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Death to Attributes
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Zan Shiro
Doomheim
#61 - 2013-07-12 03:53:30 UTC  |  Edited by: Zan Shiro
Soko99 wrote:
I have a love hate relationship with the attributes. While I hate the inefficiency involved in learning skills that I'm not geared for, it makes the whole planning ahead part of the game much more worth while.

Eve has always been about the game of consequences, and remapping attributes does just that. If you don't want to worry about the non-specced skills. then just respec your attributes to all the same and problem solved.



this


Along time ago in the first year I ran off the basic stats ccp gave me. + implants + learning skills. Basically as flat an attribute setup you are gonna get. I did not remap for like the first 11 months. Why? 10 minutes in evemon with a balanced basic 1 year plan showed me I was all over the place contriolling stat for skill wise and a remap would hurt more than help.


or jsut train skills a bit slower if spec is off.

Current setup an off remapping is not end of the world. I have been perc/will for a while. CCP has made every new skill int/mem recently. So I trained to 4 honeycomb and the sensor skills (I fly all 4 races...so its all racial 4's). Life went on. Need the skill, then train it and jsut suck it up really. I chose this remap to grind out ships, guns and be the basis for my now get her done cap train. The months I saved on this...I can give a few days back to the training gods via slow int//mem trains and still come out ahead of the game.




And the whole attributes to ship boosing....not seeing how this is better. If I am stuck in a perc/will remap...well I have me a shooty dread. Hope I like it, I am stuck there for months on end. What good this does me in a triage carrier (where I'd like tank, cap, other int/mem support skills) I have no clue however. At least with current system you can train off map skills still decent.
Sigras
Conglomo
#62 - 2013-07-12 08:39:35 UTC
so TL;DR you want instant gratification, and cant be asked to put thought planning or patience into the skills you train . . .

Honestly, this is what the attributes do, they reward people for having patience and forethought; what a tragedy . . .

You do make some good points about noobs though; they do have a diverse set of skills they need. Too bad they dont get extra remaps or something to offset that fact . . . oh wait


Also, the argument that implants are like clones is ridiculous. Clones are a necessity; you can lose months of training time if your clone isnt up to date. Implants however are optional; I would support a change removing the clone jump timer for clones that are in the same station, so you could switch into an implantless clone whenever you wanted.
hmskrecik
TransMine Group
Gluten Free Cartel
#63 - 2013-07-12 09:07:32 UTC
Sigras wrote:
so TL;DR you want instant gratification, and cant be asked to put thought planning or patience into the skills you train . . .

Honestly, this is what the attributes do, they reward people for having patience and forethought; what a tragedy . . .

Please... This is what skills themselves impose without any trouble, this planning, patience, etc.

Several posts ago I issued a challenge: show me scenario when attributes and only attributes make difference, when someone who did properly manage them got much better results than someone else who had them at default flat mapping.

In terms of pure gameplay, EVE mostly sucks but skills are one of those shining points which make it stand out above competition. On the other hand the attributes are actually what gives it this cheesburgerish taste - they are about like everywhere else, here they just matter less.
Mag's
Azn Empire
#64 - 2013-07-12 09:14:52 UTC
hmskrecik wrote:
Several posts ago I issued a challenge: show me scenario when attributes and only attributes make difference, when someone who did properly manage them got much better results than someone else who had them at default flat mapping.
You can do that yourself in Evemon. It's not hard and the difference is plain to see.

Destination SkillQueue:- It's like assuming the Lions will ignore you in the Savannah, if you're small, fat and look helpless.
hmskrecik
TransMine Group
Gluten Free Cartel
#65 - 2013-07-12 09:19:40 UTC
Mag's wrote:
hmskrecik wrote:
Several posts ago I issued a challenge: show me scenario when attributes and only attributes make difference, when someone who did properly manage them got much better results than someone else who had them at default flat mapping.
You can do that yourself in Evemon. It's not hard and the difference is plain to see.

