EVE General Discussion

My attributes are set for Int/Mem, so training Drones isn't ideal but also isn't terrible. Prior to the announcement, I trained all drones skills to whatever level I could get to without spending more than one day on any one skill (except Drones, which I had to train to V to get some of the other skills). This left me with SDO IV and CDO III. When I heard about the skill split, I debated whether to train CDO from III to V. Ultimately, I compromised and trained to CDO IV. As June 3 approached, however, I struggled with whether to go CDO V. I went back and checked the dev blog again because I wanted to be certain they had not added SDO as an alternative to CDO (because SDO in fact makes sense for this split). In other words, I actually thought to look at this. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of thinking the dev blog would be updated with any changes that resulted from ongoing thinking and discussion in the thread, because (1) my prior experience in reading dev threads, like the multi-pager on industrials last summer, involved threads where every change announced in the thread was incorporated back into the original post; and (2) it just makes sense to update the original post when individual changes are otherwise scattered throughout individual posts. To be clear, this was my mistake given the buyer-beware nature of Eve.

That said, while I own my mistake, I'm more than a little irritated with CCP's approach to this issue from a player-experience standpoint. For those who say people haven't lost anything, that's just not true. The only reason I trained CDO V was to get the split; I was not otherwise going to do it. Had I done independent research beyond the dev post (whether via Google or picking through the individual comments) and learned that CDO was going away and that SDO would be the only skill that actually mattered, I obviously would have trained SDO (1x and surviving) instead of CDO (2x and going away), as would any other sane and rational person. CCP and others can spin it, but the fact is CCP encouraged players to train a 2x skill that it then decided to make irrelevant by tying the two new skills to a 1x skill that was going to survive the update. Likewise, you can say I got what I bargained for (CDO V will in fact turn into LDO V and MDO V), but that doesn't make it true: I trained a 2x skill that was the door to LDO V and MDO V, not a door to LDO V and MDO V that another, cheaper skill that will actually survive the update (i.e., remain independent relevant) also led to at less cost.

I know CCP is not going to give players anything for this, and that's their call. But for a company that claims it wants to make the game more accessible to new players, this kind of you-better-read-every-post-and-be-prepared-to-learn-lessons-the-hard-way (which, let's be honest, is at the heart of Eve) is going to present a challenge. And maybe that's for the best; maybe Eve should be limited to those that think anyone frustrated by this situation is just a "whiner." I don't know, and fortunately, it's not my call to make.

Anyway, thanks for listening to (or skimming over, whatever) the rant. It feels good to put the frustration into words, even if it isn't goin to change anything. Also, if you think I'm wrong, I acknowledge in advance that you might be right.

Edit:
Agreed, but I don't think that's the issue here. The issue here is whether CCP has an obligation to correct something it has said, once it has decided to say it. If CCP had said nothing, I'm certain there would have been plenty of people griping about their silence, but I wouldn't be one of them. (Probably not anyway.)

I did at least. If I understand correctly, the comments to the dev post mentioned the change a few days after the post went up, but the original dev post was never updated. (I'm fairly certain on that last part, given I checked it about a week ago, right before training CDO V.) In other words: read the posts to the dev post and do not assume the original post will be updated (even if it sometimes is).

Edit: Here's the recently updated post, which now references SDO and notes that it is, as of May 30, fully up to date:

We are also splitting the current Combat Drone Operation skill into two new skills, Light Drone Operation and Medium Drone Operation. This means that all light combat drones will now be unlocked and bonused from the Light Drone Operation skill, and medium combat drones will be unlocked and bonused from the Medium Drone Operation skill. During the patch downtime, existing players with the Combat Drone Operation and/or Scout Drone Operation skills trained will receive both new skills trained to a level equal to the highest level that they have in either Combat Drone Operation or Scout Drone Operation.

We initially announced that we would reimburse only from the Combat Drone Operation skill but after recieving some excellent feedback from the community on our forums we decided to reimburse based on the highest of these two skills so that we could ensure that pilots who could use these drones before don't lose any capability after the patch.

http://community.eveonline.com/news/dev-blogs/giving-drones-an-assist/

Hmmm. I don't know if making another bad decision is going to make me feel better about my prior bad decision.

PS - Dig the corp name.

If it was updated to note SDO a month ago, then the problem is that I missed it (somehow) when I checked the original dev blog post (not the comments though) before training CDO.

Solid advice. Again, I know this ultimately was my mistake; it's just really frustrating. On the plus side, this little snafu has forced me to get a bit more zen about my training efficiency (blowing something like 10 days of training unnecessarily will do that for you). Maybe I'll queue up some Charisma skills just for grins. Thanks again to all for the vent venue.

Yea, because we all go through a thread and read every post.

Drone Avionics isn't required, last I looked on SiSi at least:

https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=4607975#post4607975

Yes, the poor dead horse.

See for yourself: https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=343150

Yep. I'm pretty peeved about this myself. I spent 10x days training CDO 5 on 6x accounts - basically flushed 2x plex worth of training time down the drain.