Player Features and Ideas Discussion

I would rather see certificates take on a role more similar to achievements in other games and have things linked to PvP (and pve) prowess. Things like killed a battleship in a frigate, won a fight in <5% structure. Successfully tanked x damage. Stuff like that, I have no idea if this is possible to track in eve but achievement unlocks can really add something to other games and adjust your play style at times and it could also open the PvP aspect of eve to more pve orientated players when they have achievement unlocks to aim for as I believe a lot or players which actively avoid PvP do so because they see no structure in it and no clear progression, just a lot of blown up risk, it might also highlight what is achievable through existing game mechanics as I would wager a lot of inexperienced pilots would not think it possible to destroy a larger or more expensive ship than their own in a 1v1 but it obviously is.

+1 on this one. Summarising my PoV it would be nice to have two kinds of certificates:

- Skill and SP based certificates for incorportation/alliance use.
Add corp directors ability for issuing custom certificates. Let those certificates assigned to the ship hulls by directors. Let corp members apply for those certificates when they have enough skills. Let FC/Boss/Squadcoms automatically see the certificate levels of the ships in his fleet/squads (but only those that are specific to that ships). Let people link those skill certificates everywhere they need to providing a temporary access to that info so FC can pick ships by those certs. May be even let people to link all the certificates that are set as related to the specific hull in a single bunch.

- Pilot qualification certificates.
Those certificates should be working pretty much as skills system in the linkedin social network. You can create a certificate for yourself and ask people to sign it either as private persons or as officers of a certain corporation/alliance prooving that you fullfill that certificate requirements. The sign of the certificate can not be cancelled and the name of the issuer of the sign and the date of issuing visible to everyone who looks at that certificate. Let pilots link those certificates where they want to. Let people set those certificates as public if they want to. (I am sure there will be some fun made with that system. It may even grow into some public petition collection). It would be also nice to see your standing to the certificate issuers

confirming the reason no one uses them is because the skill set that makes up a certificate usually is largely irrelevant/has useless skills included.

especially the combat profession ones..

simplify the certificates to be alot more specific and dont be afraid to use a skill in more than 1 kind of certificate

I really like this idea, especially if it is also integrated into the Corp APIs so we can use them in out-of-game assets. I can see a lot of potential in this area. One example that comes to mind would be for corps that offer ship replacement programs but require certain skills to be met for whatever ship they are in. We do this currently and considered using certs but they are just not robust enough to be helpful in this regard, so we have to define our prereqs based on skills.

I happen to show my certs publically. I know that I am part of a small percentage, and I know that it gives an idea of what my skills are, but it can be misleading. It might say "Basic" but if I never claimed the ones after it, you would not know that I've trained them beyond that (so I actually use that to my advantage by giving misleading intel). In the same light, I could be missing a single level of one skill but meet all of the other requirements; you really just don't know.

Also, some of the certs are very important -- we teach all of our new players to focus on core certs because they are so integral to basically any activity that involves flying a ship. So some certs are certainly more important than others. I would encourage you to take a fresh look at Eve and see if there are ways to improvise an improved certification path. As it stands, many important skillsets are not present or they are incomplete or they are tied to other skills that are not intuitively related.

I don't like the idea of them being removed. I like to display mine. And I don't see why you would remove them just because not many people do. You're just taking away something that already exists, so you'd be expending effort on actually "removing" things from Eve rather than "adding" things. I tend to feel that MMOs should not remove things in most cases. I don't like the idea of showing how many basic, standard, and elite certs a player has, unless they can be hidden (for many reasons, one of which is listed above.)

Please consider this carefully. While they are "meaningless" to many, some of the proposed changes are "harmful" in my humble opinion.

The current public/private visibility settings are fine, as is. Don't fix what ain't broken, please.

The problem with the certificate system is that no effort was ever made to tweak the certificate requirements, based on player feedback, after the system was released. New players who strictly follow the certificate program are often frustrated, since certain necessary skills are missing and a number of less useful skills have been included.

This is simple to fix. But, rather than devoting dev resources to this matter and bouncing back/forth for weeks with the players on the forums for feedback, assign it to the new CSM as a NPE task. Let them assemble a volunteer group of players to go through all of the certificates, and tweak the values for you. It should not require much time/effort for a dev then to make the database changes.

There is only one type of information contained in the certificates, and that information is directly related to a player's skills and the level to which they have been trained. Obviously, and correctly, most players feel that publicly displaying such information can give an unnecessary advantage to an opponent. As you noted:

So, if you are seriously thinking about making such information public by default, you might as well publicly broadcast every ship's current fit, as well.

You have misread the following part. It states opposite.

Certificates shouldn't be just simply a list of standardised skills. There should be the ability to make certificates to give to a corp for them to follow for certain roles, as to what a corp expects them. Similarly, they should be able to be posted in a fleet MOTD as a baseline minimum doctrine for flying the ships required to a basic level, such as having hull upgrades V for an armour fleet, and tackle skills etc

Why not many choose to inform other people with certificates is that the other player can see what you are good/bad in.
For example: I dont want to show of something i suck in. Theres another thing showing your certificates for ELITE tanking skills than it is showing a standard certificate for T2 tank since it is very common.

The certificates are good for myself so i have strategy for my skill training and sometimes prove what i have to others, but i always think i make a better target for others showing of my **** skills.

I think one of the biggest issues with the difference between certificates and what needs to be viewed by other players, i.e. corp CEOs, is that too often corp CEOs want know what guns and what ships a player can, get the certificates lined up with vessel and weaponry proficiency and I think it would help a lot.

I liked certificates when I was new as a form of general training advice.

However, I think some of the skill prerequisites for them should change, and they should be private only. (The API system now lets you disclose skills when required without revealing other sensitive info like wallet history or alt names).

A fair number of certs have downright odd prerequisite combinations. Level 5 in a 5x skill but only level 3 in an also relevant x2 skill, or similar. Also certs should have much better advice with them.

Also there should be separate "Active Armor Tanking" and "Armor Buffer Tanking" certificates, with advice like "Active armor tanking is prefered for engagements that you expect to last some time - for shorter battles, including most fights against other capsuleers, consider Armor Buffer Tanking instead".

The recommended certs by ship should be massively overhauled too.