Posted - 2011.08.05 13:49:00 - [91]

 

This thread is full of greedy CCP alts and fanboys. They tirelessly try to promote NEX skillpoints, training boosters and other RM items which would sell like candy. Perhaps because design clothes failboated

Posted - 2011.08.05 14:07:00 - [93]

 

Originally by: White Tree

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I am always interested when this particular discussion comes up because I'm interested to see how the community views the idea of buying SP. Mainly because its partly already available with the character bazaar.

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I'm interested to know why you are so interested in these discussions, almost like CCP has passed this by the CSM already, hmmm. And I'm guessing by the comments you've made in these threads that you err on the side of allowing SP to be in the NEX as you seem to equate it virtually the same way as Bazaar characters.

Now for just one scenario that could happen with NEX purchased SP.

Take any one of the larger corporations/alliances. They have a large battle coming up in a few days time. They scout out the enemy and form a strategy based on intelligence on the enemies strengths. What they come up with is to have 30 tacklers, but hang on they only have 6 players with the appropriate skills. Hmm what to do, well because a number of their players play using PLEX they don't mind buying the SP from the NEX to gain those SP instantly to become skilled up tacklers. So now they have just bought an advantage unlike purchasing Bazaar toons which could have SP all over the place and potentially expensive, instead they just purchased exactly the SP they needed. Would you like to be on the other team?

And that's only one reason, there are plenty more.

Posted - 2011.08.05 14:25:00 - [95]

 

Originally by: Azahni Vah'nos

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I'm interested to know why you are so interested in these discussions, almost like CCP has passed this by the CSM already, hmmm.

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Nope. This is a personal thing for me. You could apply the same logic to threads about buffing Hybrid weaponry. I want that done, it's something I pay attention too personally, it's something I want looked at, therefore I pay more attention to it than lets say things I'm not directly interested in.

Originally by: Azahni Vah'nos

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And I'm guessing by the comments you've made in these threads that you err on the side of allowing SP to be in the NEX as you seem to equate it virtually the same way as Bazaar characters.

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Nope. I don't want SP to be sold on the Nex store, and I equate the selling of SP to the selling of characters on the character bazaar because I see them as being the same thing except for the fact that there are certain elements of the acquisition of SP via the character bazaar that you don't control i.e. the specifics of the skill distribution and the name/corp history of the character you intend to buy etc.

Posted - 2011.08.05 15:10:00 - [97]

 

Posted - 2011.08.05 15:40:00 - [99]

 

This would suck, but dont be under any illusion that you got your current skill points through hard work, clicking 'Train now to level 5' isnt exactly taxing.

Posted - 2011.08.05 16:01:00 - [101]

 

Originally by: White Tree

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Originally by: Azahni Vah'nos

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I'm interested to know why you are so interested in these discussions, almost like CCP has passed this by the CSM already, hmmm.

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Nope. This is a personal thing for me. You could apply the same logic to threads about buffing Hybrid weaponry. I want that done, it's something I pay attention too personally, it's something I want looked at, therefore I pay more attention to it than lets say things I'm not directly interested in.

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Okay fair enough, I can't knock you for that.

Originally by: White Tree

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Originally by: Azahni Vah'nos

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And I'm guessing by the comments you've made in these threads that you err on the side of allowing SP to be in the NEX as you seem to equate it virtually the same way as Bazaar characters.

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Nope. I don't want SP to be sold on the Nex store, and I equate the selling of SP to the selling of characters on the character bazaar because I see them as being the same thing except for the fact that there are certain elements of the acquisition of SP via the character bazaar that you don't control i.e. the specifics of the skill distribution and the name/corp history of the character you intend to buy etc.

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I'll give you the benefit of the doubt that you read all of my other post. Let me try and explain another way how Bazaar toons and purchased SP are not the same.

An upcoming battle again for example. Your CEO can see you have 60 mil SP on your toon, but he needs you to have 70 mil so you can fly a particular ship to do a specific role in the upcoming battle. Which would you now do a) spend hundreds of dollars on purchaing a 70 mil SP toon from the bazaar or b) spend $30 buying the extra 10 mil SP. Hell your CEO may even pressure you into purchasing the extra 10 mil SP saying "well it's only $30 and you'll always have them, what's the big deal".

