The cockblock of EvE

[spiralyguy]

I don't think I've ever seen a cockblock as blatant as EvE online's skill system.  It screams out "keep paying us subscriptions!".  It seems that the best way (read: most efficient) to progress your EvE character, is simply to logout.  I'm not even kidding.

If I want money faster,  I need a better ship.  If I want faction standing faster, I need a better ship.  If I want to PvP better, or be a pirate, I need a better ship.  So... million dollar question:  How do you get a better ship? 

Answer:  Wait.  I have enough money to buy lots of neat stuff, but I can't use any of it.  I need skills.  Skills develop automatically over time even when you are logged off.  It requires 0 effort.  The last skill I just picked on the way to my new ship said it would take SEVEN DAYS.  WTF?!  I need more skills after that one too.  There's nothing I can do to speed this up.  Nothing at all.  Meanwhile, everything I do in the meantime is just spinning my wheels.  I could maybe make 1-2 million ISK per hour now, with a new ship I would be making many times that.  Same situation for raising faction.

WoW's raid-lockouts are a pretty blatant cockblock themselves, but at least these happen end-game when you are running out of content anyway.  I'm just starting to play EvE and I've had my enthusiasm smashed in the face by this rigid, hard-coded, timed, cockblock.

Do they seriously expect you to pay for subscriptions for a month or two while inactive just to train your character up?  Because I'm not really willing to do that.  Tempted to cancel my 1 month sub just days after buying it... sigh.  Why do all MMO's have to fail so hard?

[Nebu]

Seems like Eve is a good model for RMT.  Pay now for the sooper sweet content NOW!

Were it not for the fact that their player base is the hardcore contigent they've built, they may have already considered this.

[Moosehands]

There's nothing I can do to speed this up.  Nothing at all.

Untrue.  Increasing your stats increases your training speed.  Train learning skills and train cybernetics for implants.  Yes these also take time, but the returns on that time spent are arguably better in the long run than the returns on any other skill.

Meanwhile, everything I do in the meantime is just spinning my wheels.  I could maybe make 1-2 million ISK per hour now, with a new ship I would be making many times that.  Same situation for raising faction.

Raising faction is really about the storyline missions you get every 16th regular mission.  Even with 39 million SP I still regularly run level 1 courier missions in a shuttle to grind up standing from the storylines.  You can also run COSMOS, they are much easier now than when they were first implemented.

Do they seriously expect you to pay for subscriptions for a month or two while inactive just to train your character up?  Because I'm not really willing to do that.

You can set a long skill to train and cancel.  It will keep training even if you aren't paid in full.  Many, many people take every other month off while training stuff like cruiser or bs 5.


Having said that:

EVE, perhaps more than any other MMO I've played, will pay out exactly what you put in.  I play EVE as basically Progress Quest attached to an IRC client, and as a result I spend a lot of time sitting in a station with nothing to do.  Other people group up, or play the market, or get heavily invested in the political metagame (I often joke that our CEO plays Teamspeak, not EVE).

The game isn't black baby jesus, now matter how cool other players (recruiters) make it sound.

[Falconeer]

Interesting perspective.
One could say that no matter how fast you can grind mobs and XP in WoW, you still have to WAIT to get to level 27 to equip the Mauler of Eliteness.
That's playing, not waiting you say?
But I disagree. You are playing, but of all the activities the game offers you are forced to do JUST ONE to move your xp bar, fight.
While in EVE (and I dare to say in sandbox gamees), you can actually play the WHOLE game without feeling guilty because you are not moving the XP bar.

To be honest, in EVE there's lot of waiting to do. But I think that has nothing to do with what you say.



EDIT: spelling

[Soukyan]

I agree with what Falconeer points out. A lot of other MMOGs give you busy work to do to move that skill bar. Eve puts it straight out to you that moving the skill bar will take time, exponential amounts as the skill gets better.

But you don't have to do busy work to gain that skill. Some people may not like this mechanic. I do. It mimics the fact that becoming the best at anything will take increasingly more amounts of time invested, but it ditches the comparison to real life in that you don't have to play chess to become a master. Mind, that's just for the skills that allow you to "play" the game.

