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Treeati Harnsore
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Posted - 2008.05.02 20:42:00 -
[1]
I would like to inquire as to the individual candidates positions on the current skill system, specifically the rate of progression and how it relates to the new player experience. Many of the people I have talked to who don't play Eve have indicated that the idea of "catching up" is important to them; the notion of always being 5 years behind someone seems to be discouraging. On the other hand, of course, there are the established players (like myself) who would be quite upset if this were not the case; we LIKE seniority and being rewarded for time invested. As candidates, where do you stand on this, and what ideas do you have?
Also. One of the issues that has always bothered me personally is the lack of the ability to train a skill past rank V. At 2 years in, with all my points in combat or combat support skills, I am at a point where I can choose to train for capital ships or switch to industry. However, the ships I love to fly are Assault Frigates, but since my skills are maxed in every concievable skill related to the piloting of one, I cannot become any better than I already am. I will probably end up training for a dread; but wouldnt it be nice if I could instead spend that time specializing in one specific ship type past the point of what most people have trained? given the increasing amounts of skill points required, I am sure that training rank 7 or 8 in certain skills would take quite literally months; but I would rather do that than train to fly a ship I dont want to fly. I would like to hear the candidates' views on this, as whichever one supports allowing skills to be trained to rank 10 will have my vote, hands down. |
Goumindong
Amarr
Merch Industrial
GoonSwarm
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Posted - 2008.05.02 20:56:00 -
[2]
Skill maximums are important to allow younger players to catch up. Even if that catch up is only in one specific area. If specialization occurred infinitely not only would it break balance between many bonus types[resistance and RoF come to mind], but it would also mean that new players would never be able to catch up with someone who really specialized.
Also, who the heck wants to train skills for a year with no progress? |
Arithron
Gallente
Gallente Trade Alliance
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Posted - 2008.05.02 21:02:00 -
[3]
I'd have to agree that skill maximums are important so that the divide between the new player and the older player doesn't keep getting larger.
Maybe another way to balance the divide a little more (if it is a problem) is to change the skill reqs some of the more used Tech 1 ships etc. I haven't fully thought through the ramifications of such changes...
Take care,
Bruce Hansen |
Treeati Harnsore
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Posted - 2008.05.02 21:05:00 -
[4]
Me. ;) I'm not crazy for asking; you see, I think that the insane training times that accompany training such high levels of skills would balance things out. And if people wouldnt want to do that as you suggest, theres always the current route of being a jack of all trades. As it stands, new players cant catch up anyways; look at how long it takes to become cap ship capable, much less a titan pilot. IMO, all increasing the rank cap would do is make the game more attractive to those of us who have been playing for a very long time and are just starting to lose interest. |
Goumindong
Amarr
Merch Industrial
GoonSwarm
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Posted - 2008.05.02 21:43:00 -
[5]
 Originally by: Treeati Harnsore
Me. ;) I'm not crazy for asking; you see, I think that the insane training times that accompany training such high levels of skills would balance things out. And if people wouldnt want to do that as you suggest, theres always the current route of being a jack of all trades. As it stands, new players cant catch up anyways; look at how long it takes to become cap ship capable, much less a titan pilot. IMO, all increasing the rank cap would do is make the game more attractive to those of us who have been playing for a very long time and are just starting to lose interest.
Yea training times would increase significantly, but so would value. At BS 6, The Geddon has -60% cap and -30% rof. At BS 7 -70% cap and -35% rof. If you continued to train you would eventually hit -100% cap and -50% Rof.
As well there are the oftentimes cheaper skills with similar advantages. The game is balanced around things stopping at one point and breaking that will cause problems now or will cause problems later.
The easiest thing for CCP to do for new players would be to introduce a simple skill queue so that there are fewer problems that they have with logging on to change all the short skills they want to train. |
Ben Derindar
Dirty Deeds Corp.
Axiom Empire
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Posted - 2008.05.03 06:18:00 -
[6]
Originally by: Treeati Harnsore
I would like to inquire as to the individual candidates positions on the current skill system, specifically the rate of progression and how it relates to the new player experience. Many of the people I have talked to who don't play Eve have indicated that the idea of "catching up" is important to them; the notion of always being 5 years behind someone seems to be discouraging. On the other hand, of course, there are the established players (like myself) who would be quite upset if this were not the case; we LIKE seniority and being rewarded for time invested. As candidates, where do you stand on this, and what ideas do you have?
I think the key here is player education, and I think game documentation would go a long way to helping with that.
People have a tendency to forget (or simply not be aware of) the fact that when performing any action in Eve, only a certain number of your skillpoints go into improving the effectiveness of that action. Whether it's buying/selling something on the market, hauling in a large courier mission or pwning someone's face with a blasterboat.
For example, Ben has 62 million skillpoints. He can fly a Raven, but can't use T2 cruise missiles. My alt with 28mil SP can, and also has better Engineering skills than Ben does. In a Raven 1v1, the alt would win. Ben also can't haul in anything bigger than a Mammoth, but my 18mil SP alt can fly Gallente transports and freighters.