Oh, so did I. That's why I asked to show me getting MUCH better results.
Sigras
Conglomo
#66 - 2013-07-12 09:35:17 UTC
define much better results . . . my current skill plan is 99% perception willpower and it will take me 376 days 21 hours with my current mapping which is 27 perception 21 willpower +3 implants

with flat skills it will take 444 days 18 hours

That is a savings of 67 days 21 hours or about 15% that seems much better to me
hmskrecik
TransMine Group
Gluten Free Cartel
#67 - 2013-07-12 18:02:08 UTC
Sigras wrote:
define much better results . . . my current skill plan is 99% perception willpower and it will take me 376 days 21 hours with my current mapping which is 27 perception 21 willpower +3 implants

with flat skills it will take 444 days 18 hours

That is a savings of 67 days 21 hours or about 15% that seems much better to me

That's fine and that's precisely the reason I plan training queue in advance and remap attributes accordingly. But the question is: what has really been gained?

Is it that after those 376 vs. 444 days you will acquire ability to use some pretty toys? Unless this plan of yours is to fly a Titan, probably the answer is "no". Whatever you want to fly/use you will after maybe 50 to 100 days and the rest of that time will be spent perfecting already trained skills. So in another words, this 67 days gain most likely will effect in how sooner you will get some skills to V level.

Is it important? It is. Is it nice? Of course. Does it matter? Not really, in my opinion. In short time scale the effect is negligible and in the long run it will be very rare, if ever, when the outcome of some situation will depend on whether you have some non-prerequisite skill at IV or at V.

And to give you another perspective: it took me more that 3 years to catch up with friend who is about 3 months older, he has flat attributes while I remap, and we have the same implants.

So what does it mean?

Since we went different paths, it means nothing.

And this is my main point: game wise, attributes don't give any interesting options. Or to use this oh-so-holy argument: they don't yield meaningful consequences. I claim that without them EVE would be exactly the same game.
Taleden
North Wind Local no. 612
#68 - 2013-07-12 22:20:34 UTC
The question is not whether attributes currently make a "significant" difference in training time, the question is whether the difference that they do make is a good and interesting gameplay choice, or a frustrating limitation when people feel compelled to train less interesting skills before more interesting ones just because they can't remap attributes for another X months.

Please also don't make assumptions about what the alternative would be. It doesn't matter at this point what would happen to implants, or whether boosters would be involved, or whether the non-attribute-influenced training speed would be 2250 or 2600 points per hour. Those are all secondary issues we can settle later.

The only question for right now is whether attributes' effect on training time should be changed at all -- that is, it is a net positive or a net negative on the game that you can only choose once per year which subset of skills you can train faster for the next year? My opinion, and that of Ripard and many other posters in this thread, is that as a game mechanic it is more limiting than it is empowering. If you disagree please tell us why, but let's not get sidetracked on details that aren't relevant yet.
Sigras
Conglomo
#69 - 2013-07-12 23:15:45 UTC
It is my opinion that rewarding players for thinking ahead, planning ahead and playing the long game provides additional options and decisions to the game which is a good thing.

If you dont like the way the attributes work, or are too impatient to plan a year in advance, then feel free to remap to a flat attribute profile and train that way because, as hmskrecik just pointed out it really doesnt make that much of a difference, but the point is that it's a decision you have to make. Its a decision you get to make.

Would I be super upset and quit the game if they were removed? no definitely not, but would the game have lost something? Yes, now instead of making a choice, players have the choice made for them, instead of being able to plan and lay out a skill path that gives them a slight edge over someone who didnt put quite as much thought into it as they did, they have no way of gaining that advantage.
Hesod Adee
Perkone
Caldari State
#70 - 2013-07-12 23:23:29 UTC
Gorgoth24 wrote:
While I personally do not use the attribute system to its full potential, EVE has always been a game of choice and specialization. The more specialized you make your skill tree, the more sp you should get.

My two cents

How many roles in Eve require skills from a single combination of attributes ?

Lets look at combat pilots. They will benefit from skills in:
- Drones (mem/per)
- Electronics, engineering, mechanics (int/mem)
- Gunnery, missiles, spaceship command (per, will)
- Navigation (int, per)

How does a new player specialize their attributes for combat when combat skills use so many different attributes ?

