f13.net

All the ragequitting over the elimination of ghost training made me wonder, what would the reaction be to CCP selling training accel cards?

Sell them just like GTC cards, except instead of sub time, you buy instant training time.  Sell them in increments of 1day/1 week/1 month and only usable on 1 skill.  Using a 1 week card on a 5 day skill would finish that skill but not give you 2 days towards something else.  Or maybe it could, it's probably never going to happen anyways.

I'd definitely be buying a few of them to speed some of these longer skills up and get into the action, and would gladly pay a 20% or so fee over sub prices to do it instantly.

If CCP really wanted to make their wallet flash more, you think they would think up something new and exciting (like this!) instead of removing one of their best retention features.

I enjoy EvE very much still even with all the whining and nerfs and such.  It's pretty much the only video game I've played for a few months.  The thought of dropping EvE hasn't once crossed my mind for any of the recent problems.

I would probably immediately cancel all of my accounts upon the announcement of being able to buy skill points for $$.

Where would it stop?

Silver Training Acceleration Card - 50% training time decrease, Gold and Platinum at 100% / 200% respectively? Skill Point Reallocation Cards?

Premium content like this is a nasty door to open...

It's bad enough having to fight 'tards with time carded supercaps, but at least there is the satisfaction of costing them big bucks when the epeen goes pop.  No such salve with bought skillpoints.

It's all "premium content" anyways, you're already paying for skillpoints, you just have to wait for them.

This isn't a "I had to go raid XXX to get my uber helmet, and he just bought it!" argument, having more skillpoints right now just means that you've paid CCP more money than the next guy.

My current main, Nerf Blasters, had even SPs or higher than most of Bat Country, with maybe 3 or 4 hours /played, and most of that was helping out a newbie friend with a level 1 mission.

Also, you can buy ISK with $$$, you can buy characters with ISK, characters *are* skillpoints, so you can already buy skillpoints for money Thrawn, you just don't get to choose what you look like or your name as well.

If they are going to do this then they may as well sell ISK and premade characters with millions of skill points ready to allocate. That would make empire a pretty empty place though.

They do sell ISK, thats what the GTC forum is for.

Oh, and you can buy premade characters with tons of skillpoints, too.

Yes they do and it sucks, you want to make it worse.

This ideas totally goes against all the principles of the way I see Eve and it becomes like any other MMO so I say no 100% no to this idea. I think if anything should be introduced it should be a skill queue of some sort as it can't be totally abused anymore, a one skill deep skill queue would suffice. The only good argument people had against this was how a queue in tandem with ghost training would give too much power to the farmers, now CCP can't lose by introducing it I think it would be a good way of appeasing people.

I don't see the problem you have with buying characters or skillpoints, theres no grind for skillpoints in EvE.  There aren't even any timesinks, the only reason you have more SPs than the next guy is that you've paid CCP more money.  I pay CCP to have fun, when I'm staring at a 30day train to have access to what I call "fun" I'm just wasting money.
    One of the reasons people would ghost train is to wait for that next skill so they could start playing their character.  If I have gotten bored with dicking around in cruisers and want to fly HACs for awhile, it's bullshit that I have to sit there with my thumb up my ass while cruiser 5 slowly ticks along.

If I want to pay for a months sub and cash it in all at once instead of over time, why the outrage?

Well I am against the idea but it doesn't mean to say I think it's a bad one I just think it's against the base principles of the game the way I perceive it. I just think it takes away from some of the draw, I would spend a few weeks playing with my new toy before I have trained for the next one and I feel the time I have waited has added to the merit for flying a particular ship with a particular fit that I have predesigned in EFT. There are times when I wished I didn't have to wait for a certain skill to finish but in EVE as in real life I believe in pleasure delay. Also if I thought some 3 month old pilot spent $1k of dollar only to blow me up 1v1 I would probably quit and they would have gained the quickfix $ from the more money than sense ADD kid but lost the longterm value of a customer like me or the others out there.

Could just treat em like a rack of +3's that dont disappear upon pod death. You could still plug in other implants in the normal slots. They have a duration of 60 days. 10 for +3, 20 for +4, 30 for +5

I don't care how people skill up. I've played the game for years buying and selling characters. It's one of the many unique things about it. If you wanna pay 30 bucks a month to get a set of temporary +5's for 2 months, knock yourself out.

Nah, the guy can spend $1k and expect 1v1 you but all of us will come with you and it'll be him vs. 50, BOOM ship, bye bye $1k, evil laugh at the idiot who spent so much money on nothing.

Proof:  Do you get angry if you find out your target is flying a CNR, marauder, or some other stupid expensive ship?

