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New Player (prolly the millionth post you guys have seen for this)
zandwarf
Member Posts: 114
So long story short. I have played EQ2 since launch, and played a 14 day trial of EVE about two years ago. I really liked it. Im looking for a home in an MMO that I can hold on to for years to come. EQ2 has just put a bad taste in my mouth...long story, dont want to go into it...
What i want to know, "and I seen another post joking about this" is would I be pissing in the wind trying to play this game? Can a new player jump in and still enjoy the game? I have no clue what blueprints are, im assuming new ships or something...but someone mentioned corps "guilds?" are whording all of them, blah, blah, blah...
Would I be able to to still compete with others in pvp and what not? If not, how long of a grind am I looking at playing 3-7 hours a day to get up to par?
Thanks,
Comments
Only grindable factor is wealth and rep. You do missions or anything that makes money to buy skills to get into better ships, that you buy. Rep raises with missions and gets you mission-givers that give more money. As for how long it could take to get into a decent position to PvP; 4 months imo. Skill are on a timer, and by then you could get up to using a battleship or being skilled enough to do a smaller ship good enough to do serious damage. The best way to get into PvP is Factional Warfare from what I hear. You could go looking for it in 0.0 security space on your own, but you'll meet unfair odds. By flying with a fleet in search of PvP you stand a better chance.
Blueprints are for crafting things, in a sense. If your not into mining, renting out factories to produce stuff, and generally avoiding combat, then thats what you wouldn't want to get into. It takes skill allocation that is going to draw from what could be combat-oriented though, and you can't really get he best of both worlds early on. Older players with tons of skill investment hit a wall on combat skills and tend to get into other things, but that's a long way down the road. Choose combat or production early on and stick with the one you choose.
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First of all, get in a very helpful corp (guild). Second, there isnt any grinding really. You could be offline for a week and be up to a cruiser or even a battlecruiser (VERY VERY nice ships) only problem is money (isk). Either do missions for cash, or ask your corp for a donation (lol). My old corp used to do pvp training. We'd have the leader go somewhere in the system and hed teach us how to scan and find him and then how to work as a team an things like that.
There are other ways for new players to make ISK than missions. Mission grinding is the EvE equivalent of being on welfare. It's a fairly mindless way of getting enough ISk to survive on, but if you're prepared to put in some thought and take a few risks, you can make more ISK in less time, even as a new player.
For instance one thing I used to do was keep an eye on CAOD and see where the current battlefronts are, and then buy ammo, dictor bubbles, weapons, etc at trade hubs (low prices) and haul them to the nearest gateway system to sell at a good markup. Read the battle reports and see what kind of ships are being used and lost - if there are lots of battleships involved, then dont bring cruiser size ammo. Run missions to generate seed capital, and then use that ISK to make more ISK.
Give me liberty or give me lasers
I'll try to make this short (yeah, kidding...)
There is no "grind" in EvE in the common sense. There is no level 50, 60, 200 or whatever to reach before you play with the big boys. There is no level. You can learn various things that let you fly certain ships and others that make your ships "better". It's open ended learning and "leveling". This means that yes, a 5 year old player will have more skills and more skill points accumulated. It does not necessarily mean that you will never compete with them.
EvE is a game of group PvP. And as in every group, you need different roles to be successful. Of course you could field a fleet entirely composed of motherships (big ships that require loads of skills and ISK) , but you will not be better off than a mixed fleet of a few big ships and others supporting them. You will only field more expensive ships.
Think of a modern fleet with an aircraft carrier. Of course the carrier is the main attack force that can field an array of destruction unparalleled by anything. Yet a fleet only consisting of carriers would be vulnerable, e.g. to submarine attacks. So smaller escort vessels make sure that these threats can be tackled.
And here new players come into the game, because it is easy and takes fairly little time to fly such support ships sensibly. In "normal" MMO terms, imagine a level 30 character being critical to the success of a raid.
