Skill Discussions

^^logi is a great example.

I was about to train T2 logi, then realized it would've been pointless to do so before getting the higher-rank lvl Vs I'm still missing, such as cap mgmt, fuel conservation, remote reps and high speed maneuvering (they're all cap skills).

Problem is, all these lvl 5s add up and it'll be at least 2 months or so before I'll be more effective in a t2 logi than in a t1.

I honestly do not understand the reason for such a long wait. While I wait, not only I won't fly t2 logi, but my mates will have one less t2 logi to count on and my enemies will have one less 200+ mil ship to shoot at.

If I'm not benefiting from the long wait, my corpmates aren't benefiting from it and neither are my enemies, who the hell is? If nobody is benefiting, what's the purpose of these training times?

I'd take Rain's point a bit further and say lvl v are simply too damn long. Reducing the time (sp) by 50-70% would benefit everybody: still long enough to make choices meaningful, but without being just boring time sinks.

Only REAL problem is, older players would rage about it.

I have yet to read one single poster opposing shorter training times but at the same time saying or implying that he/she wouldn't take it personally if someone gets candy earlier/easier than they did.

I'm not being adversarial "it's a moving target" is a standard colloquialism for the tactic of changing one's stance during an argument. If you prefer, we can say "moving the goalposts" if that feels less "adversarial."

And I'll stick with the Scythe-->Scimitar example. It follows your OP theory just fine. If you jumped in a Scythe and wanted to maximize every last ounce of power out of it, you'd end up pretty close to the reqs for a Scimitar, but you could start repping in a Scythe within 24 hours. Maybe not real well, but you could be flying and incrementally increasing that ship's effectiveness while playing. The Scimitar would end up being the wrapping paper and bow on the maxed Scythe gift. Nice gift too, since you move from medium to large shield boosters, move from 3 to 4 high slots, and the Logistics bonus adds 50% to the capacitor discount. The almost double powergrid and CPU to allow battleship remote shield reppers on a cruiser...well I guess it makes those Vs worth it.

FYI - T2 medium shield boosters can go on a Scythe. You do all the training for a Scimitar to use T2 LARGE remote shield boosters.

And I repeat...every specialty/T2/T3 ship has this kind of relationship to something lesser. SO the game already provides this "you don't need to wait for a bunch of V's to fly and have fun" thing covered.

the counterpoint to that is that her suggestion would actually benefit ccp more as people would be more likely to buy plex to get into the ships they are not properly skilled to fly and would be more likely to loose them which then means more likely to buy additional plex to replace and so on for as far as there budget allows.

This would make EVE pay to win as T2 ships are generally better than T1 in their specialized role. If I wanted to pay to win I would go play Farmville.

I am saying those Vs are the opportunity cost associated with big payoffs. Back to my Scythe / Scimitar example:

If I jump into a Scythe on Day 1, and start skilling the things that make that particular ship more powerful, I care about a couple things: how much do I rep per second, how long can I keep repping before my cap runs out, and how far from the excitement can I stay and still be repping? Right off the bat, I care about those things. So look at the bonuses:

• Every level of Minmatar Cruiser gives me 1) more rep per second and 2) more cap lifetime.
• I get 1,000% longer remote rep range, which for medium boosters is 66km max (pretty sure), but my max targeting range on the ship is 52.5km. Long Range Targeting V would push my targeting range to almost exactly 66km (65.63 actual)

That's just right off the bat "what would I do immediately to max the power of this ship I am improving incrementally" thinking....and you'd cover two of three skills needed to be V for a Scimitar. What's the remaining skill needed? Oh, the one that is so generally useful everyone should make it one of the first ten skills they take to V - Signature Analysis, since 25% faster locking time is so generally useful across every class of ship, role, kind of game play, etc. IN almost every area of EVE, he who locks fastest has the upper hand. Damn CCP all to heck and back for forcing such generally useful requirements into unlocking Logistics.