Totally 100% against this and it if was ever introduced, I would stop playing Eve. Not rage quit, just quit! For all the reasons people put forward already. The attraction to Eve is the long train, the coveting something better. I don't believe anyone should have any advantage over anyone else when it comes to training. Whatever about the noobs paying 1k to pop you, what about the Bobs and even Goons of this empire with truck loads of ISK? The place would be overrun with cap pilots and doomsdays. It would be end of days for those with little or no money.

I played a free online game for a while, O Game, which was a basic browser based game but interesting all the same. They introduced a premium content to "to train faster, and queue skills etc etc". All 30 people I played with for over a year quit within 2 months.

As an aside, if I wanted, I could sell my two chars and buy some kick ass pvp pilot instead of my almost good 11m SP gallente and a semi-crappy 18m SP caldari pilot, but whats the point? I like the fact that I busted hours of training to get them the way I like them. Ive gotten a year out of Eve and still love it, so hopefully I will get a few more. Wouldn't happen if I could rush all the way to the end so soon!

spot on, Pred.  I think I would probably lose interest and quite after a couple of months.  I could sell my two 35-millionish SP characters and get some 45m character focussed on Pvp, but I am attached to my guys, and don't mind their scattergun skillsets.  Even those two levels of defender missiles remind me of the mission I tried to use them in...  :why_so_serious:

http://kb.eve-gods.org/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=33569

This pilot, Grim, was ex-VSQ CEO. He sold his guy to this nub.

http://kb.eve-gods.org/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=33148


SO this nubhas wasted like 15+ billion in a few days, and everyone else gets his spoils!

Agreed, while I was shopping for my alts I took more then one look at some nice PvP focused characters but in the end always decided I preferred to blow people up with my own toon.  Even if my skillpoints are a bit spread out it's still my character I worked up from a noob.  :heart:

I think Endie and Predator have pretty much mirrored what I have said in their own ways it's about forming a relationship with your stupid character with his ridiculous name  :why_so_serious: I think buying a +5 clone set that installs permanently for a month would be ok in the sense that they couldn't advance any further than game mechanics allow them so that would be a good suggestion as long as they have to train Cyber V to get there ;P

Aside from that, think of what it would do to game balance.  In 0.0 warfare you'd end up seeing hundreds more cap pilots than you do already and you'd end up with a forseeable endgame of cap blobbery.

Doing this would fundamentally change the EVE business model.  Bad bad bad idea is bad.

My one character was full missiles and caldari. Then I thought armor tanking would be fun so I switched to gallente. But lasers were intriguing so I have been training Amarr ever since. And there was a brief stint in there when I maxed industrials so I could fly a hulk and actually pay for my pvp habit. Basically I'm not really great at anything and I wouldn't trade in this character for another with double the skill points all focused in one area.

I don't understand all of the "OMG IT WOULD END THE GAME!!11!" hate.  People can already buy all the cap pilots they want -- for ISK.  You could easily have these sold for $$ only through the acct services page eliminating any ISK market for them.

You can already do all of the things you're all freaking out about, and for in-game money at that, I just want to spend a few bucks and get Surgical Strike V right now instead of 3 weeks from now, and I like my character enough that I don't want to buy another one.

Its the perception of a legitimate advantage gained with real money. Obviously there are ways to accomplish that now. But its sort of laundered through various options. Most players just don't want to be at a disadvantage because someone else can pay more for the game than them. Again, that is already the case. But your idea makes it very real and obvious to everyone that to win, they will have to cough up more cash.

Subscription model - players all pay the same rate and expect the same treatment and options to be universally available (at least in theory).  The uberness comes with effort invested. 

Premium model - tend to be free to play but you pay for various perks through cash shop.  In these models the extra content and uberness is paid for, it cannot be gained in game, only by paying.

Yes there are some systems with a bit of blending(EQ2 tries this I believe) and those tend to be failures or rather simplistic games.  CCP would not be able to merge the systems now, 5 years in.  Yes you can buy lots of things with the in game ISK, but that is universally available IN the game.  It is not a paid ticket or any other premium service.  CCP already tried a premium service fee for EVE voice.  That failed.  They tried with EVE TV.  That also failed.

Subscription based customers are not going to accept trying to swap to a premium system years into the game.  We pay the same, we get the same. 

That's priceless. :awesome_for_real:

Nerf, sure there already cap pilots out there available for ingame money, but there is a limited supply of them.  If people were able to create them more rapidly, there would be a total glut of ridiculously skilled pilots.

Only if you priced accel cards cheaper than buying characters with ISK gained from GTCs.

People wouldn't want to use dollars to rush training if they could buy GTCs, sell them for ISK and buy a character with even more skillpoints.

edit:  nevermind.  Reading comprehension 101 fail for me, too tired.

Well like you said people are attached to their characters, but you underestimate what some silly people will spend money on.  Titans and motherships have been bought with GTC isk.  I'm sure there are alliances that'd spit out a few dozen dread pilots if the need was dire.

