To fix the magic 14 I propose reducing their training time substantially. I propose that training the magic 14 should take 1/10th the time it does now. For example: the skill CPU Management would have its training time multiplier reduced from 1.0x to 0.1x.
Background: The ‘magic 14’ are a set of 14 support skills that affect ALL ships, from a shuttle to a Titan.
Here’s why the magic 14 are bad:
1/Perceived higher barrier of entry. Training theses skills often get you 25% better stats or more. Players are forced to train them to 5 to be competitive.
2/Most ships are fit with level 5 fitting skills in mind. Handing a new player a fitted ship that he/she cannot fly due to lack of fitting skills makes them feel left out.
Why 1/10th the training time? Why not complete removal?
This is a matter of efficient allocation of dev time. I imagine to remove the magic 14 you would need to tweak tons of base stats to ships, remove multiple items from the game, remove the SP from characters, and so on. The tools to do all of this at once may not already exist. Even if things like this have been done in the past, like with learning skills, only CCP knows how challenging that process was. With this proposal, only 14 constants would need to be changed.
Proposed announcement by CCP:
Changing the Magic 14:
The skill training times for the ‘magic 14’ have been lowered to reduce barriers for new players and hopefully encourage long-term player retention. An SP compensation reward will not be given out for prior time spent training these skills. As the vast majority of veteran players have already trained these skills to 5, an SP reward would only further widen the skill gap between new and veteran players. We hope that our veterans and valued customers will understand that if this change leads to higher player retention then the content generated by a thriving playerbase will be a reward in itself and far outweigh a few million SP.
Let me know what you think.
Edit: please center your discussion around going with this alternative vice other alternitives like complete removal. I am aware that many people are for complete removal. Tell me why in your opinion that would be a greater benefit than the above time-efficient change.
I don’t think focusing on a certain set of skills is the answer.
If the Expert system helps new players “discover” what they like, then they next step is to get them up to some minimum very quickly but also motivate them to be paying customers.
Give Omegas a 1 mill SP bonus per week for the first few weeks. You can’t extract below 5 mill so getting them up to near 5 mill very fast is not really harmful to the game.
Maybe unlock that feature after they use at least one Expert system.
I have edited the post title to be more clear. I am aware that removing the magic 14 is an option that has been discussed in detail. What I’m proposing for discussion is my opinion of what would be a man-hour efficient solution.
Plz center your discussion to the benefits and negatives of going with this alternative vice others. I surely could have missed something.
Alternatives to removing were also given in that thread, including exactly what you have proposed. It’s still a silly expenditure of dev time to create a new category of skill training rates when it would make more sense to re-evaluate the new player skills and tweak them based on observable player behavior over time.
I have already addressed this issue as being one of the primary contributors to bad retention rates, and it really is about getting in new ships as opposed to optimizing them.
New ships are single handedly the most powerful motivator to stay in eve and so getting in them should not exceed more then 30 days (probably not more then 15).
The long train times should be around things like corporate/alliance management, and optimizing your play in any given specific ship, or doing any specific activity.
Nonsense. New players can be useful within their first few minutes in EVE. You just need to get rid of this idea that you can’t do anything but tutorial missions until you have perfect all-V ships.
That is a very charitable way of phrasing it. Your idea is utterly without merit, like all of your other ideas.
A new player is next to useless for the 1st wk. Not their fault, it just takes time. Time to play as well is a factor. Some just don’t have the free time to learn/play this hard a game.
I came into the game with apx 20 others who had our own BF 42 server. We knew each other well and had already worked with each others strengths and weakness. And we were next to useless that 1st wk. We were even lucky enough to have an excellent FC who taught us quickly.
I don’t think I trained up the 14 till 2 yrs later when I needed those skills to 5 to make things like HAC’s worthwhile.
They made for a long time goal. That all being gone now, do with them as ccp whishes…
Nope. It should take time to fly ships properly. There needs to be progress from a noobfit t1 frigate to a proper t1 frigate and beyond.
If anything. Bring back learning skills.
The longer it takes to get into high end fitted ships the better.
No EVE easy mode. If you want to p2w buy skill injectors or htfu.
A tackle and ewar frig can be flown within literal minutes. Congrats you are now useful in PVP fleets.
Lvl1 missions can be done with from the get go. Congratulations you now have the means to move to lvl2 and beyond while “evolving” your ship on the side.
We need exactly the opposite of self entitled OH NO I DESERVE XYZ from the beginning. What os the point on progress if everything becomes meaningless and stuff gets handed on a silver platter.
There is no room for equality or equitity in EVE. Crawl through the mud, try and make the cut and of you cant… well… World of Warcraft with level equip is this way →
Unpopular opinion. The harder eve is and the more impactful ship losses the higher the player retention. More scarcity, more destruction. Faction, T2 Cruisers and beyond should be so unaffordable that even seeing a battleship or capital should be a extremely rare occassion instead of “lol let me welp that carrier xddd yolo”. Same goes for skilltime.
I would keep the Magic 14 but lower the overall training time maybe it so none of them take more than say 4-5 days to train to level 5. Have it just long enough to get people use to how it can take some time to train skills but not long enough to cripple them at the start for like 2-3 months as they lack the skills to do anything.
But they dont lack the skills to do anything. I genuinenly dont get this argument. You can literally do everything from the get go except for doing it perfectly in a " muh IsK/hr " setup…
“MUH youtube guy said this abyssal gila after 2 weeks”
Go start a fresh alpha toon with out giving it any ISK see how much fun it is and how much you can do. you got just enough skills to do everything badly and not have an overly fun time.
I did this last year when I returned to the game after enough years away that I could only vaguely remember how to even move my ship. I started a new account as an alpha and worked my way through the tutorial, career agents, and SoE epic arc. I was able to complete everything without any outside resource injection, and then moved on to trying out various content. At no point did I need an injector or infusion of ISK to progress naturally: that is, at the rate that I as a player learned how to do things, my character’s skill learning was sufficient to support the new activities. I wasn’t perfect at flying every ship, but I was more than capable of engaging in content right away, and had enough fun that I decided to subscribe again. My new character did completely different activity from my old character, so when I went Omega and set my oldbie up doing industry stuff, my new character was still perfectly useful, too.
All that would do is make them feel warm and fuzzy.
In the time it takes to train 1 skill from 4 to 5 and gain 2-5% in ONE AREA
You could train several skills to 4 and gain 8-20% in MULTIPLE AREAS
And all those areas matter, the opportunity cost is huge for that one fuzzy L5 skill.
Because the increase of each level takes longer and pays the same, the way to skill EVE, whenever possible, is to train all the L1s, then all the L2s, then all the L3s. That takes so little time it is foolish not too.
Then prioritize the L4s to fit needs and the L5s only if required, or once all the L4s are done.
They should just add a few million SP to the first 30 days of Omega up to 5 million max (The Extraction Point).