Most of us reading here probably understand all this already, but getting that message out there to those who are overly obsessed with the SP game (see the when-to-train-Learning-skills argument) is difficult without some official game documentation to provide a central, definitive explanation of Eve's skill system.
/Ben
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ctx2007
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Posted - 2008.05.03 11:26:00 -
[7]
After reading the above statements, i believe that patience is needed by players in the skills training. I have been playing just short of a year and have about 12million sp and i do find it frustating some times because some skills are out of reach. More often that not these skills require other skills, but i think thats what eve is all about. As long as the goals are not being changed all the time with patch updates.
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zoolkhan
Minmatar
Mirkur Draug'Tyr
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Posted - 2008.05.03 11:44:00 -
[8]
Edited by: zoolkhan on 03/05/2008 11:46:55
Originally by: Goumindong
The easiest thing for CCP to do for new players would be to introduce a simple skill queue so that there are fewer problems that they have with logging on to change all the short skills they want to train.
this is a wonderful idea , i would vote for that.
regarding being 5 yrs behind someone
thats life:
you enter a karate club, ALL who are there before you are older, and will remain older and better for the time they focus as hard on their training as you.
after a while you be seeing a new training comrade joining the club
all of a sudden, youre the older , the better one...
old students eventually retire, and you will turn into a veteran with 5 year headstart towards some of the new students..
etc
its fair, is life, its realistic.
the one way to catch up - if that really is necessary and important
.. is to speacialise. old players get bored, and try something new...
often they have fields where theyre not so good at.. that is the chance for a young one to catch up.
look at me, i suck in industry and mining, i am bad in EW warfare
i am a perfect sniper though. However, i cannot apply that skill in the role i am now filling. the old role of a sniper has become obsolete. a new player with good scanning or jamming skills
could probably kick my butt. (btw this happenes)
eve is not a mano y mano competition. And it is too complicated
nowadays. an old player is NOT automatically a better pilot, and a new player is NOT automatically a sitting duck in space.
As usual the situation, teamwork and solar wind direction
adds to it and some of the pilots i fear most are significant younger than myself.
you can outmatch an experienced player with a few friends. you can team up with other vets, you can specialize - or you dont have to enter direct competition at all - that would be a same ship duel on a lonely planet all same but the skills, ok ... then you would probably lose. but only then the outcome is as certain, otherwise not.
the gap has to be there, thats natural. the key is in highlighting how to deal with it.
i agree though that skills need to be capped,
a limit of 5 needs to be.
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Akita T
Caldari Navy Volunteer Task Force
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Posted - 2008.05.03 12:42:00 -
[9]
If anything, I'd be in favor of reducing the "Level V" prerequisites (all of them) to "Level IV" prerequisites, making "L5s" completely optional for absolutely everybody.
Then I'd go ahead and introduce a lot of "specialisation" skills for a lot of the curently existing skills.
For instance, you could have the following skills, all of them requiring Medium Pulse Laser Specialization IV as one of the prerequisites : MPL Accuracy (2% tracking per level), MPL Focusing (2% optimal and 2% falloff), MPL Efficiency (-2% cap use), MPL Reliability (+20% "heat damage" HP per level), MPL Overloading (-5% heat damage per level), Scorch M specialisation (-15% Scorch M drawbacks per level), Conflagration M specialisation (-15% Conflagration M drawbacks per level).
That's seven new optional skills, all of them focusing on a single weapon system... out of the 24 available ones. Do the same for all other weapon systems, and you get a grand total of 168 new potential skills (ok, maybe less for missiles, but I'm sure you can find things to improve there too).
HECK, MAKE THAT BE "T3 ONLY" SKILLS if you want to. You know, to be used for T3 items only.
This way, anybody could easily get to L3 in most skills he's interested in, won't take long to reach L4 in most of those he decides are good, but it WILL take a long, long time to fully get the best potential out of one single chosen setup... and he won't get much of an advantage even with all L5 skills, while at the same time having to forego all other possible options.
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Goodwin
Caldari
Brother Theo's Monastery
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Posted - 2008.05.03 15:20:00 -
[10]
I think it might be reasonable to consider this thought. What if a certain set of base skills were set out. Say all the primary skills or Engineering, Nav, Warp, Mechanic, and Electronics; were given a boosted training time. For new players this would mean a slight advantage to easing into the game but not per say give them a major tactical advantage or make it easy for them to simply catch up. It would maintain the seniority of the current players, but might chop a few weeks of the initial training for the new players.
Granted this is a raw idea, but it may spawn some additional ideas from you all; and also keep the momentum of this discussion going. |
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TornSoul
BIG
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Posted - 2008.05.03 19:20:00 -
[11]
Edited by: TornSoul on 03/05/2008 19:21:02
About "catching up" :
zoolkhan explained it well already.
There *should* be "catching up", it's realistic, and one day it will make *you* the senior.