I can afford to specialize my attributes because I have trained almost all the skills with attributes other than per/will. Well, until I want to train a capital ship. Then I'll have to ask Evemon which attributes I should set. But I won't need to think about the decision, just get Evemon to calculate some numbers.

This would be a different story if attributes weren't all over the place.

Sigras wrote:
Honestly, this is what the attributes do, they reward people for having patience and forethought; what a tragedy . . .



Lets say you want to fly three different setups. Both setups requires you to train both int/mem skills and per/will skills. Would you prefer to train to get into all three about the same time, or would you prefer to get into the first one quicker ?

The attribute system encourages you to all the int/mem skills first, then remap, then train per/will skills. Meaning that if you do what it encourages, you'll delay how long it takes you into the first setup you want to fly.

Now imagine you're in charge of a PvP corp. You have a fleet doctrine. Which player would you prefer:
- The player who picks one doctrine fit, then only trains for that until they have it.
- The player who takes much longer before they can fly any doctrine ship, because they are optimizing to reduce the time required to fly them all.

I'd prefer the first player. But the attribute system encourages the second.

Chances are the second player would also have the worse time as my understanding is that many nullsec alliances will only reimburse doctrine fits. Fly anything else and you'll have to grind more to afford to replace it. Along with dealing with corpmates who hate him for being unable to fly the fleet doctrine.

This sounds a lot like the core problem of learning skills. Forcing a player to chose between training the most fun skills now or sacrifice fun now so that you'll have more SP later. Assuming the boredom hasn't driven you from Eve in the meanwhile.

Taleden wrote:
The question is not whether attributes currently make a "significant" difference in training time, the question is whether the difference that they do make is a good and interesting gameplay choice, or a frustrating limitation when people feel compelled to train less interesting skills before more interesting ones just because they can't remap attributes for another X months.


I disagree with that. If attributes don't make much difference, there is no way they can be a meaningful choice. So we need to answer if they make a significant difference, because the arguments we should use if they are significant are different to what we use if they aren't.

The way I see it, either they aren't meaningful because they don't have much effect. Or they are a bad mechanic because they don't require much thought (just plug your plan into Evemon) while encouraging bad habits.
Hesod Adee
Perkone
Caldari State
#71 - 2013-07-12 23:24:26 UTC
Sigras wrote:
Yes, now instead of asking Evemon to make a choice for them, players have the choice made for them,


Fixed that for you.
Travasty Space
Pilots of Epic
#72 - 2013-07-13 01:22:20 UTC
Hesod Adee wrote:
How many roles in Eve require skills from a single combination of attributes ?

Lets look at combat pilots. They will benefit from skills in:
- Drones (mem/per)
- Electronics, engineering, mechanics (int/mem)
- Gunnery, missiles, spaceship command (per, will)
- Navigation (int, per)

How does a new player specialize their attributes for combat when combat skills use so many different attributes ?

I can afford to specialize my attributes because I have trained almost all the skills with attributes other than per/will. Well, until I want to train a capital ship. Then I'll have to ask Evemon which attributes I should set. But I won't need to think about the decision, just get Evemon to calculate some numbers.

This would be a different story if attributes weren't all over the place.


Assuming a new player 25-27 per and 23-21 int would what I'd suggest depending on their goal ship. Battleships would have heavier weighting to per while say frig/cruisers would weight heavier to int. And I didn't need evemon for that. Also I'd look at for a new player after a few months(say 6-7) on this remap look at using a bonus remap to spec as at that point he has enough/appropriate skills @ lvl 4 to look at a remap that will give him the lvl 5 skills he wants, likely for the next 6-8 months at which he can look doing another spec remap as the yearly remap has come up and he'll still have the second bonus remap+ maybe a Christmas bonus remap he can use.

Hesod Adee wrote:
Lets say you want to fly three different setups. Both setups requires you to train both int/mem skills and per/will skills. Would you prefer to train to get into all three about the same time, or would you prefer to get into the first one quicker ?

