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How would EVE break if we removed skills altogether?

First post
Author
Aerasia
Republic University
Minmatar Republic
#181 - 2015-10-02 00:50:09 UTC
Delegate wrote:
Maybe I would board some bling dread for few days, but then I know I would be like: F*ck it, there is nothing to achieve here.
That sounds a lot like EVE's player base is made up of people who enjoy SkillQueue online more than the actual game.

Let's just assume you had been able to fly your Stealth Bomber since day one. Would you still be here?
Delegate
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#182 - 2015-10-02 00:57:06 UTC
Aerasia wrote:
Let's just assume you had been able to fly your Stealth Bomber since day one. Would you still be here?


I wouldn't come to EVE in the first place. It should be obvious to you after reading my post.
Aerasia
Republic University
Minmatar Republic
#183 - 2015-10-02 01:00:12 UTC
Delegate wrote:
I wouldn't come to EVE in the first place. It should be obvious to you after reading my post.
That's insanity, but fair enough - question answered.
Delegate
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#184 - 2015-10-02 01:07:41 UTC  |  Edited by: Delegate
Aerasia wrote:
That's insanity, but fair enough - question answered.


Simply, we differ at what we expect from the game.
However, starting EVE I had a pretty good picture of what this game is like (and wasn't disappointed). You, it appears, mistook EVE for something it isn't and never was. And now you demand a revolution in fundamental mechanics.
Aerasia
Republic University
Minmatar Republic
#185 - 2015-10-02 01:16:14 UTC
I'm not sure "differ" really covers it. The part of the game you enjoy, the deal-breaker in fact, is that EVE prevents you from doing the things you want for ever increasing periods of time.

I'm trying to apply this mentality to any other game, and this is what comes out:

"People like that chess game, but I don't get it. They just give you all the pieces right up front. Where's the strategy? Where's the payoff for a long term commitment to Bishops? Not the game for me."

I'm trying to wrap my head around the concept a dedicated EVE-chess playerbase that numbers in the hundreds of thousands, all perfectly happy knowing that it will take decades of waiting before they'll be allowed to play a game with all 16 pieces.
Delegate
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#186 - 2015-10-02 01:33:50 UTC
Aerasia wrote:
I'm not sure "differ" really covers it. The part of the game you enjoy, the deal-breaker in fact, is that EVE prevents you from doing the things you want for ever increasing periods of time.

I'm trying to apply this mentality to any other game, and this is what comes out:

"People like that chess game, but I don't get it. They just give you all the pieces right up front. Where's the strategy? Where's the payoff for a long term commitment to Bishops? Not the game for me."

I'm trying to wrap my head around the concept a dedicated EVE-chess playerbase that numbers in the hundreds of thousands, all perfectly happy knowing that it will take decades of waiting before they'll be allowed to play a game with all 16 pieces.


I hope EVE will never become “any other game”.
Yes, EVE has its ways. It has a faithful player base, that came to EVE specifically for the kind of experience it provides. And that experience include skill system. The “any other game” league is crowded. Its a recipe for disaster.
Tyberius Franklin
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#187 - 2015-10-02 01:40:23 UTC
Aerasia wrote:
I'm not sure "differ" really covers it. The part of the game you enjoy, the deal-breaker in fact, is that EVE prevents you from doing the things you want for ever increasing periods of time.

I'm trying to apply this mentality to any other game, and this is what comes out:

"People like that chess game, but I don't get it. They just give you all the pieces right up front. Where's the strategy? Where's the payoff for a long term commitment to Bishops? Not the game for me."

I'm trying to wrap my head around the concept a dedicated EVE-chess playerbase that numbers in the hundreds of thousands, all perfectly happy knowing that it will take decades of waiting before they'll be allowed to play a game with all 16 pieces.

Eve isn't chess. It's not supposed to be chess. In the same way you bemoan eve's skills by saying chess gives you all the pieces up front one could complain about chess for having different pieces where checkers does not. Similarly both arguments are flawed in that they view all games as being equivalent and all benefiting from the same ruleset.

Were eve an instanced 1v1 strategic death match with mechanically ensured equal matchups you might have a point looking at it like chess, but it isn't any of that.
Tyberius Franklin
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#188 - 2015-10-02 01:43:49 UTC
Dror wrote:
Zan Shiro wrote:
The system works.

Fact people like you are still playing yet whine about this shows this.

Not even sure if this thread or another one...so will restate these always revolve around but my friend didn't like eve so eve has to change.

Thats your friend's tastes. We all have them. They don't like the game because of SP, moved on, well then I hope they find a game they like.

Is it really that successful?

