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Skill Discussions

 
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New player skills and skill points (proposal)

Author
Leiliana Atruin
SPATULA-CITY
#21 - 2015-01-10 20:29:56 UTC
I havent played long, so maybe I am totally wrong, but to me it seems as if too big a deal is made about skill points. From what I can see (based on stats, killboards etc.), for pvp at least, there seems to be a point where skill points seems to have a very small effect. I am basing this on small ship (frigate) combat and mostly based on FW and small gang pvp. Once you have the skill points to be able to fit your ship well, then the playing field mostly evens out. And that happens much faster than what I originally expected.

I think most people who complain about skill points is people who get stomped by a solo pirate, and the reason why that is such a one sided affair is because a pvp fit, skill plan should beat a pve fit & pve skill plan.

Again, this is just what I see from kill stats and comparing the players against each other. It doesnt matter if you are trained to fly the most kickass ships, if you get into a frigate vs frigate fight your other ship skills relating to other ships simply doesnt matter.

I guess what I am trying to say is that specializing into a role, is much better than jumping your training all over the place. New players would find it much more helpful if someone or something helped them plan their training well for the role they want to fulfill.
The Newface
Doomheim
#22 - 2015-01-23 04:05:43 UTC
the problem here is why 10m skill points, why not 20 or 100?
And then the complain will be new players cant get into Dreads/carriers/titans and can never compete so we need a implant for that as well...

I think we just need to remember this is not Battlefield
Moonlit Raid
Doomheim
#23 - 2015-01-23 22:18:30 UTC
How about unlimited remaps for their first month? Not too ridiculous and will require effort to make use of.

If brute force isn't working, you're just not using enough.

Please Note: Any advice given comes with the caveat that nothing will be suitable for every situation.

Dominique Vasilkovsky
#24 - 2015-01-26 10:54:21 UTC
Moonlit Raid wrote:
How about unlimited remaps for their first month? Not too ridiculous and will require effort to make use of.

Why not simply remove attributes? Give everyone 2700 SP/h into a pool that they can allocate to whatever skill they have injected? No need to have remaps then. This will also make it easier for new players to not get confused nor will it be the end of the world if they forget to set a skillqueue for the first week as no SP is lost.

Oh and remove learning attributes from all implants while at it.
Howard Aideron
Pax International
#25 - 2015-01-26 15:14:17 UTC  |  Edited by: Howard Aideron
Why not give 200 million skill points to everyone that starts the game? Now that we've leveled the playing field everyone should be happy right? Oh, still getting killed by older players? The older player had less SP than you? Still unhappy? I guess we can hand out free Ishtars to everyone too. Still losing to older players? Well, maybe we can provide you with alts that come with Titans too so you can move your Ishtars around more quickly? Still losing to older players? Lost your free Titan too? Well, maybe you should HTFU and just play more and actually learn how to win the game.
Samantha Achasse
Anarchy Enforcer
The Curatores Veritatis Auxiliary
#26 - 2015-01-26 18:52:12 UTC  |  Edited by: Samantha Achasse
yea as a returning player, i wanted to make a new specific pvp character.

Gallente - Gallente - Activists

was the bloodline i picked basied on description of that and ended up with 55k sp, most of which wasnt in combat skills.

as for the super implant, they did that before and again people got ganked for it or kept it and sold it for rediculus amouts of isk

the only thing i found annoying was the long playing pvpers camping the newbie stations and career stations duel requesting everyone that undocked.

the only thing i would have liked is a sp total and a specific skill plan AKA, miner, pvp or industry and say 100k sp to assign to the skills, (with limits so no people with lvl 5's) that way people get better in one ship type and dont stampeed towards battleships or T2's before they are ready.
Jenshae Chiroptera
#27 - 2015-01-26 18:52:28 UTC  |  Edited by: Jenshae Chiroptera
Been discussing newbies and starting skills with a friend.

I think that it should all depend on your faction (regardless of the bloodlines and job nonsense) and you get basic skills that are all level III.

One of the small weapons to level III
Basic tank skills to III
Basic Propulsion to III
Frigates to III

the other option ...
Samantha Achasse wrote:
the only thing i found annoying was the long playing pvpers camping the newbie stations and career stations duel requesting everyone that undocked.
... might be to disable duels for two weeks after character creation.

CCP - Building ant hills and magnifying glasses for fat kids

Not even once

EVE is becoming shallow and puerile; it will satisfy neither the veteran nor the "WoW" type crowd in the transition.

