Not long ago I thought that skill points don't matter. I have lots of skill points, and new players don't, but you only ever use as many points as you're currently using.
Then I tried faction warfare with my first fresh alt in years.
Ouch, being a newbie hurts. My first ship fit plan was scuppered by the reality that I didn't have the skills to use the equipment I needed, let alone have the skills to fit that gear if I could use it. Fitting is tight at the newbie end of life.
So there I was in a frigate (rifter at 5, that's some consolation) with good gunnery skills (That's 2 5s at least) but the inability to fit a tank, afterburner or any ECM at all. I was useless in anything other than a fleet, and even then I could only do a small amount of damage and then explode.
Boy that was a depressing few weeks. Being a newb hurts! You know what? It took a couple of months to use all the gear I wanted. My initial skills would have me in tech 2 frigates with tech 2 guns in no time at all, but without the skills needed to support that. I've been playing since they went live with this game so I know what's what, I have no idea how somebody coming to the game fresh copes. I guess I've forgotten that when I started cruisers were the top of the pile ship wise, battleships came in later and battecruisers wouldn't be there for years. There are so many skills needed to fly frigates, let alone the bigger stuff...
People like Eve Uni provide a service way more important than I think a lot of us appreciate, and I was pretty in awe of them before this experience, now I'm even more so.
Being a newbie hurts, but you soon get better.
posted @ Monday, August 04, 2008 11:03 PM