EVE Online Learning Curve

EvE Online is one of a kind. This massive space simulator is known for its steep and unforgiving EVE Online Learning Curve. When a new player enters micro-universe of New Eden he’s being introduced to a game with no clear endgame. The only goal EvE Online has is the one you will make for yourself. You can become a warmongering tyrant of a massive space alliance, or a trade mogul dominating and manipulating fragile EvE Online markets, an industrialist war profiteer, the choice is yours.

Table of contents:

1. Complete The Tutorial.

2. Make your own fun.

3. Follow the Mastery Levels.

4. Educate yourself.

Each aspect of EvE Online takes weeks, if not months, to master so at first you will feel completely overwhelmed by the amount of information you have to take in as a newbie. If you play smart, however, there are ways of defeating that EVE Online learning curve.

1. Complete The Tutorial

This should be a no-brainer. EvE Online is an old game with some archaic systems and interface that can be confusing, tutorial will help you understand the very basics of the game. Once you are done with the base training I would advise you to open your Agency window and complete all of the career path agents. There are four basic career paths: Military, Business, Exploration and Industry, performing mission chains in each of those will give you basic understanding of those aspects of EvE universe. Those career path agents will help you make an educated guess on what you will enjoy doing in EvE Online so you can begin your climb up the learning curve.

Career agents will not introduce you to all of the aspects of the game as there are various activities branching out from those four core ones.

2. Make your own fun

With tutorial completed and career missions done, you should start thinking about what will bring you the most satisfaction. You can make a profitable business in any of the proposed avenues, so you should really focus on what feels the best for you. There are paths that will require some investment before you can really make it into a “profession” like hauling or incursion running but some can start bringing you small chunks of profit straight away and will only get better as you develop your skills like mining or mission running.

If career agents didn’t give you a clear answer to what you actually want to do you can pick one thing and just do it for a while, see how it feels. Go mine some rocks, complete few missions, explore a little, pick your path. You will be able to do all of those things at once at some point, but since skills required for doing anything take time to learn it's good to pick an avenue and sticking to it at least to a point when you feel comfortable taking a jump to the side. Read more about EVE Online exploration in our guide.

3. Follow the Mastery Levels

Being able to pilot ships is just a beginning of your adventure as a pilot. Each ship uses different modules, gun types, resistances, drones etc. . Which means every ship requires different set of skill to fly efficiently. For example, if a ship has bonuses to shield strength you wont need skills that boost efficiency of your armor repair units. It's a lot to take in but thankfully EvE Online devs came up with mastery system. Masteries list out skills that are useful when navigating the particular ship and are a good indication of how proficient you are when flying it. There are five mastery levels but this does not mean you have to reach perfect skills for every ship you fly to be a competent pilot, mastery levels III and IV usually mean you can fit most Tech 2 modules and dish out some serious damage with that ship.

4. Educate yourself

There are plenty of materials in the internet that will guide you through any possible type of gameplay in EvE Online but best way of learning the game is by playing it with veterans. I would recommend joining one of the “Ivy League” corporations that help other players to learn the game. One of such corporations is EvE University, here you will find well organized scheduled lectures led by veteran players. Participating in those lectures beats any online tutorial as you are always sure that the information provided are up to date and you will learn all the nuances of that certain area of expertise, you can also ask questions if something is not clear. Joining the “university” corporations is probably the best and most efficient way of learning the game.

If “school-like” corporations are not your thing there are plenty of newbie-friendly casual corporations that will be happy to help you. If you want to jump straight into action you can apply to one of the big alliances of EvE Online like Pandemic Horde or The Imperium. Those massive powerful entities have their own training programs for new players and will be happy to have you, even if inexperienced because in eve the power is in numbers and any pilot, even inexperienced one, is more valuable than any ship in the game. But those alliances have their own, often very strict, requirements and rules you will need to fulfill so if you are not ready yet for a full-time commitment to the war effort i’d wait before joining one of them.

There are many ways to learn EvE online but the best way will be, always, learning off the mistakes of others. You cannot buy knowledge with ISK, PLEX will not grant you with an experience. 

I hope this article gave you some perspective on how to beat the insufferable EvE Online Learning Curve. Fly safe and see you out there!