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Worth it to buy a starter character?

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Soulfreeze Tichim Royal Amarr Institute Amarr Empire 0	Posted - 2013.04.24 14:24:00 - [1] - Quote This game has been out so long. Would it be worth it to buy a better trained character, instead of spending months training newbie skills?
Velicitia Nex Exercitus 1425	Posted - 2013.04.24 14:30:00 - [2] - Quote no. buying a 10 (or 100) million SP character will still mean you suck at the game ... though those are usually the best KMs to look at. SP progression lets you "catch up" (in frigates) inside of 5 weeks (it's like 32 days). Specialize in things, and take it slow. Edit -- "Catch up" in that you will have L4 skills across the board for frigates and the main weapon system for your chosen race. Each larger ship thereafter is another 3-4 weeks. Now, this doesn't mean that you can't fight in your first 3 days ... it just means that you won't be fighting in the biggest ships right away -- and this is a good thing. Bigger is not necessarily better in EVE. If you're looking to PVP, starting out in a frigate is very good, because they're cheap. You can learn good piloting skills, tackling, cap management, transversal management, etc and move up as you choose. Though you might find that frigs/dessies or cruisers are your favorite type of ship to play, and stay there. One of the bitter points of a good bittervet is the realisation that all those SP don't really do much, and that the newbie is having much more fun with what little he has. - Tippia Malcanis for CSM8
Kaalika State War Academy Caldari State 1	Posted - 2013.04.24 14:38:00 - [3] - Quote As a newbie myself I'd say it depends what you want the character for, and whether you have enough game knowledge to know what to buy for a character that will satisfy your goals. Buying characters is usually better for making alts for specific purposes without wasting time away from training your main, but if you really know what you want and would rather pay to save the time, then go for it.
Kahega Amielden Rifterlings Point Blank Alliance 754	Posted - 2013.04.24 14:39:00 - [4] - Quote Soulfreeze Tichim wrote: This game has been out so long. Would it be worth it to buy a better trained character, instead of spending months training newbie skills? Depends on how much disposable income you have...but the thing holding most newbies back is lack of knowledge about the game, not SP. If you think that buying a trained character will let you somehow skip the learning curve, you're wrong. If you think that buying a trained character will let you use more stuff sooner and know that it doesn't make you know anything about the game, then go ahead - I've known a few people who have done it and are generally glad they did.
Soulfreeze Tichim Royal Amarr Institute Amarr Empire 0	Posted - 2013.04.24 14:59:00 - [5] - Quote Not looking to skip ahead, just want to be able to do stuff. Like exploring. Probably stick with a new toon and upgrade later if needed.
J'Poll The Fiction Factory Tribal Band 2094	Posted - 2013.04.24 15:31:00 - [6] - Quote Soulfreeze Tichim wrote: This game has been out so long. Would it be worth it to buy a better trained character, instead of spending months training newbie skills? Having more SP doesnt mean you will be better at the game. You still dont know how the game works but are tempted to fly stuff you shouldnt. Just because you have the skills for a battlecruiser doesnt mean you know how to use it. And why should you want to catch up or buy a character. Having made your own gives much more satisfaction and you can easily catch up if you specialize. Frigate skill caps at level 5, so even someone with 250mil SP cant have it higher then you if you trained it to level 5. If you then also specialize in how you should fly a ship you can overclass older people who didnt. Im almost 3 years in game...yet a friend of mine who started about a year ago will kick my ass in frigate PvP as that is where he specialized himself int. When a WoW player leaves to return to WoW, the avg. IQ of both games rises. Professional Forum Thread locker.
Tau Cabalander Retirement Retreat Working Stiffs 1747	Posted - 2013.04.24 15:31:00 - [7] - Quote Keep in mind that skills go up to level 5! That means if you specialize, you can more quickly match people that have been playing since 2003. More skill points means more diversity, so more wasted skill points for whatever ship the pilot is currently in. Veterans have the advantage of knowing the game better, so even identically matched you may lose to out-of-game skill. Veterans also tend to have deeper pockets. If you join a good corp, you may find yourself showered with free stuff.
