As you may have known already, after the Vanguard expansion newly created characters receive 400.000 skillpoints, eight times more than the old 50.000. I critiqued that adjustment in my previous article, before the update. Now that some time has passed I want to revisit that change and compare where I was right, where I was wrong and what I didn’t cover.
I suggested that this change would not improve the new player experience (NPE), based on my adventures with newbies in the past. However, I didnt go “bitter vet” about it and decided to try it out myself. Thus I invited one of my friends to start playing EVE. My goal was to compare guiding a newbie with 400k, to the old 50k basic SP (which I did in the past).
My friend was good EVE player material. He plays MUDs, loves challenges, complicated games (Dwarf Fortess anyone?) and possessed a high-end gaming computer to fully enjoy the beauty of EVE and most important of all, he’s got time and patience. Thus, the only thing that was left to make him an EVE player was a proper introduction to what New Eden has to offer. Like I said before, everyone in EVE has his or her own vision about what this game is. One can think of it as boring mining simulator, someone else as a vast universe to explore full of hidden treasures and the other one, a hardcore PvP game where almost everything is allowed.
Note that as a new character, the 400,000 are already applied to enable new players to use modules previously unavailable to them initially (without running tutorial missions). From the start players can now probe, hack, and also overheat.
Ro Kaen
He created a Sebiestor rebel from the Minmatar Republic and after a small chat with me, decided he wants to try out exploration. I supported him in this goal for a variety of reasons. First of all, learning how to properly use probes, directional scan and how to move around space is going to be useful no matter the profession choice he makes in the future (maybe aside from station trading). Second of all, that profession puts him in danger. In fact, I pushed him into wormholes, low and null security space as soon as possible.
How did it go? Well, on the third day of his adventure with EVE he found a wormhole leading to w-space and decided to give it a try. He almost manage to pinpoint a data site inside, but due to inexperience lost his Imicus to the hostile Astero pilot marking his first lose (and death) in the harsh world of New Eden.
Did it discourage him? No! Why? Because he started by doing exploration in hostile space, the thought of returning to the safety of high-sec, skilling up and making a bit of ISK never occurred to him. Thus, on the fourth day of his play-through he found a wormhole chain to nullsec, went there, found a relic-site, exploded most of the cans due to bad hacking skills, but manage to secure a few million ISK from the lucky ones. He went back to high-sec and cherished his victory.
On the fifth day I decided to teach him some PVP and combat. I gave him a blaster fit Incursus, and I was in a kitey Tormentor. The idea was to introduce him to the slingshot mechanic, overheating modules and shooting down drones (also, how the overview worked, how to bind his modules and many other small things). While in our first fight he burned out many of his modules and didn’t manage to even scratch me, on the second try he had taken down my drones and successfully slingshoted with an overheated scram to turn-off my micro-warp drive. While he still lost that fight, due to lack of SP, the fact that I could teach him such mechanics so early was astonishing.
I’m still teaching him, but after his first week he had already become independent. He learned all the tools needed to start his preferred activity (exploration) both as a player and a character. He wanders through space, hunting for treasures with his trusty Imicus(es) and learning something new about the game every day.
I have to admit, saying that the extra 350.000 skill points were useless would be a lie. In fact, truth be told those extra skill points played a MAJOR role in my friend’s adventures in EVE. Rather than teaching him about attributes, optimal skill queues, implants and other things that would normally have been crucial to a 50.000 SP character, I could throw him into the wormhole right away without even being there. He found it flying solo, with his own ship! About that ship, that is another great aspect of these free skillpoints. He received five fully fitted Imicus’ from me and we didn’t have to bother with his ability to fit everything. While he will learn it later, saving him that at first few days in the game is a great improvement, something I completely underestimated.
Moreover when he did die for the first time, it wasn’t a meaningless death. It wasn’t “aww crap, I didn’t have the skills to be there anything anyway” it was “oh shit, I was at 80% on that data site!” His conclusion was that he should play better, NOT that he lacks skillpoints!
After this “test” I can’t support my thesis of 350k extra skillpoints not improving NPE. They do. A lot. Even if there are different approaches to the problems (like meta-zero modules not requiring skills to fit), there is no point in discussing them since the change was already passed. Like I said in my previous article, sometimes the easiest solutions are the best. I can’t wait to invite even more of my friends to the game, now that I can play with them from day-1.
Great change CCP, I am glad I was wrong.
However, while I was wrong about this change not influencing newbies that much, I was pretty accurate about alts (additional characters) becoming even more popular. You can already hear people joking about “gank alts from day-1.” This can lead to serious problems with rule breakers. Recycling characters to bypass security-status issues is a ban-able offensive, but it may not detour everyone. While it was possible in the past, it was burdened with a week of training, while now you can flip characters every day without any preparations.
While our story of a courageous newbie that ventures down to null-sec and manages to get away with relic loot is adorable, the question arises. Who would take advantage from that more: The experienced vet that already knows the ropes or the clueless new pilot who still doesn’t know that modules like damage control exist? Wormholers are roughly the second most beneficial group of experienced players from that update. The ability to create probing alts with little-to-no preparation time needed is very useful.
All-in-all, extra skill points for new players was a better change than I thought. I highly recommend vets introduce their friends to the game now, giving them some fully fitted cheap ships and taking them on trips to wormholes, low sec or null. Even if they tried before and decided that it wasn’t for them. Now that they can start doing things that matter from day-1, they might change their minds.
