Player Features and Ideas Discussion

And bumping attributes solves nothing. It just changes the base.

CCP defined the Base SP rate when they created the game. We can call that base rate 0. Increasing all the attributes by 5 just makes that the new Base rate 0. As long as there are also implants people will be training at base rate 0 + implants. And then everyone else will scream that they have to use implants or they train too slow. (yea I'm ignoring remapping at the moment with that statement as to not muddy up the waters about implant effects)

I don't see the big deal, if you have more than 2 learning implants plugged in, you've either a)lived too long with that clone or b)wasting your isk by filling your head up.

Seriously 2 +4's or +3's in a pvp clone along with combat implants is not a big deal.

Stop whining just because you want minimal risk pvp and not have to think ahead with skill planning,

It's not minimal risk. It's annoyance. I would rather put ship bonus implants instead of learning ones for the same price. Or if I suddenly decided to lol around in null I would not want my implants to take 1 or 1/2 price of the ship, when im ready to die.

And I got no problem planning my skills, what I don't like is to feel bitter when I suddenly need to train something else at minimal speed, or force myself sticking through plan, because I see change as a "time loss" and limit my gameplay just to avoid it. I have a friend with whom we started playing at the same time and whenever we compare our skill number I am quite behind just because he always has +5s and takes fewer risks.

k, some brainfarting. stupid ideas that may lead to good ideas - or not:


what about not destroying pure attribute implants on pod los? they are not pvp related after all, and most agree that sp (generation) mengelt together with the risk/reward mecanics suck.

if "noob" implants where save, no reason for the trainees not to pvp anymore. and i am sure the good pilot still would use implants that made them better pilots.

I got it. Though please do note that it's not an argument I am making. I could say only "I would PVP more if I weren't afraid of losing my implants" but even this isn't quite true. I'm just not into PVP and when I eventually do it, I do with full conscience that both ship and pod can be lost (and more often than not, it is).

My point is that attributes as a whole don't bring meaningful choices to the gameplay and the consequences are weak. The strongest one is the already mentioned issue that some part of player base became awerse to risk of being podded. But attributes themselves bring almost nothing to the game. Which means that:
a) IMO they just shouldn't be there, the game would be as fine as it is without them;
b) their existence is not a big deal, not enough to demand CCP takes care of it, unless they really want to; I'd prefer if they spent their time fixing really annoying bugs and problems.

Like many others, I have a love-hate relationship with learning attribute implants. On the one hand, I love seeing those tasty implants on someone's loss mail, because then I know that I've really ruined his day. On the other hand, I'll never take one of my old characters on a frigate roam because even as I enter 7 years in game my pilots are still training to fly bigger ships and losing a pair of +4s or +5s and an expensive clone just isn't worth it for a 30mil ISK frigate. When I lose my dreadnought it really doesn't matter that I also lose some plus 4's or +5s.

Additionally, while there are ways to mitigate the risk, there have been times where I have avoided immediate game content due to my implants, jump clone timer, etc. This is poor game design, in my opinion.

My proposal would be to remove all learning attributes and learning implants from the game. I would replace existing implants with a pile of raw materials that could be used to produce new implants. I'd also make it so that players produced all implants. While I was at it, if I worked for CCP, I would take the opportunity to completely revamp and redesign all implants. I'd vastly increase the variety of potential useful implants.

To me, I pay CCP for the training time, not the play time. I cannot play 23/7, but I can train 24/7. So, this should be a fixed amount of SP/month. I don't really care what SP/hour rate CCP sets. Set it at XXXX SP/hour and get rid of remaps. Remaps encourage an unhealthy amount of long term planning, to the detriment of short term gameplay. I get that Eve is about consequences, but the consequences should be that a shiny spaceship explodes and months of ISK are destroyed in the blink of an eye, not that the optimum way to train is to spend several months in a station training INT/MEM before remapping to PER/WP. The optimum way to train should be to undock and die and kill and improve the skills between the keyboard and the chair. All the while, you pay your subscription and your character keeps getting better at a fixed rate/month. You still have to plan what to train and when, but it becomes less about min/maxing attributes and more about what you need in the short-mid-long term.

I'd get rid of attributes completely. The attributes make no sense in terms of game play. In most games, if I pick a character with high charisma, he/she gets a bonus to interacting with other characters. In Eve, it means I got screwed for the first few years of skill training for almost every useful skill category. As a Gallente character, I was very happy when they initially introduced remaps.

The risk versus reward discussion always comes up with this topic. I agree that risk versus reward is important, but currently misplaced. The risk versus reward should be: if I plug in my Slave set, I have a better chance of winning this fight, but I stand to lose 2.5b if I die. That is a risk versus reward decision that does not discourage me from undocking. The answer is to undock, but I decide how much ISK is at risk.

It should not be: if I plug in these +5 training implants I won't be any better in this fight, but I might be better in another fight six months from now. That is a decision that discourages me from undocking at all.

I want to see Eve players feel comfortable getting in fights right from the beginning. I want to reward players for pimping their ships and pods for short term advantages, because that makes for shiny kill mails. I don't want to encourage people to never undock or to stay in high sec for months on end because they are scared of my bubbles.

That's more than enough words. My wife just accused me of writing a novel about Eve.

TLDR version - get rid of attributes and attribute implants!

I like nuanced fun.

I like the idea of trade offs, where I can seek an advantage in exchange for risking greater than average loss.

It sounds like a wonderful game mechanic.

What we have found, however, is that we seem to be actually losing players. They don't undock to fight at all, but do the equivalent of leaving for a college education that extends itself every time it seems to be nearing completion.
(what? I finished Caldari BS to 5? But I need specialized cruise missiles, and then I need Tech 2 extenders, and a cloak! Well, If I get a cloak, I should also train covops for scouting...)

That line of thinking is great to come up with what to train next, and for many of us it opens up new paths in EVE constantly.
But, learning implants and remaps together, create a pilot focused on learning at the expense of current play.
Sure, you obviously can still undock and fight, but losing those implants and constantly replacing them is obviously not something you would want to keep spending on.

And many choose to not risk them, or interrupt their use, because they are anticipating a goal they will never reach.

They want to get to that place where they have learned enough to have an advantage in a fight, just like many seek a tactical advantage in other circumstances.
The problem for many, being they always have another line of skills they want. They never finish.

So, they rarely play, if ever. They are holding out for that point that never materializes, when their skills are better than everyone elses so they can finally have the big advantage they have been working for all this time.

After all, they are only skipping play today. They will play tomorrow.
But today is always today, and tomorrow is always a day away.

And to me this is an issue with information and previous experiences with MMOs. In pretty much any other MMO because you have to grind through to get character skill you get player skill at the same time so the power increase is viewed through the character progression. In eve those two progressions are separate and this often isn't communicated well enough to players creating a situation where they don't have the information to make a properly informed decision.