A solid dread pilot is what..20mil SP at the very least?  Figure in all the cap skills and you're looking at a character that's selling for for 10bil or so the forums, hell figure 6bil.  At $70/billion, you're looking at $420 if you were to buy GTCs, sell them, and buy a character with ISK.

I personally think accel cards should cost 20% or so more than buying a char, so you'd be looking at around $500.

That's a hefty fucking sum for a game, if an alliance is willing to drop 6grr to get a dozen dread pilots, plus pay another $1400 or so in GTCs for the ships, good for them.  I mean really, would you laugh or cry if an alliance spent close to $7,000 of real money to defend against you?  I'd wear it like a badge of fucking honor.  I would taunt them mercilessly for it, and giggle every time I blew up one of their dreads knowing it cost some shmendrik at least $100.

Sorry is this thread about people buying SP straight off the bat for $ or buying items for $ the lines are kinda getting blurred, I really don't care if schmucks (and I'm sure most people here don't either) buy ships for $ but skillpoints on the other hand  :angryfist: just wanted to clarify  :why_so_serious:

Sparky's right, you're underestimating what people will spend cash on.

Let them spend all their hard earned on ships all they like, but being able to buy better characters, IMO is just wrong!

I don't agree with being able to buy ISK for real life money or being able to buy characters, but accept the fact that its possible. Buying skill points is just insane. Every alliance would max out their loyal players. It would ruin the game and create an even bigger void between the noobs and the vets, or to be more accurate, the rich and the poor.

CCP could announce class warfare as a new feature!

 :rofl:

You do understand that you could sell GTCs, and buy a 50 million SP character... right? You just don't like the fact that they would get to name them or something? :P

Well you have hit a good point there and it's hard to say why but I think what pezzle said earlier pretty much sums up how I feel. If something like this was brought in I personally would feel that to compete I have to throw more money at the game, and with all that has happened recently I really don't want to do this especially now ghost training is gone does that make sense?

What if they did it so it's aimed at bringing newbies closer to the veterans, only?  Like, for example, if you can purchase the learning skills and the support skills, but you cannot purchase any of the capital ship skills or T2 ship skills, and must train those (and their prerequisites) the long way?  So that it doesn't take a new character 6 months to just get through the support skills package?

What if they just change the Character Creation process to give 10 million SPs in skills, but no ship skills at all.  But you start with Engineering 5, Electronics 5, Mechanic 5, and all the Learning skills at 5/5.  But no ship skills, so you still have to do industrial to 5, mining barge to 5, battleship 5, and so on, the long way.

Now that is a good idea. There are some painful skills that everyone needs, and hurts the noob game experience. Though they probably feel like the 800k they upped it to was a great gift ;)

I'd be fine with that, long as they bumped up anyone who doesn't already have those skills of course.  

Doing away with learning skills altogether and giving everyone a 10 point buff in every stat would be my preferred solution, but either way works.  I'd guess the only reason they don't let you make an electronics 5 character now is they don't want throwaway cyno alts - so you'd probably have to rearrange a few skill dependencies.

Yep and they should start newbies at level 30 in warcraft with a full bar of skills also please unlock all cars and improvements in Forza and all the guns in BF1942 tia...

This is not a great idea.

You have to agree that getting rid of learning skills IS a good idea though.  It's just a pointless timesink.  I'd also be OK with only being able to use time accel cards on skills that aren't primary t2 skills.  Large hybrid 5 you have to train, surgical strike 5 you can buy.

I like learning skills.  It's a way of rewarding diligent players who pay attention to the game's system and work smartly.  Sure, they're a pain in the ass but it's a positive in that it makes people who take the time to plan things out a little better than the people that just train skills randomly.

Don't make me drag out the DDO comics

They're a depressing time sink for newer players and a complete no-brainer to train.  Can't tell you how many newbies I've told "Yes optimally you'd want learning skills maxed right away, but first train yourself into something fun then tackle that ordeal".  I'm certain learning skills have chased more people out of the game than the capital ship grind.  It's the sort of cockblock this forum often bitches about.

I agree with Samson, but I'm a known masochist.

No I understand that, thats why I said "I don't agree with being able to buy ISK for real life money or being able to buy characters".



Spot on!

Learning skills reward shit. They are a timesink and a cockblock and so many young characters get quite frustrated by them. Why do that to your playerbase?

That's only cause you got caught  :raspberry:

LMAO, I was actually waiting to see how long it would take before you said that  ;D

That was back in the early days (first month or two I think), I've a different perspective on things now.

pwned? :)

Yeah, when I started playing first, I bought 200mill worth of ISK from a website to buy my first Raven I believe. About 4 months later, CCP took it back off me and let me off with a warning lol.

happened to me for 500 mil ;)