Assembly Hall

Curious of why Eve does not allow PLEX to skill conversion. Meaning 1 x30 day PLEX traded for 30 days worth of normal skill training time or even like 70% of what a person would normally train during that time but as unallocated skill points to be used where the player wants them. Since null space and low sec are dominated by players who have played for 1 to 10 years as a new player you really are stuck in high sec for years until your gunnery skills etc are up to par enough to not be podded in low sec.

This creates the feeling of i really came in to this game to late to enjoy it as a new player and really questions whether i or a new person should continue to play it at this point and is it worth waiting in high sec running missions for years before your able to venture off in to low sec. The issue with this never ending problem is the fact that combat is driven by skills. Each skill lowers your amount of damage and at the same time strengthen's your gunnary and hit points per level. If some one has say 20 mil skill points in gunnary and a new person only has say 5 mil than its a pretty certain deal whos going to win unless the old school player just flopped and did something stupid which cost them the fight but the chances of that with skills its going to be minimal.

As a new player i would love to be able to work for ISK and than be able to buy a plex on the market for it to trade it for skills, or even pay 20 dollars to Eve to save me 1 month worth of waiting for a couple skills to train to a certain level. With the ever growing issue of this eve eventually will face certain death (or only be played by them who are trying it out or don't want to use a PLEX for game time who have been in it for years) since this makes it almost pointless for new people to join while at the same time only ensuring people who have played for years continues to stay on which sucks because eve is a good game, its just boring as hell having to wait for skills to train for months.

The only other option is to mine for months on end hoping of buying a possible eve charactor with the high skills to get you in to null sec and survive for atleast a few minutes. Just something to think about i hope. This marks my 4th time coming back to eve to give it another shot since the plex system came out but im afraid im boring easily by mining and running missions with the hope of one day being able to fly in null sec or low sec with out the never ending fear that there is a 99.9% chance i'll end up podded because my characters are only a year old or newer.

Don't take this as me dinging EVE because of my laziness to play the game and enjoy it. I do enjoy the game as it is, however it seems new players 1 year or fewer are at a disadvantage over the general population of eve who have played for years.

To me it just seems in a business profitability mind frame Eve would make it better for both new comers AND old schoolers. If this was JUST a game and not a business who cares right?? but since it is a both, and eve's future rests on eve staying alive building in more people every day who end up using PLEX for game time ultimately avoiding the cost of playing will eventually kill eve and force eve to shutdown unless the company can shift the profit sources correctly.

This is just a idea to built upon that. You can't let 2 to 10 year old characters dominate 0.0 sec or 0.1 so on for 2 years making it entirely impossible for a new person to enjoy the game. Since high sec is also some what dangerous space but not as much as low by any means this also questions again whether its worth it unless your multi boxing BUT AGAIN there are them who hunt down multi boxers alone in high sec with them targeted, hulks etc a portion of your old player base is truly stopping eve from being what it should be.

With that said this is not a rant :P but more a idea to strengthen the game a little more for new comers and old schoolers if the players agree to use the PLEX to Skill conversion.

Well first off, as i said. Its not a rant......So please re-read it as it is simply a way for Eve to make more profit and bring IN newbs to keep that you are hunting...lowering the thought of this is a pointless game and a waste of my time that newb will have.

Also nothing keeps you from buying X plex's and getting all skills in the game if you can afford to buy that many plex's and would like to use them for that. So lets say with +5 improved implants with a avg skill points of 2400 per hour times 24 hours = 57,000 skill points. Now 57,000 times 7 days = 403,200 skill points. One last time, 403,200 times 28 days worth of game time = 1,612,800 skill points for 550m ISK OR $20 dollars.

So lets look at a average 10 year old character - 120 million skill points divided by 1612800 = 74. 74. That is the amount of PLEX's you would need to gain 120 million skill points. Now lets do this in USD cash. 74 X 20 USD = $1,480. This also comes to 37 Billion worth of ISK. So if YOUR that rich...please be my guest and dish out $1500 dollars on the game or If you can make 37 Billion ISK to pay for skills than also be my guess, but lets not forget this is basically already being done on character bazaar.

"The only difference here is, eve makes a profit off of it and new comers have something to drive towards when mining knowing they won't be able to go in to low sec etc any time with in the near future. Thanks.

Because Pay-To-Win will kill Eve. End of story!

You are telling like this is something but this done relatively easy by farming sites in nulls with couple of tenga alts, or sweeping wormholes with capital gangs. Like a billion per day or two, its not so hard. If you have an access to specific tools and really motivated to do such a money, you'll be able to, without any magic. So basically its no go as too many will be able to rocket up their leveling progress.
But, from other poing of view, its already here. Any noob can buy a few PLEXes, accumulate some isks by selling them and purchase an already skilled character on the char market (and many do so). And here is a problem I can aknowledge - this character may happen to be far from what buyer would wanted to aquire. Unneeded skills, wrong specializations, that stuff. And in EVE we already have a well developed production line of chars for selling, run by ordinary players. So, by allowing to inject some SPs into newly created character to some reasonable extent (like 1 or 2 mills SPs max) we would hardly break anything aside from the fact that CCP by doing so will dominate this market and cut these character raisers' profits severely. But new players would still (if they want to and ready to pay for this in real cash) be able to get their already developed (to some extent) character AND could choose which exaclty skill build it must has. And CCP would get additional money from additional PLEXes. Seems not so bad to me.

