So whats the deal ccp

I'm for this.

Eventually, we will be heard.

Hey all.

One of the ideas things that has been discussed with the CPM is the idea to have placeholder models for all the currently missing racial variants (gal, min, cal heavy, cal & amar light) to have placeholder models with all the intended slot loadouts, skills, skill bonuses and stats untill such a time where the art department is ready to implement them.

We think that currently, a lot of the suits seem to be trying to balance themselves for options that dont yet exist which is kinda flawed. Traditionally CCP doesn't really like the use of placeholders but in this instance we think its fairly important.

Any feedback and thoughts on this would be very valuable.

Thing is, it's not that simple to do tech wise. We havent been able to discuss this suggestion in details with devs but it's not just about 3D models.

Yet, i still think it's a good idea to make the game much more complete quite fast. But i dont have all the keys.

Honestly, I wouldn't care if the placeholders even had something like different colors to distinguish between them. If all the missing scouts used the exact same suit model - down to the color - I'd still want it. It's the missing elements of the skill tree and missing knowledge there that create the larger issue.

The skills that are missing could be primary desires for many people. If you want to define yourself as a "gallente heavy", you're going to need to put points into "Gallente Heavy Frames", and presumably something like "Sentinel" or "Commando" as well. Even with the skill discounts, you're still looking at maxing an 8x skill and possibly a 4x one at the same time.

If CCP's solution to the wait is "save SP" because "no respec", that's a huge chunk SP to be squirreling away (3.7 mill or so). You can get a new weapon to advanced in a week or so. Getting that new suit type to proto can't happen the same way though. The nature of making investing in a given racial variant/style so time-intensive is that it makes a decision weighty. Making the decisions without all the facts is painful, similar to if EVE just completely lacked ship-types for some races. It's awkward.

Bang. On.

My only problem with this is that CCP will release new content further down the line, are we to expect placeholders every time they tell us a new feature?

I wouldn't mind placeholders for lots of things. I'd like an Amarr pilot with an Amarr dropship, for example. I can't skill into Amarr light frames (don't exist), Amarr pilots (role doesn't exist), or Amarr Dropships (don't exist).

If I wanted to skill into something equivalent, I'd basically be stuck aligning with Caldari/Gallente at a huge expense of SP. It would take months to earn that same SP to get the same degree of skill in Amarr if it suddenly released. The alternative is saving my SP till those things are released, but.... we don't know when that will happen. So, you look at gimping yourself and not spending SP while you wait.

If they just threw a Gallente dropship (model-wise) with the Amarr stats up, and added the skills... it wouldn't be the same of course. But my SP wouldn't be wasted. Same deal with the scout suit. Obviously the Gallente suit isn't the same as an Amarr, but it allows me to both know what I'm getting into ("oh wow, the bonuses for Amarr pilots are terrible" and so on) and to put my hard-earned SP towards my eventual goal as opposed to something I don't want.

I don't think the "tech" restrictions of placeholders are as complicated as people make them out to be. The set of variables that would be pointing towards the appropriate model just gets pointed at an existing model instead. Like I said, I don't care if it looks exactly the same - I care if I spend two months of SP on something that isn't the suit/area I actually wanted to spec into. The skills matter. The is entirely because they've setup the game so that it -does- take months (assuming max SP) to get skilled up in something like a dropsuit. Why take X-race to proto if it's not even the one you want?

I think there's already a lot of stuff that's not really articulated in-game. Like the viewer model for all the ARs having scopes, and the general lack of distinction between different ARs. People will plan their skills by the skills, when they notice the suits' not unique, it'll be like a number of other problems in game that have no documentation (memory leak, etc.).

Not documenting the fact it's a placeholder graphic is a minor issue compared to the lack of the skills on the tree.

The life-threatening disease here is the lack of models. Placeholder models are like a dialysis machine.

Now, renal failure is far from the only thing that kill you. You can live without a kidney for a little while. However, it would be silly to avoid dialysis because "it's not a real kidney" when you've got serious issues there. It's a short-term solution to a serious problem. I think everyone can agree that the ideal situation is to have the real kidneys transplanted in at a later date.

The dialysis (placeholder models) can help the body (game) continue to function properly and the fluids (SP) wind up appropriately spread throughout. It has two benefits: it keeps the body (game) healthier while waiting for the real kidney (models), but also keeps things (SP) properly distributed. This saves you from the need to completely replace all the blood (respec) or something like that.

If you don't use dialysis (placeholders) and the wait for the kidney (models) is overly long, then the body (game/playerbase) might reject the organs (new content) as they'll be unable to use it properly and the fluids (SP) will be stuck in other places.

... I think that metaphor works.

Single greatest metaphor ever

The horse is dead, ccp will clearly not do it because it is silly to implement unfinished stuff to the game.

Let the horse go.

silly to implement unfinished stuff to the game.

funny how they have the time to re-skin suits for us instead of using that time to actually prepare those missing racial suits