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Dev Blog: Exploring The Character Bazaar & Skill Trading

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grenjet
Pator Tech School
Minmatar Republic
#521 - 2015-10-15 18:25:13 UTC
Murkar Omaristos wrote:
Holy **** CCP, we've seen some bad ideas over the years, but this one takes the cake.


My first thought too.

I have played EVE off and on for about 5 years and have read almost all dev blogs and thought this is a good idea or a bad idea, but this is definately the worst i have heard as of yet. I have never posted on the forums as i can recall but this seemed like a good time.

When I started playing EVE I thought it was a pain in the ass having to wait for skills to train (and I'm pointing at the low level skills). I had a few friends that played but were on a break, so I kept on paying with time and patience. When they got back on we went into a nullsec alliance together. They taught me how to be fast tackle and other support roles while I waited for better ships and modules to train. I got into battleships pretty quickly through a straight train but kept on losing them due to having bad piloting skills and support skills. When I got these support skills trained I was one of the guys that was putting out decent DPS and I felt like I was actually doing something to help my friends. I then started to train for T2 cruisers and I looked at the 25 day train time for level 5 and thought "Man that is worrth every bit of time I put into it". It went frrom being a pain in the ass to being something that actually told me that I was ready for these things.

If this gets into EVE you are going to have a lot of new players that do not know how to fly the shiny new ships that they can now use from buying skillpointts frrom anotther character. At this point one of a few things will happen;
1. New players will quit after playing for a short time due to not having patience for the learning curve.
2. New players will keep feeding money into your accounts for PLEX to sell for these ships and may or may not learn how to fly after a couple months.
Im kindof pointing at solo players here on these first two. I will explain this bit later
3. New players will say 'I'll wait to get these things', and learn how to play the game well, finding some friends that will teach them to play along the way. Most veterans of EVE teaching a newbro to play will teach them game mechanics while they train the support skills so that they will be able to be self sustaining and be able to fly that shiny ship effectively. At which point the vets will start teaching the newbros how to PVP. This process will probably take a few months to complete but work out well for CCP.

Now while #3 sounds great what about the solo players from 1 and 2. Solo players have a extremely hard learning curve that quite possibly would be made harder due to having to contest the high skill vets that have bought SP. These players dont have anyone "coaching" them. They may be able to find good guides that are relevant to what they are trying to do but the majority of guides are outdated. This will lead to newbros having problems playing solo.

Now when I play other games I try not to grind to get the best items in the game because when I do the game loses a lot of the challenge. This is especially true if Im playing against other players. I personally become bored very quick with a game that I get the very best in a short time. One of the things that has kept me coming back to EVE over several breaks is the skill queue. I have to wait patiently to get better things not "rushing" through a game.

NOW after a very long winded forum post, I think there will be good and bad things that will happen if this devblog comes to fruition. Personally I do not support this idea. It feels like paying IRL money to get the best "Items" in the game.
Sizeof Void
Ninja Suicide Squadron
#522 - 2015-10-15 18:25:42 UTC
Wow, what an incredibly bad idea.

I don't see any benefit to new players here. The in-game cost will certainly be prohibitive for a new player - most of whom struggle to grind enough ISK to pay for ships. Also, in this era of F2P games, new players are increasingly less willing to pay additional RL cash, in order to catch up to older players - they fully expect CCP to come up with a better, ie. free, method to do this.

I do see this system being used to exacerbate the supercap proliferation problem in null-sec. The current limit on supercaps is not the production cost/time of the ships, but rather the availability of enough specifically-skilled toons to perma-pilot them. With this new system, hundreds, if not thousands, of unused toons can be instantly repurposed to supercap pilots.
Querns
Science and Trade Institute
Caldari State
#523 - 2015-10-15 18:25:44 UTC
Devin Wallace wrote:
Tzu Wu wrote:
Tado wrote:
No thank you this is a terrible idea.

I have been playing this game since day one and for me this idea of yours will kill EVE for me.



