New Character Generation system

[Viin]

I was reading the Dev Blog on the new Character Generation system being installed as I speak. I figured I'd share it with the rest of you folks - especially the ones that tried to play but got tried of training Learning skills.

You can read it here: http://myeve.eve-online.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&bid=403

I would quote the whole text but it's very very long, so I'll just do some choice quotes:

1.1- The core of what we are doing:

    * Every new character will get between 800k and 810k SP. No more, no less.
    * Players can choose between 4 races, 12 bloodlines, 42 ancestries and in all 24 new very different career specializations (4 races x 3 careers x 2 specializations).
    * We are not touching the basic attributes – They will remain as they have been.
    * Characters get skills that strictly originate from their cultural background – Amarr and Gallente are armor oriented, Caldari and Minmatar shield oriented, etc. – Any cross-cultural overlap is as EVE design dictates.
    * We provide detailed and summarized descriptions of the options in each step, and weave them together so that players can create a character quickly and impulsively or take their time contemplating the options as they desire.
    * We reduce the number of steps a player has to go through to create his character.
    * We add roleplaying information to the existing and new character creation steps.
    * Use the last step of the character creation as a “Confirmation” page, where every choice can be reviewed.
    * The layout of the character creation is vastly improved so that…
          o People that have seen nothing or heard nothing about EVE except possibly the introduction movie, are reasonably aware of the impact of their choices.
          o A summary of all options within the current step will be visible simultaneously.
          o Those wanting more than a summary are provided with detailed information upon request
          o A human voice recites all the detailed information for increased clarity and understanding (will be implemented in Revelations 2nd phase).
          o A progress bar makes it easy to jump back and forth in the character creation, reviewing and changing individual selections.

Until now, people have been able to create over 1.400 possible character combinations. Thereof, 126 characters yielded under 6000 SP, but a player who got lucky (or knew the game enough to know what to pick) could get over 303.000 with one of the combinations. Furthermore, hundreds of combinations resulted in less than 20.000 SP, while only about 20 resulted above 275.000 SP.

A player realizing 4 weeks into the game that they could have started with over fifty times more SP with a few different choices (perhaps made in ignorance or by mistake) is bound to become a little miffed.

The new character creation does not punish those that are unlucky or don’t notice or realize the importance of SP this early on, since the maximum difference between the high and low of 800-810.000 is close to 1%. It is in line with the EVE vision that the gamers should be minimally subject to luck and maximally subject to skill. And it is not reasonable to assume that every potentially skillful pilot gets exposed to the correct data before booting the game up for the first time.

Of these 800.000 skill points, 512.000 are derived from two level 5 skills of rank 1 (or one skill of rank 2) that each character gets as a part of his school’s career specialization.

Essentially, we are shaving off what has been considered by subscribers and the media alike, to be “mandatory training time” during which there is little people can do, and allowing people to start doing something sooner. This criticism has been consistent and as it has played out (and I will get into that later), it has become at least partially true.

[addryc]

Another choice quote:

2.2- Operation: Revelations compensation
The Mission: To compensate people that have less skill 800.000 skill points when we upgrade to the new character creation.

Every character that has less than 800.000 SP will receive skills until he has more than 800.000 SP. Characters created a week before we patch will thus have the same amount of SP as new characters, or more. They will naturally also have the advantage over completely new characters of more ISK and of course experience.

The upside of giving every character this treatment (including inactive characters sharing accounts with a “main” character) is that everybody feels the love. Players that have been playing for a while will always have an advantage on freshly created characters, be it in ISK or simply in gaming experience.

Alt-hauler/miner pilot FTW!  Going to be a TOUGH choice now - will have to see if I can eke out a better character from char-gen or keep my 350k->800k upgraded alt!

[Fordel]

Nice start, but they should keep the SP scaling going. Allow some sort of accelerated SP accumulation until you hit some mark of SP, this mark being some sort of average across the amount of SP established players have. Still leave a buffer for the day 1 vets to have an 'edge', since they *will* demand it.

But it would really be nice to have my fights not be decided for me because I started playing two+ years after the game came out. If they want to base there game not on luck but skill, you need a level playing field, or at least one that isn't on a 45 degree angle.

[eldaec]

As far as I could tell while playing - it only ever took a couple of months to get a single ship configuration set up anyway, beyond that it seemed you were training for diversity.

Not that I don't agree that they should accelerate the acculmation of early points.

[Chenghiz]

This is a really genius move, actually. The single biggest barrier to EVE after you finish the tutorial (lol) is the fact that even if you can afford a ship and the fittings to take it into combat or whatever and do what you want.. you still have to take a lot of time training the skills necessary to do so. I still remember my frustration in finding out that not only did I have to train a skill to fit a missile launcher, I had to train yet another skill to load the missiles into the launcher.

[Fordel]

I still remember my frustration in finding out that not only did I have to train a skill to fit a missile launcher, I had to train yet another skill to load the missiles into the launcher.