J'Poll The Fiction Factory Tribal Band 2094	Posted - 2013.04.24 15:33:00 - [8] - Quote Soulfreeze Tichim wrote: Not looking to skip ahead, just want to be able to do stuff. Like exploring. Probably stick with a new toon and upgrade later if needed. Exploration dowsnt take long to skill anyway... When a WoW player leaves to return to WoW, the avg. IQ of both games rises. Professional Forum Thread locker.
Elena Thiesant Sun Micro Systems 297	Posted - 2013.04.24 16:20:00 - [9] - Quote Soulfreeze Tichim wrote: Not looking to skip ahead, just want to be able to do stuff. Like exploring. You can explore in highsec with 2 weeks of skills or less, you won't be able to run the most difficult combat sites, but you can run radars (usually good ISK) and the lower combat sites(random with possibility for good ISK) Racial Frigate 4 (and the scanning-bonused frigate), Drones 3, Astrometrics 3 or 4, Astrometric pinpointing, Astrometric rangefinding and Astrometric acquisition at 2 or 3. That will get you most highsec radars and most highsec mag sites. You'll probably need a combat-fit frig or destroyer for the lower level combat sites. No, you won't be as fast as a 5 year veteran, but a lot of that is player experience not character skills.
Haulie Berry 500	Posted - 2013.04.24 16:35:00 - [10] - Quote Soulfreeze Tichim wrote: Not looking to skip ahead, just want to be able to do stuff. Like exploring. Probably stick with a new toon and upgrade later if needed. Exploring is easily done without a lot of SPs.

Doctor Ape MD Imperial Academy Amarr Empire 27	Posted - 2013.04.24 16:39:00 - [11] - Quote SP does not equal fun. I found this out a number of years ago when I fell into the 'I can't really do anything until I skill up for a few months' trap myself. If you are bored doing level 2 missions, suddenly piloting a battleship and doing level 4 missions isn't really any more fun (just more lucrative). Having said that, if there is one thing you know you would really like to do and know you would have fun doing (from experience), it may be worth it. So for example, if you love shipping items around in the industrial ship you are given in the tutorial and desperately want to fly a freighter, it may be worth it to you (if you have the means in RL) to just buy the freighter pilot.
J'Poll The Fiction Factory Tribal Band 2094	Posted - 2013.04.24 16:46:00 - [12] - Quote Elena Thiesant wrote: p.s. the "I can't do anything without skill X" is a huge trap, avoid it. No. It's what stupid people say because they just don't see that SP only are a fraction of what you need to become a good pilot. The majority of the stuff in EVE relies on your knowledge about the game and how to utilize your ship and the game mechanics to your favor. When a WoW player leaves to return to WoW, the avg. IQ of both games rises. Professional Forum Thread locker.
Velarra 211	Posted - 2013.04.25 02:34:00 - [13] - Quote Soulfreeze Tichim wrote: This game has been out so long. Would it be worth it to buy a better trained character, instead of spending months training newbie skills? Generally speaking, no. IF you have a mentor who's been playing eve for a long time, preferably a friend/relative IRL... - Maybe. IF yes, and you buy one with some suggestions from an experienced player you trust, - keep training your newbie/main character in core skills. Keep it moderately focused. With guidance, use the bought character to try different game styles/activities. If possible, watch a friend IRL conduct the same activities. Figure out from those experiences if those careers/game play styles are something you enjoy. Then train your main (newbie) toward those play styles/ships etc. Otherwise, if learning by yourself, without close support, the learning experiences of your newb months will be much better than skipping ahead to a (possibly) poorly trained higher SP char that you've purchased without fully appreciating eve's intricacies & training paths. You mention that the game has been out so long. Yet it's not necessarily the case that you're years behind everyone. A good number of people take breaks (and unsub for a while) too. Sometimes several Months, for others several years and then return.
Inxentas Ultramar Ultramar Independent Contracting Home Front Coalition 432	Posted - 2013.04.28 11:11:00 - [14] - Quote Experiencing newbdom is quite important if you want to learn EVE the 'old skool way'. In my experience, those that have gone through some rougher times generally have a better understanding of the pvp mechanics then people that try their first hand at pvp in a BattleShip and a 500m implanted clone. Don't wreck your wallet and ragequit in 3 months. Do the time and HTFU, you'll also learn to gauge other people's abilities compared to that of your own. That's more important to survive and explore then a lot of SP.
