rethinks their approach to this system and comes up with a more streamlined approach to Skills, that permits players to reach the point they want to faster and within a more reasonable time frame, that also permits people to catch one another in some given area within that reasonable time frame, so that they don't have to worry about their skills anymore and focus instead on the many and diverse activities of a playground.
I know one of the major reasons they haven;t touched that is because there will be an outcry by the vets who actually did spend years perfecting their characters, and that it will cause many to rage quit, yet, it depends on what CCP wants too. If CCP is happy with the current player bas, then no changes are needed, if not, they can start at the bottm with the Skill/Level system.
Take a look at this:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/208-Eve-Online
While I would agree with many of you that 14 days is not enough really to fully grasp EVE, some of the long terms points he makes are valid.
At least the Certification planner, helps, this is one of the best features since EVE's launch, it does help players to have a better idea of how to go where they need to go in order to accomplish that which they want to be doing.
However, It still takes months, if not years ....of waiting (instead of playing).
Order of the Silver Star, OSS
ESKA, Playing MMORPG's since Ultima Online 1997 - Order of the Silver Serpent, Atlantic Shard
Sorry, just reading your posts make it almost impossible to believe you are an actual veteran of the game. They are so full in inaccuracies and pure nonsense trying to push forth that levels exist in this game that the only logical conclusion is you just like to argue over nonsensical things.
By the way please explain to me a game where you don't have to develop your character to pvp? And I am not talking about small BG's either. That is right none, which completely obiviates your entire argument. Depending on the development path you take, you can be in t2 frigates in a month and very competitive at that. Remember they upped the starting skill points a lot.
If you actually do play the game, I feel truely sorry for your corpmates to have someone so uninformed about the game.
Or... And call me crazy... Maybe things are working as intended...
I was part of player-corp very soon after I started my life inside EVE. Within the first month, if I remember correctly. And I was helping out with combat and non-combat ops from day 1 of my being with them.
I'm not understanding the whole "waiting (instead of playing)" way of thinking. If a player is not currently in a player corp, and is currently residing in Empire, why wouldn't you at least run missions or mine to earn ISK and LPs until you find a corp' to join? I'm currently between player corps myself, and in the mean time I'm fattening up my wallet solo-running level 4 missions. It's not like you get rich just from being in a 0.0 corp, so you might as well pad the bank account until you decide where you want to go.
Name one other MMO where a player just waits around until he/she joins a player-run guild to accomplish anything. I'm thinking ... NONE
Why would you even pay a subscription to a game at all, if you were just going to sit around and do nothing?
Yea the current mission system in EVE is pretty boring and repetitive, but the same thing can be said for pretty much any MMO's mission system. Most combat missions in any MMO are simply "go here, kill this guy, collect that loot, come back when you're done". Same thing for courier missions, "go here, pick this up, go there, drop it off, come back when you're done". Not really surprising, really, since MMO does not mean single-player. But still, to simply do nothing?
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Danag
Yowza, I know in a later post you take offense when people quesiton your understanding of the game instead of addressing your points, so that's what I went ahead and did here.
If you had come in these forums and said, EVE is nothing but a big blob fest and the side with the most ships generally wins you would have found far more people in agreement with you. (but gotten some serious argument as well).
But to say that EVE is level based, and not understand the SP training system when a majority of the posters in these forums clearly are of a similar mind set as my own, well, expect your ideas to be rejected outright.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
i'd sign up for wow so damn fast if it wasn't for their "grind to max level (first 60, then 70, now 80), then grind reputation with 20 factions, then grind 5 profession type skills to max level, then grind dungeon after dungeon 50+ times in order for everyone to get that tier's gear and then rinse/repeat times another dozen dungeons, AND THEN grind thru pvp gear in arenas and battlegrounds,". i know it's a complaint that many wow vets try hard to whitewash and convince everyone that it's not important, but i wonder how many of those same vets would embrace any significant change to the grinding system. It'll never happen.
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
i'd recently made a new toon, no help from me, no one in my corp/alliance know it's me...
given, i have played eve for a while and i DO go and read on what is/isn't good to do.
got into a decent corp, good guys. yeah, i'm sorry, i have to completely disagree with the quoted.
again, eve isn't wow/eq/etc, you do need to read and research and unless you just want to be self-sufficient; you need to be part of a larger group.
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
Obvious troll is obvious.
