Originally posted by jimmyman99

Originally posted by Lordmonkus

Originally posted by Staatsschutz

Originally posted by Pyrostasis

If you just take a look at the threads on this forum alone, you can see many questions about this, and many answers from fans and haters a like, but as a proespective player, who do you believe? Who is telling the truth? Can a new player really compete?

Project BeliEvE attempts to answer this question with a definitive yes or no.

Armon Deacon is a new freshly created character who will be attempting to progress quickly to "Competing" with the vets. His daily progress will be documented and tracked via this blog.

The character will recieve no outside help monitarily or with items from established characters and his API key has been published for easy validation.

Haters and Fans alike will soon have a definitive answer to the age old question, can a new player really compete with the vets in EvE?

 

Just because a new player can be competetive this doen't mean they necessarily will, but unlike most other games a new player CANNOT be competetive or useful to end game activities until they reach level cap and get appropriate gear which can take months of farming. The limiting factor in Eve is player knowledge of the game, not character level and gear.

blatant misunderstanding of eve

In eve, a frigate can indeed kill a battlecruiser or cruiser or group of frigates to kill battlecruisers/battleships if set up properly and in the right scenario. Although supremely more skilled players have obvious advantages and usually are less likely to be caught with their pants down, it does happen.

Oh, and above scenario would take a little while, too.  Not a long while. Meanwhile what do you think frigates take out most of the time? other light poppable ships such as frigates/interceptors/assault frigates/destroyers. As long as the guy is reasonably competent and starts to learn what skills to train he will do just fine, he'll just be quite a ways behind on tech 2 equipment.

Fleets of frigates who lose some but take out ravens? It's been done time and time again.

OF course he's not going to kill a dread or something but a level 1 brand new player in wow does not expect to instantly hop into naxramas either.

The thing that made me try EVE over a year ago and stay what the fact that a new player could compete with vets.  Maybe not 1v1, but in a fleet with the right  skill line and fit.   EVE's MASSIVE amounts of information available in hundreds of different forums make finding information for whatever path you wish to follow and tools like EVE-Mon and EFT make planning your progression practical, more than any other MMO.  There is a place for everyone in EVE, finding a Corp is KEY, and being able to research a Corp is easier than any other MMO.  Just like in every MMO, one can never expect to go tow to tow vs. Vets, but EVEs game mechanics make it possible for a new player to join in a fleet and have a better chance earlier in their game career.  Also as someone stated earlier.....someone may have 50m SP but it might not all be combat skills....or the skills for the ship they are in.  I am quit sure 6 year vets still pop in 0.0 like everyone else.  I know I have an alt with ZERO combat skills, like most, I spent a ton of time on manufacturing and mining to support my  main's frigate abuse....If ever in a fight with the alt....I'd pop in a second...Another plus is EVE the fact that bigger isn't better was very appealing for a noob frigate capsuleer.   And having one server with 40k people on at once is a vast player base to pick knowledge from.  Also the fact that there are many players very willing to aide noobs.....the level of maturity displayed by 99% of the player base is amazing, there's not as many tool bags in EVE....compared to most other MMOs. 

Originally posted by jimmyman99

Originally posted by Lordmonkus

stuff

Why coudn't it be a definitive answer ? The question is CAN a new player compete, not WILL EVERY new player be competetive and you already answered the question yourself with your example of one player doing quite well and theother not so well.
 

Just because a new player can be competetive this doen't mean they necessarily will, but unlike most other games a new player CANNOT be competetive or useful to end game activities until they reach level cap and get appropriate gear which can take months of farming. The limiting factor in Eve is player knowledge of the game, not character level and gear.

This needs no proof. Its a fact that a vet player with 100000sp is useful for something. A new player is not that useful though, even with a million points. Thats why this project puzzles me, its proven a point that needs no proof. They put a vet on a chair working with a new character, and that vet would win PvP against a noob with a million SPs.

The point is to prove to the non believers or those who simpley do not know that a new player can be useful and competitive at an early stage in the game. This is obviously not intended to prove anything to those of us that already know they can.

