Player Features and Ideas Discussion

What's wrong with an "as well as" solution rather than an "instead of"?

I really like this as a one-time event, but it is "grinding for SP" and that is a bad thing.

I've seen several arguments for removing learning implants, but that reasoning, that you are obligated to grind, was never one of them, mainly because grinding isk to replace lost assets was never considered an issue. This should be no different.

The issue with learning implants is their ability to be lost, causing players to have to chose between not taking risks and having to potentially replace those implants. As I understand the boosters bypass this.

Also not everything can or should benefit new players, and in this case that players could purchase faster training could serve as an aspiration. To the specific numbers, as a permanent system it's absurd, but that doesn't mean it can't be toned down to make it functional as a long term system.

Yes, we have been over this before. I have no objection to an 'and' solution, especially if they cannot be stacked. I am assuming that the decision to remove attributes/learning implants has already been made but perhaps this is incorrect.

they got rid of clone cost. Just use whatever + stat implant you can afford without going over what a new clone would cost you.

Why not make it a temporary replacement for implants?
+10 makes it a very grindy boost.
+5 makes it a temporary replacement for implants if it replaces the attribute gain from implants.

In my opinion the key problem with learning implants is that they are 'sitting in station' implants rather than 'out in space' implants and do not add to the undocked experience in any way. It is nothing to do with loss or risk - other implants are much more expensive and many people are perfectly happy to PvP in them.

Having said that, I think that attribute enhancers and training rate boosters are not necessarily the same thing. You can have training rate boosts after removing attributes.

So, here is one of my problems with the new booster. They do not work well with the skill queue. I've been traveling a lot lately. After being deployed for over six months, I flew back home for three days of glorious Eve time - no more logging in on a laptop with a 4G connection to eke out a couple of hours here and there. No, I could actually sit down at my desktop, with two glorious screens, tasty beverages in abundance, and play Eve properly for 10-12 hours straight.

So, I did. I went out exploring. I went looking for these Blood Raider sites. I got a bunch of the new cerebral accelerators - enough to keep all my characters training at a high rate until 2 November. I had a lot of fun gathering them. Running from Russian hordes. Chasing away single Russians. Etc. But one of the greatest joys was plugging in that +12 booster and watching the training time for Caldari Carrier V drop considerably.

Tomorrow I fly off to see my family. The skill queue is a wonderful thing, because if I do not pay close attention to Eve for the next few days, my characters will still keep training away. The OCD in me, however, sees how many "potential SP" I am leaving on the table if I do not find a way to log in all seven characters I am currently training and plug in a new cerebral accelerator every two days.

If I was not able to play Eve at all right now, then perhaps it would not bother me that much... Actually, yes, it would. The whole point of a promotion like this is to make people want to login and get out in space doing things. I want to take advantage of this opportunity.

Now, in the grand scheme of things, this is peanuts for a character of my age, but it is still an issue. I could finish Caldari Carrier V a few days earlier. My alt could finish Cynosural Field Theory V that much sooner. It's taken me right back to eight years ago, when I used to set alarm clocks to log in to add a new skill because Gunnery V was going to finish at 01:57:33 and I'll be damned if I waste six hours worth of skill training.

All Eve subscriptions should be created equal - the only thing you can consistently expect from Eve is that your character will keep training skills so long as you pay your subscription and update your queue. It's the only thing that kept me subscribed for the past six months, when I otherwise could not have justified paying for Eve.

That is why I would rather see everyone train at the same rate - no remaps, no boosters, no implants. Pay your subscription and your character learns at a steady, consistent 2500 SP/hour. The occasional promotion like this is all well and good, especially if it draws people back to the game, but it has to be occasional.

Except it's not the 'base rate'.
Right now the base rate is with a booster. Because the sites are common.
If you make them less common it becomes a situation where the rich can buy additional SP and the poor can't. Because the rich can run the sites in blinged out T3's and the like and therefore win any contest vs the poor people also.

So, either it's only for the rich, in which case it's the old vets with resources who benefit.
Or it's for everyone in which case the new base rate is higher, and you are just forcing people to grind for SP

And grinding for SP is directly counter to EVE's philosophy in general.
I'm not even keen for this to be a once in a while event, even if I'm making use of it.
Note how a lot of the people against the SP selling are also quite openly saying if it comes in they will make massive use of it themselves, but they are against it despite the fact it actually will help them.

No, the issue as CCP and most that have objection to them is fundamentally their capacity to be lost.

Whether you work that out a bit to being about "grinding" or "risk aversion" the fundamental issue always boils down to their ability to be lost and having an associated cost for replacement.

If you want to play this "you may be playing the wrong game" BS, take that up with the company making the game and looking to replace them for reasons similar to those I listed.