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A GM's guide to Alpha clone re-balancing
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Merin Ryskin
Peregrine Industries
#41 - 2017-05-05 18:51:19 UTC
Alderson Point wrote:
The greedy Asshats even wardec signal cartel, what the hell is THAT about.


This is EVE, not My Little Spaceship: Carebearing is Magic. There is no such thing as an entity that should not be wardeced.
Merin Ryskin
Peregrine Industries
#42 - 2017-05-05 19:01:19 UTC
hog butter wrote:
The origin of the argument is earlier in the thread someone was saying that people will either pay $15/month or $0/month people spend in "binary" terms which is ridiculous (if true their would be no concept of up-selling which is HUGE in service industry).


What? That's not what I meant at all, of course up-selling and such exist. What I mean by "binary spending" is that the primary question in choosing whether or not to subscribe to EVE is whether or not you enjoy playing EVE. If you enjoy EVE you pay for a full subscription, and the difference between $15/month and $10/month is negligible. If you don't enjoy EVE very much you don't pay for a subscription, even if the price was only $5/month (and you probably don't even play an alpha clone for very long).

Quote:
This isn't true for your average player because often don't have large incomes


Uh, what? You don't need a large income for $5/month to be irrelevant. That's literally the difference between "should I have another beer with dinner" one night a month. IOW, the kind of decision you make on impulse without any budget planning because it's too small to have any meaningful impact in your overall financial situation. Yeah, I'm sure there are a few people with very tight budgets who care about those small expenses, but I am extremely skeptical that those people make up any significant percentage of the players of an online-only game which requires a decent PC and fast internet to play.

And, again, you can post all the walls of text that you want, but you aren't going to change the reality of the situation here: that $15/month is the standard subscription price for online games, a genre that continues to make huge amounts of money from huge amounts of customers. CCP is not some special snowflake charging way more than the industry average, nor is EVE magically immune to the same market considerations as other games.
hog butter
Romex Inc.
#43 - 2017-05-05 19:12:49 UTC  |  Edited by: hog butter
Merin Ryskin wrote:
hog butter wrote:
The origin of the argument is earlier in the thread someone was saying that people will either pay $15/month or $0/month people spend in "binary" terms which is ridiculous (if true their would be no concept of up-selling which is HUGE in service industry).


What? That's not what I meant at all, of course up-selling and such exist. What I mean by "binary spending" is that the primary question in choosing whether or not to subscribe to EVE is whether or not you enjoy playing EVE. If you enjoy EVE you pay for a full subscription, and the difference between $15/month and $10/month is negligible. If you don't enjoy EVE very much you don't pay for a subscription, even if the price was only $5/month (and you probably don't even play an alpha clone for very long).

Quote:
This isn't true for your average player because often don't have large incomes


Uh, what? You don't need a large income for $5/month to be irrelevant. That's literally the difference between "should I have another beer with dinner" one night a month. IOW, the kind of decision you make on impulse without any budget planning because it's too small to have any meaningful impact in your overall financial situation. Yeah, I'm sure there are a few people with very tight budgets who care about those small expenses, but I am extremely skeptical that those people make up any significant percentage of the players of an online-only game which requires a decent PC and fast internet to play.

And, again, you can post all the walls of text that you want, but you aren't going to change the reality of the situation here: that $15/month is the standard subscription price for online games, a genre that continues to make huge amounts of money from huge amounts of customers. CCP is not some special snowflake charging way more than the industry average, nor is EVE magically immune to the same market considerations as other games.


Not to sound to pejorative but I am not adding flowery speech to add more words to post. In fact education doesn't come cheap in this case you will have to read...

So in that example I was referring to 5 dollars/month as recurring cost to an average gamer of 26 (in the USA) as per previous arguments. Once again 5 dollars isn't much to YOU but many poorer people say for instance Russian and Chinese players I bet would have a lot to say about that kind of self centered thinking.
Linus Gorp
Ministry of Propaganda and Morale
#44 - 2017-05-05 19:23:17 UTC
Merin Ryskin wrote:
This is EVE, not My Little Spaceship: Carebearing is Magic.

