ROFL, I almost bought few skill injectors, to train missing Medium Drones V for my Maelstrom… Thx CCP for saving my money, I’ll find better use of it then…
Btw, dear “omega’s”. in any NORMAL game, yes, even in old, good Diablo II LoD, you CAN reset your skills… And, if we talking about EVE skills training time - it`s racism to not allow reset of skills, requiring month’s to train…
Just my 5 cents…
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Agree with much of what you said in post, although what you attribute to a ‘post-sale business decision’ I feel is quite adequately explained by ‘CCP is relatively incompetent at managing their player base and monetization options’.
When you arbitrarily change things and toss out a smoke-screen of a reason, you don’t get players paying to regain what you took away… you get players who no longer feel confident developing skills, ships and strategies. Alphas AND Omegas are hit by many of the nerfs CCP has made in the name of ‘limiting the hordes of Alpha bots’.
Note that their own published MER and the login statistics show that there is no particular increase in Alpha style botting activity, that the levels of mass production from Null haven’t changed overly much since Alphas were introduced, that player numbers are down and therefore if the current numbers include a lot of alpha bots, then they’ve lost a ton of real players.
The ‘sub for months’ model is old, ineffective, and unappealing. I am not going to pay you 3-6 months of sub when you regularly offer crap events, nerf decent content, waste resources on lame and weak ‘experiments’ that nobody was interested in, produce buggy code, don’t fix old code, and offer me relatively little in the way of interesting new content or even interesting new cash shop options.
What works now? Permanent account unlocks, account status upgrades (Alpha, Alpha Plus, Gamma, Omega, Omega Plus), interesting and meaningful small, short-term purchases that affect my gameplay ‘right now’. An interesting NPE that leads me to say “Hey this looks cool, and if I spend $5 on this pack they just popped up in front of me, I’m ready to go on the next stage in 5 minutes!”.
Get with the current decade, CCP. You don’t ‘force subs on Alphas’ by taking their options away. You don’t ‘address botting issues’ that have always been there by nerfing the FOTM ship/skills. You encourage small transactions by offering more and better service, and then you convert micro-buyers into subscribers by offering them a really good deal. And you convert subscribers into long-term subscribers by making long-term subscriptions more relevant and interesting than simply saying “If you stop subscribing we will take 75% of your game away”.
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That’s the point.
Correct.
Racism is something completly different, but thats another story. Also you can reset your skills. With so called skill extractors. They are available in any major tradehub in eve, and sometimes elsewhere too.
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If you are going to sneer at me, read my posts. The ones where I said I have an omega account. An omega account, by the way, for which I have always subscribed, and never once used ISK for plex.
Also, serious investment in alpha injectors is not “buying a few trinkets”. Even if it were, consumer law still entitles the purchaser to protection against being charged twice. Even payment of $1 entails being owed something.
@CCP_Falcon - would be nice for you chaps to engage in the discussion to which you said you were looking forward…
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How about, you pay for an alpha injector, you actually get to keep the skills for which you paid?
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Odd way to make your point. Racism definitely has nothing to do with it you blonde sinner, but I do get it.
First most games that allow a reset of skill often have a cost of some sort. Eve has that option as well in skill extractors/ injectors.
Second, this is Eve!!! Even with all the added options I already explained, Eve has always required a certain commitment above those normal games you mentioned.
Kinda sad to read that you want all games to be the same. In an over saturated market we need more games to break the mold. The company may risk a flop, but the consumer may get the gem of a game they been looking for. To much copy and paste already, shame on you! 
I’m not sneering at you. I’m pointing out simple common sense logic at a level most understand. Even as a fully paying customer, it’s extremely clear by the terms of use, that CCP may change any darn thing they care to at any time-- it’s not personal–it’s a rather simple agreement and familiar to just about every software and platform provider. More importantly it’s one every player in the game agreed to. Claims otherwise are about breaks of contracts or consumer laws are quite silly. Extract, start a new character to fit the new-meta or commit to an omega where no skill are wasted if one chooses to use them–that simple.
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I am afraid to skill this character any more because you might change your mind and I’ll loose my skill points.
Why should I skill Mechanics to the best level when you might just take those skill points and the time it took me away?
It’s what you’re doing with the medium drone, drone interfacing and large turret changes.
You give, then take. I can’t trust that my time invested in this game is worth while.
Are you going to compensate people for what you take away rather than make them upgrade to realize what you previously provided; compensate their game time too?
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- Reducing Medium Drone Operation from level V to level IV
- Reducing Drone Interfacing from level IV to level III
While I can commend the changes to the VNI. The alpha changes doesn’t just hit botters and VNI ratters, it’s also going to hurt pilots trying to do abyssal content. The Worm and Gila are the defacto ‘best’ ships for running the abyss and most of their damage comes from drones.
DPS = time in the abyss, and I worry that this change makes abyssals so tight on time that alphas get blocked off from some of the freshest/most engaging content the game has to offer.