Vilnius Zar Ordo Ardish 839	Posted - 2013.04.28 14:42:00 - [15] - Quote There's four things to consider in regards to this: 1) buying a starter character with the core support skills in place can make full sense, generally training those is boring as fck and more of a "rite of passage" than anything else. You can still decide on your own direction, the character will effectively be blank and have no history so you can make your own. The whole "people who buy characters are by definition useless" is a bunch of horse manure. You'll save yourself a few weeks or months of boring training and won't have to bother with cap or fitting issues because of it. You'll STILL have to decide and train for your playstyle, "allowing" you to learn to walk before you can run. 2) buying a character with much more SP, a history and which can fly "cool stuff" right away generally won't help you too much unless you really know what you're doing (in which case you wouldn't have made this thread). It'll be capable of flying (and losing) ships you can't hope to understand or make use of just yet. Apart from that you're generally buying someone else's crap, with a ****** name, possibly a dodgy history and whatever other skeletons might be hiding in the closet. 3) buying a character means you're effectively "cheating" your way past the start which might affect your feeling of accomplishment later on. You might perhaps not like the name, its history or it just doesn't sit well with you that it wasn't yours right from the start. I've bought and sold several characters over the years and to me it just feels "wrong" to buy a character and use it as a main (I've done it and generally I'll get rid of it a few months later, just doesn't feel right). As an alt with a very specific goal it can make sense but for a main I'd rather do it "right". You mileage may vary ofcourse. 4) EVE isn't about skill points or big ships, it's about what you know. So you having this cool 50 mil SP character will be just as useless as you having your own 1 mil SP character because your capabilities are limited by your knowledge. SP just gives you more options, not more "power". Overall, if you plan to play this game for a long time, I'd say to create your own character and enjoy the journey rather than trying to "cheat" and rush to the end game (which doesn't exist btw, not in EVE). Amat victoria curam. Excellence in everything. Some guides that may be useful to you: http://www.youtube.com/user/OrdoArdish
Liaria Cullen Fairlight Corp Rooks and Kings 31	Posted - 2013.04.28 14:45:00 - [16] - Quote I played eve for a year and a half before i bought a toon (not this one) Which was 65mill sp at the time. and i was around 15mill sp at the time. And i've never looked back, the new toon allowed me to do things that i still wouldent be able to do today, fly multiple races, caps etc etc. While i agree that skilling up and learning the game is something that's important before hand, eve is a game where you're constantly learning and there's no better way than experience, But i think every pilot has a point where they feel they're ready to do things, and SP is a very, very big barrier to get over. If you want my advice, stick it out till you feel you get to a point where you're doing well and your only hurdle is time, if at this point you've amde the 20bill or whatever it costs you to buy your new toon, then in my opinion you've earned it. fakeedit: When i bought my new toon, which is now my main almost two years on, a friend fave me a month before i got bored of it and quit, here i am.
Rachel Starchaser Perkone Caldari State 1	Posted - 2013.04.29 03:08:00 - [17] - Quote It would be worth it if you don't mind having to stick with that character name. Also you can only trade characters from one account to another with money or two plex for isk.
Commissar Akiga Aerodyne Collective. WHY so Seri0Us 1	Posted - 2013.04.29 06:57:00 - [18] - Quote Soulfreeze Tichim wrote: This game has been out so long. Would it be worth it to buy a better trained character, instead of spending months training newbie skills? It really depends. I'm relatively new myself and while I think the game is amazing, the training times seem a bit arbitrary. I've considered buying a trained account but I think I'm going to stick to my current one and my alt and slowly work my way up. A man of genius makes no mistakes. His errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery.
Frank Millar 159	Posted - 2013.04.29 07:37:00 - [19] - Quote Commissar Akiga wrote: I've considered buying a trained account You mean "character" instead of "account". Buying/Selling accounts is a BIG NO NO. Buying/Selling Characters is perfectly fine, though. On the other hand, why anyone would want a character with a face he didn't sculpt and a name he didn't name is beyond me, SP be damned. See, I like to have a certain connection with the character I'm playing (in pretty much any game). I'm strange like that.
