Player Features and Ideas Discussion

I refer you to post #14 & #16 above. I have no score to settle with anyone.

I think sources of income influence corp leadership to gain a bias based on how the current tax system applies to the player-base. Increase the tax sources to all possible professions and notice what happens. I do not know how to apply a fair tax system to all professions, though I feel the suggestions above can get us in the right direction.

Vilnius Zar stated a reasonable equation for paying tax:
SP x 1 mil isk x multiplier

Thus, Skill Point Tax (SPT) depends on skill points and multiplier. Multiplier varies for monthly and daily payment method; also player-owned corp multiplier being much less than for NPC corp increases population of player-owned corps. The increased population of player-owned corps increases the chance to interact with others; the point of the game is for people to interact in meaningful ways, not avoid contact.

I suggested a rather steep multiplier to influence an increased population of player-owned corps. Of course, the multiplier can be adjusted. Include reasonable numbers and reasons why for consideration.

I refer you to OP and #6. You want specific? Figure out how to use your SP to make enough to pay your taxes. If I had to guess how CCP would implement this, likely they would say you have the options of training into more profitable skills or stop training skills (i.e. tax amount stops increasing).

A zero balance was covered in #6, so look there for your answer. Did I not understand what you typed? If so, please explain. So you asked "when my wallet goes to zero". I can only assume you mean your personal wallet, which again is covered by post #6 above. If you mean as an active player your wallet goes to zero, that changes your status to inactive. You want to continue playing, so you have to add more money to your wallet to continue. Fees and extra charges apply when you change from inactive to active. Therefore, the motivation is for you to not let your wallet go to zero. Is that specific enough for you? If not, please explain.

I harbor no hatred in my heart for anyone. No idea where you come up with this ****. Are you a troll or just want to feel important? You are unimportant just like everybody else; you are not a special snowflake; get over it.

As for your staying in rookie corps, that is your choice to do so. I see no reason why you would need to do that, but there is nothing stopping you from doing that aside from paying higher taxes. I suppose you need your ego stroked or you just like helping people.

Rationale is a motivation for players to be active players, not afk or logged out. I think the current tax system is limited in scope, therefore recruited players are told to train skill points for corp tax. Player corporations tax players that collect bounties and mission rewards, via the corp tax setting. Other professions are minimally taxed, but not fairly and equally. Therefore, any other profession is essentially ignored as a source of income and as a result is ignored in the game.

I believe a tax system based on skill points would better represent all workers, not just pve (ratters and missioners). I also think my idea or something like it will increase the cohesion, retention, and enjoyment of player corp's members. There is something wrong when you can train skill points for 50-something years in real time, but all professions are not taxed at the same rate. And that income does not flow to the player corporation where it can help the players.

For Planetary Interaction, the poco owner sets your tax rate. For mining/manufacturing/invention/research/copying, the station owner sets your tax rate and it is typically an NPC corp not a player corp. Market taxes are paid to the SCC, not a player corp. I have not done Moon Mining or Reverse Engineering; afaik, they pay zero corp taxes.

Put the tax rate in the hands of your employer (player corp leadership), not random rates from random corporations and definitely not non-player corporations.

This is a sandbox. Nothing stopping you from charging players those taxes yourself. And also nothing stopping them from leaving the corp. I don't play EVE in order to meet a tax obligation.

If CCP put something like this in, I'd get out, as they would have lost their mind. (Except for this alt, all my characters are in player corps, fyi.)

I'm pretty sure the reason people stay in NPC corps isn't because they aren't being taxed enough.

In many cases, it's probably because corporations don't make themselves enticing enough. So rather than applying the stick some more, try using the carrot.

As stated above, there is the option to stop training: "stop training skills (i.e. tax amount stops increasing)". Alts with low skill points (1 mil sp) require 10 mil isk to remain in npc corp if you pay the monthly tax rate. While your alt with 100 mil sp paying daily tax rate to npc corp shells out 66.67 mil isk.

You say this is craptasic. Why? What would you do differently? Is the rate too steep? Large organizations tend to choose only skilled players with pvp/pve skill points. Their training directives are for specific pve/pvp ships/fits. Equalizing the tax system will equalize the professions. Equalizing the professions will encourage player corp income sources to not just be from bounties and mission rewards.

Currently, a player can make an income from pve (ratting bounties and mission rewards) and be an income source for a player corporation. Typically, all other professions do not pay their taxes to that same player corporation, thus the player corp ignores all other professions. I think some variation of the above idea will fix that by allowing all professions to pay tax to their player corporation, thus becoming a contributing wage-earner, source of income, and desirable recruit. Skill plans would then focus on improving member ability to make income based on what they can do the best. No matter what profession a player decides to train, player corporations would want them.

