These forums have been archived and are now read-only.

The new forums are live and can be found at https://forums.eveonline.com/

EVE Information Portal

 
  • Topic is locked indefinitely.
 

Dev Blog: Exploring The Character Bazaar & Skill Trading

First post First post First post
Author
Previous Topic Next Topic
Moac Tor
Cyber Core
Immediate Destruction
#3861 - 2015-10-19 21:45:43 UTC
General Lootit wrote:
Moac Tor wrote:
General Lootit wrote:
Moac Tor wrote:

You won't be able to afford them unless you plan on a career in corp theft and scamming. You'll be priced out the market. I've seen it many times, new players coming into the game with wild dreams of being able to PLEX their account and play for free but when reality hits they can barely even scrape together enough to afford their ships let alone a PLEX.

I already did it and having cash on top of that. Only reason why I'm writing here so much and don't playing EVE is traning quee which I can't accselerate. I rather earn some isks and dump them into SP than waiting until training is done. So maybe you need to stop speeking for us all.

You should be spending that ISK on ships and having fun. Not grinding FW plexes to try and advance your training que, trust me I've done it and it is boring as heck.

What you don't realise is that we experienced players have been in this for years and we've tried all the ISK making methods to death barring some of the huge alliance level stuff so we are speaking from experience. This is not going to be accessible to you unless you are one of the very small percentage of players who become a successful trader or scammer, or you grind like hell to advance your skill que.

Agree it's boring like hell. I intend to try combat exploration and thats why I waiting for quee.

If your looking at combat exploration then why not try some hacking and data sites whilst you wait. And trust me, hold onto that ISK as you can never have enough ISK in Eve.
Fool Nalelmir
Viziam
Amarr Empire
#3862 - 2015-10-19 21:46:16 UTC
Ok,

I had a very bad reaction to this at first. I had a lot of really strong negative feelings about it but have had both some time to calm down and also been thinking about this. i have also talked to some of the "younger" guys and they are all excited about this. So here is where I am with it atm

1) I am worried that this will be cost prohibitive for actual new players. If new players join it is hard to drive the price point up with out the a fair few getting bitter faster. I think we will see a lot of new bros joining getting milked for money and leaving. But then lets be honest here for ever what 100 that join 10 are gonna stick around for the long haul so if that means that there is more money to keep the lights on so be it.

2) I really think there needs to be more content in the game to retain these people that is the core failing. Yes this is a PVP central game but adding more ways to play in the sandbox is really gonna be key.

3) I think it is foolish to think that older players will not abuse/use this but I can live with this.

4) most of the younger players are excited about this and we the "older" players should probably sit back and adapt to the new change.

5) This isn't really pay-to-win lets be honest the price point will be to high for that to really be a thing.

6) I think most of us who are complaining will come around in time. And we are already addicted we need the next generation of EVE addicts to start logging in

So CCP sorry I got all but hurt about it. keep working on it.
Scipio Artelius
Weaponised Vegemite
Flying Dangerous
#3863 - 2015-10-19 21:48:28 UTC  |  Edited by: Scipio Artelius
Having thought about this for a couple of days, I still think the current design is poor, although I agree with the underlying reasons for change.


The strong message I got from the devblog was about player control, progression for new players and fixing aspects of the character bazaar.

But, a large part of the reaction to it has been an interpretation that this is a money grab and a shift towards p2w.

So assuming that it isn't intended as a money grab or a shift towards p2w, I think there is another option that does achieve greater control for players and progression for new players.

When the pre-requisities to fit rigs was removed, everyone in the community rejoiced. Anyone could fit any rig to a ship and get the benefit of having that rig fit. However, not having the skill trained meant that they suffered the full drawback of the rig also.

I personally think this is a better model to use when trying to increase control and allow faster progression for new players.

That's exactly the outcome that the rig fitting changes achieved.

So I personally think a better approach would be to remove the pre-requisites to fly any ship or use any module; but in doing so, you get access to the basic attributes, but none of the bonuses until you train the skills.

So a day old character would be able to jump into a HAC and fit it with T2 guns, but wouldn't gain any of the benefit from training the cruiser or HAC skills, nor the benefit of having the gunnery support skills trained.