The attribute system encourages you to all the int/mem skills first, then remap, then train per/will skills. Meaning that if you do what it encourages, you'll delay how long it takes you into the first setup you want to fly.

Now imagine you're in charge of a PvP corp. You have a fleet doctrine. Which player would you prefer:
- The player who picks one doctrine fit, then only trains for that until they have it.
- The player who takes much longer before they can fly any doctrine ship, because they are optimizing to reduce the time required to fly them all.

I'd prefer the first player. But the attribute system encourages the second.

Chances are the second player would also have the worse time as my understanding is that many nullsec alliances will only reimburse doctrine fits. Fly anything else and you'll have to grind more to afford to replace it. Along with dealing with corpmates who hate him for being unable to fly the fleet doctrine.


*ARRRRG three ships/Both setups blargy a fleet doctrine/can fly any fleet doctrine blargity*
This is why the attribute rewards planning, do as you say min/max training times or do you flatting your attributes for the best jack of all trades or do you mix the two, options that mean something to each player who does like to put thought into it.

Honestly, I have been in fleets where we haven't had enough 'non-doctrine' ships ie. insta-canes, dictors, tackle frigs FC's love these ships, not too many but a few.

Hesod Adee wrote:
This sounds a lot like the core problem of learning skills. Forcing a player to chose between training the most fun skills now or sacrifice fun now so that you'll have more SP later. Assuming the boredom hasn't driven you from Eve in the meanwhile.


Not really as learning skills forced you to go Int/mem or lose at eve, attributes don't force int/mem you can go per/will of per/int or int/per or mem/per etc. you have options.

I disagree with that. If attributes don't make much difference, there is no way they can be a meaningful choice. So we need to answer if they make a significant difference, because the arguments we should use if they are significant are different to what we use if they aren't.

The way I see it, either they aren't meaningful because they don't have much effect. Or they are a bad mechanic because they don't require much thought (just plug your plan into Evemon) while encouraging bad habits.[/quote]

You do realize eve is a game of percentages and small ones at that, effort(isk) for small % gains is almost a trademark of Eve(hardwires for example). Personally I feel the reward for thinking it out is a meaningful gameplay choice just as picking hardwiring are and that just as an empty clone is the baseline which you improve from at each persons choice flat 17 attributes in each is the baseline from which each person chooses.
supernova ranger
The End of Eternity
#73 - 2013-07-13 05:47:33 UTC
Learning skills being removed was needed because it kept younger players back from training essential skills

Talking about removing attributes is another story entirely as new players have the same choices and advantages as a veteran player.
hmskrecik
TransMine Group
Gluten Free Cartel
#74 - 2013-07-13 08:18:26 UTC  |  Edited by: hmskrecik
Sigras wrote:
It is my opinion that rewarding players for thinking ahead, planning ahead and playing the long game provides additional options and decisions to the game which is a good thing.

I would agree if it was the case.

When you play board games like chess or go, your initial moves decide how the rest of the play will look like.

When you play RPG games, take Fallout for example, your choice of attributes determines what strategies will be usable to you.

In EVE what do we have? 5 attributes, each of them could be one of 11 values and I apologize for not being arsed to calculate all possibilities but it should be safe estimation that it goes in millions. What strategies do we have? Two:
- flat attributes and train as you wish
- train in year-long lumps and optimize for each lump (BTW, even in this case you do not choose attributes, they aren't basis of choice but its effect)

I could get similar results with much simpler mechanics. Just off top of my head, queue commitment: normally skills train at standard rate; when you create year-long queue and commit it, they train at premium rate but queue cannot be changed; if changed, newly added skills train at reduced rate. No, it's not exactly the same but I'm fairly sure it would cover 90% of cases. Without all this attribute-wanking.

And regarding this planning ahead. Everything can get such treatment. I can come up with mechanics which requires you to plan month ahead which solar systems you are going to visit. Or what you're going to buy/sell. Or whom you're gonna shoot. Don't get me started.

