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Question for EVE players/veterans
Zadawn
Member UncommonPosts: 670
in EVE Online
I'm playing the trial at the moment and i'm having a blast,i like everything so far.The question is,if i ever decide to pvp,will i be able to be competitive considering how the skill system works and that most have years of skill training ahead?
Probably not the appropriate section for this but this is the most active part of the forums.
Much appreciated!
Comments
Yes you can. . after a few months I thought it would take forvever before I could do much in PvP. Here hs why this is not quite true:
1) Small fast ships are still needed
2) with each progression of skill the increase (say 5% extra damage with something) seems to stay at a 5% increase with the time it takes it increase it going from an hour up to 18 days. So someone playing for 3 months or a year more than you could have spend months training some skills to rank 5 from 4.
3) People who have been playing longer seem to have a wider variety of skills, for instance trained many up to level 4 and several up to 5 but not all can be applied at a time. For example, I can now fly 4 different ship types at least but the skills to fully utilize each ship are different. I might have been better to choose one and learn everything I could for it.
Solo PvP might be more of a problem but you can anways jump in and help out with a group.
Someone more experienced let me know if I am wrong.
Wa min God! Se æx on min heafod is!
Yes. The idea that you can't catch up is a misconception by people who don't understand how the EvE skill system works.
There isn't one skill that you increase forever. If that were the case then yes of course you could never catch up. However EvE skills branch off to cover many different activities and usability of specific ships and items.
For example, a vet may have 60mil skill points to your 10mil but all 60 mill aren't in one skill called 'pvp'. The points will be spread out, with the player having a much smaller amount of skill points in flying frigates, or destroyers, or using engery weapons, projectile weapons or missiles. Many of the skill points maybe in mining, manufacturing, leadership. It just goes on and on. So in a short time you can be competitive in a given type of combat. The vets are just very good at many different disciplines within EvE.
Also what people really tend to discount when they promote th false idea that you can never catch up is that the real pvp in EvE is group pvp, being in a corp, playing a part in a larger scheme of combat. If your idea of pvp in EvE is that you are alone out there dependant on just your skills and your ship engaging in meaningful pvp, you're doing it wrong.
This question gets asked hundreds of times.
The short answer is that yes you can. While there is no hard limit to the number of skills you can acquire, there is a limit to how high you can train any skills, and there are a strictly finite number of skills that can apply to any one ship + fit. Since you can only fly one ship at any one time, once you're "good" with one ship, it's just a question of expanding the range of ships that you can usefully fly.
In practice, this means that you'll be meaningfully limited by your SP for no more than a few months. After that, your native intelligence, social skills, willingness to put in effort and take risks and accumulated assets & wealth will be increasingly more important than your SP.
Additionally, you ask about being "competitve". It's important to understand that EVE is very very group-focused. It wont be you vs everyone. It'll be your corp/alliance vs everyone. Even the very low cost, low "power" ships can have an important role to play in a fight. Sure, you'll lose a lot of ships. So what? The cost of a T1 frigate is below trivial. Most worthwhile corps will give you tackle-fitted frigates for free.
Give me liberty or give me lasers
Aethaeryn is quite right. What you want to do is decide what type of ship you want to fly, frigate, cruiser, etc. in PvP and then find out what skills are needed to fly it well.
take a look at this program http://www.eveonline.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=548883&page=1
Just wait for the download timer, you don't need to pay anything.
Pick the ship you want, add the modules you want and then right click and look at the skills that affect it. I am forgetting if there are any global skills that would still be a factor that aren't shown in EFT, but that would give you a pretty comprehensive idea.
Then you can look at EVEMon and see how long it will take http://evemon.battleclinic.com/
But ya bottom line, it doesn't take that long (months) to get maxed or near in a particular ship type unless you are talking about the really big ones. But even a Battleship is not a long long term thing if you are focused. Flying multple types of ship well that is another story.
"Never met a pack of humans that were any different. Look at the idiots that get elected every couple of years. You really consider those guys more mature than us? The only difference between us and them is, when they gank some noobs and take their stuff, the noobs actually die." - Madimorga
Actually this is the biggest misunderstanding of the skillsystem in EvE Online. Alot of people think that veterans have huge advantages and that new players will never be able to catch up.
Let me tell you, this is total rubbish for very simple reasons...
1. every skill in the game has a maximum of 5 levels -> you can't get better then having all skills for the ship you are currently flying at level 5
2. the time it takes to train skills to level 4 is pretty fast -> the mere 2-5% you gain by training a skill to level 5 is often not worth the time
3. the small ships are one of the most important ones -> training for interceptor to be a valuable asset in fleet-PvP doesn't even take you more then 2 month
4. having more skills only gives you more options to choose -> you can't fly more then one ship at a time, so most of the time a vet is only using some 25% of his trained skills, whil the rest is skills for other ships and equipment
5. specialize in a few areas first -> specializing makes you competitive really fast and I'm not talking about 1vs1 as there's no 1vs1 to be found in EvE Online. EvE Online is all about group vs. group
Last but not least I've got to say, yes a veteran might have some advantages in the beginning of your EvE career, but this advantage is mostly based on knowledge and personal skill and not because he has 100 Mil skillpoints.
