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Skex Relbore
Gallente
Red Federation
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Posted - 2011.01.06 07:09:00 -
[1]
 Originally by: Tippia
Originally by: Pocket Ace5
Everyone who is disagreeing is basically saying the point of this game is only to skill your character
Quite the opposite. It's usually the people suggesting that there needs to be ways to speed things up that has this absurd notion that the game is all about skills ù that's why they feel the need to speed things up.
Everyone else have figured out that the point of the game is to play the game. The fact that you also accrue skill points while you do this is a rather happy coincidence, and the fact that this process is completely separated from the act of playing the game is what makes EVE rather unique. You progress in your skills while you play; you don't progress because you play.
Oh, and btw. You might actually want to read what people write when making claims about what everyone who's disagreeing is saying. Otherwise you might make some foolish statement that reveals how clueless you are about the topic at handà
Quote:
Because it would ruin the monotony of waiting months to do it?
There is no monotony to ruin unless you make it one. You're trying to solve a problem that you have created for yourself. The solution to this problem is for you to stop creating it ù not to change the game.
Ding ding ding ding.
As much as I've bumped heads with Tippia over various issues this is one place where we are in accord.
And while I have love hate relationship with the EVE skill system (love the fact that I don't have to "grind" xp hate how long some of the skill trains are) This point still stands.
Other than what ships I can fly and what T2 modules I can use the only thing that has really limited my options in this game is the time I've had to commit to it. I've got skills trained that I've barely used (if at all) because with only a couple hours a night to commit I've just not been able to fully explore those options. Hell I've been playing a year and a half and haven't even made it into a wormhole yet and have only been to null sec once.
The great thing about EVE as Tippia so rightly pointed out is that unlike other games you don't have to play to progress your character. You can pretty much do what ever the hell you want. Where as in leveling games you pretty much have to spend time grinding levels.
In my last MMO(EQ) I was an end game raider. I enjoyed that aspect of the game and pretty much detested grinding Killing the same NPC for the 15000th time just can not be fun, killing basically the same NPC with a new skin and 200x the HP than the first for the 150000000000th time can't be fun either. Yet not doing it wasn't an option if I wanted to be able to participate in the part of the game I enjoyed I had to go out and kill 15,000,000,000 NPCs to get the experience to max my level to be able to get into the new raid zones and equip any equipment that might drop in it.
In EVE if I decide I want to do some light industry or exploration while I skill up PVP skills I can do it or the reverse. If I need a quick injection of isk I can run a few missions or if I'm feeling a little blood thirsty I can go flip a can or gank a hulk, or I can go get my freak on with my wife, what ever the hell I want I can do it knowing that in 5 more days I'll have motion prediction 5 trained. and I don't have to go spend 48 real life hours shooting at moving rats to do it.
As far as the OP goes. The proposed idea is dumb because of all the reasons various people have given plus the fact that it removes a major part of building a character. The character bazaar is a different beast for a number of reasons 1 someone had to actually spend the time training them the hard way, 2 You are unlikely to find exactly the skills you want and 3 there are drawbacks such as the mentioned reason 2 and you're stuck with what ever reputation (and crappy name/portrait)that character has.
SO a resounding HELL NO.
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Skex Relbore
Gallente
Red Federation
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Posted - 2011.01.06 16:17:00 -
[2]
Originally by: Luminos
Originally by: Skex Relbore
The great thing about EVE as Tippia so rightly pointed out is that unlike other games you don't have to play to progress your character.
... (30 seconds later) ...
As far as the OP goes. The proposed idea is dumb because of all the reasons various people have given plus the fact that it removes a major part of building a character. The character bazaar is a different beast for a number of reasons 1 someone had to actually spend the time training them the hard way
The goggles, they do nothing. The contradiction still burns my eyes like the claws of a thousand rabid weasels.
Will somebody please explain to me what's so hard about not playing to skill up?
Your lack of reading comprehension skills doesn't not a contradiction make.
The hard way in this case means that someone had to have the patience to plan out and then manage that skill queue. Sure it's not super hard but it's still harder than say buying 100million skillpoints and applying them to exactly the skills you want in a few minutes time.
A big part of the game is figuring out how to skill your character for best value. "Do I really need that skill to 5 could it make do with 4 or even 3, how many other skills could I get to 4 in the time it would take me to get that skill to 5 is the advantage provided really worth it? does it open up a new ship or new item that I really want to be able use." then there is the anticipation while you wait for the skills to complete the impatience while waiting and finally the reward once it comes through. which is more gratifying because of the anticipation.
