Yay! More ways for newer players to get the **** kicked out of them by the sp disparity!!!!
*lots of words that have nothing to do with the OP*

In effect your proposal creates more SP sinks than removes them. If a skill has a bonus behind it, then it will be utilized.

The main problem in your proposal is that currently the non-racial dropsuit skills provide no benefit after level 3. If they had a bonus associated with them, it would be important to increase those to level 5, therefore creating another SP sink; not removing one.

Removing SP sinks would mean removing skills or lowering the amount of SP required to unlock things. Something like, being able to use prototype weapons even at the lower end of the tree. So once you unlock the skills to get assault rifle for example, you can use all the assault rifles.

In effect your proposal creates more SP sinks than removes them. If a skill has a bonus behind it, then it will be utilized.

The main problem in your proposal is that currently the non-racial dropsuit skills provide no benefit after level 3. If they had a bonus associated with them, it would be important to increase those to level 5, therefore creating another SP sink; not removing one.

Removing SP sinks would mean removing skills or lowering the amount of SP required to unlock things. Something like, being able to use prototype weapons even at the lower end of the tree. So once you unlock the skills to get assault rifle for example, you can use all the assault rifles.

I love lamp

Every change to the skill tree devalues the SP investments players have made in their character. They should only happen to address in-game imbalances. This addresses no such thing and seems like a change for the sake of it. I'm sure you mean well but I think it's a pretty bad idea, sorry.

Are you aware that you HAVE to put points into these skills just to get to other skills? This would have no effect on SP disparity, as everybody is already putting SP into these skills just to move on to the next. This would actually help NPE, as it would allow them to get more effect out of the small SP pool they start with, instead of wasting a large portion of their SP on filler skills.

How does it devalue it if the skills affected are ones people have already trained? The SP you spend on them now earns additional bonuses, doesn't that increase the value of the SP?

And it's not just a change for the sake of it, the idea is so that new players playing the game actually feel like the SP they're spending early on is doing more than just unlocking more skills to train. It's a big complaint of new players.

Here's one example of many. Suppose you have level 3 in amarr light suits. You really needed to save PG to fit your optimum loadout so you spent loads on scrambler rifle fitting optimization. Suddenly the skills are changed and you are getting 6% PG from the amarr light skills, and turns out you wasted 1 million SP in fitting optimization. Your choice, which was a good one at the time, is turned into a bad one by the seemingly innocuous change to the skill tree. Your SP investment is devalued. In fact, the OP achieves the opposite of what he sets out to do - he creates SP sinks (SP trapped in useless places).

Fair point. Well the actual bonuses he picked set aside, I think the idea of making every skill offer *some* kind of benefit is a good idea. I think we're all pretty jaded because we've already made the investment into other skills for reasons you listed. Even so let's look at it from a newer player's perspective. For an example, what does Caldari Medium Frame Level 2 earn you? The right to train level 3, and that's it. To a new player thats really frustrating because they grind for the SP and feel like they should get something for their effort, not just the right to grind more for the next level.

And even for veteran players, there are so many skills that don't require level 4 or 5 to be trained at all, so why are they there? I like the idea of them offering small bonuses that vets can optimize their character using their vast SP pool, but also offer newer players some immediate benefit with those low level skills that currently only unlock other skills.

So let me ask you this, if you had a respec (and I know that probably won't happen, but we're speaking conceptually there) would you support a system like this know you could put additional points into lower skills and perhaps not into the higher one if your particular fit/playstyle didnt need it, but you still had the option to optimize if you wanted?

Everything you say is very reasonable. And regarding your final question, I think something like this would be fine in the hypothetical scenario of a respec.