The skills that are needed for every ship - skills that increase your HP, recharge-rates of shield and capacitor, etc - are the most important ones to max out after you've specialized in your first two or three ships. But, these skills are not that time-consuming to train from level 4 to level 5 (they're most of the time rank 1 or rank 2 skills). After these are done you can start to diversify and start training skills for ships that you don't fly that often.
Hope that helps to clarify the issue.
By competitive i meant i don't want to fly around and get one shotted( assuming i have some played time on board) by someone else just because he played since launch or so.
Nonetheless thank you guys,you removed all my doubts!
Getting one shotted depends mainly on what you fly and what the other flies. Now it is actually quite rare to get one shotted unless you are in a very fragile ship due to the mechanics but a good alpha shot from a BS can wreck frigates, maybe even cruisers. (but that can happen even if you have lots of SP's)
This said, having few SP's is a disadvantage, people can twist it all they want but having that little more cap/tank/dps but also fitting is very handy.
BUT unlike in games like WOW it doesn't mean you'll get raped helplessly everytime by people who played a year more.
For newbies i'd suggest flying with fleets, solo'ing is possible but very very hard if you have little SP's because you'll often be the prey. But once you get like 10 mill SP's (if you focused your SP's on relevant combat skills) you should be able to compete with folks with 100 mill SP.
Fere libenter homines id quod volunt credunt.
Among those who dislike oppression are many who like to oppress.
If a new player can get one shotted in eve; chances are, under the same circumstances (ship/fitting), a vet would be one shotted too.
Also, if you're in high sec, the cost the player spent to one shot you will not be worth the act of one shotting you.
There's another thread with various inputs on this same question if you would care to have a look on through.
In short, you will be fine in group PvP, you may suffer initially 1v1.
The biggest problem that people who are really concerned with being viable 1v1 or being indivudually powerful is that they think rushing to a battleship is the best way to go about things. Instead, they should probably focus on getting t2 tank, t2 guns, and engineering skills to be able to fly a battlecruiser really well like a hurricane or drake.
Once you start getting your support skills up you realize that the only real advantage for vets (outside of experience/knowledge) is that they are flexible in the different types of ships they can fly.
Unless you're the kind of person that feels they should be able to 1v1 anyone, you should be fine.
Confirming that battlecruisers are great. They're versatile, have great utility and are an attainable goal for new players.
Give me liberty or give me lasers
unless you're carrying hundreds of plex's
Fere libenter homines id quod volunt credunt.
Among those who dislike oppression are many who like to oppress.
In which case, welcome to don't be a frickin' idiot. I think a lot of people get scared because of stories like this not realizing how retarded a person has to be for something like that to happen to them, and without fail it will happen again.
Think of all the monacles they could of bought! Two, maybe three!!!?!???
It all depends on your comfort level of what it's worth versus what you'll lose.
75 Plex bought in one place and sold for more somewhere else might be worth it.
An easy couple billion in less than an hour...
Heh , the beauty of EVE is that there is no " i " but a " we " . It's all about numbers , new or not , anyone can be useful if they follow orders , bad orders or not , it's a learning experience and you'll lose some and win some.
http://massively.joystiq.com/2011/07/17/eve-evolved-learning-to-let-go/
I'd read over that! You'll be useful. Definitely.
Heh there's nothing scary about that story, well i hope i didn't scare away anyone. But ya, common sense helps a long way in EVE and can make you avoid 50% of the stupid losses.
Fere libenter homines id quod volunt credunt.
Among those who dislike oppression are many who like to oppress.
Well I'd do it if the profit could be there but chances are i'd have them in an Extremely well tanked Tengu with Covert Ops cloak, or at least a Blockade runner with the same and wouldn't be autopiloting with them. Either way I would be a very hard target to gank.
Problem is like most things the Negative is told louder then the positive. I've never seen a forum post about the guy who transported several billion across the galaxy safely, but you see all sorts of threads when people get ganked. At a casual glance of EVE, and you can see it in the number of people asking if you can avoid PVP, it SEEMs like if you undock with anything of value anywhere a horde of gankers descend on you like locusts. We know that doesn't happen, but its the only side that is usually protrayed by internets.
Agree'd, for an open PvP game eve online is far less hostile than most of the other open PvP games that don't have any consequences.
I really wanna try eve, does it have a sub? And importantly is it fun and is it hard to get into as a new player? - Like are all the veterans miles in front in terms of advantages
It does have a sub, but after a time you end up being able to play for free--you can essentially buy game time codes that other players sell on the market; as for the other question... The above comments go over this well
They may be miles in front of you for /some/ shipes, but over all, some ships are not too far off.