Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Problem:
In a number of cases, skill changes have put EVE's future new players (as well as some existing players) at a significant disadvantage.

Examples:

• Battlecruisers split into 4 racial skills. The level of the battlecruiser skill was used for the racial skills (so new players need to spend 4x as long as older players to get the same thing)
• Command Ships skill requirements changed. New players (or anyone who did not inject it before the patch) needs to spend significantly more time to fly a command ship than other players did. Note this is a pretty huge gap, since command ships are actually very useful outside of the command ship role as the only T2 BC. The barrier is actually pretty high here as new players that want to fly these need to train (often unwanted prerequisite skills) for 3 months, that other players didn't, which just seems wrong.
• Scanning skill changes. Certain skills changed effects, various people ended up having trained skills for nothing since they weren't needed after the patch (e.g. Astrometics V).
• The plan of record for the upcoming changes to drone skills. In the case of players who have both CDO V and SDO V trained, one of these skills is also made redundant (aka. eliminated) without any reimbursement for those that trained it.

Proposed Solution:
Add any new skills to the game so that they can be trained, but do not remove the old skills until after existing players have had enough time to train the new ones. Then, remove the old skills and completely reimburse the SP. That way, *everyone* - old and new - has trained the same amount of SP for a given ability. To be even more fair to existing players, attribute mappings could be made irrelevant for new skills until they officially replace the old ones (to not penalize those who remapped for something else prior to the announcement).

This seems like a much better way to make skill changes and I'm curious to read what other people think.

Thoughts?

Well, I think a large part of the reasoning behind CCP's rule is that someone shouldn't all of a sudden be unable to fly something or lose an ability, and then have to wait through some gap of time to regain that ability.

In this suggestion, there wouldn't be a gap. If you want to keep one of the affected abilities, you'd have the time to train it to ensure a smooth transition. Granted, you would be training just to keep abilities you already have, but that's exactly what everyone else would have to do.

I would argue that if the changes are such that they cause a backlash from the player base, that is a good indication that the changes are probably bad to begin with (for example, I'm pretty sure the command ship skill change would have resulted in a big backlash from the players if they weren't given all the free SP, and IMO this was a bad change that shouldn't have been made).

Also, if this proposal had been implemented for the BC changes, I doubt many people would have trained them all to V, at least not right away. People would have had to choose which ones they wanted, maybe trained 3 of them to level IV and the other one to V. They would then be reimbursed for the BC skill and have all those SP to put into something they actually want so the time would not have been wasted, This would be in the true spirit of the change anyway.

Not supported.

The current system is simple, reasonably fair and works. Why complicate things unnecessarily?

^ This

If I understand correctly, the sentiment above is that current players should be immune to training nerfs because they don't like them? I.e. they have an ability, and don't want to spend extra time to keep that ability. If the amount of time is unreasonable, then doesn't that just mean the change is bad (i.e. command ships)?.

It's true that people don't like to have things taken away, but that's exactly what a nerf is and that's exactly what CCP does to future players when they make such skill changes. The spirit of the previous change to BCs, for example, was that the skill *should have always been* split into racial versions. The change implies precisely that "anyone who only had to train the single skill received too many benefits at too low a cost", yet the practical impact of the change did nothing except hurt new players (aka EVE's future), who don't have a voice here.

The solution is not to make existing players immune to the nerf (so they will be happy and be quiet).

I fail to see how the current method is good for the game at all as any change can never actually benefit (or equally benefit) new players, and often hurts them as the spirit of the change isn't effectively applied to current players.



I see your point but you used a completely different definition of the term gap. My definition of gap was "a period of time where you don't have an ability that you previously had". Your definition of gap was "a period of time where I'm training a skill but it's just to keep an existing ability". I would argue the policy should be to avoid the *first* gap. The second gap is just a training time nerf, and should not be avoided if that's what a patch change actually is...

My intention with this idea was not to screw people over, and I don't believe it does since the same change is applied to everyone. Can you explain why you think the current method is more balanced? I understand that you cannot always please everybody, but you can try to make things as balanced and fair as possible, which is what CCP should be (and I believe is trying) to do.

"The current system is fine" - I understand you are happy with this because you get extra SP, but I think it's worth considering that others might not be as happy as you are.

I didn't really expect many to be in favour of this though for obvious reasons.

Of course people should be "screwed over" by the change itself, since it's a nerf to training time. That's what a nerf is. But everyone should be screwed over just the same. And if people feel too screwed over, then maybe the nerf is too strong and shouldn't happen to begin with... just like any other change (the nerf to tracking enhancers for example). But your argument is that existing pilots deserve to be immune to any skill related nerfs, and I just don't agree with that.

EVE is inherently unfriendly to new pilots already, and it is a big problem for the game's growth. This was a suggestion to help address that issue.

I like your idea of the career paths and SP rewards. What I think you're saying is that the OP is impractical. I think because a precedence has already been set for this re player expectations, you're probably right. Oh well.

Personally, I wouldn't mind the inconvenience if it was for a good cause/reasonable (i.e. the skill changes were good for the game as a whole). But obviously that sentiment isn't shared among the player base.

"It isn't fair or balanced" - if everyone needs to train for the same amount of time for any ability, new or old pilot, it is by definition fair and balanced.

Yes, so quick to cry if it didn't go your way? But don't mind the others behind you. also a billion isk isn't much, and you could sell them just losing the rig value, so their cost isn't a factor, not that it really matters to me either way. I had time to train BC to level 5 before the change but didn't care too. Although i did get Destroyers to V before it. But if I had to train longer to use T2 cruisers right now for example all well its not a big deal, I can still go fly around in navy stuff for a bit.