After a period of testing during which we have been gathering important metrics on usage and engagement, the recurring opportunity "Thrill of the Hunt", which provides characters with a boost of 10,000 unallocated skillpoints per day, will be removed with the coming 118.6 release.I haven't talked much about the "daily" skill point because I wasn't sure how I felt about it.
On one hand, I've become very anti-skill point during my decade adventure playing EVE to the point where I don't think I would shed a tear if CCP removed them entirely and bound progression to the more intuitive ISK and player ability limitations, so anything that offers younger characters a bonus to reduce the early skill grind for those core skills is something I live very much.
On the other hand, like almost all new features it seems that older characters can take greater advantage of it since the skill levels means that it takes longer to earn skill points and the daily bonus evades that small limitation entirely so older characters earn bigger bang for the same buck so to speak. Additionally, some players were using the daily skill point bonus to build up cyno alts even more quickly.
So overall it felt like almost a wash to me in terms of improving the lot of younger pilots, and truthfully it felt really forced for the EVE universe, like something that just didn't gel with everything else.
Personally, I never bothered to shoot a rat for the bonus. My main, Kirith, is working slowly towards -10.0 security status and a single rat per day would destroy that hope. And for my other characters, I could not be arsed to increase their skill point learning per day enough to log in and hunt down a rat because I literally have every skill I need for my operations and some I don't need (hmmm, time to invest in some skill extractors maybe?). The point is it didn't bother me too much that it was there and I won't miss it now that its gone.
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Out of curiosity: is there any mechanical advantage to go to -10 or close, or is it purely a personal choice?
ReplyDeleteI personally missed the 10k only a few days when I was on the road, but I played it exactly the way CCP probably didn't want me to: on at least half the days, I logged in, left station, went to asteroid belts, and by belt number 3 at the latest, I had found my rat, shot exactly one, and immediately redocked and logged off. I probably would've stopped doing that eventually, but I never felt like the daily got me out into space significantly more: either I was already going to, or I did my short 5-minute spiel.
After -5 there is no difference in gameplay mechanics, its merely prestige.
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