Player Features and Ideas Discussion

12 one month old chars will easily out match one 12 month old char in almost any situation.

You dont need sp, you need friends.

Except combat.

That's like saying there's an opportunity cost between having breakfast, or taking a **** in the morning.

I'm going to do both - I just pick which order.

EVE skills are largely the same. There are a few ways to completely ignore some mechanics, yes. I can choose to go full combat and put nothing into trading (can't entirely do that the other way around, as you start with some combat skills). But take trading. Once you have Industrial I, Trading I and Contracting I, that's largely going to be what you need mechanically to be a market trader. You certainly won't be a titan of industry or anything, but from there on out all the skills are "What I can do now, only more so."

So that's not really an 'opportunity cost', considering your options are to become better at what you've chosen to do... or become better at what you've chosen to do in a different order.

No, your point was that in a 12 v 1 the bigger group should easily win even against even a far older character. That is not true.

The idea of 1 month old characters being competent at PvP is particularly egregious. It's 3-4 months (depending on hull) to get the basic SP competencies down, and the better part of a year to get yourself flying at full potential. And that, Duffo does have. Just imagine how that fight would have gone if it was a purely trial account gang. Or if he had spent some of his extra SP on an OGB.

Winning at low SP levels can happen. Even suitonia managed to get a few wins in that Rifter video. But as that same video proves, you need an incredibly lopsided fight in order to make it work.

There is an opportunity cost between taking a **** and having breakfast...or in which order you do them. It might be small and most people wont even spend more than a fraction of a second on the decision, but still there is a cost. All choices entail an opportunity cost, even if small.

In game, depending on what you want to do, the order in which you train skills also comes with an opportunity cost.

And no the skills are not "largely the same". Some skills, core skills, are good to train across multiple "professions" in the game, for example the capacitor based skills are usually good if you are going to be in space in a ship. Of course, if you are training a pilot to fly a freighter then you might want to put those skills further down the list...like maybe when he will be getting ready to train/use a jump freighter. Of course, if you are going to be a station trader, training such a skill would be pretty close to a complete waste relative to training yet-to-be-trained trade skills. In this case the opportunity cost of training the capacitor skills or weapons upgrades is very high.

And with a station trading character you don't need alot of skills, true. However, if you want to maximize your gains there are a number of skills you can train. And there is yet another option open to this player, once that trader is "maxed out" start another character. This one could supplement the trader--i.e. is a hauler. Or does something else...and of course the choices come with and opportunity cost.

Lopsided fight? You mean like friends, superior piloting or a better fit? Well thats terrible. Most of the players in that fight were capable od flying a cruiser and bc. Imagine how that fight would have went if they had chosen not to fly frigs and dessies. And lets remember, duffo didn't hold the field. He had to bail.

-Your proposal Is that sp be removed, but clearly thats not necessary.

-The op's proposal is that new players start with 35mil sp, but clearly thats not necessary.

-Building something, like a char, from a low and basic level clearly has mass appeal.

-Sp/hour system is better than a grind system in particular for eve as eve has a large population of mature players with fulltime jobs and family.



Im not denying that new players could do with an extra boost to sp and I have posted that else where. In fact it makes sense to me that with an ever aging population, New players gradually get more and more starting sp. But the notion that new players must have 35mil sp or even wait 3-4 months before CONTRIBUTING to a fight is false.

Here is your problem, you are constantly confusing and equivocating. If we want to be explicit we can write it out this way,

Prob(Win A fight | SP, Skill),

the position Daichi and I are arguing is that the effect of changing SP on that probability is small. The other factor, "skill" which is everything not captured by the skill point system, is the dominant factor. The latter comes with time. This is why you'll see "veterans" who have a new character beating players with more SP than their new character. The skill factor is the dominant factor.


As for opportunity cost, its funny that Eve players are often so well versed in it when it comes to "I mine my own minerals there for they are free," but then fall flat on their ****ing faces when applying the concept of opportunity cost elsewhere. That describes you perfectly Aerasia.

Oh, and for the record, I'd argue the better course is to train Advanced Industry first since it will help you with researching BPOs which you should do before you use them to build. But considering that Advanced Industry is rank 3 vs. Mass Production which is Rank 2 you could alternate skills as well. And apparently you think that training various skills comes with a massive opportunity cost...so much so that all skills and SP should simply be removed and that the only barrier to flying any ship you want be ISK....which will still necessitate time until "content".

