I haven’t played too long; maybe a few months. I have an eve online sub, but cancelled it.
First, I love the concept and idea of this game: do what you want in space. Simulator style with realistic time flow.
And yet, that is the problem. A training plan can take up to a year or more to fly ships. What?! What new player is going to sub for a year just to speed up training to fly a battleship in space? 28 days of training for 1 skill? Some skills can’t be trained without a sub.
That is the biggest failure of the game: getting new players able to engage with long running players.
Training times need to be reduced otherwise new players will try out the game and leave within a few months. Why? Because they can advance faster with immersive space games elsewhere. Which is a shame because Eve Online is amazing.
Secondly, when lacking skills, offer the option to hire crew who have those skills so a ship can be purchased, equipped, and flown into battle. A Merc ship of sorts. That’s how pirates work.
So at least your skills train real time and not only while you are in game.
There are complexities for flying different ships. A frigate will fly and interact differently than a battleship. Plus battleships are more expensive.
For 16 years this game was subscription only. So yes a lot of skills are locked behind the sub.
So it doesnt take a year to get into a battleship
To fly it efficiently will take a while. But to get in one and fly it not a year.
I been playing for 13 or so years off and on. I cant fly anything bigger than a battleship. I have skills trained to fly a dread, but i have no reason to. Great that you have a goal to fly a battleship. But take the time learning how to fit ships smaller.
Takes less than 4 days to train into a caldari Raven battleship. But learning about all the important skills and not training them all at once helps.
If CCP told prospective EVE gamers the truth - that Patience was a vital prerequisite for success in EVE - most of them wouldn’t click on anything except the ‘close’ button.
All games make you wait; admittedly, for different things, but the practice is burned into game design in order to prevent the other form of boredom - ‘it’s too easy’.
When I started, probably around the same time as Geo, above, I set myself small goals. Not just skilling up, but levelling missions, ganking Ventures (then bigger and more valuable vessels). In that way, I was always somewhat busy, so that the wait for skills to finish didn’t seem so bad.
Now, if you can afford it, you don’t even have to wait to train skills. You can pay your way forward. I don’t really like it, but I’ve used that method when I needed to do something ‘urgently’. That’s in quotes because I know I was just being impatient.
To be able to compete with higher skilled players will always be a challenge - in any game. Stick with it, if you can. The satisfaction when you get there should make the wait worthwhile.
Or, of course, give up and leave. I doubt anything will change except the amount of money required to change hands in order for you to progress in the way you suggest.
Would suggest making a list, what you like doing in EvE, and then check what tools (aka ships) are required as a minimum to do said things. Sort them by training time needed, and follow your list. Ships are expendable tools in EvE for what you want to do, not much more.
Certainly there is more to do than waiting for a year long skill, flying battleships in lvl4 missions takes a few months if not less. Did you already try all the low barrier activities? Exploration, ninja (gas) mining, salvaging in Pochven, scanning for abandoned drones, kill MTUs, or with medium SP req., join bombers bar or spectre fleet roams?
Finally have you thought joining a player group? As an MMO a lot of things are easier with space friends.
You can use ships without all the relevant specialisation skills at level 5.
Level 4 takes but a fraction of the training time of level 5, and level 3 just a small part of that.
And the difference in combat? Hardly noticable compared to the drawback of your lack of experience in EVE as new player.
You can fly those ships in a fraction of the time you mentioned, use it for some months and by the time you know how to use the ship well your specislisation skills may have caught up to level 4.
And level 5? Leave it for the players who have played for years and have nothing else to train. You can get 5% improvement on skills in a fraction of the time, hours or mere days to catch up to veterans. And those veterans need to train those ‘28 days’ you mentioned to pull slightly ahead of you again.
TL;DR: train level 3 or 4. Only get level 5 if it unlocks something you need.
Let’s say you join a band, without ever having played an instrument. What makes you think you start playing the lead piano first?
The ships that take ages are expensive high level instruments. You should learn the basics, and then specialize - exactly this way the skilling tree works. Lose cheap ships first.
Yes, but why would you play a game for multiple years?
Most games nowadays are good for a weekend or a couple of weeks of fun. Planning to play a game for years is more like a hobby and not what people expect when they start a new game.
Me? I have played EVE on and off for almost 7 years.
I’m just saying that seeing a skill queue that can fill years of progress can be daunting for players who did not expect to start a hobby for years when they downloaded a new game.