These forums have been archived and are now read-only.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
Kaihua Longzhu
Andromeda's Tears
#5381 - 2015-11-05 16:21:45 UTC
I'm just saying I can see it happen. I ain't saying it's going to.
Doddy
Excidium.
#5382 - 2015-11-05 16:47:24 UTC
Jeremiah Saken wrote:
Quote:
Implants already create exactly this, it is in game already and has been for years, same goes with skill book purchases.

What implants created? Ability to train skills instantly?
Doddy wrote:
Plex being available to isk has already put player progression in the world of rl money.

Apart from baazar, what progresson are you talking about? Buying hulls that cannot be used?


If you plex isk, and use the isk to buy implants, you have bought sp. It is not instant like the sp packets but over time is a far greater gain of sp. High value skillbooks are also something which slows skill training, you can't train them until you buy them, but if you plex isk to buy them you have again an advantage. Same goes for peope who bought cerebral accelerators when they were a thing, or these blood raider boosters. All progression which can be bought with rl money via plex. Thats even before you consider the bazaar. Of course ability to train in the first place is exactly the same, sp for cash, someone who couldn't maintain thier sub for a month is going to be 1.5 mil behind people who could afford it, tsps are no more unfair than that and could actually allow someone to make up for such gaps with isk.
Ima Wreckyou
The Conference Elite
Safety.
#5383 - 2015-11-05 17:01:27 UTC
Just imagine how this feature will look to a new player who is not familiar with EVE.

It will lock a bit similar to what typical free2play titles are offering. Slow SP progress and you can accumulate currency ingame for which you then can buy ships or invest them in more SP. It will appear as if the slow accumulation of SP is on purpose so you actually HAVE to spend real money to get to your Battleship in an acceptable time, which is obviously the goal for every player poisoned with the expectation of a linear progression from other MMOs.

In other words it will appear as a seriously overpriced free2play paywall in a game that is NOT free2play!

They will just shake their heads about the greed of the developer without ever understanding the background of the system and simply quit.

This is my serious concern and I think this has to be addressed.

Evil RatKid
Iowa Banshee
Fenrir Vangard
#5384 - 2015-11-05 17:06:53 UTC  |  Edited by: Iowa Banshee
This may be a long post - TLDR -
The 1st part is remembered from a real conversation edited down but it serves to illustrate the difference between EVE and run-of-the-mill MMOs.

About eve convo - 2015

(me) Still playing SWTOR
(TD) No I'm doing Destiny now

(me) When did you swtich
(TD) Last month - I started a new character on Saturday - a combat-mech (?) upto level 20 already, you still playing that space ships game

(me) Eve online - Yeah been playing for 2 or 3 years
(TD) I saw the youtube link with the 3000 players and the big ships shooting beams at each other looked pretty cool

(me) Yeah that was a big fight a while back the bigest ships are called Titains
(TD) Do you fly one?

(me) Crap no - I've only been playing a couple of years You have a lot of skills to learn to fly one of those
(TD) Skills?

(me) Yeah - anything you want to do in game requires skills - Miner, Explorer, manufacturing and you can train for lots of different ships - if you want to you can sit in a station never go into space and trade on the market - eve has its own economy
(TD) That's cool I could get into being a stock broker - whats it like

(me) I don't really know - The skills are trained in real time - You usually pick ones to train for what you fancy doing at the time - later you pick what you need to get the cool ships or whatever you want the character to be - I started with mining, moved on to exploring now I am working on combat ships - Haven't done market trading yet


What I fear the about eve convo in the Near Future will become

(TD) Still Playing EVE
(me) Yeah - for now - I Started a new character on Saturday - a market trader - I've got all the skills up to level V already


There is no pro- buying SP post in this Thread-nought that alleviates this fear
Jeremiah Saken
The Fall of Leviathan
#5385 - 2015-11-05 17:09:27 UTC
Doddy wrote:
If you plex isk, and use the isk to buy implants, you have bought sp.