The point that needs proof, though, is this definition of "compete". Can a new character be useful in as many tasks as established characters? The answer is: NO. Why? Because like Planetside, the more SPs you have, the more options you get. A level 1 character in Planetside CAN compete with level 25 character. But, level 25 character has much wider range of weaponry and vehicles to compete with.

My definition of 'compete' here is simpley to enter the battlefield and provide a useful role and survive while doing so in small group pvp. 1 vs 1 doesn't count because a new player will obviously to lose to a vet because the new player lacks all the skills necessary which include basic player knowledge. Fleet battle doesn't as well because there is little to no individual player skill in large fleet fights, the skill is more on the FCs. Other people may have differetn definition but I believe mine offers a fair and reasonable expectation.

So yes, a new char may compete in PvP with a vet, but that new char will fail competeing in economy, mining, crafting, research or what have you with that same vet char. Since Eve does not stop leveling skill points, new character will never reach the same level of choice as the vet with 10mil points above him.

Economoy has very little to do with a players skill points and more the knowledge of the market. Another player a while back proved that a new player with just the skills provided at creation and basic wallet could double his money every day and he made a lot of money. Mining, crafting and research I will agree tend to more the SP intensive areas of the game. If I can find the link I will post it but im not gonna spend much time looking.

A new player can reach the same level of choice, every skill has a level cap. If the SPs and levels for each skill were infinite then I would agree with you.

Again, its not about competing at one thing (pvp, industry, mining, etc), but the whole thing in general. Its not as bad as it sounds though, a new player can specialize in one aspect of the game, lets say PvP. That player will catch up to the vet that spreads his points all around. But, if you compare specialized vet with specialized new char, then Im betting the vet will outcompete that new char.

The argument of vet vs new char is an impossible question to really answer. If you are talking 2 pilots in identical fitted ships and the slug it out yeah then the vet will win but how often does this happen in Eve ? Not often and once you start adding variables such as ship type and weapons type then the vet vs newb question becomes a lot more blurry and no one can say with certainty what would happen.

I hope new players are still competitive as I only started playing on Friday. Time will tell I guess.

Originally posted by Nizumzen

I hope new players are still competitive as I only started playing on Friday. Time will tell I guess.

You will be fine.  Run the Epic Arc missions NOW while you don't yet have any bad standings, because the Arc missions will take you to everyones space.  Also you stand to make about 20 million in doing the entire line.    Find a good Corp that fits your play style, RESEARCH, RESEARCH, RESEARCH, get EVE Mon, and EFT.....TRAIN up your Learning Skills first.....I know its a pain...BUT you will thanks me in a month.  In about a month you should have enough skill, as long as you followed a path that you read up on using Battleclinic, EVE Forums....etc, to compete in a fleet.  You'll not be able to 1v1 many....but there isn't much 1v1 in EVE....In this last week I've been in 6 Blob fights and did ok and that was with an alt with only 1.1million SP...which I trained since May 2d of this year, after a year and a half with 2 other accounts.    You'll be fine.  Another thing to remember about EVE:

1)  Do not be afraid to try something

2) You will die....often....accept it.  We all have!!

3) Try to resist the urge to get in the big ships.....stick with frigates....and the fittings for the....you can be in T2 ships and gear within a month.  T2 Frigates are some great ships......read up on them.  Nothing more annoying to a large ship than that little frigate he can't hit that got him Webbed, Scrammed, and Jammed........sure he can try drones....if he has them....but chances are he'll pop as your mates pound the piss out of him.

4)  Also, sticking with frigates at first will help you cope with the lose of them.  Most Frigs, good ones....go for about 250K......Battleships, Battlecruisers....etc go for over 35,000,000.....ship hull alone.  You can even grab a frigate blueprint and keep making them with the loot you refined from missions.

Good Luck....and hopefully you'll realize that EVE.....is Crack.......

heh .... Eve is a game that you have to be really devoted to to be  successful (like to have a rep for bieing uber).  I played for 2.5 years (quit a couple years ago with 40 mil skill points, 40 - 50 ships and zillions of parts and stuff and only 1.5 billion isk in the bank).  A noob could never catch up with a vet in skill points (unless you played 5 years or so and trained everything to max).