You bittervets really need to get over yourselves.You've been playing since day 1 and want to hold that "elite" status until the server finally shuts down? I say that because it seems bittervets would rather the game day then CCP make any changes that might effect their "elite" status.


I haven't been playing this for a complete 4 years quite yet, and I feel the same way as any 13 year bittervet.

I have personally attempted to train and influence at least 20 new players into making EVE part of their life. I have succeeded in only a handful of cases, because most humans simply do not have the long term resolve and commitment. I'm sure many can tell you the same story.

I played through a time when this game was still in it's most rugged and unpolished forms. No health meter on drones in the drone-bay. Ugly asymmetrical ship hulls. The NeoCom icons were colorful. There was a jukebox. Corps did not have the option of turning off friendly fire. The Venture did not exist. Cruisers were poorly balanced and bonuses on most ships didn't really make sense. I was scanning wormhole chains when probes had to be moved 1 at a time and I could only use 6 because of SP limitations I had. If you failed to update your clone, you suffered a substantial and painful loss of SP. I lost Minmatar Battleship 5, Minmatar Battlecruiser 5, and Gallente Battlecruiser 5 while scrambling to reach staging areas during the chaos of the Halloween War. I dodged gate-camps from almost every highsec mercenary group in New Eden from 2012-2013, scraping a living off level 3 missions. I was ganked twice in wspace while soloing sleepers with my old nanocane. I went through faction warfare with the Minmatar Militia. I drove my security status down to -5.2 with the first months of Brave Newbies and spent nearly 2 weeks in Great Wildlands, ratting it back up with a Hound, when security ticks were every 15 minutes, not every 5 minutes. Ancillary Shield Boosters did not exist. Ancillary Armor reppers did not exist. Interceptors were not immune to bubbles.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, I stuck with it through this game when it was far less hospitable to new players, and I earned every single skillpoint I have through trials of fire. I am PROUD to be a bittervet.

Giving new players even more shortcuts and easy way out...it makes me feel sick

"I suffered, so everyone else has to suffer too, or my suffering has lost meaning."

This post was crafted by the wormhole expert of the Goonswarm Economic Warfare Cabal, the foremost authority on Eve: Online economics and gameplay.
Skilo
Lisnave
Pandemic Horde
#524 - 2015-10-15 18:25:50 UTC
Teckos Pech wrote:
Skilo wrote:
Malcanis wrote:
Skilo wrote:
I've been playing this game since 2003


Hey i can stop playing for 1 year and if i decide to return get the euros i saved and buy all the skill points i've "lost"


I wish I could warn you not to give them ideas like that.


The point is that it goes against everyhting CCP always said about Pay to Win

This is PAY TO WIN

You pay you get skills you get better ships and guns you win

PAY TO WIN


Character bazaar dude....been there for years. Maybe you should, you know...play the game and read the forums vs. just paying to have your character earn SP.

Just out of curiosity...have you ever actually undocked?


Character bazar it's different from ... i need to fly a logistic ship. let me just go and buy the skillpoints for that

If i ever undocked? Nope

i'm a bitter vet spining ships inside station. i'm on spin number 23.465. how about you?
Ti'El
Silent Vale
LinkNet
#525 - 2015-10-15 18:26:05 UTC
Its a very good idea.

WIll bring new life to the game. It was what you were needing, a way to help new players to start and dont get bored waiting that much time for an basic profession.

As you can see, the old players are already afraid of this (and what this means) and the new players are eager (new fights)!



Looking forward to see this in the game!

Nice work guys! Keep the good work! :-D
Kayden Katelo
Doomheim
#526 - 2015-10-15 18:26:40 UTC
This character is not my first. I bought this character from the bazaar.

I have been playing EVE on and off for a looong time. From the beginning I chose to make my isk through character creation and development. I would scan the Bazaar forum like I scan the EVE market looking for patterns: What is needed, what is not, what sells and what does not. I would also review the offered character's skill points, Corp Standings, implants etc. My goal is to get a complete picture of why a character costs x isk.

