Under your logic OP... all skills should be gotten rid of. Turret/Missile support skills... ship skills... astrometric skills... industry skills... they all prevent a newbie from performing well.

The problem with your reasoning OP is that it doesn't stop until everyone can do everything equally with any ship, mod, or equipment in any activity from the very first second they start playing.


Stop looking and skills as something you NEED and something to work around. Find solutions to compensate for your lacking skills... be creative in the ways you fit and use your ships... because that is pretty much the point behind the skill system as is; you are supposed to learn how to use your head in order to play rather than rely on the "need more skills for max effectiveness!" mentality.

Go play a MOBA, if that's what you want.

The skill system in this game is actually one it's more appealing features to me. It means I can progress even though I have a 60 hour a week job. It means that I don't have to grind out every last level of pig skinning and basket weaving.

But even I recognize that there must be some progression, that I should not be able to jump into any and every ship I want, just because I want it.

It's still an RPG, after all.

It's also a fairly handy way of providing a barrier to entry for the undesirable portions of the gaming community. The CoD babies, the instant gratification crowd, the Farmville "gamers", and the WoW level 90 boosters. Those people must be kept away from EVE at all costs.

My thesis remains the same:

New players do not want to wait months and pay money in the meanwhile to play Space Farmville to progress. If they're like you, and want to play Space Farmville, they can go back to Facebook to do it.

And my response remains the same.

If they want instant gratification, they aren't welcome in EVE in the first place.

That is a bit much is it not?

The Learning skill removal to me was awesome when I started and was happy about it's removal. If they had to remove another skill it should only be the most basic of core skills.

Even with basic core skills out of the way the new bro's will still struggle fitting ships without Weapons Upgrade and Advanced Weapons upgrade. The newbro will still have to train the relevant skills to fly a ship and fit it properly. I am almost convinced this request is for self serving reasons other then being altruistic and thinking of the newbie.

You need to consider the bad with the good. I think a change like this would be more bad then good.

Throw away awoxers and suicide alts would be rampant and do more damage if CCP is unable to effectively ban people recycling alts. Which is already an issue with people creating throw away alts.

Even the lower ships like t1 frigs and t1 destroyers can hardly be fit properly without having high engineering skills.

The waiting time for training until you can fly something that can actually be a threat to <2009 accounts is huge

The waiting time until you can fly anything that would be a threat solo is huge.

Six individual one week old newbies in thrashers make a mess out of most mission running BS, all with minimal training.

If they would train Social Interaction to at least III right off the bat, they would be much better off.

@ShahFluffers
Yes, all skills should be gotten rid of. It's a stupid, outdated system only held up as a good thing by 'vets' whose only reason for supporting it is their own example of the gambler's fallacy

It would then probably make more sense to just start new players with ~500,000-1,000,000 SP allocated to fitting and capacitor skills. at least. The current 90k start is far too limiting.

I still think the compensation skills are an overbearing SP sink, though.

I came very close to can calling after my first month of subscription, and in fact two of the friends I started the game with already quit for that exact same reason. Had they had the skills you get 3 months into the game, I'm pretty sure they would still be playing.

I find it funny that EVE is one of those games where people think they can go 'we didn't want those players anyway' or 'you need to do [insert specific task here] for three months' in response to an argument like this. I've had at least five people quit on me because of the skill system.

Not that anything's going to change until the community's toxic 'working as intended' mentality changes, of course.

There's nothing wrong about making a hardcore game that discourages casual gameplay and just isn't for everybody.

Moar players doesn't necessarily mean either a better game or more profits for CCP. Having a strong and unique vision seems to have worked better for the past 11 years.

How is a casual version of Farmville 'hardcore'?

I can tell you the way I felt a few weeks into this game was "I wish I had created an account 3 months ago and just let it run until now." Coincidentally it took me about three months before I started actually enjoying the game play and didn't feel completely gimped when doing basic new player activities. CCP was lucky enough that I'm persistent and that I happened to be busy enough with work that I ended up waiting out the three months. Now I have two paying accounts and will probably end up with more down the road.

I came very close to can calling after my first month of subscription, and in fact two of the friends I started the game with already quit for that exact same reason. Had they had the skills you get 3 months into the game, I'm pretty sure they would still be playing.

I'd be in favour of a little tinkering. Stick AWU behind WU4 instead of 5, for instance.

Not entirely related, but the destroyer/BC skill split was pretty bad from a new player perspective, I think. If it had to be done, it should have been accompanied by making the racial BC skills lower ranked.

However, I'm broadly happy with the skill system as is. What's most important is that new players are educated by other, more experienced players about how you don't have to have many 5s to be useful.

I wouldn't object if CCP gave new players an additional leg up though.

Even the lower ships like t1 frigs and t1 destroyers can hardly be fit properly without having high engineering skills.

The waiting time for training until you can fly something that can actually be a threat to <2009 accounts is huge