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[Odyssey] Clone Costs

First post First post
Author
sq0
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#321 - 2013-05-23 11:16:01 UTC
I find whole clone ugrade thing as a nuisance simillar to buying fuel for ships or going to toilet with orc warrior or stuff like that.
Freighdee Katt
Center for Advanced Studies
Gallente Federation
#322 - 2013-05-24 17:57:20 UTC  |  Edited by: Freighdee Katt
I've suggested this before, and I'll suggest it again now: Just give us clone insurance. Problem solved.

You can keep the price for clone insurance the same as the current price for clones, or raise it, or lower it, whatever. But the difference would be that with clone insurance you just pay one insurance premium to cover the entire term of 90 days, or whatever the term is set to be, and then you pay no other cost no matter how many times you get podded during the term of your insurance.

That way higher SP players still have a bigger ISK sink to fill, but that cost does not discourage them from doing what they want to do just because it might involve getting podded. You still stand to lose SP if you undock without clone insurance, which means people still will need to pay it, so it's still there as an ISK sink. But the difference is it imposes an ISK sink without distoring player behavior. As long as you're insured, you can do what you want and it's all the same.

Clone insurance also would be a more reliable, scalable, and probably deeper ISK sink, since it requires people to pay every time the term expires, as long as they are flying the clone. With clone costs as they are now, the ISK sink seems like a big deal on paper, but in practice it is largely impotent, since people with very high SP actually just avoid doing things that could result in clone loss, meaning they may go years or forever without ever buying a clone.

EvE is supposed to suck.  Wait . . . what was the question?

Tonto Auri
Vhero' Multipurpose Corp
#323 - 2013-05-26 02:28:52 UTC
As long as your basic clone cost more than your ship, you're not going to notice any change.

Two most common elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity. -- Harlan Ellison

TekGnosis
Rules of Acquisition
#324 - 2013-05-26 05:10:44 UTC
CCP Rise wrote:
TrouserDeagle wrote:
So getting podded in 0.0 in a 1m frigate still costs me 32m.


For now, but if that makes a lot of people happy as a first step, it may cost much less in the not too distant future.


I'm not sure how this will be measured, but I'm going to add +1 in this thread. Most of the rebalanced ships that I want to go whelp are about the same cost as my clone after fitting, which adds another 'barrier to entry' for going out and blowing up ships.

Getting podded should cost you isk if you chose to use implants, which are a balanced force multiplier by themselves. if I want to go do a T1 frig roam in an empty clone it should only cost the gear i strap on. While rich players will take this 30% and just frost that much more in the fit, a lot of other people (like myself) will whelp more ships if the cost of clones is removed/drastically reduced.

Please use another mechanic as an isk sink and remove this old crusty one that reduces spontaneous PVP in cheap ships for mid/high SP characters.

Thank you.
Little Dragon Khamez
Guardians of the Underworld
#325 - 2013-05-27 08:14:35 UTC  |  Edited by: Little Dragon Khamez
I've been mulling the idea that perhaps we can buy blank clones at certain grades that we can decant aspects of our 'in-game' consciousness into, so for example lets pretend that I am a highly skilled character that can do just about everything, but I fancy going on a frigate roam in null.

To do this I buy a blank clone with a 5 mill sp limit for a couple of hundred thousand isk, then I load in skills that I have already trained from my main clone that can do everything that I want.

I fill up the 5 million sp limit with things like the correct frigate skill to 5, controlled bursts, gunnery, afterburner to 5 etc, etc. Then I clone jump into that and go for my roam. If I get podded I wake up in the normal way in my main clone none of the worse for wear.

The obvious advantage is the clone is now cheaper than the frigate I am flying, I probably won't install implants in my 'frig combat clone' so my training time will suffer, but I will be able to comfortably have fun in my frigate by giving up lots of versatility that comes from having a highly skilled main clone. If we include a limit to how often you can jump into these clones similar in nature to the jump clone mechanic (reduced in time by infomorph psychology skill perhaps) then it would reduce abuses.

E.g. my fleet needs an jump carrier pilot, but I've already jumped into my frig combat clone and have a cool down period of half a day or so left, so I cant re-jump into my main and help my corp with their jump freighter needs.

I think CCP is going towards something of this nature as we've had hints of a similar ability in the Jita 4-4 chronicle. I like the idea of having a mining clone that only has the skills I need to fly a barge and mine in null that is as disposable as a cheap frig. I might do more low/null sec mining then...

All other aspects of clone life should remain, for example if you are out and about in your main clone and don't update it then you should lose sp if you get podded etc.

Dumbing down of Eve Online will result in it's destruction...