There are still nuances of the game that do require your play time and attention in order for you to become better at it. In any case, yes, it is no different than the level X to wear Y or skill U to use V mechanic of other games.

Your perspective is still valid, though, and is part of the reason why I don't play Eve regularly, but the older I get, the more fun Eve seems to be for me. Also, as mentioned elsewhere, if you do earn in-game currency, you can pay the game with it instead of with real currency, so a benefit to playing and earning in-game cash is that your efforts can pay for the game if you so choose.

[Merusk]

Sounds more like he's pissed he just bought the game, bought a few hundred-million ISK (or traded a timecard for it) and is now pissed he can't do anything that a 2-week noob can't also do.

Money doesn't buy uber in Eve.. but it does keep you from being unable to do anything.

That said, 4 years into the game it DOES mean you're never going to 'catch up' to the high-SP guys.  There's no 'reset point' a la a level cap raise, or a soft gear reboot (like BC's for WoW) that lets new, good and skilled players compete on an even level with the 4 year vets.  And that's somewhat bullshit since it limits bits of what you can do.

[Murgos]

If you don't think the XP curves in WoW or EQ2 or whatever are straight DPS vs MOB Hit Point calculations solved for time you got another think coming.

Just because it doesn't say "Level 50 requires a minimum of 7 days /played" doesn't mean that's not how it was calculated.

The difference is that in WoW or EQ2 you can trade your time (or someone else's) for advancement (i.e. that 7 days /played can be done in 9 days if you poopsock it and spend every waking minute logged in or can get some highbees to plevel you against mobs you normally couldn't touch), in Eve you might as well go to bed or go out and have a beer.

[IainC]

That said, 4 years into the game it DOES mean you're never going to 'catch up' to the high-SP guys.  There's no 'reset point' a la a level cap raise, or a soft gear reboot (like BC's for WoW) that lets new, good and skilled players compete on an even level with the 4 year vets.  And that's somewhat bullshit since it limits bits of what you can do.

The lines might never meet but they do get close enough that to all intents and purposes they are identical. You aren't ever going to catch up with someone who's been playing longer than you and training continuously but you don't have to. You can match that player in any given situation and you can approach a similar level of competency with less time invested. Older players have a broader skill set but they can't infinitely increase their power vertically. Additionally a lot of the veteran player's training time is going to be bound up in the last level of skills which take a very long time for a marginal improvement. Large Hybrid Turrets V for example will take me 20 days for a 5% damage increase, I could get the same increase by plugging in a cheap implant instantly.

[LC]

You can grind isk if you like watching a number increase. Around 5bil isk should buy you a 20mil sp char.

[Trouble]

The OP's point of view is why I was frustrated with the game for the first couple years of love/hate relationship we had. I would pick it up and get excited due to its depth and its finer points. Then I'd get frustrated after a couple weeks because most of the stuff I wanted to do I couldn't do due to lack of skills.

Finally a while back I came back with the express interest of doing something that wasn't limited by skills. That was Trading. I made a new character, took 5 mil I had made mining from my old character, and started trading with it. There are some trade skills but they aren't as integral as other skills are to other aspects of the game. I did well and had a lot of fun doing it.

As time has gone on and I've made ISK the entire game has opened up more and more to me. If I want to do something that does require skills, I can make a new alt and train it specially for that task. I can also purchase a character with ISK that already has the requisite training. In Eve, characters are more like commodities than they are an extension of yourself. I want a cap ship pilot? I buy one. I want another trade character? I buy it. I have 10 accounts now that I fund using ISK.

I realize my path isn't available to everyone, making that kind of ISK isn't easy. But still, it shows there are ways to work around the system. It takes the realization that the system is malleable, and that it just takes creativity to make it work for you, to get past that time sink conundrum. The depth of the game makes it worth the effort. Very few other games come even close to it.

[spiralyguy]

Sounds more like he's pissed he just bought the game, bought a few hundred-million ISK (or traded a timecard for it) and is now pissed he can't do anything that a 2-week noob can't also do.

I have a firm stance against RMT so your assumption would be just that, an assumption.  I got my money from mining, shipping, ratting, and missions.  Thing is, I have nothing useful to buy because I have to wait on skills to train while I'm offline.