No I didn't. I bought advatange that can be easy taken from me via destroying my pod, and it need time to applay the bonuses from them. It's not insta gratification. Risk vs reward to the very core.

"I am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote. I love to sail forbidden seas..." - Herman Melville
Levi Belvar
Republic Military School
Minmatar Republic
#5386 - 2015-11-05 17:16:46 UTC
Doddy wrote:
Jeremiah Saken wrote:
Quote:
Implants already create exactly this, it is in game already and has been for years, same goes with skill book purchases.

What implants created? Ability to train skills instantly?
Doddy wrote:
Plex being available to isk has already put player progression in the world of rl money.

Apart from baazar, what progresson are you talking about? Buying hulls that cannot be used?


If you plex isk, and use the isk to buy implants, you have bought sp. It is not instant like the sp packets but over time is a far greater gain of sp. High value skillbooks are also something which slows skill training, you can't train them until you buy them, but if you plex isk to buy them you have again an advantage. Same goes for peope who bought cerebral accelerators when they were a thing, or these blood raider boosters. All progression which can be bought with rl money via plex. Thats even before you consider the bazaar. Of course ability to train in the first place is exactly the same, sp for cash, someone who couldn't maintain thier sub for a month is going to be 1.5 mil behind people who could afford it, tsps are no more unfair than that and could actually allow someone to make up for such gaps with isk.

Implants dont give you extra skillpoints they just increase the amount gained per hour, they can also be lost just as quickly

High Value Skillbooks do not slow training down, You can still get upto 2700 per hour whatever you train its just the rank that increases the time it takes to complete a level.

Trying to infer that your sub is equal to skillpoints alone is no different than saying CCP already sell skillpoints from the bazaar, Its their intellectual property and they're just allowing you to transfer their skillpoints ( character) from one account to another for a set fee of 2 plex.

“Stupidity and wisdom meet in the same centre of sentiment and resolution, in the suffering of human accidents.”
Alavaria Fera
GoonWaffe
#5387 - 2015-11-05 18:19:47 UTC
Doddy wrote:
Iowa Banshee wrote:

you do know you can buy Aurum with iSK don't you ....

Sure, but why make people jump through hoops?

Yeah actually just have aurum in tokens that are items you can transport and sell in jita (or lose on the jita gate in your shuttle)

Triggered by: Wars of Sovless Agression, Bending the Knee, Twisting the Knife, Eating Sov Wheaties, Bombless Bombers, Fizzlesov, Interceptor Fleets, Running Away, GhostTime Vuln, Renters, Bombs, Bubbles ?
Don ZOLA
Omniscient Order
#5388 - 2015-11-05 18:21:43 UTC
General Lootit wrote:
Don ZOLA wrote:

And patch bringing this will be different from others since game fundamental is going to be changed. So it is not just if someone likes ship, pos, missions, whatever changes. This is the biggest change ever as it is change in CCP`s relations to its customers.

Yeap, it's crucial changing. Like inventing prostetic limbs(remember your sports metaphor about prestige)... Is it right thing to disqualify person from challenge who suffered from loosing limb but now he has prostetic one?


Totally wrong analogy since people with prosthetic limbs are not allowed to compete in regular competitions, they have their own. So it is obviously right.

There are 2 rules in a successful life: 1. Don't tell people everything you know
Portmanteau
Iron Krosz
#5389 - 2015-11-05 18:38:59 UTC  |  Edited by: Portmanteau
Doddy wrote:
Portmanteau wrote:


No, players should not have unlimited isk, but disenfranchising a large amount of new players because they can't afford the real life cash they will need to keep up with their rich IRL peers (since they will not be experienced enough to make the isk in game) will create greater perception of a "skillpoint barrier" and will potentially harm retention, even new account numbers.