The question is what for? The good games have simple choices leading to profound consequences. Bad ones have opposite: bazillion choices of not so different outcomes. Do you see the pattern here?
Travasty Space
Pilots of Epic
#75 - 2013-07-13 08:56:57 UTC
hmskrecik wrote:
Sigras wrote:
It is my opinion that rewarding players for thinking ahead, planning ahead and playing the long game provides additional options and decisions to the game which is a good thing.

I would agree if it was the case.

When you play board games like chess or go, your initial moves decide how the rest of the play will look like.

When you play RPG games, take Fallout for example, your choice of attributes determines what strategies will be usable to you.

In EVE what do we have? 5 attributes, each of them could be one of 11 values and I apologize for not being arsed to calculate all possibilities but it should be safe estimation that it goes in millions. What strategies do we have? Two:
- flat attributes and train as you wish
- train in year-long lumps and optimize for each lump

Just off top of my head I could get similar results with much simpler mechanics. Like queue commitment: normally skills train at standard rate; when you create year-long queue and commit it, it trains at premium rate but cannot be changed; if changed, added skill train at reduced rate. No, it's not exactly the same but I'm fairly sure it would cover 90% of cases. Without all this attribute-wanking.

And regarding this planning ahead. Everything can get such treatment. I can come up with mechanics which requires you to plan month ahead which solar systems you are going to visit. Or what you're going to buy/sell. Or whom you're gonna shoot. Don't get me started.

The question is what for? The good games have simple choices leading to profound consequences. Bad ones have opposite: bazillion choices of not so different outcomes. Do you see the pattern here?


Can't reasonably compare Eve to Fallout or any other MMO in terms of skill system that I've seen.

Two? such narrow-mindedness, In my previous posts I've shown at least 4 different strategies:
Pure Spec - ie. 27 per/21 will
Focused Spec - ie. 27 per/21 int
Focused Spilt - ie. 24 per/24 int
Balanced - ie. 21 per/21 will/ 21 int/ 21 mem

Bad Idea as for example I could legitimately see putting year long queues into my 3 accounts and not playing.

Troll examples are troll, lets give a better RL example of skill queues. Remapping choices are like bonds, different bonds give different % return over a duration based on the their duration or time for them to mature. Unlike a bank account/savings account you don't have access to this money for the duration of the bond. For these bonds you might get say 5%/year return over 1 year or you can get 6%/year over 3 years or maybe 8%/year over 5 years. Are the extra gains on the amount worth the extra time your money is locked away? That is up to each person, as noted many times in this thread if you don't think so you can remap to a flat remap and ignore it with no loss to you. For those of us that find it worthwhile quit trying to fashion the sandbox around yourself.
Alexila Quant
Versatility Production Corporation' LLC
#76 - 2013-07-13 09:16:34 UTC
I don't care for the idea.
Attributes give you the specialization advantage. If you specialize you can do well in a particular area quickly. If it were made such that every skill trains at the same speed no matter what you'd just end up a year down the road with new players asking for a way to make skills train faster. Leave it in. It doesn't really hurt the gameplay in any meaningful way, it makes you feel like you have a way to train quicker (even though you really don't) and it isn't that complex a concept to grasp so that's not an argument in which I see any merit.
hmskrecik
TransMine Group
Gluten Free Cartel
#77 - 2013-07-13 10:19:54 UTC
Travasty Space wrote:
Can't reasonably compare Eve to Fallout or any other MMO in terms of skill system that I've seen.

No, can't. That's why I didn't make blow-by-blow comparison. I just used it to ilustrate a principle: the hallmark of a good game is having simple choices deeply affecting the play. EVE has many of those and in my opinion attributes do not belong to them.

Quote:
Two? such narrow-mindedness, In my previous posts I've shown at least 4 different strategies:
Pure Spec - ie. 27 per/21 will
Focused Spec - ie. 27 per/21 int
Focused Spilt - ie. 24 per/24 int
Balanced - ie. 21 per/21 will/ 21 int/ 21 mem

Nice, make it twelve, I have good mood today. How it still compares to millions of combinations you can set attributes at?