They'd gain greater progression and have more control (as all players would), but the associated skills would still provide a more ideal situation, just as they do with fitting rigs.

That would probably be a bigger project and there's probably skills that could be consolidated and removed from the game, but as an overall approach, I think it provides a better outcome and is much more in line with an approach to change that the community all praised.
Moac Tor
Cyber Core
Immediate Destruction
#3864 - 2015-10-19 21:53:35 UTC  |  Edited by: Moac Tor
Mr Epeen wrote:
Moac Tor wrote:

You won't be able to afford them unless you plan on a career in corp theft and scamming.


Keep selling that, bro.

Less competition for the people who will be buying them dirt cheap when 100,000 characters worth of SP packs hit the market in the first week this goes live.

You are not a new player. You know this to be true. It's how it always happens when a marketable item is introduced for the first time. It is way overproduced a to the point where you can barely give it away.

That is when I'll be doing my buying. Not a month later when they are all hoarded by speculators.

Mr Epeen Cool

Yes initially you are right the price will be steep drop, and then as the big alliances and speculators start buying them up the price will rise. Lets say as a rough estimate it will drop to 200mil and stabilise at 300mil for 500k, would you advice a new player to grind 300mil (considering how long it will take) for another 500mil SP?

That doesn't sound like a very enjoyable way to play the game in my view.

Instead you could open up more possibilities and options that are available to new players with low skill which is what CCP have been doing.
General Lootit
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#3865 - 2015-10-19 21:57:41 UTC  |  Edited by: General Lootit
Moac Tor wrote:
General Lootit wrote:
Moac Tor wrote:
General Lootit wrote:
Moac Tor wrote:

You won't be able to afford them unless you plan on a career in corp theft and scamming. You'll be priced out the market. I've seen it many times, new players coming into the game with wild dreams of being able to PLEX their account and play for free but when reality hits they can barely even scrape together enough to afford their ships let alone a PLEX.

I already did it and having cash on top of that. Only reason why I'm writing here so much and don't playing EVE is traning quee which I can't accselerate. I rather earn some isks and dump them into SP than waiting until training is done. So maybe you need to stop speeking for us all.

You should be spending that ISK on ships and having fun. Not grinding FW plexes to try and advance your training que, trust me I've done it and it is boring as heck.

What you don't realise is that we experienced players have been in this for years and we've tried all the ISK making methods to death barring some of the huge alliance level stuff so we are speaking from experience. This is not going to be accessible to you unless you are one of the very small percentage of players who become a successful trader or scammer, or you grind like hell to advance your skill que.

Agree it's boring like hell. I intend to try combat exploration and thats why I waiting for quee.

If your looking at combat exploration then why not try some hacking and data sites whilst you wait. And trust me, hold onto that ISK as you can never have enough ISK in Eve.

I already tried. If you will convince every newbie which you met in that than of course they will be poor as you described.

Main source of concerns and side effects

Typical loyal customer with eleventy accounts
Jared Khanar
#3866 - 2015-10-19 21:59:47 UTC  |  Edited by: Jared Khanar
some last words before leaving here:

Scipio Artelius hit the point.

CCP.

Change is good - especially changing mechanics overall perceived as problematic.
but don´t turn solutions to bad gamedesign into additional financial income.
That gives a very bad taste - either pay or live with it.
Many, many bad companies act like this.
Don´t get another one of those.
You can do better than that.

o7

EDIT: If I remember right there has been the suggestion by the csm to build some sort of diskussiongroups to gather playerfeedback, a.s.o. As this is something affecting all players, the economics, the way eve is played and perceived - your devblog is only meant for gathering feedback: wouldn´t this topic be perfect as a first implementation and test?
Let us develop and discuss possible solutions together in a moderated way. Maybe we are able to develop a concept everyone is happy with, a not so exploitable one, with as less as possible negative side effects... Let us find out if the csm is able to manage this or if anything valuable comes out of it. There´s nothing to loose. Give us more power to take part in building and shaping the universe we live in. Even if changes take a bit more time, if you show us we have a voice you listen to, your playerbase wouldn´t vanish. This could be another experiment within the "eve experiment". It´s time for change, that´s for sure. Don´t make it "your" change, because we are a part of it. Make it OUR. EVE is changing, the community also, wouldn´t you be a part of this? Are you not curious? Harden the **** up! :)

