Why not just make noobs invulnerable for 30 days instead?
4 Likes
This is not a valid argument as to why UBI would not have tremendous benefits in EVE. The context of UBI in EVE and the context of UBI in RL aren’t even remotely comparable outside of possible macroeconomic impacts where EVE UBI has negligible impact in contrast to RL UBI due to ISK/assets being burned in EVE (ie. not transferred to or recovered by other players) whereas they generally do not IRL.
Not necessarily. The 10m/day pitched by OP is just an example figure. The actual amount need not be that high. I’ve personally suggested 1m/day would be a more reasonable figure.
I strongly encourage @Destiny_Corrupted to tone down the example figure of 10m/day UBI… a lot of players are being too distracted by what most (including myself) consider to be an absurdly high figure to focus on the benefits of UBI in general once the figure has been calibrated to an appropriate level. I’ve suggested 1m/day, but OP steers the conversation and is responsible for pitching a new figure (and possibly updating opening post for new participants to not be distracted by the 10m/day) if she chooses to do so.
Thanks. I’m getting mixed feedback. Might adjust the lighting, but I don’t think that’s going to win any additional likes 
This is probably irrelevant. In real life, there is a concern about bridging the gap between the rich and the poor, but in EVE the concern isn’t so much about the wealth gap as it is making sure the poor and ignorant have goods readily available to them via market prices. Market prices are well within reach of those running low-level PVE, so in this context what UBI accomplishes is, among other things:
- minimizing hesitation of losing what little is held
- eliminating the perceived need to grind ISK via inefficient means (eg. using Corvette, HS Venture mining, etc)
- mitigating against rage quitting if a player invests most/all of their net worth into a single ship and loses it by providing them with a means to procure a new ship (eg. frigate) by which to snowball their wealth upward. I mean, some players ragequit when they lose their Venture as it is, but if they get get a Venture a day (or a L1 mission running frigate for that matter) then retention is increased tremendously.
None of this concerns contention or a wealth gap between rich and poor. All that matters is that the price of EVE’s analog of milk, bread, and eggs are within the reach of those running low level PVE (eg. L1 missions) in T1-fitted frigates. These goods have always been readily accessible - that is what matters, and UBI makes them even moreso accessible without having a significant impact on the market.
No, he isn’t. UBI has objectives, and among them are to improve retention of players who aren’t as ‘smart and tough’ as you guys and to increase the fun factor by eliminating the perceived need to grind ISK via inefficient means until they learn better means to make ISK while also enjoying the game. UBI isn’t about you, him, OP, me, or any one of us that have made it through successfully - UBI is targetted at those who are struggling, not having fun, and are on the verge of dropping out.
Save your survival bias and Darwinistic attitude for when they’re no longer toddlers. Then you can chew them up and spit them out. All you want. And bring Aiko with you.
This is true, but also irrelevant when the objectives are considered AND when UBI is calibrated to be sufficiently high enough to accomplish the objectives but low enough so as to not have any significant macroeconomic effects.
UBI might not be merited if Project Discovery were part of the starter tutorial and had a career agent (even if it wasn’t a mission sequence but simply launched the PD tutorial and indicated how to access PD in the menu) and Corvettes got buffed, but even if both of those things happened I could still see 1m/day being worth consideration.
Money = more ships by which to lose more
1m/day = 1 frigate a day = 1 loss a day. It’s also 1 hour of playtime that is doing PVE (or even PVP) instead of HS Venture mining.
With loss comes learning, experience, and desensitization to future loss.
Loss is opportunity, but the opportunity does not exist without the money by which to afford such a loss.
Indeed.
Sometimes it is appropriate to toss people directly into the middle of the ocean into shark breeding grounds. This isn’t one of those times. Why not? Because it unnecessarily hurts player retention AND it makes the game less fun than it could be for those who stick around in the early stages of the game. Without having any measurable affect on the rest of us, a very minute UBI could increase retention and convert that one hour of HS Venture mining to recoup a loss into one hour of actual playtime and avoid that ragequit.
You’re a good forum regular, but this point has been addressed comprehensively more than once. Did you read the thread? I’m seriously asking, not trying to take a swipe at you or anything.
This has also been brought up numerous times; the issue here is the absence of PD in both the starter tutorial and as a career agent. But there are still merits to UBI (in amounts an order of magnitude lower than OP pitched) even of PD was included there and even if Corvettes got buffed. Both of these things should happen whether or not UBI becomes a thing.
