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Thursday, July 2, 2009

Blog Banter #9: Bye Bye Learning skills

Welcome to the ninth installment of the EVE Blog Banter and its first contest, the monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by CrazyKinux. The EVE Blog Banter involves an enthusiastic group of gaming bloggers, a common topic within the realm of EVE Online, and a week to post articles pertaining to the said topic. The resulting articles can either be short or quite extensive, either funny or dead serious, but are always a great fun to read! Any questions about the EVE Blog Banter should be directed here. Check out other EVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!

"Last month Ga'len asked us which game mechanic we would most like to see added to EVE. This month Keith "WebMandrill" Nielson proposes to reverse the question and ask what may be a controversial question: Which game mechanic would you most like to see removed completely from EVE and why? I can see this getting quite heated so lets keep it civil eh?"

Well darn. Congratulations on finding a blog banter that I can whip off in a very short time. Took me way too long to settle on it but yep I finally did.

I'd get rid of learning skills. Lock stock and barrel. They are one of the leading causes of newbie pilots abandoning EVE. With all other skills you get a sense of progression. These are seen as simply a hurdle to suffer through. Most senior pilots advise newbies to do them as early as possible, which makes the problem worse. They should be summarily removed. Up the basic stats to keep a decent learning rate but scrap these entirely.

That's it. What? you expected a long argument?

List of Participants:
  1. Diary of a Space Jockey, Blog Banter: BE GONE!
  2. EVE Newb, (EVE) Remove You
  3. Miner With Fangs, Blog Banter - It's the Scotch
  4. The Eden Explorer, Blog Banter: The Map! The Map!
  5. The Wandering Druid of Tranquility, "Beacons, beacons, beacons, beacons, beacons, mushroom, MUSHROOM!!!"
  6. Inner Sanctum of the Ninveah, Kill the Rats
  7. Mercspector @ EVE, Scotty
  8. EVE's Weekend Warrior, EVE Blog Banter #9
  9. A Merry Life and a Short One, Eve Blog Banter #9: Why Won't You Die?
  10. Into the unknown with gun and camera, Blog Banter – The Hokey Cokey
  11. The Flightless Geek, EVE Blog Banter #9: Remove a Game Mechanic
  12. Sweet Little Bad Girl, Blog Banter 9: Who is Nibbling at My House?
  13. One Man and His Spaceship, Blog Banter 9: What could you do without?
  14. Life in Low Sec, EVE Blog Banter #9: Stop Tarnishing My Halo
  15. Cle Demaari: Citizen, Blog Banter #9: Training for all my men!
  16. A Mule in EVE, He who giveth, also taketh away?
  17. Dense Veldspar, Blog Banter 9
  18. Morphisat’s Blog, Blog Banter #9 – Randomness Be Gone !
  19. Facepalm's Blog, EVE Blog Banter #9: What a new pilot could do without
  20. Memoires of New Eden, You're Fired
  21. Kyle Langdon's Journeys in EVE, EVE Blog Banter #9 Titans? What's a Titan?
  22. Achernar, The gates! The gates are down!
  23. Speed Fairy, EVE Blog Banter #9: Down with Downtime!
  24. I am Keith Neilson, EVE Blog Banter #9-F**K Da Police
  25. Ripe Lacunae, The UI… Where do I begin… (Eve Blog Banter #9)
  26. Clown Punchers, EvE Blogs: What game mechanic would you get rid of?
  27. Estel Arador Corp Services, You've got mail
  28. Epic Slant, Let Mom and Pop Play: EVE Blog Banter #9
  29. Deaf Plasma's EVE Musings, Blog Banter #9 - Removal of Anchoring Delay of POS modules
  30. Podded Once Again, Blog Banter #9 - Do we really need to go AFK?
  31. Postcards from EVE, 2009.07.02.00.29.06
  32. Harbinger Zero, Blog Banter #9 – War Declarations & Sec Status
  33. Warp Scrammed, Blog Banter 9 – Never Too Fast
  34. Ecaf Ersa (EVE Mag), Can a Tractor Tractor a Can?
  35. Thoughts from an Accidental Minmatar Revolutionary, EVE Blog Banter #9 - Aggression timers, WTs and Stargates
  36. Mike Azariah, I don't put much stock in it...
  37. Rettic's Log, Blog Banter: Overview Overload
  38. A Sebiestor Scholar, [OOC] EVE Blog Banter #9: Slaves
  39. Diary of a pod pilot, [OOC] EVE blog banter #9: Because of Falcon
  40. Roc's Ramblings, Blog Banter #9 – Taking Things Slow
  41. More articles as they are posted!

13 comments:

Benoit CozmikR5 Gauthier said...

Mine aren't maxed yet but I just did them as EVEmon suggested. But yeah, I wouldn't be sorry to see them go.

Kyle Langdon said...

I love my learning skills. They make me feel smart!

Anonymous said...

Yes, there are better ways to implement acquiring improved attributes. Maybe an attribute boost for each skill learned, or certificate earned (subject to a cap, I suppose)

Beowolf Schaefer said...

I love the Idea.

The fact is that they don't actually ad anything to the game. They simply make you waste your time on something that gives little to no gratifacation.

You have my my vote man!

Anonymous said...

Damn. I'd never consider it but it's so obvious. Nailed it.

I vote you be considered for the main prize based solely on finding damn near perfect thing to get rid of, demonstrated in a single paragraph.

Carole Pivarnik said...

Prior to the ability to rebalance attributes, the learning skills were possibly more useful. I'm not sure what I think about removing them. I have Learning to V and the rest to IV. To be honest, I'll never train them any further.

Thorvik said...

I agree with your statement and the attribute boost. You should be able to gain knowledge as well as learning experience points as you gain more skills. The more books you read, the more intelligent you get. Learning about specific subject could then earn you points in perception, etc...

This way if your learning is not balanced, you still get penalized, but if you balance your skills, your learning will be balanced. A Rennaisance PodPilot.

I did what Mynxee did as well. Learning V and all else IV. What a waste of time.

CrazyKinux said...

You made it on the list! Good luck!

Lyiet Finvar said...

Learning skills give players the choice to develop a basic combat character or a better developed character. It prevents people from making combat alts and training at the same rate as everyone else, so they do serve some purpose.

However, I agree they could be changed to alleviate some of the discomfort of making a new character. And it takes way too darn long to learn them too - by the time you get them to five, it's what, 3 years of playing to make up the time lost from learning them? I always tell new players to get them - after they have gotten enough skills, such as destroyer and a cruiser learned and basic gun skills so they can enjoy the game.

Chain Trap said...

I don't like the time spent learning them. They are simply a time sink. So I agree.

I would like to see Luccul's idea of linking attribute boosts to something else tho. Or just a pool of points that you can distribute as you see fit, and then remap twice a year rather than once.

Either way, don't make me spend time in the game learning how to spend less time learning. It's just downright silly.

mikeazariah said...

I am of two minds in this. It does ask whether you are in for the long or the short haul. Learning skills is a commitment, more so now that 'ghost training' has been laid to rest.

How would you suggest taking them away? I dread the roar of the whiners and rage quitters if you told them all that time they have put into skills was for nothing.

It is an almost rp choice. Do you think now or shoot now?

Or find some middle ground?

Anonymous said...

how about getting and inrease to your learning skills every so often. ONe thing I am most proud of is my alt who has all learning ( incl adv) to 5 while removing this would punish those who invested this time...is it too much...yes I cannot argue there I would like to see your abilities advance 1 point across the board per year, vets would be happy and new players could endeavor to stay longer as a kind of mini reward.

Tony "EVE's Weekend Warrior" said...

I agree.