Devblog: Skills On Demand - Changes Coming To The Skill System!

Ok. I can see the merits of this; but I think it will cause issues to the game and the economy, And destroy the trading business

Why not do this:

  • Only make this applicable to skills with a training multiple of less than 5. After that you need to go to the market; the old fashion way.
  • Remove all skill books from NPC hubs of less than level 5.
  • Buy back all of these low end skill books back.

The goal is to make an annoying part of the early game easier - done.

Ramman

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You forget this is one more ā€œminor changeā€ making the game simpler (dumber) and most likely not the last one. This slippery slope might just end up Eve becoming a bad copy of wow.

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Didn’t happen for the interceptors that got nerfed, won’t ( and shouldn’t ) for skill books either ( watch out if CCP justifies doing a buyback for books and then dodges questions on why they did not do one for interceptors ) though the books cost should have more to its calculation than just the resultant skill, i.e. a projectile weapons book in Ammar space should be more expensive from an NPC than what it is in Minmatar space NPC shops. This kind of differentiation in NPC price is about scarcity and convenience, two things that drive trade in the first place.

That’s only assuming it manipulates upwards. Downwards is also possible.

Lots of things to say about all this but mainly: if the point of it is to get new player less confused, then just forget it. The ability to get skills from 2 different sources is in fact doing the complete opposite. Even with a wonderful UI design, those players will probably expect to be able to get all skills from their character sheet. Beside, I never felt like the acquisition of skills was a major difficulty among newbies.

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Instead of revamping it, why not just make the changes to the NPE to actually teach new pilots how to use the skill system?

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I’m guessing Goons didn’t like travelling for their rorqual skill books?

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Markup for purchase on sheet should be a lot, more than 50% imo. It also takes some player control away, less player interaction even if it is through people selling marked up skillbooks etc.

What I do like is looking at skill prices in general, carrier is way too low I think, should be higher for what you can do with it, even if that would not stop the cap proliferation. Titan book is at a reasonable cost, maybe a little too low.

Hmm…

Capital Ship Skillbook, needed for all capital ships, 400 million.

Dreadnaught skill book. 100 million. Dreadnaught, about 1 billion, books are about half the cost of the hull.

Carrier skill book. 500 million. Carrier costs about 1 billion, books are almost as much as the hull.

Rorqual. Capital Industrial Skill Book, 500 Million. Rorqual ( without drones ) costs almost as much in books as the hull.

Titan. Used to cost almost a hundred billion, now available for about 60-70 and standard issue in Delve. 4 Billion for skill book, nowhere near even 10% of hull cost.

Sufficient data to base the allegation on?

Worse is to examine the cost relative to PLEX.

2009 PLEX prices, $15 for ~800 Million ISK?

2019 PLEX prices, $15 now ~1800 million ISK?

Clearly books, ( along with many other things ) have halved in real $ value the past 10 years.

Maybe instead of fiddling around with the cost of skill books, CCP development efforts could be better directed to the ā€œunsustainableā€ problem that is super ratting ?

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Currently, three of the top four most frequent posters in this thread are Goons defending this change. That alone tells you all you need to know.

(inb4 grr Gons)

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Means i don’t have to waste time going to trade hub to get these skills, as a veteran i have the ISK to cover any markup it just makes life easier :stuck_out_tongue:

The carrier skill is also used on supers, so in that respect its a tiny fraction of the value of a super hull making the skill quite fairly priced, you just get to fly normal carriers as an added bonus :stuck_out_tongue:

Yes because the market guys are clearly the best guys to deal with something on a system they aren’t working on :stuck_out_tongue:

Also, i’m not really seeing it as a ā€œproblemā€, no matter what you do you won’t prevent them from ratting and even if you do they will just find the next best thing for ratting and still end up making as much, you’re not going to win that battle :stuck_out_tongue:

I’ve mentioned it above too.

It’s really interesting to see how goons, who are supposedly not benefitting from this, are defending this the most. Goons, who harbor most casuals and mainstreamers, and this change fits those types exactly.

Yet, they’re supposedly not benefitting from it. Sometimes I wonder if CCP is just too blind to see that listening to a crowd (or their representatives), without actually considering the average personality of the people in that crowd, is a bad thing.

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So we click on the skill, we buy it, no need to move… well ok except that null players wont have to risk anything anymore to go to empire buy the damn skill… it was a normal thing to do, I Don’t really see the point of changing this, even new players could understand that a university station is made to find skills and that not all are available there. and for racial skills, it made sense that it was in the related empires and not everywhere.

But above that my main question is what about the skillbooks we have in hangar that day of the change ? will they be refunded at cost ? I’m sure we all have skills we didn’t use for xyz reasons in our hangars.

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There was no strategy for learning skills. If you intended to play Eve for more than a year, the correct choice was always to train them to V. (maybe a bit longer than a year for IV to V but the principle of the statement holds).
Anything else was a bad choice and left you behind in SP.

That sort of choice you put forward is a false choice because one option is always better, which means it’s not a real choice at all.

Increasing ā€œconvenienceā€ for something that worked just fine for a decade and a half, meanwhile everyone in space is flying a cloaker and it is impossible to get a fight without someone lighting a cyno. At least your priorities are set right.

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You have an excellent point. Make a new skill book, ā€œSuper Carriersā€. Costs 500 million. Carriers skill book gets set to 100 million, just like a dreadnaught.

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So anyone with carriers to 3 gets a free 500 mil so book and loads of free sp right? Sounds fair.

Bosonshaklaka!!!