It's funny, because it's true! Happened to me aswell :(

[dwindlehop]

As far as I could tell while playing - it only ever took a couple of months to get a single ship configuration set up anyway, beyond that it seemed you were training for diversity.

Very true for the frigates, even the T2 frigates. It's a pretty short time to get into an "average" sp setup for any T2 frigate. I hope they get a Revelations edition of Evemon out the door really soon.

[Jayce]

Does any of this stuff change based on this? I still have a backburnered desire to check out the game (again, this time with an actual group of actual people), and since everyone was "waiting on Kali" I thought I would too.

If someone feels kind enough to do any necessary updates I would be ever so grateful...

[dwindlehop]

Yeah, character creation is very different now. The way I read the updates, TheDreamr's guide is much less necessary because the new character creation makes your selections more transparent while also reducing the spread between carefully crafted characters and the rest.

For example, average sp in the old system was 26k, and apparently you could get 303k if you knew what you were doing. In the Kali system, you're guaranteed 800-810k.

I intend to make and destroy some alts to get a feel for it to tell my friends, so I'll post any impressions I have once I'm done.

[ajax34i]

Yes, that stuff changes.  They've rearranged the character creation interface, for one, and although you still choose a race, a bloodline, a school, and various majors within that school, you end up with 800k skillpoints, and a whole lot more skills than the previous version of the game.  Useful stuff, like Refining 5 and stuff.

[MahrinSkel]

You also only have to take the first tier Learning skills to 4, rather than 5, which cuts the 1.5 months of training nothing useful down to about 2 weeks, less if you're willing to settle for +7 rather than +8. This considerably lowers the pain threashold of putting your first character on the right track.

--Dave

[Viin]

So I whipped up a Gallente character just to see what the new character system does.

Here's what I ended up with, and it was very painless and took maybe 5 mins of going through each step.

Attributes (with learning skills)
8 Int, 9 Perc, 7 Char, 13 Will, 8 Mem

Level 5 Skills
Drone Navigation
Drones

Level 4 Skills
Drone Sharpshooting
Scout Drones
Iron Will
Gallente Frigate

Total of 801k skillpoints.


Much much better turn out for a new player than the normal skill set! If my alt didn't already kick ass at 9mil SP, I'd restart her.

[hal]

You gonna be able to coast through lvl 2 with that. Put your time into drone interfacing and by the time you can afford a cruser you will rock in one. Assuming its a gall drone boat.

[SpaceDrake]

The new character generation is magnificent. I created the character you see now just today.

She is, out of the box, about 12 hours away from using T2 frigate guns, and she can use armor tanking modules of all varieties. That I got her to look that awesome (gold tint on an Amarr!) was just icing.

I had been debating restarting again; not having to waste a million SP on rank 5 learning skills sealed the deal.

Now I can have fun in RP again.

[Morat20]

Level 5 Skills
Drone Navigation
Drones

Level 4 Skills
Drone Sharpshooting
Scout Drones
Iron Will
Gallente Frigate

Total of 801k skillpoints.


Much much better turn out for a new player than the normal skill set! If my alt didn't already kick ass at 9mil SP, I'd restart her.

Son of a bitch. Your drone skills are nice. It took me a long time to get there. I've got:

Combat Drone Operation: 3/5
Drone Durability: 4/5
Drone Interfacing: 5/5
Drone Navigation: 3/5
Drone Sharpshooting: 3/5
Drones 5/5
Mining Drones 3/5
and by tonight, I'll have Scout Drone Operation 5/5.

Add in some armor tanking skills, and Cruisers 1 and you're ready for L2 missions. I've only pulled one L2 mission that's even cost me a drone, and that's fighting Caldari Navy IF they target my drones and not me.

Some advice for a drone flyer: Fit a small remote armor rep in a high slot. It saves you a lot of time and money and repair drone armor that way. I actually went down to three guns on a Vex (hell, I only use 150mm rails because the 1600mm plate ate up all my power) to fit a tractor as well. My drones kill at 40kms, and I hate chasing jetcans.

I am glad I have some money saved -- I want to start salvaging and rigging.

[Der Helm]

I hate chasing jetcans.

Does the tractor beam work on ship wrecks ?

[Simond]

If it doesn't now, it should after next week's minipatch.

I'm considering fitting a Coercer with 4xsmall tractor, 4xsalvager & cargo extenders in the low slots.

[Polysorbate80]

I hate chasing jetcans.

Does the tractor beam work on ship wrecks ?

Yes, it does.

[Yegolev]

I'm having flashbacks of the Starcraft CGI.

[Megrim]

Which one?

[NiX]

What's up with the new Exploration? These changes kinda make me want to come back.

[Warpainted]

Think I'm going to re-up my subscription.  These changes sound pretty good.

[MahrinSkel]

Exploration seems to come down to one-shot encounters, many of which are complexes.  You find them, you clear them, and they're gone, something similar may respawn in the same system but that particular location doesn't.  They talk about "escalating path" encounters, where one yields clues and/or keys to another one, but nobody I know has found any of those yet.  Most of those I've heard about have been disappointments, that may be because they are still tweaking the reward levels, or because those that are finding the good ones aren't talking about it.

