People were afraid that removing the soft cap entirely would "unbalance everything" because the "no-lifers would skyrocket past everyone" But here is my argument for why that is complete BS, and that the soft cap is just in place to appease the people who are afraid of getting behind.

First off id like to explain how the current soft cap works since many people dont seem to understand it.....

Currently, if you haven't hit your sp cap yet, your SP is based off of two things, Time played in game (1 sp per second), and total WP gained (1 Sp per WP). Once you hit your SP cap the time factor is removed and the only thing that you get SP for is WP.

Right now the soft cap is set at a max of 1000, meaning every WP you earn over a thousand in any match is wasted because only the first 1000 WP count. This is a flawed mechanic because of how it subconsciously gets most players to migrate over to ambush towards the end of the week. The reason for that being because of how an ambush usually only takes between 7 to 10 minutes to complete, where a skirmish takes between 20 min to 30 min. This means that someone who plays ambush is going to make more SP per hour then someone who plays skirmish because of how much of someones WP are wasted per match on skirmish.

So basically we have a system that makes it more profitable to play ambush all day as apposed to playing skirmish because of the imbalances made by the current soft cap. So here are two simple solutions to the problem.

1.) remove the soft cap entirely, this will reward each player with the full amount of SP they deserve based on how many WP they make after they hit there soft cap. IF someone makes 3000 WP in skirmish shouldn't they deserve a little more then 1000 SP??? just my opinion but that sounds pretty fair to me.

2.) increase the soft cap on skirmish only to something like 2000, or 2500. This gives real incentive to play skirmish because now your making as much SP per hour as someone who plays ambush, but your also having the ability to make more isk, and play something with a little more substance.

Both options in my opinion are viable, and would not break the game at all. How will letting us "no-lifers" make a few thousand more SP per hour after our cap let us skyrocket ahead??? i mean lets be honest here, were already ahead and getting a little more ahead isn't going to change much. The only thing this would really change is the revival of skirmish as a viable SP grinder, because right now its just a novelty mode that people play to break up the drag of playing ambush all day long.

Ehh.... Well i could join in on this debate, but yeah it does take awhile to get Sp more without boosters, But im also glad with the one we have now.

I think it's balanced for me anyway. otherwise more people would using prototype equipment Right about Now And steamrolling Newberries.

I think the cap is more there to remind the no lifers that they have a life more than anything. Back when it was 4x skillpoints , no cap, and much more generous than it was now. I ran into the real fear of running out of skills to train, because I did see the end of the tunnel rather quickly. This is after a month and a half of no resets mind you which in translation into today's system would equate to about... 10 months of progress now and with the additional skills almost a year for my rate of progress. People who had no life from my point of view where probably lvl 4'd out everything available at the time. Though it did little to provide them an unfair advantage, during militia weekend.

Your argument about people getting behind was nullified the hour someone wasted trying to update or the day someone else after open beta joined. After all we're expecting newer players to keep pouring in years after the launch of the game.

i argued that people who are ahead are already ahead, so what difference does it make that they could have a couple hundred more sp per match??

Just saying don't make a thesis unless you're more than prepared to defend it.

Remember for some lvl 5 skills it would nearly take 2,000+ battles with current cap in place to hit. With the no 1k cap 1000 battles. With no cap what so ever about 200 or less.

Overall I don't think the system is silly its to set up pacing and give players some choices in the skills they decide to spend SP into instead of recklessly abandoning SP into a skill 'just because.'

For that angle its working rather well. In examples above'd imperfects getting to prototype level gear. Had they mis-spent that they could be at prototype level gear with poor support skills and will drop faster than any militia suit around just about.

+1 good idea

what your not mentioning is how that 200 plus battles would take probably a day and a half worth of game time to actually complete. not to mention how, i have no idea mathematically how you got those numbers. maybe im just reading it wrong, but i dont understand your top statement at all. I understand what your saying about "pacing" but that argument too was nullified the minute someone lost time downloading there game an hour after everyone else, or a day after everyone else.

Most good players will end an ambush match in about 5 or 6 minuets.

I don't think the OP is actually arguing against a soft cap <_<

It really sounds more like the logic is built to have the soft cap be changed to x sp / time, not per match, so that you could play any mode and spend any amount of time playing it and not have either one be "better."

Most good players will end an ambush match in about 5 or 6 minuets.

That's basically what they are asking for. So using a 20 min Skirmish match as the basis for the 1,000 SP award that's 50 SP per minute.

A ten minute Ambush would be worth 500 SP.

Nobody would feel pressured to play ambush over Skirmish and everyone is happy again.

Problem solved.

The vast majority of the players who contributed and bothered to be informed decided on this current system already. CCP also said this system is temporary. Why are we having this discussion again?

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