This isn’t exactly applicable to the conversation. This is a conscientious decision to go into the deep end, whereas we’re talking about newbies who don’t know how to recoup losses if they lose what little they have even in the safest regions of space due to ignorance. And of course not all newbies are as smart and tough as those that made it as far as we have, but that doesn’t mean that their retention doesn’t matter or that they wouldn’t become capable and formidable EVE players down the line. One of the objectives here is to alleviate some concerns of losing all their ships (esp. low-level PVE frigates) so they can learn the game enough to learn how to make a profit.
A man still needs to eat while he is still learning how to fish.
If UBI is stupid high then this would be potentially true and it would also hurt the market. I very much disagree with OP’s 10m/day suggestion. But consider a lower UBI closer to 1m/day. That’s a T1-fitted T1 frigate for L1 missions / low level combat sites a day to recoup a loss. This allows players to snowball wealth even if they lost everything without having to start off in a Corvette or do HS Venture mining.
2 Likes
It’s basically just blue-skying an idea to see how it might affect the game and the way some groups of players approach it.
However I think your idea here of making it limited in some way would be a good wrinkle to throw in the mix. Either by putting a limit on the total amount earned that way, or by limiting the number of tasks that offer such extra rewards (if there was a task tree connected to extra earnings for instance), or simply by saying “once your total wealth estimate reaches 3 billion ISK you no longer receive extra rewards” or something.
That would allow the system to help people past certain growth stages in the game, without needing to alter the ISK flow for all characters.
2 Likes
What would stop non new players taking the piss and just banking it?
To be honest, after reading the opening post and a few dozen responses I posted that so some points may have been addressed already in the rest of this thread, but I can still share my opinion right? 
I agree that it would be nice for new players to have a safety net when they lose all their ships, but I would still prefer an active way for the newbies to earn the replacement ship, rather than telling them to passively wait a day to get the money to rebuy their ship.
The base income would encourage new players to log off for the day when they run out of ISK, where if the game gives the newbies some pointers to easy ISK instead (such as PD), they wont be encouraged to log off.
1 Like
Praying to the Eggplant Goddess that OP heeds my advance and lowers the mark from 10m/day to 1m/day
I don’t think most vets would fuss over 365m a year. Virtually no player wouldn’t wait out accruing ISK at that rate to ‘bling out’ their ship anyway… “■■■■ yeah in 3 days I can buy a T2 AB for my Caracal” said no one ever
Probably not. Thats what I liked best about events in the past, before autoapply and stuff.
My Leopard and Gecko collections have always been a source of leverage.
no they do not…
Anewbie is not a carebear…
A carebear is someone trying to make/force the/a game to be different than what it is…cause thing are too hard and everything needs to be free or player feels they need to be God Stomping everything with 1 shot…and when they cant do that then they whine on the forums or or try to explain an idea on how in this case CCP should change things so they can play an MMO without being an MMO…
And now i did not call Destiny a carebear, but i did mention pandering to carebearism with this “save the children” crap. Want to save the children, teach them how to play correctly then, just like after 1 millionth time you save/tell a child something is hot, but they dont understand until that 1 time you are not paying close enough attention and then…well ■■■■ that kid knows what HOT DONT TOUCH means now.
1 Like
Ten million ISK per day is eight fitted ganking thrashers per day.
Back in the days I’ve been single-handedly driving up the market prices for thrashers in Hek easily …
… and I’ve done that a few times actually …
… until I’ve switched to private contractors building them for me.
Ten million ISK per day, per person, is completely nuts.
Waiting to see if OP changes mark now and retroactively 
That’s a crybear, not a carebear.
And I didn’t say that newbies are carebears, I said they start off as carebears. Granted, I’ve seen some newbies transition away from carebearism within their first week. That is neither good nor bad, just different.
1 Like
Being able to log off and wait is actually a good thing. Sometimes you just don’t want to play, and if the game tells you that the only way you can recover is via some form of grind, it could actually damage new players’ perception of it. “Fine, whatever, I’ll do an hour of that stupid PD” could quickly lead to a player browsing Steam for new games to play, but being able to log off and come back when they’re refreshed, without having to come back to a grind, might get players much more excited for actually playing this dumb MMO.