Competing for isk would not be too bad ... you could be fairly rich in a year or so. 

If you make the right friends, you can still have megafun in 0.0 ... long as you dont mind being a tagalong the the "Uber" ones.

well. a person with anything less than a years worth of training would have no chance against me in 1v1.

im a 7 year vet maxed combat skills. the notion a new player can compete is just a joke. only thing that is possible is a noob swarm as i call them, where 5+ new player MUST group up to surive"for a short time".

if you plan to join eve now apply to goon swarm and get ready to be cannon fodder for the next 6-7 months.

Originally posted by KTMPro

well. a person with anything less than a years worth of training would have no chance against me in 1v1.

im a 7 year vet maxed combat skills. the notion a new player can compete is just a joke. only thing that is possible is a noob swarm as i call them, where 5+ new player MUST group up to surive"for a short time".

if you plan to join eve now apply to goon swarm and get ready to be cannon fodder for the next 6-7 months.

so no matter what ship you are in, what fitting you have currently on that ship.  no 1 year noob could fight you?  doesn't sound like really understand how EVE works.

Originally posted by Majinash

Originally posted by KTMPro

well. a person with anything less than a years worth of training would have no chance against me in 1v1.

im a 7 year vet maxed combat skills. the notion a new player can compete is just a joke. only thing that is possible is a noob swarm as i call them, where 5+ new player MUST group up to surive"for a short time".

if you plan to join eve now apply to goon swarm and get ready to be cannon fodder for the next 6-7 months.

 

so no matter what ship you are in, what fitting you have currently on that ship.  no 1 year noob could fight you?  doesn't sound like really understand how EVE works.

sure change the rules around m8. ship for ship a 1 year old is no match for a 7 year vet. get in your battlecruiser and i'll put 100mil isk  that i can out run you in a battleship.... one sided ya thats an understatement.

do you really play EVE?  no one plays "ship for ship".  people fly ships intended to destroy other ships.  sure, in other games like WoW and Lineage2 you see people bragging they can win a 1v1 against insert-class-here.  honestly your post sounds more like posturing than anything useful.

EVE isn't about solo PvP, its group PvP.  saying you can beat people 1v1 is like saying you can mine faster than someone else.  sure it doesn't hurt, but its less important than say... being useful in a larger fight.

Originally posted by Atillius

Originally posted by Nizumzen

I hope new players are still competitive as I only started playing on Friday. Time will tell I guess.

You will be fine.  Run the Epic Arc missions NOW while you don't yet have any bad standings, because the Arc missions will take you to everyones space.  Also you stand to make about 20 million in doing the entire line.    Find a good Corp that fits your play style, RESEARCH, RESEARCH, RESEARCH, get EVE Mon, and EFT.....TRAIN up your Learning Skills first.....I know its a pain...BUT you will thanks me in a month.  In about a month you should have enough skill, as long as you followed a path that you read up on using Battleclinic, EVE Forums....etc, to compete in a fleet.  You'll not be able to 1v1 many....but there isn't much 1v1 in EVE....In this last week I've been in 6 Blob fights and did ok and that was with an alt with only 1.1million SP...which I trained since May 2d of this year, after a year and a half with 2 other accounts.    You'll be fine.  Another thing to remember about EVE:

1)  Do not be afraid to try something

2) You will die....often....accept it.  We all have!!

3) Try to resist the urge to get in the big ships.....stick with frigates....and the fittings for the....you can be in T2 ships and gear within a month.  T2 Frigates are some great ships......read up on them.  Nothing more annoying to a large ship than that little frigate he can't hit that got him Webbed, Scrammed, and Jammed........sure he can try drones....if he has them....but chances are he'll pop as your mates pound the piss out of him.

4)  Also, sticking with frigates at first will help you cope with the lose of them.  Most Frigs, good ones....go for about 250K......Battleships, Battlecruisers....etc go for over 35,000,000.....ship hull alone.  You can even grab a frigate blueprint and keep making them with the loot you refined from missions.

