Player Features and Ideas Discussion

I posted on how to try and deal with core skill SP without having to wait for CCP to change something and it got locked for trolling.

How are they interesting? You have no choice in them. You either inject them to learn skills faster or you don't. There's no choice in learning implants or attributes. It's black and white.

The daily activity is a mix of things. ISBoxer changes, botting bans, incoming SOV changes, no wars between large coalitions, jump changes. There are a ton of things that are contributing to lower daily activity numbers, fixing the NPE isn't one of them.

It has been a long time since I've gone through career agents, and only touched on the opportunities, but I have dealt a lot with new players, so hopefully these thoughts may be productive.


Q: 'Opportunities are bad, they've made the NPE much worse'
Well obviously I don't have the data, but I don't think this is the case. I think the opportunities system is great and simplify systems that were overly complicated for new players to learn. That being said, I haven't gone through the opportunity system since it first made its way onto SISI, there may be some things I'm missing.

Q: 'Can we send new players to career agents since that's what veteran players are recommending anyway'
I would agree with this, but I would love to see a mix of the career agents and opportunities. I would also like to see it broken down more along the lines of the "What to do in EVE" graphic. http://swiftandbitter.com/eve/wtd/eve-wtd.jpg

Example: Instead of Industry being a ten part mission progression or linear Mine > Build > Haul > Sell. Let the opportunities dictate how they go about it.

Industry (Opportunities)
- Haul something to another station in your cargo hold. Pickup from item hanger, to drop off in item hanger.
- Sell something on the market
- Mine and refine resources
- Build something

This will give people the freedom to decide if they want mine their own materials to build something. Buy it off the market. Sell the item they just made. Etc, etc. I specifically remember repetitive parts of the career agents when I was new, where I would buy an item off the market cheap and just complete the mission rather than go through all the steps to manufacture something that I had already made before, but was using on my ship at the time.

Combat could be broken down into PvE and PvP:

PvP
- Join a militia
- Engage another player ship
- First killmail

PvE
- Scan down and enter a combat signature
- Complete a mission
- Enter an incursion

I'm not saying they all have to be exactly that, but it shows that while people mention to new players "Hey, you can do industry, combat, exploration, etc" it shows them that there is a lot of sub-categories (Faction warfare, Alliance battles, solo PvP) to focus on and specialize in.

Q: 'Starting skills are a huge barrier, can we give a lot more to new players'
Something I've said for a while, and I'm sure the horse is a bloody pulp now. There are a lot of little annoyances that some new players don't realize they are encountering, or if they do, become incredibly frustrated at. Maximizing PGU/CPU, simple modules that add up over time, it can be a pain. Moving on.


Q: 'Attributes aren't very interesting, you should remove them'
I've had long discussions on this. I'm not exactly a fan of it, but I can see why. I don't like seeing removal of player planning and choice. My biggest concern is that the current system has a risk/reward factor to it, and I don't think that should be removed. Your reward is training certain things up at a faster rate, but risk falling behind in other areas. While not externally player influenced like a lot of risk/reward factors in EVE, it is there. (Note: I am not saying its a great system, it just follows the tenets of EVE) I also like the fact that remaps can help you focus on a couple different areas based on attributes (gunnery and ships coming to mind). Additionally, the current system takes in account both planning and ISK for helping speed up your skill time. New players coming in (IF they grasp the attribute system) can train faster by remaps, while veterans can drop ISK on implants.

That being said, I would like to see something similar, even if only influenced by destructible implants. A couple thoughts I had a while back, two are terrible, but I feel the need to post them regardless just to start discussion. They are all primarily thought up with focused training in mind, which is the reason people typically remap the existing attributes.

The Mountain System
- Flat training time
- Training into skillgroups unlocks bonuses (time?) in other groups
- Example: Training into resource processing will give small bonuses to production skills, or hauling, or other industry related activities

The Hobby System
- Allows players to train a "hobby" alongside a primary "career"
- Hobby skills train at reduced rate
- Hobby skills being trained cannot be in the same skill group as career skills

The Levelheaded System
- Flat training time
- Implants and slots remain, but the implants affect skill groups as a whole, and multiple skill groups at once
- Implants bonus multiple skill group training, but at varies speeds (slow, medium, fast)
- Would allow for investment by players with risk of destruction and keeps "training clones"
- Example how a pod could be with implants:
- Slot 1 - Scanning slow bonus, Engineering medium bonus, Resource processing fast bonus
- Slot 2 - Gunnery processing slow bonus, Armor medium bonus, Engineering fast bonus
- Slot 3 - Missiles slow bonus, Leadership medium bonus, Navigation fast bonus


To sum up, I like the way things have been going, but still a long road ahead. /end the longwinded posts. Flame away!

Some thoughts on the matter in no particular order:

1. Giving players a tangible reward for completing opportunities by giving them SP in a skill related to what they did (navigation, mining, etc) gives them a sense of progression and power to accomplish something with meaningful benefit for themselves.

2. The opportunities system should, given sufficient completion, put players over the initial 'skill barrier' which everyone talks around 4-5m SP. Now, that is quite a few skillpoints, but if new players have done a bit of everything (markets, mining, pvp, found a wormhole, seen a titan, etc) then by that point they're probably well invested into the game, which is a good thing for us as a community. It also helps with the type of person who thinks that mission running is the only thing to do because it incentivizes a variety of experiences. I have every reason to believe CCP could craft such a system that it takes long enough to do to prevent alt abuse while still keeping newbies engaged.

3. Any sort of SP reward to the opportunity system should reward depth of play in an are as well as dabbling in a bit of everything, but not as much; after all the point of the opportunities system is to show how many different cool things one can do in the game.

4. The attribute system gives new players a very unsavory choice: I've known many who want to try out low or null, but can't access jump clones to do so without risking implants they can barely afford but feel are necessary to catch up on skill points. Figuring out a way to decouple learning bonuses from destructible implants would help many, including old players 'behind' on SP compared to their hisec peers because they live in null. Perhaps make them persist through death with a % reduction to some minimum value each time you get podded?

5. Opportunities are a great start, but need further iteration.

Dear CCP

I agree completely with the direction of these changes, especially giving new players the SP boost to be able to use basic modules, keep up the great work!

Keep in mind "essential" skills for say, manufacturing are radically different from combat.

If we want players to be able to try their hand at most professions at an entry level to see what floats their boat, the number isnt going to be a million miles away from 1-2m.

attributes are what make skill-training interesting, take away attributes, and you might as well start decommissioning the whole skill training, I agree that they can be a barrier, but it's also a VERY MEANINGFUL CHOICE. that said, implants (at least the purely learning ones) do little more than inhibit risky behaviour, I know they're an isk sink, but get rid of/repurpose them before you fiddle with attributes.

Don't forget that most noobs do not even know that we have implants. And I was perfectly fine without any implants for the first three years.

I thing this is really good idea. Clear, simple, easy to understand.

Unallocated skill points are useless without proper counsellings on how to apply them properly. There is literally no difference between the current system of attributes and remaps and freely allocatable skill points if there is no advice and counseling available to the newbies. And that is the part where large parts of the community and CCP fail big time.