Player Features and Ideas Discussion

One of the common mantras of EVE is that a new player can become as good as an old player at a specific role fairly quickly.

That would be directly removed by allowing older players to continue to train things like raw shields/armor/hull/capacitor or damage/rof/application skills to levels that would take a newbie months of training a single skill to achieve. And we would do it, because a lot of older players have ran out of skills that we really had any use for a long time ago.

Also ships are balanced around potential max skills. It would be incredibly hard to balance ships if training long enough could permit seemingly outlandish fits CCP never wanted people to be able to use, but couldn't set the base low enough to prohibit it without impacting their intended capabilities.


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I can't really say it any better

one example of this going badly, Perpetuum, unlike EVE< perpetuum's skills cap at level 10, which means someone whos been playing longer, even just looking at core skills, is given such an insurmountable advanatge even with same fitting, that a newb is unlikely to be even able to do damage before being destroyed

dont want EVE to be like that

I feel I need to clarify that I intentionally marked the scale of the effective skill increase a result of balancing considerations to be taken, the suggestion does not aim to allow "outlandish" fits, it aims for allowing useful minor continuation for an increasing cost and compromise, if it is seen as allowing outlandish fits then it is obviously in need of tuning those figures


When I speak of AWU 68, I in no way am insinuating that the ship gets 136% more PG, but instead at the worst case 20%(+10% maximum, L5 x2), and as mentioned, that's just a crude figure of example, balancing could dictate that only a general increase of 50% would be prudent, thus converting L5 -> L66/100 granting at total of L100 benefit of 15%, a 5% potential increase over a very long time(very time wasteful).


It's just about tuning the figures to avoid unwanted extreme situations while keeping reasonable continuation and grey areas.

Extending it is literally the point to allow the virtually indefinite training and specialisation.

I avoided this solution especially because it is impossible to implement into EVE, it existed in SWG and it worked quite well, but that was a relatively closed system without new complexity introductions into that system, with quite defined rigid class structure sizes and it also was an initial feature in the game which never caused a problem of having too many skill points.

In EVE things change:

• You must decide what is considered "enough" SP, without any defined consistent sizes of "classes" to rely on as skills are varied in many ways, any decided size will be quite arbitrary.
• You must decide what to do with those who have more SP than the limit, you are quite literally nerfing them.
• What will you do when you introduce new skills, as you've now created a new balance concern and everyone has a limited SP pool where new skills will constrain its total usefulness in relation.
• It does not solve continuation in focused training for specialisation, instead it simply stops training completely when you've reached your goal and after that the training system is of no use.
• SP hard caps will inherently create problems with testing new technologies beyond the cap, this is unwanted behaviour.

I'm sitting on 66m, if CCP decided to put in a 50m SP cap I wouldn't be a happy camper, and I bet the real high end veterans would not either.



The key is instead to offer options and compromise, improvements and improbability of maximum performance to cut out cookie cutter concepts, you simply cannot create an optimal plan for something that is inherently not possible to complete, you are simply left with more vague guidelines and recommendations, choices with solutions based on investment in time.




What I'm trying to achieve is essentially what you are proposing but without the absolute completion aspect of it, without having to limit players on the low end of the skills with hard caps, instead limit them with options and meaningful decisions, after they've decided on their skills they want to focus on as per their own decisions they are free to do so for as long as they would desire, essentially constantly improving, albeit marginally granted.

As I said, it's all about tuning the figures, even if that on the off chance means lowering the effectiveness of ships and technology slightly to allow a reasonably increased skill benefit and player choice then that could also be the way forward if need be.

I will admit that the scope of the added skill value may have been too generously selected even if it was intended as an example figure.


The whole reason why I am even entertaining the increase of skill values is because you cannot keep L5 skill values and convert it to L100 outright for the intended results the suggestion aims for, it leaves no continuation to specialise for players for the very skills they have, hence the suggestion would be moot for its intent.
The same goes for the cost of such a level with harsh diminishing returns, which should be very high at L100, essentially given for free for everyone with L5 trained, not possible.
Finally simply changing granularity without any of the actual conceptual changes would be pointless, so without reasonable skill value increases and the coinciding inevitable need for rebalance which come with it, there is no suggestion to be had.


