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Skill Point System - Badly misunderstood?
Knackered
Member Posts: 10
in EVE Online
I think a lot of players, especially new players, really don't understand the skill point system in EVE.
The skillpoint system is designed to force you into focusing on your goals. Spreading your skillpoints out and ending up not being able to do anything competently gives the impression that you need a shit ton of SP to be anything.
Which is wrong. To fly a HAC very well, for example, only takes about 4 months from a brand new alt, and in the meantime you will be able to fly assault frigates and cruisers competently.
I have a brand new Command ship alt who will be done in 5 1/2 months and another alt which is training for Gallente Carriers, who will fly them very competently in just over 7 months. While the capital ship alt will be sitting in a hangar for most of that time, the Command ship alt will still be a very competent Battlecruiser, Assault frigate and HAC pilot at various stages of development, without straying from my training path at all.
(By the way, 6-7 months - I spent more time than that grinding for WoW tier 3 gear. I spent more time than that simple grinding exp in EQ2 and FFXI... and I pay for both of these accounts by buying time cards for isk)
You have to take into account that there are only so many skills which affect a single ship. Focusing your training towards one ship will put you on even grounds with a veteran in no time, since a veteran can still only fly one ship at a time, though he may have access to more. Not to forget - going for an advanced ship will usually open you up to other ships as you move towards your goal.
So that's it. Do some research and pick a ship you want to fly. Set a training path, stick to it, and suddenly the skill point system isn't so daunting! The only annoying part is the 3 weeks of learning skills at the start and from there it's all progress. After completing your initial goals, you can set new ones, and open yourself up to more ship types.
But remember, changing your mind halfway through, is the absolute bane of your character, and you WILL get the impression that the quest for equality is endless and hopeless.
- Eve player and alt maker since May 2004.
The skillpoint system is designed to force you into focusing on your goals. Spreading your skillpoints out and ending up not being able to do anything competently gives the impression that you need a shit ton of SP to be anything.
Which is wrong. To fly a HAC very well, for example, only takes about 4 months from a brand new alt, and in the meantime you will be able to fly assault frigates and cruisers competently.
I have a brand new Command ship alt who will be done in 5 1/2 months and another alt which is training for Gallente Carriers, who will fly them very competently in just over 7 months. While the capital ship alt will be sitting in a hangar for most of that time, the Command ship alt will still be a very competent Battlecruiser, Assault frigate and HAC pilot at various stages of development, without straying from my training path at all.
(By the way, 6-7 months - I spent more time than that grinding for WoW tier 3 gear. I spent more time than that simple grinding exp in EQ2 and FFXI... and I pay for both of these accounts by buying time cards for isk)
You have to take into account that there are only so many skills which affect a single ship. Focusing your training towards one ship will put you on even grounds with a veteran in no time, since a veteran can still only fly one ship at a time, though he may have access to more. Not to forget - going for an advanced ship will usually open you up to other ships as you move towards your goal.
So that's it. Do some research and pick a ship you want to fly. Set a training path, stick to it, and suddenly the skill point system isn't so daunting! The only annoying part is the 3 weeks of learning skills at the start and from there it's all progress. After completing your initial goals, you can set new ones, and open yourself up to more ship types.
But remember, changing your mind halfway through, is the absolute bane of your character, and you WILL get the impression that the quest for equality is endless and hopeless.
- Eve player and alt maker since May 2004.
Comments
I agree. My character is a lesson in "Bork".
I decided I preferred Caldari ships to Minmatar, trouble was I had put some time into Minmatar skills at that point, such as armour skills/projectile weapons skills.
I am playing catchup with a borked character now. Much younger characters than mine have better ship skills than mine.
I have strong mining/industry skills, so all is not lost
My advice, do as the op says, make a plan and stick to it.
If this is your first character, look at the EVE site and find out about which race you want to play etc
You could look to starting a new alt which will become your main after your first week, when you are more informed as to what you want from the game.
Personally I am trained in all T2 Gallente Frigs, and Interdictor is on its way, Cruiser BC and BS as well. All of the Navigational training pumped in to help out my Interceptor is great for all of my larger ships, and having trained out LAR II's for the BS is useful to smaller repairers as well.