Getting friends in the game, with sustain, is better than gameplay. "It is better to give than to receive." Maybe the (frankly, unfounded) negatives of this discussion could benefit from that idea. There can always be more gameplay with more subs and options and initiative and value. There can't always be less with fewer.

Eve has never been without the skill system, as such any slumps in growth can't be directly attributed to that. In all actuality the games periods of greatest growth should never have happened if the skill system was the issue as you suggest.
Dror
Center for Advanced Studies
Gallente Federation
#189 - 2015-10-02 02:38:54 UTC
Tyberius Franklin wrote:
In the same way you bemoan eve's skills by saying chess gives you all the pieces up front one could complain about chess for having different pieces where checkers does not.

False equivalence. If checkers were called out for having all of the same pieces, it would be for shallowness. If chess' pieces were limited, the game would be less deep. ..There's a pattern.

Eve has never been without the skill system, as such any slumps in growth can't be directly attributed to that.

"If there's not enough information, there's plenty of information"? How ludicrous.

In all actuality the games periods of greatest growth should never have happened if the skill system was the issue as you suggest.

Even nothingness has value.

"SP is helpful for the game?" Here's all of the research on motivation -- it says the opposite! What purpose does it serve, then? Starter corps are non-competitive. Sov is unchallenged. "Fix sov!" you say? Remove SP.

Tyberius Franklin
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#190 - 2015-10-02 02:54:55 UTC  |  Edited by: Tyberius Franklin
Dror wrote:
False equivalence. If checkers were called out for having all of the same pieces, it would be for shallowness. If chess' pieces were limited, the game would be less deep. ..There's a pattern.No, this is not a false equivalence, rather, this is you using contrived, self serving, false logic. There is no intrinsic balance point between all games that even justifies comparisons like these, thus no one comparison is more valid than another, and thus no "pattern", which negates the validity of the objection posed. Even if we did accept this line of thinking and chess becomes the model by which gaming is measured the answer becomes obvious: everyone should quit eve and checkers and go play chess.

"If there's not enough information, there's plenty of information"? How ludicrous.Good thing that's not what I stated. I stated we didn't have the information to make the conclusion you are stating is a fact. I didn't offer alternative conclusions either. I did state the fact that that the game has seen growth under the same conditions you claim are causing it to stagnate. And that is demonstrable with the limited information we do have.

Even nothingness has value.ok.

Edited for clarity
Corraidhin Farsaidh
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#191 - 2015-10-02 09:55:08 UTC  |  Edited by: Corraidhin Farsaidh
Aerasia wrote:
Delegate wrote:
I wouldn't come to EVE in the first place. It should be obvious to you after reading my post.
That's insanity, but fair enough - question answered.


No it isn't. It is Delegate's preferred style of game. I come from a background of playing old pen and paper RPG's as a kid, the whole creating and growing the character is as much part of the game to me as the market place, the industry drivers, the destruction of assets and the interaction between players. Remove any one of these elements and you detrimentally affect all of the others.

Ed: If you want everything up front without any investment of time, effort or thought in the game then Eve really isn't the game for you.

If you appreciate forward planning, working with others, gaining that little extra advantage that you have worked for, carving out a niche for yourself among others then welcome to Eve, you'll like it here.
Lady Rift
His Majesty's Privateers
#192 - 2015-10-02 15:04:19 UTC  |  Edited by: Lady Rift
Aerasia wrote:
I'm not sure "differ" really covers it. The part of the game you enjoy, the deal-breaker in fact, is that EVE prevents you from doing the things you want for ever increasing periods of time.

I'm trying to apply this mentality to any other game, and this is what comes out:

"People like that chess game, but I don't get it. They just give you all the pieces right up front. Where's the strategy? Where's the payoff for a long term commitment to Bishops? Not the game for me."

I'm trying to wrap my head around the concept a dedicated EVE-chess playerbase that numbers in the hundreds of thousands, all perfectly happy knowing that it will take decades of waiting before they'll be allowed to play a game with all 16 pieces.



In chess I don't have to earn an ingame currency to be able to buy my pieces. I also cant upgrade my knight to a navy night which looks cooler and has different abilities.


It doesn't take decades to get all the pieces. a couple years at most. And if you go crazy and want it all ~6 years (2165days) will get you sitting in every ship in game with the ability to use every t2 gun or missile in the game with perfect turret and missile supports with all drone supports at 4, perfect cap and base fitting skills rigs @4 navigation @ 4 or 5.

