Playing the Skill Point Game #EVEOnline
stargrace 
I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with the way that skills work in EVE. In more ‘tradtional’ MMOs (ie: most themepark) I would log in to ‘grind’ skills or levels. I’d work on tasks that would better my character. In EVE there’s no way of doing this. Your skills come from books that you add to a queue, and automatically learn in a number of hours/days/months while you’re in game or not. You’re only limited by the amount of time required to fully learn a skill, and the price of the skill book. That means the ‘main’ thing to work on is gaining ISK so you can afford those books / ships / etc. How you decide to earn your ISK is completely up to you.
Above is my current ‘planned’ queue of skills. It will take around 49 days to learn them all. This is the Dominix fit I’ve planned out on Battleclinic, and then I’ve uploaded the skills I need for that fit. It’s drone heavy (obviously, almost everything I have left to train is drones) since that’s how I enjoy playing. I love sending my drones out into combat while I hang back and blast things from range or tank the heavier hits while they do the bulk of the damage. Picking a fit for your ship is unique to the type of gameplay you enjoy so be sure to spend a lot of time browsing fits. You don’t have to go with what everyone else dictates is the best, either. You should always focus on how YOU enjoy playing. The dominix makes a great drone ship, although I’d like to upgrade it eventually. Since the only real combat I do is for missions, I’ve never been that focused on my PvE combat ship.
One thing I wish were a little easier to do in game is probing. Normally Kasul would scan sites and then drop off the mining locations for me because I’m just not good at it. He’s moved on, so I’m left to figure out probing for myself. It’s not THAT difficult, I’ve watched videos on how to do it and I’ve even managed to scan down a few sites myself. It’s just that I’m not very good at it, and I prefer to spend my time in game doing things that I’m good at and that I enjoy. Problem is I enjoy mining (I know, how wrong of me) and if I spend my time mining just the regular asteroid belts, that can become a chore. I really enjoy the excitement that the other sites bring, especially if there are rats around. So, a large portion of my time in-game must be spend dedicated to learning the finer arts of probing. That sounds completely wrong.
How do you enjoy spending your time in-game? Let me know in comments! As always, happy gaming no matter where you are.