As I’m sure has been hammered into you by many others already, CCP don’t want this kind of thing.
They don’t want Alpha to be able to make a lot of ISK in any way, shape or form, but especially not from low effort activities like mining.
The issue has never been approached from a ‘are those dear little Alphas making as much ISK as they could …’ perspective.
The approach is ‘we do not want free accounts to ruin the economy and unbalance the game with large ISK earning potential from low effort activities’ and ultimately, because business ‘we want people to get frustrated with Alpha and become Omega’.
So CCP do not want Alpha to make more ISK, simple as that.
Any Alpha who feels like they aren’t doing well enough in the game because of the Alpha limitations is supposed to go Omega, that’s the plan.
Perfectly understandable position; well argued. It is also why my value proposition was based around low revenue ideas such as improved salvage or mobile compression.
The point about compression specifically is it would deliberately leverage existing alpha limitation of venture-only. In my mind, to make mining/ compression work would require alphas to go mine low sec. Or “worse”.
Sure, alphas might get much more reward from that, but offset by even greater increase in risks? And would the parallel risk to CCP’s position, of limiting alpha-revenue, be offset enough by increased “game value” from a bigger LS population? Plus, the potential extra revenue to CCP from pay-to-use?
That’s all I’m trying to explore here. Is there a way to balance those conflicting ideas? If covetors as an example are a non-starter, fine. What else might work? (Noting tho that LS venture mining and HS solo covetor mining might be a tad more than low effort; certainly not afk. Which is why I used them as “thought starters” in first place.)
CCP has already allowed higher reward for alphas via mining, with, as you suggest, higher risk. It is called gas mining, which can be very profitable. The initial investment is a rather expensive skill, the fitted ship is dirt cheap.
As to salvaging, the usual solution (for alphas and omegas alike at low sp numbers) is to use an MTU during the mission, complex or anom run so the wrecks are nicely grouped, then come back with a (cheap) destroyer fitted with salvage modules, or a Magnate which has a good salvaging bonus and can fit 3 salvagers. Those solutions speed it up nicely. There is no need for extra solutions if the existing ones are underused.
Mobile compression for alphas, not omegas ? Heh, that will make more than a few people upset.
How does one recognize ventures flown by alphas from those flown by omegas ? Or do you want to make ventures “alpha only” ? Do alphas need encouragement to go into LS or NS ? Perhaps they do, but for purposes of pvp, not for mining and increasing their wallets.
On top of all the other arguments countering your proposition of exclusive alpha privileges in this thread, here’s another one: any incentive to make alphas believe this is a mining game and not a rough pvp oriented social interaction simulator is unwise.
Now, if you would - instead - come up with suggestions to hook up alphas to the heart of EvE e.g., via incentives to participate in fleets and experience New Eden in its true richness, you would have at least one very vocal supporter here
Nothing. Stop demanding more free stuff and buy the game like a normal person. The fact that free accounts have significant limits is a deliberate design choice, and TBH alphas already have way more than they deserve.
I am not advocating for free stuff. What I am suggesting would come with a bill, to be paid for by any participating (and eligible) alpha pilots.
I do not have any alpha characters, either current or mothballed. Neither do I have a Steam account to access such characters. How many characters do you have?
CCP’s design choice also includes the option for “free” account-holders to pay money to accelerate their training from 5M to 21.5M points. I am simply suggesting tapping into that existing payment mechanism.
You’re advocating for almost-free stuff, a token one-time payment followed by being able to use the exclusive alpha-only skills permanently.
I am simply suggesting tapping into that existing payment mechanism.
And doing it in a way that creates an incentive to never upgrade to become a normal paying customer, because doing so would mean losing the alpha-only skills.
That is not the same as being free. Plus, it would depend on relative pricing in any event. The price of a skill buff could easily be (and should be) set at a significant multiplier - like 10x, or whatever - compared to what it would cost if available via an omega subscription.
I don’t get this argument, which you are repeating here. I do believe that mobile compression, or some other suitable alpha-only skill, would attract alpha players to be more active and to pay for that privilege. I do not believe however that the loss of such a skill would come close to convincing any player to subsequently not turn omega. That in a nutshell is the premise being put forward via this proposal.
Then what’s the point? Alphas are alphas because they’re too cheap to pay for the game. Why do you think they’d pay some extremely high rate if they won’t pay $15/month like a normal person?
I do not believe however that the loss of such a skill would come close to convincing any player to subsequently not turn omega.
Then you don’t understand how EVE works. If there is an advantage to be gained players will gain it. If alpha-only skills are relevant (and if they aren’t nobody will buy them) then omega players (or former omega players) will have alpha accounts to exploit them.
