FYI: Captain Profession

Dusk

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Trinity Dusk Trinity
Following last weekend's Hogglo event that resulted in many people gaining skills related to the Captain profession at an increased rate, and thus laying to waste all the time and effort I and others had put into Captain over the last couple of years (for instance, actually piloting in space to add to Spacecraft Pilot skill which in turn influences Captain) I sent a support case in search of clarifications.

I hadn't planned to post about this support case on the forum, however MindArk's response has pretty much told me to do so:

Dear MindArk Support,

It has been brought to my attention that a recent hunting event on Calypso on Hogglo Diablos has been giving out free skills to participants who had used vehicles to hover a certain height above the event zone. These skills were related to the Captain profession - a profession that I have spent many hours over the last few years trying to develop.

The people who have gained these skills at this event are at a huge advantage in the Captain profession compared to those who were not. I feel that this is a smack in the face to those of us who have tried to develop Captain through piloting in space.

This situation is all the more galling when people are crowing on the forums about going from (for example) level 10 to level 22 in Captain over the weekend. My level is 19 and has taken a long time to achieve, even with the help of chipping so perhaps you can appreciate my annoyance.

I wish to ask:
Was this an intentional feature, or was it a bug?

If this Captain-related skills "giveaway" was intentional then what does MindArk plan to do to compensate those of us who have taken the time to acquire these skills over several years only to be overtaken by people who saw an opportunity to gain free skills at a ridiculously easy rate compared to the likes of me and other space pilots?

If this was a bug that was not intended to happen like it did regarding these skills then will the abuser's skills be rolled back and accounts be suspended?

I eagarly await your response to my questions.

Regards,

Dusk.


And their response:

Hi Dusk,

Thank you for your support case.

We at support are currently not discussing this, we have a lot of support cases to get to and we cannot sit and give out information that everyone should have to each individual when they inquiry to support, you must understand what a massive increase in cases that would be.

Please direct these questions via the forums, we are sorry that we cannot give you the reply you wish but that we simply cannot do that from support at this time.

Kind regards,
Ulf | Entropia Universe Support


The first part I've emboldened, information that everyone should have. Really? That's why they've been silent again, as usual, when this sort of shit goes down.

As for the second bit that I've emboldened, well here we are. Let's start the conjecture because MindArk aren't giving anything away for the moment.:mad:
 
That's stupid. Copy paste answer with standpoint would be quicker than writing all those semi personal replies.

Where is the statement they promised us? Been a week, can't take that long.
 
Free usually means, nothing used, but there was ton of DECAY and ton or FUEL spent, with ton of REPAIRS made.

didnt know howering in air is free?
 
Can you blame him? Such a long support case. Ain't nobody got time for dat...:lolup:
 
Free usually means, nothing used, but there was ton of DECAY and ton or FUEL spent, with ton of REPAIRS made.

didnt know howering in air is free?

Decay was neglectable in the context for most on top of which he mentions the no-decay-abusers.
 
Decay was neglectable in the context for most on top of which he mentions the no-decay-abusers.

yeah the decay abusers should get their reward, sleipnirs destroyed or something, but still saying its Free is wrong
 
yeah the decay abusers should get their reward, sleipnirs destroyed or something, but still saying its Free is wrong

Sure. I agree. Next to no cost would be better, but I think you get his point.
 
Well worded support case Dusk, and I am sure all us space pilots can share your frustration.

It is amplified even greater at your level, and length of time spent skilling. Those far below that hadn't spent so much time, and those far above were not as easily "caught" so may not have been quite so adversely impacted, however none the less, we all feel the pain :(


The reply you have received is very similar to a few others I have read. Although some others stated that they were going to make an announcement. We wait with baited breath.

I don't think it was intended, but I do think it was a bug that went horribly wrong, and is going to be incredibly difficult to rectify. Right now they have 3 choices;

  1. Roll it all back - will cost them a fortune as things have now been chipped in and out, money spent left right and centre. To say it would be a headache would be an understatement. Cuts income to the company, and costs man hours. To roll it back would in the short term be extremely costly, but in the long term? Treating customers fairly. They must strike the balance between short term gains and long term sustainability through customer satisfaction.