Laughed so hard, I had to put this in my bio Big smileBig smileBig smile

When you don't know the difference between there, their, and they're, you come across as being so uneducated that your viewpoint can be safely dismissed. The literate is unlikely to learn much from the illiterate.
Jonah Gravenstein
Machiavellian Space Bastards
#45 - 2017-05-05 19:42:06 UTC
Linus Gorp wrote:
hog butter wrote:
EVE seams to have a bunch of players that don't care about new players and in turn makes me likley to invest less in EVE. I am worried when this many players seem to hate Alpha's with no reason other then lets all hate CCP's new idea because they did something else we didn't like.

Only a handful of vets genuinely hate new players. What most of us hate is the entitlement mindset, the crying for more stuff and the "I don't like this, please change" crying all over the place.
Agreed, new players are great. However, just as in the pre-alpha past they have to be the right kind of player to thrive here.

I like the alpha clone changes, it opened Eve up to people that have never considered playing before and hopefully the retention rate of years past crosses over percentage wise to alphas becoming omegas.

Quote:
I enjoy playing with new players as long as they accept the game the way it is. If they want it changed to suit their playstyle at the cost of others, then EVE isn't the right game for them and they wouldn't stick around anyway. Appealing to that crowd is a waste of resources and will result in alienating loyal customers.
TL;DR Adapt to Eve or go back to WoW.

In the beginning there was nothing, which exploded.

New Player FAQ

Feyd's Survival Pack
Alderson Point
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#46 - 2017-05-05 20:21:32 UTC  |  Edited by: Alderson Point
Merin Ryskin wrote:
Alderson Point wrote:
The greedy Asshats even wardec signal cartel, what the hell is THAT about.


This is EVE, not My Little Spaceship: Carebearing is Magic. There is no such thing as an entity that should not be wardeced.


Of course, just because one can do something does not mean one must.

Self control self restraint and rational behaviour are not things players should leave at the door because somehow that is "not EVE"

But you clearly disagree with that, but it doesn't mean that makes you entitled to.

The self entitlement is strong in this one.
Alderson Point
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#47 - 2017-05-05 20:23:05 UTC  |  Edited by: Alderson Point
Linus Gorp wrote:
Merin Ryskin wrote:
This is EVE, not My Little Spaceship: Carebearing is Magic.

Laughed so hard, I had to put this in my bio Big smileBig smileBig smile



Other people put it in the bio, it is collected on Tuesdays.

Not fair really.

It'll give the pigs indigestion
Sonya Corvinus
Grant Village
#48 - 2017-05-05 21:09:04 UTC
hog butter wrote:
Sonya Corvinus wrote:
Do you feel you're not currently getting your $0/month from the game?


are you afraid alpha clones are going to mess with your pretty little space ships you spent so much money on?


You didn't seem to answer my question. Are you not getting your $0/mo out of the game right now? It's a yes/no question. Super simple to answer.
hog butter
Romex Inc.
#49 - 2017-05-06 00:33:34 UTC  |  Edited by: hog butter
Sonya Corvinus wrote:
hog butter wrote:
Sonya Corvinus wrote:
Do you feel you're not currently getting your $0/month from the game?


are you afraid alpha clones are going to mess with your pretty little space ships you spent so much money on?


You didn't seem to answer my question. Are you not getting your $0/mo out of the game right now? It's a yes/no question. Super simple to answer.


