Skill Discussions

Could a MOD please move this to the "Features & Ideas Discussion"? Thanks, and sorry for the inconvenience.

Hi,

I'd like to suggest the implementation of a player to player SP market.
I've considered buying a toon from the character bazaar many times, but it's always been the same things stopping me from doing it: Toon name, Employement history and standings. If I bought a toon for its skills, I wouldnt want all the other BS that tags along with it. I wouldn't want to get podded or war-dec'd cause of some BS the previous owner of my new toon did.

So i'd like to suggest a way to buy/sell SP.
This system would not generate ("spawn") new SP into eve. It takes SP from players and allows it to be sold to other players.
The way it would work is as follows:

- CCP sells empty SP chips for AUR.
- Player gets an empty SP chip and chooses how much SP from a specific skill should be put into the chip.
- Upon accepting the transfer of SP, the empty skill chip turns into "#skillname# - skill chip" with 90% of the SP that was chosen in the previous step.
- Player is then able to sell the chip in-game through market.
- Buying player takes the chip and consumes it. The SP is added to the specific skill.

Benefits for each party:
SP Seller
Get isk for skills which you don't need or dont want anymore. Ex: trained a year to fly a missile boat for PvE and has decided to venture into other parts of eve. Now maybe you prefer to fly a minmatar projectile ship but cant cause missile skills dont translate well. Sell the missile skills and use the isk from that to buy project skills (you probably wont be as proficient as you were with missiles due to 10% SP loss and overall market value differences, but you're much closer than if you had to start from scratch)
SP Buyer
You can finally get that Amarr Battleship skill to lvl5. I'm sure all of you have been postponing getting a certain skill to lvl5 cause it takes a month or more to do. Have some spare isk? buy the skill from another player and enjoy missioning/mining/whatever you do.
CCP
More AUR/Plex sales, more revenue. If new players can spend an extra $15 to buy a plex, get 600m isk and buy a skill chip from someone else to get their frig, destroyer or cruiser skill to level 5 and enjoy their time in eve, player retention is sure to improve.

FAQ:
Why charge AUR for the empty skill chip?
1) Revives the AUR market. Currently there's hardly any use for AUR.
2) Generates profit for CCP.
3) To discourage people from creating multiple alts to farm SP to sell. With the cost of AUR and 10% SP loss, it wouldnt be cost effective to exploit this system to train your main or make isk through chip sales.

More FAQ to come later.

Feedback is welcome and encouraged, but please keep it constructive. State the reasons for your opinions.

From the searches I've done I could only find suggestions asking for CCP to sell SP for Plex. Those ideas "spawn" SP into the game and I also agree that it's a terrible idea. But this idea is different in that it's actually an SP sink instead of a faucet. All SP traded in this system has to be earned by somebody in the traditional way in order to be sold.

How is this different from buying plex for $ and selling it for isk to other players? That's a form of pay to win too. why the double standard?

Again, I cant stress enough that this system does not spawn new SP. All SP sold through the system would be aquired in the traditional way.

The loss in SP upon extraction and the AUR cost should be enough to discourage people from making many alts farming every attribute combination.

You all seem to think that if this system were to be implemented, that it'd be flooded with decades worth of SP. People would have to carefully think about whether it's worth it for them to extract their SP to sell or not. Do they really not need the skill? Do they really want to change their role in eve?

Basically I need to make an alt and then use plex to plex it and to get aurum. The alt then just trains skills I want on my main but cant bother to get. I'm out 2 plex a month more and I get my main training at 190% of skill points.



even if this skillchip cost more aurum than one plex gives. I could get cloaking 5 or train t2 sentry's and t2 heavies at the same time. I would easily throw a couple bil a month in plex to be able to do this.

Came to see irrational screaming and whining. Left both disappointed and not disappointed.

Not saying it is a good idea but those lawyers and doctors would just buy plex and use them to buy a skilled pilot from the character market anyways, so I can't really see much difference.

In fact every counterargument in this thread has been 'People will use this feature to pay ISK/real money to get a higher skilled character'.... which they can ALREADY DO LEGALLY through the character bazaar....

You can buy a trained pilot from the character bazaar that someone thought to train specific skills. You can't buy raw SP nor is it the same. If you find a good deal on a 500 mil SP pilot on the bazaar please link it. With your idea there will be many of them out there.

Yes, you can buy pilots from the character bazaar. Those pilots have a certain value, based on what they paid to train, and how long they have subscribed and trained.

Based on that market, my character ALSO has a certain value. Based on supply and demand of other characters similar to me.
Your suggestion would de-value my character in a matter of days. The 'supply' of SP would be endless/staggering/relentless. Long time accounts/characters would be de-valued substantially.

If you play this game a long time, why would you ever want to de-value your own character?

You can use ISK, Aurum, Beads, Shiny Trinkets, or whatever else you think is tricky, but in the end it's just a 'buy to win' sales pitch.

Your character wouldnt lose value because it has SP. Which you can convert into isk just as selling it on the character bazaar.
This idea has been in effect in a game called Entropia Universe for years, and instead of decreasing player retention and increasing whining it has done the exact opposite.