Thanks

Economic Services

trading spacepixels
Dror
Center for Advanced Studies
Gallente Federation
#3867 - 2015-10-19 22:00:49 UTC
Tyberius Franklin wrote:
Dror wrote:
Hey, Tiberius,
What's your take on this effecting retention?
I can't strongly guess one way or another, but based on CCP Terminus advising that mostly new players buy characters I think easing the burden from a large purchase to smaller piecemeal ones could have a positive effect among new players. For older players it should be a non-issue, but we've got some really strong bias against it and who knows if they'll follow through on their threats to quit should it become reality.

The basic philosophy has to do with the value of gameplay coming from the money spent (and plausibly how much money can be spent).

So, what game design strategy can reinforce enjoyment? A blogpost about SWG lists the following:

Quote:
SWG had the shortest play session of any RPG at SOE (action games, including Planetside, had shorter). This had very much been a design goal: mission terminals, offline crafting and harvesting, etc., were designed to provide exactly this result in order to make MMOs more accessible. Time sinks had historically been a huge barrier to adoption of MMOs by audiences beyond the core. It also had a lot of features designed to attract players beyond the core. These things seem to have worked as intended. These days, people think of SWG as grindy, but it actually had the fastest advancement of any MMO at the time it came out.

The blog also states that the game had the best one-month conversion of any game at SOE, by a double-digit percentage. So, there's value in quick play sessions and, apparently, quick progression. There's more good news:

Quote:
However, at the same time, it also had the highest total hours played per week. In other words, it was the least grindy per session, and the most sticky on a week or month basis. Note that lower session lengths naturally equals lower concurrency numbers. But the bottom line is that SWG had the highest percentage of its user base logging in every month out of any SOE game, again by double-digit percentages.

Here's where that's problematic for EVE. All of the gameplay that could be "login and edit" is restricted by SP. That, for probably a huge majority, is a sandbox game without crafting or marketing or contributing for any industry at all.

"SP is helpful for the game?" Here's all of the research on motivation -- it says the opposite! What purpose does it serve, then? Starter corps are non-competitive. Sov is unchallenged. "Fix sov!" you say? Remove SP.
Moac Tor
Cyber Core
Immediate Destruction
#3868 - 2015-10-19 22:03:27 UTC
General Lootit wrote:
Moac Tor wrote:
If your looking at combat exploration then why not try some hacking and data sites whilst you wait. And trust me, hold onto that ISK as you can never have enough ISK in Eve.

I already tried. If you will convince every newbie which you met in that than of course they will poor as you described.

*chuckles* You base your opinion on such limited experience and knowledge, that is not wise.

Ok here is a tip, you can make more ISK from non combat exploration than you can from combat exploration. Research it and find the right places to explore.
Mr Epeen
It's All About Me
#3869 - 2015-10-19 22:05:08 UTC
Moac Tor wrote:
Mr Epeen wrote:
Moac Tor wrote:

You won't be able to afford them unless you plan on a career in corp theft and scamming.


Keep selling that, bro.

Less competition for the people who will be buying them dirt cheap when 100,000 characters worth of SP packs hit the market in the first week this goes live.

You are not a new player. You know this to be true. It's how it always happens when a marketable item is introduced for the first time. It is way overproduced a to the point where you can barely give it away.

That is when I'll be doing my buying. Not a month later when they are all hoarded by speculators.

Mr Epeen Cool

Yes initially you are right the price will be steep drop, and then as the big alliances and speculators start buying them up the price will rise. Lets say as a rough estimate it will drop to 200mil and stabilise at 300mil for 500k, would you advice a new player to grind 300mil (considering how long it will take) for another 500mil SP?

That doesn't sound like a very enjoyable way to play the game in my view.

Instead you could open up more possibilities and options that are available to new players with low skill which is what CCP have been doing.
So much altruistic worry for new players in this thread.

Where is that when y'all are laughing at them because they can't earn a PLEX in an hour when they start a thread about the 1.2B price of the things these days?

