EVE: Skill Queue Less Helpful than I’d Hoped

The Skill Training Queue (STQ) features introduced with the Apocrypha expansion pack aren’t proving nearly as useful as I’d hoped.  It is great for kicking off the early levels of skill training that take a few hours here and there.  However, it does absolutely nothing for skills that are longer than 1-day and complete during off hours – nada.  You’re still stuck with a skill finishing in the middle of the night or during the business day, when you aren’t able to start the next skill you’d like to train.  Basically, you’re still tied to queuing up things you may not really want yet but will fit into the 1-day STQ restriction or starting a longer skill you don’t want yet either, in order to always have “something” training if you're going to be away from the game for a few days.  *Yawn* 

While I understand CCP’s concerns about not wanting to encourage more AFK training-only players, it hasn’t changed player behavior all these years.  This is an aspect of how some players manage their characters and quite frankly, as long as they’re subscribed it shouldn’t matter. Making skill training a pain in my ass doesn’t make me log in and play any more than I normally would. It just makes me annoyed.

My prescribed training for Faction Warfare has slowed down a bit as a result of not being able to efficiently queue up the things I really need to train.  I’ve been doing lots of other things in real life that preclude me popping on EVE just to start training a skill.  Regardless, I think my return to deep space is close at hand.  I was about ready for a break from my fantasy adventures when the opportunity to tinker in another game became available.  I’ve decided to go do that for a bit before EVE since I can’t do three games at a time.  Runes of Magic is still my primary MMO.  I recently hopped into Wizard101 supposedly just to quest for a little while.  Next thing I knew it was 1AM and I was in Dragonspyre with Tipa and Thomas.  Clearly, W101 still has the juice to suck me in and I’ve remained subscribed.  I don’t have the time needed to dedicate to EVE until I put one of these other games down again.  EO's time is coming.  I can feel it in my bones.  An in-depth return is on the horizon.  *Smile*

Comments

[liangliz]

You know there is a way to queue multiple longterm skills into your skill plan right? What you do is, pick the last skill you want to train that takes over 24 hours, then do a train now on another skill that takes more than 24 hours. Voila you now have 48 hours of training. There are limitations to this method though. You cannot queue a a single skill, that takes longer than 24 hours, for multiple levels. But it should help you not waste training time if you have to go on something like a 1 week vacation.

[Beau]

Damn, why don't they just let people do what they want with their skills already?

I mean they already have RMT, are they afraid that suddenly people will just start cranking out massively skilled pilots to sell? Even if I had a proper queue, it would take me forever to get a high skill character.

This bums me out. I wanted to re-sub just so I can try out the skill queue. As though in the future, with ships that read your mind and warp speed possible, someone can't simply have a godamned day-planner. lol

Beau

[Letrange]

um... what you're supposed to do is log in in the 24h before that last kill finished - at any convinient time and add the next batch to the end of the queue.

For example - say you have something that finishes at 4:00 am on sunday. Well saturday evening you just pop on and slap something on the end of the queue. - no need to get up at 4:00 am.

[Alysianah aka Saylah]

@liangliz - I will have to try that method.

@Letrange - that doesn't work for me now as everything I need/want trained is more than 24 hours so they don't show up in the queue anymore. The only skills that are available in the queue for me to train are the Trade skills I injected but don't need to train right now.

I'll try liangliz's idea to see if I can at least link 2 24-hour skills but I'm quickly moving past those too. I have things in the 2d+ category that needed to be trained.

@Beau - I don't know why they don't get over it and let people be with the skill queues. People who are making for sale characters and just training them aren't perturbed by this non-sense. It's money for them so they deal with the inconveniences. For a casual player like me, it's just annoying and certainly doesn't make me play more. I play and log-in when I can.

[Beau]

Well, I can understand that they don't want you to just log in and go "Skill 1 , skill 2, skill 3..." and then click "learn", and come back 5 months later to find a high-level character.

But if there's one thing I can't stand, it's when game companies just go half-way.

They have RMT already..just make a cash shop type interface. (If they have, I haven't seen it, I haven't played in months..10 mil skill point character)

Just make the queue like that. They need to ask themselves: "Do players, as it is now, log in to just set a skill, then log out?"

Yes, yes they do. Just let players do what they want. Many players ( I guarantee it) just maintain a sub to keep them skills a learnin'. What needs to be asked of EVE is not "How many players do you have" but "How many ACTIVE players do you have?"

Beau

[Swordwraith]

So I might have misunderstood this but here goes. In the training queue window there is a drop down box on the top left hand side. Directly below that there is a check box that says Skills that fit within queue time frame. Make sure that is unchecked so your full options will be displayed. So far I haven't had a problem adding a 3 day skill in once there is an hour or so open in the gueue. But if you don't have the time to log in then this doesn't help.

[Letrange]

@Saylah

Doh!, Ok I see what your problem is.

You can see the other skills by clicking a check box on the skill queue dialog.

You can also drag skills from outside this dialog on to the skill queue.

[Alysianah aka Saylah]

ah ah, so I'll un-check that option and as long as I have a sliver of time open in the Skill Queue, I can at least queue up the next thing. Not perfect but MUCH BETTER. Glad I posted! Thanks for the help.

[Letrange]

@saylah - also new in the recent patch - the ability to filter your boxes and hangars to look for a specific thing when you have hundreds of items in a box or hangar. It's the practically invisible text box right under the minimize button of any container/hangar window. (CCP masters of the subtle interface change - so subtle practically no one notices it)

[Alysianah aka Saylah]

LOL I need them to make that freakin' monster size shipping fitting less obvious! I was online again last night. I got most of my inventory all sorted out and refined junk items for the resources. I forgotten that I had two station containers of salvaged rig component from back when I was considering that as a crafting (production) profession. I still might to it so I'm hanging on to the stuff.

Then I did several missions in the Tristan to get acclimated with flying it versus my cruise control Vexor.