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never played eve
rehp
Member Posts: 16
in EVE Online
what is my incentive to try eve? I consider myself a hardcore gamer but I can't get passed the fact that I read you get skill points even if you're offline. How long would it take a newb starting now to be able to compete with elite players? As a new player new starting zones and such aren't really an incentive to try this game. Doesn't it seem like if the original players have been getting all these timed skill points for years that it's kind of like a system that discourages new players? It discourages me anyway.
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It is a great game, but obviously not for everyone. I like the timed skills - it removes some of the endless grinding for levels. I also like the freedom to do what you want. One of my characters started as a miner but has since added the skills to fly a Tech 2 class of ship called Interceptors to help my corp in the wars between rival corps. I hope you find a game you like. EVE is the game for me, and I have played WOW, EQ, EQ2, Lotro, Shadowbane, COH/COV, and several others.
Here's a rough idea of how skills in EVE work. Yes, they are real time based and yes there are a lot of them. So many, in fact, that it will probably take 10+ years to learn all of them (just my guess). However, there are only so many skills required for any certain thing and once the skill reaches level 5, that's it. A level 5 skills learned now by a newb, or the same skill learned by a vet 3 years ago will make no difference--it's still level 5. The veteran players just have more skills at level 5 and as such more options as far as ships and equipment they can use. However, since you can only control 1 ship at a time, it really makes no difference.
Also, since there are so many skills available in the game and since learning them takes real time, people tend to specialize. Besides that, there are different ways of being competitive in this game and not all of them revolve around combat.
To compete with an elite player? Compete in what, and how? Even a newbie can sensor dampen, jam, warp scramble, or web a 5-6 year player (once you train some skills). When I made a FW alt I had it flying a blackbird after about 2 months and was able to lock down a hurrican while a caracal killed it (two ships worth about 12mil total vs a ship worth about 40-50mil). Hurricane was a much older character too.
If you're looking at getitng in a HAC or BS and going 1v1 against some highly experienced players, you will have a long road, both in character training and learing every trick that the person you're fighting may know.
your incentive? i guess if you think you'd like an internet spaceship game; then, that would be an incentive.
but, you'll have to like reading. because, in order to understand the answers to all your questions, you're going to need to do quite a bit of reading.
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?
my first question is "what is this elite player that you speak of?"
there are so many directions a player can go in the game that it is hard to formulate an answer. But i guess if you said direct PvP was your focus then you can easily be involved in PvP within a week. Against the elite? well i guess the 'Elite' PvPers are the ones supported by large corporations/alliances and fly ships that should never be deployed without a large support fleet.
you can easily be flying with or against the 'elite' within the first few months as they need you for their multiply layered systems of defensive fleets and sub fleets in order to wage territorial warfare.
One thing to know, every class of ship in the game is vulnerable to ships of a class lower than it, you just have to know and utilize that weakness. So any pilot can easily hit above their weight with some forethought and intel.
It is not a game where the endgame is one on one arena fighting based on twitch/gear/levels. The PvP is always open to anyone and everyone joining in. The design of the game mechanics gives every ship from the smallest to the largest an advantage and a weakness that can be exploited. Fights are one on controlling when and how the engagement occurs, not what gear you bring and what your skill points are.
Also it is a single server persistent world, so your actions have a lasting impact, both in materials (permanent item loss is common as well as looting) and in social connections. Trust is a lasting commodity.
if you want 1 on 1 PvP and combat based on twitch/gear/levels then eve is not the game for you as you will never find that kind of content. If you want to work with teams to take out ships that are worth hundreds of times what you are flying flown by people who have been playing for years longer than you by making plans and executing them then EvE is the game for you.
Sounds like skills aren't really the determining factor in how effective a player can be. Let me ask this instead, how long would it take someone to amass 40-50million cash for the largest ships (assuming that's the biggest)? I'm not asking how lohng it takes to be elite, i guess I phrased it wrong, I just want to know how long it would take to be able to contribute in a meaningful way.
Are you saying that in order for a fleet to be effective they need even the smaller/lesser/lower lvl ships? how low lvl?
don't get me wrong, skills help. they can be the deciding factor in borderline situations, but much more often the choice to engage or not is more important.