Used a couple implants already.  Trained all the learning skills I can up to a reasonable level (3-4) already.

You can set a long skill to train and cancel.  It will keep training even if you aren't paid in full.  Many, many people take every other month off while training stuff like cruiser or bs 5.

Yikes...  I think if I cancel it will be for good.  This just smacks of bad design to me.

you don't have to do busy work to gain that skill. Some people may not like this mechanic. I do. It mimics the fact that becoming the best at anything will take increasingly more amounts of time invested

But... you don't reallly have to invest any time at all.  You just have to log on often enough to change your skill.  What you're really investing is money and I'm not interested in paying money to have a game play itself for me.

One could say that no matter how fast you can grind mobs and XP in WoW, you still have to WAIT to get to level 27 to equip the Mauler of Eliteness.

Would WoW really be better if you could sub for 2 months and then equip the mauler of elitness for absolutely no effort?  That doesn't seem rewarding, and it certainly doesn't make the mauler seem elite.

EVE as basically Progress Quest

Agree completely.  I made this comparison early today as well. 


I was pretty stoked about EvE's massive market, player controlled structures, contracts, and piracy because it all sounds so cool.  The second I realized I was better off just logging off and waiting for skills to train I immediately became disenchanted.

[spiralyguy]

You can grind isk if you like watching a number increase. Around 5bil isk should buy you a 20mil sp char.

Ah but here's the catch.  I can grind that ISK faster if I just let my skills train for 2 months and not play.  There's just no damn reason to play the game right now :(

If you don't think the XP curves in WoW or EQ2 or whatever are straight DPS vs MOB Hit Point calculations solved for time you got another think coming.

Just because it doesn't say "Level 50 requires a minimum of 7 days /played" doesn't mean that's not how it was calculated.

The difference is that in WoW or EQ2 you can trade your time (or someone else's) for advancement (i.e. that 7 days /played can be done in 9 days if you poopsock it and spend every waking minute logged in or can get some highbees to plevel you against mobs you normally couldn't touch), in Eve you might as well go to bed or go out and have a beer.

But this kind of thinking leads us to progress-quest.  I'm playing these games so I have something to do, not so I can do something while they play themselves.

[Morat20]

Answer:  Wait.  I have enough money to buy lots of neat stuff, but I can't use any of it.  I need skills.  Skills develop automatically over time even when you are logged off.  It requires 0 effort.  The last skill I just picked on the way to my new ship said it would take SEVEN DAYS.  WTF?!  I need more skills after that one too. 

You DO realize that relatively few things require you to get 5/5? in a skill? Getting 3/5 is generally sufficient, which takes MUCH less time (that last rank takes as much as all the other ranks combined).

I expect you're wanting to fit T2 stuff of some sort, or take an advanced skill set? Current character creation tends to really max out your basic skills along a given path (soldiers tend to start with the ability to fit T2 smalls, for instance), so you're going off into the weeds on something.

What is it you want to fly that you need 5/5 of to fly?

[IainC]

I was pretty stoked about EvE's massive market, player controlled structures, contracts, and piracy because it all sounds so cool.  The second I realized I was better off just logging off and waiting for skills to train I immediately became disenchanted.

But you aren't. You can still do all that stuff even with rubbish skills. You can have a go at being a pirate or a marketeer or whatever, you can make progress in game in areas other than skill gain. Isk you make now with your crap ship isn't wasted just because you'll be able to make it faster at a later date. That kind of logic is pretty strange because there'll always be a skill you don't have that will allow you to make money more efficiently. The game is actually balanced so that small ships have a vital role to play in PvP, meaning that you don't need to show up to the gunfight in crazy gear to take part.

If you want to log straight in as a relative noob and instantly get behind the wheel of a very powerful ship that's not going to happen and the analogue won't happen in practically any game you care to mention. The difference with EvE is that you can do the part of the game you enjoy on a smaller scale right from the start, there's no 'grind 10,000 foozles before being allowed to play in the fun part of the game'.

[Moosehands]

No no.  I didn't say EVE was Progress Quest.  I said that I play it like Progress Quest.  I've been playing for 2 1/2 years or so, mostly solo, with a huge chunk of that time spent either sitting in station or running missions in empire.

