Player Features and Ideas Discussion

It is possible this has been proposed by others, but a quick look around didn't show anything, so here goes.

The game already allows neural remapping of characteristics a certain number of times per year. If the science of the Eve universe allows that, why not neural remapping of skills? What I have found is that, particularly early in the game, one might end up spending a lot of time building up skills that you then never use, or use only rarely.

What I propose is allowing a player to exchange skill points in one skill for skill points in another skill. So if I spent time building up hacking or R&D skills and instead I've found that I'm spending most of my time using combat or mining skills, I can ditch the skills I'm not using and get a better focus for the character. Yes, a significant part of Eve Online is trial and error, and gradually figuring out what you want to do. But with a couple of limiting rules I think you can retain all that, and avoid having skill remapping turn into an easily abused blank check.

1. Characteristic remapping is allowed once a year, with two bonus remaps. Skill remapping should only be allowed on a timed basis, once per year. Once you skill remap, the 365 day shot starts running, and when it runs out you can remap again.

2. The mechanics would be similar to characteristic remapping, where you can build up a "bank" of allocated points by reducing skill points in certain skills. But this should really be about rebalancing your skillset to allow better focus, it shouldn't be about wholesale changing of your career on a whim. So credit for skill points traded in would reduce on a sliding scale. So, for example, for the first 75,000 points traded in, you get 100% credit. For the next 75,000, you get 75% credit, for the next 75,000 you get 50%, and so on to 0% credit at some limit.

What the actual scale should be I don't have enough experience to say. Should the cap be 500,000 SPs? 1,000,000? Not sure, but suggest this as a practical limiting rule.

Thoughts?

Thanks for letting me down easy. Promise I will do more of a forum search next time!

That being said, and granted I have only been playing for a few months, a lot of the arguments in the past threads seem to boil down to "actions have consequences in Eve." I agree wholeheartedly that this is an aspect of the game I like and that distinguishes it. But then why allow neural remapping of characteristics? Many of the same points -- you can just make a new character, actions have consequences -- would seem to apply there as well, but we accept characteristic remapping without anyone complaining about the principle of the thing.

It may be that it's not about the principle of the thing, but that skill remapping has larger practical implications than characteristic remapping. This is where you start to see the arguments about rendering skill building pointless, etc. I suppose that would be the case if you let people remap everything, but if there were strict limits on the amount of SPs that could be reallocated (meaning magnitude of tens or hundreds of thousands, not millions), how would that "blow up the game" or undermine what makes the game engaging, challenging or interesting? (Note, I'm emphasizing limits on the amount of points reallocated, not on frequency, though that is another limit.) Some people would use it as intended, to clean up their skillsets, others wouldn't bother at all, and a few might figure out ways to abuse it. But that doesn't seem, to me, significantly different from how players respond to other mechanics in the game.

In terms of solving a problem, I think it does solve a problem of allowing players to tailor their skills to suit, more specifically, their goals at a given time. Quite aside from whether other MMOs do it, that does not seem to be a bad thing for this game to allow. But from the past threads this looks very much like a worldview issue -- you either think it's a problem worth solving or you don't. Both are reasonable positions.

So that being given, I'll leave off making any further arguments as this is well plowed ground and I don't flatter myself that I've got the magic argument that will change it.

Good points on characteristic remapping, but a couple of responses.

"Your system is an "Undo" button - a button that lets you reverse changes you made in the past so that intelligent planning is less important."

No, it's not, if you set limits as to how many SPs can be traded in. The whole point is that you can't do a total reset -- all you can do is tailor on the edges, infrequently. I would be interested to hear your response to a much more limited concept.


"Why should you be able to maximize your skills for whatever you're doing at the present moment? Does that not defeat the entire purpose of the skill training system? Furthermore, if a veteran player can just throw his skillpoints at whatever he feels like doing now, doesn't that give them an even bigger leg up on new players?"

See point above. Absolutely agree with you if it's a wholesale repurposing of SPs. But again, what about a much more limited system? That's not "veteran players throwing skillpoints at whatever he feels like doing."