Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Attributes are a terrible concept and should be removed together with learning implants that are an even worse problem since they create a (bad for gameplay IMO) link between short term benefit choices (with corresponding risk/reward) and long term character development that should be treated as a different "game" than whatever you are currently doing on a given play session (PVP'ers are gimped, etc).

I like the idea of toying around with different learning speed times based on risk/reward of location (say low sec could have better SP/hour to populate it more, in the same way that previously high level agents did for mission hubs), sadly in the end if its fixed everyone will just clone jump which is also terrible gameplay IMO.

Perhaps someone can figure out a smart way to gamify SP/hour by creating a link with something else other than location (that makes sense!), or create some good way to introduce dynamism in this location scheme so that SP/hour varies and players are forced to roam around to the best locations and not just clone jump.

Buying SP and/or performing in game actions for SP seems a bad idea since you will never "balance" all the possible player activities in the sandbox in terms of the "worthiness" of SP/hour of each, meaning this is best left untouched.

I do like the idea of buying a character from the bazaar and then for a special price biomassing this character and copying all his skills to another one you already have, note overlapping skills would be lost so this means a hefty price would be paid by whoever would use this feature however we avoid the immersion breaking pool mechanisms that while popular make the worthiness of time spent training quite meaningless. Note this mechanism could also be used for name changing since you copy everything from one character to the other so probably better to limit usage like we do with neural remaps.

One line:
Give ability to recieve unalocated SP when skill queue is inactive at paid accounts (PLEX/card/GTC)

Example. I train gallente titan lvl 5 and i dont know what i want training for now. So i STOP skill learning but SP is going to unalocated SP pool according to my remap/implants . After few month of recieveng free SP (only and only for payed accounts and only for character where it stops) i decide to fly tengu / cerberus / jackdaw, cause new missile guidence computeers reliesed, and i just inject skill , put unalocated SP from pool to skill and i fly all i want. many ppl , i think almost all, asking themeselfs at some point "OMG what to learn next" .
Going further! you want to sell character! and well hello! you have a great offer at market for buyers . They will buy and correct skills in way they want. For this characters you may probably increase transfer up to 3 PLEX for service.

No need in selling SP from new eden store. no need to make SP rebalance for PLEX. Time most precious resourse in EVE Online, so let it work on goodnes of all pilots.

Also can be setted limit for free SP pool. like 1-2-3-15mil skill points. I think that will satisfied all request of SP problems


For those who said : different remaps giving different number of SP for different skill brsnches. Yes it is. but we always can ask ccp create formula for SP "exchange" if you have int/memory that will be 1.3:1 if you want to train pers/will skill. Or you just can restrict injecting SP in other/different attribute skill branch.

PS: something like that.

I do not see the real problem speaking against selling 1 month worth of skill training for 1 plex. Yes some people maybe able to make instant high SP alts but what is so bad about it?

CCP sells plex, players will still sell chars for isks, new people who started to like the game can now cut some serious time delay and start training for the real goodies much sooner than "wasting" 3 months worth of training to bring the basics, tanking fitting,navigation, drones, etc up to level.

You could limit the amount of SP that can be obtained through plex to the maximum of 3 or 4 months worth per year or so to avoid people instantly spawning super cap pilots.

I would not mind people buying attribute remaps, I mean, its not a instant fix for anything and for some skill categories there simply isnt a years worth of training.

Re-posting this from another thread :
Hello.

Let's get some stuff out of the way first. I know this "****" pops on like once a week. I know a "simple search" would show me it is so. I know the copypasta of why "skill reset is bad"

Let's start with the latter:

Quote:
Tippia wrote:
It removes the point of having skills to begin with.
It removes the point of having attributes.
It removes attribute implants from the game.
It removes variety and instead encourages FOTM and cookie-cutter setups.
It removes the uniqueness, history and "character" of your character.
It removes planning and choice and consequences.
It removes goal-setting, progression and any achievement in those areas.
It kills character trading.
It massively boosts older characters over new ones.
It introduces "catching up" as a concept in EVE and instantly makes it impossible to do.



Then the thread list (which I've read + several more which I haven't listed):

Quote:
Thread 1
Thread 2
Thread 3
Thread 4
Thread 5
Thread 6
Thread 7
Thread 8


I find all your answers to those proposals pertinent (most of them in the range of "No." to "No ******* way!").
This is because resetting skill points for everyone is a bad idea and should never happen in EVE (barring some major systems changes) - a statement with which I concur wholeheartedly.

Having said that, I find the new player experience lacking because of this situation. In order for the game to survive, new players are needed and they're up for grabs. Currently the NPE is enhanced by a tutorial system, some tutorial missions, the opportunity system and (to a lesser extent) the mastery/certificates system.

However, the Aura tutorial and the tutorial missions (including the SoE arc) are done in probably a day, if you are new to the game. Say a week if you only play sparingly and you need instructions on how to operate a gui.

