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Feedback - rebalancing eve, one ship at a time
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Blar Depton
FreeFromTax
#1 - 2012-04-18 04:32:37 UTC  |  Edited by: Blar Depton
CCP wants feedback http://community.eveonline.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&nbid=9129 and here we go

To begin I am not a fan with the idea of crediting skilled players with even more skill points. I feel strongly that the idea of awarding blanket (4x) racial 5 bc to those that have bc 5 and only awarding 4x racial bc 1 to those that have bc 1 is a huge injustice. Especially to those of us that just found out that neural remap we did a month ago is wasted - we cannot get the biggest bang for our 'skill'-ing buck since it would require getting bc and destroyers to 5 with an improper neural map. EVE is a game that rewards long term skill plans and non-whimsical decision making so lets try and keep EVE the game that we love.

My first idea is two parts:

1) The only fair way to accomplish your revamp is to give everyone the same amount of SP. Since you would both disadvantage all new future players by granting SP to all current players and likewise advantage all new/young players with free SP (that they may spend on whatever skills they need) the only recourse is to grant 0 SP to everyone and reimburse for the lost SP for the skills that are to be deleted.

2) The main negative consequence of 1) is that pilots that were versatile will no longer be as versatile, and hence there will be opposition to this contentious change. Hence the second part of the plan to make this fair is to make the racial skill multiplier one quarter the SP of the original skill. This way all pilots that wish to fly all four racial bcs can simply reassign those same SP. Yes this will involve fractions for multipliers - something that may be a simple type re-assignment in the engine or a programming/logistical nightmare - but the player base is intelligent and can do rational numbers.

Unfortunately, the second part will have the following undesirable consequence: racial destroyers will be faster to train than racial frigates, same for battlecruisers and racial cruiser and so on. So now further adjustments would have to be made to preserve the value of larger ships. This might require across the board 'quartering' of all cross-racial spaceship command skills - and hence further SP reimbursement and devaluing the spaceship command skills. This will likely also be unpopular as ships will be more accessible and drastically change the EVE universe (for better or for worse).

An alternative solution:

My main points from above are that all players be granted the same (none) SP and that pilots should remain versatile while preserving the EVE universe. So I propose an outside of the box solution: alternate prerequisites. This is best illustrated via the following example:

A pilot would be able to fly a battlecruiser with either a racial battlecruiser skill or general battlecruiser skill. Consequently, ship bonuses would be awarded separately based on the racial skill and the general skill. I like this idea because it will disadvantage everyone equally, and at the same time allow for many new possibilities for ship specialization and balancing. So a drake pilot might get 5% shield bonus per level of battlecruiser and 5% kinetic dmg per level of caldari battlecrusier.

The idea of these racial and general skills could also be applied to all ship classes, but not necessarily. I would also suggest decreasing the training multipliers for all ship command skills to compensate for the nerf and allow players to quickly regain their favourite ship abilities.

More thought on how the implementation of alternate prerequisite might work is necessary (in terms of SP reimbursement and training multiplier adjustment), but so long as everyone is dealt the same hand I don't foresee a mass exodus the likes of Incarna.

-Blar
OllieNorth
Recidivists Incorporated
#2 - 2012-04-18 14:38:03 UTC
I disagree. Just award the racials up to the level you have the general skill. As far as fair to people coming later? So what? It's never been about that. This is the simplest solution. You should be able to fly everything post-patch that you can fly pre-patch. Everything else is far too complicated.
FireT
Venom Pointe Industries
#3 - 2012-04-18 15:56:43 UTC
OllieNorth wrote:
I disagree. Just award the racials up to the level you have the general skill. As far as fair to people coming later? So what? It's never been about that. This is the simplest solution. You should be able to fly everything post-patch that you can fly pre-patch. Everything else is far too complicated.


Agreed with this idea. If you haven't been paying attention at all about this, then no free SP for you. That simple interwebzmemelolathon.

In all seriousness. I am a casual player and I read about it nearly a month ago. Guess what I did. I started training the skills in question. Why? Because it is about long term benefits and if that means training an unwanted skill now that you might use later ESPECIALLY when CCP announced it ahead of time, then yes a worthwhile investment.