Commissar Akiga Aerodyne Collective. WHY so Seri0Us 1	Posted - 2013.04.29 08:23:00 - [20] - Quote Frank Millar wrote: Commissar Akiga wrote: I've considered buying a trained account You mean "character" instead of "account". Buying/Selling accounts is a BIG NO NO. Buying/Selling Characters is perfectly fine, though. On the other hand, why anyone would want a character with a face he didn't sculpt and a name he didn't name is beyond me, SP be damned. See, I like to have a certain connection with the character I'm playing (in pretty much any game). I'm strange like that. Yeah, character. Old terminology is really going to take a while to wear off! I can understand people wanting the personal connection to their character, as for some, it will make up a significant amount of their time. I considered buying a trained character because the people I knew playing the game were already doing things way outside of my reach and my reach for the foreseeable future. A man of genius makes no mistakes. His errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery.

Velicitia Nex Exercitus 1435	Posted - 2013.04.29 12:55:00 - [21] - Quote Commissar Akiga wrote: I considered buying a trained character because the people I knew playing the game were already doing things way outside of my reach and my reach for the foreseeable future. what things? Sure if it's "flying an all-5 supercarrier", it's out of your league. but if it's other stuff, you can be very useful with the low SP you have now. One of the bitter points of a good bittervet is the realisation that all those SP don't really do much, and that the newbie is having much more fun with what little he has. - Tippia Malcanis for CSM8
J'Poll Aegis Consolidated 2109	Posted - 2013.04.29 13:19:00 - [22] - Quote Commissar Akiga wrote: Frank Millar wrote: Commissar Akiga wrote: I've considered buying a trained account You mean "character" instead of "account". Buying/Selling accounts is a BIG NO NO. Buying/Selling Characters is perfectly fine, though. On the other hand, why anyone would want a character with a face he didn't sculpt and a name he didn't name is beyond me, SP be damned. See, I like to have a certain connection with the character I'm playing (in pretty much any game). I'm strange like that. Yeah, character. Old terminology is really going to take a while to wear off! I can understand people wanting the personal connection to their character, as for some, it will make up a significant amount of their time. I considered buying a trained character because the people I knew playing the game were already doing things way outside of my reach and my reach for the foreseeable future. Wait...what.. There are only a very very limited amount of things you can't do without massive SP And even with those massive SP, you will still suck at it as you lack the knowledge to do it properly. When a WoW player leaves to return to WoW, the avg. IQ of both games rises. Professional Forum Thread locker.
Ovv Topik Tribal Liberation Force Minmatar Republic 396	Posted - 2013.04.29 15:00:00 - [23] - Quote OP, it's been covered well I know but I'll still add my voice with a big fat NO! Tons of reasons not to. You can have just as much fun in a Frigate as you can in a Titan! Don't rush through the ship classes. Master each one! Every pilot I know will tell you the first months in game are the best as well. We couldn't put our finger on why exactly, just more to learn and discover, and the adrenaline that comes with all the new experiences I suppose. Ovv Topic now: J'poll, I swear thats you in the new trailer! Before your new haircut. Yo Famous bro!!! "Jita 4 4 spaceport. You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. We must be cautious ..."
Fractal Muse Sebiestor Tribe Minmatar Republic 271	Posted - 2013.04.29 16:06:00 - [24] - Quote Another for the NO category. There is little to no value for a new player to buy a character with "skills." If you take a moment and look at what skills give you then you will realize that most often the limiting factor in EVE is the player and not the skill points. The exception to this are skill requirements for specific and advanced ships. For example, if you want to fly a titan, then... yes, you need lots of skill points. If you want to fly any capital ship then having a lot of skill points is pretty much necessary. You will be a better pilot if you learn to fly your ships with lower skills since there is slightly more challenge to doing so. Most often though you can fly a ship reasonably well at skill level 3 and you are good in a ship at skill level 4. I know a lot of high skill point characters who have very few skills at 5. They have their skills all over the place and it's fine. Skill points do provide more options in terms of ships you can fly at any given moment but once you are in a ship type then the rest of the skill points are useless while in that ship. For example, if you are flying an assault frigate all skills for medium weapons mean nothing. In EVE you can catch up to a 5 year veteran in a relatively short period of time in a specific ship type if you focus. All the 5 year veteran has on you are more options. As for exploring: you can begin an exploration career immediately after finishing the tutorials if it interests you. You can use the exploration frigate of your race (magnate for amarr, heron for caldari, imicus for gallente, and probe for minmatar) and start exploring with astrometrics II (takes 2 hours to train up then another 11 for astrometrics III which is plenty for most highsec sites combined with astrometric rangefinding III which takes a total of one and a half days to train but you can still find stuff with rangefinding at I).