This has been asked and answered thousands of times on the EVE forums. There is absolutely no need to catch up. And by the time you've been in the game a year you're "older" than half the pilots in the game anyway.
"catch up" is a myth spawned by people too lazy to figure out the game mechanics and why "catching up" is irrelevant.
Disagreed.
There is a huge problem for new players and that is simply that no corps worth a damn will invite you for at least 6 months-1year. This leaves you trying to learn the game solo, which is a very difficult thing to do. The only option most players who actually want to be decent in combat is to mission for a couple months (which gets incredibly boring) - and the problem here is that even after that they will only be skilled for missioning.
It isnt very appealing for new players the only see the missoning portion of the game for their first 2 subsciption cycles.
Sure, they can get in a Domi in a few weeks.. but they wont be skilled enough to actually do good. They have to do ALOT of grinding to afford rigs etc to make it worth it. As they approach the point of getting able to mission successfully for a profit, their going to randomly lose ships here and there because their tank cant hold up. This ends up being like an 100m hit for new players due to loss of rigs, which is effectively a couple days of work. And their stuck with an unrigged Domi, that their skills are NOT good enough to successfully mission in.
As someone said earlier, if your a solo player then Eve is not the game for you. Yet your only choice is to solo or join small corps of people who dont know what they are doing, where you wont have enough total skill points or enough manpower to achieve very much.
It's easy to say you can just hop in a frig and play the role of tackler, but try making a new character, talk to none of your old friends, completely cut yourself off from yuor other characters assistance and ISK, and see how much fun you actually have for the first few months... being a tackler is worthless without decent players by your side.
there is this forum on the official eve-o forums... it's called recruitment or corp recruitment, or something along those lines.
you go in there, you look at the different corps recruiting. you pick half a dozen you find interesting.
you visit their websites. once you find one that sounds to your liking, you then talk to them ingame.
in other games, you get a random blind invite to join their guild and you just go along.
other games don't control vast areas of the gaming environment. other games don't have wars between the guilds, where one guild CAN displace another guild and take over the first guild's home. other games don't have 1,000+ people in a single political entity which may be engaged in multiple wars and may turn against former allies in a few months.
you can not treat eve as other games, when it comes to joining a guild/corp. this part of the game requires just as much research as deciding on what line of ships you want to fly, or if you really do want to specialize in exploration or invention.
this is not elitism. this is fact stated. you can NOT treat any aspect of eve, as you would any other MMO currently on the market; BECAUSE eve is not like any other game on the market currently.
there's a reason that people harp on finding the right corp for your playstyle and/or personality -- it really is THAT important.
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
Obvious troll is obvious.
This has been asked and answered thousands of times on the EVE forums. There is absolutely no need to catch up. And by the time you've been in the game a year you're "older" than half the pilots in the game anyway.
"catch up" is a myth spawned by people too lazy to figure out the game mechanics and why "catching up" is irrelevant.
Disagreed.
There is a huge problem for new players and that is simply that no corps worth a damn will invite you for at least 6 months-1year. This leaves you trying to learn the game solo, which is a very difficult thing to do. The only option most players who actually want to be decent in combat is to mission for a couple months (which gets incredibly boring) - and the problem here is that even after that they will only be skilled for missioning.
It isnt very appealing for new players the only see the missoning portion of the game for their first 2 subsciption cycles.
Sure, they can get in a Domi in a few weeks.. but they wont be skilled enough to actually do good. They have to do ALOT of grinding to afford rigs etc to make it worth it. As they approach the point of getting able to mission successfully for a profit, their going to randomly lose ships here and there because their tank cant hold up. This ends up being like an 100m hit for new players due to loss of rigs, which is effectively a couple days of work. And their stuck with an unrigged Domi, that their skills are NOT good enough to successfully mission in.
As someone said earlier, if your a solo player then Eve is not the game for you. Yet your only choice is to solo or join small corps of people who dont know what they are doing, where you wont have enough total skill points or enough manpower to achieve very much.
It's easy to say you can just hop in a frig and play the role of tackler, but try making a new character, talk to none of your old friends, completely cut yourself off from yuor other characters assistance and ISK, and see how much fun you actually have for the first few months... being a tackler is worthless without decent players by your side.
What a complete load of nonsense. You can be very competitive in this game in a minimum of three months and that is just not tackling. Nothing like stamping the "clueless" monicker on your forehead with that diatribe.
