Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Attributes are a needlessly complex feature and are a major cause of confusion for new players. I propose a system where we replace attributes and +attribute implants in favour of a more straight forward system of +% learning speed.

Firstly, remove attributes from the game and give everyone a flat rate of learning equal to if you had 20 attribute points in each attribute type. No confusion, no need for remaps, no need for certain skills to take longer because they rely on under utilised attribute categories (charisma, I'm looking at you).

For implants, leave the same slot based system, but create an interface similar to the ship fitting panel that displays these implants, so people can get a visual idea of their implants.

Remove all implants with +attribute. Replace this with +% learning rate of two flavours.

'Across the board' learning implants
1%, 2% and 3% (open to suggestions on the figures) across the board for all skills - 5 potential slots (as with the current attribute system) for learning implants. this means you can get a maximum of +15% learning speed to any skills with a full set of +3% implants.

Specific skill implants
10%, 15% and 20% increase in the learning speed for specific skill sub categories (gunnery, drones, shields). Obviously you would not be able to have more than of the same specialised learning implants to get insane bonuses. They would also not stack with the 'across the board' implants, again to ensure the bonuses don't go too high.

Implants are still destroyed when removed so you can't just pick and chose the specialist implant for training a handful of skills.

This eliminates a game mechanism that is confusing and overly obtuse, and replaces it with something that tidies up the meaningless complexity whilst retaining the depth. This system would also add a new element of choice. You can go for 'across the board' if you want flexibility, or if you want to focus on a few core skill sub-categories then you can opt for specialised implants.

What are you thoughts?

(PLEASE NOTE - all the figures are barely placeholders, I don't know how existing implants boost learning speed exactly, but basically I want this system to avoid buffing learning speed too much, only a few percentage points.)

On the flipside the general consensu of those against this kind of often recurring OP are that the current system is fine as is and offers choice and increased risk for increased reward (higher SP rate). I'm in this camp and have never been confused about attributes/implants/remaps.

The problem with the current system is that it's a linear choice. You either have the implants or you don't. Whether you have a +3 or a +5 is based primarily on how much ISK you have. This system keeps that linear choice, in addition to another (flexible or focused), whilst also clearing up a common, albeit minor, gripe of newer players.

Not against this but.

Considering the confusions that can occur with the current implants and you are in essence adding even more implants into the game I do not see how this would make it any easier for players to figure out?

If you are going to implement a visual system in game so players can better understand what the implants do why not just implement that portion to cover the existing implants?

With these new implants cost could become a hugs factor in skills training and it would adversely affect the new players the most, yet in the current system there are no costs to the player to change attributes to support training within a specific area of skills. Within your system how would you propose to change this so it does not impact new players in such an adverse way?

Yes, let's by all means remove the last method of character customization that actually matters.

Did the sarcasm come through alright? It's hard to tell.

I disagree, and I'll explain why. Med clones were an illusion of choice because there was no benefit from choosing not to use them, only a penalty. Implants don't fall into that category because there are, as you point out, benefits and penalties from both choices.

Don't use implants: Pro - cheap pod loss. Con - slower skill training.
Use Implants: Pro - faster skill training, Con - expensive pod loss.

But now, as a player, I have a meaningful choice - what level of risk am I willing to accept to get faster training times than people competing against me. It's no different than choosing what investments to make. I can gamble big and make larger profits (spend a lot of ISK and get faster training), and maybe lose big, or I can gamble small and make smaller profits (spend less ISK, but make little to no extra SP), but with lower risk.

The investment in this case is ISK to train faster. If you check my killboard, you'll see this meaningful choice in action. I used to routinely plug in a full set of +4s and a pod loss cost me right around 120 million ISK (or more, if I was using hardwirings). But after I joined fac war and lost three pods in a single day, I changed my implant habits - now I only have a pair of +3s at a time based on which skills I am training. If I lose a pod now, my loss is only 16-20 million. I chose to train slower so I can PvP more without worrying about the cost. That is the choice you're trying to take away from us.

Now, learning skills were the perfect example of the lose lose scenario you're describing. The only meaningful choice was to train them - there was no benefit in not having them. And that's one of the reasons they were removed.

Also, the "It's too hard for newbros" argument is crap. As a new player I had absolutely no trouble using implants or knowing what they did for me. The first skill I trained was Cybernetics 1 so I could get a set of +2's to train my learning skills.

I did. Couldn't find anything similar to the implant system I proposed. I also welcome the criticism. this was a bit of a shower thought and its good to thrash out these ideas. Helps me learn.

How exactly am I losing SP generation? It may be inaccurate and nothing but a rough estimation, but battleclinic estimates my SP count at 77M. My actual SP count is at well over 85M. I have never used +5s, I have never used +4s for a long period of time, I only sit in +4s when I do not play anyways. So, tell me: How is having more SP than some algorithm's estimation losing SP generation?

What you lose is your impatience, and that is something all these new gamers need to be retaught asap. You do not need to have all skills up to V or even IV in a matter of weeks, you do not need to learn at the best possible speed to progress in an orderly fashion. You ought to progress at a pace that suits your own real-life learning pace. And in that regard, if I might say so, most people who try EVE these days are best advised to use +1s at most as they have absolutely no idea what they are doing and need a lot of time to be taught what they should do.

Having said that: Implants offer you more than a choice between linear SP accumulation and ISK investment. They offer you a decision between learning things too fast for you to understand and learning at a reasonable pace that gives you the opportunity to understand what you are actually doing.

Closed.