Skill Point Changes

[Naari_Naarian]

Hello Readers,

I would like to take some time to talk about the skill point system in eve. Skill point system in eve is in my opinion the future of gaming. I have seen many studio’s use similar systems in the past 5 years which is very promising. While most of them are interesting Eve’s specific set up of the concept has some problems that need to be addressed.

Of the problems the main issue that exists with this game is that the industry itself is changing to being more match based, casual friendly. however this is a topic that really has little to do with the simple fact that eve needs people now, and they need them to be competitive. This however is not possible with the current way the skill system works. There are players that have been playing eve for many years and are not capped on skills.

However we do not need to reduce the skills in eve, or anything like that. We can keep the same skills and so forth but still provide a sensible solution to this problem if we just stop ignoring the overly loud position of players who make claims like “new players should not fly tech two ships” while ironically screaming that “we should not control the sandbox”. Its interesting how they use arguements they do not want to be used against them.

So whats the solution?

The problem with eve’s access really comes down to one problem, and that is the requirement for ships or modules. All of these issues and allowing for more competitive game play could be easily fixed by simply removing level 5 requirements to access a ship or item type.

however, as a designer personally do not like this change and if I had control (creative rights) on the game i would take it a completely different direction. I would rework all skills to a specific research time based on complexity (difficulty). In eve the research rates go from x1 to x50. a x2 rate would make level 1 research at 1 hour, level 2, at two hours, and level 5 at 16 hours. these rates are acceptable to me however when we get into things like level 5 cruisers we see jumps like 2 hours, 1 day, 3 days, 10 days, 30 days. Or something silly like this This shows us that level 4 and 5 are the problematic area’s of research. If the skills all followed a specific difficulty rate (very easy, easy, medium, hard, very hard) instead of “multiplier” and each “difficulty” to research had a static time for each level it would improve the game significantly.

For example

Easy
Level 1 : 1 hour
Level 2 : 2 hours
Level 3 : 4 hours
Level 4 : 6 hours
Level 5 : 8 hours

Instead of the above x2 modifier.

These changes would help get people into different area’s of the game which can help ■■■■ a lot of the population around opening up more options for them and improving retention rates.

[Do_Little]

The presumption seems to be that character skill accurately reflects player capability. It doesn’t work that way in Eve. Having the “skills” to sit in a ship doesn’t give you the knowledge and experience you need to fly it. A player who accumulates skillpoints and progresses at the normal rate will be far more effective than the player who injects a lot of skills they don’t know how to use.

Eve isn’t kind to those who try to go too fast - they tend to experience expensive losses and get little sympathy because they should be learning how to avoid those situations in cheap ships.

The skill progression in Eve is well thought out. Core skills are rank 1 and quickly learned by new players. Level 4 gives you 80% of the capability for 20% of the training time. T2 ships are highly specialized - there is really no need for a new player to fly them until they understand the role of the ship and have enough experience to fly it effectively.

[Naari_Naarian]

@Do_Little

The presumption seems to be that character skill accurately reflects player capability. It doesn’t work that way in Eve. Having the “skills” to sit in a ship doesn’t give you the knowledge and experience you need to fly it. A player who accumulates skillpoints and progresses at the normal rate will be far more effective than the player who injects a lot of skills they don’t know how to use.

This is totally inaccurate. It does effect your capability. Putting a T1 cruiser fleet up against a hack fleet is no competition at all. Hac’s do significantly more damage to T1 and have significantly more take. These numbers cannot be refuted.

I grow tired of this argument. its not new, and it not as strong as people like you think. what makes it even more weak is that you think, that by some how reducing training rates from 3 months to 1 will some how give the player less of time to “perfect” their flight skills. Hate to break it to you but plent of noobs have and probably will run about eve dying in hac’s etc. So please, for the love of new eden, dont try to pretend like this is in any way a valid argument.

[Do_Little]

A couple of years ago CCP Rise gave a presentation on the (at that time) new Alpha state clones. It’s a perfect illustration of what a high skill player can achieve with a low skill character. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWuk7GDZsqs

[Naari_Naarian]

A Vet player spending isk on injecting skills and then picking up a cruiser which is intended to kill destroyers as part of the games balance system is not in any way shape or forum an argument to discredit the reduction of skill points required for t2/t3 ships.

Further more, this video proves nothing out side of the fact that cruisers are doing what they are intended to do, and more importantly has nothing to do with the topic.