There are plenty of good corporations that take anyone not on trial. Best you get in a small one to start that has experienced members. Trying to claim no one will let you join just shows you did not even try.
Umm, if you notice, I said "for their first 2 subscription cycles.
In other words, that means everything I said was before three months. So what you said is pretty much in agreement to what I said...
for the first 3 subscription cycles in wow, you're pretty much useless to the regular max level crowd who are grinding for their next tier of dungeon gear. you have to level up to 80, get at least a couple of the professions to a reasonable level that a lvl 80 can benefit from your profession skills. you have to grind up reputation with various factions. then you have to try to find guild members that haven't advanced far in the tier equipment gear, in order to allow you to join in on the tier-gear-dungeon-farming grind.
but, after several months of begging onto raids, you might get to the point where you can contribute to a lvl 80 pvp instance or possibly do a decent job in a raid dungeon.
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
EVE is level based, it is just hidden, or rather expressed in such a way that is not as apparent as a Level number besides your life Bar.
In essence, the more skills you have the higher level you are, and the way to get more skills is unfortunately time based not action based.
All other factors being equal,
If you are level 20 million skill points in a Frigate, and go against a 2 million skill-points guy in another frigate, you will win.
If you are a 20 million skill points and go against a 3 million skill-points in a Cruiser, you will lose.
But if you go on a cruiser, and go against the same 3 million skill points guy on a cruiser you will win.
Your example with the noob acting as a Tackler is a nice way for new players to get their feet wet in Fleet ops, but, ultimately these players want to be able to fight, and don;t want to wait months before they can fight in (at least a a Battleship), and definitelly are very dissapointed when they find out that they have to wait even many more months in order to efficiently use that batleship, and are additionally dissapointed when they realise that..
When Equal sized ships are involved, the guy with the more skill points (level) will most often win the fight.
And the worse thing is, that as long as that guy with more skill points is active you can never catch up to them.
In most other level based games, you may not be able to kill that lvl 50 or 80 as a level 10, but, you can catch up in a reasonable time, and he will still be 50 or 80 when you raise and equal the playing field, and then you use your "player skill" and can win.
In EvE, it takes what....25 years to max all skills, and reach the highest possible level?
Sorry, EVE maybe a Sandbox game, which I love, but it is not a Character Skill Based System either, it is a Level Based system, a very long level based system at that.
EvE needs a fundamental change in its mechanics if it wants to accomplish mainstream popularity (level based Systems are not the best suited for PvP - Shadowbane is a prime example of how counterproductive a Level based system is with a PvP focus).
Or,
A shift in gameplay direction, become more PVE oriented (WoW is level based and a PVE game first and foremost).
As long as neither of these two things happens, it will remain a niche game..
wow, play eve much?
niche game would be 250,000 subs? so how many other western games have less subs? that would make them even more niche, yes?
nooooooooooooooow, i am an advocate that NO, you will never catch up in total skill points. no, you will not.
if i'm flying a frigate, i DO have every skill that i could utilize in a frig to at least lvl 4, and most all of them to lvl 5 (rigs would only be lvl 4).
so, there is some advanced gear i could use in pvp; but if i'm going into a fight that's not going to be small; why would i want to fit 50 million isk worth of gear on a frig that i'm going to lose? odds are it'll be a fairly cheap fit, so that it's easily replaced.
so, yes, a fairly new toon (under a month of age, player actually did some research when creating the toon, OR joined a good corp), or two or three new toons ganging up, CAN take my frig out. make that group of new toons into say 5 or 6 total and let them ambush someone in a dessie, cruiser or bc and see who comes out on top.
take 30 lvl 50 wow toons and let them fight a lvl 80. make those toons lvl 60 and let them take on that 80.... make those toons lvl 70, and let them take on that lvl 80 decked out in the latest raid and pvp gear (which he WILL wear at all times, because he can't lose it). what are their chances? don't forget that once those toons get to level 80, they've got a LOT of grinding in a lot of areas BEFORE they can be competitive to that max geared lvl 80 (don't forget that's what you were talking about, a veteran eve player with tons of skill points)
seeing as eve has more subs than any western game other than WOW, and eve is completely pvp centric (wow is not not by any stretch of the imagination), AND eve bought out white wolf.... your entire argument seems to be based upon faulty logic.