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Exactly what happened with me
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Same here… My past week on interface 4 all wasted
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If you’re going to change the nature of the VNI and give it different roles and bonuses, I suggest you change the name and ship model also. Having something called a Vexor Navy Issue in the middle of the drone boat progression implies that it’s the next step in the drone boat sequence.
This doesn’t make sense when you have things like the Exequror (T1 Logi Cruiser) and Exequror Navy Issue (Combat cruiser) and the Augoror (T1 Logi Cruiser) and the Augoror Navy Issue (Combat cruiser).
Well this is the most staggering rollback of Alpha skills to date. You already took away the level 4 missions and now any ship, not just the Navy Vexor, that relies heavily on a flight of drones for it’s damage output is taking a significant nerf. Five medium drones dropping to four is manageable this I will concede but dropping a hard cap of lvl 3 on the drone interfacing skill down from lvl 4 means that every drone boat in the game currently usable by Alphas is going to take a 10 % drone damage nerf.
So many of my favorite ships I love to fly and spent the past year grinding out ISK to buy and fit: Tristan, Algos, Myrmidon, Sunesis, Gnosis, Praxis Stabber, Vexor, Navy Caracal, Navy Osprey are all being weakened. Heck even my sad little two drone Velator will be nerfed with loss of drone damage. And if that was not bad enough T2 medium drones oh yeah we’re just going just take those away completely. Gotta fight those dastardly bots ya know. But hey here’s an e-mail from our marketing department. Don’t forget to subscribe and buy more Plex. Really ?
Do you honestly believe that after such a blatant low blow scheme I’m going to be motivated to give you more money ? You brilliantly built up a F2P population over the past year and a half and had a choice as to what to do with them. One would think in such a competitive market Pearl Abyss / CCP would be grateful that such a large number of new players was paying attention to their decade and a half year old game. Possibly treat them with some respect and incentivize them to subscribe with perks and bonuses or just go ahead and launch an arrow to the knee and then charge them a fee to pull it out. Clearly you have made your choice and I have made mine. With so many gaming options available to choose from my wallet is now closed to New Eden.
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I’m skilling for a Cynabal. This ship can hold 5 medium drones, which is expected. I’ve read that there’s no sense in skilling these now to level 5 because you’re going to be taking them away, without any compensation for my time or lost skills; unless I upgrade (fat chance now).
So… I see I can skill this Medium Projectile Turret to the best level; level 5. It’s a 29 day wait for that.
What if you decide to take that away too?.. because some bot somewhere in another land far far away is botting and I get the shaft while they use other bots? (You are hurting your alphas for bots sake? Who thought of this?)
Anyhoo… I’m concerned that I will loose 29 days AND the skills AND my ship focus.
What’s to stop you from taking EVERYTHING and saying, “You now have to become an Omega person after 60 days?”
Nothing.
No compensation.
Lost time and effort.
Lost skills.
Worthless ship.
It’s a wishy-washy thing you’re doing… and no one is going to trust their time in your game now because you change; whenever you want, for whatever reason.
Upgrade? What do YOU think.
Oh… I’m getting a response from my Ticket… just a sec; a form letter. Nice touch.
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First I want you to look at my character. I put hours into that face, trying to make it look like me as much as possible. Ok… so what, right?
Then I studied your ships. Spent quite some time looking over everything. Involved game. I decided on…
The Oracle.
I love this ship!
I spent a lot of time skilling it with it’s beautiful LARGE TURRETS.
But wait, you’re taking my Turret Power down a notch? from 4 to 3? WHAT!!!
You just killed the only DPS my ship relies on. Nice going.
Be sure to upgrade and buy more skill points with something called Plex? You just TOOK AWAY my plex bought ship with your changes and you want me to upgrade to get it back?
Wow. I learned a lot about this game.
Thank’s, but no thanks. You just wasted a lot of my time without anything in return.
And you’re taking away my large turret skilling to level 3 for what again? Bots? How do BOTS affect my Large Turret Skills on my Oracle? Are bots coming in and overtaking the Oracle’s? Using them to do stuff?
This game is a waste. No sense in skilling anything else. You’ll just take that away too.
So you chided me to join up, become an alpha, to completely destroy my ship and make it nothing but seal bate for larger “Omega” players. I won’t be din din for anyone… you fooled me once. Not again.
Outta here.
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I just got a reply from the corporation. It’s a canned response.
I see where this is heading. I probably just wasted my time on replying.
I see I can still skill my turrets… you’re allowing people to skill their large turrets right now. Shouldn’t you warn them that it’s a waste of time, unless they plan on upgrading?
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Oh this is rich, I just got a “discobot” welcome. They ruined my ship because of bots in another country, and use a bot to say “hi” to me when I’m ranting about ruining my ship.
Gotta love the irony.
LEAVE THIS GAME ALPHA’s… you’re only here so more experienced players can eat your disabled ship alive. They needed more fish bait in the big black sea.
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