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If I start now, am I hopelessly behind forever?
Foizle
Member Posts: 16
As someone who hasn't played EVE, but is tired of the dumbed down, risk-averse, never fail spoon-feeding of other MMOs, I'm interested. Open-world PVP with real consequences, truly player-created economies, and no damned Elves--sounds good to me.
BUT...
I hear (when you haven't played EVE before, you *hear* things) that because of the mechanic EVE uses to train skills, I can never be the equal of someone who has played longer than I have, simply by virtue of said mechanic.
True? And if true, is that still a game-breaker for a new player? In any MMO, there will always be someone bigger than you until you hit max level, but if you can train forever in EVE, is there a point at which I simply can't compete?
Thanks for any thoughtful replies.
Comments
For all practical purposes, no, you would not be hopelessly behind forever. The reason for this is that any one skill can only be trained to level 5 and some skills will have zero effect on you depending on the ships and equipment you are using. Battleship and missle skills will be useless if you are piloting a frigate with nothing but guns.
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The most awesomest after school special T-shirt:
Front: UNO Chemistry Club
Back: /\OH --> Bad Decisions
Well of course, skills take a crapload of time to learn in Eve, but that doesn't mean your crazy behind. To be honest, Eve is a huge rp / social game, get a network of friends, be smart be wary of over friendly people.
Eve is a treacherous game, you can stab people in the back and you can get stabbed in the back.
EVE is like another life. No you can never catch up, but that is irrelevant. You can become competitive fairly quickly and there are corprations to join that will help you. Also it is an ever evolving player dynamic. Research it, find the tools that let you plan the skills you needx to fly the ship you want before starting. Will you be a comabt pilot? A miner? A transport pilot? Will you train in trading or ... there are endless paths. Stay in the more secure zones and never attack another player in them(security will blow you up) Watch, listen and learn. It is a great game, it just makes me a pain to live with or so my ex tells me.
Currently bored with MMO's.
Not true.
It's just an unfortunate misconception. I kill players that have been playing the game since launch day consistently in my stealth bomber and I've only been playing for just under a year and a half.
And it won't take you but a month and a half to get into a properly skilled bomber. And less than 3 weeks for a fully T2 fitted drake.
No.
Its a complely diffrent mentaility to themepark games.
TSW - AoC - Aion - WOW - EVE - Fallen Earth - Co - Rift - || XNA C# Java Development
In every MMO, there will always be people ahead of you, EVE is no different. However as long as you're smart about your skill plan in a couple short months you can carve out a place for yourself in EVE. Find what role you'd like to fill and do some research into what skills you will need. Browsing your certificates is a good start, reading forums and talking to other players would be even better. As long as you don't get into the mind set of "I have to have the most skill points in all of EVE" you'll soon find that you're snapping necks, cashing checks, and accomplishing goals.
Old-timers maxed out on their preferred skills long ago, now they just have the luxury of wasting points on skills they can experiment with (mining, industry, astrometrics, w/e). You'll never be a pro at absolutely everything like those kinds of players are, but you can be pro at *something* in a shorter amount of time.
Writer / Musician / Game Designer
Now Playing: Skyrim, Wurm Online, Tropico 4
Waiting On: GW2, TSW, Archeage, The Rapture
Cool. Thanks for the 'splanations. Downloading now.................
Finite number of skills that can apply to any one ship? Check!
Finite level to which those skills can be raised? Check!
Ergo: finite number of skillpoints required to have the same skills as a 7 year old vet in a given situation.
You can be on a level with a 7 year old vet while flying small ships like interceptors really pretty quickly. As you play, you'll reach "level cap" in more and more ships.
It's worth remembering that 1v1s are by far the rarest kind of combat in EVE.
Give me liberty or give me lasers
Also, there is no wrong time to get involved in PvP. A total noob could join a good corp and start learning the ropes instantly. Post on the forums to find a good corp that will take you, and just check them out first to see which would be a good fit for you. Just remember, you can always find a different corp if the one you're in is doing things you don't want to do. If it doesn't work out, it doesn't work out. Go somewhere else and find a group that fits with your playstyle.
EVE is rewarding if you take the time to get into the intricacies.
It takes anywhere from 6 months to a year to "catch up" to the leading edge of the game enough to compete on an even playing field with the big boys should you focus your skills down a somewhat narrow line. 1 month will get you competing with the other newbs and 3 to 6 months will get you in the arena with the low end vets.
The good thing about eve is there is a constant stream of new players entering and so there are always people at your level of play to compete against in a pvp sense or hang out with in a pve sense. Also there are different level security zones called 0.0 to 1.0 with 0 being no security and 1 being high end security. The players will typically arrange themselves such that newbs will be in high security space 0.7 to 1.0 with medium term players filling the gap in low security space while the longer term vets will be found in 0.0 space (commonly reffered to as null sec) in which there are no rules except those enforced by players.
Thus as you advance in the game and acquire skills you will find yourself natrually filtering down into lower and lower security space along with other people that are progressing like you untill you find youself in 0.0 space.
The PvP at all levels consist of players who have been playing multiple years trying different gear, different ways and different approaches. They have changed the PvP of Eve from an art to a science and back to an art again for so long that they do it in their sleep. The good news is that if you start now, they will grow old and die and you could be the next generation of OP players. Hence, you are not hopelessly behind...forever.
The game makes you feel like you're a lot farther behind than you actually are. There are lots of things you can do to catch up but I just couldn't deal with it after about a month. The time investment necessary is absolutely insane, it dwarfs that of other MMO's where you really only need to be there for raids or whatever.