So what's wrong here ... the meta gaming, it could potentially get to the stage where your forced to buy SP to complete at an even level. Tell me there aren't corporations/alliances out there already that wouldn't have their members do that if SP could be purchased. Purchased SP could become like an arms race amongst corporations/alliances.


In the scenario above it's highly unlikely you would purchase the Bazaar toon if that was your only option to get a 70 mil SP character for one battle. Purchasing SP for an existing toon is a whole different can of worms.

Still see no problem with instantly purchased specifically allocated SP? To many people are viewing buying SP from their own individual viewpoint and not how it could affect the game overall.

Posted - 2011.08.05 16:05:00 - [103]

 

The idea of selling SP -1, no thanks.

Concerning remapping, here is my idea:

Uses Nex, making it free would be too bland.
Remapped skillpoints do not apply instantaneously, but double your training time. This way, If I want to transition from a awesome miner character to a awesome explorer, it would look like this (assuming it takes 100 days to become either a awesome miner or a awesome explorer):

day 1 - start
day 100 - awesome miner character/remap
day 101 - neither miner or explorer (back to day 1)
day 150 - awesome explorer

As you can see, it would be difficult to abuse this system and always be flavor of the month. It would work in favor of those who wish to `forget` unused skillpoints. it would also be an option if cross training races, you could for instance `forget how to fly a caldari battleship` and use those skillpoints to learn flying a gallente battleship faster, at the cost of being able to only fly gallente battleships.

Posted - 2011.08.05 16:46:00 - [105]

 

Edited by: Ur235 on 05/08/2011 16:48:22

I support a plex for a remap but thats as far as it should go tbh no further as sooner or later people will jist train into a certain type of ships that are the best in pvp and pvp will become boring becuase you will always be up against the same type of ships.

Obv this wont effect massive fleet compostions so much because you all aim for 1 type of ship in huge fleets (arty baddons) for example. But when it comes to much smaller pvp like 10-40 or so players fighting each other both sides will probably end up using the same ship becuase its the best and everyone can now train into it far quicker than they used to and with far less time involved

Please dont do it CCP

Posted - 2011.08.05 17:01:00 - [107]

 

Edited by: StillBorn CrackBaby on 05/08/2011 17:01:36

Originally by: Nika Maskirovka

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I thnk selling SP for NeX actually will make new players less interested in playing EVE.

I have a friend who just started playing, he told me a few days ago: "Wow, those level five skills takes a long time to train! This one I'm training now is finished in THREE DAYS!"
Three days for a new player is eternity and he's been waiting like a child on Christmas Day for the skill time to be finished so that he will finally be able to fly a new ship.

I wouldn't want to take that away from him. If he could just buy the SP, the sweet feeling of finally getting something you've thought about for days would never be given to him and EVE would be a less unique and amazing experience.

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This too...

Posted - 2011.08.05 17:11:00 - [109]

 

At the moment you can trade charaters which exists in game with isk.

If some method is provided to speed up the training process, more and more high skillpoint characters start to appear into market.

This will devalue premium characters, but it will also put new characters to worsening position as amount of "well trained" characters grows every day.

After a while, it starts to be impossible to start the game without buying premium character, because all major corporations start demanding 100 million skillpoints as basic recruitment requirement.

Only party who would benefit from skilltraning boosters is :ccp:

So... lets leave this bright idea to nearest bin and continue discussing about something else... New platinum monocle perhaps ?

Posted - 2011.08.05 18:57:00 - [111]

 

Edited by: Ceelah on 05/08/2011 19:00:28
I'm split on the topic.

Buying MORE skillpoints is a bad idea for all of the reasons listed above. Most of all, it would basically invalidate the long time dedication of those people who still own their original chars from "back in the day".

I saw an idea a few weeks back that did appeal to me. Allow account owners to buy back "lost skillpoints" as a result of taking a break, etc. Basically a player would be allowed to buy an amount of skillpoints for one character in an account that would be equal to the maximum amount of skillpoints that char could gain with implants and attributes in one month.

