Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Putting my usability engineer hat on I'm not sure I can agree with those sentiments. The certificate system can be made cleaner and it can almost be simplistic. Certainly there are plenty of models for even more complicated skill sets than what we see in Eve.

As for customizable certificates being the only ones that are viable, there are a few problems with that. Quite a few new players corp jump at the beginning while they find their way. They also sometimes stick with the newbie corp until they find a corp they like. These methods of finding a corp are both viable. But both systems do not conform well to player-created certificates being the primary or only way certificates are created.

For better or worse a centralized authority for certificates at least gives us consistency of language and something that even players outside of a competently run corporation can use. That means that CCP can provide a baseline minimum for certificates. While some will disagree with the logic of this skill or that skill to V, at least its something that everyone can partake in. Hopefully the player will have found a good enough corporation after awhile that they can get further advice and then people can about certificates in terms of which ones are useful and not so fine grained as talking about which skills are useful for which roles.

And while I agree that parts of this game change rather rapidly, there are a lot of things that haven't. Sometimes I think we lose sight of that. The tracking mechanism for turrets hasn't really changed. Missiles still apply their damage the same way. There is still value in those things. That's not to say that CCP shouldn't take player feedback in terms of creating and maintaining the certificates, but I think there's a core there that just doesn't change that much.

The added UI complexity from player-made certificates will mean that there will have to be a place for players to

• create new ones;
• share them with others;
• delete, rename and generally manage them;
• track ownership (roles) of who can manage them for corps;
• let players determine what certificates are kept or visible;
• modify existing ones (what happens to ones already out there);
• potentially manage versions;
• assign certificates to certain ships

And that's just a sampling. Custom anything becomes a huge task. And what CCP is proposing is a fraction of what player-made certificates would take. I know from professional experience that any time you take something read-only and made it customizable we just multiplied the work ten times. I just don't think the cost for player made certificates is justified.

Will never get used.




No. There's a reason why most people have certificates set to private - because you want your enemy to know as little about you as possible before he engages you.

Don't discount people's desire for e-peen. I'm not sure that CCP wants to add twitch like gameplay though I'm sure there are a lot of people who would be for it. Perhaps finishing certificates could open up access to specialty skills or other things based on NPC corporation's acknowledgement of your "elite skills". There is design space here, but CCP will have to keep careful of increasing player power level.

I'd go so far as to say they're well-designed for their purpose: recommendations to new-ish players of the skills they should train toward for flying various ships. The problem is the different viewpoints between CCP and the players :) Once you become familiar with how the game works, what each skill does, the certificates aren't needed for guidance anymore, and only those who want to complete them just to complete them will bother with them.

The default certificates are adequate, but are limited. If we could define our own certs for corp recruiting, it could breathe new life into a system that has a lot of unfulfilled potential right now.

I think the certificate system would be better if it was changed into more of a benchmarker as opposed to a straight achievement / goal system. It could then find a place being integrated into linked fits and as well as the current skill window.

EX;
instead of:
Basic -> Standard -> Improved -> Elite

maybe something along the lines of:
not trained -> beginner -> intermediate -> expert -> elite

for fits:
when you click on a linked fit or view your own, the game could give you a rough idea of how compatible your skill point allocations are with it. (maybe like: Overall: Expert, Defensive: Expert, Offensive: Elite, etc)

for skill window:
I think it could be integrated into the main skill window has a set of vertical tabs to the left of the list of all available skills, and also have the option to sort certs by active ship.

So a beginner in their lil frigate might see tabs like:

CORE
LEVEL: BEGINNER

---

PROJECTILE
LEVEL: BEGINNER

If they click the PROJECTILE tab, the normal skill area filters to all skills relevant to projectiles turrets (or just optionally to the active ship's, regardless of whether the skill in injected). They could have an option to buy missing skills from the current skill area. As this player progresses, they might notice all of their skills, save their defensive set, are at an intermediate level, which could serve as an indicator to train skills within defensive certs.

I think this integration style would allow vets to continue using the skill window they way they are used to, but also provide additional filter options for those who would use them

TBH the only thing I would want with certificates is the option to display the elite ones on the wall of my Captain's Quarters... which I never actually enter right now because some ba***rd has welded my door shut

The problem with certificates isn't a public/private issue, the problem is:

1) They aren't particularly useful for players to plan their skills.

2) They aren't relevant to other players. This is for a number of reasons. One of which is that there aren't really any true skill paths. Choices in which skills you train only have short term repercussions because it doesn't limit future choices. You can always go back and train something you've forgotten.

3) They have absolutely no connection to the EVE universe. There are no benefits or drawbacks for either having a certificate or not. Certificates don't tie into any other system with consequence.

If you're going to change anything with certificates than just add a "Claim certificate" button in the Certificates tab. Why do I have to open the planner to claim a certificate? 2 clicks that only need to be one. As far the "public" thing, I suspect the reason why its not being used is more a reflection of how useless certificates are and how little they are used (aside from just claiming them).

Player Made then Corp/Alliance visible is about the best idea I've seen in this thread.

Let players make them using a ship as a basic template.

You fit the modules to the ship and then open the cert window and choose "Create Cert Template".