And not to regurgitate the CCP posts: people complaint about unbalanced ships. Here you go whiny kids: CCP is going to focus on balancing ships..... and you still whine. Sometimes I am worried about the world and this 'I want it all and I want it now' mentality.

To CCP: thank you for your continued dedication to the game, the players, and the fun. Most of us know it can not be easy to balance everything. Yes sometimes there will be hard choices and even wrong choices. These tend to overshadow the good and great choices you made and make.
But for me: thank you CCP and have a wonderful week.
Bugsy VanHalen
Society of lost Souls
#4 - 2012-04-18 16:46:19 UTC  |  Edited by: Bugsy VanHalen
To the OP, you my friend are what is known as a min/max er

You place way to much importance on how many skill points you have and how many skill points you are gaining through training while ignoring the things in the game that actually matter

The number of skill points you have in total does not affect game play in any way. The only thing that matters is what those skill points allow you to do. A character could have 20 million skill points in industry and science and be no better of for combat that an new character with less than 1 million skill points. The 20 million SP toon would not be much good to a null sec PVP corp even though they meet the 10 million SP minimum. It is all relative

When the change comes into effect, if it is done the way most players expect, being the option 2 in the dev blog. anyone with the prerequisite to fly a specific BC or destroyer ship will get the skill automatically to the level they had the generic skill trained to. This seems like the most fair to everyone from my view point

for a min/max er this means they need to get both destroyers and battle cruisers to 5 and all racial cruiser to at least 3 to maximize there SP returns. But If you have no intention to ever fly any of those ships what difference does it make if you have the skills or not? All it really does is increase the cost of your medical clone

If you have done no cross training and only meet the perquisites for a single races BC and only have the generic BC skill trained to 2 or 3 then that means you either have no desire to fly those ships, or at the very least it is not a priority for you to get into those ships. In either case whether or not you have those skills will have no effect on your game play as you do not fly them now and will most likely not fly them after. If your primary goal in EVE is to hit the 100,000,000 SP mark as quickly as possible regardless of what skills you have to get you there. you are completely missing the point of EVE

On the other hand it would not be fair if someone who has cross trained for all those ships was to lose some of the effectiveness of those ships. Or even lose the ability to fly some of them just to keep their favorites maxed out. Why? Just to make it so they do not gain more SP over someone who has no intention of cross training all 4 battlecruisers. This makes no sense. And equally there are PVP players who are very careful to not train any skills they do not need just to keep the cost of their clones down. Others do not want any skills outside of a dedicated race for RP purposes. The most fair option is to make it, as mentioned in the developer blog, if you could fly it before you will be able to fly it after. If you could not fly it before you will not be given the skills just because someone else got them. They are not given away for free, they are given to pilots meeting the prerequisites.

Saying it is unfair because someone with destroyers 5, Battlecruisers 5, and all races cross trained to at least racial cruiser 3 was given 8 skills at level 5 in exchange for the two level 5 skills they would lose is nothing but teirs of someone who just does not get it. Why should you get 8 level 5 skills given to you if you are not losing two level 5 skills you already trained. If you have BC 5 it is only a couple days to train each racial cruiser to 3 even starting from scratch. If you want the skills, the dev blog was released in plenty of time to get them all trained up. My two combat toons will have the needed skills topped up in just a few days. my indy toons with no ship skills trained at all, other than those needed for haulers and mining ships could easily finish them all to at least 4 by the end of next week since I started them as soon as I read the blog.

I am putting the work in to get those skills and as a result will have all my toons cross trained up to BC for every race. For someone to expect the same benefit without putting in the work is just sad. go cry some more min/max er tiers. They leveled the field by giving you enough notice to complete training the skills if you did not have them. If you chose not too, then that is your loss and you have nobody to blame but yourself.
FireT
Venom Pointe Industries
#5 - 2012-04-18 17:27:01 UTC
Do we have an actual date when it will be implemented. I did read the various blogs and commentary, but can't seem to find a date.
Bugsy VanHalen
Society of lost Souls
#6 - 2012-04-18 17:42:12 UTC
At first it looked like april 24th. But I read somewhere the skill changes were not going to be until mid may at the earliest
Blar Depton
FreeFromTax
#7 - 2012-04-18 19:19:43 UTC
I can tell that the responses thus far have been made by trolls.