I regret not sticking with the game when I gave it my first really good effort, but there is no chance I'm gonna relearn the game at this point. It's been too long.
I've been playing EvE for three years now, I have maxed skills in two characters for all that interests me, that includes invention, production and trading in one character and very high skills in sub-capital combat in another character.
The industrial character is now training some level 5 skills, each skill takes a month to train and adds very little to his knowledge. The difference between my three year old industrial character and a one year old industrial character is quite large but the difference between mine and a five year old industrial character is almost negligible. I consider myself equal to any industrial who has played longer than I have.
My combat character cannot fly capital ships, never trained them. Some friends with less time in EvE fly those behemonts and in that sense they have surpassed me.
This combat character of mine, is also quite inept at flying anything Amarr or at firing lasers of any kind. Any one year old character dedicated to Amarr combat would be able to fly Amar ships that I cannot even board.
This combat character of mine can fly Caldary ships as well as any five year old character, there is nothing left to train in that sense. I doubt there is a Caldary pilot in eve that can best mine because of their superior skills (they will best mine because they are better pilots, but not because of their superior skill points).
So, choose your path, specialize, train the relevant skills and in a couple of years you'll be equal (skill wise) to anyone who has been longer than you in eve.
An old character may excel at different things. You can never beat that. You will need several characters (several accounts) to get there, but each of your characters will be with time as good in their chosen path as the old multi trained character.
JM2C
Played: UO, SWG, TR, WoW, AoC, EvE
Playing:
Interested in: JGE, LotR, TSW
Everyone that has posted here is correct about not really behind in the game...The game is really dependent on what you want to do in the game. I have only been playing now for just over 30 days and I am having just as much fun as those that have been playing the game for years.
To be honest with you, you make the game as fun or as boring as you want to make it. But, the best thing that I or anyone that has mentioned here in this thread is to give the game a try (21-day trial account instead of the 14-day from the EvE site). The 14-day trial really doesn't let you really get into the game compared to the 21-days that most of us that have posted can give you to try the game out.
What really makes this game unique is the community; you will meet people from all over the world (literally). The other players are going to be your best resource for learning and helping you on your journey in EvE.
Also, if and when you decided to give the game a go, find a good corp to join up with, there are a lot of player corps in game that are more than willing to take in new players and they are more than willing to part with information to help you out in the game as well.
But, really give the game a solid try, the learning curve at the start is really steep and there will be times where you get frustrated with the game because you can't understand this or that function of the game. It has happened to me, just ask questions and make sure that you do the starting tutorials as well, the game at the start basically gives you a lot of the skill books, and a few starter ships to help you along the way as well.
See ya in game!
-Slider7
Looking for that next MMO
I realized something the other day, and maybe it will help answer your question. I have 2 characters and both are used for scanning.
On one of the characters, I spent a lot of time training all the skills to 5 and getting the absolute best modules because I wanted the absolute best scan strength. On the other, the skills are only at 4 and this character uses only basic modules.
At first, when I really didn't understand how to scan quickly, the skills and modules did make some difference. After a few weeks of heavy WH scanning, however, I began to realize that it was all about how I placed my probes.
Soon, It made absolutely no difference which character I used, it was all about the technique I used to scan. The skills and modules only helped me when I didn't know how to scan. Now I realize that I wasted a good amount of time and isk because I put too much faith in skills and modules, and not enough in learning how to scan correctly.
This is a true and recent story, and I think it makes a very real point about EVE.
Oh, no!
It seems the choice to join EVE has been taken from me...I can't make it through the (admittedly wonderful) character generation without crashing to desktop. I've never had a game crash before--very odd.
Disappointed.
Updated drivers, completely current Win7, ATI 4800, 16GB RAM...EVE shouldn't kill my system, but it does. Argh.
Regardless, thank you all for being pleasant, patient and articulate regarding my question.
Well...with only 16mb of ram, yeah I would expect some crashing!
Works fine on my machine
Sorry you cannot get it working.
the title for this thread make me mad at so many levels, is the clear example of how little ppl understand eve, before going futher OP can you take this quiz and tell me if you fail the osprey question http://www.proprofs.com/quiz-school/story.php?title=do-you-have-basic-knowledge-eve-online-trial-
BestSigEver :P
I passed it!
Do you have the basic knowledge about EvE Online? » ProProfs Quizzes
Tried reinstalling? There is no reason that with a system like that, the game should be crashing.
Answering the title of the thread while ignoring all the posts.
Yes, I have heard multiple times from multiple people that the only way to do anything in this game is to buy an account.
This game needs an effort-based leveling system instead of a time-based system. I'm pretty sure the time-based system is just there so CCP makes more money from sub fees, which are also time-based. As you wait for your skills to level, you're pretty much paying real cash just to level up.
I'm guessing English isn't your first language, so I'm gonna give you a big ol' break in interpreting whatever it is that you've written here.
This topic has been beaten to death, rezzed, killed, mutilated, rezzed again....so i understand cosy's frustration.
To be on topic.
Total SP-wise, yes you will be left behind forever, there is no way for you to catch up with older player PERIOD Unless said veteran podded himself over and over again w/o updated clones.
BUT Eve mechanics enables new player to be competative from day 1. So much that total SP is really irrelevant. Because on combat only a portion of that SP is applicable, meaning you can't use carrier 5 or BS 5 on a frigate or cruiser.
Trial is there, use it, in fact abuse it until you ready to take the plunge.