Mag's
Azn Empire
#326 - 2013-05-27 09:13:22 UTC  |  Edited by: Mag's
I really don't think clone costs are a good mechanic. Their poor ISK sink potential, doesn't justify their existence either.

Risk and consequences should be there, but I already decide those with the ship and implants I fly with. The only consequence clone costs give, are to say the longer you train, the more it will cost.

This mechanic punishes Null players, far more than low and high sec. As well as costing far more than that frig you're flying.
Bad mechanic is bad.

30% is a start, but a rather weak one at that. A flat rate cost could be then answer, we shall see.

Destination SkillQueue:- It's like assuming the Lions will ignore you in the Savannah, if you're small, fat and look helpless.

Claire Raynor
NovaGear
#327 - 2013-05-27 09:27:02 UTC  |  Edited by: Claire Raynor
Freighdee Katt wrote:
I've suggested this before, and I'll suggest it again now: Just give us clone insurance. Problem solved.

You can keep the price for clone insurance the same as the current price for clones, or raise it, or lower it, whatever. But the difference would be that with clone insurance you just pay one insurance premium to cover the entire term of 90 days, or whatever the term is set to be, and then you pay no other cost no matter how many times you get podded during the term of your insurance.

That way higher SP players still have a bigger ISK sink to fill, but that cost does not discourage them from doing what they want to do just because it might involve getting podded. You still stand to lose SP if you undock without clone insurance, which means people still will need to pay it, so it's still there as an ISK sink. But the difference is it imposes an ISK sink without distoring player behavior. As long as you're insured, you can do what you want and it's all the same.

Clone insurance also would be a more reliable, scalable, and probably deeper ISK sink, since it requires people to pay every time the term expires, as long as they are flying the clone. With clone costs as they are now, the ISK sink seems like a big deal on paper, but in practice it is largely impotent, since people with very high SP actually just avoid doing things that could result in clone loss, meaning they may go years or forever without ever buying a clone.


With respect to the above posting. CCP - Plesae consider making it so that the Corp itself can take out a monthly Insurance for it's pilots - that can come off the Corp Billing system.

This could be easy for us to use - could make Player Corps more attractive than NPC corps - and wouldn't hurt us that much as we make tons of money - and it would enable us to offer our people a better incentive.

Following on from Mag's Post - yes - a flat rate fee would be good too - scaled with membership?
Mag's
Azn Empire
#328 - 2013-05-27 10:08:34 UTC
Claire Raynor wrote:


With respect to the above posting. CCP - Plesae consider making it so that the Corp itself can take out a monthly Insurance for it's pilots - that can come off the Corp Billing system.

This could be easy for us to use - could make Player Corps more attractive than NPC corps - and wouldn't hurt us that much as we make tons of money - and it would enable us to offer our people a better incentive.

Following on from Mag's Post - yes - a flat rate fee would be good too - scaled with membership?
Yea making it a corp based mechanic could work with either of those ideas, much like a tax. But there should be safe guards in place, in case the corp doesn't pay. This could be a deposit made by each player, to guarantee clone replacement in case of none payment.

Destination SkillQueue:- It's like assuming the Lions will ignore you in the Savannah, if you're small, fat and look helpless.

Cardano Firesnake
Fire Bullet Inc
#329 - 2013-05-27 17:25:33 UTC
I think the problem is for the very high Skilled characters.
So it would be more interestening to revamp the price curve instead to just reduce the prices.
Needless to speak about the implants.

But, the jump clone timer is to me a bigger problem, and I continue to ask a skill that reduce the timer by 10% per level....

Posted - 2010.07.01 11:24:00 - [4] Erase learning skills, remap all SP. That's all.

Diesel47
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#330 - 2013-05-28 00:56:03 UTC
Marlona Sky wrote:
Just remove them completely and move the ISK sink somewhere else related to the cost of ships. That way it scales on the ship risked in combat instead of how long the player has been subscribed to the game.

I wrote an article on why clone costs need to be removed completely HERE. Of course ignore the idea of the insurance removal in it.


Quoted so CCP can see it better. P
Mara Rinn
Cosmic Goo Convertor
#331 - 2013-05-28 09:01:36 UTC
Dust Bunnies don't pay more for better clones. With Planetary Conquest they just pay for clones or the infrastructure to produce them. I wonder if there's a way to do the same for capsuleers?

I'd prefer to see player-built clones in the market, with capsuleers switching to the DUST style of clone system: you buy a bunch of clones, stick them at a medical facility of your choosing, and your respawns are free just as long as that supply of clones is available. At some point you'll run out of clones and fall back to your medical insurance clone, which is provided for you at cost as per the current system.

