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[Alain Colcer]

When i first played with Bruno i didn't invest in any learning skills cause i didn't knew the effect it created in training speed. Went 3 months straigh with a slower training schedule, nothing major.

Finally i realized what they did and invested in the basic learning skills up to lvl4, i was impressed at how some skills that seemed completely out of question (ie: destroyer V) could now be reached in 10~days, everything else before that moment had to be short-term with high returns on the fun factor, and t2 was not really inline with that, nor was Battleships.

With the new mechanic of having a 100% bonus to skill training speed for new characters, coupled with the existance of evemon and other training tutorials, there is a good argument to make: Invest at least 2-3 points in the basics, you will gain them in the first 3 months of your play time. It will allow you to have some good fun with t2 frigs, basic t2 modules and other nice features such as exploration in a "reasonable" timeframe, without feeling as "lost" time. It might not be the best choice for trial, but it will have a very important impact in the first 3 months of your play time.

At that point, the player needs to understand the choice, learning skills are there to improve your overall advancement of the game, how much are you willing to invest and risk in it depends on how high you are aiming. A 3month player who has realized he will become a capital pilot and join a 0.0 alliance can do the math and understand the benefits and drawbacks.

For me, having as a player the power of choice and knowing the outcomes is the essence of why EvE is such a good game.

So the problem is not the existance or use of learning skills, it's the dumbasses who without much argument just exert the newbie to train the learnings all to V without explaining the consequences of such choice.

[Goshien]

There's no strategy. You either gimp yourself for the long term, or you gimp yourself for the short term. You shouldn't have to make the choice of gimping in just the training of your skills. I am not saying everybodies got to be equal speed. Vet's and their alts always get the option of a nice set of +4's or 5's to speed them along while that new guy still starting out doesn't get that.

Yes, Eve always has choice. But this choice is dumb, and not one any new player could reasonably be expected to make. Given the way it's set up now, all it does is mess with new players, and does shit all for the vets.

Begin Rage: I read the thread and:

"Back in my day you had to train the basic learning skills to 5 before you could train the advanced ones. If you think this game doesnt cater to noobs, you have it sooooooo much easier than guys like me who started a few years ago."

*SNIP* - Havo.  Back in my day is not, and will never be a reasonable argument for anything. The only reason it pissed me off is because it amounts to saying: "My life sucks so your's should to." /Endrage

[Mizhara]

Actually, it says "Stop bitching. We had it just fine. You guys have it even better. Enjoy the game instead of bitching about something that's just fine as it is."

[Gottii]

Six and a half (or so) years ago, they told me it was madness to have my learning skill category maxed out.


 Who's laughing now, chumps?
 

Did they teach you were the undock button was back then Silver?    ( pls dont ban me...)

[Lillith Blackheart]

There's no strategy. You either gimp yourself for the long term, or you gimp yourself for the short term. You shouldn't have to make the choice of gimping in just the training of your skills. I am not saying everybodies got to be equal speed. Vet's and their alts always get the option of a nice set of +4's or 5's to speed them along while that new guy still starting out doesn't get that.

*slams head on desk* It's not gimping.

Look.

Starting new players that don't know what they're doing yet or whether or not they will keep the account should not be training learning skills. At all.

Here's why.

You spend your early time training around through different skills that you actually need and go through your regular time getting a feel for it. You decide you enjoy it, and then you start training your learning skills if you opt to stick with it. There is no gimping involved in this strategy. The only "gimping" you get is that instead of the learning skills being double-speed (big fucking deal) your regular skills are double-speed.

Period.

So then you can get some implants slapped into your head and the training time loss you're talking about is like a week, two weeks tops. Given that we've all lost well more than a week by not remembering to set a skill before going to bed who gives a shit? You haven't gimped anything.

Now you can gimp yourself on the short-term, which just extends the statement that learning skills aren't as important and people have a flawed perception of them.

I don't really know how else to explain that.

But if you want we can even run an experiment. Set up an alt, I'll set one up too. You get those ever so important learning skills, I won't. We'll see who gets into a Stealth Bomber faster. (Hint: I'll have a mining barge too by the time you get there. Further hint: I'll also be halfway done with the learning skill too).

The problem is perception. In this here little Skinner Box they've got us tucked into, we're so used to the conditioning given to us by other Skinner Boxes that we don't think about what we're doing, we just assume what is is the same as it is everywhere else because that is how we've been conditioned to think. If we take the time to pause, run some math, look things over, we realize that the differences on the short term are huge and the differences on the long term are negligible, but on the extreme long term there is a notably important difference. (This is to run all the skills to 4, mind)

But that's not what we're supposed to think, so we keep pulling the lever and bitching about it.

