Some ideas borrowed from mature systems in other MMORPGS
SP reward pool for competitive events
“limit breaking” existing skill limits
fuel temporary/permanent boosts for new sp burning skills
currency to gamble blueprints
SP reward pool
Entering a pvp duel , or proving ground event allows users to bet skill point quantity from 0 to total unallocated skill point pool. On conclusion, winner takes all skill points from pool. For team wins, the pool is reallocated based on how much each member of team has bet, the higher the bet; the greater the prize pool allocated.
“limit breaks”
Once players trained up to level 5 in a skill, they can sacrifice all skill points to break the 5 level limit to level 6. At level 6, they can sacrifice all levels up to that point to break past to level 7, etc.,.
skill point as fuel
Once activated, will start consuming unallocated skill points to grant bonus to all damage, shield, armor , and speed. Bonus increase steadily with time along with amount of skill points burned.
skill as blue print gambling
Each research agent will now be able to take your skill points and randomly give a blue print in return. Random ultra low chance of a blue print original. ME and PE are also randomized.
Reward pool has too much potential for abuse because it could be used as a super efficient extractor. I could see a duel ante. In that case, people could ante injectors or accelerators. People can already privately bet items on duels.
Limit breaks fundamentally change the philosophy of EVE’s skill system and EVE itself. It would entail a rework of the entire game.
If the goal is to give players a pay to win option, why not burn PLEX as fuel instead of SP as fuel? Will pay to win mechanics drive retention?
Blue print gambling is hard to balance. I see the first implementation as either lame or over powered. From there, A) nobody uses it, OR B) BPO become common, OR C) a lot of developer effort is spent on getting this single feature just right. Having said that, the invention system works just fine. Why not use it?
Stay in the fight until you max out your credit card? I like it. I do not know that it would actually be a good idea as far as retention goes, but I like it.
At that point, why not have a ship with PLEX powered weapons as well. (Or a PLEX reload module.) That way the people who want to fight someone’s RL wallet can, and the people who think it is nonsense can disengage.
Arcade style PLEX to spawn infinite ships from a carrier strikes me as something that could be somewhat balanced as far as pay to win options go. You still need pilots, and limits could be placed on the kinds of ships that can be launched.
How much ship can you get for a “quarter”? Maybe create a launch template and convert the estimated ISK cost to PLEX to spawn. The arcade game philosophy is great. (Again, not sure if these kinds of mechanics would hurt retention and overall profitability.)