  2. Do nothing. They have already lost the trust in so many players through this. Not just pilots, but many others who spend a fortune skilling their profession, now questioning what is the point. If it can just be all given away in a puff of VTOL smoke. What is the point of investing in your profession? What is the point of investing in the game? We all know the pixels we buy have no residual value, that purchase may be devalued in an instant. However there was a time when we held a belief that our time and effort, our skills and professions were something of value. Not just financially, but personally. Our gains and achievements were something to be celebrated and cherished. And now? They are as worthless.

  3. Release an official statement. This has already taken too long. There is a small window of opportunity to reach out to your customers to make it right. Whether it is a simple " we are sorry, it wasn't supposed to happen this way, we have learned from this and ensure it doesn't happen again." This at least can be taking as some solace that they admit the mistake, and we can possibly regain some trust. Additionally, recompense can be made. " In an effort to put things right, we will be placing a Pilot Skill chip in the inventory of all those who had skilled the profession the way it was intended, refelcted as a %". Peace would be restored, it wouldnt be so hard, but yet I am doubtful of this one. In any event, MA are quickly running out of time to respond, I so very hope it comes soon.
 
Sorry for the double post, but this is a different point ;)

Another way of making things right, would be to just add a space mob which gives out both the damage the hoggolo did, as well as the skills.

Collecting 30-50 locusta* may give the same damage to a ship, but not the skills. As a rough example to give those who don't fly in space an idea. With 40 Locusta on a ship of 150ksi, with a repair crew sorting things out, and a team of gunners working through the skill dead mobs, a pilot at my lvl (42) Can be expected to gain around 0.5% of a lvl over the course of a few hours. What happened at the weekend was 1% every 5 mins, with one mob.


The ships have the crew, the ships have the guns, the ships have the strength, yet we are stuck with "Puny" mobs where we have to collect them in herds in order to not have them all dead in a few seconds**.

Why can there not be a very evil space mob, a mob which is reflected in the skills and size of the ships & crews now utilising space. Make some bigger space mobs, so those who have invested with large SI and spent the man hours up there can have a challenge, and be rewarded with real skills. In turn, encouraging more activity in space.

*Locusta due to their size and spawn density as opposed to any other mob.
** They also need to fix the gunner profession first.
 
Here is mine :

HI
Im writing about the Hogglo event , hopefully you are aware of what has been happening here and are prepared to fix the situation.
I have been skilling in space on Locusta mobs for about a year, non stop, feeling very happy with my progress and proud to have achieved what I have.
You now bring these Hogglo into game where in 3 days people are reaching my skill level, by simply flying their space ship above the mobs . Some have even figured out how to do this without taking any TT damage.
What is happening is that the L350 Hogglo are outputting too many skills for too less damage.
The skills are not being "paid" for in the correct way.
I am hoping that you will find a sensible solution to this situation. eg not letting this go on forever , removing the aoe from the mobs , or even making the zone they are in a non fly zone for the duration of the event

ty
SR

add to this:
You have devalued us completely with this event , I am requesting that you roll back anyones Space Pilot Skill that was in the area from the beginning of this event.
right now I dont know what to think about all this.Just that I am extremely upset that all my hard work has been undone by this event.

PS the time it took me was not every so often skilling . I was skilling for 2-5 hours every single day.

Hi SoReal,

We at support are currently not discussing this situation, however we thank you for your feedback and additional information, it has been noted.

Kind regards,
Ulf | Entropia Universe Support


Re support case : 297602:

Do you think your reply
" We at support are currently not discussing this situation"

Is acceptable ?

As it should be discussed because of the way you have treated heavy skilling space pilots in giving away free skills to those who have not worked for it.

Please dont treat your customers in this way .

thanks
SR


Hi SoReal,

It will be discussed but you must understand that forums and public messages are better, we at support have a lot of work to do so we cannot sit here and tell every individual that is inquiring about that information.

We will give everyone the same information regardless so it is better discussed in the open so we have time to help others who have pressing cases.

Please understand this, thank you for your good will.

Kind regards,
Ulf | Entropia Universe Support

I have given MA a week to put out something about this as I was absolutely incensed by this.
As expected they havent said a fucking thing , probably just hoping this will go away.

These skills were "free" relatively speaking . The amount of decay generated in space, by space folk skilling this profession is imense , ask the gunners and repair teams how many tools , wire and ammo they go through every time we collect mobs for them , an activity which has been going on for years.

