Player Features and Ideas Discussion

I did not realize that missiles became 100% useless after they took the nerf bat to heavy missiles, and then buffed almost every other missile and took penalties away from T2 missiles.
I would not think that would constitute a reallocation of skill points in missiles. In fact i can't think of very much that would constitute a reallocation of skill points.

Yes, that's exactly the intention. Why should some random lucky dude who guessed correctly gain the benefits of FOTM right after an update, but not anybody else? If I wanted to win or lose based on luck, I'd play the lottery, not Eve. Allowing you to reallocate nerfed skills for a brief period of time evens the playing field and reduces this.

And if CCP do their jobs well, and keep fixing the problems, eventually there shouldn't BE any obvious new FOTMs to switch too (due to a well balanced game), and everyone will reallocate to various diverse things instead.

Yes, thanks. I'm quite aware that FOTM is bad for gameplay.

That has nothing to do with this thread, however. Whether or not you allow reallocation of nerfed skills, FOTM is still going to exist, and it is still going to be bad for gameplay. Nothing we are talking about here will change its existence.

All I'm saying is that while we are stuck with FOTM (until CCP finishes balancing things), we may as well make it equally accessible to everybody, to even the playing field. Because if there's one thing worse than FOTM, it's FOTM that only 10% of lucky people can take advantage of...

It's not luck that lets those people identify what will be good or bad after a patch.

Here is a measured compromise... not saying I totally support it myself, but food for thought...

- Allow players to "refund" any skill into "bonus skillpoints" with 25% loss... (35%?)

- Any training in progress automatically goes 3x faster if there are bonus skillpoints available, consuming them as it trains.

Something like this would fuel the desire for quicker gratification in doing something new, while maintaining the "choices have a price" mentality of EVE. If you want that new thing so much faster, then give up something else, and lose 25% (or so) in the process.

It wouldn't change new players much, but it might help role switching, fleets (players could match doctrine faster), and player stuck/stagnation prevention.

Personally I think the biggest problem with EVE's skill system is not the lack of remapping, but the lack of any need to play whatsoever to advance. I'm not looking for a classic grind, but the fact that players can be trained to step into a cap-ship having never done or piloted anything in their existence seems "wrong" to me.

Here's how remaps will go;

- I put my aug's and attributes 100% into a skill line to train it as fast as it is physically possible, maybe for a few months (let's say all the perception+willpower ship skills)
- remap to what skills I actually wanted for a plex
- repeat


^ its such an easy exploit we'd all do it. 2,700 SP/hr erryday. Even a % penalty to remap wouldn't scratch that unless you throw 40%+ at it, and then people will whine

Placed back in their original order, for clarity.

1. It removes the point of having skills, because twice a year, I can simply choose whatever path takes my fancy. I don't even need to think about the actual skill, as long as I have the SP. We may as well just have the label for each category and SP required.

Oh and just because someone sees the reason why and you don't, doesn't mean they are trolling.


2. Of course it removes them, for the same reason it removes the point of skills. I simply leave my attributes to perc and will and train Titans forever. Why should I need to train anything else, when I can move SP around?


3. See my previous replies. I now don't need any attribute implants, as I can pick and choose wherever I place my SP. This means I can fly with either my low or high grade implants all the time.

Say for example, I would like to have leadership skills for the next few months. Well I'll simply respec SP to that category and I'm set till it bores me.


4. FOTM cookie cutter set-ups all over, as Omnathious pointed out, is bad for game play. It kills games and is only looked for, by those with lazy weak imaginations.

You're the one asking for change here. The reason could be because some noob owned you with a FOTM you hadn't trained, who knows? But you pointed out quite nicely, exactly why it's a bad idea. In the process showing it would remove variety. Thanks for that.


5. History in regards to what you character is about, what he's flown, who he killed with that and when. We are talking about skills here, not corps. Please keep up.
But you did raise the point about not using it. Well everyone would and that's the point. If you don't use it, you'll simply be left behind. So all the uniqueness of your character is removed, the parts that make it stand out from the rest.