Ok ill answer yours but then you have to answer mine.
In short you wouldn't have pleasure of reading this if I didn't get my zero dollars per month. BTW can you in your infinite wisdom see you way to parcel off a crumb game time for me and the peasant account brother'n that would be most gracious my lord. *kisses ring*

Long answer is your pajoritive questions is what pass for snarky but really seems sad. Sad
I have paid nearly one years worth to CCP's not cancelling my account after I went into my account via the website to cancel it on several occasions. I am not sure why it wasn't canceling it but it wasn't. So not only am I getting my $0/months worth I am actually recuperating money CCP absconded with in my opinion. I have already told you this in another post I believe. I must be wrong you wouldn't you just spam the forums with the same inane question?

PS
I spend a lot of time trading so I wouldn't be surprised if your corp or yourself has sold or bought something from one of my accounts. Before you attack that I want to say I have around 30 regional buy orders with no competition across my alpha clones and yes at fair prices. As stated before my time spent in the game seems to be of no value to you alas your welcome.

soooo....

are you afraid alpha clones are going to mess with your pretty little space ships you spent so much money on?

Its can be yes or no but answer however you feel fit. Blink
hog butter
Romex Inc.
#50 - 2017-05-06 01:31:00 UTC
***Updated***

Like the last post this post got a bit off topic its almost like people want to derail this discussion weird right?

So in an effort to get this back on track I will update all the suggestions here:

Points of Imbalance. UPDATED

1. EWAR skills:
Both Caldari and Amarr have ECM and weapon disruption, which would make sense as they are allies. But Gallente and Minmatar also have access to these skill.

2. Tech 1 Haulers:
Gallente specialized haulers are only available to Gallente and makes for significant advantage over all other non-Gallente hauler oriented characters.

3. Battleships & Battlecruisers
Seems to be mixed but many people think this is prone to abuse.

4. Alpha in Pirate ships.
This seems to be a terrible idea.

*NEW imbalance*

5. Drone skills for Minmatar Logistic Drones and Medium Drones not available. Gallente doesn't get Heavy Drones.


Solutions offered.


1.
- Give everyone everything (the laziest, but would work)
- Let Caldari and Amarr keep their current skills, while give Gallente and Minmatar target painting AND sensor dampening while removing ECM and weapon disruption (faction alliance based, lore-wise makes sense)
-Each faction should only have it's own faction EWAR, except web and scram (generally makes the most sense to me)
-Remove the EWAR skills from alpha clones, except web and scram (also lazy, but would work)
-Possible keep everyone with weapon disruption on account it is used in PVP.
-Ewar for all, sure, why not, scrams, webs and neuts are too important for all pvp so sure, just open up damps, ecm, disruptors and paints and make it even.

2.
-Make specialized Gallente hauler licences available to all Alpha clones.
-New tech 1 ships that were specialized haulers for other races.
-I like the idea of making special haulers require level 2 skill, personally I would give them to ORE as they are the "industry pirates", I think most industrialists wouldn't feel too much difference
-Deny all specialized haulers to alpha including Gallente.

3. If we can find a way to mitigate abuse this maybe a good idea.

4. Filled in the round cabinet.

5. Drone skills unlocked for Minmatar Logistics Drones and Medium Drones. Unlock Heavy Drones for Gallente .

Please help Identify and more points of imbalance and if I missed something let me know please. If you think you have a better solution then what is presented please post it.[/quote]
El Geo
Warcrows
THE OLD SCHOOL
#51 - 2017-05-06 07:10:28 UTC  |  Edited by: El Geo
Alpha's play for free so in theory more alpha's means more content right?

I personally would like to see some sort of specialization points system, where alpha's get a certain amount of SP to specialize into more areas for example covert ops ships, fitting their ships with t2 gear or even other races ships, similar to the attribute system with a remap once a year.

Remember, more people, more content which in turn makes more people, content...

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Spugg Galdon
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#52 - 2017-05-06 08:23:52 UTC
Personally, I think more navy faction ships in the frigate, destroyer and cruiser level would be useful for Alpha's.

Their current skill ceiling is roughly correct. They just have access to reletively few ships. Navy Faction ships don't require multiple racial ship skills to fly which means everyone benefits from more ships with unique styles of fitting and flying.
Marika Sunji
Perkone
Caldari State
#53 - 2017-05-06 08:41:26 UTC
El Geo wrote:
Alpha's play for free so in theory more alpha's means more content right?