Case in point within 1 week (over 4 years ago) I joined nulsec. This character has almost never been in hi sec. Just because you're new doesn't mean you can't jump straight into the deep end.

In fact I'd argue the game is easier if you do as your mentality gets adjusted straight away that everything you have you can lose.

I am copy-pasting my usual spiel...

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The skill and ship class system is ingeniously designed such that newbies CAN compete while providing veteran players with perks that give an edge here and there... but nothing so brokenly overpowered that a newbie has no chance.


- All skills cap at level 5. No matter how many years you have played the game, you cannot exceed that limit. And lower level skills (ex. [Racial] Frigate) are very quick to train relative to more advanced skills (5 to 7 days for frigate level 5? Try getting cruiser to level 5. Or Battlecruiser. Or battleship. Those are 30+ day skills. Same applies for all their respective weapon systems too).

- Only a limited number of skills affect any one ship, module, weapon system, and specialty at any given time.
Ex1: Someone you are facing has about 20 million SP, but how much of that overall SP is actually combat related? He/she could be a HUGE industrial player with limited combat skills.
Ex2: A veteran player has just trained up the skill Large Hybrid Turret to level 5. That skill in no way affects the skill Small Hybrid Turret and thus the veteran will be no better or worse than before at the frigate level.

- Getting a skill from level 4 to level 5 only adds on an extra 2% here, 5% there (exceptions apply). If you simply train up all the skills within a specialty to level 4 (which takes ~17% of the amount of time it takes to get those skills to level 5), you will find yourself flying at about 80 to 90% of the effectiveness of a multi-year veteran with those same skills in that specific specialty at level 5 (which is something that can be easily overcome with the right module or tactic).

- Getting a skill to level 5 is supposed to be a painful train. Many players (yes, even veteran ones) opt to avoid doing it and instead train up other skills to level 4 (again, because it's faster).

- Ships and weapons have been balanced against one another.
Ex: A battleship can potentially instapop a frigate... but the frigate can fly very fast, making it difficult for the battleship's weapons to track, especially at very close range... then again, the battleship can deploy drones to deal with the frigate... and the frigate can shoot the drones down... however the battleship might have a Large Energy Neutralizer fitted to nuke the frigate's capacitor power every 24 seconds... in which case the frigate could use a Small Nosferatu that sucks out capacitor from the battleship every 3 seconds... etc. etc.

- High tech equipment (ex. T2, Faction, Officer, etc) will not confer a player "I WIN" abilities. They simply give a player a linear edge at an exponentially higher cost.
Ex: A group of two or three T1-fit frigates that cost about 500 thousand to 1 million ISK CAN kill a faction frigate worth about 50 to 100 million ISK... provided they are using the right mods in the right configuration and know what they are doing.


tl;dr...
- the point of the skill system is to force you to learn the game's mechanics and nuances in cheaper equipment and ships... that way when you DO gain access to more expensive equipment and ships, you know HOW to use them properly (and won't cry as much when they die).

- you DO NOT NEED to have level 5 in any specific skill to be competitive. Having level 5 in a skill is simply an edge (exception: when it is required for something else).

- more SP is not indicative of a pilot's ability. It just means that the pilot has more options in what he/she can do.

- smaller and cheaper ships tend to be more flexible and have more tactical options than larger, more expensive ships.

- no one ship is superior to everything in the game. Even Titans, the largest ship in the game, has an Achilles heel; smaller ships.


Now... for the meat of your ideas...


Read up on how Goonswarm came to power. Say what you want about them... but they literally waged wars using the "zerg rush" tactic in cheap, and often ****-fit, equipment in addition to cunning diplomacy (which doesn't require any in-game character skills). Currently they dominate null-sec and still still use the same tactics... because they are so goddamn effective.


Correct me if I'm wrong, but you seem not to understand how PLEX works.

Players buy PLEX (in RL) and then sell them to other players (in-game). Whether it's a subscription or PLEX, CCP still gets their money.

Another way to look at it is: people who sell PLEX on the market are paying for the subscriptions of others in exchange for ISK.



And as others have stated... introducing PLEX for SP won't help newbies at all.
- Older players (especially the powerful ones out in null-sec) will be able to afford more PLEXes than any newbie will and still stay ahead in terms of total SP.
- It will make newbies think that more SP = more powerful (which I showed above as false)
- It deprives the newbie of the painful experiences of being "new"... which is necessary as it teaches newbies how to work with what they have rather than just throw money at the problem.
- In fact... it makes the beginning experiences of newbies MORE painful as they will throw their best stuff into a situation and wind up losing it due to lack of experience.

Mike is referring to this.

New pilots have plenty to do in eve with proper guidance. My corp Proves this most every day. It's just a matter of people wanting to stick out 7-14 day trains in there first few few months.

I'm invoking that one law by that one player who may be in this thread already.

The idea, ostensibly to help new players, is going to help the old and the rich far more - they can buy the plex with isk earned from their moon goo, or marketeering, or industrial empire, or null/wh sites, etc in order to skip past training time