I would use my account's character slots to purposely design a character to sell: Mission runner with standings, miner with standings, industrialist with standings, marketeer with standings, jump alt, freighter pilots, marketeer/ore reprocessing with standings etc.

Many times I would see new characters being offered for sale by people that made mistakes in their training program. They trained everything instead of being focused to a career goal. It is clear they learned later (3-9 months after starting) that they "wasted" their skill points on things that clearly do not interest them. They learned that the Bazaar is available and with their new found knowledge I wanted to buy a new "main" or a mission specific alt.

Sometimes they are unable to sell the first character or sell it at a sub optimal price. They sometimes make up the difference between the isk at hand with PLEX sales to be able to afford the character they want to buy. This is where they spend real cash: PLEX trading for isk.

The real problem I have is what name should I give a character I intend to sell? What should the character look like? What race and profession should I choose? These also play into the decision of what price I ask for.

Why did I buy this character, Kayden Katelo? This is the first character I bought. I chose to but this character because I did not want to build my "main" from scratch anymore. I chose this character because it had exactly the skill point plan I wanted. Exactly. It took me several weeks to find it and I choose to pay a premium for it.

An example sale was approximately one month ago I sold a mining/processing/PI character with all level 4 drone skills for self defense.

So, what do I think of the dev blog? I reject the idea of skill point re-allocation. Like so many other things in EVE, this is also an area that needs to be learned. During that learning comes the realization that skill points are never wasted: You can always refocus the skilling effort to later sell the character if desired. IF you are interested in helping new customers with skill plans etc, may I suggest including a discussion of that during the new player experience? Possibly introducing customers to skill plans for certain careers paths? Work has already been started on this with the new ISIS ship trees.

What should be allowed for payment with real money? Name change. Portrait change. Complete rebuild of race and profession.

Point of note, no where in the blog did was the mechanism of the character bazaar implementation within the client described. Would this be something added to the market?

Finally, some time ago CCP hired a guy from Electronic Arts (EA). Is he still with the company and is this his idea?
Schlampa
Doomheim
#527 - 2015-10-15 18:26:59 UTC
I thought this was supposed to help newer players?

Why not just have sp be able to be redistributed on a per character basis. We all have those terrible skills we trained when we were new (exhumers) that would be nice to be able to spend elsewhere.

The Soylent Skill Packet as it stands will do more harm then good. That is unless the actual reason for it is to increase plex sales.
Raddan Eldre'Thalas
Naval Defence Force
Naval Defence Alliance
#528 - 2015-10-15 18:27:19 UTC
My thoughts:

First, if you have been playing the game for many years and you have accumulated many skill points across multiple accounts or characters that aren't in use it seems like a great way to make a little extra isk by selling off some skill points. Thats all fine and dandy because hey, you earned that right?

Second, the majority of players in MMO's earn their characters current status. What these people are afraid of is someone purchasing plex with real life currency, converting it to isk and buying skill points to gain a early advantage in the game. This is what us players hate to see and also broadcasts your game as a "pay to win"

additional thoughts:
The current system is set up such that if you buy a character you are stuck with what that character has earned, and you can't change that. In my opinion that is fair. You are buying earned work, you shouldn't expect to re-write the timeline just because you bought something. There's a little thing called "research" that enables you to find out if that character your interested in buying lived his eve life as a awoxer or not.

If there wasn't a way to convert plex to isk I would image there would be a lot more people in favor of this change. That would mean that current players would have to earn isk to buy skill points rather than just opening their wallets in real life in a matter of minutes.

Lastly, I think that this proposed change would invite a lot more illegal transactions. Think about it; you have a in game item that gives players an advantage early on in the game, people will try and profit on that with real life currency by offering those items for cheaper. If a item like this exists people will find a way to sell it and now you have to deal with that mess.
Kilian Katar
Unknown Enterprises
#529 - 2015-10-15 18:27:43 UTC  |  Edited by: Kilian Katar
Teckos Pech wrote:
Kilian Katar wrote:

FFS, read the Dev Blog and engage the brain people.