But that said, how you play today is far more important that getting to some skill point goal.
your scale of price is a bit out. A fully fitted well set up tackle t1 frigate (short term goal, useful in most fleets) is worth 1-2 mil isk. A titan, the biggest ship in the game is hard to price because you need an alliance of 100s if not 1000s protecting a large section of space and contributing over months to build one, but 100s of billions, iirc. they also take a couple of years to train for.
What you need to understand is that if a player looses a titan it is big news to all players and a very big loss for that alliance.
you can make 10s to 100s of millions in a few months easy, especially with support in getting going.
how long to be useful? or having fun in PvP? you can do it in a day or two.
about smaller ships being essential? yes, it is true. Take the biggest ship in the game, the titan, it will just jump away (go to another solar system) unless if is held down by a heavy interdictor, which is also a hard ship to get into (~1 years training) and worth ~100mil, but when you consider the titan takes more than ~2 years training time, you will get a bit of the time scale.
this is analogous on smaller scale engagements as well. you can contribute from almost day one. in 2 days for sure, you can fit a warp scram on a basic frigate (i have not fiddled extensively with the new player setup yet, so time may vary) and if you buy the box set, you can be in faction warfare from day 1. your role is to try to stay alive, and hold the more powerful target from warping away while other people break their tank.
The key is, can you be interested from day 1, and find your game play interesting for a few months or even multiple years. Well i have been playing for more than 3 years now, and while i have gone through stages of not being so interested (i think most people go through a slump at some point) i am still playing and looking forward to tomorrow.
be aware that for true power gaming, you need to spend a month of more grinding the skills in learning, this maximized the rate at which you gain skills. i personally see this as a way to hate the game. If all you do is log in to grind the skill points but never actually play then you will hate the game. you can balance by getting some of the fast levels (both learning and combat) done before seriously putting the time in for the advanced learnings.
There is also one thing more that most of the eve players keep repeating to the new players and thats "fly only what you can afford to lose" - Meaning that getting those 50ish milion for one of the battleships and some more to outfit it properly does not mean you should fly it if losing it means that all your capital you accumulated goes poof.. Generally you should fly things into battle that if losing them it wouldn't mean a financial crackdown for you. You will get shot at and shot down in EVE if you engage in PvP, so staying with the ships you can financialy support and replace fast to be back on track is important.
EVE is not your tipical leveling game wher bigger ship means more badass. Different ships classes are there to fulfill different roles in a battle.
An extremely common misconception among new people is that bigger is better. These people tend to farm like madmen for a few weeks, and jump in a Battleship long before they should, then use it in situations that a Battleship is ill-suited for.
To put things in perspective, the majority of the small roaming gangs you'll see are a mix of cruiser and frigate sized ships. Battleships are rarely used outside large fleet fights due to their lack of mobility. Granted, a lot of those will probably be T2 ships, but even old players very frequently fly T1 cruisers or frigates, simply due to their low cost.
If you choose to be so, you can be an effective member of a fleet within a week. Train a couple levels of frigate, propulsion jamming, a couple other skills here and there, and jump in a frigate fit for tackling. This isn't a raid, there is no cap on how many people you can take, no detriment to taking more people. Unless you think they're a spy, or going to do something totally stupid to get people killed, there is no reason to ever turn down another ship for your fleet. You won't be as effective as an interceptor, but another tackler is always great to have.
It's that bit that I think most people have the hardest time grasping. In most level-based MMOs, the game doesn't start until level cap. If you're a newbie in WoW today, you can't really do jack until you hit 80. This is just not the case with Eve. Sure, if you want to fly a capital ship, or support mining ops with a Rorqual, you have a long road ahead of you. But there are a whole lot of activities out there that have little or no barriers to entry.
The game won't tell you what to do, you have to figure that out for yourself. Set a course and go.
I had the chance to play Eve as a "born again noob" and wrote about it here. Hope that helps, and hope you give the game a shot : )
deviliscious: (PS. I have been told that when I use scientific language, it does not make me sound more intelligent, it only makes me sound like a jackass. It makes me appear that I am not knowledgable enough in the subject I am discussing to be able to translate it for people outside the field to understand. Some advice you might consider as well)