December Alpha Skill Disaprovement

Communications Center General Discussion
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Greetings my fellow capsuleer! I am de Obliviator Preon, a Gallente Alpha warrior who speaks out only for the sake of the game. I seek nothing more, but the survival of the game and our community. And today, I would like to post my opinion that CCP must not give us, Alpha players, the “low” born clones, the new skill sets.

I myself, am a game designer. Don’t ask me what I am working on, or who I am working for, because I am not working for anyone. Not right now, anyway. And, I am confused about the changes that CCP is making to us. You see, I have been to the other side, I used to be an Omega pilot. My consideration is… there is a gap between the two societies. Now, CCP is bridging the gap between the two, by making this update, and by changing it looks more like they cement it. The gap is still there, it’s just ten times less noticeable. CCP should not do that. I see what they are trying to do here, a lot of games actually do things like that, but this… this is a wrong way to go. CCP is trying to make us, Alphas, be constant players and so we could be involved more. But this update is deleting the real need for purchasing an Omega account. What I think is that CCP took a turn, which was a good decision, but then they increased the degree of the angle and turned just about too much.

Well, while you might not understand my speech there, what I am saying is, the update is probably a good decision, unlocking battlecruisers and interracial training, but not all of it is gold. My suggestion is, don’t give us Battleship class ships. And missiles too, or at least not all of them. You will give us power to PLEX ourselves, and this is wrong in terms of marketing. I believe, as I have said above, that the turn is too much. Because it is too much, it will meet back with the road and the money coming into the CCP’s wallet will decrease back down.
I am not saying that they must do it, but this is my thoughts. If I don’t understand something about the markets and things, please correct me, but I am hypocritical persona, just like other people living on the Earth, so you will excuse me if I show resistance.

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It’s part of CCP’s roadmap for transitioning the game to entirely Free-to-pay down the road. (They are doing it gradually to prevent the backlash from their all-at-once idea back during greed-is-good-gate.) First the cash shop, then the skill boosters, then the lockbox mechanics, then the daily login mechanics/rewards, then the limited free-2-pay accounts, then the daily skillpoints, now the expanded free-2-pay accounts. It’s working quite well, hardly any backlash when you slowly raise the temperature on the frog in pot, rather than starting with boiling water.

But CCP is a business, and this is what businesses do, they optimize profits above all else, even at the long-term detriment of all else.

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I totally agree, but the term F2P has a negative stigma and wouldn’t technically be correct. The way I see it is subscriptionless, but players would need to buy SP beyond 5m and have permits to multibox.

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Well, you still need omega to do: PI, any real manufacturing and resource gathering, fly anything t2 and t3, almost all t2 modules (minus the new weapons additions to alphas), all capitals, market trading and corp management.
If you are fine with running missions in highsec, and doing other low scale PVE stuff, alont with using t1 ships for PVP, then alpha is just fine. If you want anything beyond that, you need omega, so theres still alot of reasons to stay omega.

I honestly dont know if this is a good or bad idea, in the long run. But i like the fact that alphas are more then glorified trial accounts now. It makes it a hell of alot easier for people to commit to eve, because they dont need to pay up front to do most of the basic stuff in this game now.

I also am not sure if CCP really is aiming for true f2p, i highly doubt it. It would sack their income and crash plex prices completely, making sure CCP doesnt earn any cash on that any more.
So then skins have to be the money maker, and its highly unlikely they will ever sell that amount of skins.

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It depends on your playstyle, I’m lapsing into alpha now because my fw pvp lyfe can live very well on alpha, especially the expanded alpha coming out tomorrow.

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tl;dr players want to buy in-game power over other players, always. So much so that they will even risk getting banned to get it(botting, RMT, outright cheating)

The only way Alphas would kill EVE is if there was no skillpoint limit. Then, eventually - EVE new player admission and retention being what it is - almost everyone would get almost all the skillpoints and they would stop paying alltogether, since there would be no power left to buy.

But since Alphas are cleverly designed to always leave you at a disadvantage compared to other players, and players always want to buy in-game power over other players, that will just not happen.

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Yesterday, lying in bed, I was thinking about how it will affect people, and how much will refuse to pay 15$ just for mission running and high sec exploration, and how much of them will adapt to the new alpha gameplay, already having skills in place.

But there is also the other side of coin. New players that could switch to omegas to have those 20M skillpoints the easy way, without grinding ISK daily.

CCP certainly risks something old in favor of something new.

Its… risky. :thinking:

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The potential income from alphas must be higher than us omegas.

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I’m planning on returning to the game due to the changes they’re making so…

I also think the whole free to play terminology is wrong as most games listed that way will take money from any dedicated player, just as subscriptions do.

For me the balance is pay when you play. I have subbed on and off for many years and end up leaving each time, because I can’t justify it. I find my best experiences in eve come when I have a whole evening or day free to put into the game. Things don’t happen fast do they? Especially the pvp side of things. I never found it a game I could jump on for an hour and enjoy, unless I got lucky with a fleet up or my home systems were busy without the need to roam.

In the end, if I could only really get one or two good sessions in a month it felt expensive for my return, considering I’ve paid £100’s over the years already.

Moving towards these models I think is the right idea. Even having 24hr omega boosts or something for us older players, so we can pay when we know we’re going play. I haven’t got the answers and I’m shooting ideas here but the subscription stopped me playing and it’s not that I can’t afford it, I just didn’t feel it gave me value.

Personally I’m interested to see how this goes.

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With the update we can PLEX ourselves faster.

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Your personal income. An average Alpha can make a PLEX in 20 hours by FW. Imagine how fast we can do it after the update.

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I never stated that we would kill EvE. I only said that it was a bad way to go.

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You can PLEX yourself in 20 hours if you are FWing the right way.

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20h of grinding… or one to two hours of real work. CCP really, really wants to lower the average IQ.

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Maybe people have work so awful that perspective of 20 hours grind in EVE makes them jump in excitement. :joy:

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But you didn’t define your “bad”. Bad for whom? and in what way?

Wheelwright Phien is pointing out that CCP is trying to attract new players and to offer them the opportunity to buy instant gratification rewards (at a high cost). Is that bad?

EDIT: The Gevlon article doesn’t discuss some of the available options (including the $8 / month subscription rates), and also doesn’t discuss the fact that the players will also game the system / minmax it to their advantage, even if that’s beyond the scope that the developers intended. At which point CCP will change / reconfigure the system.

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do tell how plex prices would crash? other than possibly more whales buying them so they don’t have to pve to earn isk.

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I’m sure CCP has a long term plan they’ve been following for years. What they didn’t anticipate was Battlefront 2 loot box issue. We have no idea how this is going to end. EA’s business has always been milking players for all they are worth. People seem to love it and always came back for more whether EA used lubricant or not.

If the tide turns and players just want good games without being treated like cash cows. Things could change for CCP and their model. I’m not putting CCP in the same category as EA. I am saying they have to be very careful on how they move forward.

Sometimes less is more in the long run.

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I think CCP realizes that having more players in game will give more reason for people to subscribe.

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