Some even found a way to not even get decay on their vehicles by simply hovering at +290.

and their replies to me are awful , I had to ask some Swedish freinds if this is the normal way that Swedish companies operate in terms of their treatment of customers and the reply was no.

So MA WHY ?

Why do you treat your customers this way?
Why wont you reply in a public manner to issues like this ?

Was this intentional ?
If so I look forward to the events where us space folk can unlock intuition and kill strike in a weekend of sitting there doing eff all for minimal ( or even free would be nice) costs.

If this was unintentional and was an exploit then MA should roll back everyones Space pilot level that were in the area at that time to what is was before the event started and if they have chipped these out and have a now low space pilot skill level, then make those skills negative.
 
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What if, just like in any other profession, skill gain is directly related to decay? What if the people flying high enough to avoid TT decay got less skills than the ones decaying TT? I mean, every other profession works like that...

It wasn't completely free anyway, someone had to repair the vehicles.
 
I dont think the pilot skilling that happens in space is the way its supposed to be, its pretty much like the mod/imp fap evade skilling that could be done many years ago but with the difference that the pilot has no cost at all, the cost is at the repair crew, atleast the mod/imp fap evade skilling the cost was at the one gaining the skills.
 
I don't think people realize how tiny the gains in space are, and what kind of team effort it takes to get them.

Usually, pilots are cycled while gunners stay (due to high cost of hunting everyone doesn't want to participate which is understandable) and everyone helps repairing. The cost to repair the ship is huge if you want to have a decent pace and actually see some green lines from time to time (using rk20).

I gained my spacecraft systems skill by cycling tens of thousands of ped into those nasty space mobs; my worst weekend I lost thousands.

But sure.

Damn you Dusk! I had just dropped this!
 
I've skilled pilot on mothership, and was at the event spawn for a couple of hours. The gains on the event spawn were large, so large i stopped after a sleip and went to ark.

The problem is whenever there is a glitch in the matrix people will use it, healing pools and ultra eco faps, melee skilling on auctioneers for no decay, carrying storage around in pvp, speed bugs in space, 0.0 repair skilling, space log off, bugged mobs giving insane skill gains..... the list is endless.

Over the years nothing was ever done about any of the cases, guess is hard for devs to come down on people when bug is due to unforseen effects of something they have done. On the other side as nothing has been done in past people just go ahead and skill, as "well last time i did the right thing and got the shitty end of the stick, while those that did use bug got the cream".

Past inaction over stuff has caused people to go ahead whatever, and tbh would be impossible for rollback now. The answer would be for dev to be at events to pull plug if/when stuff like this occurs so doesn't get outta hand. After all 2-3 hours wouldn't have been so bad, but some were up there over whole 2 days.... thats the issue. The event should have been monitored, i thought would be over quickly tbh but ran on whole weekend.

To sum up, there will always time to time be bugs that people start to use, the issue is how long it takes to close them imo.
 
tbh I know someone who went from 5 to over 1200 in the two days they lost two vehicles in the process but it's not much in comparison.

And tbh it's crap like this that will kill EU in the end.
 
I dont think the pilot skilling that happens in space is the way its supposed to be, its pretty much like the mod/imp fap evade skilling that could be done many years ago but with the difference that the pilot has no cost at all, the cost is at the repair crew, atleast the mod/imp fap evade skilling the cost was at the one gaining the skills.
Pilot skilling in space is not free - i am 77 vehicle structural engineer with thousands on repairtools decayed just to repair my damaged ship - my goal wasnt to skill vse up asap it was to skill captain profession and therefor the ship needed to be repaired thousands of times.
Of course the pilot himself has no decay in the moment he pilots but he performs an activty that requires 100% active gameplay to get the most skillgain out of the damage and costs he creates for the crew and the pilots joining in on repairs contributing to the ships survival when its his/her turn.
Every single one of the pilots of my crew has a far higher vse level then captain, because they contribute - it isnt free.
Someone like Dusk who has decayed hundreds of repairtools to get to 19 captain surely has spent alot more peds then anyone decaying his vehicles on hogglo diablos - so while hogglo diablo might not have been 100% free the relation in costs and time spent was different by a factor of several thousand and anyone who hasnt spent a long time trying piloting themself cant really imagine the effort it took.

