The Mythical (Lack Of) Level Cap

Probably the most common objection I hear from people considering getting into EVE is its lack of level cap. "If there's no level cap," the objection goes, "how will I ever catch up with someone that's been playing for 4 years?" Problem is, that supposes levelling works like most other games, and it's really radically different.

In EVE almost everything has diminishing returns. Whether you're talking about spending 10x the ISK on a ship that's 20% better than the one you have, or spending 10x as long to train a skill to get 5% better at something than the previous 5% took, it's pervasive. It even applies to (most) stacking. Put on 2 modules of the same type into a ship, and the bonus is less than 2x that of a single module and so on.

Training time is no different. Older characters simply don't get as much out of N time training as a young character will. This is due to a few main factors:

• Skill training time is exponential, but the benefits are linear. Say a skill buffs something by 5%. If training it to level 1 takes an hour, level 2 will take about 6x that (6 hours), and level 3 another 6x that (1.5 days), and so on.
• Every skill caps at level 5. So in a real sense there is a "level cap" in that, at whatever thing a skill makes you better at, you'll never be better than a newbie by more than a "level 5's worth" of that skill. What's more, you can get to level 4 a lot easier than level 5, so it's pretty easy for a newbie to narrow the gap between himself and an old character by just one level's worth of a skill.
  
• Better skills have a higher "rank". Don't confuse level with rank. Rank just means it's a difficult skill and multiplies the training time. High-rank skills can take months to train to level 5, for only an incremental benefit.

When it comes to PvP, the "magic moment" comes when you can fly a couple hulls at close to the level of someone with all level 5 skills relevant to that particular hull could. For something like a cruiser, you could conceivably reach that in a couple months. Boom, in a couple months, you can hold your own in a 1v1 with a 4-year-old in the same hull. For a battleship that's probably more like 4-6 months depending on how focused you are. That time works about right for me, since I take 4-6 months to level cap in most traditional MMOs too. I know hard-core grinders will take less time, and as a result hard-core grinders are often put off by EVE's training system. I personally welcome the opportunity to go do something other than grinding with my spare time, like have a sex life.

Now let me not set expectations too high here. You do feel pretty gimped your first month or two playing EVE if you try to dive right into PvP. But that has at least as much to do with:

• Player skill (i.e., your personal, real-life skill playing the game). EVE PvP is hard, and experienced players will be a lot better at it than you.
• Metagame knowledge. Someone that's PvP'ed for 2 years will be able to take the same (seemingly crappy) frigate that your newbie pilot can fly, and fit it 10x better than you can. He'll also know what engagements to commit to and which to run away from with that frigate.
• Finding PvP in the first place. Since PvP is free-form in EVE, being able to find PvP that's likely to be fun is a skill unto itself. And it's harder when you can fly fewer ship types. And don't know your way around. And don't even really have a good sense what "fun" PvP is, etc...

My advice to a budding PvPer is to dive right in, and know you'll get worked over hard core for a long time. It helps if you can get in a gang with experienced PvPers that can give you pointers and reassure you that getting blown up constantly just means you're new, not that you suck. But it can work totally going it solo too, you just have to be patient and learn from all your mistakes. As you get more comfortable with the game, you'll get a better sense what you want to train, and eventually you'll hit that "magic moment" where you stop doing "Show Info" on every potential opponent to check their age...because you don't care anymore.