Clone grade upgrades needs to go out the door entirely. There's exactly zero gameplay benefits from having to remember to upgrade the silly little clone every time under penalty of risk losing skill points, which is nothing else but a cheap and underhanded mean to provide a way for things to go very wrong.

Clone grade upgrades needs to go out the door entirely. There's exactly zero gameplay benefits from having to remember to upgrade the silly little clone every time under penalty of risk losing skill points, which is nothing else but a cheap and underhanded mean to provide a way for things to go very wrong.

Clone grade upgrades needs to go out the door entirely. There's exactly zero gameplay benefits from having to remember to upgrade the silly little clone every time under penalty of risk losing skill points, which is nothing else but a cheap and underhanded mean to provide a way for things to go very wrong.

I completely agree. Either fix it so that the clone upgrades automatically (I understand that it is an isk sink), or completely remove the feature (because on the other hand, why punish veteran pilots?). Skill loss is extremely harsh for such a trivial thing as to remember to upgrade the clone or not, which is easily forgotten in the heat of a battle or for a pilot that doesn't get podded that much. The mechanic makes absolutely no sense to me other than the occasional punishment of absentminded pilots. Which just feels.. wrong.

Please for the love of god just remove clone upgrade costs. I wrote an article about how bad they are. Ignore the insurance change part as I was just using it as an example of where to move the ISK sink to (bad example I know), but just focus on the rest.

CLONE UPGRADE BILLS: A PAINFUL THROWBACK

Did you read it?

Risk vs. Reward

Use high SP character with high(er) clone cost = Risk.
Performing better in combat due to high(er) SP character = Reward.

Perfectly balanced.

Thank you.

Well as much as I'd like to agree, no actually.

Interceptor Pilot with a total of 20 million SP, with great skills for flying a Crusader. Using around 13 million SP, for that ship. Clone grade Nu which keeps 25,600,000 SP. Cost 1,980,000.

Older interceptor pilot, with the exact same skill set to fly the Crusader, but with 156 million SP.
Clone Grade Phi which keeps 203,000,000 SP. Cost 65 million.

Now I personally am not bothered by this cost. But higher SP, does not mean better performance. So no, not perfectly balanced.
I can see why this would preclude the use of smaller ships with higher SP.

You are comparing specific skills trained to one another. Yes, that means the same performance in the same exact ship setup and fitting.

However, the player with a higher skill point value has skills in other things. Perhaps they have Cybernetics lvl 5 and are using some very pricey implants to outpace you just enough. Did you calculate the extra SP for that? And, I will admit that having one extra skill trained to lvl 5 isn't really impacting clone costs.

But, the person who fast-tracked the skills to your specs and then stopped training that character to swap skill training for another character made a ChoiceGäó. Just like the player who made a different ChoiceGäó and decided he would also want to run a PRC and an Alliance on the same character. And also made a ChoiceGäó that they would want to erect and fully manage a POS on the same character. And also made the ChoiceGäó they would want to add to their combat skills through the Leadership aspect of the skill tree. Should I keep giving examples of ChoicesGäó ?

One player ChoseGäó to make a perfectly skilled interceptor pilot based on one race's ship and weapon sets and then move along to perform other tasks on different characters.
Another player ChoseGäó to skill their one character up for different aspects of the game.

So, you are telling me that these two players should not have different results from different ChoicesGäó?

Thank you.

No.

The point people have with clone costs is that the higher your SP goes, the less attractive small ships become. I'm now at the point where my clone is more expensive than that small ship plus fittings.

Like I said, cost doesn't bother me personally. But a mechanic that punishes one aspect of PvP, simply because of your longevity in the game, cannot be viewed as a good one.

Okay. then we agree.

I have many skillpoints. Yes, I find frigates to be awesome fun.

I also realize this before I choose my ship and undock to be engaged in ship-to-ship PVP.

Thank you.

No.

Whether you realise this or not, is not the point and irrelevant to the discussion. The point is higher SP does not equate to better performance and longevity shouldn't have the side effect, of making small ship PvP unattractive due to cost.

