Assembly Hall

I'd like to resurrect an old debate started when CCP removed learning skills almost 3 years ago:



I'd also like to append something else to that list:
If you're buying things to risk when in space, it should be because you're either moving it somewhere (for trade/logistical purposes), or you're using it to improve your general survivability while you're in space. Hardwirings (generally) fall into this category, as the vast majority give either defensive or offensive bonuses to ships in space. Losing them is just like losing the modules or rigs attached to your ship, as they are all for the same purpose.

However I feel I have a more elegant solution than Andski. My proposal aims to meet the following goals:

• Players aren't discouraged from PVP out of fear of disrupting their training plan.
• Wormhole and nullsec players don't suffer skill training delays for their choice of gameplay style.
• Players who can only afford to risk low-grade pirate sets for combat no longer have to slow down their training plan.
• It will still be possible to gain a faster training speed if you have the ISK to invest.
• This faster training speed can be achieved by player-built items rather than implants bought from an LP store.

Part 1

All current training implants are repurposed into generic ship attribute bonuses, and renamed accordingly:

+1 Bonus: Basic-Grade Capsuleer Enhancement
+2 Bonus: Low-Grade Capsuleer Enhancement
+3 Bonus: Standard-Grade Capsuleer Enhancement
+4 Bonus: High-Grade Capsuleer Enhancement
+5 Bonus: Experimental-Grade Capsuleer Enhancement
(as a bonus this helps eliminate the current naming scheme for training implants that can be fairly confusing for new players. "Limited Neural Boost - Beta" is totally intuitive guys)

Slot 1: (formerly Perception) 1-5% bonus to Ship Agility
Slot 2: (formerly Memory) 1-5% bonus to Shield Hitpoints
Slot 3: (formerly Willpower) 1-5% bonus to Ship Velocity
Slot 4: (formerly Intelligence) 1-5% bonus to Armour Hitpoints
Slot 5: (formerly Charisma) 1-5% bonus to Signature Radius

These implant bonuses correspond to the old attribute bonus, so a +3 Willpower implant would now give +3% to ship velocity. Other slot 1-5 implants that currently give an attribute bonus also receive the corresponding ship bonus.

Then... do not give everyone +5 to base attributes to compensate for the loss of +5 sets. Instead give them a lower amount (between +1 and +3). So how do we reach the old training speed? With something new.

Part 2

Introduce a new set of (legal) Boosters that give a timed bonus to a certain attribute. This bonus depends on the grade of the booster, but would be between +2 and +8. These boosters would last for several days (or possibly weeks), during which time the character gets a decent training speed bonus. All training boosters would share the same slot, meaning only one could ever be used at a time. This means that a user would be committed to a single attribute bonus for the full duration of the booster, and cannot switch until it expires. However, between the base attribute bonus and the potentially higher bonus on the new boosters, characters could end up training slightly faster than before.

Just like other boosters these new ones would give random penalties; corresponding to the bonuses listed for the Capsuleer Enhancement sets. This gives extra incentive to use these implants in PVP, in order to counteract any negative penalties. Players using full sets of these implants would also end up generally better off than before, even with penalties.



So, is it time we send learning implants to the scrapheap alongside learning skills and Achura bloodlines? Is this the right way to do it? Should the ship bonuses listed be different? Am I asking too many questions?

I can get behind removal of learning implants, sure.

Replacing them with learning boosters, though? WTF? That feels like it'd be even worse.

I proposed learning boosters here a month ago.

As long as learning implants exist, cybernetics remains the last learning skill. Every argument that applies against learning skills applies to the cybernetics skill. At the same time, arguments for keeping learning implants can apply to bringing back learning skills. But I don't see anybody calling for their return.

As for boosters replacing them, that would punish people who don't play Eve enough to be able to afford the boosters. So it encourages people to log in on days when they don't feel like playing just to do an ISK making activity. Which then leads to burnout and people leaving Eve. Even worse, this will hit newer players worst of all because they have less capability to earn ISK.

Well, unless you make the boosters so cheap that their cost can be ignored. Well, except for players in wormhole space who still have to worry about the logistics of getting boosters for their characters. Why do you hate wormholers ?

Making the booster only boost a single attribute hits new players even worse, as they are far more likely to want to train skills from a wide range of attributes. While my training plan for the next year is almost completely perception/memory skills.

attributes in general just sound like complexity for complexities sake. Boosters only make that worse. Complexity is only good when it means players have to make interesting choices. I don't see any interesting choices that come from attributes or any method to increase learning speed, be they permanent (learning skills and implants) or temporary (boosters).