Making SPs more available to a few new guys who can afford it comes at the cost of pissing off the likely larger number of new player who can't.




How is that remotely a legitimate argument? Implants already create exactly this, it is in game already and has been for years, same goes with skill book purchases. People can already speed thier skill progression through Rl cash, has been that way ever since Plex were introduced.


Implants do not create this at all. Rich IRL players can ofc drop a plex and buy a full set of +5s if they so desire, but for those that cannot afford to do this a number of options still remain. Learning implants come in +1 to +5 flavours and while the +5s retail at around 100mil the +4s retail at around 20 mil, 1/5th of the price while giving 4/5ths of the effect. Player can also line up a skill queue using 2 attributes (if they are min maxing properly for remaps they will do this anyway) so they can further cut the cost of a full set of implants to a set of 2. For around 40mil they can achieve nearly the same effect as a full set of +5 implants worth over 500 mil and the same can be done with +3 for less than 20 mil.

TSP will offer none of these scaling options, there will be no 4/5 sized packets for 1/5 the price, no way to min max them and they will cost in the hundreds of millions. You simply cannot make a reasonable comparison of the two.

Quote:
Your argument is basically that aspiration is a terrible thing that somehow makes people stop trying, pretty much the opposite of what most of human existence proves. For some reason the possibility of speeding your skill progression by playing the game will put people off playing the game? Wtf nonsense is that?


No it isn't, did you even read what I wrote ? My argument is that everyone aspires in EvE and it's exactly this aspiration which will lead to player dissatisfaction when it is unfulfilled for reasons as crappy as not having enough money IRL.
Quote:


[quote]Do I think there should be limits to prevent the few super rich (whether rl or in game) swallowing up all the excess sp? definately. Put a limit on how many TSP a character can add in a month (i would say 10 but maybe less would work), put a hardcap on skills (i woud put it at the maximum possible sp anyone playing from day 1 could have). Nobody who wants the system to just help give their friends a start, respec thier chars or transfer sp from a main to an alt would have a problem with any of those. Older players could only at most speed thier progression by around 30%, no matter how rich they are. There would be restricted demand so prices would remain low and find an equilibrium (if there is no limit you would see everybody dump their unwanted sp day 1 and prices would rise constantly after that)


A far better way for CCP to help new players (if that's actually even one of their real reasons for doing this) would be to leave older player to live with their decisions and concentrate on giving SP boosts to new player in other ways that cost nothing and can be obtained by anyone regardless of real life financial concern.

*Attributes can be done away with finally and all set to max.

*New players can be given several million SP at the start instead of a few thousand (cue tears from "I did it the hard way" vets - **** them)

*skill training times can be adjusted to compensate the difference in amount of skill that were there in 2003 and what we have now

*core skills can be looked at so that certain modules that require lvl5 only need lvl4 enabling faster entry into the wider game

There's likely more ways of reducing the barrier of entry into the "fun" parts of the game that don't require CCP gouging more R/L cash from players they hope to introduce to the game and encourage to stay, yet I suspect the fact they are going with selling SPs for cash demonstrates this is not about helping new players at all but rinsing more money out of people.
General Lootit
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#5390 - 2015-11-05 18:45:31 UTC  |  Edited by: General Lootit
Don ZOLA wrote:
General Lootit wrote:
Don ZOLA wrote:

And patch bringing this will be different from others since game fundamental is going to be changed. So it is not just if someone likes ship, pos, missions, whatever changes. This is the biggest change ever as it is change in CCP`s relations to its customers.

Yeap, it's crucial changing. Like inventing prostetic limbs(remember your sports metaphor about prestige)... Is it right thing to disqualify person from challenge who suffered from loosing limb but now he has prostetic one?


Totally wrong analogy since people with prosthetic limbs are not allowed to compete in regular competitions, they have their own. So it is obviously right.

Don ZOLA wrote:

That is like saying that in any competition there will be the 1st place for the ones who used doping and separate 1st place for those who did not.

