EVE General Discussion

Remember when people where moaning about how removing Clone Grades, and having to spend ISK to keep veteran players from losing their large SP pools when podded, was terrible for EVE because it removed a risk mechanic from the game?

Well, guess that this last year and a half without Skill Point loss has been addressed rather fantastically if you ask me.

My advice? HTFU you guys!

Idea of a viable style of play is very different for many people, EVE have this advantage, that it allows to do many shenanigans, so having perfect skills, does not mean you will not have to carve your own history and experience. And this is all about it here, if you have less or more SP it does not really matter so much.

You remember the former EVE intro? "Dare to be bold pilot, forge your own path to the greatness."

SP aquirement is not really this forging. Everyone can have it for free.

It means you're not creating any kind of history and your character does not reflect your experience, because the two have been completely decoupled. And again, it's not about viable play style, but about viable business models — or in this case the way they're actively disrupting their own model.

You mean the one that was pretty much universally derided as being **** and that had very little to do with EVE compared to the ones that came before and after it?

Yes. I remember it. It was ****.

I feel a bit sorry for you, but to be honest - paying a subscription for 13 years in a row is nothing I would call an achievement. If it is that important for you, you an get back to top position in a couple of hours.

Dr Caymus, respect can be EARNED in many ways, but it can't be BOUGHT in no way.

For what is worth, you have my respect as the longest trained character in EVE.

Well, I have to say that it's come much faster than I had imagined, but I don't really think this is that much of a surprise to anyone. I think we all knew it would happen at some point. Make of it what you will. Some will complain that the end is nigh all all is lost; "The sky is falling and Eve is dying again," that sort of thing. Not that I think there concerns are completely invalid, some of that does hold a bit of truth...Eve will never be the same as it was for it's first dozen years of life. That said, change like this is pretty much inevitable when your really think about it. In fact, should Eve survive long enough, it will likely change again just as much in another dozen years.

Personally the way I see it there is more to Eve than half a billion SP, whether you get it through time or money. Granted it is a big part of what players can and cannot do, but it still doesn't make a player suddenly invincible or the Eve equivalent of a god or goddess among the rest of us minor, half-mortal deities. End of Eve? No, but Eve has just received one of the biggest changes to it's core fundamental foundations it has ever seen, certainly the biggest change in a long time. I do hope people don't simply end up quitting Eve simply in direct protest of such a change, but it wouldn't surprise me if some did, nor do I blame them either. New players won't know what patience is when they can buy their way past such a milestone instantly, true without question.

If it bothers you so much that others will be able to max skills out sooner than you simply because they have more ISK or RL cash rather than having the luck that they started their time in Eve far sooner than you did, then you'd have every right to pack it up and log off for the last time. Again, can't say I really blame you. It just isn't the way I see it. To me, seeing others buying their SP with RL currency or in game currency is no different than starting your adventure in Eve while running into players that have simply acquired their SP by being there longer than you. Just as PLEX'ing your account with PLEX bought with ISK from another player is no different in my eyes than paying for your account with a credit card -- especially given how expensive ISK-wise PLEX and many other things in Eve have become over the years. The only difference here is that the more patient players will not only have an SP advantage over a newer player, they will have more personal human experience and understanding of how Eve works.

It's a shame players nowadays have a way to effectively "skip" all of that personal experience and know-how; knowing people, many will take advantage of that simply because it's there at all. If nothing else, it will mean the players will see less of an SP gap between new and old players and their characters. Hopefully, that alone will still be enough to matter in the years to come and beyond now that an SP curve is no longer strictly tied to a character's age. It's tough to say right now at least whether this change will loosen up an needlessly strict age-old burden in Eve or be unfortunately denying future players a vital and valuable lesson by luring them into the possibly very false sense of buying their way up getting them the win.

tl;dr
It is what it is. I hope you guys stay and continue to play Eve these changes, but if you feel that skill injections have turned Eve into a game you cannot have fun playing anymore, then maybe it is time to call it a day for Eve Online. It won't bother me one bit that new players (or even old players with new characters) have a new means to remove that SP advantage that a more veteran player's characters had if they have the cash for it, so I'm still in. What ever each of you and any other player does, I wish you the best of luck and thanks for playing.

Fly safe and go nuts...

Therein lies the problem: CCP has now created a system where the only way to stay competitive on SP is to pay RL cash for SP on top of your monthly subscription fee. This is the very definition of p2win. What's worse is that most p2win games are 'free' from a monthly subscription fee but with all the microtransactions. CCP has done one better by requiring both the month subscription fee AND the microtransactions. Not to mention CCP's idea of "micro" is really more "macro."

This looks great on a spreadsheet from an account's point of view, but for the health and longevity of the game it's bad.

You're missing the point, Pandora. You are correct, I have the resources to take this char to max if I wanted, but this isn't about me, its about the game... its history, its lore, its value, its perception within the gaming industry.

…in other words, the history and progression of your character. The part that no longer matters since it's optional.

Not any more, no. That's why something has been lost: because the organic growth of a character is gone, replaced with a short-sighted cash grab.

The problem is that they're not really doing that. There's nothing “modern” about these kinds of time skips. What they are doing is confirming some of the worst preconceived notions that players have had of EVE over almost its entire time on the market — notions that were never actually true, but are at least somewhat closer to being so today. This is indeed a bad thing; catering to uninformed opinions pretty much always are.

Yes.

Yes it would.