This is a silly and ultimately unrewarding way to play, but I'm lazy and as I said mostly just chat with other people who play.  There are more people than I can count who have been playing for 6 months or less that have earned far more isk than me, regularly participate in PvP, scam the populous at large, fly around scanning out the secrets of the universe, and so on.

Trouble's post probably highlights the "best" way to approach EVE.  He engaged in a method of gameplay that took no real timesink and very little isk to participate in, fields a small fleet of specialized alts without considering any one character to be "him" in the virtual universe, and plays the game essentially for free.  I'd guess he also has numerous contacts with other players, at least reads if not participates in the on- and off-site forums, and has his fingers in lots of diverse gameplay pies.

The model of EVE does not lend itself to classic Diku MMO play.  Making one character and taking them from 0 to cap by questing isn't really feasible and soloing, while possible, will either be very slow with little reward or require you to already have a huge base of resources.

[Hoax]

If you can't find anything to do at your current skill level you just aren't trying very hard.  If you've decided the only thing you want to do that will be fun for you is owning a POS, ice mining, or flying a cap ship...

Well your SOL and let me be the first to ask:  Can I have your stuff?

Otherwise the whole point is thanks to the

massive market, player controlled structures, contracts, and piracy.

you can go find your own path to fun, or not.  But the options are there.  Tired of whacking foozles in WoW?  Tough fucking shit.  Because you aren't getting that DING!Gratz  Any  Other  Way.



***want to edit this in***

If you want to be a SOLOPWNMOBILE you better just quit now.

1.  You are thinking too much like a diku player.
2.  You need to have amazing /played level to attempt it
3.  Its not as fun as you are imagining it, the universe is big and mostly empty, the wolves, the sheep and everyone in between operate in packs & don't take much shit from LoneWolfSniper666 types.
4.  The combat itself is setup to prevent any one ship from being able to handle all situations.

If you are just bitching about wanting a tech2 ship NOW to run harder missions; well sounds like your just grinding the most diku part of EVE in the most diku way and you really just don't get the depth of the game at all despite professing that said depth is what drew you to it.  Which has happened to me before as well as countless others who never got into the game.

[Falconeer]

One could say that no matter how fast you can grind mobs and XP in WoW, you still have to WAIT to get to level 27 to equip the Mauler of Eliteness.

Would WoW really be better if you could sub for 2 months and then equip the mauler of elitness for absolutely no effort?  That doesn't seem rewarding, and it certainly doesn't make the mauler seem elite.

Forget the Mauler of Eliteness then and let's say you want to equip a Regular Chainmail, which is a white item that still needs level 27 to be equipped because it is Tier 3 or whatever. Same thing.
EVE tells you to wait before you can equip anything but once you are there (level 27 for WoW or Hybrid Cannons Lev 5 in EVE) you still have to earn the good stuff. Meaning money, missions, loots, loyal points and the likes.

[Reg]

What is it that you can't do anyway? For me, I found that what limited me from flying the ships I wanted was cash much more than skills. If there's one criticism of EVE that I understand it's complaints about the ISK grind. There's literally nothing you can do that doesn't require constant piles of money.

[Falconeer]

There's literally nothing you can do that doesn't require constant piles of money.

Aah.. I hear you man. Such is life.

No seriously. That really depressed me. 

[Slayerik]

About the OP: I felt the same way about the game 4 years ago and quit. I am pissed at myself for ever looking at it that way.

Eve's skill system is great. I have made a very solid PVE alt thats like 4 miliion skill points (flys a raven with cruise missiles). She is able to kill NPCs worth 500k - 1.8mil (and higher for dreads) per kill. She can do it probably 80% as well as a 4 year vet, skill wise.


Either way, I find myself defending the game strongly because I enjoy it. I am and was the same way with UO. I must stick up for my sandbox games! If you dont enjoy it, its understandable. Its definately not for everyone.

[Samprimary]

Download this free eve simulator!

[Kail]

One could say that no matter how fast you can grind mobs and XP in WoW, you still have to WAIT to get to level 27 to equip the Mauler of Eliteness.

Would WoW really be better if you could sub for 2 months and then equip the mauler of elitness for absolutely no effort?  That doesn't seem rewarding, and it certainly doesn't make the mauler seem elite.

