How to play this game when i cant earn ISK?

So much butt hurt in you, are you OK?

There are many ways to earn isk, some are grindy, others are slow and calming. The trick in the game is 2-fold.

  1. find something that you enjoy doing and see if it makes isk
  2. come to terms with the idea that isk is not the be all and end all of the game

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Bro you literally made a thread of salt :smiley:

I mean are you ok after not catching the probes on D scan and then getting wtfpwned by an astero :smiley:
It seems not ROFL. Wait till you meet his bigger brother :smiley:

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You need to learn how to read friend.
Also, I am bored by you. Have a nice day.

Says the guy who sobbed out all “HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO KNOW??! *sob sob” and complains about “going to school to play a game”. Maybe you might not want to be so quick to tell others about reading.

Err… pick one, maybe? Those seem mutually exclusive. Or did you sub and let your toon accumulate SP into just-anything? :worried:

Forget about the Magic 14: they’re “the skills that give you bonuses whatever the hull you fly”, not “the skills that give you bonuses whatever the task you’re at”, so those bonuses might be less than useful for some activities… especially so if you’re trying to go indy, since most of it is not done flying around.

Actually, industry is more appropriately done through a lot of alt-tabbing to a browser (EveU wiki, EVE Marketer, Fuzzworks, etc.) — or not even launching the game client at all — and I wouldn’t expect to get any profit from it within the first 3 months at least, due to the specific skills needed (reprocessing, PI, science stuff…) and, most notably, the sheer amount of research / reading / spreadsheet’ing to gobble down before getting the gist of industry and trade. I still have to try out the Isk Per Hour Industry Program before I can positively advise for it, but it looks interesting.

I’m not even touching on the cost-of-entry, here: BPOs are damn costly¹ and ME/TE research takes forever when you’re only starting. Fortunately, there are other ways into the whole thing. One might be to pick T1 BPCs from contracts and try and turn them into T2 BPCs: that doesn’t take loads of materials, and the ROI should get rather consistent pretty early on, if there’s demand for your output… In the same vein, it’s neither too hard nor too costly to get into PI and just spit out a few planetary mats to the market; with almost every other BP requiring PI stuff these days, it might have become an actual entry path to industry.

In any case, the game and its systems have been around for quite some time, people playing it have had time to figure out where to draw margins from, and since the market is, as most thing in EVE, driven towards competition, those margin spaces are usually drawn rather thin and hard to get one-self into.

That’s the first thing that came to mind while reading your first post: anything is more easily done — esp. learning the ropes — more profitable, and more fun, when you can do it with other like-minded people.

Not to dwell too long on that, but you might have missed the “If” that started the sentence you quoted, which didn’t seem that rude to me; I felt it responded to your saying you didn’t like the “need to swap out of the game in order to play the game”.

(1) BPOs are costly just one example here of how the game might slap back at you if you’re not extra-careful: if you want to buy a BPO, always check the sell orders “expires in” column. If they’re all below 90 days, then that BPO is not seeded in that region. Check the BPO for GSCs, here in Sinq Laison, there for the whole cluster (I’m surprised people don’t actually try that same trick in Jita :thinking:) That connects to @Destiny_Corrupted 's comment:

It’s again that same story you’re telling us here:

And well, my answer won’t please you a lot but I’d say: the easiest opportunity to learn about a trap is the first time you fall into it :man_shrugging: That or, as was said before, play with people who will give you a hint before you fall into it.

Regarding your attempt at selling stuff, being undermined every time you tried to undermine every one else… I’d say that the strategy is at fault here. Check the price history for the stuff you want to sell, and do not, do not ever, sell cheap. I had that kind of “angry moments”, during my time playing WoW, for the very same reasons, till the day I started considering other sellers more as friends than as foes. Since then, I’ve always priced stuff above the lowest price, usually leaving a dozen other sell orders below mine. Sure, it takes more time for my stuff to be bought, but it’s far less hassle, more isk, and also more pleasurable :wink:

I’ll take a real life example: I found one of those in an 3/10 escalation, on 23 august. I looked at the volumes and average prices, both whole-cluster and in Sinq Laison (cause I’m fine with Dodixie / don’t care enough for Jita), and it looked like that:

  • SL: 8 to 20 / day, ~30m apiece;
  • whole cluster: more than 100 items traded every day, ~35-37m apiece.

There wasn’t too many sell orders in SL, something akin to what’s available at the moment, but the item average price shows a steady “week-end breathing” (the waveing of the 5d average blue line, around the longer-term orange line), so I saw no reason to forego the difference between the sell orders and the universe-wide expected average: I placed my item at 35m isk. It means that, in that 30-35m gap, there were some 10 other-exact-same-item that would have to be bought, plus all the other that would be placed in that price gap in the meantime, before mine would even be considered. At a cost of 2.8m broker fees. For something that sells only 10 copies a day + is not too hard for others to come by… Sounds a bit bold, yup.

Then I forgot about my sell order. I was just a little annoyed when I looted another one on 17 september, since my first one was still on the market. The bottom selling price was higher than the month before but not much had changed (that I could see… actually I had not cared to look at it). After some hesitation, I put the second at 36m, cause I really don’t like to modify my sell orders (costs isk, would eat up my time…) and I won’t try to undermine myself. Even if that seems like doubling up on an apparently-not-so-effective strategy and the broker fees.