The real problem, I find, faces the new player when he tries to go beyond the early PVE part of the game and starts going into player-created content, which is a shifty ************. Doctrine ships, fitting requirements for them, t2 weapons/tank, not even mentioning the personal skill involved in piloting.

Instead of dipping his toe in everything and picking his flavor, a new player is usually stuck in boring/expendable roles - tackler, scout, etc. What if you want to try your hand at higher classes of ships, at some point? You don't even know how if flies, how would you know whether you want to commit 10 days to learning BS 4 (in one faction, mind you!) . What if you don't like projectile weapons? What if you want to use missiles, because you heard they're noob friendly?

What if you (most common, of what I saw) decide to mine because it's chill like that and at some point you end up with useless 1mil sp - I know you have a different interpretation of skill usage - but to a new player that is the difference between staying or going. I know I've been there and decided to go on, but ever time I come up on a bad decision like this it rips a piece of my heart. I'm currently at 12-13mil sp and have some ****** skills that would've best been used somewhere else.

Anyways, I digress.

My proposal is this :


Allow for re-allocation of a maximum of 10mil sp, once per character,
Available right after you learned those 10mil sp (not before so you don't mess up).
The cost may be whatever (it might even be free).
You will select which skills you want to "drain". When a skill reaches 0 sp in this way it is downgraded to the inferior rank (taking into account skill unlocking restrictions)
If a skill reaches 0 sp at rank 1 it is deleted (taking into account skill unlocking restrictions)
Skill books are not refunded.
This can happen in multiple sessions until you reach 10mil sp moved around (you can even move the re-skilled ones if you're so inclined)


I think this will not allow the older characters to re-skill to something overpowered (10 mil sp is not such a big deal).
It will be only once a char so can't be abused. (may result in some tickets but I guess it's negligible)
It will only be available once you reach 10 mil sp (and that would be the prime time to use it, I guess).
It won't be mandatory, so you can save it for later.
It won't cause such an impact on character trades, implant market, etc.

Remember before you bash that, while very complex and engaging and as close to real life as a game can be at the moment, EvE is still a game, which can't exist without its players. Also, as a game, it proposes a certain user experience - while some artificial friction can be added to some parts of it (like it happens with the combat UI at the moment), I don't think this change to the SP system will impact it negatively.

Moreover, an influx and retention of new players will improve even the game of the veteran ones.

Don't hate - meditate.

That's incredibly informative, thank you.



This is not a bad idea. I did such a bad job of shepherding Dersen to his first 10M SP ("ooh, a new skill! train it to 3!") that I could have used it myself. But when you're new, 10M SP is a long, long way away. I remember when a corpmate urged me to train Salvaging V as soon as possible--this was back when salvage income was actually worth something, so it was decent advice. But OMG 15 day train! That was my first encounter with what skill training in EVE is like once you're out of the tadpole stage, and I did not like it.

But salvaging isn't a critical skill, especially not now. The problem I've encountered repeatedly--both as a genuine new player and as the author of a few alts--is that there is a large brace of skills that you have to train merely so that you can fill the slots on a T1 ship. That's their only direct benefit.

Why?

As a game developer, i have always loved eve's skill system.
My only Complaint is that it does not have some way to artificially increase speed.

Im not really sure how i'd change this in eve, but in our game we have a more simplistic version of the (eves) skill system, and we use a sort of "on death chance to drop" little globals (like in diablo 3) but they give artificial stock piles, that allow players to "place" skill points much like people do in eve when something gets changed around.

I have always thought of some idea that for example, you can do some research in a station, a new "play style" Called "scientist" that has its own skills, that let you do research, to have "Skill points" to sell via some new item called a "Data sheet" Which allows you to have a sort of skill "group set" (like "electronics" or "engineering") that has points that can be used in a specific field, in place of "real time" research, as a way to artificially speed up research time.

Other then that im pretty happy with eve's skill system.

I do think that eve has some problems that grow over time, but i think for the most part those problems go away with simple time reductions to get ships.


For example, right now ishtars are killing everything, and for a normal player to be competitive he needs to have a hac (unless he has a great set up etc but im speaking in a general case).

So a good counter to nano ishtar problems would be to lower the time to get in one, so more people are in it, and the meta is more balanced.

I find it to be a highly problematic issue that hacs and tier 3 ships dominate the pvp meta so greatly. I miss the days where Recons, and command ships were doing a great job, and i long for days where hics become more viable then dictors.

I think a lot of all of these issues is the massive training time, and i would love to see cruiser 5 get a 15 day reduction.

I would entirely support a one-time free skill allocation per account. You know, to fix that first EvE character that we all ruined.

Very specifically....why?

Let's make this simple here, buying and selling skill points don't belong in this game? why because the fact this game is built on training times. With that said I do agree we should be allowed to remap our skill points once a year only! How many you say? start small and go from their. Maybe just one weeks worth of training you can remap theses skills....