> "Hell, just learning to fly one of those monsters can take months of training time, and skill books that themselves carry price tags in the billions of ISK."
Is this training for the player, or training for the player's character? The skill books I assume are for the player's character, but are the ships hard for the player themself to fly?
For the players character. Eve has this weird/cool system where certain skills can be selected for your virtual player to train on. The skills take a set amount of real time, and the training continues even when you're logged off.
>>"but are the ships hard for the player themself to fly?"
Not really - flying ships in eve is less flight simulator, more spreadsheet. You usually choose another ship/structure from a drop-down menu and choose approach, orbit, etc. Most battles are not about individual pilot skill at all (especially very large ones like this).
Lol eve is a thinking man's mmo. Action is kind of... meh. There is no simulation. Your character for better or worse can just be replaced with an AI that listens to commands of the leader. You are basically a body in a giant battle. Your goal is to click the little red dot designated for you to click on, and click your weapons. The end.
The game is all about maneuvers. How to out-maneuver your opponent to catch them with their pants down, block reinforcements, prevent retreat, maximize damage while minimizing yours.
Imagine a battle between two countries, its not just about what is in the battle, but what led up to the battle occurring, how people behave, etc.
In eve you do not "fight" for xp. There is no "xp" in eve. You get skill books which teach you things. Then you set the skill to train, and via your stats your training time decreases (which is why implants are so valuable). To learn to fly a titan is a skill that with the best upgrades your character must spend about 3 months (real time) just learning the skill. Meanwhile if you die, and don't have the money for an appropriate clone (by that time your clones cost tens or hundreds of dollars) you lose the skills, and thus months of training.
Basically building a titan takes a community effort, and finding a pilot for it is equally as difficult.
> but are the ships hard for the player themself to fly?
"Hard" isn't the right word. It's more... knowing when and why to do things, and knowing how to work with others. EVE isn't very twitchy (and if I understand the Time Dilation technology, what little twitch is there isn't even present anymore): about 70% of the fight is dictated by your ship's fit, and only 25-30% is in-the-moment skill.
If there was a continuum between chess (10) and Street Fighter (1), I'd call it a 7. This opinion comes with a grain of salt, though, since I'm incompetent at PvP.
Well Time Dilation only matters in fights with hundreds or thousands of people which would have otherwise been so laggy that skill was irrelevant anyhow.
The "in-the-moment" skill that matters in EVE isn't accuracy (FPSes) or mashing the correct 6-step ability rotation every 9 seconds (WoW), but rather tactical skill like teamwork/coordination or laying clever traps or straight up situational awareness. There's also knowing your opponent's build and responding accordingly - you want to try to out-range some shorter-range weapons and you want to try close-range fast orbits against others.
Is this training for the player, or training for the player's character? The skill books I assume are for the player's character, but are the ships hard for the player themself to fly?