SKINR Feedback: Multi-thread/Industrial Sequencing

[Cannonsteel_Armory]

Just a quick observation and idea here – and feel free to consolidate this elsewhere if it’s is an overlapping concept.

At the moment, it seems as though Multi-thread Sequencing and Industrial Sequencing (skills that increase the total amount of skins that can be processed at once in a single sequencing job) are a bit lost conceptually, given that current overall repeat demand for specific skins seems low/limited and that the way in which bulk lots are listed anyway causes them to languish out of sight for most of the duration (ie. potential customers need to go looking for stock, as opposed to having it viewable in the HUD more immediately as the listing expires) without any ability to relist/edit them until the listing ends. If you sequence thousands of a single skin design and then post that inventory in bulk, for example, there isn’t much that stops another designer from copying your design and undercutting the original with much shorter listing windows/costs (eg. 1-3 days vs. a week or more) to take advantage of how listing visibility works – which results in more visibility for the cheaper knockoff (more immediate storefront HUD time given to listings as they expire in less time more frequently) with much lower risk to the copycat designer.

And if the intention for the skills is just about increasing inventory, again, there just isn’t a demand for that much committed product…yet. My guess is that anyone still profiting from SKINR needs to check listings regularly and shift into areas where there’s observable demand, so, because of that constant movement, sequence jobs rarely exceed 5+. Having thousands of a single design makes little sense – again, so far. Hopefully there are changes that will help these skills make sense.

I wonder if a better idea for a replacement or change in these skills slots would be to establish a kind of limited licensing for skins, where sequenced skins have use charges, a charge is used every time a player applies that skin to an individual hull (or series of hulls, in the case of corp/alliance skins…??), and the skills described above actually increase the amount of charges each sequenced skin can contain at once. What’s more, I wonder if that kind of system could allow for designers to pull in residuals or royalties when a charge of a skin is used.

Another alternative – and I have this described elsewhere on the forums, I think? – might be creating skills that allow for duplication/triplication/quadruplication of skins above certain breakpoints (eg. skins duplicate when sequenced above 10, triplicate when sequenced above 50, etc.), thereby allowing bulk sequencing jobs to incorporate a meaningful discount.

TL;DR The current setup for the skills Multi-thread Sequencing and Industrial Sequencing seems a little DOA, consider revising the way skins work and the ways in which these skills might interface with them. Hardly anyone can afford the amount of skins the topend of these skills allow for. Sequencing in this way seems unduly risky with how the storefronts work to begin with.

[Arthur_Aihaken]

Just an alternate thought: What about also reducing the sequencer cost with these skills? That way there’s at least a benefit for all SKINR rendering.

[Kalul]

My sales on the open market have all but dropped off in the last couple weeks. Skins I was selling regularly are now floundering like you say. The only profit I’m pulling from the system is working with individuals on custom skins in the style of a detail paint shop.

Also, we have no actual mechanism to sell directly to an individual or a corp/alliance. The ability to adjust the price, relist the skin or refresh the listing, and pull a skin before the time expires are critically needed.

It feels like any limited engagement we’ve enjoyed since it launched has fallen off the cliff. Sequencing costs are simply too high. It forces the bottom barrel prices far above the cheapest in game skins. There’s little incentive to make simple mass produced skins. The idea of forcing the entire system into a PLEX market is feeling less and less well thought out (irony?). Major changes are needed if they want this to do anything more than be a passing toy for the rare player.

[Arthur_Aihaken]

^ All excellent points. Keep us appraised on SKIN sales - I’m curious to see how August fares. I’ve only got a handful of SKINs listed myself, but I’ll post some stats if I have any success selling them.

[Cannonsteel_Armory]

Reducing sequencing cost could work well, but I feel like the needle on the skill multiplier would need to be moved up to avoid having even more cost reduction unduly attainable by folks that aren’t looking to use SKINR commercially. I guess I feel like the multipliers for most of the skills should be a challenge in that same way, really. I wonder if I’d feel that way if the recent sequence time/cost reduction hadn’t gone into effect…

[Cannonsteel_Armory]

This sounds almost 1:1 like my experience as well. I would say maybe the last two weeks have been notably quiet. I think I had one final swan song of a major purchase before experiencing crickets, and it’s hard to not connect that with the recent sequencing time reduction that risks trivializing what needs to happen to create a personal skin without requisite skills.