So, let's say you lost a 6 billion ISK battleship and in a rage decided to [take a break] for two months, you would be able to buy back two months worth of skillpoints for the cost of $29.90 (2 months x $14.99). You wouldn't be getting ahead, you would only be recovering skillpoints you would have gained the good old fashioned way. It would also be a nice way to ease some (some, not all) of the butt hurt we have for the loss of ghost training.

No one gets ahead. Dedicated players with 100 million SP wouldn't be shorted on their effort and dedication, and people who have left and then returned would be able to recoup lost training at their individual best rate, but would pay the monthly that they would have paid regardless.

Posted - 2011.08.05 20:40:00 - [113]

 

Originally by: Ceelah

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Edited by: Ceelah on 05/08/2011 19:00:28
I'm split on the topic.

Buying MORE skillpoints is a bad idea for all of the reasons listed above. Most of all, it would basically invalidate the long time dedication of those people who still own their original chars from "back in the day".

I saw an idea a few weeks back that did appeal to me. Allow account owners to buy back "lost skillpoints" as a result of taking a break, etc. Basically a player would be allowed to buy an amount of skillpoints for one character in an account that would be equal to the maximum amount of skillpoints that char could gain with implants and attributes in one month.

So, let's say you lost a 6 billion ISK battleship and in a rage decided to [take a break] for two months, you would be able to buy back two months worth of skillpoints for the cost of $29.90 (2 months x $14.99). You wouldn't be getting ahead, you would only be recovering skillpoints you would have gained the good old fashioned way. It would also be a nice way to ease some (some, not all) of the butt hurt we have for the loss of ghost training.

No one gets ahead. Dedicated players with 100 million SP wouldn't be shorted on their effort and dedication, and people who have left and then returned would be able to recoup lost training at their individual best rate, but would pay the monthly that they would have paid regardless.

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If this was possible, many vets would just let their accounts expire as atm they keep 'em active just to keep training rolling. The reasons behind this behauviour everyone can try to quess 'emselves.

Posted - 2011.08.05 22:10:00 - [115]

 

This is a very difficult subject.

Providing an in-game mechanic to pull SP out of thin air is unacceptable. The reason PLEX is tolerated is that one person is transferring their time and effort to another person. The effort was transferred, it still had to be created in the first place.

Many people like the idea of older characters continuing on when the original owner has left the game. It gives a sense of continuity and a tie to the past, an example of what a character can eventually become given enough love and effort.

So any direct mechanic that gives you something like SP has to done VERY carefully. Without the romantic notion of an ever lasting eve character to protect it, all you are left with is the cold & harsh specific mechanic in question. In other words, it would have to come heavily pre-nerfed in order for it to FEEL balanced.

Any direct mechanic that you bring into the game HAS to respect the unbreakable chain of player effort. The only way i can think of achieving that would be to enable people to purchase segments of skills from other people who have already trained them first, in a player market, (not the NEX). And by only ever being able to buy segments of skills you still end up with a considerable time-sink, just less of one.

If you do not do that, and just bypass the timesink altogether, then you will be breaking the spirit of what the game is all about (like the NEX). It also would allow the ridiculous situation where you can, if you had enough money, be able to make a 1 day old noob alt and have him fly a titan by the end of that day.

By restricting purchases to just segments of each skill then a person still has to train like normal, just less than now.

For instance, Player A trains Gallente Battleship from 4-5. He wants to sell that time and effort and transfer it to Player B. He can sell any level of that skill, from 1 to 5. But he can only ever transfer an x % of each skill level to any one person.

The segments of each skill level that could be purchased would be 10, 20, 30, 40 or 50% of the next level of skill but never any more than that. Obviously 10% of Gallente BS 1 would be considerably cheaper than 10% of Gallente BS 5 because of the rank. But of course the player driven market would decide the cost.

If Player B wanted to buy all of Gallente BS from say 3-5 then he would have to do the following:

Player B trains Gal BS 3 to 50%, he purchases the remaining 50% of Gal BS 3 from Player A.