Oh and if it wasn't hard why would people be crying for a way to make it easier (buying skillpoints)>
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Skex Relbore
Gallente
Red Federation
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Posted - 2011.01.06 19:29:00 -
[3]
Originally by: Gecko O'Bac
Originally by: Jimer Lins
Despite the claim, several very cogent points have been made about why purchasable skillpoints is a bad idea.
Another factor that I find interesting is that the calls for this type of feature generally come from newer players. This is understandable as they are the ones most likely to look at a player with 50 million SP vs their own 5 or 10 million and say "I will never be able to catch up to that guy, that's not fair!"
The problem with this line of thinking is that it ignores some very important and fundamental facts- most importantly that skills are capped. You cannot get past level 5 in any skill no matter how long you play. Once you have Gallente Cruiser 5 (and the requisite support skills) your "on-paper" ability to fly a Vexor (for example) never gets any better whether you have 20 million SP or 80 million.
Once you pass the basics of support skills, the only difference between veterans and newbies on paper is the number of ships and systems they can use. The number of SP in play when you go up against someone in-game, defined as the ones put into the skills you're actively using, is much lower than the number of SP you actually have.
The basic difference between veterans and new players is that veterans can choose from more roles or activities within the game. The new player must make choices about their skills to determine what they would like to do next, and this is basic MMO design.
Making it possible for someone to just do anything with no effort or delay eliminates one of the biggest reasons for an MMO to exist- the ongoing satisfaction of watching your progress in small increments as you move toward a defined goal. And as I said before, the skillpoint pool is much like the ISK pool in game. The balance of characters and their skills is as much a requirement for the game to work as is the regular economy of the game.
Good luck with this... Those are all good points you make but imho it's not worth the effort... I'm not even sure if there's somebody seriously arguing PRO buying skills or just a couple of trolls. Either case, since they're blatantly ignoring what multiple people are saying, I'd say it's a waste of time trying to convince them.
No one is trying to convince them of anything. The responses are to ensure that some bean counter from CCP doesn't look in the forums and think "hey! That's a great idea"
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Skex Relbore
Gallente
Red Federation
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Posted - 2011.01.07 05:07:00 -
[4]
Originally by: Luminos
More bull****
Waiting is hard hell learning to wait is one hardest things most people learn in life.
Skill progression and the planning of it is a core part of the game. It's not all there is to the game but it's still an important part of it. With it being real time based ones choices have lasting consequences. Making the choice between say training Racial cruiser 5 to open up T2 cruisers or Large Projectile 5 got get access to T2 guns represents a commitment to that choice. If you chose to go for large guns and you regret it 10 days into the train you're not going to get those 10 days back to switch over to your racial cruiser.
If skill points could simply be bought that consequence would pretty much be erased. Which would mean that choices would matter less. Which dumbs down the entire process. Making it (wait for it) easier.
I honestly have no objections to changes that would make skill training a tad faster as long as those changes are evenly available to all players, are measured and considered and not based on simply buying points. In fact I see no way for CCP to avoid it in the long run. For that matter I see them doing it on the down low already. From lowering certain prereq's on some items/skills in Dominion to the removal of learning skills and the flat out boosting of most peoples training speed with the attribute bump that came with the learning skill removal.
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Skex Relbore
Gallente
Red Federation
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Posted - 2011.01.07 15:38:00 -
[5]
Originally by: Luminos
Snipped WoT to make room for new WoT
Re:re: waiting. That's a choice people make they don't have to. There is plenty of fun stuff they can do while waiting for new skills to train. And actually making your player base wait for 5 months to play certain parts of your game is a successful idea.
In fact it's the very principle that drives persistent world gaming. If it takes longer to achieve a goal a subscriber has to pay for a longer time, further the more time someone invests in that goal/game the more emotionally connected they become to it.
That's why people play MMOs for years rather than the few weeks that a stand alone title holds their attention.
Honestly if you can't find something to do with skills you can learn in just a few hours you're not going to be better at finding things to do after buying a few million SP either.
Choice's. No I meant exactly what I said. It's not a theoretical choice either it's the exact choice I had to make a few days ago (well save that I'm working on Large Hybrids not Projectiles). Actually the question was to prioritize large guns, Sentry drones or T2 Cruisers. Now in 3 months it won't matter that much because I'll have all 3 but in the mean time there are consequences to my choice.