Your points about the storefront are also totally valid. In my experience, I very quickly began listing everything in single-day listings, so I could adjust my pricing more often and capture as much visibility in the landing storefront HUDs as possible. I bet if I had data on when I posted skins and when they actually sold, there would be a greater frequency to the single-day listings, and the sale times would line up around when those listings were expiring — which is when they’re the most visible.

[Arthur_Aihaken]

That’s interesting about the visibility in the hub. I’ll have to try listing a SKIN for a day to see what success that may have vs. a 30-day listing.

[Cannonsteel_Armory]

I admit that I did actually enjoy the minigame of it all, trying to figure out (mostly blindly) what listing times resulted in the most profit. I had a theory for a while that overnight listings (I’m east coast USTZ) posted around 10pm resulted in the most sales, but that may have just been the actual sensation of waking up and finding a bulk of sales skewing things. But I will say this: I don’t have any powerful memories of posting something and having it sell right away, which might be relevant. I think it’s just much harder for players to see newly-listed skins, unless they change the sorting filters manually.

My guess is that, while it has improved marginally since its release, the Paragon Hub just needs a lot of work or the SKINR design access and capabilities of skill-invested players need to improve dramatically to encourage players to actually browse the storefronts with confidence, as opposed to just peering at what’s available in the little ticker HUDs at the right. Improving skills like those listed in the OP would only help.

[Kalul]

I actually greatly dislike the idea of a dedicated storefront for the SKINR. They should just get created as in game items that can be placed in cargo, and put up on markets and contracts like any current in game skin. They would need their own market tab of course, separate from the current skins, but that would be easy. That would make them easily accessible in an already comfortable format.

I invested in the skills day 1. I’ve put very much into it. I’d like it to be worth it. I’m in the black technically. But I’d like good profits as a steady income source. I’d like to be able to make 10m or 50m skins that were simple but price affective for the masses as well as the blingy big bang skins for those that want them. Currently it only applies to the top earners in eve.

[Cannonsteel_Armory]

Yeah, I hear ya. I’m also technically in the black after investing from the start (and perhaps even overinvesting, as they case may be for some of the early unlimited purchases – so, so costly haha), so I’d like for the spirit of this system to be that everyone wins. It currently feels like the squeakiest wheels (ie. folks that didn’t want to invest much, but wanted to have good access to personal skinning insteantly) are getting the grease. We’ll see!

As for the dedicated storefront, I’m torn. I do agree that access to purchase these skins should be much better than it is, but I also like that it isn’t the easiest thing in the world to manipulatively buy and resell the designs of other players. The dedicated marketplace seems to allow for the tax system, which then, advertently or not, seems to disincentivize situations where people buy off designs to relist their own designs at a higher pricepoint. The second the market becomes that kind of rat race, I feel like it’s just super DOA, which could happen naturally in the “wild”, so to speak.

[Arthur_Aihaken]

I think the dedicated storefront is needed - there’s really no other way to easily preview a number of SKINs, and while it lacks certain sorting features - what it does offer is far superior to having to sift through a contract system.

It would be interesting to have 3 choices upon rendering a SKIN, though:

1. Inject for personal use (no tax).
2. List for sale on the Paragon hub (+tax).
3. Convert to an item for trade, list in contract, etc. (+1/2 tax)

[Arthur_Aihaken]

For August, I’m going to post some results of successful (or unsuccessful) SKIN sales. Currently I’ve listed one for (1 day) and the other for (14 days). It’s just ISK for the listing fee, so we’ll see. The last SKIN took 11 days to sell.

Addendum: Guess I goofed on one of the listings - thought I’d entered it as “1” day but looks like it defaulted to “30”.

[Kalul]

These are all very valid points. Now to address the most critical and overlooked fix that needs to happen ASAP.

The Garbage can lighting in the tool. Two changes need to be made immediately.

1. Omnidirectional lighting. The most recent patch made the light even worse. It used to come only from above. Now it only come from above and to the right if look directly at the front of the ship. All points of the ship should be equally lit. No shadows. A paint booth would have light blasted on a semi transparent sheet or wall to create a uniform glow all around the “vehicle” being painted (Extensive personal experience). Otherwise, you’ll miss things resulting in subpar, dogshit quality jobs.

2. Lighting color adjustment to every starlight condition, so that we can check how it’ll look regardless of system. I’ve had some skins that look amazing in about half the systems, and just look aweful in the rest because of bad lighing. It would be nice to be capable of vetting that in advance. We wouldn’t be able to make 100% good in 100% lighting, but it would eliminate finding out in the wild that your skin is awful in most natural light.