Orlacc
#28 - 2015-01-26 20:11:45 UTC
In about a month, a new player can fly and fit T1 frigates as well as someone playing 10 years.

"Measure Twice, Cut Once."

Moonlit Raid
Doomheim
#29 - 2015-01-26 23:36:40 UTC
Orlacc wrote:
In about a month, a new player can fly and fit T1 frigates as well as someone playing 10 years.*

*Not including all support skills to level 5

If brute force isn't working, you're just not using enough.

Please Note: Any advice given comes with the caveat that nothing will be suitable for every situation.

Samantha Achasse
Anarchy Enforcer
The Curatores Veritatis Auxiliary
#30 - 2015-01-27 15:49:48 UTC
Moonlit Raid wrote:
Orlacc wrote:
In about a month, a new player can fly and fit T1 frigates as well as someone playing 10 years.*

*Not including all support skills to level 5


true if your the 10 year old player and know what to train and when.
or have access to a guide, but for a genuine newbie your not going to know what you want to do in eve.
Sam Spock
The Arnold Connection
#31 - 2015-02-05 20:48:04 UTC
One of the things that attracted me to the game when I got started was the concept of skills being trained even when you are not online. It gave me the sense that I was in some way always playing the game.

After that it became a bit of a puzzle game. You would try do something and find that you could not but would be able to if you increased your skill in that area. Also seeing things like dps or mining yield go up as my skills went up was kind of fun. It gave me something to work towards.

Setting goals is a good way to keep from getting bored.

In the case of newbies getting stomped it would be nice if there was some way for the game to give the loosing player an analysis of the fight to help explain why they got killed along with links to pages with more information.

Something like:
Battle analysis
The primary damage used against you was EM. [link to more info]
You were Warp Scrambled. [link to more info]
Your primary damage you used was Kinetic but their weakest resist was EM. [link to more info]
etc.

It could show up in a notification or eve-mail.

It would probably be hard to program but it would go a long way to helping them "get it". Could be helpful to older players too like the returning one that got into a old fit Hulk and was ganked right away.


Giving you Inconsistent grammar, speilling and Punct-uation since 1974!

Tsukino Stareine
Garoun Investment Bank
Gallente Federation
#32 - 2015-02-05 23:07:07 UTC
you have a combat log to see most of this.

The part about their resist you can figure out as well.

Moonlit Raid
Doomheim
#33 - 2015-02-05 23:20:37 UTC  |  Edited by: Moonlit Raid
Sam Spock wrote:
One of the things that attracted me to the game when I got started was the concept of skills being trained even when you are not online. It gave me the sense that I was in some way always playing the game.

After that it became a bit of a puzzle game. You would try do something and find that you could not but would be able to if you increased your skill in that area. Also seeing things like dps or mining yield go up as my skills went up was kind of fun. It gave me something to work towards.

Setting goals is a good way to keep from getting bored.

In the case of newbies getting stomped it would be nice if there was some way for the game to give the loosing player an analysis of the fight to help explain why they got killed along with links to pages with more information.

Something like:
Battle analysis
The primary damage used against you was EM. [link to more info]
You were Warp Scrambled. [link to more info]
Your primary damage you used was Kinetic but their weakest resist was EM. [link to more info]
etc.

It could show up in a notification or eve-mail.

It would probably be hard to program but it would go a long way to helping them "get it". Could be helpful to older players too like the returning one that got into a old fit Hulk and was ganked right away.



It would be epically difficult to make useful and accurate due to the sheer plethora of possible situations. For instance remote reps don't even show on Killmails, shooting a cruiser point blank with blasters in a vindi and still losing the fight would blow your mind given an analysis omitting something like that.

If brute force isn't working, you're just not using enough.

Please Note: Any advice given comes with the caveat that nothing will be suitable for every situation.

binaryAegis
Nova Express
#34 - 2015-02-09 02:36:22 UTC
Moonlit Raid wrote:
Orlacc wrote:
Buy some PLEX, sell on Market, buy character on Bazaar. Done.

PAY TO WIN!
More like Pay to Lose which is what always happens when newbies try to do this, not that I want to stop someone from giving me a shiny killmail.

You don't win by having more SP than the other guy. You win by being smarter, paying attention, and knowing what you can and can't handle.