honestly, honestly all the way to goodness -- posts like the quoted simply can not be from people that treated eve as a unique game. people love to say it's a niche game. fine, if that's what you believe; then TREAT IT THAT WAY. if it's a niche game, that means it's NOT like the other games you've played, and eve is NOT like the other games you've played -- SO STOP TREATING IT LIKE IT IS.
basic intelligent reasoning gives us this line of thinking. so follow that line of thinking to its logical conclusion and you have the player actually doing a little research into the game, game mechanics, a good corp/alliance to join, etc. instead of the willy nilly dowhateveriwantwheneveriwant approach you get in the non-niche game (wow).
if you have someone doing all of that, and they're making a negative post; odds are, the post will be "i didn't like the game, i just couldn't get into the constant wars and the vastness of space and i just want a simpler game where i can totally relax and play afk a lot."
when i say eve isn't for everyone, i DO mean that -- currently, eve is unique on the market. treat it as a unique entity (i.e. not like other MMOs), and your experience will be radically different than if you go at it like it's wow in space.
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
Well gents thank you for the replies and retort, specially Danag and Kyleran, we will just have to agree to disagree.
I understand from where you come from and you have made good points on the multilateral nature of EVE's skill system, to me it is still Levels it is how I perceive it, but my biggest annoyance is the fact that it is time based.
I will only say this, since you guys mentioned it, in relation to games that "take you by the hand" of sorts, I feel like being taken by the hand too when my next skill takes 60 days+. So that ain't different from any other scripted character evolution path to follow. Additionally, the system pushes one to specialise, how different is that from a Class based system?
In any case, it may simply not be the game for me, or I may not be a player for it, which ever way you prefer it.
I love sandbox games, I love the Sci-Fi setting, and I have tryed all these years to like EVE, it always causes frustration, I find myself logging on just to change skills, and going to play another game till I build enough nostalgia to actually play for a while again, over and over, but I am fed up.
I am the kind of player that likes to Explore, not only physical locations but also gameplay and game mechanics, and I just perceive its leveling system as an impediment to that which gives me fun.
So, I will be departing from this game, and trying not to look back (yet I'll still keep an eye in case it ever changes, it has great potential in my eyes but it lacks in many areas as it is now).
Cheers to you, wishing you fun! (I'll be hopefully be playing Darkfall soon enough).
EDIT: As for the "niche" I used that term in a provocative way a bit, I am sorry, I do not think it is a Niche game, played UO for 5 years and it had 150k with much less per server and that was a success, so I am taking this back in the spirit of eliminating ...ahem...mainstream (WoW) rhetoric.
Order of the Silver Star, OSS
ESKA, Playing MMORPG's since Ultima Online 1997 - Order of the Silver Serpent, Atlantic Shard
you mean like bumping new character skill points from like 30/50k to a couple hundred thousand to like 700-800k? starting new characters off with all those skills compared to how few previously?
i totally agree that if a character has trained for combat from the word go, that a 50m sp toon WILL have an advantage over a week old character...
however, two points i have, that dispute everything you are advocating....
eve is not a single player game, it IS a group based game (unlike wow/eq/whatever where you can "max level" completely solo).
second point - goonswarm
not goonswarm today; but goonswarm when it was 90% noobalicious.
the very existence of goonswarm (might i add PRE-800k skillpoint starting characters) is all the argument needed to show that in actuality (not theoretically), new players can make a huge difference and engage the big boys in pvp.
again, eve is NOT like any other game on the market. the fact that you can take and lose systems/regions is proof of that. this isn't stuff just changing hands during an rvr battle, this is stuff that can be outrightly destroyed and/or replaced.
stop treating it like all the other games out there. even dread lord UO was not like eve... housing wasn't around in UO at that time and even after housing was introduced -- you could always ban people from your house and be safe there.
yes, goons took a beating back in the day, with bob chestbeating so proudly that they'd beat a bunch of noobs and that bob would henceforth forever control the goon game.
then you turn around and an alliance here and an alliance there and you saw bob driven back from being mighty overlords down to controlling what? some npc system where they, literally, couldn't be forced from the base?
if goonswarm had never existed; then the arguments presented in the quoted COULD be theoretical only... goonswarm has proven, thru actual gameplay, that a bunch of noobs in a leaky boat can change the political landscape in eve.
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
Wishing you the best. Hope you find the MMO that fits you,
And of course, what type of MMO player would I be if I didn't ask;
"Dude, can I have your stuff??"
