Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Let's be honest with ourselves here, letting CODE into the starter systems kills the game

Getting rid of attributes sounds like a GREAT idea...here are my thoughts on replacements...

I like that Slots 1 thru 5 are 'dedicated' to a part of the mind (due to the current system and lore) and I think keeping a remnant of that lore would be neat. After all, bittervets need a reason to story-tell about the colors of those implants years from now when EvE is still dying.

Anyways...I'd keep the 'naming' convention as well as the icons for these implants so that their new 'attributes' are tied to these original names. For posterity and all that.


Slot 1: Perception
-Three varieties:
+Weapon Systems
--Implants that bonus optimal/missile velocity of all weapons
+Spatial Awareness
--Implants that bonus top speed or agility or all ships
+Targeting Systems
--Implants that improve scan resolution

Slot 2: Memory
-Three Varieties
+Drone Systems
--Implants that increase Drone Hit Points
+Complex Formulae
--Implants that improve ME/PE research speed
+Organization
--Implants that increase Cargo Capacity

Slot 3: Willpower
-Three Varieties
+Damage Control
--Implants that Improve Repair Modules repair amount
+Navigation Systems
--Implants that improve Navigation Modules capacitor usage
+Projection
--Implants that improve the strength of all EWAR modules

Slot 4: Intelligence
-Three Varieties
+Artificial Intelligence
--Drone Bandwidth (Increments of 5, with max being 25 - Does not allow additional drones beyond limit imposed by skills/ship)
+Industrial Systems
--Mining Modules: Mining Amount
+Scientific Studies
--Implant that increases Copy Speed of blueprints

Slot 5: Charisma
-Three Varieties
+Leadership
--Implants that improve Gang-Link modules effectiveness
+Marketing
--Implants that reduce taxes associated with buy/sell orders
+Exploration
--Implants that improve Virus Strength


So the idea here is that players have the ability to 'specialize' their clone for a couple of tasks. Since these are the 'base' slots (1 thru 5), they won't provide substantial bonuses but every little bit helps. I think the implants within a given group should compete 'a little' - i.e. it shouldn't be obvious "I'm a combat pilot, so I will use X implant for Slot 1." Each slot should have implants relatively similar in utility such that choosing implants is a meaningful and impactful choice. I know my above list doesn't always show that, it's late so I thought what I could...lol. Slot 1 sort of shows this best. Notice no skill training modifiers - if we're gonna kill attributes, kill 'em right.

I also don't think each Slot should have implants for each of the primary play-styles (Market, Industry, Science, Combat, Exploration). Instead, the available implants should result in players feeling like they can build a clone good at several (not many) tasks such as Combat and Exploration, or Science and Market, or even Industry and Combat (Ore to pay the bills). Again, emphasis on 'customizing' the clone with meaningful, opportunity-cost choices.

Finally...IMPLANTS SHOULD BE MANUFACTURED!!! Seriously, it's a huge market to add to EvE for industry/science/market and could even be dependent on gas (boosters lore and such to justify). Personally, I'd make the base implants have high-security materials for noob player purposes.

For the 'implant sets' that exist, they are basically along these ideas and I would recommend that the number of implant sets be increased slightly (i.e. the types, not the drop rate). I'd also like to see one or two 'advanced' implant sets that could be manufactured that would require WH/Null materials...but that's neither here nor there.

Final Note: Some of these implants already exist you might say. Slots 1 through 5 should bonus entire categories - not specific weapon systems (like medium railguns or large pulse lasers). Implants that do such 'total' improvements would be moved into these slots to help thin out and clarify their 'general use' from the more specialized implants in Slots 6 thru 10.

In total, each Slot would gain several 'varieties' that then follow the classic tier system of improvement and value. So with three varieties, that sees each slot with 15 implants (5 each for 3 categories, not including sets/faction). I'd recommend the removal of current slot 1 thru 5 implants from LP stores (they'll be manufactured instead) and instead incorporate new 'faction' implants to the LP stores divided across three variations of stores (right now there are two variations), each store type selling one of the variations of faction implants.

EX:
-Caldari Navy Sells Slot 1 Implants with Weapon Systems Variation
-Hyasdoda Sells Slot 1 Implants with Spatial Awareness Variation
-Ishukone Sells Slot 1 Implants with Targeting Systems Variation

This encourages experienced players to focus on specific corporations within their chosen faction for missions. As the implants use 'total' bonus strategies, the actual 'faction' won't matter. i.e. Amarr Navy, Caldari Navy, Republic Navy, and Federation Navy would all sell the same Weapon Systems Variation implants since the implants themselves aren't 'faction oriented' by design. This allows the Slot 6 thru 10 implants to be further useful as many of them are faction specific (weapon system specific anyways).