You, as a veteran, should be very familiar with how burn-out feels, and understand how it can be especially damaging for new players who aren’t yet committed to the game to the extent that you are. The space-Republican “bootstrap” stuff can make sense when it’s a necessity of life, but here, a person can simply opt out of the experience without starving to death.
I don’t believe it should be that low. While the 10M figure is just an example, the true figure would have to be closer to it, than to 1M, because 1M is simply too low. A player outgrows 1M ISK by the time they’ve been playing for a few days.
The purpose of this idea isn’t to keep new players in frigates. New player psychology steers them to strive for bigger ships, which they find more interesting. A universal income of 10M (or close) per day wouldn’t start putting rookies into carriers, but it would allow them to ship up to cruisers instantly, or to battlecruisers within a day or two or three of saving.
Why would you want to keep rookies in frigates? Don’t you remember how boring and frustrating it was to get anything done, PvE-wise, in them? Frigates are great for PvP because of discrete tackling roles and speed/survival synergies, but that only applies to a very small percentage of new players. Go run some level 1 missions in a Rifter and tell me how much fun you’re having.
And frigates are trivial to replace, even for someone who’s only been playing for two hours. We’re talking a sum of half a million ISK. No one loses so much of their wealth in any given event that they don’t have enough cash or assets left to convert into a few frigates.
No, a universal income has to be big enough to fit into the mid-sized hull economy, or there’s no point in having it. The frigate thing can be accomplished just by giving players some extra cash during the initial 15 days of login rewards, because by the time that’s over, they’ll never have a problem replacing a frigate again.
If you want to make frigates more accessible than they are now, just give them a default 100% insurance payout.
1 Like
A player outgrows 1M, yes, but the economy does not, and this is what matters. The UBI needs to be on the order of the cost a T1-fitted T1 frigate, which is remained relatively bounded over the course of many years (exempting major eco-patches, in which the market stablizes shortly thereafter and the market once again remains bounded).
True, but the UBI shouldn’t be intended to give them the bigger ships, but rather to empower them to procure them by enabling access to ships better than Corvettes with which to snowball up toward those bigger ships. A T1-fitted T1 frig can solo L2 missions (and in some cases even L3 missions), and from there it’s not difficult to get a Cruiser, etc. You can go from frigate to battleship in a few hours depending on the PVE you engage (missions, abyssal, exploration, etc), but at least players would have earned it. (Exploration is particularly nice because players can net more than 100m in their first day as Alpha.) What UBI accomplishes here is eliminating the perceived tediousness of grinding toward that starting point or the perceived helplessness from having nothing once existing ships have been lost.
This is where resistance will be encountered
- This will be seen as pandering to the crybears (though this is not your specific intent as OP)
- This will be seen as leading to economic inflation (10m/day is very much capable of that relative to the price of T1 goods)
- This will be seen as a change that could possibly dissuade players from “learning how to fish” or might encourage players to earn ISK via camping offline instead of playing the game to recoup losses
- etc
A smaller order of magnitude lets them build upward from scratch whereas the mark you’ve stated is establishes a platform of both loss and entitlement. Even 5m/day is too much. 2.5m/day is probably the highest that is not unreasonable.
Here is where I think your newfound altruism may benefit from some more firsthand interactions with these folks. I have worked with hundreds of newbies, and let me tell you that the perceived loss of frigates specifically can be a huge deal (until they learn the game better), sometimes to the point of ragequitting, but more frequently to the point of self-admittedly unfun but perceptively safe grinding. This includes ragequitting when Ventures are destroyed to suicide gankers who feel that the griefing is worth the loss of a Catalyst fit worth 5x+ as much - in that case it isn’t just the loss of the ship that is traumatizing, but HOW it was lost that pushes them over the edge. I wouldn’t say it’s because they think suicide ganking was a bad thing specifically so much as that the one and only activity they thought was a safe haven for earning ISK without risk was taken away from them in their mind (eg. they don’t know about Project Discovery, they won’t consider using Corvettes as worthwhile for anything, etc).
Point is, these frigates are of greater value in terms of empowerment than you may appreciate in terms of snowballing upward (ie. T1-fitted T1 frig to BS in a few hours), but also their perceived loss is far more devastating than you may be aware of in terms of not having ready means of recouping that loss outside of bullshittery like HS mining in Corvettes and Ventures.
1 Like
I disagree with that.
