Friday, November 7, 2014

Here a Clone, There a Clone…

This will be a short post.  On the o7 show, CCP announced the end of medical clone upgrade costs.  And, apparently, some people lost their minds.  Reddit has a few posts about it, and TheMittani.com has a feature article explaining why this change is a good thing.

I have to laugh at the very idea that someone, somewhere, is upset about removing the costs to upgraded medical clones.  It’s a stupid cost added into the game that serves no purpose but to discourage older players from PvPing in as many situations.  Who wants to risk their 150-million SP clone while trying to solo a Sabre, for instance?  Answer?  Not as many as I’d like to see.  Killing that ship just isn’t worth the cost of losing implants, your ship, and the cost to re-up your clone.

This change serves to remove an annoying PvP tax, and it should have died a traitor’s death five years ago.  Good job to CCP to remove this brake from the PvP vehicle.

And to those who were complaining that they’re losing the pleasure of causing a player the grief of having to re-up their clone… boo hoo.  Let me find a violin.  I’m with you in wanting that pod killmail.  I’m right there with you in feeling the adrenaline surge at the hope of seeing a 900-mil pod pop up in my combat log and on my killboard.  I’m all for an attempt to ransom a pod.  All well and good.

But if the only pleasure and value you get in killing a pod is the knowledge that you’ve forced someone to have to pay to upgrade their alpha clone, you’ve got some serious issues to work out.  Nor do you have any interest in taking a fight you might actually lose.  I’d much rather the player I killed put their medical clone money into fitting another ship and coming after me for revenge.  Right now, that clone cost is directly crowding out an actual PvP engagement – the money spent isn’t being spent on another PvP ship.  It has a negative effect on content, actually.

And if you don’t see that and realize that consideration wins out over your sadistic to inflict harm that does nothing to benefit you or changes your gameplay whatsoever…

Just… wow.

3 comments:

  1. Who wants to risk their 150-million SP clone while trying to solo a Sabre, for instance? Answer? Not as many as I’d like to see. Killing that ship just isn’t worth the cost of losing implants, your ship, and the cost to re-up your clone.

    Then instead of getting rid of a mechanic that made sense form a lore etc. stand point... why not just adjust the cost of implants and close down?? I mean I liked that you had to THINK about what you were doing and that EVE had a STOOPID tax... This was not a PvP tax... It was a tax on being dumb...

    And I like that cause the real world kills the stupid off daily... and hey dunt get to respawn.

    But as to the rest... yea... wow huh?

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    Replies
    1. > It was a tax on being dumb
      No, it wasn't.
      Remembering to upgrade your clone after being podded requires the intelligence of a bread.
      Sure, it happens that you forget about it, but that is not a matter of dumb/intelligent play. It also is not a gameplay decision to upgrade the clone, you will always want to do that.
      I find it similar to a popup coming up randomly with "do you want to loose some isk: yes/no". Sure, sometimes someone misclicks and looses money, but where does it add to the gameplay?

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  2. Dex I totally agree with you. I am welcoming this change so much!

    I have 200 mil sp main that had not seen the fight for over 2 years... I just couldn't get over the costs. Especially when CCP buffed t1 ships... T2 brings small advantage with high costs increase.

    Now I can activate him again and enjoy pvp :) one of the best moves CCP made lately.

    ReplyDelete