Rundle Allnighter
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Posted - 2009.02.26 17:40:00 -
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I'm a noob who started 2.5yrs ago. I played for 30 days and was more interested in other MMO's I was playing so I set Eve aside. But 40 days ago I decided to come back and was faced with having a mix of skill points scattered all over. Learning was probably in the best shape because I had focused on it the first time under the advice of everyone. Looking back I *know* it was the lack of character and ship advancement that made it easy for me to walk away. CCP lost 2.5 years of income from me because of the learning system. And I lost 2.5 years of character development and enjoyment in Eve.
Since I've come back, I've sucked it up and taken a balanced approach in order to have some advancement and some fun. I've tried to train the learning at a 25% per week meaning ~2 days of the week I turn on a learning skill. This has allowed me in 40 days to increase my ship skills, fly some better ships, use better equipment and slowly knock off the learning skills. Well surprise, surprise... I'm having fun!
Now I admit, I've not read all the 500 posts in this thread but the ones I do, including the ones from CCP, folks all seem to be focusing on a binary choice. On or off. Yes or no. In or out. Why can't it be both? Eve does a reasonable job in "being realistic" within it's game realm, so I ask you, in reality do you sit down and learn "learning skills" directly? No. Wisdom, perception, willpower, intelligence, charisma are all things you pick up as you learn. And if you are in the process of learning something else... you learn these things even faster. Think back to high school, university, etc. It's while I was slugging my way through hours of calculus that I learned something about willpower and intelligence... it was while I was diving into Plato that I gained a bit of wisdom.....
So why not make it like that in the game? And make it a choice. Add a mechanism where I take on a 20% overhead to all my skill training that goes directly to the learning skills. A secondary skill training path as it were. I suggest that a reasonable goal would be that after 30 days I could have rank 1 learning skills at 4. And after 60 days I could have rank 3 learning skills at 3. And after 180 days I would have all learning skills at 5. Of course, I would always have the ability to select them directly and "just bang it out".
And you don't have to let it just be for learning. You can use it for other primary skills. Perhaps restrict the usage in other areas to just level 5. For example, if I have spaceship command at level 4 and I start learning destroyers and cruisers, am I not likely to be learning more about commanding a ship? So I set about learning destroyer 5, cruiser 5 and industrial 4... and at the end I get enough supplemental learning to earn spaceship command 5. Because I earned it learning other things.
Maybe that's what you can call this: Supplemental Learning.
Thanks for listening.
Rundle
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