Insane Randomness
Stellar Pilgrimage
17
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Posted - 2015.10.19 08:05:21 -
[1] - Quote
CCP Terminus wrote:Canadian Fire wrote:All things considered it's not really such a horrible idea, but I still don't like it. If it is to be implemented, I would like to see a hard cap on it. IE you cannot inject SP on characters with over XX number of SP. Or some kind of balancing mechanic to make it so a day 1 char can get a big advantage, yes, but can't jump straight to all level 5 skills for $15,000 USD.
At the very least I can catch up on some SP I missed when I wasn't able to sub I suppose. A hard cap seems to be a common request, and I think there may be some merit to that. We'll certainly look in to it. I'm not sure how to determine where that cap is though, if it's purely for prestige purposes. On a somewhat related note, to keep some prestige without a hard cap, there may be a way to track SP gained 'naturally' versus SP gained from using unallocated skillpoints. If that's the case we could make both values available when characters apply to corporations, or people put their characters up on sites like eveboard. No promises though, it's still to early to tell.
So I reserved judgement until I saw exactly what everyone else has to say, including you Terminus, who seems to be fighting a one man war against all these doom-sayers. Very admirable last stand good sir!
That said, I sympathize with both sides. On one side, the naysayers have something, a very big something that reminds us of Fearless and Incarna (you guys do still remember that, right?) and the riots in Jita (I know you remember that.). And for this, I'd like to say something: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXA559KNopI
That is a youtube video for microtransactions, which is what this is, pure and simple. We pay real money for Aurum, to convert it into an item, to allow us to sell SP, which allows us to progress through the game at an accelerated rate. Meaning money = power, because in EVE, time is power. Four things against this:
1. YOU GUYS ARE REFERENCED IN THE VIDEO AT THE VERY START! It's not even thirty seconds in, and the narrator echoes every thought that is going through around 90% of every players head in this forum. Historically, you guys don't do microtransactions. They lead to bad things and EVE is NOT very suitable to them.
2. I don't think you guys think of us as the enemy. You spend way to much time talking and communicating about the game we love to think of us as bad people. And you know what? That is AWESOME. I love EVE, and I have litteraly sunk THOUSANDS of dollars into the game, in both plex and game time. The PLEX system works somewhat well, despite it's microtransaction nature because it makes ISK, which is inevitably destroyed, in vast quantities, every day. That is MTA's done right, and it's a good idea. But it's insanely easy to protect skillpoints, because skillpoints are far more valuable than any amount of ISK. It represents how far a character has come, and how dedicated to the game a player is. And making this move devalues both.
3. Aurum can't be earned in game. This means I have to pay real money to access this. That is just, wrong. In so many ways.
4. You are selling power. Wrong. BAD CCP!
At the end of the day though, this is selling power. And thats the purest definition of pay to win. Time is power in EVE. You want to make it possible for new players to catch up to old players, but you don't want to make it easy. This is just, in my mind, asking for trouble, even with a hard cap or diminishing returns. The video references selling leveling speed, but EVE is different. It's not free to play, which makes time, which you are helping people skip over, way, way, way more valuable. Thats why losing SP is THE number one thing every player avoids doing. Thats why I don't even undock from a station until I have an up to date clone. It's why I stopped flying a T3, even though the skills are limited to the ability and expertise of flying a T3, but there was still a remote possibility that I'd have to go back and waste time retraining a skill I had already trained.
So whats good about this?
1. More players. The ability to jump into more powerful ships just by buying a subscription will bring in more short term revenue, which you guys gotta admit makes it look like you're strapped for cash. I think though that in the long run, you'll loose more players than you gain. There are plenty of other great games out there that I love playing, although EVE is probably the most unique.
2. It helps modernize the bazaar. This one is a bit grey though. There are other ways to do this.
3. It lets me still personalize my character. Name and look. I love this character. I love the name, and I love the look, and I'm not planning on getting rid of him anytime soon. Even so, this is still a grey area. There are ways to offer name and trait changes without risking compromising your game.
4. Min/maxing. It WOULD be awesome to be able to take all my industrial skills I have and turn them into SP to finally start training carriers. But this can be achieved with a respec token.
And thats about it. The risk for this is huge, Terminus. It could, if done wrong, kill this game. And none of us want that. I don't want that, you don't want that, and everyone else doesn't want that (except maybe goonwaffe ;D). To my mind, this entire thing could be far easier if you just offered name changes and respec tokens. This needlessly overcomplicated and DANGEROUS. And I don't think to many people would throw a hissy fit about name and skill respec tokens. Probably the biggest issue is just being able to move skills from one character to another. The time it would take to train characters into ludicrously high SP numbers is reduced with this, and I wouldn't be surprised if players created farms to accellerate skill training beyond what anyone could imagine.
tl;dr A big NO from me. Seriously CCP. Rethink this. |