Skill Discussions

I don't think you should get any advantage for having more SP other than the SP itself. After your basic core/weapon skills all SP does is allow you to fly more stuff.

I wouldn't be against having some special achievement or station older pilots could dock in. If anything give new pilots a quicker skill point training. I think you used to train the first million SP faster but I don't think this is anymore. I could be wrong since it's been a while since I made a new pilot.

What we don't need is encouraging new pilots to get into ships they can't fly. For some that have a lot of RL cash they could fund this but most players will dislike the pay to win feeling. I tell new pilots enjoy the game play. Shooting stuff in a frigate is no different than shooting it in a battleship. The only difference is you'll lose more ISK when the battleship goes pop

yeah, advantages are a touchy subject, especially ones that can't be affected by other players somehow. the theme of the benefits I mentioned is none of them are perceivable by other players, nor is there an impact on other players. (faster training time is a direct comparative advantage, but they already had those skills before resetting.)


I disagree with your statement that we don't "need" new pilots to get into ships they can't fly. for a couple reasons. they can already get into a crap ship after training minimum requirements. they are also less effective than you in space, and when they get into that ship it is easy to kill them. Those are also reasons why it doesn't change much to have lower minimum requirements that make sense, and benefit the player. it almost sounds like you support the idea of helping players skill for ships responsibly. but I'm aware that's not the case.

something tells me Gaming God does this regularly, and as a joke, but my question to you is based on this. It is still not clear in my mind why you say we don't "need" this in the game. I am under the impression that the statement is motivated by jealousy and immaturity, which also means it is not an objective one. still, are there solid gameplay reasons to support the sentiment? I'm trying to think of some myself, but I'm coming up empty.

skills are irrelevant when a person with unlimited funds can buy a character. when you find yourself in space with a hostile ship, it doesn't matter where the person got the character, the ship, or their ISK. Not only is that the only situation where any of those things matter, it's also better for you if they are less skilled.

I guess it's also beneficial in that situation if players waste months for a crap skilled ship (like they do now). if that's what you want, just say it. at least that opinion is supported by reasons. That's one thing a marauder is good for: guaranteeing that a young player spends their first 5 million SP on a crap ship, and that doesn't even include fittings.

Marauder Role Bonus: EVE's best indicator of a gankable player who is full of bad ideas and has fit their ship with minimum skills and a Pay to Win strategy. somethingsomething deep in enemy territory behind high sec mission gates.


that is the type of EVE perseverance story that amazes me. i'm also very surprised when people stick with EVE without help or guidance from another player. I've only met a couple of those types. it reminds me of this 2003 character I bought. looking at the skill sheet tells me the person had a lot of fun with the character despite the low SP. you just don't see that anymore.

Yes we all know Eve is dying...

http://i.massively.joystiq.com/2013/02/28/eve-online-hits-500-000-subscribers-heads-into-second-decade

I've seen so many Eve players get on the forums and talk about if CCP doesn't do this or that the game will die and everyone will stop playing. These people never seem to unsubscribe because they keep posting on the forums.

Eve is over 10 years old and so far still going. Will it be here 10 years from now?... I think so.

I'll buy both opinions. Newer players probably have a greater need for consideration, and they might be the biggest motivation for improvement--veterans are guilty of admitting they're in it for the long haul, possibly EOL. New players are good, and it's healthy. Old players are legen

They've been delaying new content at the expense of older players though, since the general policy is to not further increase the skill point gap between newer players, and the ones already established for a few years now, or worse yet those that started since the beginning, but the latter are well past the point of specialization in any single race and can fly everything in game, often to near maximum levels, so once all available skills that relate to ships are maxed out in less than 2 years from now( at least in my case), what do I do then?, start training research or production or marketing or mining or skills to create an alliance?....I have no interest in any of that.


I still remember being part of the goon gang that went to LV space to destroy what was back then only the 2nd titan being built by LV, and the enslaver had the first of LV titans( an avatar), with the very first one built period was done by ASCN for their leader...It was being defended by LV and BOB and another smaller renter alliance , but was the first major battle involving 1000 pilots between both sides and crashed the node big time...Good memories even though i lost my ship....LOL


Saw a CCP dev blog back in those days that the average player only plays for 9 months before moving on.

This sounds sooo familiar, it's as if you were describing Sable's first halting steps in New Eden. A mere two years later when I fired up my second account the newbie experience was markedly different and not just because I had already experienced Eve through Sable.

this is new to me as a policy... officially or unofficially. can you explain this a bit more? what have you heard about this? (dev blogs?)

ok, that makes sense. I was anxious to chew on your reply, and it's good/thanks...

I don't think the disparity between high and low SP characters is something to worry about. EVE is pretty good at allowing a young character to make a difference. I won't go too deep into those ways, but they include: strength in blobs, achieving the bulk of a ship's potential quickly with scaled training times per level, and when DPS is compared to signature radius and cost, the sweet spot is frigates and cruisers... which have the lowest SP barrier to entry.

high SP characters are also limited by the fact they can only pilot one ship at a time. continuously training one character for the typical 20% improvement becomes vanity training fairly quickly, considering the practical benefit. in fact I think it can be considered vanity past level IV in most skills, with just one or two exceptions of level V skills that are useful enough to justify their training time.

I'm constantly returning to the initial idea of reducing minimum skill requirements, and evaluating whether it is a good one... I think allowing characters to undock ships sooner would go well with EVE's balance between low and high SP characters. As most of us know, however, there's an irrational element to changes and even if a change is good, if enough players -feel- it's a betrayal, a good thing can become a mistake based on player response. which is pretty damn sad imo.

also, my interpretation of the T3 configuration figures is that each subsystem is multiplied by 4, so the total number of combinations is 4*4*4*4*4 = 1024... although the raw figure looks far more impressive than the number of useful combinations of subsystems, further reduced by relevant metas and fleet comps... each T3 has maybe 10 popular configurations max?

edit: 4 per category... 4^5 = 1024 ... whoops. I fly T3s, two of me are in them right now. derp.

looking through your post history, my impression of you is yes, chances are you are missing quite a few things. I'm waiting to see if you post your negative sentiment without proof a third time.

haven't made up my mind whether Ilshira is contrived or accidental. I may never know. Ilshira is relatively old and very consistent in the thought process behind forum posts. willfully ignorant yet strongly opinionated. as a persona, Ilshira is brilliant.

what was the reason for removing learning skills?

ignoring the time it took to train them, their function was the ability to train into new things faster than a newer character... a situation made worse by the possibility that the older character already has core skills trained.

I'm wondering how the reasons for removing learning skills would fit in with the idea of adjusting minimum skill requirements.

...and you know, trying to get a better sense of what CCP's motivations are. (reading their mind, and looking at what they do and not what they say).