I'd also like to see the removal of the distinction between "medical clone" and "jump clone". You would just have a bunch of clones over here, a bunch of clones over there, and some of them happen to have implants fitted. It would also be nice to be able to fit implants to clones in bulk, so I could have a stock of "interceptor piloting" clones over there in FW space, a stock of "hisec arazu" clones over there in hisec where I keep getting killed in wardecs, and a stock of "ultimate explorer" clones.

Then when I get podded I have the opportunity to choose which stock of clones to reactivate into. Well, perhaps I make a decision before I get podded about which stock of clones to use, and the current process of activating a jump clone instead becomes the process of selecting which clones I get reanimated from when I die (not unlike selecting a fitting before spawning in DUST).

Sure, keep a timer on how long I can switch clone types i.e.: infomorph psychology impacts how quickly I can switch from one head full of implants to another, or one cloning facility to another. I can live with some kind of backstory about capsuleer clones being far more complex than DUST clones (mostly due to the neural linkages to our spaceships and the magic of implants & hardwirings, rather than just being another meat bag with a fancy cranial implant).
Zeta Kalin
Large Rodent Hunters
#332 - 2013-05-28 14:37:31 UTC
Draqone an'Alreigh wrote:
The cost of the clones does not need to be lowered (it's not a bad move if it is though) however the main issue is the cost of implants which is the main detrimental factor for PvP.

Allow us to jump into a jump clone that is at the same station for an ISK fee even if we have a JC timer already running. Jumping into same-station clone could reset the timer and the ISK fee could be equal to a 20% of a medical clone cost. This change would really make the decision to participate in PvP easier.


Thousands of people PvPing in billion ISK pods disagree. The cost of implant just make it that people mostly use cheap ones in 0.0 which is perfectly fine, however they have no way to mitigate the cost of clones save not going to 0.0.
Fyrkraag
Perkone
Caldari State
#333 - 2013-05-29 23:15:09 UTC

I am a dictor pilot with 102 million skill points. I +1 these changes :)

0racle
Galactic Rangers
#334 - 2013-05-31 08:36:18 UTC
Fyrkraag wrote:

I am a dictor pilot with 102 million skill points. I +1 these changes :)



So say we all.
IIshira
School of Applied Knowledge
Caldari State
#335 - 2013-06-01 17:08:45 UTC  |  Edited by: IIshira
I haven't scrolled though all the posts so forgive me if this was brought up previously....

People gripe about the cost of a clone after being podded but it's usually significantly less than the cost of implants.

Okay it costs 5 mil ISK for a 42 mil SP clone, 20 mil ISK for a 92 ml SP pilot and 30 mil ISK for an 120 mil SP pilot. This is about half the cost of two +4 learning implants.

People like to talk about the 150 mil ISK cost for a 450 mil SP clone... Who has 450 mil SP? I'm not saying they're no pilots out there that need a 450 mil SP clone but it's not the norm. Even an 156 mil SP clone only costs 45 mil ISK.

You might argue well a clone is required but implants are not. This is true but who wants to gimp their training time that badly. Not doing either results in a significant loss of SP. Even when I fly in nullsec and know I'm going to get podded a lot I have two +3's.

Of course I'm talking about pilots that are cheap and only have two learning implants installed. Anyone that looked at killboards knows that many pilots have more than just that.
Kusum Fawn
Perkone
Caldari State
#336 - 2013-06-01 17:31:50 UTC
pod costs are the drawback of pilot flexibility.

If you really arent ever going to fly anything but those dictors, then you can stop training and just fly dictors.
Max skill the relevant frigate skills and stop.


but you arent. and are complaining about it.

Its not possible to please all the people all the time, but it sure as hell is possible to Displease all the people, most of the time.

Reaver Glitterstim
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#337 - 2013-06-01 18:26:18 UTC  |  Edited by: Reaver Glitterstim
The problem is not that they cost too much across the board, it is that the costs go up faster than the SP they cover.

The exponential rate of SP stored on the clone is about 1.3, a 30% increase from each clone grade to the next (compounding). But the exponential cost increase is much higher. It starts around 1.4 but goes up past 1.5 around midway, and goes back down towards the top.

The clone grade Omega costs 11.5 times as much per skillpoint as does the clone grade Beta.

New players who don't know how to make money can easily pay for their med clones with some excess ISK they accidentally made shooting a couple of highsec belt rats. Now I do feel that new pilots should have cheap med clones so they can go die several times and learn how to PVP, but also the price should be enough for them to feel it. That way it won't come as a surprise later when med clones start costing ISK.