No **** sherlock, but when you extract that SP you can apply it anywhere so its worth is actually far more than when it is hard wired in some characters head. ALSO as an item in game, like plex it could be destroyed so CCP is not only allowing the destruction of money via plex, but also the destruction of skillpoints. (let alone the skill points that vanish into thin air when applied to characters not on the minimum threshhold)


When a PLEX is destroyed no money is destroyed.

As for the rest, so what? Yes SP packets will be more valuable given they can be applied anywhere. Don't care.
[/quote]

"engage brain please" where does plex come from, it comes from real money purchase, when that item is destroyed rather than used which hundreds have been, the money is effectively destroyed (players get little to no return on the purchase), the only one benefiting is CCP, which will be the case here too.
Querns
Science and Trade Institute
Caldari State
#530 - 2015-10-15 18:28:48 UTC
Sizeof Void wrote:
Wow, what an incredibly bad idea.

I don't see any benefit to new players here. The in-game cost will certainly be prohibitive for a new player - most of whom struggle to grind enough ISK to pay for ships. Also, in this era of F2P games, new players are increasingly less willing to pay additional RL cash, in order to catch up to older players - they fully expect CCP to come up with a better, ie. free, method to do this.

I do see this system being used to exacerbate the supercap proliferation problem in null-sec. The current limit on supercaps is not the production cost/time of the ships, but rather the availability of enough specifically-skilled toons to perma-pilot them. With this new system, hundreds, if not thousands, of unused toons can be instantly repurposed to supercap pilots.

Are you blind? The unmitigated financial success of games like Dota 2, Team Fortress 2, League of Legends, and Hearthstone are overwhelmingly proving that, more than ever, people are MORE willing to pay additional RL cash in order to catch up with older players. (Or buy hats, as the case may be.)

This post was crafted by the wormhole expert of the Goonswarm Economic Warfare Cabal, the foremost authority on Eve: Online economics and gameplay.
luobote kong
Garoun Investment Bank
Gallente Federation
#531 - 2015-10-15 18:28:49 UTC
I do not like playing Pay2Win games. A key reason I have stuck at Eve is because it is not Pay2Win. CCP think carefully about this.
Fool Nalelmir
Viziam
Amarr Empire
#532 - 2015-10-15 18:29:01 UTC
drunklies wrote:
Doing this would be like selling the soul of the game.

That CCP can't see that, and have gone so far as to publish a DEV BLOG about it, shows how they as a company have degraded.

Last week I was looking forward to Vegas, despite the idiotic idea to not stream the 2 most important talk this entire year, but now...

New players are all well and good, but vets have earned their place, and catering to bullsh*t entitlement will drive the valuable players away, without generating any real replacement.

Mike Azariah wrote:
For people quitting in protest I remind them that Operation Magic School Bus does accept donations to help out the new players. Yes, this is a 'can I haz' post but it is one where the material will be put to good use, not just lining a wallet or hanger. Contract to me if you wish to donate.

m


Sure, let me rip all the heritage out of my characters and of eve itself, cause some mewling newbie thinks they deserve to skip past the hoops that everyone else jumped through.


I was also looking forward to Vegas before this derp I wasted money again maybe.
Querns
Science and Trade Institute
Caldari State
#533 - 2015-10-15 18:31:13 UTC
luobote kong wrote:
I do not like playing Pay2Win games. A key reason I have stuck at Eve is because it is not Pay2Win. CCP think carefully about this.

Did you somehow ignore the part where one can convert PLEX, purchased with RL money, into ISK in the secondary markets?

This post was crafted by the wormhole expert of the Goonswarm Economic Warfare Cabal, the foremost authority on Eve: Online economics and gameplay.
Skinzee
Viziam
Amarr Empire
#534 - 2015-10-15 18:31:57 UTC
Monasucks wrote:


200€ for 145 SP, which are 6 years and several billion isk - so let's say ~ 1500€ in subscription alone + at least 10.000€ in ISK (if done the math converted back over PLEX price to RL money )

So spend ~12000€ not 100.