This character isn't even a month old, but take a look at my killboard (https://zkillboard.com/character/95307967/). I took out that first Tempest with an Incursus while I was still at 700K SP, and I only just crossed over 1 million SP and I've gotten another Tempest and a Hyperion. So many newbies get this idea in their head that they have to wait years before they can actually accomplish anything, and the reason is because of people like you perpetuating the myth that you need to have all of your skills maxed out at 5 to actually stand a chance in this game.
u3pog
Ministerstvo na otbranata
Ore No More
#35 - 2015-02-09 14:15:56 UTC
Samantha Achasse wrote:
Moonlit Raid wrote:
Orlacc wrote:
In about a month, a new player can fly and fit T1 frigates as well as someone playing 10 years.*

*Not including all support skills to level 5


true if your the 10 year old player and know what to train and when.
or have access to a guide, but for a genuine newbie your not going to know what you want to do in eve.


Those 10 year old players did not have any help at their start, nor guides, nor super implants or free SP giveaway...They did it the hard way, learning from their mistakes. Why should CCP make it easy now? It won't be fair towards these veterans.
I spoke to Chribba about that once. He told me he had lost a lot of SP to putting points on the wrong attributes (I think there was no remap at the time, or once per year at best). It so much easier now, everything is on the Internet, plus any old player can tell you how within 1-2 months you can be good in industry/pvp, now if you want a perfection that requires dedication.
Baggo Hammers
#36 - 2015-02-09 16:50:25 UTC
As pointed out, the game is vastly more forgiving to the new player than in the past. So just get going!

If you don't know where you're going, any road will take you there.

Moonlit Raid
Doomheim
#37 - 2015-02-10 00:09:31 UTC
binaryAegis wrote:
Moonlit Raid wrote:
Orlacc wrote:
Buy some PLEX, sell on Market, buy character on Bazaar. Done.

PAY TO WIN!
More like Pay to Lose which is what always happens when newbies try to do this, not that I want to stop someone from giving me a shiny killmail.

You don't win by having more SP than the other guy. You win by being smarter, paying attention, and knowing what you can and can't handle.

This character isn't even a month old, but take a look at my killboard (https://zkillboard.com/character/95307967/). I took out that first Tempest with an Incursus while I was still at 700K SP, and I only just crossed over 1 million SP and I've gotten another Tempest and a Hyperion. So many newbies get this idea in their head that they have to wait years before they can actually accomplish anything, and the reason is because of people like you perpetuating the myth that you need to have all of your skills maxed out at 5 to actually stand a chance in this game.

All I got from that is you stroking your e-peen.

If brute force isn't working, you're just not using enough.

Please Note: Any advice given comes with the caveat that nothing will be suitable for every situation.

Scira Crimson
School of Applied Knowledge
Caldari State
#38 - 2015-03-02 15:22:09 UTC  |  Edited by: Scira Crimson
In my opinion the current skillsystem is wrong on many aspects.

As a beginner, who actually loves the game, but is heavily disgusted by the skill system I followed quite a dozen of arguments about the skillsystem on the internet and I can say, that a lot of those arguments are just WRONG.

My background story: I am an extremly dedicated gamer who started ~1year ago and played for around 2 months. Totally liked the depth of the game, but the skillsystem made me quit in rage and I took a break of ~1 year. Recently I started again to give Eve Online another try, because it actually IS a GREAT game, only the skillsystem sucks incredible.

So, lets talk about the arguments. I have seen a lot and most veterans will say "herpderp, if you are good you still win in PvP" or other meaningless gibberish which does not make sense if you exermine the situation closer.


The main aspects of the current Skillsystem have are fundamentally against good gamedesign:


1, Passive/Offline progression. In my opinion (well, my opionion doesnt matter, but I am sure this is some kind of "game design axiom") Passive progression is just wrong in any game. Player should be rewarded for playing the game and not by afking and offlining. I really hope I do not have to discuss this point as its too obvious...
I mean: You play a game to play it? And not to not play it and come back and have it played itself automatically? xD


2, multiplicative scalings and diminishing returns are underestimated. Some people might argue, that there are diminishing returns. So if you are Master 5 you are not a lot stronger than master 4 and I say, this is wrong! In high level PvP every single percentage counts! If I do have 2% less firerate because specialisation is on 4 and not 5 you have a MAJOR DISADVANTAGE. Ofc this will not be apparent to most player because probably their main PvP activity is to focus on weaker targets as a group (so the small difference does not matter), but if you are up vs an equally playerskilled enemy in an equally fitted ship you will lose, if you do 2% less damage. Thats a fact.

