Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Becoming used to a broken system doesn't fix the system, change is needed.

Agreed.

Sounds 85% lamer when placed with "Piloting"...

A lot of folks have been asking about attributes, but only in terms of preserving the current scheme of primary/secondary attributes affecting training time and having consistent patterns of those attributes across skills within a group.

I'd like to take that discussion a step further and ask whether attributes' effects on skill training time are really a game mechanic you want to keep, or whether it's time to let them go. The upside of that system is that it allows people to feel like they're tailoring their character toward what they want to do -- combat pilots can remap to per/wil to train almost all ship command and weapons skills, while industry characters can remap to int/mem to train science and production skills.

But the system has significant downsides as well -- it encourages people to *not* train skills that they could use in the short term, simply because training against their current remap would be "less efficient" than waiting until they can remap attributes. This is especially bothersome for brand new combat pilots who need lots of int/mem support skills to go with their per/wil combat skills. Those pilots must make a lame choice: train "inefficiently" in order to get all the skills they need, or use up bonus remaps or wait over a year before they can be combat-effective.

I'm not sure the upsides really outweigh the downsides at this point. You made a similar conclusion about the Learning skills years ago, and I think that was the correct one, but I think it's time now to make the next step and do away with attributes affecting skill training time.

The simple fix is to just remove attributes entirely, but that would be frowned on by everyone who's invested in expensive implants. Another possible alternative is to let attributes grant some slight amplification of the skills they affect, rather than a training time bonus. So, for example, remapping to per/wil grants an extra +5% amplifier to all skills which are governed by per/wil (i.e. Surgical Strike grants +3% turret damage per level if you're remapped to int/mem, but +3.15% per level if you're mapped per/wil).

Regardless, I'd love some discussion of whether the skill training time optimization mechanic via attributes and remaps is really an interesting enough game mechanic to be worth the un-fun waiting-to-train or training-inefficiently gameplay that it brings along with it.

Edit: Since Ripard Teg's opinion surely carries more weight than mine, here is his similar take on this subject from a few years ago: http://jestertrek.blogspot.com/2011/10/death-to-attributes.html

1. They are fixing a broken system.
2. Off topic references aren't helpful to the current topic of discussion.
3. See also: Standard Bitter Vet Post (SBVP)

If you are going to change Spaceship Command to something, go with Starship Control. :p

Something else I'd look at it is to combine the two specialization skills for each gun type in the gunnery tree into something resembling what you find in the missile tree, like heavy missile specialization.

Yes.



Yes.



Yes.

Also, keep Planetary Interaction skills in their own independent category along with Spaceship Command the same.

These changes are moronic and cater to people too illiterate and incapable to be playing this game to begin with. I do not approve of any of these changes and hope they are withdrawn.

This smells of the homogenization and nerfing that has sent every other MMO into the dirt. This game is what it is because it requires attention and some reading skills. I do not want to lose this to the crybaby masses.

Sounds mostly fine, but I really don't like spaceship piloting. It's meh to start with and sounds like many of the navigation skills could/should belong in it. Spaceship command sounds better and is much more clearly separated from the actual navigation of a spaceship. I mean we would have spaceship piloting in the new systems, but skills like acceleration control, evasive maneuvering and high speed maneuvering aren't related to piloting a spaceship? If I didn't know it's just a renamed command group, that is the first place I'd expect to find skills, that affect my ability to better maneuver a spaceship.

Good to see that your team is hard at it changing fields in the database.

What are you guys going to do for the other 364 days of the coming year?

I think some CCP employees have too much time on their hands. How about spending it on something besides name changing? There are plenty of in-game mechanics that need looked at, lots of additional features that your playerbase has been looking for....and you pull out Thesaurus 101. gg ccp.