Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Just posting this here, as a mirror to a Reddit post I made, after it was suggested that it might be better posted here.

So we already know that we've had skillpoint reassignment before, so there's definitely a mechanic for a pool of assignable skill points.

I'm asking about this because last night I paused my skill queue to plug in some implants and then logged off for the night; meaning I missed out on about 13 hours of skill training. Hardly an apocalyptic scenario, but still mildly annoying.

Seems to me like it'd be terrifically nice if we could have a mechanic that allowed us to avoid silly mistakes that make us waste skill training time (and thus sub money). I'm not sure I see how such a system could be exploited?

Actually if they removed attributes and had a fixed SP/hr amount, I think they could remove the need to pause the queue in the first place.

That's the goal we should aim for tbh.

Well, under the current attribute system the most obvious exploit I see is using this to (at least partially) get around the effects of remaps. That is, using this to train something off-remap faster than if you just put it in your queue.

I'm assuming that when you're in the 'not training anything' state, you'd probably accumulate banked SP at a flat rate that wouldn't depend on your remap, because you're not actually training any particular skill. (This is equivalent to saying that it'd effectively average your attributes.)

So, let's say I'm on an int/mem remap (because I am) and I decide I really want to train Gallente Frigate V (because I kinda do). Training a 2x skill from 4 to 5 requires 421,490 SP. This is a per/will skill, so on my int/mem remap I'd only be training it at a rate of 1530 SP/hr (ignoring implants) and it would therefore take ~275.5 hr, or about 11 and a half days. On the other hand, if you accumulate banked SP at a flat rate that's the average of your attributes you'd get 1782 SP/hr. If I just stopped my queue and started banking SP, I'd have enough to train that frigate V skill in ~236.5 hr, or a bit under 10 days.

Now, it's not a huge difference by any means, but it *does* allow people to at least partially get around the designed limitations of the attribute system. The only way to prevent that would be to say that instead of gaining SP at an average rate you'd gain it at the *lowest* rate of your current remap, but that then makes it *really* punishing in terms of lost SP relative to if you hadn't forgotten to start your queue for people who are using this feature for its designed purpose. (They'd already be losing some SP by only banking it at the average rate rather than at the rate of an on-remap skill, but this would make it much worse.)

That said, IMO the attribute system is stupid and needs to die in a fire *anyway*, so personally I wouldn't *care* very much about this particular small exploit, but it *would* still be an exploitable system.

I have a feeling that's due to the attributes found in implants. I'm not against them being removed also.

Here's a problem scenario:

I have three characters on one account. I'm not using the Multiple Character Training. All characters have the max of 50 skills in the training queue. Only one is training currently. All have been trained somewhat previously.

If I stop the training on a character. How does the system know which character is supposed to get the skill points?
Are all of the characters accruing points?

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Actually, I think that an alarm or Huge Red Notice that you're not training anything on that account should suffice, though if such an accrual system were to be implemented, the points should be gained at the minimum rate.

Right now that would assume the character has 19's in both attributes with no benefit of implants. Maybe put that in a pool that could be applied to any character on the account? It would still be much more beneficial to actually train the appropriate skill with the better attribute set up and implants, but the player wouldn't lose out completely.

--Gadget

Edit. LOL
Last post was sent while I was typing, but my point still stands. :)

/signed.

All the times I forgot to hit apply...

I like this idea.

♦ The devs will figure out how to make this work if the idea goes through. It won't be an apocalypse.

♦ A common criticism will be something like "Let's not make this like World of Witchcraft!". If everyone had all V everything, it still wouldn't be WOW. Or close.

♦ The personal skill of managing attributes is only a burden. If I wanted to take a road trip to Miami Beach, driving ten hours to get there doesn't make the beach better. Sure, road trips are fun - because I make them fun, but the beach itself is why I went.

Maybe I missed something, but if you can click the checkbox, then you can click 'Apply'.


--Gadget

It would need to have limitations to prevent people using it to farm untrained characters that they can fully train at a moment's notice simply by spending ISK/PLEX/AUR/RM. I'd say just allow a maximum time of 8.33% of the character's current age or 3 months, whichever is shorter. As the time accrues, it will record your neural attributes including changes from plugging in implants or jumping clones, and you can get the SP back in lumps of one month by setting up a skill queue going forward at least one month, then activating a reverse game time code on your account. If you have a month of recoverable training, you'll begin training a whole month on a background skillqueue which you can't adjust as it's training, but which will run alongside your regular skillqueue. It shouldn't train instantly because people would abuse that to get the training they need as soon as they find out they need it.

Playing devil's advocate, if a core tenant of EVE is that every action has a consequence, shouldn't there be a negative consequence (not gaining SPs) to forgetting to click apply?