Yet here you are. All concerned because of the trauma grinding 300M will cause them. Possibly driving them out of the game. Just stop this ****. It's unbecoming of even the low standards we've come to expect here in the EVE-O forums.

Mr Epeen Cool
Moac Tor
Cyber Core
Immediate Destruction
#3870 - 2015-10-19 22:10:10 UTC  |  Edited by: Moac Tor
Mr Epeen wrote:
Moac Tor wrote:
Mr Epeen wrote:
Moac Tor wrote:

You won't be able to afford them unless you plan on a career in corp theft and scamming.


Keep selling that, bro.

Less competition for the people who will be buying them dirt cheap when 100,000 characters worth of SP packs hit the market in the first week this goes live.

You are not a new player. You know this to be true. It's how it always happens when a marketable item is introduced for the first time. It is way overproduced a to the point where you can barely give it away.

That is when I'll be doing my buying. Not a month later when they are all hoarded by speculators.

Mr Epeen Cool

Yes initially you are right the price will be steep drop, and then as the big alliances and speculators start buying them up the price will rise. Lets say as a rough estimate it will drop to 200mil and stabilise at 300mil for 500k, would you advice a new player to grind 300mil (considering how long it will take) for another 500mil SP?

That doesn't sound like a very enjoyable way to play the game in my view.

Instead you could open up more possibilities and options that are available to new players with low skill which is what CCP have been doing.
So much altruistic worry for new players in this thread.

Where is that when y'all are laughing at them because they can't earn a PLEX in an hour when they start a thread about the 1.2B price of the things these days?

Yet here you are. All concerned because of the trauma grinding 300M will cause them. Possibly driving them out of the game. Just stop this ****. It's unbecoming of even the low standards we've come to expect here in the EVE-O forums.

Mr Epeen Cool

Believe it or not I do actually take an interest in new players having a good experience. For a start I have recruited newer players myself and taught them the basics. Also it is not altruistic at all, if eve is successful by bringing in new players then the game gets more investment and is more enjoyable for everyone who plays. As a shrewd businessman yourself you should also recognise this.

The reason I am opposed to this idea though isn't just on behalf on newer players, it will be detrimental to everyone.
Aerasia
Republic University
Minmatar Republic
#3871 - 2015-10-19 22:11:03 UTC
Primary This Rifter wrote:
ColdBeauty wrote:
Moac Tor wrote:
I can definitley see why the leaders of PL, goons, and others are so fiercely in favour of this.


Exactly what I thought as soon as Elise Randolph went on the charm offensive on reddit and various goons started backing this on the forum.

They can go **** themselves. They're just as bad as all the miners who whined about barge HP until CCP finally caved and buffed it.

A bit off topic, but depending on who you listen to the mining barge buff was also Goons. Lol
Ares Strangelove
Doomheim
#3872 - 2015-10-19 22:12:49 UTC
The majority of veterans I've spoken with support new player retention and keeping them interested in the game. Since we're so far ahead, why not give the new bros some way to actually catch up. I think this is a perfect way for a newbie to get into that doctrine ship, or next ship they really anticipated.... Without the 50 day wait time to fly it properly!

On top of that diminishing returns keeps everything in balance: You cant destroy an alt to TURBOCHARGE your superultradeathmachineubermonsterslayer360noscopelulululzscrubkid Main character with 50mil++ skillpoints. Because of these diminishing returns. Its just not worth it, might as well just use character bazaar.

TLDR: Keep newbros interested. You have my vote.
Tiberius Heth
Doomheim
#3873 - 2015-10-19 22:13:11 UTC
Scipio Artelius wrote:
Having thought about this for a couple of days, I still think the current design is poor, although I agree with the underlying reasons for change.


The strong message I got from the devblog was about player control, progression for new players and fixing aspects of the character bazaar.

But, a large part of the reaction to it has been an interpretation that this is a money grab and a shift towards p2w.

So assuming that it isn't intended as a money grab or a shift towards p2w, I think there is another option that does achieve greater control for players and progression for new players.

When the pre-requisities to fit rigs was removed, everyone in the community rejoiced. Anyone could fit any rig to a ship and get the benefit of having that rig fit. However, not having the skill trained meant that they suffered the full drawback of the rig also.

