EVE New Citizens Q&A

Learning Skills were removed
Everyone Recieved the power of the Learning Skills at max training
those who had the points spent on those skill were able to re-spend those points

in effect all learning was at 2.5 times speed so the double learning speed was no longer needed and was removed

I understand that Learning skills were removed, the spent SP in them refunded and base training speed altered to equate max learning skills. Frankly, no offense, but all that is irrelevant to the question.

That CCP removed the new character 'advantage' as part of the major revamp to the whole training process I can understand. But it can't be because new players were compensated by those other changes, when they affect all players.

New players initially got 900K of SP at start up. At one point this was distributed in a fixed way based on the character Race and sub-race selection. Then it was changed to allow the player to freely distribute how they wanted at start up. This was changed again to a fixed 100K in vital skills and make the next 1.6M SP train at double training speed.

So nowadays the new player gets the fixed 100K of vital starter skills. Is that it?

Hello Alexis Cornell,

This dev blog by CCP Greyscale outlines the reasoning behind the skill training bonus removal and may answer some of your questions.

Hope that helps.

Well, the sad thing about all of this from my POV was that it made the game worse, especially for new players.

The worst thing you can do to many new players - is to give them what they want.


A game that is harder and has greater complexity - is generally a better game than one that is simplistic and easily mastered.


Giving new players the opportunity to do something for it's long term benefit rather than going after short term goals gave those players with some foresight an advantage over those who were impatient. Most MMO's reward the impatient - as they are the biggest whiners - and whining works. EVE once rewarded those with foresight who trained their learning skills - it now encourages the impatient.


The biggest down side to the new player - was that during the time they spent acquiring those learning skills - they were playing the game at a relatively easy level and learning about how it worked. When they lost that time they spent getting their learning skills up - they lost that in game experience they were gaining at the same time.

Now ... they are able to concentrate on moving up to bigger ships and better missions faster - when they often are not really ready for them. So they go out, get blown up, lose everything because they spent it all on that big ship they didn't know how to use and then don't know what to do.


Now - the mantra is "Get To Level IV Missions As Fast As You Can" regardless of anything else.

Ignoring the cost to people who've lost everything they had by foolishly spending it all on a ship they subsequently lost ... OK - so they're now at Level IV Missions ... now what? You can put fancier stuff on your ship so that you can run Level IV's even faster ... but so what? The missions are still the same. So all you've done - is top out your Mission Running Career as fast as you could - so you can now spend your time running the same missions - over and over and over and over ad nausea ...

I can't imagine anything more boring than that.

Of course ... they can go do something else ... but the challenge of Mission Running (what challenge there was) is over.

It was like getting to BR20 in PS. OK ... now what? CR 5 - which I got ... then what?

*shrug*

Giving people what they want is not always doing them a favor ...

.

New players initially got almost no SP at startup. I started with something like 70k SP back in September 2006. No remaps, no skillqueue, you had to train basic learnings to 5 before you could start the advanceds, and implants were approximately twice the price they are now.

I don't recall new players ever getting freely distributable skillpoints at startup. I think you are perhaps thinking of stat points not skill points?

I believe the current theory is that with an effective +10 to each stat, new players are training on average at double the speed on startup, and furthermore they're free to begin training useful skills immediately (rather than balancing between learning skills and game skills), rendering the old 100% training speed bonus redundant.

Original system: average stat of 9 = 13.5 SP/minute, 30k-180k in skills you din't get to choose
Older system: average stat of 9 = 13.5 Sp/minute, with 800k in skills you didn't get to choose
Old system: average stat of 9 = 13.5 SP/minute, with 100% bonus = 27 SP/minute.
New system: average stat of 19 = 28.5 SP/minute

Obviously, implants complicate the equation; under the old system you'd get more out of them, but it took longer to get them as well. On balance, and especially taking into account the 5.3M SP worth of "free" learning skills, I'd say that the new system is better for genuinely new players, but less good for old players making alts. (New players generally can't afford a full set of +4 or +5s to maximise the early training bonus).

Also recycling scamming alts is an exploit. As is recycling alts involved in corp theft.

This may be your version of initially. When I started you got like 50k fixed skillpoints depending on your race, ancestry and corp selection. The 900k thing got introduced way later.
Oh and I enjoyed it as it was.

Of course I don't wear shoes in my pod either. And I prefer getting my skillbooks form space stations. If I had to get them from a mountain top I'd demand I could land a Rifter there. Yes I know I'm totally weak.