[Havohej]

[admin]Please refrain from direct insults, whether the target is a member of the Backstage community or not.[/admin]

[Mithfindel]

Well, the mechanic is now there. Technically, adding more and more learning skills might be a way to close the gap between newbies and veterans. However, this has the same effect as printing money to fight the lack of funds for states: Inflation. If the final goal is to get rid of the "learning skill grind", an intermediate solution for CCP might be to incrementally start awarding skills at new character creation. So perhaps the next expansion, everyone would start with the basic learning skill at least on level one, the next expansion new characters would start with learning skills at level two etc. until they reach level fours, at which point they could go on with advanced learnings. Level V's would be reserved for those who would want the extra edge.

There is, however, a small problem with this - namely, if all new characters start with godly learning skills, it will be easy to train disposable alts (hello, learning skills +100% SP boosted start) during the trial. Refunding skills might be even more difficult, though, unless they were refunded as some kind of a limited-time skill training bonus. (Or possibly as skills that allow you to do the neural remapping thing more often than usual.)

[Havohej]

If the final goal is to get rid of the "learning skill grind", an intermediate solution for CCP might be to incrementally start awarding skills at new character creation.

They had this before.  From launch, they raised the starting SP several times from what I understand from talking to vets older in the game than myself.  When I started, noobs began with 850k SP with pre-set starting skills based on race, bloodline and career path.  Minmatar Brutor started with a leg up on Perc/Will, Caldari Achura started with the highest possibly Int/Mem (which is why most of the alts in the game were Caldari Achura - quickest training of learning skills).  Old heads used to tell me about how easy I had it 'cause they started out with nowhere near 850k SP :p

They got rid of that intentionally because noobs with no knowledge of the game's lore or how skills really work were faced with lots of choices they didn't understand and (apparently) there were steady complaints of people messing their character choices up and not realizing it until a month later when they figured out how the game worked but by then they'd spent a month on training and didn't want to just start over so they felt stuck; now it doesn't matter what race/bloodline/career path you choose - CCP dumbed it down and added accelerated learning temporarily to make up for starting with only 50k SP.

I personally didn't like this decision on CCP's part, but since they intentionally moved away from the "gradually increase starting skills/SP" method I doubt they'll re-start that.  I think it's really just something people need to deal with about EVE.  In other MMOs the guy with 10 hours a day to spend on grinding in the game will have an insurmountable advantage and casual players get stomped.  In EVE, casuals get stomped because they haven't put in any time learning how to PvP or fit their ships for it even - not because they don't have 10 hours a day to play.  I prefer EVE's way.

I also don't think the learning skills should be removed because their existence reinforces the idea that our characters are not physical brutes and supersoldiers with 1200% accuracy with a pistol from 3 miles away because they've grinded Dexterity.  They're not physical superheroes at all.  They're special for their mental attributes and the ability to pilot space ships in ways that normal people can't. I think that without such emphasis on it being the mental attributes that make our characters special more new RPers in EVE would go the twink route due to not really 'getting' EVE.

Before someone mentions Dust514, that game isn't out yet, our characters aren't Dust characters, Dust is irrelevant here.

[Aodha Khan]

Quite simple, don't train the learning skills if you dont want to. Thankfully Eve gives a wide range of training CHOICES.

[Graanvlokkie]

Starting new players that don't know what they're doing yet or whether or not they will keep the account should not be training learning skills. At all.

/signed

One problem is that the first thing most people tell a new player is that they MUST train at least all their learning skills first, perhaps to level 3 or 4 before they start playing.

This doesn’t make much sense at all, because the first couple weeks where you should be in your frigate dying horrible deaths in low sec and null sec (having fun and learning the important game mechanics that will keep you hooked and in love with Eve) you are spinning ships in station because you can’t fit that salvaging module to salvage your wrecks in that level one mission that took you 3 hours to complete?

Yes, I tell new players about the learning skills, because I didn’t know about them for the first 3 months I played, but my advice is always to download Evemon and set up a skill plan, and only train a learning skill if Evemon tells you it will make your queue shorter AND if the saved time seems worth the wait.

If a person is dedicated enough to set up a 2 month skill queue, I think he is dedicated enough to start considering whether waiting two days for the learning skill to train is worth saving that extra 20 minutes that the skill will save you on that same two month queue.

It was only recently that I personally started making skill queues longer than six months myself.

[Shal Firestorm]

As a voice for newbs, I have to say leave them in. I'm only just now training up Learning, I kinda powertrained up to some skills but now am just now dipping into the Learning stuff. I really like that it's an option and, really, doesn't feel like much of a 'newbie trap'.

[Mithfindel]

If the final goal is to get rid of the "learning skill grind", an intermediate solution for CCP might be to incrementally start awarding skills at new character creation.

They had this before.  From launch, they raised the starting SP several times from what I understand from talking to vets older in the game than myself.