Another example would be this. I spent the majority of the 1st year of this characters existence working on support skills including any prerequisites for any ships/modules that I could see wanting for the foreseeable future (pretty much everything but capital skills) I focused my attributes around it and had to plan and live/work with the consequences of that choice. I have a buddy who didn't so broadly spec and spent his time just training the skills that would help him immediately.
Each of those choices had consequences. He was able to start using T2 ships much earlier than I was and for a large amount of time he had better offensive skills than I did. The trade off was that my character has a broader skill set and now as I add ship command skills I'll be ready to train those ships without having to worry about any non-per/will prereq's.
Oh and to be clear here. I never said that waiting for skills to complete was fun. Not every part of an activity has to be fun for it to be rewarding. I said it was a big and important part of the game. It forces players to make real choices in how to build their characters that have consequences both in the long and short term.
Buying skill points would completely obliterate that aspect of game play it would minimize the consequences of those choices to the point of triviality. "oh I spent the last month training large guns but the corp I want to join wants a logi pilot guess I made the wrong call, Oh wait let me grab my credit card and drop 35 bucks to buy Amarr Cruiser 5".
And yes the game really would suffer if people were simply handed a pool of SP sufficient to let them specialize into what ever role they want instantly. Because people would never form an attachment to the game. They'd log in try it out a couple times and then either get bored or ragequit the first time something about the game ****ed them off.
Fun is not the sole requirement for a good game mechanic particularly when you are looking to generate retention. Fun is a factor but all persistent worlds have core aspects of gameplay (and frankly require them) that are not fun.
Grinding is never fun, Sure an encounter might be interesting and fun the first few times but by the 10th it's getting stale and old by the 100th its simply monotonous. Now that doesn't mean people can't or don't have fun grinding a boring activity can be made tolerable and perhaps even fun when done with company. It can be tolerable when it leads to a longer term goal (leveling up, getting access to new content) but it isn't likely to be fun on its own.
without suffering you can not know true joy, without the wait you cannot know satisfaction.
/agree about the character limit
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Skex Relbore
Gallente
Red Federation
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Posted - 2011.01.07 18:43:00 -
[6]
Edited by: Skex Relbore on 07/01/2011 18:44:55
Originally by: Luminos
Originally by: Skex Relbore
without suffering you can not know true joy, without the wait you cannot know satisfaction.
Yes, you did.
<Snipped rest to make room for my WOT>
Satisfaction /= fun
Rewarding /= fun
Real world example warning: there was very little about Marine Bootcamp that was fun. In fact there was a hell of a lot about it that was damned right miserable. But completing it was rewarding and satisfying.
Running and physical training are seldom fun but the rewards are satisfying.
Now I don't entirely disagree with your point on some of the time sinks being too severe in this game. And over time CCP will have to address this (as I stated before they kind of are). Strategically lowering certain prerequisites could do that without completely obliterating the existing system.
As to your argument that I was choosing between Battleships and cruisers to some extent that is accurate (though working on T2 hybrids also has bleed over into my cruiser performance) I view it more as deferring T2 cruisers for a while in order to maximize my battleship performance. (
In end it's actually irrelevant because I can still fly T1 cruisers while training those Battleship skills just like I could continue to fly BS's had I chosen instead to train Racial Cruiser 5 first.
It's a choice and there is a consequence or deferring the time when I can use the ability in question (T2 large guns or T2 cruiser) This ignores the question of which racial cruiser to choose. Should I go Gal to get the Ishtar and Arazu or Mini for the Vega and scimatar or Amarr for the Guardian and Zealot(actually the Zealot would require a few days additional getting medium lazer skills).
Hell had I chosen to differently I could have probably gotten both Minmatar and Amarr T2 cruisers trained in the time I've spent just getting T2 heavy drones.
As far as the argument of SP not leading to additional enjoyment once you are in it well that's debatable. There is after all a difference between having the SP to sit in a ship and having the SP to actually use it effectively.
This is where those fitting skills you see as nothing but times sinks come in. Investing time in those skills allows one to use fits that wouldn't work for people with lower support skills. There are fits that simply require AWU5 and won't work with AWU4 there are fits that will work with Shield Upgrades 5 but not 4. People who choose to defer getting those skills to 5 are forgoing the ability to use those fits in exchange for what ever capability they spend their time gaining instead.