They did it but for people with prosthetic limbs. So does it humiliate regular applicants?

Main source of concerns and side effects

Typical loyal customer with eleventy accounts
Don ZOLA
Omniscient Order
#5391 - 2015-11-05 19:00:45 UTC
General Lootit wrote:
Don ZOLA wrote:
General Lootit wrote:
Don ZOLA wrote:

And patch bringing this will be different from others since game fundamental is going to be changed. So it is not just if someone likes ship, pos, missions, whatever changes. This is the biggest change ever as it is change in CCP`s relations to its customers.

Yeap, it's crucial changing. Like inventing prostetic limbs(remember your sports metaphor about prestige)... Is it right thing to disqualify person from challenge who suffered from loosing limb but now he has prostetic one?


Totally wrong analogy since people with prosthetic limbs are not allowed to compete in regular competitions, they have their own. So it is obviously right.

Don ZOLA wrote:

That is like saying that in any competition there will be the 1st place for the ones who used doping and separate 1st place for those who did not.

They did it but for people with prosthetic limbs. So does it humiliate regular applicants?


You are suggesting CCP should have separate server for those who want this new feature and other which speed up their development? Could not agree more :)

There are 2 rules in a successful life: 1. Don't tell people everything you know
General Lootit
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#5392 - 2015-11-05 19:05:40 UTC  |  Edited by: General Lootit
Don ZOLA wrote:


You are suggesting CCP should have separate server for those who want this new feature and other which speed up their development? Could not agree more :)


We talking about prestige, right? Just let them to separate regular SP from injected one.
CCP Terminus wrote:

there may be a way to track SP gained 'naturally' versus SP gained from using unallocated skillpoints.

Main source of concerns and side effects

Typical loyal customer with eleventy accounts
Doddy
Excidium.
#5393 - 2015-11-05 19:08:49 UTC
Iowa Banshee wrote:
This may be a long post - TLDR -
The 1st part is remembered from a real conversation edited down but it serves to illustrate the difference between EVE and run-of-the-mill MMOs.

About eve convo - 2015

(me) Still playing SWTOR
(TD) No I'm doing Destiny now

(me) When did you swtich
(TD) Last month - I started a new character on Saturday - a combat-mech (?) upto level 20 already, you still playing that space ships game

(me) Eve online - Yeah been playing for 2 or 3 years
(TD) I saw the youtube link with the 3000 players and the big ships shooting beams at each other looked pretty cool

(me) Yeah that was a big fight a while back the bigest ships are called Titains
(TD) Do you fly one?

(me) Crap no - I've only been playing a couple of years You have a lot of skills to learn to fly one of those
(TD) Skills?

(me) Yeah - anything you want to do in game requires skills - Miner, Explorer, manufacturing and you can train for lots of different ships - if you want to you can sit in a station never go into space and trade on the market - eve has its own economy
(TD) That's cool I could get into being a stock broker - whats it like

(me) I don't really know - The skills are trained in real time - You usually pick ones to train for what you fancy doing at the time - later you pick what you need to get the cool ships or whatever you want the character to be - I started with mining, moved on to exploring now I am working on combat ships - Haven't done market trading yet


What I fear the about eve convo in the Near Future will become

(TD) Still Playing EVE
(me) Yeah - for now - I Started a new character on Saturday - a market trader - I've got all the skills up to level V already


There is no pro- buying SP post in this Thread-nought that alleviates this fear


You are the sort of person who spends thousands of dollars on a game character? Though of course its already far more pay to win since you dont need many skills to market trade and having thousands of dollars of plex lets you corner any market you like, so in the field of market manipulation this would have not one jot of difference. You who spent your plex money on sp would be a million miles behind the person who spent it on isk, so you have effectively paye dto lose.
Iowa Banshee
Fenrir Vangard
#5394 - 2015-11-05 19:34:37 UTC  |  Edited by: Iowa Banshee
Doddy wrote:
Iowa Banshee wrote:

CLIP

What I fear the about eve convo in the Near Future will become

(TD) Still Playing EVE
(me) Yeah - for now - I Started a new character on Saturday - a market trader - I've got all the skills up to level V already


There is no pro- buying SP post in this Thread-nought that alleviates this fear


You are the sort of person who spends thousands of dollars on a game character? Though of course its already far more pay to win since you dont need many skills to market trade and having thousands of dollars of plex lets you corner any market you like, so in the field of market manipulation this would have not one jot of difference. You who spent your plex money on sp would be a million miles behind the person who spent it on isk, so you have effectively paye dto lose.



Absolute tosh:
I'm guessing you're just a troll troll - because instead of trying to write something about how this is not a system that allows you to buy skill points over and above your ability to learn them in game you choose to write a complete pile of unrelated drivel that avoids the point of the post completely.

You would have to be a complete idiot not to see that this changes one of the ways EVE is unique in a sea of MMO mediocrity

Eve has a subscription based financial model - If you want CCP to move to a premium/freemium system how about suggesting it - Then we will see something like "Cartel Coins 2400 for $19.99" "Cartel Coins Use them to buy items and unlocks at the in-game Cartel Market" - "Ideal for power leveling"
Doddy
Excidium.
#5395 - 2015-11-05 19:45:19 UTC
Portmanteau wrote:
many quotes.


yay, not getting to train what they want and still be behind, plus have to worry about being podded, great. Assuming they want to retain control over thier own skill queue why is it such a jump from a player spending 100 mil on a set of +4s to spending 150, 200 or whatever on a tsp? At least the TSP will not promote risk aversion like the implants do. if CCP turned around and said they were going to do it in 100k sp chunks would your opposition suddenly disappear because they would be more affordable? I am going to guess not.

Why would it lead to dissatisfaction? You haven't explained why any normal person would feel this way. Are people going to go, "oh no, if I earn another 50 mil isk i will be able to fly that battleship earlier, how terrible i must quit"? How is that less aspirational than "oh well if i don't bother logging on my skill is still training"? I really don't get what you think the psychology of gamers is. Where does not having rl money come into it where it doesn't already in every other aspect in eve? It is no different from having to save up for that faction BB they are desperate to fly, you think everyone who can't just drop a plex to get what they want quit the game?

Only you are saying they are selling sp with cash. Sp will be sold for cash no more than every other thing in the game that can be sold for isk. What is being sold for cash is the mechanism, and that will be bought by people looking to make isk, not people looking to buy sp. It is exactly the same as plex, the only difference it is not fixed in time. If I bought a tsp with cash right now it would have way less effect than if i had used a plex to sub that account 2 months ago. It will also have less affect than the plex I will apply on that account next month, assuming i remember to set a skill queue. Is it really so important that people should be rewarded for paying ccp on a monthly basis rather than more intermittently?

I don't have an issue with giving new players more sp or adjusting the requirements for skills etc, but why screw over older players? Skills have constant diminishing returns, giving the older players the same sp would do no harm at all. For most ships meaningful skill use is only around 30mil sp. But you are so fixated on total sp numbers you probably don't get that.
Doddy
Excidium.
#5396 - 2015-11-05 19:54:40 UTC
Iowa Banshee wrote:
Doddy wrote:
Iowa Banshee wrote:

CLIP

What I fear the about eve convo in the Near Future will become

(TD) Still Playing EVE
(me) Yeah - for now - I Started a new character on Saturday - a market trader - I've got all the skills up to level V already


There is no pro- buying SP post in this Thread-nought that alleviates this fear


You are the sort of person who spends thousands of dollars on a game character? Though of course its already far more pay to win since you dont need many skills to market trade and having thousands of dollars of plex lets you corner any market you like, so in the field of market manipulation this would have not one jot of difference. You who spent your plex money on sp would be a million miles behind the person who spent it on isk, so you have effectively paye dto lose.