Middle-aged players like me have a pretty fair med clone cost. I'm at clone grade Rho, and while the cost of my med clones is annoying, it serves to make me think twice before flying blindly into a suicide fight and also encourages me to fly something that cost more than pocket lint. I'm not a baby pilot anymore, this is how it should be.

But older players have to pay out an arm and a leg just to cover the med clone. It's extortion, and makes a lot of them not want to play as much. We need them in our fleets!!

FT Diomedes: "Reaver, sometimes I wonder what you are thinking when you sit down to post."

Frostys Virpio: "We have to give it to him that he does put more effort than the vast majority in his idea but damn does it sometime come out of nowhere."

John 1135
#338 - 2013-06-01 22:04:42 UTC  |  Edited by: John 1135
Charlie Jacobson wrote:
No, sorry. Isk sinks remove isk from the game. PvP is a mineral sink. But even a low insurance payout is an isk faucet because it creates isk out of thin air. The isk you spend on buying ships go to other players, so apart from the broker's fee and sales tax, it is not removed from the game.

Nearly. Insurance can expire (e.g. due to timeout or repackaging the ship) and that is indeed a sink. Unexpired collected insurance is an ISK font as you say. IMO Eve needs more ISK sinks.

Charlie Jacobson wrote:
EDIT: On the subject of lower clone costs. I too would love to see them completely removed, or at least greatly reduced for the high SP clones so that older players were not punished for wanting to fly small stuff. In my opinion the most expensive clone shouldn't cost more than 10mil.

I like the high cost of death in Eve. The high cost of death creates a dramatic tension that other games lack. What do you want? WoW? Where all you lose is a trivial amount of play time? Bubbles and point impose that cost in definite terms, which creates dramatic discouragement to repeated territorial infringement.

I don't want to post a wall of text, but this issue is both complex and at the heart of Eve. CCP please do not let facile analysis erode this central hook; nor crumble to the cries of players. Curve out the high SP clone costs if you need to now that more of the char base are at that level, but please keep death's sting excruciating.
IIshira
School of Applied Knowledge
Caldari State
#339 - 2013-06-01 22:33:33 UTC
John 1135 wrote:
Charlie Jacobson wrote:
No, sorry. Isk sinks remove isk from the game. PvP is a mineral sink. But even a low insurance payout is an isk faucet because it creates isk out of thin air. The isk you spend on buying ships go to other players, so apart from the broker's fee and sales tax, it is not removed from the game.

Nearly. Insurance can expire (e.g. due to timeout or repackaging the ship) and that is indeed a sink. Unexpired collected insurance is an ISK font as you say. IMO Eve needs more ISK sinks.

Charlie Jacobson wrote:
EDIT: On the subject of lower clone costs. I too would love to see them completely removed, or at least greatly reduced for the high SP clones so that older players were not punished for wanting to fly small stuff. In my opinion the most expensive clone shouldn't cost more than 10mil.

I like the high cost of death in Eve. The high cost of death creates a dramatic tension that other games lack. What do you want? WoW? Where all you lose is a trivial amount of play time? Bubbles and point impose that cost in definite terms, which creates dramatic discouragement to repeated territorial infringement.

I don't want to post a wall of text, but this issue is both complex and at the heart of Eve. CCP please do not let facile analysis erode this central hook; nor crumble to the cries of players. Curve out the high SP clone costs if you need to now that more of the char base are at that level, but please keep death's sting excruciating.


I agree... That is one thing that separates Eve from games like WoW... When you die it costs you... Get podded and costs more! In WoW it used to cost gold for repairs if you died in PVP but so many whined about it they changed it.
Verity Sovereign
Sebiestor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#340 - 2013-06-02 11:19:57 UTC
Yes, it costs when you die - but you should be able to choose how much you risk.

Ie: cheap vs expensive ship/fit/implants

I think the SP based cost is poor, particularly since the more SP you have, the more ISK per SP you must pay.
At low levels, its less than 1 isk per 10 SP, at high levels, its 1 isk per 3 SP.
I think the relationship should be the other way around, if at all.


You want a high cost of death?
Remove insurance - or limit its terms so that it only covers losses against unlawful attacks against you in high sec space - If concord won't intervene on your behalf, you won't get an insurance payout either.
In theory, it could be an ISK sink, but in practice, its a massive faucet...

How many people insure their ships, and then actually let that insurance contract expire without losing the ship?
Particularly when you get a pretty good reimbursement from the basic and free insurance.

Remove clone costs, or make the cost per saved SP inversely proportional to Total SP (more total SP, lower cost per SP)
Remove the free insurance, possibly place stricter limits on all insurance payouts.