Actually, yes, I do think WoW would be better if it were gated by time rather than /played.

In WoW, you absolutely must play X hours of content, no matter what.  I don't feel like running my character through Silithus and the Plaguelands AGAIN, but I need to in order to get the XP I need to get to Outland, which is where I want to play.  If I take a break, I'll be right where I am now, so there's no reason to stop or anything, and more importantly, no way to skip doing this tedious filler content EVER.  If I want to see Outlands, I absolutely MUST spend X amount of hours killing mobs over and over and over again.

In EVE, this isn't the case.  If I want money, I still need to do stuff, but if it's just skill points, I can do whatever I feel like, and the game isn't going to force me to go kill widgets for an hour if that's not something I want to do.  I still have to wait X amount of time before my n00b character can do what I want (just like in WoW), but I'm not forced to kill rats and pick flowers for a week if that's not something I want to do.

And I don't think it would make the Mauler of Uberness seem trivial, because you'd still have to GET the mauler.  So rather than having to spend days doing pointless repetitive sludge and then going on a difficult quest for the mauler, you'd only have to do the difficult quest.  The only change would be the removal of the retarded mechanic which says that you must have killed at least one thousand five hundred bears in order to wrap your hand around the handle.

[Krakrok]

The bad ass ship you want probably isn't as bad ass as you think it would be.

[Ratman_tf]

I find it kind of refreshing that Eve puts it's time sink cockblock up front and visible, instead of hiding it behind an xp bar, like WoW.

Tastes do vary, though.

What kind of /played does it take to make a viable Arena character in WoW? Isn't it disheartening to look at that number when you're level 14 and just wanted to fight the damn arena?

[Calantus]

I find it kind of refreshing that Eve puts it's time sink cockblock up front and visible, instead of hiding it behind an xp bar, like WoW.

Tastes do vary, though.

What kind of /played does it take to make a viable Arena character in WoW? Isn't it disheartening to look at that number when you're level 14 and just wanted to fight the damn arena?

It's about 400 hours for 1-70, the full off-set honor pieces, and the S1 set. The thing is, on the right battlegroups I could get that in 1-2 months if I desperately wanted a new character. 1-2 months of EVE wouldn't even get you rank 4s in learning. It takes an excessive playtime sure, but I can get pretty OCD when it comes to these sort of things. I quit EVE because I wanted something NOW and the game told me to wait a couple more months.

[Tige]

The bad ass ship you want probably isn't as bad ass as you think it would be.

Correct.

[bhodi]

It's about 400 hours for 1-70, the full off-set honor pieces, and the S1 set. The thing is, on the right battlegroups I could get that in 1-2 months if I desperately wanted a new character. 1-2 months of EVE wouldn't even get you rank 4s in learning. It takes an excessive playtime sure, but I can get pretty OCD when it comes to these sort of things. I quit EVE because I wanted something NOW and the game told me to wait a couple more months.

What the Christ? Your numbers are way, way off.

I joined on 12/8, so I'm a month and a half in. So, in other words, I did the trial and one full month gameplay afterwards. I have 2.3M SP. I've made about 250m ISK all told. My current balance is 40M, the rest is 'invested' in equipment and ships.

 I have all basic learning to 4, advanced to 3. I have decent missile skills and fly a raven, a battleship, doing L4 missions that make millions of ISK per run. That means I did the learning "grind", the battleship piloting "grind" and the faction "grind" in 1.5 months of a time fixed game.

I also took 3 days upgrading my EW skills for PvP. I also trained for a really large hauler, a mammoth, which took 4 days.

You have a problem with the game, and that's cool. It's not for everyone. But don't say that it's a gigantic time cockblock, because I was PvPing my first week and now I'm running the best solo missions there are in the game.

[Akkori]

I like the skill system actually. Like others have said, I can still progress toward a goal without having to whack-a-mole for weeks. Yes, it can be frustrating, but so far I have only seen 1 thing I want to do that *requires* a level 5 skill. I am sure there are more, but out of the 77 skill's I have initiated (most level 1... I am starting with a very broad base till I see what I want to do), I only have 1 to level 5 (Learning) so far. I admit though, that in the, roughly, month I have been playing, I do spend a lot of my time reading up on stuff while sitting in a station, waiting to change to my next skill training.
If I were to list my biggest beef with the game so far, it is the apparent lack of documentation on things. I find myself having to rely on chat channels to learn most things, which means I am subjected to off-topic political or religious conversations in the Help channel. The various fan sites are nice, but it takes time to try and figure stuff out. Luckily, I have lot's of time!

