EVE General Discussion

Actually, I didn't choose to fly an Orca at all, I just saw a subject I agreed with and started posting :p. Buut yeah... still say the logic you're using could be applied to a lot of things, especially since the learning skills still provide a lasting benefit beyond what you claim is a benefit. Not comparable to ISK at all, can bark up that tree for eternity, but whatever, you're being pretty stubborn with that. And frankly they haven't had a history of changing prereqs as far as I know until now. Unprecedented action should warrant unprecedented response to make the action harm as few as possible. On the other hand, doesn't sound like devs like a lot of it either, like the free skill points from Destroyers and BCs... which I find kind of irritating as well honestly for other reasons. Don't see the point until they actually match the variety of ships up with the other subcap classes, but meh.

I have cleaned this thread of trolling, personal attacks, and off-topic posts.

Right. Let's get this done shall we? The following are all very good reasons NOT to reimburse the skills. I will detail them all in individual sections for ease of reading and understanding, and it you want to counter them, then feel free to try in a logical fashion. These are not reasons you do not "require" a SP change, these are reasons that SP reimbursal would have a genuine negative effect on the game.

---

Flavour of the Month

Flavour of the Month is a way of saying that certain ships in the game are OP in some way and that people, for obvious reasons, tend to use the ships and equipment that are the best. So what happens is people congregate towards using the stuff that is likely to get nerffed. If you refund skill points you compound this problem, because people are then able to use said skill points to move towards the new flavour of the month, ie, the new things which will need to be nerffed. Because there will be more people moving to it than there would be without the skill refunds you end up compounding the problem so it gets worse faster, which leads to earlier nerfs, which leads to more SP reimbursal, which leads to earlier nerfs, etc etc until CCP can no longer keep up with the changes and you have an ultimately broken game. You will probably argue that people wont get enough SPs back to see any meaningful change like this, but that is not true, and I will cover that in a later section.

Too Many Skillpoints

Let's take this time to examine how many skill points people would be able to get back. If you want a reimbursement for your Orca, then it's only fair that everyone else get reimbursements where the same phenomenon has occurred. I am a 2009 player, and I will be using my skill sheet as an example;

I use Recon ships, and Heavy Assault Cruisers, so I expect a refund on the Assault Ship and Covert Ops skills because I don't need them and never use them. Also, I use heavy Interdictors but I don't use interceptors or destroyer sized Interdictors, so I expect to get the Interceptor and Interdictor skills refunded. I would also like all my mining barge levels reimbursed because I do not need them for my Orca. I fly command ships but not logistics, so I expect my logistics skills refunded. I also expect the Battleship 4s and 5s refunded because I don't fly Battleships, I go straight from BCs to Carriers. Also, I need as refund on Evasive maneuvering V because I don't need that for my Heavy Interdictor, but I had to train it. Now it's not a requirement. Also, I don't need Long Range Targeting for my Command ships, so I want that reimbursed. Oh! Don't forget to refund me Electronics Upgrades 5, I certainly don't need that for my Electronic Attack Ships. blah blah blah blah.

Now, you'll point out that many of those are silly request. But, frankly so is getting your skills back from the Orca. Where exactly do you draw the line? With all the above skills refunded I could probably pop myself straight into ALL of the new flavour of the months. Hell everyone could move so that all Eve players ONLY used the broken OP ships with this kind of change.

Less Meaningful Consequences

Eve is a game where what you do actually matters and effects your (and other people's) game play. What you train and what your character can do is a big part of that. If your just letting people undo their little mistakes you take away from what is a fundamental part of this game. Consequences. People play Eve for it's realism, and for it's harsh environment. This is not Helly Kitty Online, everything is NOT going to work out alright in the end. And that is what a lot of people love about this game. Frankly, if you want to remove that aspect from the game, perhaps you should be playing something that doesn't have that already. Star Trek online is comparitively free of consequences. Maybe you should try that.

CCP Employee Time and Pay

Working out who is genuine and who is not, would be impossible. As such CCP would have to be reimburse everyone for all their requests. Now, by everyone... I mean literally everyone. Who isn't going to want to take advantage of what is essentially a chance to get bazillions of skill points back on all the things they don't use very much anymore? That's a rhetorical question by the way. Now, CCP don't have enough GMs to do this AND answer all our petitions etc. Which means they would need to hire more, or fire some devs, or relocate them. Either way, that means that there are less devs working on our awesome expansions because someone wanted some skillpoints back.