--Dave

[NiX]

Interesting. I'm often on at random times, so I find I have to do stuff that's mostly solo. I'm not a big fan of doing the economy PVP business, but exploration and mining sound like something I'd do, yes, I know you need at least one other person to do mining alone when you get to the good stuff.

[Viin]

Just wanted to point out that this item is at the top of their "Drawingboard":

Skill Training - Queue or Dual training

Enabling players to either queue so that training takes the next skill level or starts training another skill up another level. Dual training enables you to have a primary long-term skill in training with a secondary short-term skill sharing the training time. After the secondary skill level has trained, the primary skill trains at 100% again.

[caladein]

Just wanted to point out that this item is at the top of their "Drawingboard":

Skill Training - Queue or Dual training

Enabling players to either queue so that training takes the next skill level or starts training another skill up another level. Dual training enables you to have a primary long-term skill in training with a secondary short-term skill sharing the training time. After the secondary skill level has trained, the primary skill trains at 100% again.

I don't think they'd let the Queue'ing go through, but training two skills at once sounds pretty feasible.

[Morat20]

Just wanted to point out that this item is at the top of their "Drawingboard":

Skill Training - Queue or Dual training

Enabling players to either queue so that training takes the next skill level or starts training another skill up another level. Dual training enables you to have a primary long-term skill in training with a secondary short-term skill sharing the training time. After the secondary skill level has trained, the primary skill trains at 100% again.

I'm not sure I understand what they're talking about.

Do they mean: "You have a short skill and set it to primary, and a long-skill as secondary. Primary trains, then when it's finished it shifts to secondary" or "You can have two skills selected, and it'll interleave traing for both (train a little on one, then switch to the other) until the short one finishes, then concentrate totally on the long one"?

I wouldn't mind the ability to, say, set some 30 day skill as my "background skill" that would just automatically start training whenever my currently chosen skill finishes.

[caladein]

From what it sounds like it wouldn't actually interlace them instead, it would just train two skills at 50% speed. When one skill finishes, the other starts training at normal speed.

[Yoru]

Regardless, some form of queued or multitraining would be awesome. No more wasted training time!

[Yegolev]

Which one?

The "redneck junkmen in space" one.

[Yegolev]

I know you need at least one other person to do mining alone when you get to the good stuff.

Not always but it's it's a good idea to have someone or something to keep your mining vessel from being blown up.  If you want to do serious mining without losing all of your hair, you will want a good mining platform (battleship or barge, depending) and a hauler so you don't have to stop mining to empty your cargo at the station, and probably some combat escort to eliminate hostiles.  Your solo options are generally limited to secure space and you'll still need to defend yourself, but it can be done.

[Morat20]

I know you need at least one other person to do mining alone when you get to the good stuff.

Not always but it's it's a good idea to have someone or something to keep your mining vessel from being blown up.  If you want to do serious mining without losing all of your hair, you will want a good mining platform (battleship or barge, depending) and a hauler so you don't have to stop mining to empty your cargo at the station, and probably some combat escort to eliminate hostiles.  Your solo options are generally limited to secure space and you'll still need to defend yourself, but it can be done.

I amused myself mining in .4 with a Navitas. Used a hauler to drop GSCs, then filled it with Golden Omber. Every time a belt rat would show, I'd run away frantically shield boosting while my tiny little scout drone would whittle him away. I've only done it a few times, mostly to pay off the Itty 3, the GSCs, and get some experience.

I wasn't really worried about losing the Navitas or the hauler, and the .4 system I used was kind of a cul-de-sac off of Empire space. Not a lot of ship activity or PC pirate activity going on.

[Slayerik]

I know you need at least one other person to do mining alone when you get to the good stuff.

Not always but it's it's a good idea to have someone or something to keep your mining vessel from being blown up.  If you want to do serious mining without losing all of your hair, you will want a good mining platform (battleship or barge, depending) and a hauler so you don't have to stop mining to empty your cargo at the station, and probably some combat escort to eliminate hostiles.  Your solo options are generally limited to secure space and you'll still need to defend yourself, but it can be done.

The other way is to just flat out tank them the whole time. My friend runs an APOC with mad mining lasers, and is tank is good enough where they cant outdamage it. You just need to know what types of damage the mobs in your area do, and it really trivializes NPC missions and ratting IMO.

Im a noob tho, just the smartest damn noob you ever met :)

[MahrinSkel]

That's the usual 0.0 mining method, generally a "solo" miner in 0.0 is two or three-boxing, a "Tank" with high NPC-specific resists that simply soaks up the fire, a miner, and sometimes a hauler that runs back and forth with the ore so the miner can keep going (some mine and tank in the same ship and two-box the hauler while jet-canning the ore).  Group operations just add more miners and haulers, really big ones will involve a CAP of PvP ships.

The problem with killing the rats is that it's random who they target when they respawn, and BS grade rats can instapop a mining barge.

--Dave