Player Features and Ideas Discussion

This is a program I thought of that would allow people who were unsubscribed from the game for a period of time to be able to purchase those skill points they missed back from CCP. This idea does NOT allow people to simply buy SP on a new character.

Let me explain. (This is best done with an example)

Lets say you created your character on 1/1/2010. You played for a full year before something happened that made you stop playing for a while, lets say you stopped playing on 3/1/2011. Now, you have just returned to the game playing on the same character you created in 2010. So your character is 44 months old total, but it has only been active for 14 months of that time. So you are missing 30 months worth of SP that you would have had if you had an active account that entire time. You would be able to spend 30 PLEX which is $450 USD or 16.8 billion ISK to get 43,200,000 SP.

The idea of this program is that you would be able to spend 1 PLEX to gain 1 months worth of SP back ONLY from the time you missed out on. So you are still spending the same amount of money as you would have if you had an active account (so no one is getting cheated here).

The question becomes at what rate of SP do you get back for 1 PLEX. Although CCP would have to determine a far rate, I would suggest something along the lines of 2,000 SP/HR (a far lower rate than optimal), and assuming a 30 day month that would give 1,440,000 SP per PLEX. Again, this is only for months a character missed in training.

In my personal opinion, this really has no down side. CCP still gets the same amount of money they would have if the person had had an active account. The rate awarded is a much lower rate than possible with optimal attributes, so people that had active accounts will still have more SP for the same amount of time. And, the people that use this service don't instantly become rich, so having the skills won't do them much good until they learn to make ISK (which people with active accounts had been doing all along).

A common thing some people have said to this idea when talking with people is that its a stupid idea and people should have just had a subscription that entire time. My only comment to that is that some people may have had real life issues or other things to attend to. But they still should be rewarded for being dedicated enough to have started a character and played before, and they are willing to spend the normal rate to gain back when they missed now that they are able to play again.

No one has been able to tell me how this would adversely affect the game.

I really want to make a point of saying that this is not a way for new characters to simply buy SP and become an awesome player, it is a way of providing SP to old characters who missed out because they were not subbed for whatever reason.

TL:DR

What this is:
- A way for old characters to PURCHASE AT FULL PRICE SP back for months they were not subbed.
What this is not:
- A way for new characters to buy as many SP as they want.

Comments / suggestions welcome, please keep them constructive - I don't want this to turn int a flame thread.

Suppose then you set requirements such as the need for a specific amount of active game time before being able to purchase SP, or by allowing you to only purchase 1 month at a time and forcing you to allocate that month before purchasing another month.

EDIT: Something along the lines of having to have 1 month of regular subscription time for each month you can buy back.

And considering that leveling skills up is not skill or grind based as in other games and is purely based on time, I would disagree and say that creating your account prior to someone else most definitely entitles you to more SP.

Why?

Why does someone who plays for 3 months, unsubs for 3 months, and subs for another 3 deserve more skillpoints than someone who plays for 6 months straight?

yeah, i have 2 03 characters and an 04 toon.

several times due to deployment to iraq or for whatever reason (boredom maybe), i had to unsub. this would allow me to go from 134m to 250m sp over night. of course it would break me.

i have a couple extra toons who have been in noob corps on the same account i could pull onto another account and pay to bring them up. this would give me 6 or so 250 mill sp toons.

do you really think thats fair?
now you're talking about people selling 1mil sp alt toon (who are old) for billions because the new owner can buy sp and train him exactly how they want...

super focused titan pilot, here we come.

A lot of your points could be fixed by my previous reply in which you need 1 month of regular sub time for each month you purchase.

With this, I don't see the system being able to be abused, because you would have to be a dedicated player to take full advantage of the program.

And when you ask if I think its fair, yes. I really see no difference between that and someone who subbed the entire time since you are paying the same amount, perhaps more for those who sub for extended periods of time. You also would be getting less SP per month than someone who had a regular sub for the same amount of time, perhaps even reduce it down below my suggestion 2,000/hr to something like 1,750/hr.

You're going to have to do a whole lot better than that justification, since the exact same line of reasoning (Paying X amount of money should get you Y skillpoints) can be followed through to allow for straight up purchasing of skillpoints.

difference between skill remap and buy back.

a remap should be able to take place everytime you get podded.
think about it and use the matrix for a reference.

someone is plugged into a computer. they get fed data bits directly to the brain. once you die, that info is moved into your new clone. whats to say you dont have an "alteration file" on standby to intercept and change a few skills?
all you have to do is buy the books, inject em into your clone, select the level of taining you should be at and then wait to be killed.

when it happens, as your brain is being transmitted through space and into the host computer for implementation, something is removed, something is added.

ccp wants to remove isk from the game, ok great, we buy tons of skill books, custom tailor a clone and wait for that clone to die. once it is killed, you have something different trained. your brain never knows the difference. its along with same lines as a neural remap.

we could potentially tie up tons of isk in skill books..

see a new ship come out today? get the skill book, inject it, die and you will be able to fly it today. the cost of skill books would be the balacing factor here. who wants to waste all that money on buying carrier books, then dread for tomorrow, then carrier and rorqual...
but, if you did make an error and train up marauder, then you can pay to unlearn the skill and implement something else.

could be a black market thing and have a hefty price tag.

who knows.

So, why does this thread not read "Allow people to buy skillpoints"?

Furthermore, I never said that I thought character trading was a good mechanic.

seems to me you havent been around to see how folks exploit things either. no offense..

ive seen entire corps kicked out because they were making t2 moon goo reactions without ingredients. they had like 96 moons tied up using exploits and making free cash. tons and tons of cash.

there are some loop holes in the game that i think are exploits, but they were designed to be there by ccp and so my friends abuse em.

the ability to take a no skill point character (from 07 or 05) and send ccp $1280 bux and buy a titan pilot is rediculus.
for one, that only benefits the wealthy.
two, with todays skill monitors and whatnot, you could custom tailor a freakin beast. in the old days, we didnt know better so it was hit and miss. we have things trained we have never used or just used once.

but my pilots have been around, learned their skills and made their bones the hard way and for you to take a new char, send ccp $1200 bux and be maxed out is just dumb. i have put time into this game. helped it grow through this forum and the test server.
you cant just come along and double my sp for a little money.

and for you to think this would go over well with the old timers here means you arent in touch with the players or the game for that matter.

No SP enter the game when someone buys a character from another player. The SP (as a big, unchangeable lump) are just transferred from one player to another. What you're suggesting is the possibility of a mass injection of SP into the system, and it doesn't really make it better that you're trying to limit it, especially since the limiting factor is the more-or-less arbitrary "people who have had idle accounts".

You're going to have a hard time convincing even a modest minority of people that older characters with idle gaps in their account are entitled to anything more than a character who's been active for just as long.

(For the record, I'd benefit from this suggestion... I'd be able to buy at least a year's worth of SP. And I still think it's a bad idea.)