Player B trains Gal BS 4 to 40%, gets fed up waiting and purchases 50% of Gal BS 4 from Player C. Player A has already sold his Gal BS 4 50% to another player.

Player B is now at 90% of Gal BS 4, but because he has already purchased the maximum amount of SP allowed for each level he has no choice but to grind the remaining 10% of Gallente BS 4 himself.

Player B trains Gal BS 5 to 30%, who btw is now a bit short of cash and buys just 30% of the higher ranked and thus more expensive Gal BS 5 from Player D. Player B is now at 70% of Gal BS 5, and by the time he has trained it to 90% he has enough cash to purchase the remaining 10% of the level to again take him to the 50% limit for each level of skill.

Player B now has Gallente Battleship 5. But even if Player B decided to purchase the maximum allowed amount of 50% per level for every skill in the game, he would still only be able to reduce the training time by 50%, reducing the timesink, but not eliminating it.

--------------------------
Continued in next post....

Posted - 2011.08.06 02:28:00 - [117]

 

Originally by: Ceelah

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Edited by: Ceelah on 05/08/2011 19:00:28
I'm split on the topic.

Buying MORE skillpoints is a bad idea for all of the reasons listed above. Most of all, it would basically invalidate the long time dedication of those people who still own their original chars from "back in the day".

I saw an idea a few weeks back that did appeal to me. Allow account owners to buy back "lost skillpoints" as a result of taking a break, etc. Basically a player would be allowed to buy an amount of skillpoints for one character in an account that would be equal to the maximum amount of skillpoints that char could gain with implants and attributes in one month.

So, let's say you lost a 6 billion ISK battleship and in a rage decided to [take a break] for two months, you would be able to buy back two months worth of skillpoints for the cost of $29.90 (2 months x $14.99). You wouldn't be getting ahead, you would only be recovering skillpoints you would have gained the good old fashioned way. It would also be a nice way to ease some (some, not all) of the butt hurt we have for the loss of ghost training.

No one gets ahead. Dedicated players with 100 million SP wouldn't be shorted on their effort and dedication, and people who have left and then returned would be able to recoup lost training at their individual best rate, but would pay the monthly that they would have paid regardless.

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Okay if I have one main and two alts on my account which could have been made in any order, the main could be the third toon I made. So now for example I have a character that I made a year ago but never played your saying I can get that years worth of SP put onto this character.

Awesome now I could just make several accounts, pay to train them up whenever I like and put them straight on the character Bazaar.

Posted - 2011.08.07 05:50:00 - [119]

 

Edited by: Ceelah on 07/08/2011 05:53:57
Edited by: Ceelah on 07/08/2011 05:50:58

Originally by: Azahni Vah'nos

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Okay if I have one main and two alts on my account which could have been made in any order, the main could be the third toon I made. So now for example I have a character that I made a year ago but never played your saying I can get that years worth of SP put onto this character.

Awesome now I could just make several accounts, pay to train them up whenever I like and put them straight on the character Bazaar.

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Not quite. If you put three chars on one account you could train them in all kinds of combinations at all kinds of times. One character could have never trained and would regain zero SP because there was no use to begin with. Let's say char two trained for six months and then was paused. Char three trained for 3 months and then the subscription ran out. Three months after that the owner re-subbed and paid to regain lost skills.

You could only pick up three months of lost skills, and only on the second or third char because those were the ones you were training when you quit EVE. CCP would probably require points to be applied to only one char of your choice.

What you do with your characters is your business (within EULA). You want to train a toon for a year and sell it? Great. You still pay your sub to do that. You want to create an account and then stop training a month later. Fine. You want to come back a year after that and buy back your SP so you can immediately sell that char. Thats fine too. Either way you would have sold the toon. CCP gets their money, and you get your toon skills. The catch is you can only get the amount of skills you would have paid for to begin with.

CCP has already taken the stigma out of selling characters. It's a business of its own. Yes you could make several accounts, pay to get back lost skills, and then sell them. You can do that now. The difference is when you pay the money for the account subscription.

It is what it is. I don't like it either, but I think it's already on its way in some form.