User:Drebin 679/Sandbox 10

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Drebin 679 Sandbox 10 - flavor of the month

CCP offers several packs that serve as Skill Point Purchases where the Skill Points come directly from CCP, and not from other players through passive skill training or direct SP giveaways. There are items and packs that can be purchased for real money or PLEX which directly give SP to an account.

History

Skill Injectors and skill trading was introduced in February 2016. When announced in a devblog on October 2015, Skill Injectors were to have diminishing returns based on the amount of SP the injecting character had.[1] Speaking on behalf of Team Size Matters, CCP Rise explained:

“

As you can see, this design favors skill transfers for younger characters and makes them very inefficient for older characters. We’ve designed it this way so that we protect the prestige associated with long commitment to a single character.

Why have diminishing returns at all? We want to make sure training decisions are still very important and that rapid respeccing of skills is not an efficient choice at any point. Note that respeccing below 5mil SP is not possible because characters that new are not allowed to create the SP items.

Feedback on how exactly to set up the diminishing returns, or even alternate ideas to reach the same goals would be very helpful here. We think we are in the ballpark but getting the numbers right is very important.

”

In a second dev blog on skill trading in January 2016, CCP Rise wrote about the Skill Points sources that would be used in trading.[2]

“

It’s very important to note here that this means all the skillpoints available to buy on the market in EVE will have originated on other characters where they were trained at the normal rate. Player driven economies are key to EVE design and we want you to decide the value of traded skillpoints while we make sure there is one single mechanism that brings new skillpoints in to the system – training.

”

Since the introduction of skill injectors, several means of SP gain beyond "normal rate" training have been added.

Cerebral Accelerators, which can speed up passive training beyond regular rates, were added to limited time events, starting as early as Crimson Harvest in October 2016. Daily Alpha Injectors, which allow Alpha clones to convert PLEX into SP with a limited consumption rate, were introduced with the Arms Race update in December 2017.[3] Direct SP awards as part of limited time login campaigns were introduced as in a "Double Training Weekend" in November 2018.[4] Direct SP rewards for killing rats, NPCs, or completing certain tasks as part of limited time events were first introduced as part of the Skilling Spree from the Season of Skills in July-August 2019. Direct purchases of SP for real money became possible starting with the introduction of the Starter Pack in May/June 2019.[5] SP daily awards independent of limited time events were added in April 2016, but retracted in June that same year, [6] and were reintroduced as part of the Evergreen Daily Login Rewards system in April 2020. Further direct skill point purchases were added as part of new value packs in January 2020,[7] and more directly in the Training Boost Bundle in July that same year.[8]

None of these additional sources appear to have any restrictions to their use in skill trading, beyond the 5.5 million skill point floor below which no extractions can be made.

Daily Alpha Injector

Icon daily alpha injector.png

The Daily Alpha Injector is the first means by which players could directly purchase SP from sources aside from other players. It was introduced as part of the Arms Race update in December 2017, which greatly expanded the Alpha clone skillset.[3][9]

Instead of the race restricted, Tech 1 cruisers and below skillset, Alpha clones could now train up to Battleships of any of the four major empires. Free training was available up to 5 million SP, and further skills within the ~20 million SP Alpha clone skillset could be accessed through skill injectors or by having trained those skills while in the Omega clone state.

Alongside this change, new Alpha Skill Injectors were added.[10] These could be purchased from the New Eden Store for 20 PLEX, and could be consumed by an Alpha Clone for 50,000 SP. Consumption is limited to one per day. While this serves as an purchasable SP source separate from passive training, the ISK/SP efficiency (30 days of alpha injectors could give 1.5 million SP for 600 PLEX) is lower than what can be gotten from a similar amount of PLEX through skill training (30 days of max rate Omega training can give 1.9 million SP for 500 PLEX).