Here's one example of many. Suppose you have level 3 in amarr light suits. You really needed to save PG to fit your optimum loadout so you spent loads on scrambler rifle fitting optimization. Suddenly the skills are changed and you are getting 6% PG from the amarr light skills, and turns out you wasted 1 million SP in fitting optimization. Your choice, which was a good one at the time, is turned into a bad one by the seemingly innocuous change to the skill tree. Your SP investment is devalued. In fact, the OP achieves the opposite of what he sets out to do - he creates SP sinks (SP trapped in useless places).

>New players come with all the sp sinks on their characters.

Oh okay... I didn't realize you were proposing to give all the new players more than 500k sp for all those sp sinks that are getting turned into buffs, my bad.

If you actually weren't planning this, then you should reread what I just quoted from you and reconsider your logical reasoning.

EVENTUALLY, yes new players will have all those buffs. EVENTUALLY, i'll have every skill at 5. Inb4 CCP pulls the plug on Dust.

This would do nothing but widen the gap between a new player and a vet. What I said still stands, you just didn't put points into logic.

So we know there are a significant amount of SP sinks in the skill tree currently, and I'd like to propose a fix to it. This is in General Discussions since these are my musings, and I want input before I ask they be made.

First, which skills are in need of bonuses? Here are the skills (infantry only, since I have no intimate knowledge of vehicles) that have little or no use.

Dropsuit Command
All basic dropsuit skills (12 total)
Dropsuit Upgrades
Weaponry

So, a total of 15 skills that need bonuses. To save my self a lot of typing for every bonus, let me say here that for each basic suit skill, the skill only applies to the suits that are under that skill, example: Amarr Heavy Dropsuit skill only applies to Amarr heavy basic suits, Amarr sentinels, and Amarr commandos. Here are my thoughts:

Dropsuit Command +2% base shield and armor per level

Dropsuit Upgrades +0.2 armor repair per level

Weaponry +2% all weapon reload speed per level

Amarr Heavy Dropsuits +2% armor from armor plates and ferroscale plates per level

Amarr Light Dropsuit -2% CPU/PG cost of laser weaponry per level

Amarr Medium Dropsuits -2% CPU/PG cost of armor plates and ferroscale plates

Caldari Heavy Dropsuits +2% shield from shield extenders per level

Caldari Light Dropsuits -2% CPU/PG cost of rail weaponry per level

Caldari Medium Dropsuits -2% CPU/PG cost of shield extenders and shield rechargers per level

Gallente Heavy Dropsuits +2% armor repair module rate and reactive plate repair per level

Gallente Light Dropsuits -2% CPU/PG cost of plasma weaponry per level

Gallente Medium Dropsuits -2% CPU/PG cost of armor repair modules and reactive plates per level

Minmatar Heavy Dropsuits +2% biotic module effects per level

Minmatar Light Dropsuits -2% CPU/PG cost of biotic modules per level

Minmatar Medium Dropsuits -2% CPU/PG cost of shield regulators and shield energizers per level

Please share your thoughts/comments, this is a rough draft, after all.

Minmatar Heavy Dropsuits +2% biotic module effects per level.

Alright mr. politically correct. You could instead say that this removes the filler skills, where you only put into them to get to a further point in the tree. If they had passive bonuses, you would skill into them for the sake of skilling into them, instead of just putting the mandatory minimum required SP then moving on.

Correct, but you are creating more places for SP to go. Therefore creating sinks. I don't think you understand the definition of an sp sink. I don't mind having skills mean something when skilled. But you are still making the hurdle larger for low sp players.

Not only that but CCP would never give us "free" bonuses. Instead to get your racial frame to current standard you would probably need to skill both racial and non racial dropsuit command skills to five. Therefore creating a larger sp sink for the same effect.

Reducing multipliers, cost of skills, or allowing items to be used earlier would ease the burden of sp. To reduce the sink means to slow the flow. Creating more skills bonuses just increases that hole.

Ex: CCP decides to create more items on the market that are officer variety. Would this increase or decrease the amount of isk in circulation.........decrease correct! Adding things to sink sp into, increases the sink in the same way. Even if those sp are providing a bonus.