Good Luck....and hopefully you'll realize that EVE.....is Crack.......

Good advice, thanks.

Just out of interest why do you suggest learning skills first? I've been working on getting my certificates and already have core navigation and core fitting. I was hoping to get all the recommended ones for frigates before I started doing anything else really,

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Originally posted by KTMPro

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Originally posted by Majinash

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Originally posted by KTMPro

well. a person with anything less than a years worth of training would have no chance against me in 1v1.
im a 7 year vet maxed combat skills. the notion a new player can compete is just a joke. only thing that is possible is a noob swarm as i call them, where 5+ new player MUST group up to surive"for a short time".
if you plan to join eve now apply to goon swarm and get ready to be cannon fodder for the next 6-7 months.

---

 
so no matter what ship you are in, what fitting you have currently on that ship.  no 1 year noob could fight you?  doesn't sound like really understand how EVE works.

---

 
sure change the rules around m8. ship for ship a 1 year old is no match for a 7 year vet. get in your battlecruiser and i'll put 100mil isk  that i can out run you in a battleship.... one sided ya thats an understatement.

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lol, crawl back to your troll hole, please...

What they said.  

7 years of "full combat skills" is not 7 years of time invested in training those skill skills.  Gunnery 5 is Gunnery 5.......7 year guy or 60 day guy.   I can't remember many 1v1 fights in EVE either......usually either FW Blobs or Corp Blobs.  Maybe the occational can flipper in a belt...but I don't see many 7 year players doing that. 

I have (2) 1.5 year old accounts, and (1) 30 day old account.  I stuck with frigate to this day, 5 in Cal and MIm......All I do is tackle for my gang.  I have tackled all sizes of ships and  players will GOBS of time and have had no problem avoiding whatever they shoot at me...Drones...are sometimes a problem but easily handled by my rockets and my speed.  Sure I have popped at times,  but I have also been on km of high time players.  

Sure a 30 day Ibis pilot will not survive  tow to tow with a 7 year vet in a BB, Dread...etc 1v1.....BUT  I also don't see many Rookie ships fighting FW or any other Blob fights. 

I read some of these posts and just see chest beating......I bet a noob blob could humble some of these uber vets. 

Niz;

Training learning skills first will shorten your training time for ALL your skills.  Also figure out what skill line you want, look at the primary and secondary attributes then find the learning skills that give you attribute points in that att.  Then train them up to about 3 or 4 for now.  I know it sucks at first....but it pays off in the end.

I really don't feel this will prove anything more than the concept of a veteran player would be able to take the fastest road to a competitive new character given an expected outcome.

There is a reason new players don't compete in EVE.  They don't choose to learn the system to the degree that is required.  The ones that become quick studies, are willing to lose a few ships, and get out into pvp combat ASAP, they learn to compete very quickly.  Getting the avatar to have the skills to compete is quite simple after a newb does roughly 10 minutes of research or questioning on the forums.

Originally posted by Atillius

Niz;

Training learning skills first will shorten your training time for ALL your skills.  Also figure out what skill line you want, look at the primary and secondary attributes then find the learning skills that give you attribute points in that att.  Then train them up to about 3 or 4 for now.  I know it sucks at first....but it pays off in the end.

Ah, okay. Thanks for the tips. I'll certainly get them skilled up in that case.

been a slow couple of days mainly due to the new TF2 release and UFC fights on satuday taking my time up, but hopefully will get some more action this week.

There has been a lot of debate on the Eve-o forums, here, and in game over what is considered competing and if its fair that I have some experience with the game.

Well my experience does give me a leg up on a new player, that is for damn sure. But, info is freely available out there, and any one who is thinking about the game and has questions I am more than willing to answer them here, on my site, or even in game on Armon Deacon. EvE is simply about asking questions and looking for the info. There is so much information just sitting on the forums at eve-o its just sick.