LMAO,
j/k
Cheers!
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Danag
Err what game are you talking about?
EVE has never ever had a 'gear grind' at all. In fact it's frighteningly easy to afford things these days. Hell... I can solo my way to a Titan in just a few months if I really wanted to (you can easily make ~2bil a week just doing level 4 missions) and I'm by no means an expert at making isk. There are folks who make 1bil a day.
Yes EVE has it's pros and cons... but gear grind? Really? Since when? I can buy any T2 sub-BS ship in 1 days missioning... fitted... if I had/wanted to. For a T2 BS it'd take me maybe 3 days to get the funds for one.... For a Carrier? About 2 weeks given how I make isk.
Seriously don't get where people think EVE has any sort of "grind" to it. The only grind is the 'faction' grind to get to the level 4 agents in any given corp. And even that isn't really all that bad if you train the right skills.
Congratulations, you make a hell of alot more ISK then I do. But, I am not to the point that I can solo level 4's yet and when I consider my cash flow, and some of the astronomical prices on the Market... it feels a bit like gear grind when you look at Tech II or faction gear. So when they start talking about Tech III - my first response was "damn, how much is that going to cost?" In my case, I am hoping to be in a Megathron with just a Tech I (starter) fit by the end of the week. I can only play maybe 4 hours or so a couple of days during the week and longer on Sat-Sun. So making 2 Billion ISK in a week seems insane to me. But if you are pulling that from level 4's then hopefully things will be improving for me soon.
I just started crafting last week so my ISK situation does seem to be improving. But not to 2bil ISK.
So I would argue that yes, EVE does have gear grind. Although in comparison to WoW - or some other MMO's it is negligible - it doesn't rule the game. Which is why I said Tech III worried me - I don't want gear to rule EVE.
It's a fact ... skill trumps SkillPoints. EVE is a big place with an almost infinite amount of stuff available to learn, but the simple fact of the matter is, what seperates new from old is the ability to diversify. Within one month, your character can be extremely deadly. I've done it, myself, with alts. Make an alt, hop in an incursus or a rifter, slap on some guns, and raise a little hell.
Of course skillpoints matter, but what really makes the difference, what really decides whether you win or lose, is how you handle the stick. And a healthy thirst for blood and carnage certainly contributes.
Millions of skill points will make your life easier in EVE. It'll give you a more varied set of options, allowing you to perform just about any role you see fit. But within 2 months, you'll be on a competitive level with the ship you choose to fly, and within 6 months, you'll be downright deadly, and it won't matter that the guy you're toed up against has 40 mil sp.
What counts is how good you are, not how many hours you've spent accumulating SP. I've totally crushed people who had 50+ mil SP with less than 10 under my own belt. Skill and viciousness is what wins killmails, not time spent docked in a station training.
Get some advice, streamline your training, and make some friends. Those are the keys to success in EVE. Pick something you like and concentrate your efforts there. Trying to do EVERYTHING right out of the gate is what prevents people from getting a head start. 2 or 3 strong frigate pilots can wreak havoc. I've done it, I've seen it done. Hell a time or two, I've had it done to me. Don't let the "vets" intimidate you based on pure time served alone. Make them shoot you down. Then learn from the experience and get better.
Suraknar my hats off to you for your informed & insightful posts admidst a thread of diehard EVE fanbois(gotta love that block option). As a 3 year veteran of the game myself I can also confirm the time-grind for this game is beyond the pale and why I abandoned it. It just stopped being FUN anymore and I came to the same conclusion.... that logging in to purely kick off another skill was not worth subscribing for.
I also concur with comments about being VERY solo UNFRIENDLY and a community that is self serving and ultimately detrimental to its long term future. (which is why its user numbers increases so slowly)
I will say one thing that EVE was great for near the end - an awesome solution for Insomnia - if I couldn't sleep all I had to do was boot up EVE for 10 mins and I was drifting off and ready for bed.
DEFINITION OF REALITY: Graphics ok, Sound ok, Gold drops need more work...
Interesting Duke,
You seem to play all the games I play. I too will be playing DF since it's most like UO, the best MMO of all time (pre-trammel that is). Eve is my part time game. The leveling system in Eve irks me as well but then again I'm not heavily invested into this game so I really can't say I lose sleep over it. It's fun to log on every now and then to do some massive op and then log off.
Hopefully i'll see you around in DF, my gaming organization intends to be quite active.