Hey, wasn't the SpT nerf all about "playing in your own area" and "having to make choices" and "walking is fine, back in the day before SpT we used to do it across all islands, uphill, in 3 feet of snow"

Can't have your cake and eat it too.

But seriously Ville, they are intended as a starter or a "you died" bot. Not for cheap operations. They were definitely abused before, why encourage it again?  Other than you saying do it, what's the reason? Show me its a good idea and I'd support it, tbh.

It's not wanted for unlimited bloodsparking. It's wanted for all the gate scouts and griefing that will come when you have 1000 free lifetime accounts. Gate scouts just became free and no longer have to be replaced when the trial period is over. After April 2nd, every gate will have one. It's not what they were intended for.

You don't need them for bloodsparking since anyone with SpT and a corp hanger can produce them infinitely. You only want them on market in terminal so you come to some beta you have no SpT or deathspark at, dock your shiny, buy your arkhe, and go cause problems in cheap free bot.

Leave the arkhe for noobs, tutorials, and in case of death and no bot available.

-1 and a free bump.

I'm in favour of removing the skill as well.

And selling extra slots for money, similar to the EP boost concept.

I agree with Ville. It's not about too easy or too hard. The NPCs are simply doing things normal game mechanics cannot do. And this negates CORE GAME PRINCIPLES LIKE LOS. I'm fine with making them harder, observers that s-demob at 300m and with optimals at 850m, and lock past 1000m, all while dropping only T3 loot ... Ok they are ampped up, but at least their core mechanics are still in line with how the game plays. Right now the ONLY playstyle that can kill them solo is Tank, or you could get help with some Ewar help to make it easier. Just forget green bots using cover, or trying to outrange them, these normal playstyles are obselete.

Zoom, seriously, this needs to be corrected. Your desire to nerf mass farming of beacons has led to simple basic game mechanics like LOS and kiting to be obselete. Forget beacons, all these new players will have no chance of farming basic spawns ... I don't want easy mode, but impossible mode?!? Have NPCs do things that regular players cannot, like teleport, is not the way to fix. Your balance attempt has gone from one extreme to another, and added a host of what I hope are unintentional side effects ... Can you at least comment on this? Since this change you haven't said boo. And ask WMM if its safe to undock Scarabs at Tellesis.

probably the best idea ^^

This is exactly what a cost of $10 to downgrade 100 k EP accomplishes.

And its a good idea. As mentioned the downside is its easy to switcha combat from one race to another, but at least the cost to change a combat to Ewar, or to Indy, is far more expensive. And hopefully enough of a cost prohibitive so it's rarely used.

From what I understand, Respeccing thru downgrades would cost a high EP character roughly $130 for a complete wipe. With a 100k EP downgrade priced at $10, I can certainly "retool" a character, perhaps removing some mistakes while optimizing his choosen class. This is far better than a full respec.

The downside is that my maxxed Mesmer Mk2 pilot would only need maybe $20 to become a maxxed Seth Mk2 pilot.

Tux has a point though with the possibility of one full Respec per vet account upon Steam Launch .... simply because of all the core mechanic changes over the last few years that negate the value of many characters specializations. I think after this free one, the downgrade mechaninc would be the only needed type of EP respeccing.

Excellent points. The only thing I would add is some forum moderation. Some players seem to use offensive comments like others say hello. And, impressions on the new players is in this regard is equally important.

Zoom. NPCs broken now, it appears some spawns on Gamma are static.

Gunner, you are probably right on both accounts. I will happily trash talk you in vicinity and corp dialogue, but I have respect for your corp's PvP skills.

And yes, my examples are extreme. But possible. If another game not even in Alpha can sell out on $15 000 US pledge packages that give you the game and a bunch of ships, and the game is not out for another year, anything is possible.

The only thing I am really comfortable with this game selling is the EP boost, since it simply replaces my previously monthly cost with a new similar one.