Rounding yourself out a little bit is just as fine as specilizing, but there is no reason to try and train Caldari cruisers right after you hit them in Gallente for example. That forces you to go out of your way into missile training and shield tanking training and will hurt you until you catch up in other areas.
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Or you do it the other way round, skill slowly but you can use them a lot
(<-- all four racial Cruiser lvl 5)
Spec is atm the better choice, but if you want to go into general stuff you can do that as well
I also stuck to a narrow path in skill progression.
Being my charcter is Amarr I focused on gunnery skills. I stayed in smaller then cruisers with the mindset of "don't fly it without tech2 guns". A little over 4m skill points into gunnery and I just recently began learning medium sized turrets.
Having so much skill points spent into Gunnery skills futher complimented the Amarr ships. I use the Coercer Amarr Destroyer. It has 8 turret hard points which can fully take advantage of those 4m skill points in gunnery.
Deciding to stay in "small" ships further allowed for me to specialize. Assault frigates, intercpetors and interdictors are all availble to me. Building up the bottom end (t2 gear to lowslots) furhter compliments my specialization in the terms that I can easily obtain 300 dps on a destroyer while easily keeping the cost below 8m. I can field 20 or more tech 2 fitted destroyers compared to a single battleship which is VERY cost effective for a casual player.
I am now working towards Command Ships. I have about 8 days to complete Medium Energy Turret lvl 5 at which time I'll be fitting Heavy Pulse II's to a Harbinger.
My base attributes for Perception and Charisma without implants is 22 and 21. It will be close to 4-5 months before I consider my character compotent in a command ship. Till then I'll be in some mean ass tech 2 fitted battlecruisers and destroyers and possibily a heavy assault cruiser!!
rAwr!!
p.s. Advanced Weapon Uprgades lvl 4 for the win!!
The lesson is that now, post revelations 1, there are definate directions you can go for combat. Stick to one path to the top of your goal, then switch to broaden your abilities.
Those are good skills but its taken me a good part of 3.5 years to get them where as someone who focuses on a specific role, like frigs, could be as good, if not better, in them then I am in 6 months. Which kinda goes along with what people here say that newer players CAN beat older players. An example is, I was fighting against someone in an interceptor (taranis) we both had exactly the same setup, suprizingly enough I lost to him and he was ONLY 5 months old. We got to talking and I found out that one of his navigation skills was at a lvl 5 where mine was at 4 and this gave him about 300m/s more speed then me and allowed him to live with 7% structure left. His specialization gave him the edge he needed to beat me. I have since then trained that nav. skill to lvl 5
For this reason alone I doubt no two characters (even those created by the same person) are exactly the same.
Sure they might be able to fly the same level of bc/bs/hac whatever. And use the same guns/missiles.
But the other might be shield boosting better than the other. Or going faster than the other. Or hitting for more damage and longer range than the other. OR be able to carry more than the other.
Before the new character creation system came out 1M skill points was a lot. I've always liked to be able to rely on myself for my needs, hence the ability to mine, build (ammo, missiles, drones that kind of thing), refine for almost perfect - and slowly get other tiertary skills done to suitable levels before switching over to something else.
While I see the benefit of specializing, I like the rounded approach myself, it doesn't mean you can't be better at some things over the next or even the next person, who hasn't trained any skills in that field.
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That's the purpose of this thread anyway. To let people know before they try EVE, that character progression is not harsh if you do it right. Do not take the skill point system one skill at a time, think ahead, and you will rapidly become a powerful pilot, even if it's only in one thing. After that, round out your character as much as you like, but you always have that prior training to fall back on.
Most people who bash EVE think every skill a vet has is used in owning a new player.
Last I checked, I've never been killed by someone using the "Day Trader" skill.
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I have to say, though, focused skill training, the best ships and T2 are great as far as they go but they're not always going to beat out an experienced player pilot. It's absolutely essential to get the PvP training in order to understand best how your chosen ships work, how they stand up to other ships, how to use your strengths, minimize your weaknesses, all while exploiting your enemies. You only get that through playing with other players and PvPing.
Defintely figure out your long term goals in EVE and work toward those goals, that's essential, but getting in with a good group of players willing to teach you is invaluable.
Man, it sucks to have add like me and read that.
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