Personal attacks aside
1) No one here is whining or crying
2) Some of us play this game with a training plan to maximize our capabilities in both the short and long term for our intended play style. Sometimes its worth training a skill you aren't using now to get maximum benefit 6 months down the road because you will be in a better position at that point in the future
3) Granting certain players 3-4 months advantage in training time is unjust. Time is the most important resource. Period
4) The idea of unwanted skills is preposterous - a nerf could happen tomorrow that makes you want to fly a gallente bc instead of a drake. RP purposes is a silly argument, technology exists that allows one race to fly the ships of another race
5) Some of us are actually trying to provide constructive feedback to CCP
6) Some of us can't read every dev blog as they are published.

In the end, no matter how CCP approaches this, not everyone is going to be happy. I and others feel that the whole plan presented in the dev blog is unnecessary

Now we get personal
Bugsy has made wild assumptions and generalizations that do not reflect reality. Allow me to do the same
- Bugsy is immature
- Bugsy can't think past the first skill in his training queue
- Bugsy is crying that the ideas I have proposed do not advantage him the way he wants
- Bugsy thinks SP are everything. Why else would he assume I think the same
- Bugsy does not think time is a valuable resource. Immediate pay-off always trumps long-term robustness and pay-out
- Bugsy misunderstood the dev blog, which stated that the options presented in the dev-blog needed work
- Bugys misunderstood the point of the original post

FireT
I can tell you plan ahead, which is great. However, the bulk of your post was emotionally charged and somewhat disrespectful. I am not purporting an 'I want it all and now' mentality. Perhaps you did not understand the original post.
Zhilia Mann
Tide Way Out Productions
#8 - 2012-04-19 01:37:42 UTC
Blar Depton wrote:
I can tell that the responses thus far have been made by trolls.


Don't make assumptions.

Blar Depton wrote:
I and others feel that the whole plan presented in the dev blog is unnecessary


At least we can agree on that. I'm still unsure why we as a player base would want BCs to be split up racially.

Having said that, I hate your proposals. You say that you would have to train BC5 now with an off remap -- so what? Lots of us trained it before remaps existed and somehow managed to muddle through with our mem/will didn't-know-any-better
characters. Either suck it up and train it or don't and hope CCP rejects the idea.

Dividing racial ship skill ranks by 4 is crazy, given that ship skills are actually supposed to be a major investment. Splitting the bonus between two skills is just silly on common T1 hulls. And how would any or all of this play in to CSs/dictors?

No, if you're going to cry foul, just do it. Your ideas are no better than CCP's, and will actually end up pissing off the core player base. And we learned from Incarna that that's a Bad Thing, right?
FireT
Venom Pointe Industries
#9 - 2012-04-19 01:45:58 UTC
If I sound emotionally charged: then it is because people keep forgetting one key thing YOU ARE NOT SMARTER THAN THE ENTIRE CCP STAFF. And since CCP is trying to focus on what the majority wants then ship balancing it is. Since space ships are the bread and butter of Eve, them focusing on ships makes a logical sense.

That you do complain about something that you have no interest in makes my caps writing logical and fitting. If you do not wish to use it..... do not use it. Noone, or as far as I know, is holding a gun to your head, your family's head, or your pet's head and forcing you to train it.

I do not to any planetary interaction. But you will not find a post of me complaining about planetary interaction. I am mature enough to realize that 'it is not for me, but others might like and love it'. So go let them have it. Same goes for the new ship stream lining.

It is a daunting task that CCP has ahead of them. Balancing the entire ship list? In all honesty I would love to be with CCP meetings just to have an appreciation for them trying to make the game balanced without offending their player base. It is nearly as hair raising as politics. So let CCP listen to the public and try satisfy it.

And CCP: good luck.
Azemar
Voidhounds
Pretenders
#10 - 2012-04-19 03:40:09 UTC
Has absolutely nothing to do with the OP, just the whole concept/title:

Give hybrids (mainly rails) both a new graphic and a little bit of a buff. Or rather, the ammo. I am firing the fastest possible weapon ever made, it should look cool, not like a supersonic water gun.