So 3 things you would have maxed to make that T1 ship the best it can be unlocks the T2 version, which now let's you take that role even further. Is a Scimitar a much better Logistics option than a Scythe? Of course, but the Scythe is an option and can rep close to 200hp/sec before drones are accounted for. By the time you max that Scythe, you need like 3 hours to Logistics 2 to make the Scimitar superior. There's your incremental update again.

Do fleets/corps say "T2 only, take your T1 nonsense and go pound sand"? Sure they do, but again, that's not CCP limiting you, but other players. CCP gives you the cheaper, easier to skill for, incrementally updated version of everything. If you find yourself in an environment where only T2 is acceptable ever, then change environments.

And I spent a year in the same Hawk, until 13 months later I felt ready to fly a Drake. My Logi alt is almost to 14 million SP and has never left her starting dock. I am in no hurry

Let's look at why T2 ships have a per level bonus that requires the skill to be at 5 in the first place.
Another way to do it would be to either include the bonus as part of the ship stats themselves if possible (can only be done with some types of bonuses) or add it as a Role bonus. If CCP created the T2 ship line today I think that's how they would have done it. But back when T2 ships in 2003 there where much more limitations to what type of bonuses a ship could have, their code did not support many of the things that it do today. For example back then the concept of Role Bonuses did not exist, it was added much later.

Over the years many of the things that where once per level bonuses have been moved into either the base stats of the ship or become a role bonus instead. Covert Ops Cloak and Probe Launchers are good examples of how they have changed things because they got more options with the type of bonuses they could give to a ship or module.
Covert Ops Cloak used to take several thousand CPU and the covert ops ships used to have a bonus that said something like 90-100% CPU reduction. The reason for this was that back then they could not limit a module to be able to be fitted to only certain ships other than through the fitting requirements so they had to work around it with the tools they had available.

There used to be so that they couldn't limit a ship to fit 1 module of a certain type so when they wanted to stop people from fitting 2 probe launchers (because doing so would brake the probe system released in revelations) they did it by a special bonus to the launcher that would increase the CPU usage of all other probe launchers to several thousand. This is also the reason why the Damage Control is an active module, they could not limit you to fit only one but they had the ability to limit you to have only one active at a time.

So why not change all those bonuses to role bonuses today? I guess they don't see it as important enough change to do. To the players it would only be a cosmetic change while back end changes needed would probably be fairly large.

TLDR: Why do we have per level bonuses for a a skill that requires level 5? It's for legacy reasons, when the T2 ships where initial added to the game it was not possible to do it in any other way because their code did not support all the types things it does today.

completely honest: some ideas I throw out there purely for the exercise in written argument or sophistry.

post stuff, see what sticks.

Maybe they should change the mechanics for T2 ships. They should only give "Proficiency Bonus or Trait Bonus" when the racial skill trained to 5, and give out a "Proficiency or Trait Penalty" if it's trained only to level 4.

For example

Instead of a Guardian receiving 150% Remote Armor Repair and Remote Capacitor Transmitter Range and 20% Armor Maintenance bot transfer amount. per Amarr Cruiser skill level. They should receive a penalty on the bonus and only receive less than half of the bonus till the Guardian Pilot trains Amarr Cruiser to 5.

You can't expect yourself to be as proficient as someone who "mastered" or trained a racial ship to 5.

Way to necro a 3 month old thread

In the case of lvl 5 skill requirements also being listed as a "per lvl bonus" on a specific ship hull why not just leave the requirment at lvl 5 but apply the full bonus to the hull?

People still need to jump the hurdle and logically it would make more sense.

But to lower t2 ship reqs only to allow more players to be able to hope into them quicker wouldnt work as an improvmemt because eve in general is a game built around skill points opening doors and having something displayed externally to other pilots that projects at least some air of accomplishment.

I totally get what your saying but this path leads to all ships having lvl 1 reqs.