Player Features and Ideas Discussion

11/10/2013 update
13/11/2013 another update

As mentioned in the Certificate Dev Blog, we are bringing in new certificates for Winter.

This thread is for you to have a look at how they are edited, which skills are inside and in which order.

For this, we are going to use external application for you to look at an Excel Sheet with all the changes.


How to get the file:

1. If you haven't, please read the Certificate Dev Blog first.


2. Go to this link.


3. Don't try to read the file from the window that pops-up, it's garbled data since Google Docs doesn't like Excel formatting apparently.


4. Instead, in the upper-left corner, go to "file" and then select "download"


5. Save the file to your hard drive, and open it.

OMG Ytterbium, the file is full of stuff and I'm getting lost! Please help us, Ytter Wan Kenobi, you are my only hope:

• The "Certificates" tab lists all the revamped certificates. Each certificate is listed with a colored header depending on their type. Under each certificate you can see the various skills needed to unlock each level.


• Still under the "Certificates" tab, you also have a small colored chart that lists all the certificates by category.


• The "descriptions" is just me writing a bunch of non-finalized text. Pass your way as they are not official right now.


• The "Amarr", "Caldari", "Gallente", "Minmatar", "ORE", "Pirates", "Special & Utility" tabs list all the ships that the previous certificates have been assigned to, by mastery level. To quickly find a ship, press CTRL+F and type the name you want (you still need to be in the proper tab)


• For example, if you look at the "Oracle", under the "Amarr" tab, you will see it has the Large Energy Turret Certificate, Armor Tanking, Shield Reinforcement (level5 mastery only), Targeting, Navigation and Core Ship Operation Certificates. Since Masteries match the Certificate level, that means the Oracle would get for Mastery level 1 for all Certificates level 1 mentioned above (except shield reinforcement, which is not listed until level5).

Some things to keep in mind when looking at this:

• This is based on an internal document, so expect typos, and not perfect formatting.


• Elite / level 5 Certificates and Masteries are supposed to be extremely demanding. Unlocking one means you have trained all the skills affecting this particular field, even more or less relevant skills tied to rigs.


• We are aware that some skills may not be relevant to you personally, or your specific gameplay / activity type. It is absolutely impossible to make this list perfectly match everyone needs: certificates listed there are supposed to be a general guiding tool for players to follow, not a precisely attuned tool for specialized corporations (that's where corporation created certificates would come in handy).

Confused? Lost in the dark with no ammo left in the shotgun and surrounded by creepy sounds? Just wait until this is released to Singularity to bypass this file and directly look at this from the EVE client.

I am questioning the necessity of having outpost construction 3 for the manufacturing level 3 certificate. Living in high sec I will never need outpost construction skills.

This means that with all my tech 2 construction skills optimized I'll never be more than a mediocre manufacturer. I'm sure you can argue in favor of having that skill there, but I don't see how that's a useful suggestion for new players trying to make a living in manufacturing.

Please read this post :)

Oh what the hell, I'll quote myself:

Why not more industrial certificates? Why only one very basic mining certificate?

It would also be helpful to have something like the (bad!) old profession certificates. For example, a wormhole exploration certificate that would have some basic scanning skills plus basic combat skills, as a way of focusing new player's training.

I like the cleanup, makes me feel like CCP touched me somewhere and now everything is better.

Is there a reason shield tanking mastery 5 only requires tactical shield manipulation 4? Seems inconsistent with the other mastery 5 certificates which seem to want level 5 for everything.

Other feedback: Supercarriers are missing a project ewar cert. According to EFT, I think only the projected ecm skill matters for the remote ECM burst, but everything else has all the "special" modules as part of their mastery.

Titans and blops also don't have any jump portal stuff in their masteries.

Why no tackling on amarr/caldari force recon (and on the curse)? Seems kinda important to catch people with them.

Why a cert for sensor linking, but none for remote tracking links? Also, why does the Oneiros get the sensor linking cert? Perhaps you meant that cert to be for tracking links?

lol I didn't even notice that. I'm sure they'll fix it right away.

I do like that you are paring down the list of certificates, and I like the masteries much better than the previous recommendation system which was only marginally better.



I think certs get a bit too broad at the top levels perhaps; they don't need to include EVERY skill under the sun. I appreciate the fact you can't tailor the certificates to every single ship an have made the strokes too broad avoiding doing that. For example, maxing out the Navigation certificate requires micro jump drive operation, this means to master every ship in the game you need micro jump drive operation V, but there's only a couple of dozen ships that can even use it. It's one thing to have one or two ships require a cert that has one or two skills that aren't applicable, but in this case there's far more ships it doesn't apply to than does. Given that, you probably should tweak things so the specialized skills aren't in the certificate.