Small, but that's what they're looking for.
Hans Momaki
State War Academy
Caldari State
#11 - 2012-04-19 23:24:56 UTC
is it still planned that racial BS will require racial BC IV? (I'm not exactly sure if this is true, but I do think I have seen something like this)
If yes, what happens to the players having BS skill, but no BC IV skill? Same for dessis and cruisers?
Tess La'Coil
Messerschmitt Vertrieb und Logistik
#12 - 2012-04-20 06:14:36 UTC  |  Edited by: Tess La'Coil
https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=77673&p=37
Quote:
SKILLS:
Destroyer and Battlecruiser reimbursement: it has been said before, but allow us to repeat again, that we do not want to cut ships you can already fly. Thus, having BC skill at 5 would mean you get all four variations at 5.


It was temporarily (up untill last night when I saw it) edited to say:
Quote:
Destroyer and Battlecruiser reimbursement: it has been said before, but allow us to repeat again, that we do not want to cut ships you can already fly.

https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=900335#post900335

But it seems it was fixed again. This will confirm that whatever cruiser skill you have, having BC and destroyer at 5, means you get all races at 5. NO MATTER YOUR CRUISER LEVEL.

https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=900408#post900408

Besides that, CCP has a specific "Comments" thread. Why not just post in there instead of make a new topic?
Someone once said I was a muppet. If that's so, I'm quite sure the Swedish Chef is my brother. 
Epyx Nykee
Perkone
Caldari State
#13 - 2012-05-22 05:11:52 UTC  |  Edited by: Epyx Nykee
Ok, am i getting this correct.

If say Joe has BC 5 he gets Racial BC 5 across the board, but if you have 4 or less you get that across the board?

Would this not be a big advantage to those who have BC 5 already due to everyone else having to actually take each racial bc to 5 virtually making what took Older players 2 months to do new players would have to spend 8 or so months to get the same racial skillset that older players where just given because they trained BC 5 previously? Or are the racial BC skills going to be reduced in skillpoints and multipliers lowered?

If in fact people with BC 5 currently get a free pass for across the board BC 5 yet that person with BC 4/3/2/1 now has to train 4x the amount of skillpoints to accomplish the same goal is just ridiculous.


Hopefully the above statement is somewhat comprehensible and someone can clarify exactly what is going to be happening.

** Edit **

Also another question is, lets say Joe Shcmoe is currently training BC 5 when the racial class's are implemented, does this person loose out even though he was on the track to BC 5? If so this seems quite unfair also.

If this is the case then Racial BC 5 should not be given to those that already have BC 5. Instead some form of faster multiplier should be given to those that have BC 5 for the other races. Yes this is still unfair but in the end at least those who already have BC 5 will not be given a training advantage (not having to train any Racial BC skillset).

(Hopefully below is wrong and I am not understanding this correctly :p )

Someone with BC 5 already = 1,536,000 sp

if all racial bc skills are the same thats 6,144,000 SP to get all racial BC 5. This gives those with BC 5 already literally 4,608,000 free skillpoints.


All in all

WHO THE F--- Cares, we will all get over it, eve will continue, people will rage quit then come slithering back.
Tippia
Sunshine and Lollipops
#14 - 2012-05-22 11:07:47 UTC
Epyx Nykee wrote:
Would this not be a big advantage to those who have BC 5 already due to everyone else having to actually take each racial bc to 5 virtually making what took Older players 2 months to do new players would have to spend 8 or so months to get the same racial skillset that older players where just given because they trained BC 5 previously? Or are the racial BC skills going to be reduced in skillpoints and multipliers lowered?
The advantage will be no bigger than it is today. Those older players will not be able to fly anything more or better than they did before; those newer players can't fly fewer things or fly them worse than they did before.

SP don't matter — ability matters. The ability doesn't change. Yes, newer players might have to train a bit longer to get the same ability for the battlecruisers, but on the other hand, they will have to train a whole lot less for things like HACs or CSes (in fact, after this change, training for all eight command ships takes nearly two million SP less than before, even including the three additional BC V:s they will have to train).

