I just wanted to write up a little more in-depth about my opinions on this change.
People give CCP a lot of ■■■■, much more than they deserve. CCP does fantastic work and people complaining here about other issues not related to recruitment are not helping at all.
But most of the time, the overall negativity is because almost any change CCP makes is going to put SOMEONE at a disadvantage, and those people will speak up even though the change benefits the majority of players.
That can’t be helped, in a game so diverse as this its not possible to keep everyone happy, and those who are negatively affected will always speak the loudest.
But this change, just seems like a disadvantage to everyone.
I help run the Hogs Collective, and we are a VERY newbie focused group. We recruit many new players each day. Our CEO had hundreds and hundreds of recruits on the old system, and likely thousands more recruits that he and the other HC members have brought through that did NOT use a referral link.
This change I fail to see how it benefits anyone. And I am very sad that it has happened.
Why I think this change is bad
Previously, we could give newbros a kickstart either by giving them their first month, since we would get a month in return, or if they upgraded themselves we would share half the ISK reward to help start them on their journey.
Now, we cannot do this.
We cannot give new guys their first omega month, as there are no rewards at all for upgrading using ingame methods.
And we can only share a now half as big isk reward with the recruits, meaning it helps them less, and leaves many of our recruiters MUCH less encouraged to actively recruit. We have already had a few of our previously rather prolific recruiters ask to step-down from active recruiting due to this change and the lack of rewards.
I myself would absolutely NOT have continued playing eve if I had not had my first month omega given to me by a recruiter. The skills at the beginning took a long time to train and I would have given up if I did not have the small, but very very important financial and time-saving boost that the previous recruitment program gave.
I literally would not be playing today under the new system as I would have given up during my alpha time.
To those who say “shut up you can train a FW alt in a couple days”.
Yes, you can, IF you know exactly what you are doing, what to train and how to actively do the activity.
These are NEW players with no idea how most of the game works.
Not existing players making FW alts.
The vast majority of new players do not have someone to hold their hand through everything, and will normally start with things such as mining, mission running etc during their first couple weeks, which can be more skill intensive.
And so this new program puts most new players at a BIG disadvantage.
What is this change trying to fix
I can see two reasons why this change may have been made.
-Firstly, to combat SP farming. This change now prevents people being able to make alts via in-game upgrades. So to make large SP farms people will need to either forgo making the accounts themselves and buy characters to farm with (or spend 15 months training up a full account). Or pay with RL cash
Personally, I realise that SP farms are somewhat of an issue, BUT, those with big SP farms already have them and its not going to go away, plus, I STRONGLY believe that SP farms are a minor issue. And not one that is worth causing a lot of harm to the intake of new players to address.
If this is the reason, it would be much much better to use the old system and just say in the t&c that you are not allowed to refer your own alts.
-Secondly, CCP finance.
CCP is a business, and I realise that it has gone through some hard times financially.
We all want CCP to do well, and as much as people will screem “reeee lootboxes and skill injectors”, CCP does need to make a profit, else it won’t be long before we can’t play this wonderful game at all.
If this is the reason, I strongly urge those behind this change to reconsider, as this is a critical factor in the longevity of the game. It is already the hardest game in the world to get into.
And the biggest thing that makes it easier is having someone to help you at the start.
If people are no longer incentivised to do that, then I believe that is very bad for the future of EvE.
The recruitment system is important, one of the most important things in this game. Please don’t kill it like this.
What should be changed?
-Firstly, PLEASE respond. You have asked for feedback, and players have given it here (though granted much of it is just whining).
But there are some genuinely good posts in this thread and seeing some sort of response from CCP would be really good.
Right now the last thing you said “We don’t want to nerf the current system” is being seen as a flat-out lie by most of us and it would be good to have some discussion.
-Secondly. The rewards system should be adjusted. The 250 plex thing is a bummer, and I would love to see it go back to 500. But I understand that will not happen.
MOST IMPORTANTLY, PLEASE give some sort of reward to recruiters for those recruits that upgrade using PLEX.
This was the most important thing as it was what allowed recruiters to help get their recruits really into the game by helping them in their first month. Now, that is completely gone.
No ISK/item rewards are needed, literally just gametime like in the old system.
With rewards though, please understand that 98% of people do NOT care about skins or apparel, and only care about the isk value. The concord ships are exceedingly expensive, the majority of players will NEVER fly them, and those that do, will almost guaranteed not want to fly with a skin that has “RECRUITER” painted in big red letters on it.
Two of our most active recruiters are industry guys, and would have absolutely zero interest in any kind of triglavian apparel, concord ships, SKINs etc, other than their ISK value.
Which considering that the skins will be hardly desirable, will not be much at all.
This is a sandbox game, and not everyone wants a marshal. And even those that do, most of them cannot afford one. So having skins for it as a universal reward is poor compared to something like PLEX or omega-time that EVERYONE would want and need.
Anyway, thats my thoughts.
I really hope that CCP reconsiders at least some aspects of this, and for gods sake, PLEASE talk to us. I know many of the posts here are just people complaining and offering nothing constructive but please respond to those of us who are genuinely trying to give constructive feedback.
@CCP_Falcon