I personally think this is a better model to use when trying to increase control and allow faster progression for new players.

That's exactly the outcome that the rig fitting changes achieved.

So I personally think a better approach would be to remove the pre-requisites to fly any ship or use any module; but in doing so, you get access to the basic attributes, but none of the bonuses until you train the skills.

So a day old character would be able to jump into a HAC and fit it with T2 guns, but wouldn't gain any of the benefit from training the cruiser or HAC skills, nor the benefit of having the gunnery support skills trained.

They'd gain greater progression and have more control (as all players would), but the associated skills would still provide a more ideal situation, just as they do with fitting rigs.

That would probably be a bigger project and there's probably skills that could be consolidated and removed from the game, but as an overall approach, I think it provides a better outcome and is much more in line with an approach to change that the community all praised.


You know better than that.
Edlorna Tinebe
The Elerium Trust
#3874 - 2015-10-19 22:22:03 UTC
Wow. Nearly 200 pages in under four days. I don't have nearly enough time to read all of them. The first fifteen pages were enough to get a sense of things...

I'll join in by saying, like several others have, that I don't object to the skill-extraction market in principle. I doubt very much that, if this had been a post instead about JUST wiping the name and corp history from a recently-bought toon on the character bazaar, we'd have quite as much complaining. Some, to be sure. But not nearly as much. Skill points have been sold for money for as long as the character bazaar has existed. I don't think the proposed system is any worse.

I do have to laugh at the number of people saying they'd love to sell their "worthless" mining and Orca skills.

My only concern for this proposal was brought up somewhere around page 15 of this thread: Perception. Because the character bazaar is not very well-documented - a hidden feature - many players (myself included) don't find out it exists until they've been around for a few months and have one or two skills trained to Level V. This new system may not be materially different from the character bazaar, but it creates the perception of pay-to-win. My parents frequently repeated to me that "the appearance of impropriety is more dangerous than the reality of impropriety," and I would caution CCP the same way:

Imagine there is a new player. This new player - let's call him Jimmy - tries a little bit of everything. He does some mining in highsec. He runs some L1 missions. He accidentally wanders into a lowsec system in his terribad T1 hauler fit and promptly gets blown to bits by evil, wicked pirates. Yarrr. Jimmy eventually gets enough standing with his mission corp to run L2 and L3 missions, but his skillpoints are lagging behind. Jimmy played his heart out for two weeks, he loves EVE, and he managed to save a whole 25 million ISK to fit out a cruiser. He's eager to move on up in the world. But he can't fly a cruiser yet. In fact, there is no action Jimmy can take to work towards his dream of flying an effective cruiser. He's stuck.

Now, because ALL of the players are restricted the same way, Jimmy doesn't feel so bad. It's part of the grim reality of New Eden, and he just has to be patient. Explore more of EVE, do what you can with the skills you have, etc... Eventually, Jimmy gets tired of waiting, buys and fits a cruiser with barely enough skill points to sit in the damn thing, but not enough skills to actually make it work. Jimmy gets his shiny new Vexor blown to bits by rats, and loses everything. It's a harsh lesson; skill points matter, and EVE is a game in which patience is both necessary and rewarded.

(In case you can't tell, I was that player named Jimmy!)

Imagine how much worse it would be for Jimmy if he found out it were possible to buy skill points on the open market, before the even greater lesson of "player skill" sunk in. That situation of being stuck, waiting and paying for game time while you wait for skill points to do the missions you've already earned the standings for... It would just SCREAM greed on the part of CCP. The old system was harsh, but it was fair. It was enforced ruthlessly. Nevermind the part where Jimmy could invite some friends and team up to run those L3 missions as a fleet. Nevermind the part where implants are sold for hundreds of millions of ISK to increase training speed. Nevermind the part where Jimmy could have paid $100 for a character with the skills to run a battleship. It doesn't matter that the old system wasn't as rigid as it appeared, because it appeared rigid.

Bleh. Time to stop myself.