Having more SP doesn't provide any advantage in and of itself — all it does is make your clone more expensive. What the proposed transition translation does is keep everyone flying the exact same things they did before to the exact same ability, so advantage-wise, it is a complete status quo (aside from the older players suddenly having more expensive clones, which I wouldn't call an “advantage”).
Jame Jarl Retief
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#15 - 2012-05-22 12:53:44 UTC
Regarding SP for the Destroyers/Battlecruisers, there's no happy ending to that, no matter what they do.

If they just look at your BC level, and give you 4 racial BC skills of the same level, you get basically 3 skills to level X that you didn't EARN. They're "free". That's fine and dandy, but screws newer people who haven't had time to train BC to V. Imagine someone who joins the game less than a month before the change goes live. He'll not get the tons of free SP. He won't be happy. Also imagine someone who has a neural map set up for zero Perc/Wis. Even if he'll train BC V, with his current neural map it's a colossal waste of time. Again, he won't be happy about it. Etc., etc.

If they go all nuts and give everyone BC V of every race, regardless of their current BC V level, the bitter vets will NOT be happy, they will b*tch and moan like impotent jerks. Even though they'll be getting 3 months' training free, if they already have BC V, while other people who haven't started BC training will get 4 months' training free.

Etc., etc.

Bottom line, regardless of how they do it, they are going to tick off quite a few people. Personally I think the change is pretty dumb anyway. After 9 years, this change is just...messy. It streamlines some things, but it's not necessary for balance or anything else. The game isn't going to explode if they rebalance ships without the skill requirement changes as well.
Gul'gotha Derv'ash
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#16 - 2012-05-22 13:11:21 UTC
Jame Jarl Retief wrote:


If they just look at your BC level, and give you 4 racial BC skills of the same level, you get basically 3 skills to level X that you didn't EARN.





Actually you DID earn them seeing that you were able to fly the ships to lvl 5 effect prior to whenever this change is going to be made. You now suddenly want to say "you used to be able to fly all BC with max effectiveness, but now we want you have to train them all over again for the next 2-3 months". That is BS, and I don't even have dessie or BC trained to 5.

Actually, this entire change is complete bulls***. All CCP is doing is making it take longer to get to the earlier ships so that they get more sub time out of us. Them saying "this is to make it simpler for new players" is a lie. It wasn't difficult to figure out the progression of ships if you had an IQ over 80. This actually makes it more difficult for new players to cross train into other ships and figure out exactly what they are wanting to fly when they start. Now they will have to follow a race's ships down the line and then start their command skills over again if they want to branch out into another race.


CCP, how about you just do ship rebalancing and give defined rolls instead of putting time and energy into the removal of the tier system which pretty much NO ONE wants.
Epyx Nykee
Perkone
Caldari State
#17 - 2012-05-22 18:49:38 UTC
Tippia wrote:
Epyx Nykee wrote:
Would this not be a big advantage to those who have BC 5 already due to everyone else having to actually take each racial bc to 5 virtually making what took Older players 2 months to do new players would have to spend 8 or so months to get the same racial skillset that older players where just given because they trained BC 5 previously? Or are the racial BC skills going to be reduced in skillpoints and multipliers lowered?
The advantage will be no bigger than it is today. Those older players will not be able to fly anything more or better than they did before; those newer players can't fly fewer things or fly them worse than they did before.

SP don't matter — ability matters. The ability doesn't change. Yes, newer players might have to train a bit longer to get the same ability for the battlecruisers, but on the other hand, they will have to train a whole lot less for things like HACs or CSes (in fact, after this change, training for all eight command ships takes nearly two million SP less than before, even including the three additional BC V:s they will have to train).

Having more SP doesn't provide any advantage in and of itself — all it does is make your clone more expensive. What the proposed transition translation does is keep everyone flying the exact same things they did before to the exact same ability, so advantage-wise, it is a complete status quo (aside from the older players suddenly having more expensive clones, which I wouldn't call an “advantage”).


K, i was just curious :) thank you for putting whats going on in a better perspective :p :)