Prophetic Dreams
Crux Special Tasks Group
Gallente Federation
3
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Posted - 2012.09.23 00:53:00 -
[1] - Quote
Like many other players I am also unhappy about the way the diminishing returns (DR) limit the skillpoints (sp) gain after a couple of games. DR currently also hurt the casual player with a different time schedule, as explained by the op, and I also don't think there should be a system that "punishes"/discourages you for putting in more hours played on one day. The way it feels to me is like the DR is a cheap temporary hack to address the following problems:
Problem 1: Finished the skills (faster than new content)
There is a finite amount of skills that require sp. Since there also is an active sp gain, it is possible in theory for skilled hardcore players to gain all the relevant skills faster than the new skills and potentially other sp sinks that can be released with new content. In other words how can the player progress their skills over longer periods of time without running out of skills to unlock? And I would add without gimping the short term feeling of progression (which the DR is hurting atm).
Problem 2: Casual vs Core difference
Since active players would gain more sp than less active players and the skills unlocked with sp offer various gameplay advantages, the difference between new/casual and older/hardcore players could work adverse to new/casual players.
I think problem 2 will be solved in the future by seperating the newer / more casual players from the older / more hardcore players (0.0 sec vs 1.0 sec games). Which would make problem 1 the real issue. Obviously a gigantic amount of skills would solve the problem and I am sure that 2 or 3 years into Dust, with a lot more specializtion skills from the new content, this will be the case for new players. But I am not so sure if they can get this done on launch with the current skills, without either hurting sp gain (A) or making more skills take longer to unlock (B) (im looking at you dropsuit skills :p).
The solution patches proposes probably can be done with option B and I think I would prefer it over DR, simply because I dislike the idea of losing out on sp gained and rather have a tougher skill path tree than that feeling like I wasted time because I don't match the prefered time scheule (play everyday vs sporadic play). Another nice solution was posted by Sin3 DeusNomine which works with option A, by converting wasted sp to isk. Although I am not sure if this would gel with the concept of 0.0 corp battles, where all the money that is rewarded is actually from other players/corps and not out of thin air like the npc corps.
Another idea could be to promote playing on alts on sp DR or implementing somekind of rebirth system like the oldskool MMO's / CoD Prestige where you reset your skill points for either a special extra skill or some kind of icon whatever (I can't belief I just suggested that haha). Although I have strong reservations on how the rebirth system woud work in the universe of eve. |