To be clear I disagree with that. I realize that others might not. But once again, I’m a fighter, and my perspective is different than average. I don’t feel it’s right to baseline new player ability on a hull size that’s almost exclusively the domain of aggressive PvP.
According to my napkin calculations, this would only lead to about a 1.5%-ish increase in currency inflation. It’s negligible, and can very easily be countered with ISK sinks elsewhere, such as by raising market taxes and fees, if necessary. But I don’t think it is.
Then stop ingraining a mentality of “work for money” into new players when you teach them. I don’t do that; I tell anyone I teach that their ships and items are tools to be used, that will often break and be replaced, and my noobs mostly turned out fine.
The rage-quitters are going to rage-quit regardless of what you tell them. It’s a personality flaw that you won’t fix, in EVE, or anywhere else. Don’t try to save those people.
1 Like
I don’t tell anyone to work for money. In fact, one of the very first things I tell all newbs very explicitly pretty much within the first 60 seconds of working with them is that
There are numerous (first-day) newbie-friendly activities that are simultaneously fun, profitable, and safe, moreso than HS mining.
I encourage newbies to make mistakes and get blown up. I encourage them to stop being so anal retentive about their losses. Nothing you’ve said is mutually exclusive with what I’ve said. Just because we disagree on the amount of UBI doesn’t mean that our approach to training newbs is different. My ex-newbs are not just fine (and I don’t give handouts) and now they’re very knowledgeable, experienced, and wealthy (earned on their own, not being paid by working for me).
You and/or others might find it ironic that I say “I don’t tell anyone to work for money” when I run a business that pays players to run missions, but I’ve always presented my business as an opportunity for newbies to learn the basics and develop reflexes (both of which missions are fantastic for) and getting paid to do it (if you’re going to run missions anyway, might as well get paid to run them). I also tell newbies that our business should be viewed as a means to an end, that once they feel comfortable and have mastered the basics then they can use the (not inconsiderable) wealth they’ve accrued from working for us and move onto riskier but funner and more profitable endeavors. And most of them choose to move on, and they do so successfully!
I categorically disagree with you here. Not all rage-quitters are crybears where it would be in the mutual of interest for them and the rest of the EVE community if they just left. Crybears fuss over entitlements and want to change EVE into Not-EVE (eg. “get rid of suicide ganking”), etc, and not all rage quitters fall into this demographic. They may quit simply out of frustration. Games should be challenging, yes, but not frustrating in the sense that you are both ignorant and there is no obvious means by which to improve yourself or get smarter. (Even challenging games are supposed to be fun.)
If you provide these would-be ragequitters with a fresh perspective that challenges the falsehoods that have been ingrained in their mind so they give EVE a second chance, they’ll emerge as yet another smart and competent capsuleer that we want to have as part of EVE’s community either alongside you or as a worthy opponent (or simply as a contributing member of the economy). I have saved the vast majority of the would-be ragequitters I’ve worked with and they turned out great, players that you WANT to be a part of EVE. And to be clear, I make no attempt to save those I’ve identified as crybears not necessarily in the context of EVE, but those which exhibit lack of substance or where profound negativity/conscientious stupidity is as an innate part of their personality, character, value system, world view, or life philosophy.
1 Like
I think you might be looking at your history through rose-tinted glasses. A small percentage of “frustrated” players fall into this category, but definitely not the majority.
I’m not inclined to agree because my interactions span several hundreds over the years, but I will say this much: regardless of the actual % (high or low, whatever), it would be both unfair and unproductive to suggest that the vast majority of players who ragequit aren’t worth making an effort to retain. I very much think that we should make an effort to preempt them on the way out, evaluate if they are worth retaining, and make a best effort in doing so. For me my evaluation is along the lines of “are you a shitty person IRL?” moreso than “would you be smart and competent in EVE?”, but that’s just me. Point is, I think we should aim for some amount of retention rather than zero amount of retention of would-be ragequitters.
Player-to-player retention can be just as important, if not moreso, than mechanics-based retention in an MMO.
2 Likes
It doesn’t have anything to do with a “shitty IRL personality.” Many people are completely ordinary, normal people, but losses and setbacks frustrate them to such an extent that they’re not compatible with the game. You’re not going to magically change those people through a few weeks of EVE training to drop behaviors and personality traits they’ve developed over a lifetime.
1 Like