See the general concept I am conveying rather than the raw figures, the figures can always be tuned, from top and bottom, ships and skills can be adjusted, higher and lower to create a functional solution.


I will clarify the concept in broader terms:

Imagine a more fluent skill system where the progression allows a remarkably finer level granulation(more levels for a skill), with an additional non trivial benefit beyond the current max level skill.
This with an extremely far time horizon(think a year maxed) for training which you will hardly ever reach unless prepared to waste colossal time for simple necessary benefits of some specific kind you decidedly want, making all your progression decisions continual compromises of necessity rather than finite schedules.

No.

Just means noobs are uncompetitive for longer. This will not change the 'completionist' style, and It does not remove the ceiling, it merely raises it.

Creating fits for the masses is enabled by the fact it doesnt take long for everyone to reach the same level. This would make a nightmare of having to come up with corp fits/doctrines etc.

too much wrong, whilst not fixing what it says its supposed to fix. (if indeed there is a problem at all)

I can't agree with this.

If a veteran sits and chews on level 99 AWU for an additional ~0.2% PG gain for say ~10 days and during that time a new player can gain any number of other skills for a much lower time cost, what's the problem, especially when this relation is highly perpetual, he is in fact permanently gaining the advantage of catching up in total flexibility and usefulness even more than today.

Everything the veteran focus trains will be highly ineffective time wise, also the longer time goes the closer the new player gets, perpetually by the very design of the concept.

Today we have the opposite in effect, a veteran player will grow linear in power towards skills as he trains everything in a finite completionist manner, he completes and moves on to the next skill, and so on, there is no hindrance and the distance from a new player is always constant.

In my suggestion that effective distance will become minuscule eventually as a rule as everyone at some point would decide to specialise more and when they do the time cost becomes extreme, down to virtual trivial values in focus training over possibly tens of days.

Scattered completionist training as it exists today isn't actually useless, even if people complain about training unnecessary things those things are actually often useful and provide flexibility, it just isn't so appealing for them personally.

So instead we get all kinds of pilots able to do all kinds of things and devaluing other pilots who would like to specialise in those areas but the competition is insanely high to do anything worthwhile with it; There is not much use for professionals when anyone can be a professional in anything at the same time, there is nothing to improve in in the current system, this is the fundamental point which causes the problem and why my solution is so well fitting.


We instead give players the chance to improve, to pick specialisation, we free up all those other secondary roles they do not want and allow others to fill those shoes, when that is done new players will pick their own interests and start specialising themselves and as time goes by they will increasingly close the gap to the veterans in that area of expertise making it also trivial.


Today the system allows flexibility to an extreme degree, yet it doesn't have any consequences as nobody can decide to do otherwise, like focus train something, there is no value evaluation for the worth of what you train today when there absolutely should be.


If anything the new player has a greater chance of actually catching up in total and relative usefulness as generic scattered training by veterans will be very rare, also in some area of expertise will he perpetually close the gap as the veterans are sitting and wasting huge amounts of time on minuscule benefits on the high end.


Also, what does competitive mean in EVE, where do you draw the line today, how much does this raise that line when the figures aren't even definitive and quite low as a whole?


As I see it you are choosing to view it this way, the changes would not be at all as radical as you make it seem in terms of beneifts and relative to new players, you'll rather have much more problems with other dictating factors like raw ISK and wealthy fits, implants, player experience and player connections than character skills on any level, it is a non issue.





If you want to try the completionist style on say all frigates with my suggested system, you should plan to live for further 25-50 years, I'd say it solves it quite definitely, unless you are intending to let your account be inherited by your grandchildren to complete the goal that is.

If a single L100 skill takes more or less a year to complete, and you want to complete them all, how is it ever possible to complete them all?

