Time for a little bit of geek philosophy.
One of the very few things I don’t like about the ship balancing effort going on right now are all of the opportunities CCP is taking to add additional skills to the game. In the aggregate, I think this is a bad thing for EVE Online. For a new player, the game is already quite complex; obviously, adding skills adds to this complexity. For that reason alone, CCP should hesitate to add new skills unless it’s absolutely necessary. But there are two other good reasons not to do this as well.
First and the more minor of the two, the addition of skills to the game feels artificial. Maybe as the game continues to develop and we see how a lot of these new skills fit into the game, they will make more sense. But right now, a lot of the new skills feel like they’ve been inserted only to give veteran players things to train as they run out. This applies particularly to Mining Frigate, Micro Jump Drive Operation, Armor Resistance Phasing, and the forthcoming armor speed skill. Does the game really need more skills that are only useful for a single module or ship? For modules, we have lots of those… too many, really.(1) Does the game really need yet more skills that duplicate other skills? We already have two skills that increase your ship’s speed. Must we add another?
Where new skills make sense and are independent of existing skills and support new metas — Planetary Interaction, for instance — I don’t mind quite so much. But these were unnecessary and artificial. Again, they feel like they were inserted to give 100M+ SP characters something to train.
Which brings me to the greater of my two concerns: the widening gap between long-term and short-term EVE players. When the new racial battle cruiser and destroyer skills hit, if CCP continues to follow their current stated plans, Ripard is going to jump some five million SP further ahead of newer players. Skills like those, the armor speed skill, and the new sensor skills make Ripard just that much more terrifying to newer players I might engage in PvP. Take ship speed alone. I already have an enormous advantages in ship speed because I’ve trained Navigation V and Acceleration Control V. Since I can immediately jump into the armor speed skill and train that without delay, that will put me that much further ahead of players who haven’t.
For players struggling just to train basic fitting skills, are they going to take the time to train these specialized skills? I think not.
This is why I’m a bit hesitant about supporting the new BC and destroyer skills. I can see why CCP are doing it and certainly I’ve done my best to encourage my readers here to be ready for this change. But it doesn’t do new players starting the game this year any damn good… Alliances are still going to be pushing multiple race metas for fleet doctrines because that’s what gives you an advantage on the modern EVE battlefield. Therefore, these newer players are going to have to spend four times as long training for the multi-racial metas if they want to participate. It’s also that many more skill books that new players will have to buy during their early EVE career.
But I’m also torn because I can see the logic underneath this skill split. Back when battle cruisers were introduced to New Eden, a Caldari Battlecruiser skill would have given you access to exactly one ship, the Ferox. That would have been every bit as annoying as the Mining Frigate skill giving you access to one ship today. 
It made total sense for the game at that time to include a single Battlecruiser skill. Even that only unlocked four ships.
So I guess what I’m saying here is that it’s important for CCP to be striking a balance here, and I’m not sure they’ve got that balance right yet. It feels like they’re a little too eager to add new skills with insufficient justification for doing so. As a veteran player, I’m certainly happy about it: it gives me greater advantages against my opponents. But as someone who tries to keep an eye out for the less experienced player as well, I’m less happy.
(1) Yes, I’m specifically looking at you, eight separate e-war module skills.
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yes caz this is gunna make them change there mind, should be gratefull for the free expansions they provide, or go back to wow
That is clearly not the desired goal of this. He said he is happy with this on a personal note, he is only looking out for much less skilled players. Don't talk out your ass plz
Malcanis' law applies.
It's a blog post, expressing an opinion & wasn't published to change what's happening.. idiot.
Well I'm a new player and I've no real problems. Level 3 is easy to reach, Level 4 can be done over time. Only level 5 is a slow process and can be done in just a few concentrated skills. But what is the problem in this?
There is no! I wouldn't start playing this game if I can reach everything in a few weeks. The game needs to keep its master plan! Otherwise it will crumble.
Make new game type like dust for the casuals not fitting to eve.
A very misguided piece. SP =/= Skill in eve. I see low SP players take down guys with 10x or 20x their SP every day. Just last night we had 3 guys in el-cheapo t1 frigs haul down a faction fit daredevil with loki boosts. PVP in Eve is about situational awareness, and using the tools at your disposal to maximum effect, or getting the hell out of dodge before the whole thing goes tits up. While SP can help a little bit, it's never won a fight for me. Being dumb is FAR more likely to get you killed than a lack of SP. Remember that.
so you just blobbed him? yah 1v1 he would of killed you all
I don't think it's blobbing when the solo pilot decides to engage 3 t1 frigs. My guess is that he was pretty confident he could kill them all or some of them while chasing the rest off. Hubris is also a pretty big killer in Eve.
Is attacking someone in a 100mil+ ship with 3 10mil ships really blobbing? Are 1vs1 fights of any importance in EvE anyway? Shouldn´t someone flying such an expensive ship with a 500mil+ booster in background not knowing better what he can kill and what not?
In the end all that those 3 frigate pilots did was being effective. Their combined ships took something down worth 3 times their stuff. Thats what you need skill for in EvE, being effective and clever. Neither ISK nor SPs will win fights for you alone.