When I started, there was a multitude of paths. Great stuff for roleplaying, but needed to make lots of choices, and actually one of the paths (Spaceship Command -> Starship Captain or something like that) awarded the most SP, so they were not balanced. Later on came the 800-something k balanced skill selections.

However, back to my previous post, I apparently weren't clear that I mean awarding more learning skills only. Thus, no learning skill grind, since you already have them. And unlike I wrote, it wouldn't actually be a problem to have the accelerated start as well, as long as it would be limited by SP, perhaps up to the alpha clone level of 900k SP (if you had considerably better learning skills, it'd act as a permanent learning skill buff).

[Dex_Kivuli]

I think there is an important characteristic of learning skills that is regularly overlooked: short term gains. I trained the learning skills pretty hard when I started (basics to 5, learning 5, advanced to 4), but I don't think the advantage comes in "raw" skill points, it comes with speed. Most people use Eve intensively on weekends, as opposed to during the week. There are numerous times, when - by virtue of my high learning skills - I've been able to access something before  a weekend roam, or even have a skill come online mid roam. Deciding to switch kiel on training is another example: being able to cut days off getting in to a command ship was a reall boon. This is the key benefit to me. Once you've trained the learning skills, they're a sunk cost. You don't need to recover them in additional skillpoints per se.

That said, I personally support their removal. Obviously, for selfish reasons: I'd have nearly 3 mill SP to redistribute (assuming CCP reimbursed them), but the core of my reasoning is much more fundamental.

Basically, removing learning skills makes Eve more friendly to the new player, which will ultaimtely encourage more people to have paying accounts. More paying accounts is what CCP wants, they are a business. But ultimately, more accounts are good for us all. More people to RP with and more people to fight etc.

It is true that beginners don't need to train learning skills. However, even a casual glance at evemon will show that lvl2-3 skills pay for themselves very quickly, and most beginners don't use Evemon. Further, Eve tends to attract players who already have a touch of OCD: players who won't PvP until they have full rifter skills, or won't produce anything until they have production efficiency 5. The net result is that a lot of beginners overtrain learning, and then get bored. This causes some attrition.

I've got a lot of experience with newer players, and one of the key concerns for beginners is that they will never catch up to experienced vets. Learning skills perpetuate this. The typical response when you tell a beginner to only train learning skills to level 3 is akin to Bart Simpson, in the Scorpio Epsiode:

Let me get this straight: we're behind the rest of our class and we're going to catch up to them by going slower than they are? Coo Coo!

You can tell them until you're blue in the face about piloting skill (which a vet is better at), or fitting skills (which a vet is better at), but ultimately, they will return to the point that if we both sat in identical ships and shot each other, the vet would always win.

And in many cases, that's a tough psychological barrier for a new player to overcome. Games are about escapism. Players want to be the champion pilot, the master crafter, or the elite trader. Minmaxing is the order of the decade in gaming. It shouldn't be, especially not in an RP forum. However, most absolute noobs come to the game wanting to become The Best at something.

And let's think about this: which characters really benefit from learning skills, and are truly minmaxed? Vets' alts. I know, I'm guilty. Owner of a trade alt with 30 charisma checking in.

Giving all players in eve +10 base attributes, removing learning skills, and allowing all players to redistribute their learning SP would be a good thing for new players. Further, I think it would bring back some old players.

These days, training time differentiation can come from implants and remaps, as Goshien said. Further, I'd really love the idea of learning enhancing boosters, and ISK-purchasable neural remaps. ISK purchasable items are ultimately available to everyone, provided they have the willingness to earn the ISK (or sell plexes). So removing the learning skills isn't too much of a dumbing down, at least not in terms of the additional subscribers it could create.

[Dex_Kivuli]

Oh, and if learning skills stay, I want to get some goddamned certificates for my trouble!

[Lillith Blackheart]

I think there is an important characteristic of learning skills that is regularly overlooked: short term gains. I trained the learning skills pretty hard when I started (basics to 5, learning 5, advanced to 4), but I don't think the advantage comes in "raw" skill points, it comes with speed. Most people use Eve intensively on weekends, as opposed to during the week. There are numerous times, when - by virtue of my high learning skills - I've been able to access something before  a weekend roam, or even have a skill come online mid roam. Deciding to switch kiel on training is another example: being able to cut days off getting in to a command ship was a reall boon. This is the key benefit to me. Once you've trained the learning skills, they're a sunk cost. You don't need to recover them in additional skillpoints per se.

However it neglects the fact that the two weeks you spent on learning skills could have instead been spent on those other skills and you'd be ahead of the game. Even more so if you did train them to 5, because then you're talking about months. Saying "Two months after I start playing I can train faster!" does not invalidate that their advantage on the short term is negligible, and even further is detrimental.