I personally would like to see some sort of specialization points system, where alpha's get a certain amount of SP to specialize into more areas for example covert ops ships, fitting their ships with t2 gear or even other races ships, similar to the attribute system with a remap once a year.

Remember, more people, more content which in turn makes more people, content...


Except more omega->alpha transitions means less money, less dev time, less patches, and game servers eventually shutting down. Why is it so hard for certain people to understand that businesses need to make money, and dangling around most of the cool stuff just out of reach is the damn point since it's an incredibly effective marketing tactic. "I want free this, give me free that, but I will never, ever pay you for it." How entitled is that?

Now, you'll probably respond with "But Marika, we're only asking for small QoL stuff." Except you, well, aren't? The ideas floating around this thread seem to mention giving alphas access to everything except maybe capitals. Now I do not want to argue a slippery slope here, but most ideas mentioned here would be totally gamebreaking and make many people downgrade, because why pay if you can get the stuff for free.
Scipio Artelius
Weaponised Vegemite
Flying Dangerous
#54 - 2017-05-06 08:52:44 UTC
hog butter wrote:
So this all started with the crippling of haulers industrial ship command skills for alpha's are capped at 1. This means if you have any inclination to haul your stuck with your faction haulers with the lowest agility the ship can have as per your skill.

You're not stuck at all.

Alphas are free. Roll a Gallente alpha and use it to haul. Your inclination can be served with the current situation.
Linus Gorp
Ministry of Propaganda and Morale
#55 - 2017-05-06 10:11:34 UTC
hog butter wrote:
I am not sure why it wasn't canceling it but it wasn't. So not only am I getting my $0/months worth I am actually recuperating money CCP absconded with in my opinion

Should have submitted a support ticket.

When you don't know the difference between there, their, and they're, you come across as being so uneducated that your viewpoint can be safely dismissed. The literate is unlikely to learn much from the illiterate.
Vokan Narkar
Doomheim
#56 - 2017-05-06 11:52:30 UTC
hog butter wrote:
5. Drone skills unlocked for Minmatar Logistics Drones and Medium Drones. Unlock Heavy Drones for Gallente .

Wait,. Wait. How is no access to the heavy drones "point of imbalance" ? No alpha clone has acces to heavy drones regardless of faction so where do you see inbalance?

I agree that alpha clone should not have a skills restricted per faction.

Give all alpha clones the same skills. Fixes 1,2,4.

However if this is done, something needs to be done wíth skill extractors. Currently each faction alpha clone get around 5mil SP when fully trained and the skill limit to extract SP is 5.5milion. Unlocking all skills across facrions will increase the total SP alpha clone can get and therefore skill extractors needs to be handled somehow. Or do they??? Alpha skill set cannot be extracted unless character is omega. And train current 5mil SP takes 5 months already. Idk...
Vokan Narkar
Doomheim
#57 - 2017-05-06 12:03:30 UTC  |  Edited by: Vokan Narkar
Scipio Artelius wrote:
hog butter wrote:
So this all started with the crippling of haulers industrial ship command skills for alpha's are capped at 1. This means if you have any inclination to haul your stuck with your faction haulers with the lowest agility the ship can have as per your skill.

You're not stuck at all.

Alphas are free. Roll a Gallente alpha and use it to haul. Your inclination can be served with the current situation.

Is creating an alpha a solution we really want to endorse?

So I have currently 10 alpha clones just to workaround the skill limits. Gallente alts for hauling, Caldari alt in case I need to use ECM (blackbird),Minmatar alt for fleet Thrasher roams and Amarr character is my main.