When I say sit in all ships i mean all. Jump freighters/rorg/orca/every titain/super all t2 BS/BC cruisers and frigs.

of course this will cost billions of billions of isk just for the all the skills.


note the time is on standard map with no implants. +3's and remaps will lower this to 1600 days (4.4 years) +5's to 1488 (4.1 years)

so no decades to get every ships is false. To max out every ship and non ship skills would still take less than 2 decades.


edit: which equal just under 97 million skill points
Aerasia
Republic University
Minmatar Republic
#193 - 2015-10-02 15:58:48 UTC
Corraidhin Farsaidh wrote:
I come from a background of playing old pen and paper RPG's as a kid, the whole creating and growing the character is as much part of the game to me as the market place, the industry drivers, the destruction of assets and the interaction between players.

I've got my own history of high school D&D as well. And the person who thought "growing their character" was getting a new combat feat was the min-maxer that nobody wanted to play with.

Large Projectile Turret V isn't character growth. It's mindless busywork. It's an arbitrary time-sink. It's Progress Quest.
Cidanel Afuran
Grant Village
#194 - 2015-10-02 16:20:25 UTC  |  Edited by: Cidanel Afuran
Aerasia wrote:
I've got my own history of high school D&D as well. And the person who thought "growing their character" was getting a new combat feat was the min-maxer that nobody wanted to play with.

Large Projectile Turret V isn't character growth. It's mindless busywork. It's an arbitrary time-sink. It's Progress Quest.


SP progression and training time encourages creativity and emergent gameplay. I was in nullsec/WHs a month into the game making decent ISK doing nothing but scout out and sell routes for people hauling. I did that 100% because HS is boring as hell, and I couldn't fly anything yet. If I was given the ability to fly a battleship/carrier/dred from day one, I would never have learned what I did by solo roaming through dangerous space in my nice little rifter and probe.

The only people who complain about EVE being "skill queue online" are those without creativity or ingenuity. Un-creative and unimaginative people aren't a good fit for an open world sandbox game. Character growth isn't measured in the # of skill points. It's measured in what you can creatively accomplish in game.

Massive -1 for this thread.
Lady Rift
His Majesty's Privateers
#195 - 2015-10-02 16:33:48 UTC
Aerasia wrote:
Corraidhin Farsaidh wrote:
I come from a background of playing old pen and paper RPG's as a kid, the whole creating and growing the character is as much part of the game to me as the market place, the industry drivers, the destruction of assets and the interaction between players.

I've got my own history of high school D&D as well. And the person who thought "growing their character" was getting a new combat feat was the min-maxer that nobody wanted to play with.

Large Projectile Turret V isn't character growth. It's mindless busywork. It's an arbitrary time-sink. It's Progress Quest.



you realize there are many many skillpoints that aren't combat related at all. So the guy growing his character could be taking potion making so that he could set up a side business of brewing potions to sell to get the gold he wants for all the bling he would like.
Dror
Center for Advanced Studies
Gallente Federation
#196 - 2015-10-02 17:22:27 UTC
Cidanel Afuran wrote:
SP progression and training time encourages creativity and emergent gameplay.

This is, technically, the opposite of what CCP claims, because SP is an extrinsic reward. It's apparently evidenced by science that extrinsic rewards erode motivation and creativity, because there's (for example) a lot less learning happening. Then, that comes back on the fact that those really learning the game sub the most. It's the same with expectations being set for an open, sandbox experience which is met with something much less .. progressive.

"SP is helpful for the game?" Here's all of the research on motivation -- it says the opposite! What purpose does it serve, then? Starter corps are non-competitive. Sov is unchallenged. "Fix sov!" you say? Remove SP.

Aerasia
Republic University
Minmatar Republic
#197 - 2015-10-02 17:30:51 UTC
Cidanel Afuran wrote:
SP progression and training time encourages creativity and emergent gameplay.
No, it encourages Skillqueue Offline.

If you want to encourage creative gameplay solutions through asymmetrical power balances, you do it with a standardized power limit. You can see this type of gameplay in ship combat - each hull will have its strengths, weaknesses and specializations. With SP however, the motivation is skewed. For most activities the path of least resistance is to simply wait until your SP is high enough to compete. And for very mechanical ones like manufacturing, there isn't really any choice. Get your materials efficiency to max, or be priced out of the market.

Quote:
If I was given the ability to fly a battleship/carrier/dred from day one, I would never have learned what I did by solo roaming through dangerous space in my nice little rifter and probe.

I do find a special sort of irony in being told over and over I've got no imagination or creativity, but then being told that if it wasn't for the game stopping people from doing what they wanted, they never would have tried something different.
Cidanel Afuran
Grant Village
#198 - 2015-10-02 18:23:07 UTC
Aerasia wrote:
No, it encourages Skillqueue Offline.