When the price of your clone, is more than buying and setting up four Interceptors there is something wrong with the balance in that mechanic. It's not helping drive PvP, but rather having the opposite affect.

CCP are aware of this and already agree. It's now simply a matter of time, when we'll see a change.

What is the point? You don't want to risk your high SP character in a ship made of paper and sticks? Yeah. We get it.

Also, I would suggest not speaking for other people or entities. Your speculation of what CCP agrees with is unimportant. Or, if they do agree, then why this thread?

Well as much as I'd like to agree, no actually.

Interceptor Pilot with a total of 20 million SP, with great skills for flying a Crusader. Using around 13 million SP, for that ship. Clone grade Nu which keeps 25,600,000 SP. Cost 1,980,000.

Older interceptor pilot, with the exact same skill set to fly the Crusader, but with 156 million SP.
Clone Grade Phi which keeps 203,000,000 SP. Cost 65 million.

Now I personally am not bothered by this cost. But higher SP, does not mean better performance. So no, not perfectly balanced.
I can see why this would preclude the use of smaller ships with higher SP.

Just think as well come summer I am one of the pilots in-line to gain something on the order of about 6 million SP literally overnight when all 4 battlecruisers/destroyers become racial skills as I have both skills at 5 and can fly all variants they cover currently.

How much do I improve in performance when this happens? Not at all, nothing changes except my clone cost. I will be exactly as good with those ships as I am now but I'm going to have to pay through the nose to keep those extra skillpoints I didn't ask for and don't even want. At this point I'm just begging them not to separate out HAC, HIC, Recons, AF, EAF, cov op and well you get the picture or my clone cost is going to triple instantly and goodbye any thoughts of ever fighting in null sec again at that point because my clone now costs more than my fleet. Any skillpoints used in any sort of industrial application likewise adds no combat benefit, so clone cost and ship performance is not really a risk vs. reward scenario at all. My indy alt has 20 million SP and couldn't fly a T1 frigate to save her life. Clone costs are an ISK sink plain and simple.

Well as much as I'd like to agree, no actually.

Interceptor Pilot with a total of 20 million SP, with great skills for flying a Crusader. Using around 13 million SP, for that ship. Clone grade Nu which keeps 25,600,000 SP. Cost 1,980,000.

Older interceptor pilot, with the exact same skill set to fly the Crusader, but with 156 million SP.
Clone Grade Phi which keeps 203,000,000 SP. Cost 65 million.

Now I personally am not bothered by this cost. But higher SP, does not mean better performance. So no, not perfectly balanced.
I can see why this would preclude the use of smaller ships with higher SP.

The balance comes from the time it takes each character to earn the ISK to replace. The 200mil SP char has more options for earning ISK than the 20mil SP char. And he has the option of funding a PvP alt with the ISK generated from his main.

I'm really surprised that your behind this Mag, I didn't think you were of the "make Eve easier" persuasion.

there are ships that I cant even think about flying because my pod is going to cost 5 times more than the ship when I die

terrible outdated mechanic that needs changed

also my condols to all those dictor pilots out there who cry themselves to sleep because of CCP's inaction

Being frightened of that loss is what makes Eve combat exciting. Its not the clone to ship ISK ratio that prevents you from flying certain ships, it is rather your own assessment of risk vs. reward.

If you want to lower the risk there are tools at your disposal to do that, but don't ask for the table minimum wager to be changed because its too steep for you. That is so disrespectful to the people there because the minimum bet is high.

The balance comes from the time it takes each character to earn the ISK to replace. The 200mil SP char has more options for earning ISK than the 20mil SP char. And he has the option of funding a PvP alt with the ISK generated from his main.

I'm really surprised that your behind this Mag, I didn't think you were of the "make Eve easier" persuasion.

Being frightened of that loss is what makes Eve combat exciting. Its not the clone to ship ISK ratio that prevents you from flying certain ships, it is rather your own assessment of risk vs. reward.

If you want to lower the risk there are tools at your disposal to do that, but don't ask for the table minimum wager to be changed because its too steep for you. That is so disrespectful to the people there because the minimum bet is high.