Assembly Hall

i just watched the video for the upcoming new patch and when listening to the section on certificates i had a thought of a way to reward players who reach level 5 for a certifigate group.

the devs talked about players wanting to become "awesome" by getting all the skills in the new certificate groups skilled so they can say they are certificate level 5 in say navigation or gunnery...

to make this an added incentive what if there was a bonus applied to players for reaching level 5 in each certificate group...so say gunnery certificate and reaching level 5 u could get an extra +1% for all skills in the certificate group....in the same vain as the implants and having all the slave/crystal/snake etc implants and getting a bonus for having all in the set..
(restrictions could be imposed so skills found in multiple certificates could not be exploited to gain multiple gains..ie only +1% for any skill no matter how many level 5 certificates the skill, is found in)

the bonus could also vary and +1% was given as a basic example but other things like an extra skill level so essentially they would be level 6 in those skills could also be done..

this would entice players to train all the skills to gain the level 5 certificate rather than what most players do and train a skill to level that allows them to use a module/item and not worry about the certicate that is attached to that skill..

it also rewards players who have patiently been with the game a long time and have trained the skills up to level 5 and adds the factor that not all players are clones of each other with identical skills as not all will have the level 5 certificates.

as it looks like now the system will be very nice but players get nothing for actuall achiving a level 5 certicate apart from bragging rights..a bonus would give motivation to skill those long skills up to level 5 to achive the certificate and get that certificate bonus on top on their skills..

example....
some1 with all gunnery skills up to level 5 would obviously qualify for the level 5 certificate and therefore get a +1% on all skills in the gunnery group....but some1 who only trains certain gunnery skills to level 5 and then moves onto other skills would not qualify for the cert or the bonus.
this in turn means when these 2 toons meet and battle it out the advantage would slightly be with the person who has the cert bonus as it should be for some1 putting the time and effort into his skills and being a master of that group/certificate..

this now means certificates actually are worth something in game instead of just a "woohoo" factor "I finally got he certificate" thing..


this mechanic is already in game for the implant sets and I believe it would not be hard to include the certificate groups into the same mechanic in game..ie ca1 ca2 ca3 ca4 implants all get set bonus which affects all aspects of ship flying as does all the low and high grade implant sets.

for consideration...

This is an interesting idea for the old certificate system. I can somewhat see the logic behind it; the whole is greater than the sum of its parts type thing with regard to studying things. But I think that balancing it with the new system would be difficult. It'd also give advantages to veteran players, which isn't the direction that CCP has been going. But if they were tiny advantages, say 1% or so per certificate level, it could be primarily cosmetic.

would accept this proposal if the rewards did not widen the gap between the old and new.

in leu of actual bonuses: how about one of the following:

for faction specific certs you get LP / cosmetic items like clothing

for individual skills you get aur/isk (small amounts) for elite certs a 5 run BPC for a storyline mod (new ones added)
I.E: hull tanking elite gives you a "medium SOE auxilery hull repair" (like ARPs now)

I see no benefit in this.

I'd vote no on this. The benefit of getting a certificate is having new skills you didn't have before. Don't need a monetary/LP/whatever additional reward also.

You're getting this the wrong way round.

The certificate is there to help guide you in squeezing extra out of a ship.

Your reward is being able to fly that ship better (insert: with slightly higher stats if needed).

you don't need to be double rewarded...