Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Dual character training. CCP very much sells SP. Also, why does changing the benefits not warrant reimbursement even if one of the benefits (unrelated to the other benefits offered by the skill) is completely removed?

Dual character training is not selling SP. It is selling the ability to train skills on two different characters on the same account simultaneously. The SPs gained (or lost) are still purely the result of player action (or inaction). In order for CCP to truly sell SPs, you would have to be able to redeem PLEX for SPs with no training time. I pray that never happens, but if it did, then CCP would be selling SP.

Let me ask you: did CCP reimburse all Interceptors that had been caught and killed in a bubble when they were granted bubble immunity? Did the reimburse every ship that was killed with the old Titan AoE Doomsday weapon? Did they reimburse all Marauders that were lost before the release of Bastion Modules? Or all ships that we lost to CONCORD/Faction Police before you could clearly see that you were flagged?

Where do you draw the line regarding changes and reimbursements?

I say the line is simple: reimburse what CCP removed from the game, not what they have changed. I think that's pretty much their policy.

EvE changes. Sometimes, those changes benefit some people more than others. Get over it.

There are economic downsides to CCP in reimbursing SP too. Developer time for one.
There are also game balance issues to consider: Giving you 500k SP to spend as you like provides you with large advantages over players that don't have them (examples: You can insta-train T3 Skills between AT matches so you can bring the same ship again at max skills. You could instatrain a brand new skill CCP introduces in the future so you can immediately take advantage the benefits it provides, etc).

Balancing regularly happens which regularly make certain things more accessible and others not.
It is quicker to train into carrier now than it was before, should my capital pilot get Battleship V reimbursed?
It is easier to train t2 large turrets now than it was before, should my Marauder pilot get Medium and Small Turret V and associted weapon spec skills reimbursed because we no longer need those skills to train Large Turret Spec skill?

The answer to all of the above is NO. The skills still have a purpose and provide my characters with abilities and benefits, even if I'm not planning to utilize them.

Anchoring V still provides you with the ability to Anchor Large t2 bubbles and more. Just because the skill prereq for SDM was lowered to Anchoring IV does not mean you deserve an SP refund.

Yes it is. Just because there is a "forced shipping time" associated with it does not mean CCP isn't selling it. Just because you need to press a button to receive your package also doesn't somehow mean CCP didn't sell the SP to you. Also, re: where you draw the line - when a skill is *effectively* removed for a player it should be reimbursed. Your definition simply does not not include the *effectively* part which is where we disagree. I see the upside and can't think of a downside for adopting the former.


I'm pretty sure the development cost for SP reimbursement is insignificant. The problem you mention already exists for SP reimbursed with petitions, etc. anyway and it's easy to fix. Simply have a cooldown timer for applying SP to certain skills, or if you're lazy just make it a general timer where the SP is gradually allocated. I don't think players would really care if they have to wait an extra week to get their SP back.


If you're not planning to utilize them, why should you care about this?


SP doesn't lose value over time like that. 10 SP today is 10 SP tomorrow. It does suck more though if you just trained it. I don't think it should affect the SP value though, it just makes your case stronger if it was recent.


Instead of pissed off players you have happy players. This means better word-of-mouth, more willingness to recommend the game, more pilots online, more money for CCP, more resources to improve the game, etc.

Granted, one case like this is not significant. But as an overall policy it is a bad one. Each time a skill is changed, you have a new group of people that gets pissed for no reason. Not sure why you can't see this. Or maybe you do, but you just don't care.

Well, you just admitted that you'd rather see people be unhappy than happy absent of any factors discouraging the latter, so I think that speaks for itself. Also you're deluding yourself if you think these kind of things don't impact community opinion of CCP and are "so far beyond irrelevant".

EDIT: For the record, I don't have anchoring to V. I just don't like it when people get shat on by CCP for no reason.

If you have to reach that far for an argument that you are just going to make stuff up, just don't post.

But like I said, people find a way to cry about literally everything CCP does. CCP does not bend over backwards to accommodate them either, and somehow the game gets along just fine.

So, I still see no need for this. I also have yet to see a good argument in it's favor. Everything so far just boils down to "because I want it!".

Because the skill is not rendered useless so it's not reimbursed just like every other skill change they did. It follow the standard procedure for CCP to not refund skills unless they are removed from the game. People didn;t get reimbursement for racial BS V when the requirement for caps were lowered, you don't get reimbursed for anchoring V even if the requirement for something was lowered.

Just because that's how previous skill changes have been dealt with does not make it the best way to do it.

If you have BSV + cap skill then yes, IMO you should have been given the option to keep your BS V or not. After all, is that not in the spirit of the skill change? That you should not have had to train BS V just to fly the cap?

What is the detriment to other players that I've overlooked?

Nobody gives a **** about the detriment to other player. The standard for CCP is to deal with it that way. HTFU or GTFO if you are not happy about the regular policy.

This is an interesting, yet pointless, argument. CCP does refund SPs when they perceive that they've screwed up. If they don't award you SPs when you petition something they don't consider they've screwed up in any way. If they do, they have.

While I sympathise with those that learned the skill for what they think of as having become no reason the argument is moot. CCP aren't going to change their stance on it unless a LOT of players start unsubbing their accounts. As there are only a small handful of people who seem to feel aggrieved I don't think that's going to happen.

Yes, it's a bit ****** to have "seemingly" wasted that learning time but, in the grand scheme of things it's really not that bad. As CCP say, if you can use after what you could use before, they need to reimburse you nothing, do nothing and apologise for nothing.

I hate to tell you this but this is a developing MMO and as such there will be change. There are at least some of the players who don't like every single change that CCP make to the game. If they were to pander to all of them it would waste an enormous amount of money. Money which we're paying them. Money that most of the players would prefer to go to developing the game.