This still allows pvp corporations to remain pvp-focused, though income generation for a purely pvp player has always been a challenge. In fact, I seriously doubt anyone can make a new player and without any experience become a self-sustaining pvp player only doing pvp; at some point, an assist of help, isk, experience (forums), or guidance (wiki) would likely be required. Though that argument is valid for all professions, risk assessment of pvp activities shows resource loss is more prevalent initially.

I mean, that is how most players learn to pvp, by losing ships until they learn how not to die. Doing that in smaller/cheaper ships means those lessons are learned cheaply. Generally, that is the normal progression for all professions based on the ship stats and bonuses for T1 < > T2 < > T3.

Personally I have just over 100M SP, however I don't think that my average ISK/hour has gone up much since I was able to solo L4 missions at about 40M SP, even then most of the SP is not in use due to a high amount of skills just not in use in any individual game play session. As you can only fly one type of ship at any one time ( http://eveboard.com/pilot/Caldari_5/ships?type=1 ), I have 49 Space ship command skills trained yet, at anyone time I'm only using like 3 of them Space ship command, Ship Size Skill and Specialist Skill, EG Spaceship Command, Amarrian Cruiser and Recon Ships when I fly the Pilgrim around, so out of my 34M SP in Spaceship command I'm only using about 3M of that SP at the time.

This is the same for weapon systems skills and defence system skills. At any point in time you are not using all of your skills.

However higher skills do give you more options to make ISK with. I could mine Ore for an Hour, Ice for an Hour, Exploration for an Hour and then rat for an Hour. Where as another pilot with less SP might only be able to do one of them for 4 hours. I don't get bored as easily as I did when I had lower SP because I have different things that I can do.

Then we also have that different professions don't make ISK at the same point as others. Someone ratting or Missioning makes the most direct income of ISK in the form of Bounties or mission rewards, whereas a miner don't make any ISK until he decides to sell the ORE, but the miner might also be a manufacturer that doesn't make ISK until he sells his product, which can be a long time after he did his mining. I know personally when I was in HS mining and building Freighters for selling, I would often not make ISK for 2 or 3 months at a time, whilst I was mining and building the Parts(for multiple Freighters at a time), no income of ISK until I sold the Freighters at a later stage.


All of the above would even be more put out of wack if I was a causal player only playing 4 hours a week, which some people are, they log in for an hour at a time do a mission/anom or 2 and then log out). Their ability to make ISK is extremely limited compared to mine where I play 4 hours a day, they might make the same ISK per hour that I do, however their ISK per month might barely be a quarter of mine(or less).

A monthly fee, or even a daily fee based on total SP just is not fair, it punishes the high SP, and it punishes the Casual Player, and double whammy if you are both.

Tax based on activity is more fair. a % based on Income. That being said I would like to see a corp tax on sales. Then the PvE/PvP guys would be taxed mostly on their bounties/mission rewards etc, and the industrialists would be taxed on what they sell. This would probably cause short term inflation until the market settles. People that cover more of the production chain would probably end up being able to under cut people that only do one segment of the chain due to paying less tax, but they have to work harder for it.

+1 Updated OP. Agreed, activity-based tax might work, whatever increases player-corps' income from taxes.

How about an adjustment for OP to apply corp tax rate to the 3 mil skill points (or whatever amount used to earn income)? Did that make sense?

In my limited experience with nul corps/alliances (depending on recruiting program implementation), the ammo/drones/modules or even ship & replacement ship are provided. Those carrier pilots may or may not see the tax money in those cases. Mining vessels, frigates for newbie pilots, or other ship replacement programs may also be used to recruit new members.

Is that what you meant? If not, I am open to suggestions.

Wait, what? Your valid and compelling argument includes that my idea is craptastic, just stupid, and utter BS? Interesting. "Craptastic" is not a valid or compelling argument, nor is "stupid" or "utter BS". http://i.imgur.com/aEhOy.jpg (appeal to emotion) You get zero points for attempted troll.

What would you do differently? Let's say the tax system has to change and CCP picked you to change it.

I get it.
Make it fair for the average income earner, do not include fees/penalties for leaving the game (i.e. stopping training for the account) then returning to game (i.e. starting training for the account), and offer some type of "pause account" feature for emergency situations/unforeseen breaks in gameplay (i.e. 6-month subscription can be paused and resumed at a later date).

Outliers still exist with no realistic tax solution, such as scammers and corp theft. Even with flaws, my unpopular idea may resolve tax evasion by everyone. I think removing the flaws and adjusting the rates until a majority of players can deal with it is the solution. Unless you have come up with something better?

And your statement, "You cannot tax based on a passive activity", you mean what exactly? Market activity, which is passive in nature and for which the SCC collects taxes? I suppose you could have meant another passive activity like manufacturing, which is also taxed by station owner. Oh, I get it now. You meant to say you do not like that I based my tax system on skill points, which accrue passively. Hmm, next in line please.