Thats a big difference because EVE is build by patiences and time and the social structure that develops in your corp and alliances etc.

You SIR are still in an n00b corp. Guess if you have tomorrow that 145m SP ? I and many other I know would not except you in that corps, for the next few years.




Who taught you maths? Its terrible...

6years = 72months x £9.99 = £719.28... NOT 10.000€

Ingame ISK is irrelevant as you cannot sell ISK with character transfer/character bazaar.

I would of thought you would of known that considering your in a 'big' alliance... It would be a shame I wouldnt be accepted into your corp :'( The feels... The feels are deep :(
Tiagra May
Garoun Investment Bank
Gallente Federation
#535 - 2015-10-15 18:32:24 UTC
This looks pretty good. I hope people work their way through the suggested changes objectively and come to the conclusion that this isnt as terrible at first glance.
Xandrah Enaka
Wolf Star Technocracy
Patchwork Freelancers
#536 - 2015-10-15 18:32:46 UTC
I think the only thing I disagree with here mostly is the fact newcomers would now be able to have the same skill base as a veteran player.

But we do have a problem, newcomers to eve always turn away because of the steep slope it is to even compete with veterans or well grounded in players, thus they turn away and flee.
luobote kong
Garoun Investment Bank
Gallente Federation
#537 - 2015-10-15 18:33:25 UTC
Querns wrote:
luobote kong wrote:
I do not like playing Pay2Win games. A key reason I have stuck at Eve is because it is not Pay2Win. CCP think carefully about this.

Did you somehow ignore the part where one can convert PLEX, purchased with RL money, into ISK in the secondary markets?


Well I kept on topic certainly, but I am no fan of that either.
Desiderya
Blue Canary
Watch This
#538 - 2015-10-15 18:33:31 UTC
What does "analogous pricing" mean?

Ruthlessness is the kindness of the wise.
drunklies
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#539 - 2015-10-15 18:34:02 UTC
Fool Nalelmir wrote:
drunklies wrote:
Doing this would be like selling the soul of the game.

That CCP can't see that, and have gone so far as to publish a DEV BLOG about it, shows how they as a company have degraded.

Last week I was looking forward to Vegas, despite the idiotic idea to not stream the 2 most important talk this entire year, but now...

New players are all well and good, but vets have earned their place, and catering to bullsh*t entitlement will drive the valuable players away, without generating any real replacement.

Mike Azariah wrote:
For people quitting in protest I remind them that Operation Magic School Bus does accept donations to help out the new players. Yes, this is a 'can I haz' post but it is one where the material will be put to good use, not just lining a wallet or hanger. Contract to me if you wish to donate.

m


Sure, let me rip all the heritage out of my characters and of eve itself, cause some mewling newbie thinks they deserve to skip past the hoops that everyone else jumped through.


I was also looking forward to Vegas before this derp I wasted money again maybe.


I was going to wait until vegas to decide on adding more game time to my accounts. Now I barely think it's worth bothering to watch reddit for the announcements. Eve is being prepped for free to play, pay to win. I just wish it wasn't the only game that has the potential to be ******* interesting.
PotatoOverdose
School of Applied Knowledge
Caldari State
#540 - 2015-10-15 18:34:09 UTC  |  Edited by: PotatoOverdose
Querns wrote:

"I suffered, so everyone else has to suffer too, or my suffering has lost meaning."

That's Eve. That harsh universe where your choices matter, where it's an uphill battle every step of the way. THAT sells eve. Want to create your character defined by the choices you and you alone have made? You plan meticulously to use the time that is given to you in the best way possible. You can buy a character that someone else crafted, but if you want a character named and tailored to your exact needs? Only one way to do that - as it should be.



But now? F*ck it. Run some level 4's or incursions and buy some SP for my main. F*ck that noise.