(Normally I’d post this in the Player Features & Ideas category, but I think it is somewhat time-sensitive)
Not everyone knows about the Biology skill, so it sucks big time when they run through a booster - particularly Cerebral Accelerators - without training this skill at least a few levels. I think CCP should update the in-game description of all boosters to mention that the life of the booster can be extended by training the Biology skill, with that skill linked. Every day that passes by, more and more players aren’t receiving the full benefit of these boosters + cerebral accelerators in particular, simply because they didn’t know Biology was a thing. Given that CCP announced today yet another P2W accelerator pack available for purchase, this request is extra time-sensitive. Please push CCP to update the in-game text ASAP using your special CSM-CCP backchannels/extra weight so that players jumping on this pack (or acquiring any other cerebral accelerator elsewhere) don’t get ripped off (esp. $$$) out of ignorance. There is no shortage of other ways to burn yourself out of ignorance; missing out on booster life in general is tolerable, but not so much with Cerebral Accelerators - this does not have to be one of those ways.
This is easy to do (yay for editing text), and this is not a slippery-slope request. This will not lead to stuff like turret info windows stating “this turret will cause more damage by training XYZ skills” in the description. (In the long term, however, it would be nice for info windows to have an “Affected By” tab like Pyfa has; this would include Biology and other booster-related skills on Boosters + Accelerators info windows)
I should also note that increasing awareness of the Biology skill via description text of commonly used boosters (cerebral accelerators, Evergreen rewards, event boosters - all boosters) also has some additional benefits that I recently discussed:
I appreciate the effort, but I’m not sure exactly why this - unlike every other thing in the game - needs a specific notice about it. Do they need to provide a notice that if you train all of your gun skills to five it does more damage?
I think this is likely one of those things that people have to learn by playing the game. Now I think there’s no reason it can’t be part of the NPE, sure.
The real problem is when you inject a booster without having at least Biology I trained - the booster is used up with no benefit applied. This should be impossible, but it is part of the NPE. Unbelievably, the new player is gifted with a cerebral accelerator on, like, their second day. Since new characters do not come with biology trained, and new players have no idea about the biology skill, my bet is that most of them get “consumed” and immediately vanish into nothingness.
I don’t know if that’s the case anymore. I get warnings on the login campaign reward boosters when I try to apply them to a character that doesn’t have Bio 1 trained.
So I haven’t run through the NPE in a while, but it is worth pointing out that getting a message saying “you need this skill trained” doesn’t mean:
a player will learn the significance of that skill (you don’t need to understand it to train it)
a player will remember the significance of the skill - when you first start off playing EVE, there is so much to learn! You won’t remember everything, and you might forget things after a while (reminders are nice and harmless), and you won’t refresh your memory if you don’t know what you’re looking for (“I didn’t know you could extend boosters to begin with”). Cerebral accelerators do not come up often, but when they do, players get pissed when they learn they didn’t get the maximum boost
@Xeux is right: a case could be made for Cerebral accelerators to have a fixed duration (or perhaps be replaced by at-most-one-a-day injectables similar to DAIs), though I can see one benefit of tying accelerators to Biology: it encourages Alphas to upgrade if they want the full boost and, per above, awareness of Biology increases drug use… but awareness of Biology is key! No other “you should train this skill for this benefit” notices are being asked for, just this one since drug use is grossly underutilized and not fully benefited from. In the absence of an “Affected by” tab like Pyfa has, I think boosters merit such a Biology notice (not even the other drug-related skills merit it)
(Please pitch an “Affected by” tab to Devs also in addition to an explicit Biology notice )
It might be slippery slope to explicitly mention those implants in the description - simply being aware that there are ways to extend the life of Boosters at all (Biology being the most important) might make the player look for other ways as well. But if the devs ever got around to implemented an “Affected by” tab like Pyfa has, it would obviously be included. Pyfa’s “Affected by” tab is dynamically populated via database queries. It renders the information based on which formulas are affected by which skills, etc. EVE could easily do something like that, except it could also include implants and boosters and supplementary modules (eg. shield boost amplifiers for reps, ballistic control amplifiers and guidance enhancers and guidance computers for missile launchers, etc). A lot of newbies don’t come around to learn about 6-10 implants or faction 1-5 implants until much later than they could, so having an “Affected by” tab that indicates stuff like “oh I can boost my armor reps with Asklepian implants” would increase immersion and supply/demand.
Well looking at that accelerator in the new skill bundle its default runtime is 12.5days (1080000.0sec from info screen), with lvl5 biology and +10% implant that extends out to 27.8days (rough figures)
The extended accelerators had the same+8, but onlydid 7dsys.
The limited purchase 12.5day accelerator is a one off. All other ones in the past have only been 24hours or 1week. And with biology you can double that time if lvl5.
The +5% and +10% biology implant just pushes it a bit further.
As noted about to get the same amount of skillpoint generation would only be possible with master-in-arms, but with current market prices it’d be @roughly equal to a $34.99 plex purchase in value with current plex to isk rates and master-in-arms market prices.
CCP apparently thought ahead on that one, anyway. According to what I see on everef, the newbro-limited Standard Cerebral Accelerators are completely unaffected by the Biology skill.
You’re talking about the CA that came with this new pack, which is called an Expert Cerebral Accelerator; I’m talking about the one that only works for characters under 35 days old and doesn’t have a strict time limit.
Clearly such a CA is not representative (nor even that important, given how restrictive and low-yield it is), so discussing it is really just detracting from the conversation for no reason.
@Solstice_Projekt you’ve been edgey lately, buddy, what’s going on ?
I think this is slippery slope.
Yes.
But to be clear: I’m not advocating for a decoupling - I personally think they should be tied to Biology only if there is a Biology Notice and/or Affected-By Tab (ideally both).
No, it isn’t. You’re just not being objective.
For whatever reason you’re white knighting for people who didn’t even know.
Hahahahaha and you really mean it.
And what’s the reasoning behind this?
Why should this not be required for all the skills affecting something?
What’s the difference?
it sounds like you’re a greedy person and lost SP …
… and now you’re butthurt about CCP and seek revenge.
I really wonder what drives you to do this.
It’s definitely not a sense of “fairness”.
That’s always just on the surface.
In the end you’re not actually helping anyone with this.
Those who didn’t know never cared,
and those with Biology V will receive less SP in the end.
Plus, there will be many who’ve skilled it to V solely for this.
You remind me of this thing about christianity.
When you don’t know about Jesus and heaven etc, you automatically go to heaven.
For some reason, though, the christians want everyone to know about Jesus.
You’re basically the bad guy pulling people from “heaven”,
by making them feel bad about all the missing SP they could have had,
if they had Biology V trained.
)
?