Strangely enough, that was one of the reasons for mentioning covetors. The idea was that as a fast but still low ore vol boat, access might encourage alphas to fleet together. Either with an omega orca or another third party hauler in order to get protection and/or better productivity?
I realise that mining fleets is prob not what you meant. But, again, something I was hoping others might suggest in this thread was alternative ideas, specifically on the pew pew side, that also might “hook” alphas.
No argument. See point above.
I simply thought salvaging/ mining ideas would be less controversial (ha!). In reality, any alpha-only skill(s) could be anything.
I take your points about gas mining and also salvaging. The idea behind (faster) salvaging is to give alphas a better rate of isk return from it (but not a great one). And, also to potentially cause conflict, by being able to poach yellow wrecks. Ore compression would cause “conflict” too - I have absolutely no doubt! These ideas are all in the basket of adding “content” to others as well isk to alphas.
That would be the point of having an alpha mod rather than a skill. If it was a named mtu (that could pull yellow wrecks) or a mobile compressor, then by definition it would have to be deployed by alpha pilots. So, yes, a bit indirect.
This point works on two levels. As per above, is there a skill you can suggest that might get alphas more engaged in lower security PvP? Secondly, I think more ventures in LS would increase PvP, just against them, not by them!
The point is that the alpha pilot still gets something of benefit. Traditionally, that is measured in EvE as an additional ability to maybe make or save more isk.
That is perfectly fine, as CCP would get the extra revenue from the pay-to-use payment model, just as it does now from using that same model to sell alpha injectors. Those omega players would not stop subscribing, they would want both. If, as you say, they saw value in it. The key then - as someone else suggested int his thread - would be to protect the player market from abuse.
This does not require a covetor. It only requires a group that is welcoming of new pilots and those not interested/ready to spend on Omega state. There are at least three unique alliances I can readily think of that have standing mining fleets that are open to venture pilots, with at least one Omega pilot flying a boosting ship that all nearby fleet members (including venture pilots) benefit from.
Agreed. But covetors would also give more isk to alphas, make them more exposed in heavily gank-preferred boats and give more (one-off) revenue to CCP. Plus, and arguably, covetors would need to fleet more than ventures do anyway? Open to correction on that one.
Either way, each leg of the stool has to be tested to see where the balance lies for each idea. And, if it still doesnt work, throw the idea out.
I think you misunderstand why CCP sells daily injectors for Alpha accounts, as you keep comparing this to their ‘monetization model’.
From the Dev Blog for launch of this feature:
As we locked down the list of new Alpha skills (expansion from 5m total SP worth of Alpha-available skills to 20m SP worth of Alpha-available skills, through cross-faction access, adding larger ship classes, and adding some T2 skills), we realized that we really wanted a more affordable option that Alphas could use to train a little at a time. Saving up enough ISK to PLEX your way to Omega or buy a Skill Injector is difficult for new players and in many cases an Alpha may only need a small addition to their training to unlock a new ship class or weapon system, not 30 whole days of training.
The problem is that we can’t offer smaller portions of Omega time without running into issues like one day Cyno alts. We also faced a lot of messy tech and usability issues when trying to figure out how to offer smaller portions of training time (the entire skill and training system needs a refactor which we are currently investigating).
So, we approached the design with the following requirements:
Alphas must be able to acquire training in small chunks (one day’s worth ideally)
Training rate from new option must not be faster than Omega
Must not activate Omega state or put character in a new Clone State
New option must be easily traded and available on market
Italic is my added note for clarity, and emphasis in bold is mine.
Daily injectors are meant to be a way to budget for training skills as-needed rather than having to be able to afford an entire month of Omega up front. Cost-benefit is still in favor of subscribing - you would get more SP from 30 days of Omega training, plus all the other benefits - but if you only need a small amount of SP to get into a new ship/weapon/career, it makes sense to buy the small amount of SP as needed instead of buying a whole month of Omega that isn’t immediately useful for the pilot (or too big an expense for initial decision making process).
Covetors are no more fleet-needed than a venture. They are more expensive, which makes them less new-player-friendly than ventures, and pilots are less likely to take risks in more expensive ships. Covetors are a counter-intuitive unlock for alphas because all they do is increase Alpha income in low-risk scenarios like ATK high-sec mining. And that puts you right back into increasing Alpha resource generation without adding more content for the vast majority of other pilots (only suicide gankers get anything out of it).
CCP have thought of it, back when clones states were introduced; and they agreed with one of the most common talking points of the community at the time, that simultaneous login would be bad.
No. I mean what I said, and not whatever random “it” you just pulled out of the air. You quote neither me nor from the link you posted, because, as ever, you want to make it look like you have something to say, when you actually have nothing to say at all.