Also, the skill system is one of diminishing returns. Getting to 10% of the maximum possible skill level is trivial and takes a few hours. Getting to 50% takes a few days. Getting to 80% could take many days to a few weeks. Getting it to 100% could mean investing months. What this means for you, as a new player, is that you can easily get to 80% of a top player's skill in fairly little time. Not to mention that you will probably not need all those skills. E.g. when flying medium size ships, your tracking speed (which regulates your hit chance) is fairly ok with little investment of tracking skill. Big ships won't hit a thing without good tracking. Again, it scales up very badly, meaning, the bigger, tougher and more "advanced" the ship you want to fly, the more time you have to invest to fly them well. Diminishing returns again. A ship that will give you 10% more output (of damage, tankability or mining ability) will cost you 100% more time. You need to invest very little time to fly frigates well, a bit more time to fly cruisers well and a tremendous amount of time to fly motherships well. And all of them are needed in an operation if it is meant to be successful.
Also, not everyone is in those huge sovereignity holding alliances that make EvE more a second (or first...) job than a game. You can be successful in a corp executing small hit-and-run style assaults. Or if combat is not your kind of game, trying your hand at economy is, unlike in most other MMOs, a very viable source of income and enjoyment. You are dealing with a 100% player driven economy, from the harvesting of raw materials to the production of space station wrecking weapons of destruction. The sweet part about this is that the most common and easily minable material is also the most needed one, meaning that you will produce something meaningful from day one. If you go into mining, you will not have to grind for ages until you finally can produce something someone would actually buy and need. You will immediately mine the most used and most needed material in the universe.
People higher up in the ladder will produce more than you, but not more needed materials.
So before I write a novel about it without addressing your concerns, maybe you should first of all inform us what you want out of this game. That's another beautiful aspect of it: Not the game tells you what you should do. You decide. Mining, producing, researching, fighting, all can lead to success. Which road is yours?
Thank you all for the great feed back! Me and the lady both downloaded the 14 day trial last night, and started the patching today before work. We cant wait to get on tonight.
As for what roll we want to get into, combat and mining. Is it possiable to do both, and do them both well? Or would it be better to focus only on one? For example...could i spend a few hours mining, and then go out and do combat missions when im spent on the mining?
Also, a few more things i just thought about...
1) Are there servers on eve, and if so...whats a more populated one?
2) What will i need to buy after my 14 day trial is up? Are there expansions or anything?
Everyone is on the one server (cluster). Expansions are free. If you decide to cross train keep it too a minimum or you will end being able to do a little of everything but having terrible skills in one relevant path. Train the first set of learning skills to 3 or 4 from the off and get +3 learning implants as soon as possible. Lastly join eve university (http://www.eve-ivy.com). It is set-up specifically to help new players learn skills, the kind that you can't buy skillbooks for.
Fly safe, have fun and welcome aboard.
Jam is sticky.
It is possible to do both given enough elapsed time, but for a single account I'd focus on one 'carreer' path.
Despite the disparaging remarks made about mission running, the skills you train for it translate reasonably well into PVP, (and advanced PVE like wormholes) while mining, hauling and trading skills don't.
Also, advanced mission runners tend to fly some of the games most expensive ships (Mauraders everywhere) and certainly don't lack for cash. It is the slow, safe, steady way to earn income, and especially good for newer players until they've had a chance to learn more about the game world and the supply and demand needs of the universe.
If you both are really new, I recommend you read a couple of guides, first a basic new player guide
eve.battleclinic.com/guide/3510-BattleClinic-s-EVE-New-Player-Guide.html
Then this miners guide if you're still interested in such a career.
www.eveonline.com/ingameboard.asp
"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
Kyleran I am going to hide your mining guides to stop you sending new players down a path that will inevitably lead to them scratching their eyeballs out in boredom.......
Jam is sticky.
That bad eh?
Hey one last thing on this... Can I have alts that I mine with, or is EVE one toon per account?
Only one can be logged in at any time. Same with skills, only one character can be training skills at any one time. Needless to say there is absolutely no point in training the other two.
Jam is sticky.
Okay one last thing..."I hope, dont hold me to it though
"
Been reading up on EvE all day...thanks a ton for the noob guid link btw. Frankly I cannot sit still any longer! I cant wait to get home and give it a go.
My question though... EvE does not have classes, right? So if me and the lady are playing as a duo, should we focus on diffrent skills? Also, is a duo something you can really do, and do well in eve? And about the diffrent factions, would we both need to be the same faction to start out together?
And last but not least...speaking of factions, is their any real diffrence other than the way the ships look?