6. You just said so yourself, you can fix things. If that not removing planning and choice and consequences, then what is?

Continued below.

I can:
- fly all T1 subcap combat ships
- use all small T2 weapon systems
- use all medium T2 weapon systems
- use all large T1 weapon systems (even some T2!)

Hey, look I'm "random lucky dude who quessed correctly"!

More likely just smart crosstraining.

And even though I have multiple characters, that's all on one character.

No, they really aren't. You just don't understand what it is you're asking for. Let's go through them point by point:

· It removes the point of having attributes because SP-respecs allow you to ignore the skill you actually want to train. In other words, you want 2M SP to spend on Battleship V (a Per/Will skill). So you train Capital Ship Construction V, which matches your current Int/Mem with +5 implant spec, and then you remap those SP.There is no longer any reason to remap attributes or to use more than two attribute implants, because you can just train some dummy skill and transfer the SP from there. Thus, attributes no longer matter in any way whatsoever, and with attributes gone, the implants become meaningless too. You might as well just give everyone a flat 2700 SP/h regardless of what they train.

· It makes characters less valuable in the bazaar because the skill set — the thing you're actually buying right now — is completely meaningless. All you're doing is buying a pile of SP that you will remap to fit whatever mould you want. A character that has a completely bass ackwards random and useless assortment of lvl I–III skills will be worth exactly as much as a perfectly crafted Command Ship + full leadership pilot, because both will have the same amount of SP, and that's all that will matter.

· It completely removes the point of having skills because what the skills do is enforce choices and differences. You choose to train Carrier V, which means you don't have time to train Dreadnought V… except that with remaps, that choice no longer exists. You can have it both ways: when you want to fly the carrier, respec for carrier; when you want to fly the dread, respec for dread; an as mentioned, you get both these abilities by training Capship Construction instead. With everything available to you at a touch of the respec button, skills might as well not exist because they no longer creates any choices or differences. As such, cookie-cutter rules the day: there will be a best setup that everyone will use because everyone will have the perfect skills for it.

· With skills gone, and with the choices and differences they create, the history of the character is gone as well. You are just a pile of SP — not a (more or less) carefully considered collection of skills that dictate what you can and can't do. No planning is needed; no choice is needed beyond what ship you intend to undock with; no goal other than “get moar SP!” exists, and likewise, no other achievement than “got n SP” exists — that perfect Battleship pilot you dreamt of? Yeah, everyone has that one whenever they want it.

· New players will be properly assfucked because their SP pools will be that much smaller than the older players', and it is the SP pool that will be all that matters. An old player will be able to go All-V for whatever ship or activity he wants to engage in; a new player will not even have the SP pool to go all-IV. For this reason, “catching up” will now exist in EVE where it didn't exist before: there is only one thing that will matter — your total SP — and as a new player, that is the one thing that you can't catch up with.

New players aren't crippled either because the only way for that to happen would be if things were outright removed from the game… in which case we get SP refunds. A respec system, however, would knife new players in the liver while at the same time giving older players the keys to the castle for the reasons mentioned above. There is zero benefit for new players with a respec system. No, making mistakes does not hurt them because the mistakes at that age are so small and so quick to fix that it could easily take them longer to put the SP back into the right slots after a remap than it would to train the new “correct” skills.

Also, how do consolidate the notion that they're poor little clueless newbies with the notion that they'll make good decisions if given free ability to place SP wherever they want?

Your whole idea rests on the thoroughly ignorant notion that a nerf cripples a player. It doesn't Never has; never will. There is no reason to respec just because a ship you're flying got balanced, and if you don't like the new state of the ship, there is already an easy and immediately available solution to that problem: train and fly something else. No, it does not take ages because the core and support skills will remain exactly the same. Nerfs are not a valid excuse for breaking the game, especially since they aren't causing any problems to begin with.

Adding SP remaps solves absolutely nothing, and manages to break large portions of the game in the process.

This, plus it shouldn't return more then 50% of skill points or something similar.