Actually, the daredevil was valued at 614m, and was running loki boosts.
our frig pilots were not. Kill value was about 20x all 3 t1 frigs combined.
you sir won a price for the most retarded comment
While SP may not = skill, 3 pilots in t2 ships fitted with t2 mods and maxed support skills will definately have an advantage over 3 pilots in t1 ships fitted with t1 mods and low support skills.
What the author of the article is saying isn't that SP = IWin, but that SP = advantage.
Well spoken Bacon.
I think it’s time for both the ridiculous standpoints (“get skillz” and “get friends”) to realize that EVE resides upon a balance between the two. Numbers are supposed to be a power-factor in EVE online, it’s an equalizer, and when that is the balanced the game is whole.
Several younger players in inexpensive ships are meant to be able to match an older player in a more expensive ship by drawing upon other factors in the game (that the other player do not) and utilize their advantages. That’s what make players of all our different backgrounds and dispositions able interact with each other. When these core pillars (depending on how many factors you wish to attribute them) are aligned (within tolerable differences) we also have a better functional game.
Listening to people who belive EVE should only be about “getting skillz” is about as childish as listening to those who belive it should only be about “getting friends” and the clash of those two ideals do more to scattering the game than resonating with it.
Bads, all of them.
I really shouldn’t write stuff at 3am where there is no edit button. Try to look past all those cut-paste typos
.
and there goes my vote 4 you for CSM8
A hand full of noobs in T1 frigs should not be able to take down a veteran pilot in a T2 or T3. The fact that this can and does happen all too often is saying something is seriously out of whack in the game mechanics. Rather than going into extensive detailed excuses why not simply add a relevance factor. For example in many games/mmo's there is an inherent resilience factor that is calculated when matching up a level 10 vs a level 20 for example in terms of chance to hit and damage per level difference, etc etc.
Are you kidding me? The great thing about Eve is the ability of a very new char to be able to kill a stupid older char and/or outsmart him by using a perfect counter to his ship type.
Want what you are talking about? Please play a different game!
i stopped reading at the point we got to many modules. what a bullshit. having so many options makes eve great
The harder this guy searches for random bits of EVE to bitch about, the dumber his articles get.
I could train an alt with about 1-2 weeks of training and then take it out to null and pwn players in much larger, more skill intensive ships with a frig. There really isnt disparity between skills, rather a disparity in the knowledge of game mechanics and tactics, as well as ship types and counters to them.
Jester, please if you're going to complain about something please make sure it is valid.
skill's to help armor ship's great
tank any armor subcap fleet vs any sheild fleet of same size and let's see who win's
few reason why you wont
1.sheild ships are faster
2.sheild ships do more DPS
3.sheild ships have pasive recharge
4.remote sheild rep starts at begining of cycle
trollers will be laugfhed at unless you can show me a non blob fight of armor ships beating sheild ships
1.Armor ships are smaller
2.Armor ships get more ewar slots
3.Armor ships have a free shield buffer before needing to tank
4.Armor reps are more cap-efficient.
Deal with it, scrub.
5. Armor usually has higher resists.
You've clearly never seen Rooks and Kings in action then?
"trollers will be laugfhed at unless you can show me a non blob fight of armor ships beating sheild ships"
www.youtube.com/user/Rooksandkings
There you go. Fighting outnumbered and beating shield/armor fleets.
Spot on OP.
Killing anyone and then finding out that they would have raped your ass if it weren't for that 2 year afk skill training you did is just devastating.
Piloting in eve is so fucking hard that most ppl don't even realize it, and leave with the usual "press orbit and activate guns", where in reality kiting that 5000 tonne catapillar on a soapy road just 500 m to far into falloff, 10 deg off optimal vector or just overloading 2 volleys to early will make you diaf.
There's no need to make meta barriers as well for them noobs.
Holy shit, how the heck can that be, that a 100+ mil SP player has an advantage against a 10 mil SP player! This is mean and must be stopped!!
What you (and more people) dont seems to understand is that the problem the writer is underlining isnt that "SP = advantage", it's that CCP's approach with some recent changes is to increase that advantage SP gives.
Imagine a match-up between newbies and an old player.
One year ago, let's say a newbie was winning 25% of the time with his lesser speed, lesser damage, lesser HP, lesser everything.
Today (and soon), the old player is more resilient to ewar, got modules (reactive hardener, micro jump drive or the incoming armor skills), the old player will have yet more advantages, on all his ships, in all situation possible. The gap between the old players and the newbies isnt widening solely because the old players accumulate SP, but also because CCP is giving them new way to "cash out" these SP in more and more skills increasing their combat ability, and this in EVERY SITUATION.
Now imagine that instead of that, CCP introduces T3 battleships jovian frigates worth 1b (like some stupid blogger suggested a few months ago), or whatever sort of skill-intensive ships. This would give old players something powerful to train for, but which would only translate in combat power as long as they put something on the line (in this case, the cost of their T3 pirate jovian supercapital with fully gemmed officier mods, or whatever). Anytime the old player would hop in an old ship (be it a condor or a bhaalgorn), the balance of power with a newbie wouldnt widen.
TL; DR: while CCP repeats that they wont introduce new ships to avoid power creep, they're effectively making things worst by introducing power creep through skills which will apply in every situation.
Some of the new skills really do seem artificial. Example: the new mining frigate was produced by ORE. Why couldn't it just rely on the ORE industrial skill instead of making a whole new skill just for it and it alone? Are they reaaaaaaaaaaally planning on releasing other mining frigates?