By raising the limit to the point a human cannot reasonably complete it all in any kind of expected player game lifetime, it removes the completionist mindset by the very definition of it not being a possible option; If someone does play for 1000 years and completes every skill to L100, then all I can say is congratulations, you won the game; Even expecting a player to play 10-20 years uninterrupted is pushing it.

Nobody will be a completionist in such a system, it is impossible, this suggestion is to give options and compromises, and it does that very well.



Creating fits for the masses isn't an argument for anything, you can still create fits for the masses and you still have to regard skill sets just like now, the difference is you cannot just pick every maximum level skill and think that's a reasonable way to define a fit, you actually have to make compromises.

Your average autistic min/maxer has to take into consideration that maximum level skills are not feasible for such planning, but yet some players can and will improve upon those fits; Some things are better off less absolute and only in such systems does genuine choice and consequence reside.


EVE shouldn't be about predefined patterns and absolutes, it should be about grey areas and compromises, at least that is how I see it.

It was a rhetorical question, but no, that is an absolute definition of being equal, being competitive means reasonably equal, functional, viable for a role, which is something my suggestion does not in any way hinder.



And they will more often be better than you with my suggested system.

Even more so because they decided to specialise in some area you didn't with your generic completionist training you have, and if by chance they did pick the exact same focus they will over time gain in any meaningful advantage you may still have, just like with any other power property in EVE, dedication and focus should give benefits.



If your definition for competitive is exactly equal without differences in any skills or properties, then yes, of course, but that's not what competitive means, it's what you've decided it should mean in this discussion.

Do you also mean to tell me that no fights which includes any kinds of high end unique ships, modules or implants are "competitive" because someone is at a disadvantage, or even a player who simply set foot in a fight where he has yet to train a level 5 skill?

EVE is about getting advantages and abusing disadvantages, even if those advantages and disadvantages are based on character skills, the playing field is fair to the point that if you want to train the skills, you can do it, but you also have to invest, just like anyone else.

We already have a massive character skill disadvantage in veterans with all kinds of skills to perfection able to do anything, it is not a negligible benefit to be able to do anything near perfectly, my suggested system fixes this too.



Of course it gives an edge to specialise and keep training, that's the whole point for focus training and specialising, if there was no gain for players to specialise there would be no point in the whole concept.

What I am commenting on is that a new player has every option in his disposal to close that gap in a meaningful way, not only that but he also gets the benefit of not every other veteran being a professional in his selected piloting role either, creating a much less cramped specialisation over the whole EVE universe where his skill set will be much more appreciated whatever it may be.

WIth the suggestion I'm literally making players like you and me who can fly almost anything very well less favoured for that specific part, that instead we too should specialise for something, it will very much help everyone in EVE to remove the whole "Jack of all trades, master of all" into an actual "Jack of all trades, master of none".


"Malcanis' law", isn't a reasoning nor an argument, but an observation to keep in mind when directly suggesting concepts for strictly new players' benefit.

It would be applicable if I had suggested this whole thing for new players directly, but the whole concept is for everyone, especially veterans and it is clear in the OP, so I can't help to say that it is quite unfounded to try to apply this here, I intentionally avoided to answer the comment you refer to simply because one of the main points I am driving is to give veterans a chance to specialise, Malcanis' law is simply unfounded.


New players gain the exact same mechanic as old players, if anything, the old players are nerfed as their previously perfect skills are no longer perfect and they have to choose what to specialise in, risking to have "wasted" almost all of their other skills, a new player could come in and easily become much more proficient in almost anything as you simply cannot have perfect skills anymore.

I don't see a problem, it is just like today but extended to offer some well needed specialisation with consequences for everyone.

Anywhere where power can be amassed an equality issue can be considered to exist for later competitors, if perfect equality is the goal; I will argue it is not the goal, keeping things within reason with interesting and exciting mechanics should instead be the goal and I believe my suggestion is quite reasonable, interesting and grants exciting mechanics for players to make deeper more meaningful decisions.

I'm going to assume you're not replying to me as I've not suggested anything that you describe.