Correct, there are no traditional classes in EVE.
Working as a duo can work really well in EVE.
Example:
If you end up doing missions or cosmic anomalies together, one of you can go for tanking skills relevant to your race/ship type (Hull Upgrades, Armor Compensation for Gallente) as well as DPS skills (Drones, Hybrid Turrets for Gallente) and the other can go for support skills that allow the use of modules like Remote Repair/Shield Transfer (Healing) or even just strictly DPS, allowing the tank to suck up the damage while the other ship clears the site quickly. There's a lot of possibilities for just this example, but I wanted to give you a basic one that is easy to understand without knowing too much about the game.
For your last question, the difference between the races when it comes to starting your character is what skills you start out with. The skills you get will be relevant to your race's ships (like Missiles for Caldari) but you have very low skills to begin with anyway. Also, you can always cross train to another race at any point so the difference between races isn't very important. One detail that might be important in your situation specifically is that your starting location is based on which race you choose and you probably don't want to start 30 solar systems away from each other.
_________________________________
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That bad eh?
Hey one last thing on this... Can I have alts that I mine with, or is EVE one toon per account?
Having alts makes only limited sense in EvE and only in special situations that you'll probably not run into any time soon (e.g. spying on other corps). Since only one character per account can train at any given time, it's usually better and more efficient to stick to one toon.
And you should decide for mining OR fighting at the start of your EvE career. Training both will essentially mean that you can't do either in reasonable time. One "edge" old players have over new ones is that they can't do something specific that much better than a new player that concentrated on this area, but they have greater versatility. It takes about 9 months to a year to become a miner that is on par with any miner that has been around for the whole time this game existed. The difference between a year old miner and him will only be that the old player can hop into a battle ship and be equally efficient and proficient with it because he had the time to train it.
Okay, so for the type of duo you explained, one tank, one healer/support type, what would be a good way to start with skills for each?
Also back to race, any recomendations? One more populated than another, easyer to find groups etc?
And last, I have been reading alot about the corporations "Guilds?" is it a must to join one for the best game experiance? And if so, does anyone recomend any that will take noobs? Im not looking for handouts, im sure I will catch on quick...just the occasional help with questions and what not I may have?
Race doesn't matter except for a small head start in your race's frig skills, not worth worrying about. Pick the race that has the best lore or looks good to you.
But regardless what race you pick, my recommendation is to train up in Gallente Ships 1st over any other. It takes a bit longer than Caldari and their missiles, but Drone boats are extremely versatile in PVE and PVP. (In Wormholes we love our remote repping (RR) Domi's). Gallente also have a great Industrial hauler called the Iterion V and the Arazu is a great solo recon ship. Also, for the most part Gallente are armor tankers and armor tanking is arguably superior to shield tanking in many peoples eyes.
Corporations is correct, don't call them guilds. (you'll be laughed at). Contact EVE University, they take in new players, even trial accounts and they exist to train new players in the way of the game. There are also many corps in game who have training branches, however they usually want people who've subbed to the game.
Now as to skills and roles, that's a bit tricky. You can't really train up one character to be a "tank" because even in easy missions Npcs will frequently change targets and if one of the two of you isn't properly tanked, you're going to die.
If you go the mining road (I recommend against it) you can have one person mine and one person haul, so that makes some sense, but in combat its very situational.
If it were me, i'd both train Gallente drone boats at first, then have one of you specialize in rails (guns) while the other goes super heavy into drones. A battleship combo of two Domis or a Domi/Mega would rip mission up pretty fast and would allow each of you to solo when one person wasnt around. You could remote repair each other which makes you darn near invulnerable to npc attack and not so bad in pvp either.
"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
noooooooooo get the 21 day trial of another spot on here xD
Thanks for the fast reply, I appriciate the feedback.
I think we will stray from the mining, just sounds boring as hell...
Thank you all, hope to see you in game soon.
noooooooooo get the 21 day trial of another spot on here xD
How do I get the 21 day trial? Will I have to re-download something? Game downloaded last night from 14day trial, patched this morning. Havent played though, still stuck at work... I do however have a feeling I will sub just after playing tonight, Im really diggin the sandbox play style I have been reading about.