Somehow i doubt even mindark staff was aware of the effort, time and peds people have spent to skill captain and thats why they let it happen in the first place but nevertheless there needs to be a statement as promised and a solution.
Captain profession has to be skilled in space there is no logic reason why anyone should be capable of skilling it planetside and it is extremely unbalanced as well if it is skilled on one planet while all other planets get things fixed and corrected right away so it doesnt happen there.
 
Why should Captain profession only be skilled in space?
If you are in pvp with a flying vehicle and get shot at you should also gain skills and i think there should be mobs that can be hunted with vehicles on planets also.

I cant understand why it bothers you so bad that some people gained pilot skills in that way, many of them are selling the skills to people that buy them for HP like myself and other were there to gain them for hp only, i doubt that will affect anyone that choose to live there entropia life in space much at all.
 
Why should Captain profession only be skilled in space?
The skill that contributes most is Spacecraft Pilot. Not planet-side pilot.

(closely followed by spacecraft systems and deep space knowledge).

Its a space skill, and should be most actively and efficiently skilled in space - not at some bugged event on a planet.
 
A few years ago a skill related to mining was named "Calypso ground Assessment" it is now only called "Ground Assessment", i think the pilot skill i named wrong, it should not be called "Spacecraft Pilot" but only "Pilot", problem solved ;)

The skill that contributes most is Spacecraft Pilot. Not planet-side pilot.

(closely followed by spacecraft systems and deep space knowledge).

Its a space skill, and should be most actively and efficiently skilled in space - not at some bugged event on a planet.
 
Why should Captain profession only be skilled in space?
If you are in pvp with a flying vehicle and get shot at you should also gain skills and i think there should be mobs that can be hunted with vehicles on planets also.

I cant understand why it bothers you so bad that some people gained pilot skills in that way, many of them are selling the skills to people that buy them for HP like myself and other were there to gain them for hp only, i doubt that will affect anyone that choose to live there entropia life in space much at all.

That spacecraft pilot skill gives hitpoints is very much senseless in the first place, i have no idea which developer had the great idea that someone piloting a spacecraft would need hitpoints :rolleyes:
But nevertheless i dont think that sleipnirs/quads have a special right to gather skills were valkyries/jormungards/pitbulls do not.
The desription of the skill is also very clear in itself - if mindark thinks that people need a pilot skill planetside then wqhy not have an aircraft pilot skill ?
Its quite a different thing to pilot in space or planetside and should be reflected by the skills gathered - noone in space should have the need to go skill on calypso to improve a profession that is supposed to yield its true benefits in space.
How would planetside hunters feel if spacecraft pilots in space would gain dodge/evade while piloting motherships ? Im quite sure everyone would complain about how mcuh more easy and lucrative it is to gain evade/dodge in space then it is planetside.
 
You gain Avoidance in space, cant see any reason to have avoidance from piloting a spacecraft.

That spacecraft pilot skill gives hitpoints is very much senseless in the first place, i have no idea which developer had the great idea that someone piloting a spacecraft would need hitpoints :rolleyes:
But nevertheless i dont think that sleipnirs/quads have a special right to gather skills were valkyries/jormungards/pitbulls do not.
The desription of the skill is also very clear in itself - if mindark thinks that people need a pilot skill planetside then wqhy not have an aircraft pilot skill ?
Its quite a different thing to pilot in space or planetside and should be reflected by the skills gathered - noone in space should have the need to go skill on calypso to improve a profession that is supposed to yield its true benefits in space.
How would planetside hunters feel if spacecraft pilots in space would gain dodge/evade while piloting motherships ? Im quite sure everyone would complain about how mcuh more easy and lucrative it is to gain evade/dodge in space then it is planetside.
 
Why should Captain profession only be skilled in space?
If you are in pvp with a flying vehicle and get shot at you should also gain skills and i think there should be mobs that can be hunted with vehicles on planets also.

I cant understand why it bothers you so bad that some people gained pilot skills in that way, many of them are selling the skills to people that buy them for HP like myself and other were there to gain them for hp only, i doubt that will affect anyone that choose to live there entropia life in space much at all.

Me it bothers because it was an obvious exploit (even though biased people argue it's not) that I chose not to participate in thinking I'm being honest. However, now that MA said it was alright (the lack of communication is a clear sign of approval) I feel like a complete idiot missing out on the opportunity.
 
The skill that contributes most is Spacecraft Pilot. Not planet-side pilot.

(closely followed by spacecraft systems and deep space knowledge).