Absolute tosh:
I'm guessing you're just a troll troll - because instead of trying to write something about how this is not a system that allows you to buy skill points over and above your ability to learn them in game you choose to write a complete pile of unrelated drivel that avoids the point of the post completely.

You would have to be a complete idiot not to see that this changes one of the ways EVE is unique in a sea of MMO mediocrity

Eve has a subscription based financial model - If you want CCP to move to a premium/freemium system how about suggesting it - Then we will see something like "Cartel Coins 2400 for $19.99" "Cartel Coins Use them to buy items and unlocks at the in-game Cartel Market" - "Ideal for power leveling"


How do you even come to that conclusion, you just devolve into insults when you don't have any answers? Yo are the one who used a terrible example, ont my fault. If anyone wants to buy an advantage in market training they can already buy it, TSP will make no difference whatsoever.

Eves training system is and always has been associated to subscription, not playing the game. No amount of "power levelling" gets you ahead in game play. All it can do is catch people up on the money other people have put into thier subscription. You seem just to be buthurt that people starting to pay now will be able to catch up with what you already bought. And why shouldn't they?

Why should somebody who has spent $5k dollars in subs over the years have an in game advantage becaus eof how much they spent? isn't that just pay to win? how can you on one hand moan about pay to win and on the other ignore the massive pay to win advantage every single player in game has over anyone starting out or returning to the game after a break? Its like you don't understand the basic concept of eve.
Sasha Sen
Hull Zero Two
#5397 - 2015-11-05 20:04:36 UTC
I am not going to find any of the threads where people ask what to do in eve, then get dozens of responses stating skill points don't matter, there is a limit to the amount of sp that is useful for any particular ship.

If skill points don't matter, why does it matter if we can buy them (trough a better venue then the bazzar)?
ISD Decoy
ISD Community Communications Liaisons
ISD Alliance
#5398 - 2015-11-05 20:07:09 UTC
I have removed two troll posts.

Quote:
5. Trolling is prohibited.

Trolling is a defined as a post that is deliberately designed for the purpose of angering and insulting other players in an attempt to incite retaliation or an emotional response. Posts of this nature are disruptive, often abusive, and do not contribute to the sense of community that CCP promote.

ISD Decoy

Captain

Community Communication Liaisons (CCLs)

Interstellar Services Department
Levi Belvar
Republic Military School
Minmatar Republic
#5399 - 2015-11-05 20:13:28 UTC
Doddy wrote:
Stalking Mantis wrote:
"The investment of money in EVE should not give you an unfair advantage over the investment of time. "

CCP Hellmar
2011-10-05
Source


You do understand that skilling a character is an investment of money while people buying sp with isk are investing time right? Roll


The reason he's giving for all his arguments is based around how hes twisted this statement,

“Stupidity and wisdom meet in the same centre of sentiment and resolution, in the suffering of human accidents.”
Portmanteau
Iron Krosz
#5400 - 2015-11-05 20:21:17 UTC
Ima Wreckyou wrote:
Just imagine how this feature will look to a new player who is not familiar with EVE.

It will lock a bit similar to what typical free2play titles are offering. Slow SP progress and you can accumulate currency ingame for which you then can buy ships or invest them in more SP. It will appear as if the slow accumulation of SP is on purpose so you actually HAVE to spend real money to get to your Battleship in an acceptable time, which is obviously the goal for every player poisoned with the expectation of a linear progression from other MMOs.

In other words it will appear as a seriously overpriced free2play paywall in a game that is NOT free2play!

They will just shake their heads about the greed of the developer without ever understanding the background of the system and simply quit.

This is my serious concern and I think this has to be addressed.


Exactly ...(get ready for replies of but it's not F2P completely missing the point that for new players and potential future customers, perception trumps reality)