Depends a lot on what you want to do. Although since hunting and minning both bring you into contact with mobs I would say Evade is a good skill to have :)
Evade and Dodge since some mobs give dodge skills and some give evade skills. Most people start the game sweating so these skills will make the mobs miss more and allow for more sweat to be gathered.
Most of the skills have a purpose and are valuable, but its the human behind the avatar that makes the use of those skills a success or failure. Ingame skills to focus on: Hunters should focus on Defense related skills(any that contribute to HP and the evade profession) and stick to hunting lower than their Offense skills (anything contributing to dmg & hit profession) For miners you will get the skills naturaly just doing what you do, stay with finders you are skilled enough to use. Gear is more important than skills for a miner I think. A good set of armor and high dmg/sec old school weapon such as justifier mkII, or one of the katasuchi blades. (they wont be eco to hunt with, but will help you kill mobs off your claims with minimum frustration) RL skills and research needed. Hunters need to understand the reality behind SIB and that maxed weapons are the ONLY way to hunt efficiently. Study the charts for dmg/pec and dmg/sec and have a good understand how those two complement each other to make each kill the cheapest possible. Study the dmg types of the mobs you hunt and find the best armor+plate combination for them. As a rule of thumb armor is more eco than healing tools, so you want to have the best eco armor you can without being overprotected. A firm understanding of markup spent vs markup received. Paying high markup for the next biggest gun isnt always wise. Hunting an easy mob just because everyone else does isnt necessairly the best, you need to hunt something that drops things you can sell for markup on a regular basis. (MA takes ~10% of your expences, you can only make that back through selling stuff for markup) Miners: Study the resources and markups for those resources. Map areas and find patterns. Understand what ores/enmatters are found at what depths and which finders within your skill level you can use to maxamize the markup in the resources you find. Amps shouldnt be used by new players, but once you have a spot that you can consistantly get high markup resources with little or no low mu resources you can start trying amps in those areas, but remember you never get the mu you paid on the amps back, so you have to be getting stuff that is significantly higher markup than the markup on the amps to be worth it in the long run. If you want to focus on skill base goals or chipping goals for a new player I would recomend. Hunters: The best low level gun you can get is the Korss H400(L) if you want to hunt at a "higher" level first starting it is fairly cheap to chip into maxing the H400 for hit and dmg. Your defense will be low though, but I think on Next Island that may not be as much of a problem since the mobs tend to be high hp, low dmg. An evade chip would complement the maxed H400 though. This is also a managable goal without chipping, but will likely take a couple months of skilling. Korss H400(L) is maxed at Ranged Laser(dmg) & Laser Pistoleer(hit) lvl 15.5 Mining: I really think that mining is fun at any level so wouldn't recommend chipping. But if you wanted to use bigger finders, the OF105 and the MF104 are both good all around finders that are reparable. They would make a good skilling goal or chipping goal either one. OF105 is maxed at Prospecter lvl 11 MF104 is maxed at Surveyor lvl 10.5 You can use jdeger's skill scanner and chipping optimizer to find the cheapest way to chip into a certain profession level. http://jdegre.net/pe/scanner/ http://jdegre.net/pe/unlocker.php (hint: if you have trouble with the skill scanner not getting screenshots, it works better in windowed mode) Just my quick thoughts, I'm sure there are some flaws there, but you get the idea, narfi
Adapting to changing the environments of Entropia Universe. Markets change, Mobs change, loots change, mining changes.... Its all Dynamic. Staying in a rut and expecting things to go on like it always has is a slow death.
my vote is for Evade. Either way I like all skills no matter what they are. I like hearing the skill up sounds and seeing the little green star pop up on the text window then clicking to see what I leveled in. lol
I agree with evade (if you're hunting that is :) ). Try and focus on the main skills, and not sub skills that much. Evade is awesome because it helps your health and if you get really good at it, you can kill mobs without armor - and hardly get hit
asking which skills you should focus on is like asking "what should i work with when i get a job", it entirely depends on what you want to do. generally i don't care much about skills, if i feel like mining i get mining skills, if i feel like hunting i get hunting skills, you don't really need to think about it, do what you like to do and the skills needed for that will come automatically. ... i hope i didn't missunderstand your question :)
I think that the most useful skill to focus on would be telepathy. that way, one might be able to read minds and know what's actually going on instead of being subject to wild speculation. however, as a general rule, I don't think there is any one single skill which would be a universal choice. it really depends on what somepne's specific goals are. after all, a pure crafter really doesn't need evade - unless it's to side step all the peds the machine keeps throwing at them. hmmm... wait... right, no need for evade. outside of the in-game skills, I think there are a slew of real life skills which are indispensible. patience, the ability to properly research something, and being able to sift through the mountains of poor advice to find the few pearls of wisdom are but a few examples. having a strong and independent personality is also useful. that way, when you're told to 'sweat and buy an opalo', you can see beyond the fog and figure out what is best for yourself - instead of heading down a path that is littered with frustration and the ghosts of many a failed avatar.
I agree with what Djinn and Red said pretty much. Otherwise it depends on your play style completely, what you want from the game. We each have our own thoughts but for myself, after many nerfs I decided a couple years ago that skill is pretty much useless (in hunting anyway), it is the equipment that matters (take an unskilled noobie and put them in full angel or shadow and give them a MM etc, you will see what I mean). I always drove others nuts by using/wearing 'beyond my skill level', but hey ho, time ingame confirmed for me that was the way to go, and since my first goal is having fun in a game, eco is not a main factor anyway.
are we counting HP as a skill cause i'll take 1000 HP over 100,000 points of any other skills. But yea evade would probably be my first choice.
i would say melee skills for people of next island, since it apears that next island will be melee, so clubber, short blade and long blade skills, evade comes in time from hunting and getting eaten. the TT short and long blades go along ways on next island.
Evade. It serves both miners and hunters. And enough medical skills to allow for a big emergency heal also saves lots of frustration. For crafters, probably industrialist :D
there are 2 ways to look at that: 1) the value of each skill point (and there are hughe differences) 2) and what one should go for to make the game play better The 1) can be looked up in auction and Market value for each skill mentioned there for sale (it is changing over time) The 2) can out of my view only be answerde by each player for himself. Small changes in the way people are playing will give a different "optimum" mix for skills. e.g. a player which is very much focusing on crafting, will not primarily look for Evade, someone who is mainly sweating may be quite interested in Evade but also a few others. So indeed a quite difficult question and a quickly given answer should nobody encourage to buy without further thinking a few skills. Disappointment may be hughe.
Your question got me thinking and inspired some research which turned into an article I wrote for entropiaplanets.com and then re-posted on my blog. How To Become a Pro on your first day for $200 (Active for $300) Playing with Real Money: Colonizing Virtual Worlds: How to become a Pro on your first day for $200 (active for $300) While i think that at any given hunting level an excess of defense skills will make you better, this article demonstrated what I think is the cheapest way to play at a high level on your first day in the game by buying the appropriate skills and gear needed. narfi
