Player Features and Ideas Discussion

I'm a relatively young player, with my oldest account having just around 21 million skill points. Having had sufficient money to splurge out on a couple of alts (logistics and missioning), I'd like to point out some issues I have with the way skill training works right now.

First a couple of disclaimers:

a) This character was born in 2009, when learning skills were still a thing. This current system is definitely WAY BETTER than what it used to be.

b) All my complaints are from the POV of a combat-focused pilot. I don't know about the training path for mining, manufacturing, station trading, or anything else.

The Introduction

So, currently if you wish to fly a combat pilot, you will need to train some or all of these skills (I'm including logistics under the banner of combat). I've tried to arrange them roughly in order of their importance:

1. Relevant Spaceship Command skills for the hulls you want to fly (Per/Wil)
2. Fitting skills such as Electronics or Weapon Upgrades (Usually Int/Mem, but WU and AWU are Per/Wil)
3. Capacitor, Rep/Remote Rep and T2 Tank (Int/Mem)
4. Weapon system of choice (Per/Wil) and/or Drones (Mem/Per)
5. EWAR ( Int/Mem ) and Navigation (Int/Per)

A minor mention is the Social skills if you're going to focus on missioning, but they don't really affect your combat viability so I'll ignore them.

The Problem

Now, that's 4 different mappings (1 more than a new char gets) to optimize training for any given ship, and optimizing training really means you won't be able to fly it properly until atleast a decent part of Fittings + Weapons + Tank skills are done. This means you have to choose between spreading out your mapping and training with lower SP/hour to fly something and wait even longer for those skills that need to train to V, or optimize your mapping, and end up with a pilot that has Amarr Cruiser V and Logi V, but has to stay docked for another month or so while all the tank/capacitor support skills reach a reasonable level.

Basically, the current mapping system favors older players. On this account, I have no trouble mapping to optimize training, because I already have t2 tank, and good cap skills, and can fly most of the hulls I like, so I can dedicate several months or more to a mapping to fill out some high-ranked skills to V. However, for my alts, it's a source of a lot of frustration. My drone alt in particular has the most trouble because Drone skills are Mem/Per vs ship/weapons (Per/Wil) and support (Int/Mem). Drone-focused pilots need Sentry drone interfacing V, Drone Interfacing V, heavy Drones V, all of which are rank 5 (20-23day) skills.

TL;DR Because of the difference in attributes between fitting/support skills vs weapon/ship skills vs drone skills, a new pilot is forced to choose between using remaps, maximizing SP/hour and waiting a long time to fly a ship, or spreading attributes out, being able to fly something reasonably soon, but increasing training time for everything. Older pilots don't suffer so much from this.

A Proposed Solution

Scrap the attribute system and just have a flat training rate :P

Or, instead of attributes, use Career Paths. Each skill can belong to one or more career paths (eg "Small Projectile Turret" will belong to Combat, but "Energy Grid Upgrades" will belong to Combat and Mining). Instead of remapping attributes, you can choose/change your current Career Path, and all associated skills will receive a bonus in training speed.

Doc Fury sacrificed another kitten.

Hm, I was sure that I'd clicked "New Topic" while browsing Features and Ideas, but I had multiple tabs open and may have gotten mixed up. Can I request a move? Or should I just repost?

New players already get 2 remaps available as a bonus. Utilising those is a good idea. Plus with the 80/20 rule, most skills only need to be 4 to be effective. I've made fresh week old characters that are already viable for combat.

In other words, you want optimal training for your focus (Combat, Exploration, Mining, Industry or Trade).

You can basically optimize for Fitting + a focus - and twice at that.

A few attribute points account for a few thousand skill points per day; by the time this adds up to enough to put you at a "disadvantage" you're going to be years old and no longer a "newer player."

Remaping for per/int for the first year is really not that bad.

what would be the objection not to do this? it will help out new players in a way i dont see as bad. hell it is good for everybody

Yes but this is my point. Attributes aren't really allowing them to focus on what they want from this game, because if I want to do pvp, I need a set of skills across int/mem, per/wil, mem/per and int/per mappings.

My post was pointing out the fact that if I think before I invest time into skills i.e I try to train via an ideal per/wil mapping for ships/weapons, and then switching to int/mem for support/tank, I have to wait even longer for my ship to be ready to fly. I have to choose between high sp/hr or getting to play the game at some level sooner. This is a bad choice to make.

My suggestion with the "career paths" still keeps the element of character specialization and focus, while not having the problem of punishing you for optimizing sp/hour

I feel too that the attributes (and even the learning implants) have become unnecessary clutter. It's just a legacy from the old character creation system, where you had to chose a specific race and gender to get the attributes you wanted. I'm glad we got rid of that system.

I'm also glad the learning skills were removed.

Don't confuse complexity with clutter, let's get rid of the attributes. They were a must have of RPGs of the '90s, but the implementation into eve was so bad. Usually attributes in an RPG would have a direct effect on your character, not so in eve. In eve the attributes just define how fast you can gain a skill. Once you have the skill the attributes mean nothing. Let's scrap them.

J.

Yeah, I see your point. I think the system could probably be made less punishing but I don't know if I'd want that. Eve is a punishing game and I like it that way.