Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Background:

Currently high sp pilots have relatively very expensive medical clones. After some level of sp clone price goes up so much it doesn't make any sense to fly cheaper ships at all because medical clone cost is many many times the value of the ship. This limits the game experience of high sp pilots since it doesn't make sense for them to participate in operations flown with cheaper ships. Not only does it limit experience of high sp pilots but since they cannot fly cheap ships they won't be there to teach new players either with those said cheap ships.

Thesis:

If medical clone price would be cut to minimal, it would allow also high sp pilots to fly cheap ships if they so choose. Even then learning implants and hardwires would be costly to lose, but you could choose to fly with a blank clone with no implants and no benefits if you would want to fly with a cheap clone.

Possible solutions:

1. Make medical clone cost much less. Maybe cap it to like 1-2 million isk which seems suitable and still makes sense to fly i.e. rifter without too much tears after getting podded.

2. Keep clone costs same but limit maximum cost to ship hull base price. I.e. with rifter maximum cost after losing pod would be like 500k or whatever. Insurance company or something would pay back the extra or something. This feels a bit complicated, though.

3. Make all medical clones cost maximum like 1-2 million but require upgrading clone once after you reach certain sp. That way you would still need to pay and remember to upgrade clone. I personally like this most, but seems a bit more work than option 1.

I do not believe that is valid argument. I can personally make isk for medical clone in 5 minutes. However the point is that if there is no sensible reason to fly a ship worth 1 million isk when your medical clone costs like what way over 20 times that.

Sure you can go lose pod and rifter once in a year without complaint but if you lose several clones a day that's becoming nuisance and feels pretty much dumb. And that is what you're going to do if you fly tech 1 frigate or so. Not only that but it seems pretty stupid that your medical clone costs more than your ship.

With current system it's just easier to roll a buddy alt and use that. I do not believe this is how it should be. After all if you have even one +4 learning implant it's already many times worth of tech 1 frigate. And should suffice for loss if you choose to use implants.

That prevents high SP pilots from effectively flying cheap ships. And that's broken.

I in general agree that proposal by the OP should be implemented, and costs of medical clones kept reasonable.

Stop upgrading your clone. There, now you're a low SP pilot and you don't have to pay any ISK for upgrades.

Not only that you would have common sense to split up your skills among clones designed for a purpose. Like a couple industrial characters, a pvp character which has very cheap replacement clones for dying, etc.

Most people with common sense train 3 different accounts at least with 3 different characters, to train at the same time on all 3, then move the 2 characters to the account wanting to be kept, using 2 plex.

I didn't even bother to read the thread since he used "PLOX" in the thread title. I assume anybody stupid enough to use "PLOX" isn't bright enough to have a good idea...judging from the reactions to the thread I might be right.

Yes...clone costs are expensive. All the more reason not to die. If you aren't making enough ISK to pay for your clone...then you are doing something wrong.

This actually made me smile a little :)

You people are generally ignoring his main point, which is that entire classes of ships are useless for someone with X number of skillpoints. Even t2 frigates are hard to justify when a clone costs as much as a hull.



He already explained this point.



I should also point out, while we're bitching about new players, that this mechanic pushes experienced players into expensive ships that newbies can't fly. A newbie or a group of newbies will have a much greater chance of killing a veteran in a rifter than a veteran in a vagabond.



It's not a valid argument since it misses the point of his post, which is that cheap ships cease to become a viable option for veterans. Why are we removing options from players?

No, they aren't. Just because you have X SP doesn't mean any given hull is 'beneath you'. If you feel like your clone with X SP isn't safe enough in a T1 frig, then that's your choice not to fly one. But the clone cost has nothing whatsoever to do with the cost of the ship. And anyways, by the time you have enough SP for clones to cost even more than 10M, you should have the means to easily make the money back without any significant impact on your playtime.

This. You already defeated your own argument with your statement that you can make the cost of a clone in 5 minutes. So grow up, do an hour of whatever it is that you do, and then go get podded 12 times. You'll break even.