To be completely fair, people who have expensive ship bonus implants *also* have the 19 hour penalty / play being discouraged. After all, if you want to fly something where every bit counts (a capship, say), you'll want a slave pod to go with it. If you move between lowsec piracy and nullsec fights, you'll be swapping between something like a snake pod and a cheap pod with a +1% or +2% hardwiring. Yes, this would address +5 pods, but it wouldn't magically make every bittervet undock.

I like the boosters idea. I'd also support getting rid of attributes, although I haven't in the past-- I realize now that the thing I like about attributes is the feeling that I can do *something* to change my training time, which is otherwise a big monolithic bloc of "ugh, 10 days before I can work on something *else* I need".

Nobody is talking about getting the bitter vets to undock, screw the bitter vets, the fact that this is of slight benefit to them is irrelevant.

Ship implants are something beneficial to some ships and which give an edge in combat in exchange for a rather high price. There is no _need_ to use them, if they get blown up you're out a bunch of isk but that's it.

Learning implants are different. Any time lost to inefficient skill training is time lost forever, no amount of work or isk can recover it. Anyone who is training with less than +5 implants on a remap-optimized training plan is losing SP, sometimes an awful lot of it. Essentially players are forced to choose between optimal skill training speed and actually playing the game. Game mechanics which actively discourage logging in are a Bad Thing.

This unfairly affects new pilots who can't afford the implants, then once they get the implants they can't afford to lose them. It also hurts new pilots more because they're less able to follow the long-term remap optimized plans that older pilots are able to do as a matter of course. Implants and attributes only serve to increase the already insurmountable skill point gap between new players and bitter vets.

Why do people insist on using these as an excuse not to PvP? So we remove them, then they'll use some other mechanic as the next excuse and ask for that to be nerfed. Oh I can't PvP in that tech3 because I might lose SP. etc. etc.

I PvP in my +5 imps, either when I simply cannot be bothered to change clones, or in a rush. I also use far more expensive clone sets, dependant upon which ship I'm using. Implants have never, ever, stopped me playing the game.

You cannot equate the learning skills with learning implants, it's simply not the same. One was stopping you learning other skills and therefore skillz for 3 months, the other is the by product of learning the cybernetics skill. Hardly a game breaking skill to train.

Oh and while you were sat in the station worrying about your SP per hour and the cost of your implants, I was out earning ISK and learning skillz whilst enjoying the game. Using said expensive implants, because guess what? It's a game, time to play it.

Your argument is proffered as the only way to look at the argument but let me propose another viewpoint. I spend almost all my time in high sec ( .8+) I can try and gank someone's snowflake RNI but I'm unlikely to be successful simply owing to gaming mechanics in my chosen region of game play. I chose my area of EVE to play in and understand and accept the consequences of that choice.

Where you play ganking the exact same snowflake is relative child's play ( assumes pure pve fit RNI ) but your chance of losing implants is much higher. This implant issue is a downside of where you have chosen to play the game. I'm suggesting that like me you must accept the negative aspects of your choice to play where you play just as I do


Also, I put in +5's as soon as possible and your contention that it in someway hinders me wanting to play couldn't be more wrong. What you r really saying is it doesn't benefit everyone so it should be removed or altered. If this is the new paradigm for EVE's development then I have a very long list of things you won't be able to do soon because they don't benefit me.

OK, so agree in part. Dont think we need more %type implants we have hardwiring ones for that, or we have mods or whatever, put it this way we have a ton of different things to effect those stats, tbh too many.

However I agree get rid of learning implants overall and bring in the boosters and remove the remap. It would be great just to boost the training just for a small period of time, and when i want to for certain attributes. so ill +1 you for that.

I agree with Ali. When looking down the barrel of a huge training time it is nice to know there is something I can do to alter the time, even by a small percentage.

Risk averse folks want to be able to 'hotswap' so they can have the best of both worlds, get out and fly cheap (or snake) when the time comes but maximize training effects when they are docked. In other words, the best of both worlds

I get that . . . But I think I lean towards the keeping of the implants and all the decisions/factors to consider that make this game complex. I don't want to simplify the game, I like the decision process and the balancing of risk and reward.

Taking implants away would just then bring the next lamb to slaughter. . . why do we have skill implants? Not the path I want to go down.

So, no. I side with keeping them and even adding more choices. More implants and better reasons to pod a person as well as blow up their ship.

THIS from a hisec carebear . . . (working hard for the sisters)

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