And the 2% example is a ridiculious understatement, because in reality there are a lot more stats which multiply with each other, easily to several 10s percent. (Wouldnt be surprised if a Master 5 has 50% more "combat strength" than a Master 4)
Conlusion: Skills put a major imbalace on the game


3, Gateing content. I dont know what game design purpose this has. I mean, if somebody plays a lot and has tons of ISK why shouldnt he be allowed to use a T2 explorer? This just doesnt make sense gateing content by offline time.
Content should be gated by ISK(=dedication, cunning) and playerskill.


4, It disallows people to experiment in a game with a lot of depth. Same example: You want to explore? what you can do is:
-use a sucky ship and play content at a uncomfortable slow pace
-train to T2 (and then maybe find out that you dont like this playstyle). Great.

So basically the Skillsystem punishes experimenting with different playstyles. (For instance I am locked into missile and shield tanking for now. Maybe in 5 years I can REASONABLE try out hybrid and armortanking or I gimp myself by switching or I quit? No good options I have...)


5, The skillsystem encourages people to create alts so they can combine "all" skills into one account. The skillsystem might be a smart idea to generate money for CCP, because people are forced to pay in order to experience the game to its full extend, but on the other side its CONDRADICTIONARY game design.
An MMO where people are encouraged to create alts so they can play alone efficiently? Maybe most casual player dont do this but this behaviour is definitly encouraged.
My opinion: MMO = 1 Player and 1 Account. Simple



I think I gave you 5 strong points against the current skillsystem and I am yet to hear ONE SINGLE reasonable argument why the skillsystem is good!

Actually I try really hard to arrange myself with the skillsystem, I am really looking for reasons why the skillsystem is "ok" or "bearable", because as I said: I totally love Eve because of its complexity.

If I calm down and honestly try to find a pro argument for the skillsystem Id gladly do it, but I cant. What is the purpose of it?
It has only disadvantages.

The best point I can up with is this: "You dont really need 5 years but after (only) 4 months the game will be playable if you focus on a certain playstyle"
But is this really a good argument?


I also thought about alternatives, because unfortunatly most alternatives I read so far are also not that great...

In my opinion there should >>ALAWAYS<< be a potent catch up mechanisms in any game. The point of an MMO is to generate competition and player interaction and not splitting them into different groups with some game mechanisms. (And the playerbase certainly is split if there are corps who are looking for beginner who have 10+ Mio SP, haha the irony! But this is really happening!)


Ok, here is my idea on how a proper skillsystem should look like:

-scale with (active) time investment by SQR(t)
-resetable at a modest up to a high price to allow realignment of playstyle
-must not be maxable and should player force to specialize
-has build in some kind of (small) inflation mechanic which results in a catch up mechanism for new player

Maybe something like a tradeable skillbook which is gained from a lot of different acitivies and gives 1000 Skillpoints if you use it and for every 1 Mio SP you already have, the skillbook gives 10 SP less.


In my opinion the skillsystem is BY FAR the biggest flaw in Eve Online.
Moonlit Raid
Doomheim
#39 - 2015-03-02 15:30:29 UTC
I'm gonna have to come back and read that later, WAY too much to read right now.

If brute force isn't working, you're just not using enough.

Please Note: Any advice given comes with the caveat that nothing will be suitable for every situation.

Yeza
Doomheim
#40 - 2015-05-22 03:04:56 UTC
I suggest, no I demand, a new +9 implants and they should last 30, 60 or 90 days - and not just the first 14 days crap we have now!

14 days or 35 days is not enough, period. Especially when some players don't even know that they exist. What good does that do them?

If a new implant expires, I can buy a new one and get another 30, 60 or 90 days! For all players, old or new to be fair.

So essentially, we could buy this implant every month and train a lot faster & CCP could sell it in their new store and make extra real money.

Training would still take YEARS and the implant would be lost if podded. And the price needs to be reasonable, less than a month's subscription, since it is NOT an extra subscription! Pretty much everybody would buy it for $5 or $10 bucks.

Not everybody is young and can or will play this game for another 10 or 20 years. I am retired. The way it stands right now, I will be dead before I can fly a carrier or titan with great skills. Think about that people and stop suggesting the skill training is fine. IT CERTAINLY IS NOT FINE. Evil