Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Eve has been running the way it does the in game skills pretty much the same since day one. Lots of players come and go, but those that return is hampered by the tedium required to go back to the start and retrain the same things because, let's face it, there is no fun in skill training, it's just time, online or offline, needed to tick a box but not to actually do anything.

In reality, a skill book doesn't teach you how to fly a ship or do xyz, it's just a tick on the box to let you start to do that activity - which is when you actually learn.

Notwithstanding that a new system if purchasing skill points is almost upon us, I am advocating a rewriting of the skill system so that you don't just buy skill books, instead, you get credits/skill points for doing activities which, if a specific set are completed ingame, then you get to move up a skill and fly the next ship or use the higher grade of missile etc.

There is already a pathway of what ships makes logical progression to the next in the ship tree, so why not make actions/activities link to skills so that in reality, you get better at something by actually doing it, making you ready for the next step up/level, as opposed to just getting a skill book that says you can do something.

An example would be say, in order to progress from a frigate to a destroyer, they are 10 activities you need to do in the game, in a frigate, which gives you the ticket to fly a destroyer and so on. Players would have a purpose to go out and go things because there is something at the end of it. That may poo poo some people who stay logged off most of the time, only logging in to buy skill books and change training etc, but it would encourage people back and add a whole new level of activity to the game. If it's too complicated for the devs, then maybe where there is logical progression, you could have such a system, and maintain some of the current skill points = time trained for certain skills.

Just an idea that will perhaps give people a range of other things to do and achieve, rather than be bound by the laborious and almost pointless time waiting game where you cannot do xyz not because you don't have the skill or experience, but because the clock hasn't ticked enough for you yet. Surely doing in learning??

But that you don't have to do senseless token tasks (and it won't ever be more. You don't learn how to fly a certain type of frigate by doing ten predefined tasks with it) is the beauty of the system. To learn to fly a ship, you have to fly the ship - it's already like that. But in order to get skills, you don't have to do anything.

Also - in order to afford a cruiser, let's say, most newbies fly a frigate or destroyer more than ten times already, because they need to make the money somehow. So the progression is there, but you still have a choice how to go aboit it. That's a good thing.

What you propose is kind of a mix of grinding and achievement hunting. It won't teach people how to fly the ships, it will only force them to do grind achievements in order to progress. That's not going to help.

Every MMO is grindy, but here you would be getting someone to do that if you apply yourself, will reduce the waiting time to a skill and probably give you a load of isk along the way.

Lets say it takes a month to train for a Hulk if you are fairly new. There's not much you can do other than wait a month. But, if you want to invest in playing the game and do stuff, you could focus on that task and if you did your '10' (or whatever) activities, you could get it done inside 4-5 days perhaps. You now have an incentive and motivation for doing something, as opposed to 'grinding' missions whilst you pass the time, or whatever.

No everyone is in or wants to be in large pvp corps scamming people or whatever, but the new players in particular would have another set of things to work at which could let them grow a bit quicker than the current set-up on being logged off for a month to get your Hulk, if that's all you want to achieve before being active in the game.

I respectfully request locking and directing the OP to the appropriate sticky - it was created for a reason.

To supplement that, you can always grind up isk and buy a character.

Why do you have, or would you have, nothing to do for a month training for a Hulk? What would stop anyone from doing anything else to make ISK during that time? That month of training time is there for you to do other things and learn more. Crazy Yeah?

Do you think trying to pass off an assertion as ignorant as this, to a room full of people with far more experience with the game than you have, is actually persuasive rhetoric?


If you're fairly new, why would you train directly for a Hulk, which is actually kind of a poor choice of ship outside of an organized fleet? And why could you not mine, in the interim, in, y'know... ANY of the mining ships that you trained along the way to get into a hulk?

Oh and I thought the skill system was that way to have to take the time and are more inclined to stay for the time.

Now I am confused, is Chribba now the higest level mage- umh Veldspare miner in the game now?

This is the least grindy MMO ive ever played( and ive played over a hundred). The skill tree is one of the best features of eve. I would have to have to do some kind of linear grind to reach my next goal. I rather click "train" and go and do things i enjoy while waiting for it to finish. I have no interest in grinding away at some mundane task just to achieve something. That would essentially turn this game into "WoW in space" and i didnt like WoW on the ground.

I could not say it any better or more clearly so I will just leave these here with a thanks to the Lugh and Daichi.