What exactly is being changed?
I don’t think they’re removing skills or passive training. How I think it’s going to work is that instead of training specific skills, we will accumulate unalocated SP to later allocate wherever we want. That being said, it does look like they are completely removing attributes. Presumably, everyone will now train at the maximum rate possible (not counting learning implants and boosters).
So, to be clear, I believe that the leveling system will remain mostly intact. We’re keeping passive training, the ability to train any skill, and slow progression.
I know it’s a wall of text, but I actually have constructive feedback… and won’t be asking for any devs to resign. 
Why I Liked Attributes
Now, as for feedback on this…
I personally advocated to keep the attribute system. It is complex, but you can chose how much effort and planning you put into it, with the rewards scaling accordingly. This resulted in me getting a skill point advantage over other players because I was willing to put in more thought and effort into it than the average player would. And, quite honestly, I like doing stuff like this. It was a similar experience to theory crafting -which is not unlike solving a puzzle. So, it was fun to figure out, and I was rewarded with faster training and an advantage over my peers.
The Case for Removing Attributes
Some people argued for getting rid of attributes because it was needlessly complex, and because getting rid of it would prevent newbros from fubaring their characters. I proposed giving newbros the ability to reset their attributes back to the default remap, but it looks like that didn’t go anywhere. Regardless, CCP said that they wanted to lower the learning curve for newbros -which this does. Unfortunately, it also lowers the skill ceiling, which was something that CCP said they wanted to preserve. So, as is often the case, it is a design decision with tradeoffs. I won’t say that it’s bad, or that CCP shouldn’t do it… only that I personally don’t like it.
What will the universal training rate be?
Of course, now I’m wondering what the training rate will be. It was proposed that everyone train skills at the maximum rate, but I don’t think we’ve gotten confirmation on that yet. What I can say, however, is that if CCP doesn’t give everyone the maximum training rate, it’s going to upset the players whose training rates end up suffering as a result.
Newbro Training Bonus
I’m not married to any hard numbers, but I don’t think it’s a terrible idea to give newbros a training rate bonus.
- It helps them play catch up with older players
- It helps offset newbro perceptions that they are forever behind the vets
- It will help to offset how painfully slow progression feels when starting out and you can’t fly anything
- It will induce FOMO and incentivize them to go omega and take advantage of the double bonus while they can
Unallocated SP and the Consequences for Newbros
Hording unallocated SP makes it far easier to adapt to changes, and I have long been advocating that players save unallocated SP so that they can more easily pivot to chase new strats and opportunities when the need/opportunity arises. It’s a good strat for maximizing wallet size, minimizing frustration at nerfs, and for flying new toys as soon as they come out… however, I adamantly assert that changing completely to unallocated SP will have consequences for many gamers -especially newbros.
Now, I have no doubt that this will be a controversial take. After all, many a youtube commentator has criticized RPG’s for forcing players to make a ton decisions (that they don’t fully understand and that can have long lasting consequences) at character creation. And Eve does the same thing, right? New players don’t know what they should train; so why should we be forcing them to make choices that they might regret later?
Well, I know for a fact that many players regret training certain things because they found they didn’t like the ship, play style, or activity associated with it. However, this isn’t going to change that. They will still need to allocate the points and try it out before they can decide whether they like it or not. So, a better way to deal with this (assuming you don’t microtransaction players to death), would be through expert systems. For example, if CCP seeded the in-game market with expert systems, it would allow players to try out different roles/ships before committing.
Moreover, this change will have other consequences. The current system may seem stupid on the surface, but this “stupidity” has some advantageous side effects:
- It encourages players to think about their goals in game where players have to make their own goals
- It encourages players to research ships and activities in a game with a ton of toys and activities
- It increases social interaction in an MMO by encouraging players to ask vets what they should train
- It forces players to make a choice, which avoids the problem of analysis paralysis.
- It forces players to make a choice, which avoids many players’ tendency to save Skill Points and limited use items and spells for when “they absolutely need it.”
Yeah, and for those that aren’t aware, a lot of players (myself included) feel compelled to save limited resources for when they need it… and then frequently never use it. Of course, I’m sure that some players will find a good balance between spending SP on cool stuff and saving some for a rainy day, but this change will incentivize a certain type of player to willingly lock themselves out of toys and activities because they want to save their SP for when they “need it”.
Anyway, I still haven’t watched all the fanfest stuff, so I don’t know if CCP has discussed their reasoning for the change. However, I think there will be negative consequences, and that there are probably better ways to solve the problems caused by the way the system works now.
And no, I’m not trying to use newbros as a shield here. In fact, quite the opposite. I love unallocated SP, because it allows me to rapidly pivot to chase new strats and opportunities. And I will not only save unallocated SP, but have also done things like intentionally trained mining skills so that I could get the refunded SP when they were changed. So, I am actually arguing against my own interests here.
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