Is really creating more and more alts the way we want to go? Currently, the system forces me either to sub or create alt if I want to haul PI, ore, minerals a little bit more efficiently (but stil not efficient compared to omega). So obviously I choose to make an alt as I do not want to sub right now. Ie. the limitations, if they are there to "get you sub" do not work anyway it just cause players to make more alts and free accounts. To me thats exactly what we do not want alphas to do, isn't it?
Linus Gorp
Ministry of Propaganda and Morale
#58 - 2017-05-06 12:18:01 UTC
Vokan Narkar wrote:
Scipio Artelius wrote:
hog butter wrote:
So this all started with the crippling of haulers industrial ship command skills for alpha's are capped at 1. This means if you have any inclination to haul your stuck with your faction haulers with the lowest agility the ship can have as per your skill.

You're not stuck at all.

Alphas are free. Roll a Gallente alpha and use it to haul. Your inclination can be served with the current situation.

Is creating an alpha a solution we really want to endorse?

So I have currently 10 alpha clones just to workaround the skill limits. Gallente alts for hauling, Caldari alt in case I need to use ECM (blackfbird),Minmatar alt for fleet Thrasher roams and Amarr character is my main.

Is really creating more and more alts the way we want to go? Currently, the system forces me either to sub or create alt if I want to haul PI, ore, minerals efficiently. So obviously I choose to make an alt as I do not want to sub right now. Ie. the limitations, if they are there to "get you sub" do not work anyway it just cause players to make more alts and free accounts. To me thats exactly what we do not want alphas to do, isn't it?

Most people in your situation would either subscribe for convenience or leave the game. It's the same psychology free to play games abuse to make money. It's just that in EVE the ceiling can be seen as subscription cost (unless you're one of those SP junkies that think SP equals winning), whereas in free to play games you can easily spend a shitload of money in small transactions and not even notice how much you spent.

When you don't know the difference between there, their, and they're, you come across as being so uneducated that your viewpoint can be safely dismissed. The literate is unlikely to learn much from the illiterate.
Vokan Narkar
Doomheim
#59 - 2017-05-06 12:29:19 UTC
Linus Gorp wrote:
Most people in your situation would either subscribe for convenience or leave the game. It's the same psychology free to play games abuse to make money. It's just that in EVE the ceiling can be seen as subscription cost (unless you're one of those SP junkies that think SP equals winning), whereas in free to play games you can easily spend a shitload of money in small transactions and not even notice how much you spent.

Yes indeed. So they will most likely leave. Do we want it?

I didn't left because I play this game for a longer time and I have the knowhow. Also I was subbed and I spent more money for EVE than I spend for any other game (EVE is my first MMO - till now I was playing single players mostly RPG).

Its not that big problem for me personally, I have no problem to make the alt, train him and swap to him when I need his skillset. But seriously is this the proper gameplay we want? For example, the corp I joined few months ago used to tell all new players on alpha: if you are not caldari you cannot go with us on roam - we have shield doctrine and we have only caldari ships prepared. Sub to omega or leave.

Now, I understand this example is more about players than the system - if they really wanted, this newbie from gallente could still go with them even if it was a shield-tanked Vexor lol. But there are reasons why "doctrines" exists be it manufactoring or strategy in PvP and this is a big problem for alphas whos faction doesn't fit into the doctrine.
Merin Ryskin
Peregrine Industries
#60 - 2017-05-06 15:43:46 UTC
Vokan Narkar wrote:
Sub to omega or leave.


Exactly. Alpha accounts should not be a thing you use for an extended period of time. If you enjoy the game enough during your free trial period you should be buying the game. And that means alphas should be extremely limited in what they can do. They should have access to enough of the game to learn the mechanics and see what career options they enjoy, but there should never be a point where a veteran player looks at their endgame situation and says "yep, and alpha is enough for this". There should constantly be points where the alpha player sees an immediate improvement in their ability to succeed if they pay.

So, with that understood, alphas being unable to participate in doctrine-specific fleets is just fine. They can still PvP elsewhere, and the ability to fit the doctrine and do something even more fun provides incentive to pay.