The player can then add/remove skills to the cert by dragging and dropping from the skills tree of the market for further customization.

Once this is complete, the player can "Save Cert" to their own personal "Cert Storage".

From here, a player can add a certificate to a "Corp Cert Storage" where other players may copy it to their own personal store.

A player may dragdrop a cert from their personal store to chat or email if they wish. Only corp or alliance members can see it.

If server side sharing and creation is more than CCP wants to handle, simply let us export and import them as XML files, and on the export, we can choose to export with or with out the character's skills included in the data.

Surely with XML and using standard skill names/IDs, someone will come up with a handy dandy app or web app for the community.

From what I have been reading so far I have summarized this… yes a summary…

The scope of what you are asking is too small but the simple answer is… Remove the system of showing certificates publicly. Yes, we know how you like players to show off their egos in as many ways possible, however, the Certificate Planner has never presented the pros to be better than the cons, any information on character sheets that can be private will stay that way because of the tactical disadvantage it gives, except maybe for the funny ones like “Hull Tanking.” For care bears, they don’t need to worry and will show whatever they feel like, and as stated several times over, most people don’t know or understand it, or even care about the system after their first month or so because EVEMon does it better, and does a lot more on top of that.

CCP Ytterbium knows the certificate system is useful, just not anywhere near its potential. Outside of new player help and sarcastic public certificates the system is being underutilized. So they want to revive it with new life, and the main suggestion that will be taken away from this is give it to the corporations and alliances as a new tool to make their own based on their needs. Too bad there is a lot of complexities in corporation management already.

See I told you it was a summary, now how are we going to do it?

Table of contents

1. You don’t need to rework the system; you need a new system AND rebuild the current system!
2. Certificates (aka EVE Achievements that you can make public)
3. Tutorials (bit of a rant on current career missions)
4. Career Advancement Agents
5. Storylines/Epic Arcs/Factions/Events/Statistical/etc.
6. Certifications
7. What is the current system being used for?
8. What CCP has done so far and what I think needs to be done to smooth it out
9. Rebuilding the skill list/layout
10. Module “Prerequisites/Required For” Rework
11. Personal, Corporate and Alliance Certifications for Fittings
12. Corporate Recruiting
13. Calendar Sign-Ups & Fleet Roles
14. Corporation Roles
15. Additional points of interest

The new system needs to be split up into two new entities with similar names – Certificates (which are the bragging rights/achievements that you wish to keep as the “social-tool”) and Certifications (the rebuilt Certificate Planner for character, corporation and alliance “skill management tool”). For simplicity sake, do not make us claim them, just give us the notification, “Certificate(s) Gained!” and “Certification(s) met,” (the more I look at it, you do not even need to have a notification for certifications as they will change in time with fittings and as you move corporations or alliances. You could also have an option to “track progress” so that you will get a notification saying “Personal/Corporation/Alliance Certification met for “this fitting, role, or module.”

Another key point, keep all certificates gained private by default and if you can implement different options of publicity (ie Standing based, corporation/alliance) go for it. Certifications are player, corporation and alliance focused, therefore no reason of having the option to show them. But you do state that you want to share fittings publicly somewhere.
Now to explain in detail Certificates, Aura, Agents and CONCORD to provide certificates…
From tutorials – Your very first set of missions, Aura congratulates you on becoming a fully “Certified Capsuleer,” so the first one is a no brainer. Next you should require that certificate to start the career agents where Aura leaves you. This is where the certificates can help your problem with “streamlining” the Career Advancement Agents and stop handing out multiple skill books to new characters.

First off, you should start by only allowing a choice between Exploration, Industry, Business and Military agents, Advanced Military after you get certificate.

Exploration would be on its own teaching and giving you only skill books, modules and racial ship for scanning, salvaging, hacking and archeology. Once done all of them, “Basic Exploration Certificate Gained!”

Industry would start off giving you everything you need for mining, the venture plus skill book with a couple of mining lasers, dare I say add in a couple of civilian gas mining modules to add another mission…) then teach refining and how standings affect it and maybe add something in about refining scraps and modules. Then give you some civilian stuff to build, haul, research, copy, invent, again giving you the racial hauler and the basic start-up skill books. “Basic Industry Certificate Gained!”

Business would teach you WAY more about the market, because let’s be honest no new player ever is going to understand that system at first glance, so put some NPC buy and sell orders and contracts up in those rookie stations and show them how it all works, and if you could somehow allow trial accounts to do a couple of contracts for the NPCs (buy, sell or courier) only (if those are even really useful for anything besides selling fitted ships, couriers, legal scamming and avoiding the ‘tax man’) that would be really great. “Basic Business Certificate Gained!”

Military needs the biggest overhaul of all, why? Because it should teach as much as possible and be racial specific. Anyways this gets really long just here so sticking to the topic, “Basic Military Certificate Gained!”

Then you can do Advanced Military, which will provide all the great things as they are now, but improved. Again, I will not go into detail but then you will get “Basic ‘Racial’ Military Certificate Gained!”

This is just the tip of the ice berg, but for starters CCP could get that implemented then ‘patch’ certificates in as they are developed.