Now, micro jump drive operation should still be required for mastering battleships even having been removed as a requirement for other ships. Here's how you can do it. Option A is to allow certs to have qualifiers, for instance if you train MJD operation to V then your top level navication certification will then say Navigation V w/ Micro-Jump Drive and most ships will require navigation V for mastery while battleships will require Navigation V w/ Micro-Jump Drive. The other alternative is to require both certificates and un-grouped skills, so to master all ships would require all your certs at V for that ship including navigation but battleships would, in addition to all the cert requirements, list MJD operation as a requirement.

Yes I know it does get a bit more complicated, but it better represents how the game plays without requiring you to bend over backwards making a ton of certificates. Part of the problem with some certifications is a certain bit of non-applicability in some cases that actually serves to mislead a player; for instance a lot of people ignore the core certificates now because a few of them include skills you don't actually need. For example multitasking only comes in to play with a few ships like logis that can actually target that many ships, and if you are revamping certificates you should at least try to reduce that a bit (and I do see you have removed multitasking from the targeting cert, but you then just added that problem back in elsewhere with MJD operation in nav). Again, it doesn't matter when a skill doesn't apply to a few ships out of hundreds, but if it doesn't apply to the majority of ships, then it shouldn't be in their certifications.

Going a bit back from the thank you for paring down certs, it might not be bad to have some (possibly hidden) sub certs. For instance large missiles certification includes torpedoes and cruise missiles, perhaps there could be a sub certification for each launcher type. Normally the player would just see large Missiles III for example, but they could do a show info on it or something and see they have Large missiles III (Torpedoes III, Cruise Missiles VI). This would also change bombers a bit, right now they have a certificate specific to the class, which I think goes a bit in the face of not over-specifying certs; if there were sub-certifications, you could have bombers require Torpedoes w/Bomb Deployment rather than having a wholly separate certification cluttering things up that is specific to just those 4 ships. it also eliminates some redundancy; again stealth bomber missiles is largely redundant with large launchers only differing with the replacement of cruise missiles with bombs, and the armor/shield support certificates don't contain anything the associated tanking skills don't

By having sub certifications and extra qualifications you could keep your certificate down and have the top level be fairly straightforward and easy to understand for new players but still have good granularity for experienced players to delve in to and also allow certificates to fit ships better.


As for my thoughts on the specific certs:
Most of them look good. I already mentioned the problem with nav in that Micro Jump Drive operation is too narrow. Similarly outpost construction shouldn't really be included in manufacturing (if you go with the above suggestions then someone who can build an outpost would have Manufacturing V w/Outpost Construction). I think harvesting needs work too. first of all, I am not convinced mining and gas harvesting should be lumped together; I personally think gas mining should have its own cert separate from mining. In addition to that problem, I believe the level V cert actually only represents about the middle of mining efficiency since it doesn't have the skills to use T2 crystals, though I admit the only fix I can think of is folding refining into it making that cert redundant for miners.

Also if you go along with the idea of certification qualifiers, the remote armor rep and remote shield rep certificates can be added in as a qualifier for the tanking abilities since the only skill the remote rep certs require that the tanking does not is the module skill. So most caldari ships need shield tanking, basilisk needs shield tanking w/ remote shield repair. If you do sub-certifications, you could have shield/armor support be sub-certifications. On a side note in some places it says armor/shield support in others it says armor/shield reinforcement; you need to pick a name.

I also don't think research and datacores are a good idea, having them separate is a bit redundant since to do invention and reverse engineering you need both certs at about the same level anyway. you might just roll the certificates into one, or you could redistribute them so there's separate certifications for t1 research, t2 invention and t3 reverse engineering.

CCP Ytterbium, you must have drawn the short straw for this iteration of rebalance. I do not envy you this task. That is a boat load of info to go through. Good luck.

In my mind, level 1 is the minimum requirements to use said items. Level 2 is better. Level 3 is required for the next size up and is natural progression for T1. Level 4 is required for T2 and shows dedication to the item. Level 5 is elite and should be full of 5s, but not those skills that aren't really relevant or could be in another group.

To that end I think perhaps the industrial certs could be a bit more granular.

Sentry Drone Interfacing 5 for all combat drones 4? And a separate category for all the different kinds of drones, except sentries? Seems the split there was along the lines of light/medium and then heavy/sentry. With the only differences being the heavy and sentry skills.

Why not just eliminate the scout category and have combat drones category with the relevant skills rolled in?

Honestly, the entire drone skill tree and naming scheme needs to be looked at. But that is a project for another expansion.

Also, no mention of Advanced Weapons Upgrades skill in stealth bomber missile certs? Plz, that is an absolute must. Some fits are not even possible without either AWU 5 or PG implants.