Skill Discussions

Good to know we've reached the crux.

Two answers.

1) If you really want to fly that ship, just buy a damn character. That's a great way to use your time/isk to reach your goal (perhaps while your main trains?).

2) No. Why should you get any more instant gratification than is already available? A big part of why I love EVE is that I don't have to grind. Once you introduce an "optional" grind, it instantly becomes mandatory just to remain competitive. You've already been told this, but here it is again: not grinding is part of what makes EVE great to so many of us. There's no reason to break it. And no, your whims don't count.

You keep saying that the reason it's bad is that it takes too long to train everything. I take issue with your assertion that you should be able to train everything. From the few different MMOs I've played while they died when you can "max out" the world becomes stale and the game less interesting.

There is nothing saying you can't max out the parts of the game you enjoy but doing everything just sounds like trying to satisfy a compulsion. If having fun means being done, why bother playing?

Again i'll reiterate that I don't have a system down to a science. This is simply an idea. I am not vouching (nor have i in this thread) for the ability to max everything in a certain time period. I agree you should never be able to max everything out, maybe in a lifetime i guess?

All I am saying is that there should be a way for me to actively train a skill using isk or time (or both) without meta like buying a character.

I'll give an example:
Say someone lives in null sec and wants to begin mining without depending on others (solo). This isn't possible (without extreme inconvenience) unless you have a hulk. That person (assuming no prior skill) is forced to wait a minimum of about a month and a half. They should be able to make that go faster.

Daddy I want a goose who lays golden eggs and I WANT IT NOW!

The problem isn't the game; the problem lies inside your mind...have you ever thought that patience for some and making long term goals is apart of the very dynamic of the game? A complete opposite in your game style, which I don't fault you for, but if you truly don't understand that having patience can be equally enjoyable to some as it can be for others who choose to play a game which has a final conquest or the "I have achieved the best I can until the next expansion."

I am very curious why your so weirdly passionate about this one aspect of the game your willing to spend days as an individual arguing with others who have selected this game for a very specific reason; which so happens to be the very reason you despise the game. Is the real problem Eve and a simply whiny attitude about a portion of the game or something far larger your not willing to deal with in real life?

Take a minute and absorbed what has been fairly shared with you. It isn't about you not making sense as much as it is about you arguing to a wall of people who enjoy the game as it is...And I would have to agree with them!

You want to be able to train every skill in the game really fast right so you can 'finish' Eve?

I'll come back to that in a second.

One of the reasons that drew me to Eve was that it wasn't just a matter of playing 24/7 and leveling up and getting to the end-game content. My character progressed just as fast as anyone else (depending on attributes) regardless of whether I could put in an hour a week or fifty hours a week. I travel a lot for work and I have periods of up to six months where I can't log in for more than a few minutes at a time, yet I am keeping up with my friends who started at the same time in terms of SP which means I can fly the same stuff as them when I can play (they are better PvP'ers due to more practice, damn them). If there was a system like you suggest where they could skill faster than me because they play more then I probably wouldn't have stuck around for as long as I have, because I would be so far behind so many of my friends.

I figured out early on that one character was never going to be able to train for all the skills I want in a reasonable time so I started alts and trained them in area's that my main doesn't have any SP in. So I can do and use other things and ships in the game which with just one character would have taken me years to get into. So across the characters I can fly every races ships, do mining, industy, etc.

The idea of SP being linked to activity and/or isk in whatever way its suggested to implement will benefit two types of player; the one with no life (activity) and the veteran (having lots of isk). It would almost punish those who pay the same sub but only get to play a few hours a week. Someone would figure out a way to Power Level characters for either in-game or out of game isk, most likely in the form of a bot. This would mess up the character market for one.

Back to my original question: You want to be able to train every skill in the game really fast right so you can 'finish' Eve? Lets take a moment to ask what would happen if you actually managed to get every skill in Eve trained up, what would you do then? Quit? Make another character and do it again? RMT the character and make a few grand? SP and getting every skill to 5 isn't Eve's end-game, its a sandbox (so in theory it could be the end-game for you if that's what you want to make it, but you get my point), you don't get a credit roll when you have every skill trained up (well I don't know this for sure but its safe to assume you don't).

On one level I agree, there are times when I don't have work on and I have nothing else to do during the day when my friends are at work and I play Eve a lot. It would be nice to be able to 'boost' my SP when I have the time to play but on every other level I know it would be bad for Eve.

I would liken this idea to the idea of introducing arena's for PvP in highsec. One level it would be good but on every other level it would be bad.

Keep Eve unique, lets not try and make it into every other MMO out there.

We need Home Runs in football!

Oh wait it is a different game.

As it is hinted at above, there is already a method to increase the skill training rate. Using implants and also Neural Remaps. Using them together can be very effective in reducing training time for a skill by increasing the SP/hour rate. I recently did a Neural Remap on an alt and shortened the training time for a skill by 3 days. If you want MAX SP/hour rate get a set of +5 implants. Use a JC for dangerous places. and or long term skills.

Eve's skill system IMHO is far superior to an skill grinding methods. EVE already has a few grinding mini-games. One is called Ratting and the other is Mission running. Both grind sec status and that is the ONLY way to increase your sec status.

It's easier than you think.
Damn exploiters...

-1 and disagree with OP.

The passive skill training is unique to the game, and even attracts players without a lot of time to play.

They sort of covered this when the spoke briefly of allowing PLEX to buy SP. That would be exactly what you are looking for, but the isk lies in the hands of the vets, or those who spend time at the game.

What seperates one player from another in this game is not their SP, but their ability to make isk. All well and good to be able to fly any ship in the game, but only the skills relevant to the active ship are being used. Thus your ability to acquire/replace ships and modules is more important than SP.

To take it a step further... what good is it to have a toon spec'ed out for super caps if you cannot afford one?

CCP's approach rewards active players, no doubt about it.

-DT