EVE General Discussion

Clone costs could be reduced a bit.. But never eliminated completely for reasons I allready stated before. In my opinion ofcourse.
The fact that your pod is worth something actually makes it worth getting it to safety. If they eliminate clone costs completely they (were it not for implants alone) basically transform a pod into a shuttle.

I also think it's weird how most people who are in favour of this suggestion act like this is a problem for a very large part of the eve playerbase.. a 45mill clone stores SP from 156.000.000 and upward.. how many people have that many SP's..? Sure we can find a few, but honestly?

The fact is that up untill 120.000.000 SP, a clone merely costs 20 mill ISK. (My personal costs.)
Untill you reach 156.000.000 SP it's merely 30 mill..
I really don't see the problem, and I'm not even filthy rich or anything.

And even though there's alot of hate against the "train an alt" argument, there's is a valid point in it.
I'm not completely in favor of having to train alts, but it's safe to say that if you have 156mill+ SP, you trained your pilot to do a bit of everything.. If you want to muck about in suicide runs, rifter lulz battles etc so often that 20-45 mill clone costs presents a problem to you, perhaps you should've focused on keeping your pilot a combat one.
A second character for other stuff you might want to do is not such an outlandish idea.

My 5 cents.

Although I'm busy washing my mouth out with soap I have to agree with RD here. It really is a pointless "tax" on players that have been around longer. Basically CCP is punishing players for sticking around and being loyal.


And enough of all this "yeah but 7 year old mains should be rolling in ISK" Why exactly? I haven't made a single isk in 8 months apart from the odd mill here selling stuff I have looted from wrecks.

There's plenty of risk from losing your pod, ship, implants, KB stats (if you're that way inclined) then you have T3 ships you lose SP in as well as an expensive ship.

Umm - yeah - interesting facts...

Somehow, that leaves me doubtful about the bit about 'your personal cost'...

You're off by 1 rank.

Up to 120m SP, it's 30m and up to 156m SP it's 45m.

Have you actually read the thread? The point is that having an expensive clone discourages that option. That as much fun as it would be to take risks and fly fun cheap ships it doesn't make much sense when your clone costs more than 10 fully T2 fit rifters.

That while the argument "just jump in something cheap" works when it comes to ship choice, that the argument falls apart once you try to apply it to medical clones. Because you can't just choose to use a cheaper medical clone and this well just make an alt nonsense is a bullshit argument. I spent the time I spent playing this character and training him the way I did in order to play not to sit him in a station collecting dust.

I ask this other than "this is the way it's always been" what conceivable reason would one have to defend this mechanic?

Because as best I can see this mechanic doesn't serve any purpose other than to discourage long term players from going out and playing the game. That this mechanic that people keep claiming is so damned important because OMG RISK!!! actually results in people taking fewer RISKS.

The number 1 complaint I see coming from PVPers is that people playing this game are too risk averse. Yet here is a mechanic that does nothing other than to encourage such aversion.

Now I understand that consequences are part of what makes PVP interesting and meaningful. But such consequences need to be balanced with the other aspect of what makes PVP interesting, which is fun.

Too little risk and the game play becomes meaningless and boring but too much risk and it goes from meaningless and boring to tedious and boring which is many times worse.

The simple fact that people playing this game are so risk averse suggests to me that there is too much consequence relative to the potential fun. Hell just the fact that people feel compelled to create alts with the same skill focus as their main just with fewer total points is a glaring sign of a problem. Making specialized alts to cover different skill areas or for a limited purpose like a cyno alto or market toon makes sense. Making a specialized alt just to dodge the death penalty mechanic is stupid.

When the primary answer to dealing with a game mechanic is "make and alt or don't play" there is something wrong with that mechanic.

Oh and I'm pretty sure I've seen some of the people arguing against changing the mechanic telling players to train PVP skills on their indy characters so they could take advantage of kill rights. How exactly does that square with your "specialized alt" bullshit?


My argument is simple, I think there are too many game mechanics that discourage people from engaging in risky behavior. Further I think it would be far more effective to address those places where such mechanics serve no useful purpose other than to discourage risk taking than to sit around whining about it or trying to shame them into taking risks with e-machismo.

It's an ISK sink, yes, but there will be an optimal cost for clones where the maximum amount of ISK is "sunk". Players who never risk their pod because of clone cost will never put into the sink you see.

Just throwing this out there... You know you dont HAVE to upgrade your clone. So you dont HAVE to pay that isk.
Also stay away from the super blob fights and you tend to find your pod survives quite a bit.

Pod loss is the only ISK sink in PvP. Everything else is either ISK-neutral or creates ISK (insurance)

To add to Marconus's post and just keep repeating what other people have said; It's a poor ISK sink if people avoid PVP because they don't want to lose their pod. Again - I don't think the costs need to be eliminated completely but slashed very hard to be more reasonable.

I wouldn't entirely remove them - they just need to be leveled better - higher prices at low levels, and a sharp reduction in price increase after 50-60 mill SP.

After that, skills typically broaden because most specialized clones fly the ship they specialized into almost perfectly and a character with more SP wont gain any advantage at piloting the ship.