Basically, removing learning skills makes Eve more friendly to the new player, which will ultaimtely encourage more people to have paying accounts. More paying accounts is what CCP wants, they are a business. But ultimately, more accounts are good for us all. More people to RP with and more people to fight etc.

Actually, removing the learning skills wouldn't impact the new player at all. People getting it out of their heads that learning skills are all that important to a new player would be the place to start.

It is true that beginners don't need to train learning skills. However, even a casual glance at evemon will show that lvl2-3 skills pay for themselves very quickly, and most beginners don't use Evemon.

Which is fair, but the L2-3 skills aren't the full chain, and it takes only a few hours to train them all to 3 if you use your boosted period, but even then if you don't get them early you will get them even faster later as you will have implants. So again, their advantage is negligible. You're talking the amount of time lost by forgetting to set your skill training a couple times. You're going to lose far more time than that over the course of your eve career.

Further, Eve tends to attract players who already have a touch of OCD: players who won't PvP until they have full rifter skills, or won't produce anything until they have production efficiency 5. The net result is that a lot of beginners overtrain learning, and then get bored. This causes some attrition.

Everyone on the planet is a touch OCD. Also, this isn't really a problem. If people are conditioned to waste time, then they can go right ahead and waste time. The overtraining of learning isn't going to bore people. If it does then EVE in general will bore them. To make a corollary, people don't go bored of raiding the same endgame dungeon hundreds of times to the point that it becomes muscle memory, do they?

I've got a lot of experience with newer players, and one of the key concerns for beginners is that they will never catch up to experienced vets. Learning skills perpetuate this. The typical response when you tell a beginner to only train learning skills to level 3 is akin to Bart Simpson, in the Scorpio Epsiode:

Let me get this straight: we're behind the rest of our class and we're going to catch up to them by going slower than they are? Coo Coo!

You can tell them until you're blue in the face about piloting skill (which a vet is better at), or fitting skills (which a vet is better at), but ultimately, they will return to the point that if we both sat in identical ships and shot each other, the vet would always win.

Then you're teaching them the wrong thing. Piloting skill and fitting skills matter little in quelling that. What you need to be explaining is that if you take a 12mil SP pilot and an 80mil SP pilot and put them in the same ship, and the 12mil SP pilot focussed on that ship for his training, they are at identical levels, because the ship is only going to be using ~8-10mil SPs because the other stuff doesn't involve that ship. People should be explained that the advantage of more skillpoints is versatility and the ability to fly a wider variety of ships, and that there is a ceiling in any given ship as to being improved by skillpoints.

If you're not making that clear to them, you're doing them a disservice, and continuing to perpetuate the myth that "we can never catch up".

And in many cases, that's a tough psychological barrier for a new player to overcome. Games are about escapism.

Games are about escapism, MMOs are about pulling levers endlessly hoping that a food pellet comes out. This isn't even a joke. There's more psychology involved in MMO design than you can possibly imagine.

Players want to be the champion pilot, the master crafter, or the elite trader. Minmaxing is the order of the decade in gaming. It shouldn't be, especially not in an RP forum. However, most absolute noobs come to the game wanting to become The Best at something.

Then learning skills aren't the problem. The problem is the understanding of how training and skillpoints actually works and that there's ceilings that you hit in any given task. If they think that 80mil skillpoints means they're better than someone with 40mil skillpoints, then they haven't been properly taught.

And let's think about this: which characters really benefit from learning skills, and are truly minmaxed? Vets' alts. I know, I'm guilty. Owner of a trade alt with 30 charisma checking in.

No, long term characters benefit from learning skills. Once you cross the 4-5 year period you will be benefitting from the learning skills you have. Vets' alts don't benefit from learning skills any more or less than any other new account. Vets' alts benefit from their experience with the game and nothing else, and that's something that you can't "fix" by changing the nature of the game world. The only people who benefit from learning skills are long term characters. Period.

Giving all players in eve +10 base attributes, removing learning skills, and allowing all players to redistribute their learning SP would be a good thing for new players. Further, I think it would bring back some old players.

It wouldn't in any way benefit new players. Not even in the slightest. The only way it would benefit new players is if you just made those learning SPs vanish in a puff of smoke -- unless you're suddenly changing your tune on new players catching up...?

These days, training time differentiation can come from implants and remaps, as Goshien said. Further, I'd really love the idea of learning enhancing boosters, and ISK-purchasable neural remaps. ISK purchasable items are ultimately available to everyone, provided they have the willingness to earn the ISK (or sell plexes). So removing the learning skills isn't too much of a dumbing down, at least not in terms of the additional subscribers it could create.

It's also entirely unnecessary, because in the grand scheme it changes absolutely nothing while costing CCP's devs a lot of time and labor that could be put to something that could in some way benefit the game environment, like new expansions, new ships, etc.