Quote:
lets give a better RL example of skill queues. Remapping choices are like bonds,

Frankly, I don't get this example but it's not important. Your observation is correct: remapping binds, or to use example from my earlier post, remapping is commitment. I have no problem with this idea. With idea of bond/commitment. My only objection is why do we need to juggle all these numbers for that?

Look, with all this choices-and-consequences mantra, YOU DO NOT CHOOSE YOUR ATTRIBUTES. Instead, you choose your training strategy, the contents of your training queue, or lack of. Attributes are just calculated afterwards and only set. They are no-choice and thus they are just needless complexity.

Alexila Quant wrote:
It doesn't really hurt the gameplay in any meaningful way, it makes you feel like you have a way to train quicker (even though you really don't) and it isn't that complex a concept to grasp so that's not an argument in which I see any merit.

I agree with that. As I stated it couple of times, with or without them the game would be pretty much the same. Which doesn't change the fact that game design wise they are redundant.
Godhevel I
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#78 - 2013-07-13 17:26:07 UTC
Arya Regnar wrote:
-1 to this entire idea.
Removing diversity from complex game ruins it.

And yes, choices.


Yes, because those attributes add so much complexity! I wonder what that complexity is though;

'To remap or not to remap for these skills, that is the question!'

That is about as far as ANYONE uses them before.

My opinion; Don't remove them, make them even better at what they were supposed to do, and give people remaps every 6 months or something.
Snopzet
Inglourious Squirrels
That Escalated Quickly.
#79 - 2013-08-13 17:53:39 UTC  |  Edited by: Snopzet
The OP and Ripard Teg had many good points already, but since the attribute remapping stuff bugs me to hell currently, I like to add my opinion, too.

1. problem wrote:
Let 's say I'm playing EVE for some years now and finally I like to fly a carrier, because this is a game about space ships, you know (hypothetical statement, no one wants to fly a carrier).

Minmatar Carrier requires:

  • Captial Ships (Perception/Willpower)
  • Minmatar Battleship (Perception/Willpower)
  • Drone Interfacing (Memory/Perception)
  • Jump Fuel Conservation (Intelligence/Perception)
  • Jump Drive Calibration (Intelligence/Perception)


To be a useful carrier pilot you need additionally:

  • A lot of drone skills (Memory/Perception)
  • Triage, Emission- and Repair-Systems (Intelligence/Memory)
  • A brain (mostly Intelligence/Memory, Charisma is overrated)


I need 1 year to get these skills to a proper level and I have only one remap left , so I need to make a "balanced" remap... Now the game punishes me, because I want to progress in my space ship experience to the next level, by slowing down my training time. I don't get it.

Another assumption: I'm a clever boy and I have a skill plan to reduce the wasted time. But the primary carrier skill is at the end of that plan. So I will be able to enter the Carrier in one year and at that time I'll have "perfect" skills. But I would be more happy to fly it in 3 months with minimal skills... (maybe not for pvp).

This is just an example, but it applies to most ships and it affects beginners extremely, since they MUST cross-train.

2. problem wrote:
Implant-sets... I don't use them. Low-grades have +2 attribute modifier (I prefer +4) and High-grades are too expensive for me. I admit, a low-sec PVPer could say now: "Either your ship performs better or you learn faster. You can't have both". Well, then I would say: "So, the game mechanics punish me, because I want to make PVP!?"

To be clear: I don't care how fast I train a skill, as long as everyone trains it equally fast/slow, and I don't like to be bound to a "skill plan". CPP adds a new skill or I change my mind, so I want to switch my current skill training, without worrying about wasting time. Big smile
Phaade
LowKey Ops
Snuffed Out
#80 - 2013-08-13 18:58:42 UTC
+1. Attributes do nothing of value to Eve. http://jestertrek.blogspot.com/2011/10/death-to-attributes.html is right on the money.

I would prefer attributes that add .5 - 1% per point to effectiveness of skills requiring those skills. Stats would be reduced to a max of 5% bonus. This would make attributes mean something to your pilot, like 5% max velocity vs 5% turret damage. Things like this would add WAY more value to the game than the current system.