[Falconeer]

But don't say that it's a gigantic time cockblock, because I was PvPing my first week and now I'm running the best solo missions there are in the game.

After 1 month and a half. And you don't even needed to catass for that cause the game does it for you (the catassing part). You are free to just play!

[dbltnk]

I decided to give the 2-week-trial a try before joining a corporation.

After 1 hour I noticed that I had played this game before.

After another 30 minutes I remembered why I quit for the first time:

a) The GUI/HUD is too complex for me.
b) I don't like games with indirect character control anymore.

Good thing that I found a copy of World of Quin 2 in the local games market for 2.50 euro.
 I'm gonna give that grinder a try, heard there's pvp there. =D

[apocrypha]

Can I suggest to anyone who thinks that newer players in EVE can't achieve anything because of lack of skillpoints/isk/anything else checks out Agony Unleashed (http://www.agony-unleashed.com/)?

AU take groups of players in T1 frigates (small, cheap, easy to fly) into 0.0 and teach them gang pvp. The times I've flown in these classes we've taken out T2-fitted battleships, HAC's, Recons, etc etc, and had a blast at the same time! The minimum skillset they require for attendance takes about 3 weeks to train, tops, and most out-of-the-box new characters have most of the skills needed anyway.

It's the equivalent of taking twenty level 10 characters in WoW and kicking the cojones out of epic-geared level 70's.... superb fun :)

[Calantus]

It's about 400 hours for 1-70, the full off-set honor pieces, and the S1 set. The thing is, on the right battlegroups I could get that in 1-2 months if I desperately wanted a new character. 1-2 months of EVE wouldn't even get you rank 4s in learning. It takes an excessive playtime sure, but I can get pretty OCD when it comes to these sort of things. I quit EVE because I wanted something NOW and the game told me to wait a couple more months.

What the Christ? Your numbers are way, way off.

I joined on 12/8, so I'm a month and a half in. So, in other words, I did the trial and one full month gameplay afterwards. I have 2.3M SP. I've made about 250m ISK all told. My current balance is 40M, the rest is 'invested' in equipment and ships.

 I have all basic learning to 4, advanced to 3. I have decent missile skills and fly a raven, a battleship, doing L4 missions that make millions of ISK per run. That means I did the learning "grind", the battleship piloting "grind" and the faction "grind" in 1.5 months of a time fixed game.

I also took 3 days upgrading my EW skills for PvP. I also trained for a really large hauler, a mammoth, which took 4 days.

You have a problem with the game, and that's cool. It's not for everyone. But don't say that it's a gigantic time cockblock, because I was PvPing my first week and now I'm running the best solo missions there are in the game.

Learning 5, Advanced learning 4. That's what was recommended when I was playing and it did/does take roughly 2 months because I quit about 2 months in and they weren't fiished. And I wasn't saying it takes too long to do anything, I wanted something specific when I started to play and that something specific took too long to achieve for my OCD tendancies.

[Viin]

Learning 5, Advanced learning 4. That's what was recommended when I was playing and it did/does take roughly 2 months because I quit about 2 months in and they weren't fiished. And I wasn't saying it takes too long to do anything, I wanted something specific when I started to play and that something specific took too long to achieve for my OCD tendancies.

Just FYI, it only requires level 4 to train advanced learning skills now (not level 5 like previously) *and* most new chars start with some learning skills at level 3 or 4.

[bhodi]

Indeed. It takes under a week to do the 'advanced learning training' - all learning to IV, adv to III. Except for charisma. That can stay at III, no adv.  Because it sucks.

They revamped character creation, characters now get about a month's worth of training out of the box.. And that's combat training if you pick the right starting template -- you can jump into cruisers on the 2nd day, if you really want to.

[Calantus]

That's a pretty huge change. I have too many things to play to try EVE again but it really is the sort of change that would tempt me if I was bored.