Skill Discussions

I remember creating this character. I did not research intensively which ships were best. I asked a friend who played, and he said mining was where it was at. I chose Amarr for fun, and I liked how they looked. I thought it was funny they were slavers. After some time, I went into null, and people were running shield tanked ships. Amarr does not do well with that, so I decided to change over to caldari ships. If it would have been more costly, I would have quit and never come back. I would have been punished for a decision I made a year earlier based on little information. Also, if other race ships gets buffs, or my race gets nerfed, I can't move to the next flavor as easily. I'd have to have multiple characters of different races, or multiple accounts. That would be asking too much from the new players.

Here is what new players have to figure out (it has been so long for you, that you've forgotten)
How to move that stupid hunk of junk. WASD doesn't seem to do the trick.
How to get your ship in range of a target.
OH CRAP IT IS SHOOTING AT ME HOW DO I ATTACK!!???!!??!!!
How to lock multiple targets. Wait, I can only lock two? How do I fix that?
Finally, locked up, but my guns are doing no damage. What is wrong??!!!??? they are shooting, but the enemy lives!!
Why can't I put the bigger small guns/missiles on my ship? Not enough power, how do I deal with that?
My cap keeps draining, what do I do about that. When does my cap reach peak recharge, or is it constant?
The list goes on with what skills do what. Person gets frustrated from a level 1 mission in the rookie ship, decides to mine.

Mining, discovers mining barges (we'll assume they have money) buys one. Discovers jet can mining, and industrials. Next discovers thieves. Has to learn the rules of engagement, ends up learning about low sec, and the rules there. Next, has to learn about reprocessing, and whether to reprocess ore or to sell it with the skills he has. Sells ore to a buy order. Decides to learn how to use the market. Sets up multiple sell orders with different qualities of ore.

Need I go on about the experiences I had as a newbie? There are tons of things to discover and to learn in EVE. Punishing newbies more with increased training time based on decisions made at creation will kill any influx of people.

:TLDR: The best solution would be to give new players 3 ranks in their frigate, 2 ranks in their gun. This would make it easier for you to train your races ships, and harder to cross train, without penalizing people. You are right, race only affects corp membership.

:edit: I'd guess that around 100% of people thought about doing one thing in EVE, did it, then changed their mind. I love how that you just lose skill training time, and aren't permanently penalized.

I'd say your credibility just nosedived, because you can't. Only one character per account can be training; if you want to train up a character in one of the other slots, you've got to pause training on whichever one is actively training. (Or was that a hypothetical to go along with the hypothetical kneecapping of characters through racial penalties?)

And there's one fundamental to bear in mind: EVE is a game. It's supposed to be fun.

You want to play the game by locking yourself into one race? That's perfectly acceptable. Lots of people concentrate on one race, and find themselves in a hole when changing corporate doctrines mean they've got to grind other races. Happened to me; I started off pure armor-tanking Gallente, and ended up needing to cross-train because I was in situations demanding shield doctrines, and it was a pain in the neck for quite a few months while I built up a new set of skills from scratch.

But changing the entire nature of the game to cater to your personal whims?

That's ... rather like pouring concrete into the sandbox.

1. Add unnecessary complications that reduce 'realism' and punishs new people.
2. Change fundamentals in skill training
3. Make alts much more valuable than they are now by allowing them to train.

You know what we get? Closer and closer to the pigeon hole MMORPG's that I hate.

Imagine, in some fleet:
FC: "Hey we need a logistics"
You: "Okay, let me switch to my alt that had logistics."

Turn the page to WoW:
Raid Leader: "Hey, we need a healer"
You: "Okay, let me switch to my alt that is a healer."

I've already mentioned a small fraction of the things a new player has to learn in order to play EVE just in their first week.