Its a space skill, and should be most actively and efficiently skilled in space - not at some bugged event on a planet.

yea and BPC means BLUEPRINT comprehension and shouldn't be got while repairing spaceships..
if you argue that way it is just wrong approach..

btw
"spacecraft pilot" is the skills to pilot spacecraft not to pilot ship in space...
and i think sleip and quad are spacecrafts too..


i understand your frustration...
but thats how eu goes..
you got some special advantage with your ships and had a hp lead with your skills..
now this advatage is gone...
 
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This situation is all the more galling when people are crowing on the forums about going from (for example) level 10 to level 22 in Captain over the weekend. My level is 19 and has taken a long time to achieve, even with the help of chipping so perhaps you can appreciate my annoyance.

Hehe, he talks about me :lolup:
But after this, I can say, <removed> I had 10 level in Captain profession with only 5 or 10 points in Spacecraft Pilot skill. Not only Spacecraft pilot skill effect on Captain Profession, you can check this here - http://www.entropiawiki.com/Info.aspx?chart=Activity&id=103

Currently I have:
Intelligence 70
Avoidance 2464
Courage 5087
Perception 4438
Computer 2953

Needless to say, that a very small increase in Spacecraft pilot skill caused a very sharp rise in the captain profession, but at the expense of the other skills.

<removed>
 
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Me it bothers because it was an obvious exploit (even though biased people argue it's not) that I chose not to participate in thinking I'm being honest. However, now that MA said it was alright (the lack of communication is a clear sign of approval) I feel like a complete idiot missing out on the opportunity.

I didn't participate until the last 40 minutes maybe and I don't feel like an idiot. The same people doing it used to cry out loud about afk fap skilling, etc.. Everyone looks for themselves when this happens, it will always be like that. Next time we might be better to just not think about it and do as everyone else until the game explodes :)
 
A few years ago a skill related to mining was named "Calypso ground Assessment" it is now only called "Ground Assessment", i think the pilot skill i named wrong, it should not be called "Spacecraft Pilot" but only "Pilot", problem solved ;)
Calypso Ground Assessment was renamed when Rocktropia became EU's second planet. But then I suspect you already knew that.
 
Ofcourse i did, the thing is that MA renamed a skill when it was obvious that the name was not good anymore, i think the naming of the pilot skill was wrong from the start.

Calypso Ground Assessment was renamed when Rocktropia became EU's second planet. But then I suspect you already knew that.
 
yea and BPC means BLUEPRINT comprehension and shouldn't be got while repairing spaceships..
if you argue that way it is just wrong approach..

btw
"spacecraft pilot" is the skills to pilot spacecraft not to pilot ship in space...
and i thionbk sleip and quad are spacecrafts too..

Regardless how some here try to argue on interpretations to rectify their skillgains - lets put it in straight numbers:
Some have gained about 120+ped TT in captain profession during the hogglo event which equals about 4000+ped value gained after markup and deduction of esi prices and sleipnir/quad TT values.
If anyone thinks that this was all ok compared to all other professions and their usual average skill gains during event then keep argueing about semantics...
The point remains that an unthoughtful implemented event without offical avatars to monitor it has led to negate the efforts of years of many gamers and it doesnt get better if those unaffected or those who gained from it make 'funny' comments about it or show insensibility.

Im quite sure that anyone playing entropia would be quite upsets if he/she played for several years and then after one weekend everyone who took part in a special event has achieved all the same or even surpassed your own efforts.
 
yea and BPC means BLUEPRINT comprehension and shouldn't be got while repairing spaceships..
if you argue that way it is just wrong approach..

btw
"spacecraft pilot" is the skills to pilot spacecraft not to pilot ship in space...
and i thionbk sleip and quad are spacecrafts too..

I have no qualms with BPC not being giving out during VSE. I skill VSE for VSE...

However, BPC is an overlapping skill, in the same way that avoidance overlaps other hunting professions.

There will always been overlapping skills throughout all professions, the question I was addressing was why is Captain a space profession.

In short the greatest contributing skills are all space skills. Just like in VSE, the highest skill contributor isnt BPC, its things like vehicle repairing, vehicle technology, engineering etc.

The problem with this event wasn't the residual over lapping skills that were acquired. I couldn't care less if everyone gained 10Hp's from it - makes no odds to me. The point was the space skill, the skilling of the space profession captain.
 
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