Player Features and Ideas Discussion

I think the 'I'm cleverer than you' fallacious argument is the last resort, and rather immature :) It's obvious this isn't going to get through the vets so I'll drop it. I'm sure the CCP stakeholders would disagree with you on the growth issue though.

Going F2P would also boost the size of the community too. I suppose you're all for that?

This proposal would damage Eve far more than it would help it and should never be implemented.

1. It is easily exploitable to train FotM characters
....This would reduce variety in what ships are flown and make combat more uniform and FotM ships even more prevalent.
2. It devalues the people who have continued to play Eve for long times
3. It reduces the consequences to your actions (namely the action of unsubscribing)

Anything that allows characters to dump SP into skills all at once at will can (and will) be exploited.
Anything that reduces consequences to a person's choices is against the core philosophy of Eve (choices have consequences).

Of course, if you'd actually read the thread you would have seen these same facts repeated over and over.

OK, I may look stupid but I have really read this thread, honest. If I've overlooked some good arguments, my apologies.


1.True. But up to a point. Since you can't create backdated account the number of existing inactive accounts, no matter how high or low, is finite. And since SP spent won't be given back the problem would soon sort itself.

Farming and incubating accounts for future use could be a problem though. This is the place which would require careful balancing.

2.To some degree, yes. It would narrow gap a little, but would never close it significantly. In latter case I would too be in arms against.

3. True again. But would it be so bad? I mean, does canceling the subscription have to be penalized? If so, why not just automatically delete account and biomass toons? THAT would keep them in line...

Look, I'm not talking about removing consequences. In my opinion it makes just different consequences and along with them, creates different choices to be made.

Besides, for CCP that would be money for nothing. Subscription paid for all the time when service wasn't provided...


Let me remind you again about learning skills removal. If I'm the only person remembering it, doesn't this fact itself indicate how insignificant the matter was on the whole?


I can come up with two answers. One is the OP proposal to give some incentive to old players to reactivate accounts.

Second is below.



Please excuse my ignorance of character market, I've never been involved with, but as I imagine it the SP backdating would disrupt the market but not destroy it. And possibly create a new one. Take following example and assume you have choice of buying one of two characters:

10b 40m PvP pilot <-- assume most of skills are relevant to what you want to do
10b 20m in unallocated SP <-- assume you still need 40m in skills to do what you want to do

Doesn't it make it interesting choice?


And lastly, I think I have one good, if somewhat weak, argument against: it would hurt most those it's supposed to benefit. All other mechanics aside, waiting until skill is trained, the anticipation of what can be done with it, creates kind of bond. If someone doesn't play EVE for long time the bond may weaken. And then upon reactivation being given such instant gratitude may not help. In short, it could be that while having incentive to reactivate account, such player won't have one to keep playing.

I think we're slowly getting into semantics-fencing. I'm exploiting ability to run missions over and over again, and except for carebear-haters nobody seems to have problem with that.

So, do I get you correctly that your main objection here is that this SP backdating would happen at the moment choosen by the player, at the time of account reactivation? OK, I still fail to see it as such but if it really is an exploitable problem then I don't know how to get around it.

And as I said, I don't know character market and so I don't know how it rocked after learning skills removal. At this time I was quite low-skilled and I quickly made me Hull Tanking Elite cert. ;)

To your other concerns:

1. This is where we differ about semantics. To me 'exploitable' means 'destroying balance', not just 'possible to use'. If players are given some ability, this ability is limited in extent and full extent is taken into account, then by definition it's use will not cause imbalance.

2. Because of said balance. Amount of SP given may be significant enough to make player happy and still so small not to make it on par with player active during all this time.


Because you'd have to pay MORE for such character? Please take closer look at the example I provided. Numbers were pulled out of my ass and frankly I have no idea where in fact they would stabilise. But general principle should be clear.

- Only reactivated accounts and a cap of 6 months.
- Must be purchased with real money (not plex) and at full cost.
- No skill dump but a 'Cerebral Accelerator' (Like the officer edition implant) that doubles the training speed for the duration (upto the max of 6 months).

As the above is only a training speed modifier, there is no skill dump and removes the flavour of the month argument. As the training time is double, the _overall_ training time is no less or greater than if they were subscribed all along.

The buy a character argument is fine if that's what you want to do... for those of us that like to develop our own characters that's not an option.

The consequences argument isn't valid in this scenario, as the catch-up will still take time. If players are going to leave, they'll do it... regardless of consequences. At least with this they might want to return before the 6 month cap.

This option simply means that a player can catch up to where they were before they left (if < 6 months), although it will take them the same time again, i.e. 6 months... certainly not a quick 'exploit' :)

The officer edition implant already does the same thing, so they must have got around the exploits. The training speed would be exactly double.. so the _overall_ time would be the same... as if they never unsubbed basically... although it would take the same time again to catch-up.

So, you're gone for 6 months, you'll be caught up in another 6 months.

I mean the officer edition of the game that includes that implant. They must have prevented that from being traded.. I think it was just applied to my account when I did it... this would be the same, just applied to the account with an expiry of 1-6 months based on the period.

I'd say it is neutral in the good/bad argument as it would be the same as if the person was active during the time. The overall training time and skill amount would be the same.

OK, I get it.

The general idea seems reasonable to me. I still have reservations about balance of supertraining length and speed but at least it's something worth considering.

Though implant is tricky. Mind you the CA has hard limit of player age. Means even if you sell it to me I won't be able to use it, or if I'm new char I could use it only once. That implant, the new one, would have to be more generic to allow toon of any age to use it. So, ISK reserves permitting, I could amass batch of such implants allowing me to train at superspeed for many years. Smells a bit fishy to me.