Relative to Opportunity System...

After the basic 'tutorial' for flight and camera, the next step should be Career Agents.

I was DC'd right after character creation...which meant I had no noob rats to target when that opportunity came up. Oops. The system needs to be built around these sorts of potential problems a new player might face.

Recommended Path...
1) Welcome to EvE. Click "Opportunities (Highlight in Neocom) to get started"
-Now Select "Camera Control"
-To Close the Opportunities system, clich the X
-Notice the opportunity listed and what it asks you to do
-To try other opportunities, simply enter the system again and select a different opportunity. Everytime you complete an opportunity, the next one will automatically load. I recommend you follow the path until you're comfortable exploring New Eden. Good luck!

2) Camera Control
3) Ship Control
4) Warping to an object
5) Finding a Career Agent
6) Docking
7) Career Agents and what they are about. Recommend Combat Career agent to get started.
8) Skill Training (Every Career Agent should grant a skillbook on first mission to assist with this opportunity)
9) Combat
10) Chat
11) Corporations
12) ISIS

After that, So on and so forth...

The main problem I saw with the Opportunities system is that it didn't steer NPs to the career agents early enough to where they got more direction and a good sense of what they should be doing. Career Agents also give the best sense of what to immediately be training until a player encounters veterans.

I hate to say it, but a huge problem with the NPE is we the players - vets specifically. Information overload is a huge issue (this IS EvE after all) and vets all too often spew out career agents, EVEMON and god knows what else...all of which severely intimidates new players that might very well love eve's hardcore system once they understand it. I personally think a player should engage with career agents ALONE before they are encouraged to chat. We're talking the space of an hour here, so it isn't like they are being abandoned. Most games allow new players to sort out the basics before encouraging them to interact with others. Players experienced with MMOs will naturally seek chat and that's ok. People who are brand new should be left alone to their own devices for a bit.

I recommend the combat career agent to start because it is the most complete in terms of helping new players better understand ship control and the central focal point of EvE...the ship itself and the myriad capabilities it has. I have ISIS at the end of that list for a reason. New players don't realize how big EvE is for awhile. You built ISIS to be a tool in this...so put it out there! Wow them with how many ships they can fly in their own faction!

As for the remainder of the Opportunities system:
-Opportunity for killing player ship
-Opportunity for creating corporation
-Opportunity for killing player pod
-Opportunity for Cloaking
-Opportunity for Remote Repping Types
-Opportunity for Ewar Types
-Opportunity for Opening Skill Certificates
-Opportunity for injecting Implants
-Opportunity for Clone Jumping
-Opportunity for Warping to Incursion Site
-Opportunity for DED Agent
-Opportunity for DED Site
-Opportunity for Gas Mining
-Opportunity for entering Low Security Space
-Opportunity for entering Null Security Space
Opportunity for Crime: Theft
-Opportunity for Crime: Trafficing
-Opportunity for Crime: Ganking
-Opportunity for CONCORD: Because of the previous one... >:)
-Opportunity for Dueling

-Opportunities for Planetary Interaction (Seriously, PI needs a NPE opportunity explaining the basics)
+Build CC > Place Extractor > Place Links > Setup flow to CC > Run 5 Minute program > Transfer to CC > Launch to Space > Retrieve PI container > Recommend hyperlink for PI in-depth information at EVE Wiki or some such.

-Opportunities for completing level 1,2,3,4,5 missions
(Seriously, so many players don't know about lvl 5s...and many NPs don't know to start at lvl 1s after career agents)
+Opportunity for each would explain the recommended ships for completing those levels and remind players they can check ISIS/Skill Certificates to get a sense of whether or not they are ready to fly those missions.

-Opportunity for Research Agents
-Opportunity for Contracts
-Opportunity for Anchoring (Use a small container)
-Opportunity for Jet-Cans


That's what I can think of for now...Opportunities shouldn't spell out how to do everything in EvE (like fleets, FCs, tactics, Moon Mining) but there is an awful lot it could put out there to help new players find their interest in EvE and improve their subbing rate. Especially the crime, missions, and PI. All three of those are poorly (or not at all) explained and all three are really neat systems that are unique in EvE. PvP related opportunities need to reference strength in numbers and always encourage players to find a corporation.

For all people saying " just remove the implants".
They are obstacle but at the same time very important part of the eve market.