Starter Pack

In June 2019, CCP introduced a new Starter Pack, marking the first time where SP could be directly purchased with real money.[5][11] For $5 (or the equivalent in other supported currencies), players could get 1 million SP, a special cerebral accelerator that increased damage and learning attributes for characters under 35 days old, SKINs for various Frigates, and character cosmetics. Purchases were limited to one per account, although a means to bypass the restriction was theorized by the community.[12]

Following community backlash, then-Senior Community Manager CCP Falcon wrote in a forum post[13] and later in a news article[14] that they added the pack to assist new players in their training, and that they were seen as a service to new players to give them a head start without the full committment of one month of Omega time, rather than a way to make money. CCP Falcon stated that they would look into restricting the pack to pilots under 35 days old.

As of 9 July 2020, the pack is no longer available for sale in CCP's store.[15] It is unknown if a player age restriction was added before its removal. An identically named Starter Pack on Steam introduced in May 2019[16], which only offers 250k SP for $5 alongside Omega time and other items, remains available.[17]

Value Packs

2020 Value Pack Banner.jpg

Starting with a revamp to value packs in January 2020, additional value packs on CCP's store now offer SP as well.[7] As of 9 July 2020, the Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum packs all offer 250k SP. Like the previous value packs they replaced and the Starter Pack, they can only be purchased once per account.

Training Boost Bundle

Training Boost Bundle.jpg

On 9 July 2020, CCP announced the Training Boost Bundle,[8] marking the first time a value pack only offered SP and SP-related items. For $40 (or equivalent), the pack offers 1.5M SP, and a 12.5 day +8 all stats Expert Cerebral Accelerator, worth 108k-216k SP for Alpha clones, and 216k-432k SP for Omega clones depending on the character's Biology skill. Given that the pack is priced at twice the PLEX cost of 30 days of Omega time and offers a similar SP, this pack is only more valuable than Injectors for high SP pilots.

References

  1. ^ Team Size Matters (2015-10-15). Exploring the Character Bazaar & Skill Trading. EVE Online. Retrieved 9 July 2020.
  2. ^ Team Size Matters (2016-01-18). Skill Trading in New Eden. EVE Online. Retrieved 9 July 2020.
  3. ^ a b https://updates.eveonline.com/date/2017-12-05/
  4. ^ CCP Falcon (2018-11-15). EVE Online: Onslaught Celebration! - Double Training Weekend!. EVE Online. Retrieved 9 July 2020.
  5. ^ a b Drain, Brendan (2019-06-26). EVE Online controversy breaks out over new starter pack, CCP addresses the community. Massively Overpowered. Retrieved 9 July 2020.
  6. ^ Porkbutte (2016-06-29). CCP Cans EVE Online Dailies. Imperium News Network. Retrieved 9 July 2020.
  7. ^ a b CCP Convict (2020-01-28). New Value Packs Now Available!. EVE Online. Archived from the original 9 July 2020.
  8. ^ a b (2020-07-09). New Training Boost Bundle. EVE Online. Retrieved 9 July 2020.
  9. ^ Team Size Matters (2017-11-02). Clone States - The Next Steps. EVE Online. Retrieved 9 July 2020.
  10. ^ Team Size Matters. (2017-11-14). New Alpha Training Option! EVE Online. Retrieved 9 July 2020.
  11. ^ Mandragoran, Rumi (2019-06-26). Introcducing the New EVE Online Starter Pack. Imperium News Network. Retrieved 9 July 2020.
  12. ^ https://old.reddit.com/r/Eve/comments/c5o52v/how_to_buy_as_many_starter_packs_and_sp_as_you/
  13. ^ https://forums.eveonline.com/t/ccp-is-at-it-again/169684/73
  14. ^ CCP Falcon (2019-06-27). Skillpoints, Cash & New Players - An Update. EVE Online. Retrieved 9 July 2020.
  15. ^ https://secure.eveonline.com/packs/. Archived from the original 9 July 2020.
  16. ^ https://steamcommunity.com/games/8500/announcements/detail/1619520028825130400
  17. ^ https://store.steampowered.com/app/1063450/EVE_Online_Starter_Pack/
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