Theres a section in here with a whole page where you just ask and within maybe 5 mins someone will give you a link to make a 21 day trial account. No redownloading. just a different account
I just read the word "group" in one of your last posts. Allow me to tell you why "grouping" in EvE, especially with random people, is NOT a good idea.
EvE is not your average nanny MMO where you get a fair share of everything, where you get to roll dice over anything that drops or where you at least get what "belongs" to you. When you mine with someone and he does the hauling of ore, and after 2 hours when you're supposed to split the loot his response is "up yours" (or something to that tune that I can't post here), then there's very little you could do to avoid going away empty handed. Loot and (floating) cargo in a group belongs to the group, or rather, whoever takes it. It's yours, if you're the first to grab it.
A common scam is people dropping stuff in space, telling you it's free. You will get a warning from the system that you're stealing, but the guy tells you it's allright to take what you want. Problem is, he gets the right to shoot you if you take anything. And he does. POOF goes your ship.
Another common gambit is waiting for you to get your hauler when you're mining. While you're gone, they move everything from your can into one they create. You come with your hauler, try to get your ore and get a warning... wtf? Must be a mistake, it's your ore after all? Problem is, you take a piece and he gets kill rights for stealing from his can. POOF goes your ship.
Not so common but entirely possible are corps that sign you up only to blow you to pieces because within corps, killing each other (even in Empire space) is no "criminal offense" that would get CONCORD (the In-Game police force with ships that cheat like you haven't seen before...) on your tail. They sign you up, ask you to join them, POOF goes your ship.
People set up offers for very cheap equipment or ships in low security space to lure you out there. You fly there, they camp the gates, POOF goes your ship.
People set up transporting contracts with a collateral that exceeds the market value of the goods to be transported. You accept the contract, they retract it, you sit on heavily overpriced goods. No POOF this time, except for your wallet.
These are just a few examples of the many ways people and whole corps prey on the new and gullible. "A fool and his money are easily parted" is an old saying that holds its truth in EvE.
Don't trust people easily in this game. It's not far from how you would act in reality. Except that the morality threshold is much, much lower. After all, they're not really ruining someone's life...
You can start playing and have fun. You will not catch up to other players but you can work with them fine (unlike say raids in other MMOs). Your taxes and lack of skills will eat your profit margins for about half a year (skilling is in real time no matter if online or not).
The bitter pill is in some of the most attractive stuff you will never be able to compete with old blueprint holders because those blueprints can be no longer obtained (you can obtain inferior version that is temporary, has huge waste and an extra cost on top). You can buy old prints - at about decade of revenue worth.
On the other hand, in EvE all goods are tradeable and it has limited RMT (you can sell prepayed cards in game), so you can buy skilled character, game currency and all materials to get you started on day one.
Edit: 21 day trial. Just ask for it in help channel, your corp channel, your language channel, some channel, here, find if "Tyrrhon something" is online, whatever. If you sub the guy giving it to you gets a free month, so someone will bite. It is very reasonable to make another account that you train for faster training (so nothing usefull or fun for a while) while you are doing silly things on your first disposable account anyway, the game really takes one or two weeks to get the very very basics. Mutiaccounts run on same installation, same email.
YOu sound like you had a really rough time playing Eve.
Someone should have told you this is not one of those games where random pick up groups are good.
If you want to fleet up you join a corp, gain trust and then do shit like pvp, mining and other stuff together.
Eve's game mechanics do not promote fair play, sorry.
PLaying: EvE, Ryzom
Waiting For: Earthrise, Perpetuum
Finaly got on last night, loving the game. I do have a few more questions though now...
First is kinda minor, but is an annoyance. My mouse wheel is scrolling backwards? Is there an option to change this?
Second, how do I invite someone to a fleet? And how do you send someone a private message?
On a side note, and a little bit of humor...me and the lady made our way to an astroid belt, she killed a rat and I looted her can "couldnt figure the grouping thing out" and she then proceded to pwn face...
just right click her name or portrait in local/corp chat and invite to fleet.
Same goes for sending a message.
In a fleet you can loot eachothers wrecks.
I don't know about the mouse wheel I zoom in and out by holding the two mouse buttons and pulling the mouse forward and back.
PLaying: EvE, Ryzom
Waiting For: Earthrise, Perpetuum