And except for a very few instances (cap ships mostly) it doesnt take *that* long, to become on par with someone years older than you, *if* you specialize.
And this is the lesson that needs to be brought to the never players.
In EVE you actually *can* catch up - In specialized fields.
The levels capped at V:
(near) Impossible to change now.
Too many bonuses are dependdnt on skills capping at level 5.
Besides, removing the cap, would invalidate the fact that new players *can* catch up (in specialized fields)
TornSoul campaign website : It's about "The BIG picture"
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Peri Stark
Gallente
Blue Labs
Pandemic Legion
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Posted - 2008.05.05 02:59:00 -
[12]
I may loose votes for this statement but I think the current skill training system is fair and balanced for both old and new players.
The social element of the game with chat channels, forums and corp mates replaces documentation that would be outdated a month after it was written. Skill level limits let new players compete by specializing. The number of different skill paths give older members new skills to train and try out. It takes time to train skills but Eve is a long term game. It works against players that want to come in, wreck havoc in the game then leave. I always keep short medium and long skills to train and fit them to my schedule.
================================================
Just because your paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you!
Vote Peri Stark for the CSM. |
Treeati Harnsore
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Posted - 2008.05.05 03:57:00 -
[13]
seems like theres an overwhelming vocal majority that likes the skill caps. I just think its terribly hypocritical. The argument is that skill caps let people catch up, and yet if i train cap ships, noobs really wont be able to catch up, at least for another year. and by then, i could be training for a titan, thus placing me farther ahead. I dont have a problem with this at all; it rewards time invested and gives me reason to continue playing the game. I just wish I had more flexibility about how to assert my seniority in terms of specialization. As it stands, one can not specialize. The entry fee in sp of level V skills is too accessible, and as such it means that even if you train the highest rank of, say, a battleship skill, youve only joined the ranks of thousands of others. theres no way to truly excel. If the ability existed to train even say two skills past rank V, it would allow you to make your character unique in those limited areas, since very few would have the patience for pursuing the training times associated with training a skill that high. Maybe this is my greek values talking, but i like to be truly excellent in whatever i choose to do, and that means not settling for being average, like whats being embraced now.
in fact, thats the only way id buy a catch-up feature. I think if they let you train past V, but implemented accelerated skill training for people below a certain sp threshold who were training less than rank V skills, it might be a nice compromise. Otherwise, i personally would be completely opposed to a catch-up program, since that would be a slap in the face to me and the time ive invested.
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Ben Derindar
Dirty Deeds Corp.
Axiom Empire
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Posted - 2008.05.05 09:37:00 -
[14]
Originally by: Treeati Harnsore
I just wish I had more flexibility about how to assert my seniority in terms of specialization. As it stands, one can not specialize. The entry fee in sp of level V skills is too accessible, and as such it means that even if you train the highest rank of, say, a battleship skill, youve only joined the ranks of thousands of others. theres no way to truly excel.
Sure there is. Skillpoints aren't everything; all the SP in the world won't save you if you don't know how to fit your ship, or don't have a good crew to fly with.
/Ben
Ben Derindar: Eve CSM candidate
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Goumindong
Amarr
Merch Industrial
GoonSwarm
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Posted - 2008.05.05 09:43:00 -
[15]
Originally by: Akita T
If anything, I'd be in favor of reducing the "Level V" prerequisites (all of them) to "Level IV" prerequisites, making "L5s" completely optional for absolutely everybody.
Then I'd go ahead and introduce a lot of "specialisation" skills for a lot of the curently existing skills.
For instance, you could have the following skills, all of them requiring Medium Pulse Laser Specialization IV as one of the prerequisites : MPL Accuracy (2% tracking per level), MPL Focusing (2% optimal and 2% falloff), MPL Efficiency (-2% cap use), MPL Reliability (+20% "heat damage" HP per level), MPL Overloading (-5% heat damage per level), Scorch M specialisation (-15% Scorch M drawbacks per level), Conflagration M specialisation (-15% Conflagration M drawbacks per level).
That's seven new optional skills, all of them focusing on a single weapon system... out of the 24 available ones. Do the same for all other weapon systems, and you get a grand total of 168 new potential skills (ok, maybe less for missiles, but I'm sure you can find things to improve there too).
HECK, MAKE THAT BE "T3 ONLY" SKILLS if you want to. You know, to be used for T3 items only.
This way, anybody could easily get to L3 in most skills he's interested in, won't take long to reach L4 in most of those he decides are good, but it WILL take a long, long time to fully get the best potential out of one single chosen setup... and he won't get much of an advantage even with all L5 skills, while at the same time having to forego all other possible options.
While reducing requirements to 4 has been a constant request with level 5 being the true specialization on everything and is a good idea the rest is not. Adding even more specialization skills just increases the advantage that the old have over the young when the idea is to let the young keep an advantage.
Eve doesn't need more vertical progression. We are already having problems with that regarding dreads, carriers, titans, etc. We need more horizontal progression, which means things that more people can get into easily.
Vote Goumindong for CSM |
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