---

I could probably go on forever like this. Every one of the above points is enough reason to not reimburse skill points on it's own. Frankly, unless you can solve all of the above (I assure you, you can't), then this is a pointless discussion. With any of the above still standing you can not be reimbursed. For the sake of the game and for the sake of it's players. You don't NEED your SP back. You just don't. You were happy to spend those SP in the first place, so learn to live with your decisions. Please, if you want to make a counter to the above arguments go ahead. I do not want anyone replying with what is essentially their personal view restated without any content or counter, because we have already heard what you have to say and your "opinion" is now completely useless unless backed up by a logical argument. A arguementless/logicless opinion is only relevant the first time it is stated by each person, and then at no point there-after.

TL:DR If your taking part in a discussion and you can't be bothered to read the posts then you shouldn't be here. Go away.

Why not let players decide? Reimburse Mining Barge Skill on Orca in general - If they want to use Orca as Hauler only, they dont need Mining Barge 5 as skill - just make Mining Barge 5 a prerequisite for "Mining Foreman Links" - if orca is going to be used as a mining Booster, mining foremans will retrain the skill anyway with the reimbursed skillpoints.

Just my 2ct.

Its like I kept trying to explain to Ruby in the last thread, the sunken cost argument cannot be applied in a blanket approach as he is trying to do.

Also I have another piece of technical jargon which he may like seeing as my words alone cannot convince him of the flaw in his blanket application of sunken costs. Its called "confirmation bias", which is where a person has an emotional reaction to a statement, and then find reasons to confirm the initial emotional response they are feeling in a blinkered approach filtering out any evidence which disagrees with their initial view.

So rather than beginning with a rational analysis of the situation, someone who suffers confirmation bias will continue to argue their original hypothesis no matter how many valid point you put forth. I think quite a number of people clearly are effected by this in the thread given the level of completely irrational emotional attacks on people the dev has had to clear up.

This would not be a big issue for this reason. Most of the pre req skills are still useful skills which people would not want to have refunded. Logistics V for example, as there are often scenarios where a command ship pilot might want to switch roles to logi pilot. So although they would have the option to refund their SP, I can't see that happening if they are giving up something which is essentially a very useful skill to them. There are only a couple of examples where the skill is now useless to the pilot, and so I don't agree with your assumption that everyone would want all of their SP refunded, it would be limited to a few certain cases.


As I stated in my original OP, any previous pre req skill which has now been changed should have the option for the pilot to reimburse it. There is no incoherency in this argument. As I stated above, I dont think that will happen in the majority of cases. Using your examples given its very easy to pick holes in, for example you say you don't want Electronic Upgrades at V, yet you also say that you use recon ships, so in fact you will still need Electronic Upgrades at V to fly the recon ship. And I would bet a lot of those skills you have listed above when considered fully you would actually want or need to keep them.


This argument is quite easy to counter due to the nature of this change. If it was simply buffing or nerfing the Orca then I would not be suggesting a SP reimbursement. The fact is that this is a fundamental change to the skill system, the last time this happened learning skills were removed, and despite people having gained benefit from them previously, ie they were sunken costs, CCP still reimbursed the SP.

Players expect ships and modules to have eras when they are powereful, and other eras where they go out of fashion and are perhaps nerfed and not so viable. The difference with the skill system is that players do not spend months planning there skills training plans with a fundamental change to the skill system from CCP in mind, and it is unreasonable to expect them to do so.

If your solution is to force people to mine to get any use from the now useless skill they have, then that is a poor solution by most peoples standards. Especially considering a lot of people do not already have the other related mining skills trained up.

I was wondering when you would appear Tippia and take your usual stance of opposing everything. heh

Good thing, them, that my usual stance isn't to oppose things — only things that make no sense and/or are unreasonable (especially when fuelled by nothing but petty entitlement). Rather, my stance is is to put actual reasoning and facts on the table.

…and as luck would have it, nothing of the kind has happened to the Barge skill.

I'm not forcing you. you mine if you want to.

of course you can also sit tight there with it floating in space to serve as target practice. that works too.