EVE General Discussion

It just never occurs to you that sometimes neither side is wrong and its about weighing viewpoints, does it?

1) It wasn't equalized. All SP gained over someone else were not taken away, just the initial investment was returned.
2) It isn't an advantage until there's a gain. Once there's a gain, it remains an advantage forever. You can't tell me more is not an advantage. Again, you CANNOT say that's not an advantage. It did not end with them having zero advantage over those without it.
3) Having to pay more than someone else DOES cheapen the value of what you spent. Its the entire basis of what you've been saying, but on a smaller scale. You paid to have something before everyone else. Now that its free, you didn't actually lose anything. It lowered the value of what you paid for to nothing. This can be called the same thing. In one case the value was reduced to zero beyond the profit you gained. In the other? The value was reduced by 32 days, just came with some stuff you're unlikely to use.



Ahh, but they can pick and actually choose what they want after the patch. How about doing the math around including the advantages the new Orca requirements give a new Orca pilot over a new Orca pilot now? So not only does a new Orca pilot currently take longer, but after the patch? A new Orca pilot can fly the Orca better than a brand new one can now, so if the goal is PURELY the Orca, post-patch wins for best value.

Sure it does. It's just that it's not a matter of viewpoints.

Incorrect. Everyone got the same advantage — time spent skilling or not, they all got the same attribute pool.

Of course it is. If I can run faster than you, then that's an advantage, period. Whether that advantage is enough to make me reach the goal faster than you is a different question — one of application — but it doesn't remove the advantage I'm having.

Not being able to run faster than you is not an an advantage, no. So yes, I can say that with ease. The people who had their skilled-for advantage removed ended up with zero advantage over those who hadn't skilled for it.

…which, as luck would have it, you don't have to. In fact, you get it cheaper than they will. Not that it matters because changes in price are not grounds for reimbursement anyway, since you got exactly what you paid for and the advantage remains the same.

Advantage lost → reimbursement.
Advantage retained → no reimbursement.

Devaluation → who cares, it happens, live with it. Otherwise, could I have the time and ISK I spent on my first Drake back, please? But of course, that's not actually what's going on here anyway.

…and no matter how they pick and choose, they can't get the same advantage for less. The only way for there to be any devaluation is if you cheat on your return by not reporting all your assets advantages.

…then it's an invalid point of comparison since we're not talking about the same set of advantages. If you want to go down that road, then post-patch loses because battlecruisers become more expensive to train for.

A positive number - a smaller positive does not equal zero. 5 million SP over someone else as an example (perhaps a high one) is NOT zero advantage. And yet you keep trying to push that. Just because you lost what allowed you to build that up in the first place doesn't mean its not an advantage. You still got several other skills faster than someone else did, you still have those skills, people weren't given points to make up the difference, you still have that edge. That is not zero. Period.

X + (X - Y) != 0

Where X != Y



Haha... if time was truly refundable, screw a reimbursement, I want to live longer XD. EVE. The key to immortality!

Yes. (Though that's not actually possible, as IC Ships 5 contains more SP than Barge 5, so it would be lost first.)
Currently though you would not be able to advance in your IC Ships skill until you retrained Barge 5 (this is changing).

So you are okay with them handing out bonus-skillpoints here.

Yes it is. It can also be a disadvantage. It can also be an advantage. There's no correlation between the number and the advantage it provides.

That's your key problem here: you assume that SP is an advantage. It's not. SP is just a number. Ability is an advantage.

What. Not having an advantage isn't the same as not having an advantage?! A ≠ A?! WTF

No, I'm sorry. Losing the advantage of being able to be faster means losing the advantage of being able to be faster. There is no two ways about it unless you want to try to claim that things somehow are not identical with themselves (good luck).

When people who had skilled for the ability to be faster lost the ability to be faster, they lost the advantage they had trained for. Period. When people who have trained for the ability to fly a specific set of ship can still fly the same specific set of ships, they have retained the advantage they have trained for. Period.

Maybe you understand better if we use a different example?

· I have trained for MWDs so I can fly faster than you.
· MWDs are removed from the game.
· I can no longer fly faster than you.
Have I or have I not lost an advantage I have trained for at this point?

· I have trained for MWDs so I can fly faster than you.
· MWDs are now considered a form of gunnery and moved to that skill and market group.
· I can still fly faster than you.
Have I or have I not retained the advantage I have trained for at this point.

He's talking about how Aren is convinced that it's the number of SP that matters, not the abilities the SP convey.

I really don't like the idea of bonus skillpoints, no. SP should never go down. I only really mention the learning skill example because I feel it demonstrates how still having something doesn't necessarily mean something isn't being lost somehow when you change how things work, which is kind of what they're doing here. But again, for the Destroyers and BCs especially? What else can they do? Make someone only pick one and potentially lose access to other ships they like flying from time to time until they reskill? Its stupid, but hey, they're ultimately finally correcting some mistakes with the base design of the skill system and expanding. Even CCP does not like it in the slightest largely if the dev blogs are to be trusted, but when you weigh the pros and cons of giving those points versus not? It weighs a bit more heavily on giving them... I think it weighs heavier on not splitting them as to not make it more painful for new players, and making any pirate ship bonuses if they add them based on having enough of the ship level below and then applying the level of the required ship type skill accordingly like for example

If you have Destroyer 4 and Caldari Frigate 3 and Gallente Frigate 2, you only get the Caldari bonus at four for the pirate ship that uses them both. But I can see why even that is shaky. Would make it sooooo easy to get into pirate destroyers at full bonus, but on the other hand, it'll already be that easy for some. If they don't plan on adding pirate ships of that class, or Navy or more T2 ships of those types though, I question splitting them in the first place entirely.

The only time reimbursement takes place is when the prune a dead branch from the tree. Whatever skillpoints were invested in the removed branch will be reimbursed.

OP will still have Mining Barge trained at lvl 5 after the summer and that is not a wasted skill. He can hop into a barge a presto... the skill is useful.

If CCP removed the Mining Barge skill from their database.... that would be a different situation all together.

The fact that OP needed Barge 5 back then to train for Orca and will only need Barge 3 after the summer does not make Barge 5 obsolete and/or useless.

Barge 3? It won't even require Barge 1.



Pretty much reimbursements as a whole no matter the circumstances technically fall into that domain. It just becomes a matter of if the argument is valid... but if both are, it becomes a matter of weighing those arguments and deciding which outweighs the other. Frankly my only problem with this particular discussion is the belief by some that somehow everyone else's views are completely invalid on the subject, which they really aren't. If someone's goal is the Orca, they obviously only trained Mining Barges for the Orca. The skill still has its uses, but it really doesn't for them, which is where viewpoint comes in. Its no longer useful to them. This isn't an arguable point because its their view. When they bring it up, that's the factor they are referring to. Something isn't useful if until its actually used. Now I'd also argue that IF such a reimbursement happened, it'd be optional, and those that took it would be forced to put some of that to make sure they have the new requirements otherwise they're really being super greedy.