Asking whether I'd quit life is not equivalent. I do not have the option to quit life to play a different life that fits my tastes better. However, I could have quit EVE to play something easier, like Guild Wars, Guild Wars 2, SWTOR, or whatever. I also don't 'play' life for entertainment. EVE is supposed to be fun, not a chore that requires hours upon hours of reading stuff so you don't mess up your character. Then after years of playing, what if CCP nerfed your racial ships and/or guns? I have quit MMORPG's because of nerfs and never went back. I devoted many hours to my character, then when I was having fun, the fun was taken away. My options were find new fun with my character, complain on forums, make a new character and start all over, or change games.

:TLDR: Pigeon holing is not fun, and causes people to quit. What you propose somewhat pigeon holes people into roles or ships. Therefore, what you propose reduces the fun of EVE, and causes people to quit, and does not increase the fun in any other area, nor does it increase the realism. You are out of touch with how it is to be a newbie in this game. Without new people coming in, this game dies.

I rather like a different implementation. The old character creation method where you started with base skills with a few ranks had a very similar effect, and reflected this childhood training. Minmatar pilots could pilot anything minmatar a few days earlier than Amarr. If you wanted to penalize the first tier of training (small projectile, and frigate) I wouldn't mind the change.

You mention flavor of the month people. The advantage of cross training is if there is a perceived or actual flavor of the month, people can switch skill training, and see for themselves if such a fit is OP. Flying it would show that person its weakness, and perhaps convince them it is not OP, and allow a larger player base the chance to review such fits, and to offer feedback on balance.

what people are argueing here is if you play a game say your a gun guys and can make great shots from affar wouldnt it then be logical to then seek training is a sword or dager or a martial art why should you being good at guns mean you cannot apply certian criteria to your main trait to other such as guns you can apply your dexterity to a martial art. is what people are trying to argue you with.

and of course with guns you would have a good idea of the body so you would also be more accurate with your striking in theory.

I have another great idea to implement this. Why don't we give new players a bonus to skill training time, so that the first million skill points are trained at an increased rate, to reflect this "natural training", thus making any training after this reflect a 'cross training penalty' I'm sure most people would spend some of this increased skillpoints in their racial frigate, and possibly cruiser, thereby making cross training into another cruiser cost 4-5 days more, but with the added benefit of people not worrying about things set in stone.

Sounds familiar, doesn't it? Although the implementation isn't the same as what the OP proposes, CCP had already implemented a penalty for cross training, by giving a bonus to what you chose to do first. Not all Minmatar's are savage beasts that shoot guns. Some of them trained in industry.

OP is either a troll or LOLRP...enough said.

This is already implemented in a way. Suppose I could fly a Amarr cruiser. If I had no skills specific to minmatar cruiser, like medium projectile turrets, minmatar frigate, I would still be able to fly a minmatar cruiser faster than I could a amarr cruiser (given I didn't have a accelerated Skill Points bonus) because I wouldn't have to train spaceship command, all the navigation skills, all general gunnery skills, drone skills, or some mechanic skills. Gallente would be faster than most Minmatar since Gallente are armor tanked, and training to fly a minmatar cruiser well would require shield training skills, making training caldari cruiser even faster.

TL:DR Although there is no direct bonus to cross training to different ships, the general skills needed to fly such ships are common to others which decreases training time, depending how similar the ships are.


:edit: so, in the end, we have both things implemented. It is faster to train your first frigate skills via the skill point boost, and when you start cross training, there is a decrease in training time depending how similarly the ships fly.

Thanks Tarsas Phage. As I said before im into the harder core of games wher you like it easy mode. Thats ok mate each to their own yea?

I'm not sure if you are better off staying focused on one faction or crossing over. I thought for a long time staying with one faction would be the best and that when I started cross training I was gimping my character. But when you consider that "most" of the skills apply to all factions (electronic, engine, tanking, Drones, Navigation, Leadership)

And that with just a small investment in in training you can open up a LOT of options.

Really the only skills that are really faction only are faction weapon and spaceship type skills

Cross training becomes very attractive.

Two reasons I see to focus on only one faction

1, Starting out - new characters are better off focusing on one faction, but mainly on core skills.
2, Role Playing.

hmmm been away two years, and I have 666 unread messages....