Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Okay so this is something that has bothered me for some time that I'd finally like to discuss with the community. The place of learning implants. In my humble, and no doubt somewhat misinformed opinion, they are outdated and do more harm than good.

Now given the amount of skills in EVE and the impact they can have on your play style and your versatility as a player I don't believe it too crazy for most players to maintain a set of behaviours that ensures they are training at optimal levels at all times or at least as often as possible. Now, this may just be my own OCD, but for me, this means often avoiding any pvp or other situations where it's entirely conceivable that I might be podded, which as you all can imagine, are the parameters for most enjoyable activities in EVE. And I get it, EVE is all about risk vs reward but is it really necessary that one of those risks include often several million ISK worth of an item that makes you simply train skills a faster?

They did away with all the various skills that affected skill training times...why are implants still here? I'm no expert but I'd imagine they are still around because of the massive ISK vacuum their absence would likely create in the LP economy. But perhaps their, in my opinion, obsolete role could be filled by other equally universal items/ modules being attainable through the LP market. Perhaps we, as a community, could come up with some ideas here.

Perhaps it's just me, perhaps I am simply more OCD then previously thought but I can't count the times I didn't go on this fleet, I didn't go exploring in null/ WH space or I didn't jump clone to an empty pod for pvp because I didn't feel the time was worth parting ways with my set of improved and all that precious SP. Am I the only one this anal about my SP gain in a game where SP can A) drastically improve your current abilities and B) more often than not be the decisive variable in whether you partake in something at all. Surely I'm not the only one. And in a game like EVE, it can only hurt the community and the game itself if people are choosing not to interact with its amazing environment and all it has to offer for any reason. In their absence, our JC can always be filled with implants that actually enhance our game play, skill based implants...making for better utility for the JC owner and even nicer killmails

I passionately believe, and have for some time, that the only variable that should affect your SP gain should be what attributes you are currently mapped to. Period. And of course any special event accelerators and things of that nature. Items like that are amazing in so many ways. For that precious, precious SP and because they encourage you to get out in the world of EVE, more often than not forcing interaction with other players, in the pursuit of rewards that most of us, if not all of us, can get behind...SP or that dank ISK. Arguably, for most I'd imagine, or at the very least those of you out there who care as much as I do about your mains SP gain, these somewhat novelty items have the exact opposite affect on game play as these outdated implants have...they are a driving force for content and encourage your frequent interaction with EVEs insane potential. They are amazing steps in the right direction from CCP in my opinion and I'd love to see them make an even more bold step and do away with learning implants entirely.

Opinions? Am I missing any reason that might deter CCP from outright removing them outside of the ISK people have invested in them over the years (which in my opinion is what ever) and because of the LP vacuum that would likely result if they are replaced and an equally universal item/ items where not made available through the LP stores. Is this possible?

LP market can be resolved easily by making the Empire sets actually worth using for their set bonuses. And by removing the tag requirement for all the faction guns (& other items). At which point people will actually use them because it's not so much drama to get just a set of faction guns. And the Empire sets will make up the us also.

Frankly I'm in agreement, they should be removed, and the LP market will settle where it does. We just introduced some massive sinks to highsec, and no high sec faucets have been increased, only null faucets. So there shouldn't be any concern over unbalancing the high sec economy.

And gaining more by not playing than by playing (ala risking losing learning implants) has always been a terrible design. Where they land the SP income, I don't care, it will be what it is and we all will deal one way or another.

The biggest argument against attribute implants has always been reluctance of people to put them at risk in PVP. CCP largely addressed this with the Citadel expansion - you can jump between clones at a Citadel without restriction - have a combat clone with no implants and a learning clone with expensive implants, jump back and forth with no cool-down.

Beyond that, I don't see that they present a problem. You can spend ISK on implants to train a bit faster or you can spend it on faction gear to get the same bonus now. Your choice. I don't think we should be asking the developers to remove choice from the game!

Does your corp not have a citadel with a clone bay? Just put your implanted clone in the citadel and PvP to your heart's content. Or stay out of null because it's really hard to kill someone's pod in low.

Couldn't have said it better myself, this is the underlying point I was trying to get across, well said

As as for the citadels, they are not always available/ not always convieniently located

Attributes are entirely outdated, implants included. Should they be replaced with some other system that influences training speed? Yes. But it should not be permanent and it should certainly not be something as 'you're stupid if you don't' as implants, learning skills and medical clones.

I disagree. Eve isn't just a ship flying game. It's not a game where everything is made available by the game, it's a game where someone's play style, someone's Eve is doing other things than flying ships. It's kinda short sighted to step on that just because it's not flying a ship.