As for "CONTRIBUTING to a fight" (by the way, might I suggest a decaffeinated brand of coffee or maybe a therapist, you sound rather angry) even long time veterans merely "contribute" to a fight. Heck, lately I've been trying my hand at logistics. Not exactly the sexiest role in PvP although FCs will love you long time for flying such ships.

35 mil sp is way too mucj! 2-3 is enough and you can grind it out like the rest of us. A new player doesnt need to go beyond frig/destroyer for about 6 months. If done right you should be skilled enough to fly crusiers. I personally think BS should take alittle over a year to get into. 35mil SP! Youre drunk kid! Go Home!

so as a new pilot i have seen only a few things new players actually can do that isnt being bait. 1. new players can get just a little over 1 mil sp and can tank just like everyone else as i can tank fit almost any ship i fly. 2. as a 1mil sp pilot you can do ecm things with tank things. 3. some people think FC is hard but if a new player is good at talking and leading they can FC to as its not hard and most FC's dont need to do anything particularly special. the downsides within these three. 1 even if you tank hard you cant get decent DPS without tech 2 weapons. this means you still need to train for about 1 or 2 months JUST for your guns. 2 ecm is nice and all but solo ecm doesnt really work so this means you limit yourself to at least small fleets with ECM. 3. if you die first as FC just because they saw your character was new this renders that whole argument invalid. the issue with SP in this game is that tech two is the only viable thing in pvp 90% of the time. if the other guy/guys can out tank you your doomed and there is no argument to fight this. the current meta/ what everyone is doing now is also BLackops which anyone on trial cant even TOUCH due to trial restrictions so all of those blackops fleets are suddenly null for real nubs at the game and any other fleet will barely want you if you cant do more then 170 dps on your frig which on a few ships i have fitted is the max you can get with meta fours. also you dont want to fit faction guns it makes your ship to shiny. correct me where im wrong but as it is with my 1.5 mil sp my only downside that i have and i NOTICE is in a 1v1 with anything on my level they do that extra 100DPS over my 170 to 200. this means that solo pvp is very very hard to do without either A losing lots of isk and ships or B doing pve to keep the isk income which is hard when everytime you turn around your getting ganked cause people in eve are pretty much all assholes 50 to 90% of the time. if i missed something let me know if im wrong dont just say im wrong explain it because as i see it im litterlly paying ONLY to train my character and when my time runs out i probably WONT buy another plex or game time from CCP because of this huge gape simply because of SP. also if you say speed tank eff off everytime i try to speed tank i get pointed and webbed all at the same time my afterburner and MWD are both useless active tanking is the only real option. my thought is make the skills matter less i like the game cause of the ships i want to fly but if i have to spend 3 years just to fly them and be worth something i dont want to play. i bet hundreds of other people feel the same way to who are new.

It seems worth betting that this statement has absolutely nothing of accuracy for the conversation. Actually read any studies implementing the Bass diffusion model for video game products? Either way, how about providing literally any reasoning on that a product should focus on subscriptions that have already been cancelled for *some* reason (likely multiple reasons over the distribution) over either innovating the game (probably a reason for both quitting and not initially subbing) or making it accessible (which again, effects both veteran and amateur experiences). The amount of those "not logging in" is much less than those that haven't played the game, and the latter group constantly receives more numbers.

On the actual model, here's a direct quote from a videogame industry study:


Analogously, that's price of entry (getting skills, which could add up to $1,000 or more for purchasing characters or as advancing, in another method, the obvious barrier of entry), and that's experience availability (what goes "in" the game). So, if the sales of a product are directly related with that product -- the best idea is probably improving it.

Summarized, is the barrier of entry (for example, seeming relevant in the game) ludicrous? Is the experience availability after the first logical goal (for example, frigates) open?

There's no "decline" in a game without a competitor. That quote explains consoles, because they're a platform that's being antiquated with every innovation. There being no competitor -- no innovation -- makes this "point" completely underwhelming. There are no other sandbox MMOs.

The whole model with, frankly, the whole argument and set of responses for it, are ham-fisted completely. Noted, there has been no actual definition for the model in this.. neither "imitation" nor "innovation". So, unless there is one, the whole discussion from this relies on making up definitions. So why imply understanding of the statements? Price is what it takes getting to any goal, analogous because the only goal of a console is getting the console and playing games. So it stands, that barrier of entry for any "first" goal (plausibly stats or relevancy in a niche) and the accessibility of goals beyond that are relevant for figuring out the quality of the game.

If an end product of "gameplay" is decent stats, is SP not ludicrous? If the further goal is playing multiple roles and classes well, does that not seem inaccessible? Obviously, recruiting for the game could have that recruit doing very little of their playstyle for as much as they're interested.