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

Not all dogs are german shepherds.

–Gadget likes dogs

Making this game like every other MMO is the problem. Lets face it, eve as a “videogame” sucks ass. Warp here, warp there, press f1 to shoot the little triangles, or f1 to shoot the little rocks and thats basically it. Just about every other MMO out there does pve better then eve. What made eve great and unique, was that the fun didn’t come from the “game” itself but from the players, the endless ways the players interacted with each other as they sought to achieve their own goals. Simply put, the meta game is what drove eve. To have a meta game, players have to be able to interact and you have to have emergent content. As soon as CCP started trying to make eve more like other games, tamping down on the way players interact, then eve loses its edge because eve as simply cant compete with other games on pve. And guess what, when eve started trying to be like other MMOs - softer and kinder (always with the children in mind), concurrent users fell off a cliff. After all these changes to make the game softer all they have managed to do is stabilize the game at dismal levels - there have been no new players and space is more empty then it has ever been in my ten years of playing. So yea - other games made things easier for their new players - if I wanted to be playing those other games I would be. Eve is a niche game, People are here because eve is not other games. As soon as it becomes like the other games, people will bleed away.

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I even agree with the changes in this dev blog… Id still like to see what they constitute as core skills. and the EXAMPLE of the battlecruiser, does not mean a battlecruiser is a core skill. im thinking along the lines like the magic 14.

i have to say this is not a bad idear to implement this in the game for aswell odler as younger players
i just wodner when the odl bugs are going to be fixed instead of bringing new stuff into the game

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Finally the real reason for these changes :ok_hand:

“New players” they said… :rofl:

New players exist in both null and WH space, I’ll admit they might be rare in WH but there are tons of new players heading to null sec all the time

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My .02, take it or leave it…

If you implement these changes, skillbooks should only be able to be remotely purchased/injected IF the toon is located in HS or LS (where the Empire/NPC Academies are also located).

Leave Null and Wormhole space exactly as it is. If you consider the lore of EVE; why, or how would the Empire Academies be able to offer such a service to capsuleers where they have literally no jurisdiction or presence whatsoever?

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I agree that this is what makes EVE great. But you can’t sit there with a straight face and tell me that skill book trading was a critical part of the metagame.

Sometimes the reason everybody else does it this way is because it makes sense to do it this way. EVE doesn’t have to be the emo kid with the neck tattoo, drinking a PBR and talking about his vinyl record collection just to be different. He can have an iPhone like everybody else and still not lose his street cred with the other goth kids.

I don’t know that this kind of casual game-play is a bad thing, I think it falls into the category of the old probe system vs the new one. Yes we want Eve to be a harsh and unforgiving world, but we don’t want to put in arbitrary and obtuse hoops to jump through, especially for new players.

Flying to highsec for a skill and potentially losing an interceptor or a frigate or something is hardly the kind of meaningful player experience that CCP wants to promote. It’s just a time sink with an RNG roll for ‘gatecamp’.

CCP should be making sure that whatever things people have to do in game, especially for new players, it excites them. They have 1000 games on their desktop and you want them to choose Eve. If they know their next task in game is flying X jumps to pick up Minmatar Cruiser and then fly back, are they excited? Are they going to choose that over ESO or whatever?

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Sometimes for the wrong reason, but yeah there are a number of new pilots that happen to find themselves in null.

Especially the recruitment channel, newbie says they are looking for a hisec corp, and a WH or null corp convinces said player to join their corp.

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You could do a lot in those 30 minutes, and find LOTS of action. You could try Project Discovery and make some ISK, serious isk if you can put forth the time. Use your imagination “new bro”

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so you are gonna do project discovery while flying to get that book that you forgot?

I don’t have to, i’ve got them all. I was speaking to the “new bro”

you mis understand what we were saying. You are saying do something in that 30 min of time… that 30 min of time is spent chasing books… so as a “new bro” are you going to try to do project discovery, or use your imagination, while you are flying to get a skill book?
When you could just buy it at the station train it and go back out and do what you were doing, instead of stopping and going to get that book.

there is another thing i dont like about that new system. it takes another opportunity to actually interact with other people. if you are in null or wh as a newbro you probably ask in your corp ‘hey, if you guys go to highsec, could you fetch me some skillbooks i need?’

soon, they will just use what they need and continue boring solo play like ratting

also, i do not think that the possibility of losing an interceptor (newbros fly them? old players lose them?) is a bad thing. the journey to get your skillbook 30 jumps out and coming back alive will spice up your space life, generating some adrenalin when you encounter that game camp.

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I’ve create a proposal in feature and idea to have at least the possibility to respect one attribut each 6 month or less.

But yeah that’s a big blocking point actually 12 month is to much

Attributes should just be removed. CCP even acknowledged this in the past. But were too afraid of lp market impact to do so as it would impact attribute implants.

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Yeah, removing attributes means reworking the implant sets. What they require, what bonuses they give, and what ISK value they have with just those bonuses.

These changes are likely to ruin my income in the game which comes primarily from skillbook trading, and will almost definitely result in my second account being unsubbed.

Even with a markup, the vast majority of people will choose convenience over price. The very people likely to choose convenience are those that currently buy from skillbook sellers at a mark up, so instead of going to their local hub, they wont even move at all. So whether or not there is a “margin” available, the customer base will be gone.

Things that would be useful to know:

  • When will the changes be applied?
  • What will be the new pricing of skills?
  • For those that have purchased skillbooks at a price today, will the difference be refunded if CCP reduce the cost of these?
  • What about skills only currently seeded in faction specific areas of space, are they going to become available globally?

What are considered “core skills”? The main reason of this is supposedly to help the newbie, however if books such as dreadnought, titan etc are available instantly I cant see how this eases the new player experience.

Aside from the impact on my own in game income, the current system (although not the most fun) does provoke people to actually undock and interact as they ask how skills can be obtained

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