TLDR: I'm okay with the proposed system. It's no different than it was before. But it appears different, and that appearance may matter more than the reality of the mechanics involved. Tread carefully.
Tiberius Heth
Doomheim
#3875 - 2015-10-19 22:32:10 UTC
No it IS different, but some folks can't or don't want to see the difference.
Tyberius Franklin
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#3876 - 2015-10-19 22:40:27 UTC  |  Edited by: Tyberius Franklin
Tiberius Heth wrote:
No it IS different, but some folks can't or don't want to see the difference.
Yes, it's different, in ways of unquantifiable significance of consequence on a per character and buyer basis. Yet still it's commonly practiced suggesting that those consequences are not highly significant and thus not meaningful enough to be a strong counterargument.
Don Pera Saissore
#3877 - 2015-10-19 22:47:58 UTC
NO!

Only the old players will benefit from this because they are capable of earning enough ISK to constantly inject SP no matter how diminishing the returns are.

SP is more valuable then ISK because you can acquire more ISK in a certain time frame.

I am against any kind of modification of the current training system. It is unique and a big part of this game.
Tiberius Heth
Doomheim
#3878 - 2015-10-19 22:49:47 UTC  |  Edited by: Tiberius Heth
Tyberius Franklin wrote:
Tiberius Heth wrote:
No it IS different, but some folks can't or don't want to see the difference.
Yes, it's different, in ways of unquantifiable significance of consequence on a per character and buyer basis. Yet still it's commonly practiced suggesting that those consequences are not highly significant and thus not meaningful enough to be a strong counterargument.


Lets play two games of chess:

- first one I win because I put in more effort and I'm simply better

- second one I win because I'm STILL better as such but I also switched out a pawn for a second queen before the game even started, making it all a bit silly


Technically it's the same, I won both times because I'm "better" but that second win is somehow not cool. If you WANT to ignore that switch, because it suits ones agenda, then you could just state that the outcome is the same because the players are the same but we both know that there's a "that's just not right" thingy going on.


On top of that I had to pay money to make that queen switch and if I really wanted to I could have replaced all pawns with queens. Would you still enjoy playing against me and would you still have faith in the world chess federation for allowing that "buy a queen" nonsense? Would it completely destroy the whole concept of chess?
Mr Epeen
It's All About Me
#3879 - 2015-10-19 22:54:08 UTC
Tyberius Franklin wrote:
Tiberius Heth wrote:
No it IS different, but some folks can't or don't want to see the difference.
Yes, it's different, in ways of unquantifiable significance of consequence on a per character and buyer basis. Yet still it's commonly practiced suggesting that those consequences are not highly significant and thus not meaningful enough to be a strong counterargument.
Here's what I'm thinking.

My daughter this morning was singing the kookaburra song and now it's stuck in my head. It's skewing my entire world view. How the hell can you make angry forum posts with that running through your head?

Mr Epeen Cool
Tyberius Franklin
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#3880 - 2015-10-19 23:05:35 UTC
Tiberius Heth wrote:
Lets play two games of chess:

- first one I win because I put in more effort and I'm simply better

- second one I win because I'm STILL better as such but I also switched out a pawn for a second queen before the game even started, making it all a bit silly


Technically it's the same, I won both times because I'm "better" but that second win is somehow not cool. If you WANT to ignore that switch, because it suits ones agenda, then you could just state that the outcome is the same because the players are the same but we both know that there's a "that's just not right" thingy going on.


On top of that I had to pay money to make that queen switch and if I'd really want to I'd have replaced all pawns with queens. Would you still enjoy playing against me and would you still have faith in the world chess federation for allowing that "buy a queen" nonsense?
The scenario you created doesn't actually parallel this idea.

Sure, there is a distinction you created, but it doesn't match the distinction created here. Basically there was and can be no game in which you didn't start with the second queen, because you can't turn your SP off, thus there was no "even" game to begin with.

Now you're saying that since you "think" you would have beaten him even if he had 2 queens, he shouldn't be able to because it won't make him better. But that doesn't matter because in the game we're actually playing he might want 2 queens just to have 2 queens, not to beat you specifically or anyone else. And the great thing is that he still doesn't have to pay real money. People trying to gain SP can't spend real money on it. The proposal doesn't offer that possibility, a fact which you seem to conveniently miss with great consistency.