If you want to encourage creative gameplay solutions through asymmetrical power balances, you do it with a standardized power limit. You can see this type of gameplay in ship combat - each hull will have its strengths, weaknesses and specializations. With SP however, the motivation is skewed. For most activities the path of least resistance is to simply wait until your SP is high enough to compete. And for very mechanical ones like manufacturing, there isn't really any choice. Get your materials efficiency to max, or be priced out of the market.


The key in what you said is "the path of least resistance." EVE has never in its history been something that encourages the path of least resistance. It's designed to be hard. It's designed to be challenging. It's designed to not coddle anyone and to encourage imbalances, if a player can find them.

Whatever game you are thinking about, it isn't EVE. It is by design not something that holds your hand.

Quote:
I do find a special sort of irony in being told over and over I've got no imagination or creativity, but then being told that if it wasn't for the game stopping people from doing what they wanted, they never would have tried something different.


No one who plays skill queue online has creativity. If they did, they would be *playing* the game. The people who think they need to set up a six month skill queue before they can undock are the types of people I don't want in the game in the first place.
Dror
Center for Advanced Studies
Gallente Federation
#199 - 2015-10-02 18:35:05 UTC
Cidanel Afuran wrote:
The key in what you said is "the path of least resistance." EVE has never in its history been something that encourages the path of least resistance. It's designed to be hard.

Fallacy: appeal on tradition.

It's designed to be challenging. It's designed to not coddle anyone.

..As if setting a skill queue is challenging or promoting of interesting play.

Whatever game you are thinking about, it isn't EVE. It is by design not something that holds your hand.

Fallacy: no true Scotsman


Come on, thread. Discussion is really simple.

"SP is helpful for the game?" Here's all of the research on motivation -- it says the opposite! What purpose does it serve, then? Starter corps are non-competitive. Sov is unchallenged. "Fix sov!" you say? Remove SP.

Cidanel Afuran
Grant Village
#200 - 2015-10-02 18:55:24 UTC
Dror wrote:
Fallacy: appeal on tradition.
Fallacy: no true Scotsman


hardly a fallacy...

CCP Falcon wrote:
Eve is not a game for the faint hearted. It's a game that will chew you up and spit you out in the blink of an eye if you even think about letting your guard down or becoming complacent.

While every other MMO starts off with an intro that tells you you're going to be the savior of the realm, holds your hand, protects you, nurtures your development and ultimately guides you to your destiny as a hero along with several other million players who've had the exact same experience, EVE assaults you from the second you begin to play after you create a character, spitting you out into a universe that under the surface, is so complex that it's enough to make your head explode.

The entire design is based around being harsh, vicious, relentless, hostile and cold. It's about action and reaction, and the story that unfolds as you experience these two things.

True, we're working hard to lower the bar of entry so that more players can enjoy EVE and can get into the game. Our NPE (New Player Experience) is challenging, and we're trying to improve it to better prepare rookies for what lies out there, but when you start to play eve, you'll always start out as the little fish in the big pond.

The only way to grow is to voraciously consume what's around you, and its your choice whether that happens to be New Eden's abundant natural resources, or the other people who're also fighting their way to the top.

EVE is a playing experience like no other, where every action or reaction resonates through a single universe and is felt by players from all corners of the word. There are no shards here, no mirror universes, no instances and very few rules. If you stumble across something valuable, then chances are someone else already knows where you are, or is working their way toward you and you better be prepared to fight for what you've discovered.

EVE will test you from the outset, from the very second you undock and glimpse the stars, and will take pleasure from sorting those who can survive from those who'd rather curl up and perish.

EVE will let you fight until you collapse, then let you struggle to your feet, exhausted from the effort. Then when you can see the light at the end of the tunnel it'll kick you flat on your ass in the mud again and ask you why you deserve to be standing. It'll test you against every other individual playing at some point or another, and it'll ask for answers.

Give it an answer and maybe it'll let you up again, long enough to gather your thoughts. After a few more steps you're on the ground again and it's asking more questions.

EVE is designed to be harsh, it's designed to be challenging, and it's designed to be so deep and complex that it should fascinate and terrify you at the same time.

Corporation, Alliances and coalitions of tens of thousands have risen and fallen on these basic principles, and every one of those thousands of people has their own unique story to tell about how it affected them and what they experienced.

That's the beauty of EVE. Action and reaction. Emergence.

Welcome to the most frightening virtual playground you'll ever experience.


Quote:
..As if setting a skill queue is challenging or promoting of interesting play.


...Having to be creative with limited resources is absolutely challenging....

Quote:
Come on, thread. Discussion is really simple.


Agreed. It is simple. Suggesting the removal of all skill queues is inherently against the spirit of EVE, and is nothing more than the lazy man's way to think.

You want more SPs? The character bazaar is that way.