And then I forgot about it all, again. Until two weeks ago: one night, some one (same person) had bought the two items. I’ll agree that it’s not quick, but I really enjoyed the “woot’s all that isk come from?!!” moment at the log in screen :grin:

All that to say: when I sell stuff, I work with other sellers. If they make more isk, I’ll make more isk too. Or, in other words, there are good reasons for real-world legislations against market manipulations! Video games are a nice way to learn about / toy with such bad ideas.

The first such sign we’re handed when joining this particular game is usually that one. But ultimately, this is a video game, and only that: we use pixel thingies to throw pixel stuff at other pixel thingies. That, in itself, offers very little in return for the time and money we put into it. It’s somewhat fundamental to the fact that it’s “only” a game. For us, at least; sure, for CCP, there’s business involved… However, I really wouldn’t go as far as saying that “they make millions” — well this can give a vague idea, but that’s before expenses… I don’t even want to start dissecting that kind of thing (might be against ToS, too). So, since this is only a game, we have to find “some reason” to adhere to it. For some it will be a notion of enjoyment, for others there has to be a more tangible sense of reward… But the fact remains: if one doesn’t find any such “some reason”, then one would should turn to other activities.

However, when I read your posts, I indeed read some feeling of outrage, but I see a glint of defiance & challenge too: you’re not happy with some of the stuff the sand box throws at you, and you want to kick back at it. So I’d say: welcome of the party of us, trying to kick it in the box, only managing to kick it in the sand, and still asking for more :wink:

4 of the usual approaches to “helping” people:

  1. well intended advice (parental guidance)
    image
  2. reactive forum tralala
    giphy (55)
  3. bad corp vs. good corp
    LmyCBzTQFmXM4qvZ8aAw_Bike-Push-Start
  4. the (over)confident Mentor
    come-with-me-if-you-want-to-live

OP indicated that approach #3 is probably of most use to him - which is right most of the time. He has the necessary stubbornness to retry, he has some knowledge of the extent of the risks in Eve, but needs to increase his risk mitigation - and needs to learn to think like the hunter, not only as the hunted. That’s when he’ll start making more isk and losing less of it. Throw the man an invite.

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You forgot the fifth approach, but that’s the one they don’t teach you about in school:

image

It’s the…

“You told/gave him what!?
“Now hold on a second, let’s just see where this goes…”

…method.

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Lol, the Noisy Cricket, aka “are you ***tting me” ? It’s a powerful tool in approach #4, where the Mentor tests the mindset of… never mind.

To which we can add #6: “Don’t touch that thing”
0t8s46
“Didn’t I tell you not to touch it ?”

That’s the worst one. That’s what all the high-sec carebear trash corporation directors use.

If you whined less, you might learn things.

Nobody likes a crybaby.

People need to start quoting in-between every letter.

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An Astero is not a Covert Ops ship. It’s a pirate faction frigate that has a role bonus allowing it to fit a covops cloak. “True” CovOps can not just fit a covops cloak, but also interdiction nullifiers and covert ops cynoes

While it takes some time to be able to fly a “true” CovOps, a capsuleer can fly an astero within 17 hours after capsuleer creation, and less then that if you chose galente or amarr factions while creating the toon. It’s just about getting the cloaking skill to level 4 for the covops cloak

I don’t believe I mentioned Astero in any of my posts since I signed up in the forum.

Thanks for the info. I shall look into that.

o7

@Blento_0404

Join Factional Warfare, farm plexes all day long, or do missions, and convert LP to ISK, then go pvp.

Profits and fun all in one place.

Or farm Abyssal space, profits.

Or join a WH group, profits.

Or do PI in nullspace for T4 materials, sell them, profits.

Or trade in highsec, profits.

Or do Incursions, profits.

Or do FOB base bashing with a group, profits.

Or do Sisters Of Eve LV4 missions and Burner missions, convert LP, Profits.

Could go on …

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The trick is doing it right which takes effort to figure out and learn, effort to make a plan, execute it and assess afterwards to then fine-tune over time. Gitting Gud doesn’t come instantly nor without effort, brain effort.

People who just “do stuff” will have to accept they do things the hard, costly and explodey way. If they don’t like that then perhaps they should rethink their strategy.

Otherwise there’s always mining…

The very fact that I am replying to you proves I can read :smiley:

I mean I guess I’m able to read better than you as I’ve never been caught by a cloaky astero before…

Oh, but mining too, could be done in a very explodey (well, less so since the venture replaced jet can mining/flipping) and very inefficient way, if not researched properly :smiling_imp:

I forgot that this was a thread about how much winning you were doing. Sorry friend.

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I think you’re being a little unfair here my friend.

Ultimately, the point of the game is to have fun. If you set a limit for yourself that the only way to have fun is to fly X type of ship, or to have X number of skillpoints, that is a self-imposed restriction, not one forced on you by the game.

I’d had three or four stints in the game over nearly a decade by the time I got to 15/20m skillpoints. I’d had fun each time, too (until I didn’t, or RL got in the way, and I unsubbed).

Where I think Mike is going with his point, and I agree, is that if you make earning isk your sole motivating factor for playing Eve, you will inevitably burn yourself out through overworking your game time or through sheer frustration as one isk-making activity or another is nerfed or otherwise impacted by CCP changes.

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