Eram Fidard Republic Military School Minmatar Republic 80	Posted - 2013.04.29 16:30:00 - [25] - Quote Here's another for the "RL SP > INGAME SP" crowd. There are tons of things you can do with limited SP, and if you specialise early you will quickly be even with vets in many ships. Some people fly exclusively stealth bombers for example, those are a month or two's training at most. Assault frigs and destroyers, t1 cruisers, even t1 frigs, all are great, viable options that you don't need more than a few weeks training for. Add in the fact these are also options that won't break the bank, giving you lots of room to lose and learn...and I think it's actually detrimental for most to have more SP than experience.
Ovv Topik Tribal Liberation Force Minmatar Republic 396	Posted - 2013.04.29 16:53:00 - [26] - Quote Also, let this be a lesson to you to not fly expensive shinies without the RL exp to keep it alive: http://www.twitch.tv/leeroy678/b/397282739?t=88m Nyx Super carrier :25 Billion (?) isk. Look on the dudes face : Priceless! "Jita 4 4 spaceport. You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. We must be cautious ..."
Commissar Akiga Aerodyne Collective. WHY so Seri0Us 4	Posted - 2013.04.29 21:07:00 - [27] - Quote Velicitia wrote: Commissar Akiga wrote: I considered buying a trained character because the people I knew playing the game were already doing things way outside of my reach and my reach for the foreseeable future. what things? Sure if it's "flying an all-5 supercarrier", it's out of your league. but if it's other stuff, you can be very useful with the low SP you have now. Not quite that super dooper, more along the lines of running a Battleship in Incursions. I've always been the kinda guy that makes money in games and that's why I am drawn to Industry. It's a good way to make ISK and it's also interesting, so my dilemma came when I wanted to spend the next year or so training Industry but also wanting a combat pilot as well that would take at least 6-9 months of training. 2 years isn't THAT long really, but it would be nice to have that extra pilot pre-trained and at least be able to do one of those things whilst the other trains. A man of genius makes no mistakes. His errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery.
NightCrawler 85 Phoibe Enterprises Project Wildfire 463	Posted - 2013.04.30 02:11:00 - [28] - Quote I will join in with the no crowd here and add in another reason why (in my opinion) you should not buy a character. I just skimmed over the other replies so not sure if its been mentioned yet, if it has im sorry. One of the things I remember the most from when i was a "young" player is the excitement i felt when i looked over my skills and could think "Sweet! Only X days until i can use (whatever)!" and the joy when i finished that skill and could jump over and get whatever it was and play with it. Of course ISK is also needed for many of the things you "want" in EVE, but the ISK grind feels more trivial and..inpersonal? then knowing you were sitting there for days/weeks waiting like a kid waiting for Christmas eve it just felt that much better when you finally could get that new shiny toy. I can understand that some skills are very boring to train because they don't actually allow you to fly/use anything extra and its just support skills, but at the same time...it gives a sense of accomplishment... something you did, not some other random person. But enjoy this while you can. Eventually you will find your self at a point where you dont know what to train anymore because you dont need/want anything else, and the excitement you can feel now will be gone. It does not matter if your training the last racial BS to level 5 or titan level 5...its just numbers, and in the long run those numbers are pretty meaningless and dont add to (or provide) enjoyment in the game. As i said, this is how i feel and i know a lot of people disagree with me and feel that SP means quite a bit (and dont take me wrong they do, up to a certain point). But when you have those skills at level 5 your just the same as everyone else with those skills, and what makes the difference between you and someone else is how you play, and some luck Phoibe Enterprises official recruitment thread The Eve Reader - -áAudio Recordings of Eve Chronicles


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