Player Features and Ideas Discussion

If it were done by means of resources that could not be traded in game for money, it could maybe be made out to be beneficial. LP rewards in areas that interest the corporation, for instance. Mission rewards, especially missions specifically in low or Null sec. A resource that accrued over time from PI or deployable structures that needed guarding and were vulnerable to theft and destruction.

Things that required active participation in space or required guarding, and could not be just instantly created and consumed with an application of cash. Then it could drive conflict while cheapening the loyalty of long-standing players.

And there are thousands, at least %80 of player base are playing more actively. Yet they are supposed stay behind someone, who doesnt log for weeks, just because hes paying CCP for longer than those active players. Also this player claims he is "dedicated" player, why ? because hes paying money to CCP regularly.

All those things you mentioned requires vast amount of SP.

Obviously you dont know anything about pvp since you say it doesnt interest you. You cant do pvp properly with a brand new character because almost all situations you will find yourself in will favor your opponent.

Well of course you can still do pvp theoretically, if you call getting obliterated by others, pvp.

Not really.

PvP in EVE, among those who aren't knocking over noncombat ships, generally favors the side with more friends. That scales from highest to lowest, and I have seen hero tackling newbie frigates become the lynchpin of an engagement. It does not interest me, that does not mean I have not done it.

SP only gates the scale of your combat. All PvP folks die in droves. PvP ships are as disposable as a used diaper. Nothing stops you from seeking a fight on your own terms.

While a certain minimum sp are required to fit a basic ship, everything after that is a refinement, not a requirement.

This highlight one of my main problems with this idea though, it basically means telling new players to throw a ton of cash at the game to reach some perceived point of utility for their character.

To be fair, I think that the expectation of buying new packets will diminish as players cross various thresholds. I don't care if it were my alliance leader who told me to go buy the SP to fly a given doctrine. I'd tell him to send me the RL cash or FOADIAF. Because at my current SP level I'd need to buy 10x the actual SP needed for that doctrine. So if it were 2 million SP I'd need to buy 20 million SP and my actual out-of-pocket RL expenditure would be quite large. So I am not going to drop ~$200* over and above my subscription costs just to be able to fly a doctrine. FC's and alliance leaders aren't that dumb (well usually). Even for characters between 50-80 million SP, the cost for that 2 million SP would ~$50, also somewhat ridiculous for an FC or an alliance leader to demand players just pony up. They might, but my guess is that alliance will not be around very long, and said FC will soon find nobody wanting to log into their fleets.

Even trying to buy with ISK might necessitate a substantial investment in terms of in game grinding. For example, if you are ratting and you are a new guy and you can run havens and sanctums (huge assumption here) you’ll make…what? Maybe 60-70 million ISK/hour. To afford the SP packet if you are over 5 million SP is just under 22 hours of uninterrupted ratting. Yeah, yeah I know incursions…problem there is that while the payout is possibly higher (assuming you can get in the fleet with a 6, 7 or 8 million SP character) there has to be an incursion you can get to, and there has to be a fleet to run it. In economics this is a matching problem and it makes such things less likely (think of finding matches for organ transplants, you need to find a recipient and suitable donor and this dual coincidence makes it so that there may be say, a kidney and a guy needing a kidney, but they are incompatible matches, so it is like there is no kidney). In other words, every time I log in I may not find an incursion I can run.

Finally, my guess is that the best way for a new player to “buy SP” and be able to get in on most fleet ops: logistics. I have yet to see an FC turn down another logistics ship. Many alliances even structure their SRP so that if on the rare chance the logi does die, and your ship was insured you’ll actually make ISK. Granted, it may not let you rack up kills, but you’ll always be welcome in fleet and nobody will say, “Go buy SP packets.”

*This assumes a stable market where the market forces push the price of SP packets to be approximately 1/4th the price of PLEX. If this is a market that becomes prone to bubbles then WTFK.

If they are being mentored, coached, or even just researched far enough to learn the real foundation skills, I would agree.

But we have tutorial things, with a pretty robot voice over named Aura.

I would expect a great many will follow this tutorial, and guess what they need to know based off of it's guidance.

Now, under this probable guidance, and wanting to jump into the fun thinking the rest of the game is as easy as the tutorial, they will likely make the same mistakes many of us did at first.
Pick the wrong skills, or more precisely, skills that end up being useless in what we end up enjoying to play.

Except they will buy these skills wholesale, and plug them in, thinking they were truly clever in bypassing a tedious part of skill grinding.
At some point, they will probably realize they wanted different skills.

Then they will be upset over wasting money, instead of time. Except many of us who wasted SOME time, figured it out before we finished learning these wrong skills. Someone gives us tips, we make friends who help us figure it out, etc.

They bypassed the part where they get help and guidance, by seeking instant gratification.

Yes, I bet they will be relieved to get this life lesson past them, and more than happy to sink a comparable amount of money into the game again, so they can grab the skills they really want.

I am sure some negative thinkers can come up with alternate responses, but I won't bore us with such bleak ideas.

Another thing people should remember is the diminishing returns with respect to skills. Once you get those support skills trained (e.g. the gunnery support skills which provide a benefit across all gun based weapons platforms) additional gunnery skill points is not going to be providing a huge advantage. The common notion is that a guy with 120 million SP will always win out over a player with say 60 million SP.

This idea is nonsense. The reason it is nonsense is that while sure the guy with 120 million SP will have more options/versatility than the guy with 60 million SP there is one fact that renders much of those SP both players have as irrelevant. You have to fly a specific ship. I cannot undock with a magic bag holding all my ships so that I can reship to the optimal ship given what my opponent is flying. As I’m roaming around I am in a given ship. If it is a T3 destroyer, say a svipul, well then all my SP for Gallente, Amarr and Caldari ships is useless at that point in time. The SP in hybrids and lasers and missiles…useless. All my drone skills? Useless. Even my skills in Minmatar cruiser, battle cruiser, and battleship are useless. The fact that I can fly 2 different dreadnaughts, 3 different carriers and can fit T2 tactical logistics and weapon reconfiguration modules…useless. I am in a svipul and only the skills pertaining to that ship and its modules are what matter, and that guy with 60 million SP…if he is in a svipul too, we probably have pretty much the same skills although I have 2x the skills he does.

Also, the benefit of SP is decreasing over time spent training. Consider a rank 1 skill that provides a benefit of 5%/level. The benefit/SP for training level 1 is 0.002/SP. For level 5 the (marginal) benefit/SP is 0.00000023/SP. Yes, if everything else between two players is equal (same ship, same weapons, same non-SP related skill, etc.) then the player with the greater SP will win. But that ceteris paribus assumption leaves out a Hell of a lot of other factors that affect the outcome of a 1-v-1 fight, never mind a larger fight between two gangs or two fleets.

So, the only real leg people who want to buy SP have to stand on is, “I want to do more sooner than later”—i.e. you are impatient and can’t be bothered to find ways to amuse yourself before you go welp your dread to a low sec gate camp. Fine.

Character bazaar is that way --->

And soon, you’ll have skill packets too.

Now, STFU and stop trying to ruin the game for the rest of us.

Are you actually trying to say something here?

You lack the imagination? Really? I find that it is only that as I gain more SP that I find myself bored with the game.