As for competition... well Ill say what I said over at Eve-0 forums. Most MMO's are linear growth. You start at the bottom and work your way to the top in a pretty much straight line. Guys at the top are better than guys at the bottom, no question.

EvE isnt a linear growth system, its a small upward movement, followed by massive horizontal growth.

What do you mean?

Simple, Lets say you want to shoot guns. The worst you can do is guns 1 the best is guns 5. The difference between guns 4 and 5 is usually 5 or 10% not that big a deal, and guns 4 can be achieved very quickly. After that, its supporting skills. This is another little push to the ceiling. You have 4 or 5 skills that will make you shoot faster, hit harder, track better, etc. These also are fairly quick to get to 4 or 5, where the difference is much smaller say 2%. Finally you have your specializations for that weapon or ship type that give you an additional 5% or so that takes a while to train, but still 4 is easily obtainable. At this point you are badass with guns. From here on you are moving laterally. Lasers, Missiles, Drones, bigger guns for bigger ships etc. You are no longer rising up, you are now moving to something else.

This is the main issue folks dont seem to get when they start playing. Bobs been playing 5 years and you have been playing six months. However, you both have max gunnery in a cruiser. Sure he can fly more things than you, but at what you are good at he is good at, you are more or less equal.

Well put Pyro

Originally posted by Atillius

What they said.  

7 years of "full combat skills" is not 7 years of time invested in training those skill skills.  Gunnery 5 is Gunnery 5.......7 year guy or 60 day guy.   I can't remember many 1v1 fights in EVE either......usually either FW Blobs or Corp Blobs.  Maybe the occational can flipper in a belt...but I don't see many 7 year players doing that. 

I have (2) 1.5 year old accounts, and (1) 30 day old account.  I stuck with frigate to this day, 5 in Cal and MIm......All I do is tackle for my gang.  I have tackled all sizes of ships and  players will GOBS of time and have had no problem avoiding whatever they shoot at me...Drones...are sometimes a problem but easily handled by my rockets and my speed.  Sure I have popped at times,  but I have also been on km of high time players.  

Sure a 30 day Ibis pilot will not survive  tow to tow with a 7 year vet in a BB, Dread...etc 1v1.....BUT  I also don't see many Rookie ships fighting FW or any other Blob fights. 

I read some of these posts and just see chest beating......I bet a noob blob could humble some of these uber vets. 

Could?

How about does and/or does constantly. Scrapheap challenge is all about this. Smart piloting in small ships can take out a bunch of crap and lose a hell of a lot less money than a battleship can. 10 frigates lost to 1 battleship = still a lot more loss in the battleship, and a lot more laughs from the frigates.

It's been done. Anyone who is smart and researches what they are doing (and separates stupid pubbies from people who learn) will find guides like this:  http://evefiles.mysterious-mysteries.com/eve-online_war_target_guide.html

This is why I train new players, why I enjoy pvp, etc. I fly an interceptor and do more in that than people do in a battleship in some scenarios. By specializing in what I do, I do well at it, and I survive quite well too.

I started EVE the week Guild War's was released. I decided to have my own little Experiment. I bought GW's and downloaded EVE. (TS)

I gave GW's the upper hand because it didn't have a monthly fee and started playing it first. After a few Quests outside the starter village I decided to start EVE. After a few minute tutorial I went to an asteroid belt and sat there.....hey what are these red crosses...BOOM! Where did my ship go!!!! What the freak is going on!!! Self-destruct back in station and back to GW. EVE's a fu**in crazy game.

After a week of quest and one magical/special item near a waterfall (and actually having found one other person to talk too) I logged on to EVE again. This time I decided to ask questions. I remember clearly one of my questions was how do you make your ship leave the station.....(press the little yellow and black button on the left noob). After one question someone convo'ed me with the answer and said he was new too and wanted to start a corp of new players...was I in?
We all met up at Perimeter and after that night I never logged into GW's again (actually I did one more time but uninstalled it just after).

During all of this, the question of being able to catch up never came up and to say it was a non-issue is an understatement. The only question I wanted to answer was would i have fun.
That's an affirmative.