They fuel dozen of thousands of players in terms of income , as they are very viable thing that can be pulled from LP store.
When you propose the replacement , you need to also think what needs to be changed in lp store that the need of the LP consumption level would stay on the same level without affecting to much LP value.

There is also tons of implants in the marked, player "cans" and truing them into raw isk made from air by CCP is very , very bad thing.

Stuff you are proposing in the LP stores should consume both LP and ISK.

Making it consume ( sink ) other things like faction tags, materials , items is also very good thing.
What is also important it needs to be as desired as current implants , and as easy to be removed from the game economy as them.

So leave them alone.

Add new "boosters" that have a limited duration (weeks or more), which persist through podding. Put these in the same place as implant sources. Pirate ones can be left as is to keep risk associated with their power.

Then you let the market sort itself out. LP stores are maintained, income levels/isk sinks are maintined (actually you'd probably see an isk sink increase since most people in bubble space use limited implants)

It's a fairly unobtrusive way to handle it - I admit the people sitting on huge implant stockpiles might lose out a little, but...well....market forces and all that.

I agree that a lot of people need to be handheld at the start. Eve is a big world and they need some place to begin. There is a fine balance between coddling, handholding, and railroading. Making it so that there are useful and interesting tutorial missions is a good thing. Making those missions guide you towards more interesting parts of Eve is a good thing. Making the benefits so good they become basically mandatory is not a good thing.

Making it so that there is an optimal path or too many "roads not taken" is not a good thing. For instance, when I joined, they had the racial bloodline make a difference in your starting attributes. I chose Gallente - Gallente, because I liked the story line associated with it. I didn't realize at the time that I was consigning myself to having high charisma for a long time. Most new characters at that time were Caldari - Achura or Minmatar - Sebiestor, because they got a better set of starting attributes. A lot of min-maxers said, "Dude, you are screwed right from the start. 26 Charisma, OMG!" Fortunately, CCP corrected that poor game design (so nice not seeing EVERY new player as a frickin' Achura).

That is a horrible idea. Especially in the early days, players train a extremely wide variety of things, not only 1 category. Locking them into 1 category where they can train faster and then coercing them into installing another expensive implant set to train another category is a worse system than the current implants. I currently have Starship Command, Trade, Gunnery, Missiles, Drones, Shield and Armor in my queue. This would require me to change implant sets 6x to have an adequate training speed (current +3 level). This offers absolutely no benefits over the current system and your choice is all but a fake.

Glad you see reason.

We used to be able to create chars with around 900k SP, but then again, the Learning Skills were still in place at that time.

Perhaps, Unallocated SP Rewards for completing NPE Opportunities?

-GY

How is it different?

• For starters: I am not locked into a single category for training. Even with a sub-par remapping, chances are high that one of them is at least a secondary attribute to some skills. With Perc/Mem or Perc/Int, these chances are extremely high even.
• It is for free, as another point.
• I do not need to buy a new implant set for every skill I train. It is just once per year, but once you take the right choice for a remap, there is no need to remap at all in years.
• I also do not need to adjust my skill training according to the implant set I have installed. I remember as a newbie, I was training things from Gunnery, Starship Command, Engeneering, Electronics, Armor, Navigation, Neural Enhancement, Targetting, Shields, all in random orders as I needed them at the moment (as my rudimentary skill plan on page 1 indicates). With the current system, attributes complement each other, are "reusable" in several categories or at least 1 can be found in one of the categories, giving you at least some bonuses to the training of a variety of skills. With your system, I would need to train everything I can from one category, buy a new set and train everything I can from another category, and so on. And if I then notice "Oh, I need this from the other category I just switched out... Fantastic!", I am screwed. After reading through some of the posts here on previous pages, newbies are daft enough that they will run into this situation with frustrating regularity.

This is not going to improve anything for newbies.

I don't think opening them up to griefing in the starter systems is the answer, but I agree that they need to experience ship loss, at the hands of another player, early on in the game.

I'm inclined to suggest a mission that sends them to a nearby low sec FW-style complex in a rookie ship. Other rookies would also be directed to the same complex. The mission would warn them to "only fly what you can afford to lose, i.e. your rookie ship." It would warn them that they might get killed on the way there. The gate on the outside would only allow rookie ships into the complex. The gate to the complex would be unique to that player's mission, but it would direct everyone to the same complex (to stop people camping outside of the only entrance). Sure, some bored bittervets might sit inside and slaughter noobies in their off-grid boosted, Snake-set, faction-fitted, rookie ships of doom, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. The point is to give them a place to lose ships in a carefree manner.