Getting people attached to their characters is a great bit of game design (if your goal is long term retention) Also I never said that fun isn't important but lots of things are fun that I don't want to keep doing for months on end.
Locking content behind time sinks and other barriers to entry are a great way of keeping players busy and engaged. They throttle the rate at which players chew through content giving developers time to come up with new stuff to sate the unending appetite of their hardcore base.
Yes there has to be fun involved but there needs to be some challenge as well.
Since everything is for sale in EVE and anyone can pretty much go anywhere and do anything in EVE. the only gatekeeper to content is the skill system.
The only other limitation is isk and frankly for the most part (save for station trading) the ability make it is largely tied to SP as well.
If you let people instantly spec what ever they want low/nul would be nothing but Supercaps, HIC's and Cyno alts in Recons and Hi-sec would be full of Marauders, Macharials, freighters and some Arty Maelstrom's to suicide the Freighters. Well save for all the bots in hulks/orcas. Soon enough it would be nothing but the best of each hull. At which point we might as well be playing an arcade game or FPS.
Take the work/time out of the process and you will end up with a limited homogenized set of optimized builds.
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Skex Relbore
Gallente
Red Federation
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Posted - 2011.01.07 23:02:00 -
[7]
Originally by: Luminos
<sniped for character limiter
Ok so looking through your posting history it's obvious that this is something that's bugged you for some time.
Let me try and go down this again.
Yes everyone who operates a ship will eventually want their basic fitting skills to 5. but you don't need them there to be effective you just need them for certain fits. And getting AWU5 now or later is a major choice that has consequences because that 19+ days of training could get several lower ranked skills to 5 and dozens to 4.
The current skill system encourages people to be more creative when it comes to ship choices. Sure there are flavor of the month fits but if you don't have the skills for that particular fit then you have to work with what you are skilled for while you then decide to either start working towards the FOTM or just wait for the FOTM to come your way.
Another real game example it's about a 4 day difference for me between training T2 large blasters and T2 Large Auto's Basically bump my Med Auto spec to 4 and train the first 4 levels of Large Projectiles to even it up. And yeah eventually I do plan on having both. But the decisions I make now determine when I'll have them each trained.
One choice would quickly give me the FOTM Macharial as an option. The other choice gives me the close up face melting of my Gal BS's and satisfies my personal OCD of being able to fully T2 fit the ships I fly regularly.
And yeah skill training is a bit like getting a new present on Xmas.
As to gates. Yeah lets do look at frigates. Sure you can fly pretty much every frigate from day one. But there is a huge difference between the performance of a fully T1 fit frigate with minimal skills/fitting and otherwise. and that same frig with a full T2 fit and good support skills. They are essentially different ships. The same goes for every T1 ship in the game.
The ability to push through some of those long trains and deffer gratification can be the difference between victory and defeat in any given encounter. Someone who decided to spend the extra 10 days or so to train small gun spec to 5 has a slight but very real advantage against someone who spent that 10 days training T2 medium guns instead. Right there in that moment if they are both flying frigates a very real consequence for that choice manifests.
Timing matters as well if one of those pilots decided that he'd prefer to max his fitting skills and the other weaponry skills each would have certain advantages and disadvantages in the fight that would effect the final outcome.
You are allowing your frustration with the fact that content is locked outside of your reach blind you to the very real consequences of changing said system.
Right now not everyone flys Drakes because not everyone has the skills to make them work. For instance while I can fly a drake and could tank one about as well as anyone I don't have decent missile skills so I'm gonna fly a Cane or one of the Gal BC if I need a BC. My past choices in skills determine my current choices in ships.
Everyone who plays the game has to make those choices.
If it weren't for the skills system then everyone would end with identical characters flying essentially identical ships. Anyone who didn't would have to biomass and recreate their characters if they wanted to be able to compete.
If the FOTM changed for some reason pretty much everyone would have to biomas and start again with what ever the new build is.
You see gates and barriers as bad game design because you don't find them fun. I see them as good game design because they lead to challenge and variety.
Further I say that the problem is in your attitude and expectations. You think that once you have a certain ship you'll start having fun. I'm telling you that if you can't have fun in the T1 variant with low skills you probably don't have the right mindset for this game.
Oh yeah and the RR domi does the healer role perfectly fine and it's T1
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