Skill Discussions

when looking at what it takes to master a battleship time wise and takes almost 2 years to get all the skills that were required
for mastery for one battle ship from one race.
If i am a new player why would i want to pay for 2 years of game time just to get enough skills to play with the big boys?
the big boys being older players with millions of skill points.
As a new player why should i pay for this amount of time just to get mastered in one ship when i could spend my money on other games that within a few months of play you are playing with some of the best players in the game.
Most other games give players experience based on the activity that are doing in the game yes i know everyone has heard this before.

What i would like to suggest is that skills be both time based for those who like it and activity based for those who like getting skill rewards for in game activities.
this lets active new players see a way to catch up some on the skill points with being rewarded for earning skill points for activities in game as well as keeping the time based skill point hour per sp

Combining both might be a better way for all

You're just not making the right comparisons. This is incredibly common among newer players. First of all, the mastery categories are... not great. Better than the old certificates were but not actually as helpful as you might think. Second, battleships just aren't that much a part of core gameplay, and utterly mastered battleships are scarce in actual play. My main is sitting on (probably; I haven't checked) mastery 4 for all racial battleships and possibly 5 for some. I haven't used one in... three years? Something like that.

If you want a better comparison, look how long it takes to hit cruiser masteries to 3 or 4. Now, that isn't a perfect guideline, but it's much, much more realistic as far as trying to figure out how long you have to train to be perfectly average and compete with older players on even ground. It's.... not that long. Really.

As for making SP a grind in Eve: no. Hell no. Absolutely not. And "optional"? That's nice. The problem is that it really won't be optional. You can either passively acquire SP OR you can also grind and get more. That's an absolute fool's trade: you have to grind or you "fall behind". The "optional" skill grind is a wolf in a barely passable sheep costume that doesn't so much as bother to hide its canines. Once grinding is an option, grinding is a requirement.

Here's the thing, a lot of these Level V Mastery thingies have skills in them that no sensible person would ever train to V.

Take the Electronic Warfare and Sensor Linking skills. Level IV in either is more than adequate as it opens up Signal Dispersion and Signal Suppression respectively. Training either to V will just save a little on Capacitor use for ECM/Damps modules. Likewise, Frequency Modulation, which boosts EWAR falloff, is actually almost useless to train beyond III or IV. Yet, the ECM Mastery V thingy requires both Electronic Warfare V and Frequency Modulation V.

The skills that really matter are the ones found under Core Spaceship Operation and Navigation. Mastery V certificates in both of these are well worth pursuing as they'll help with every hull you get into.

i'm still pretty n00b, but Thermodynamics V is the ONE skill I believe EVERYONE should train ASAP.

I'd definitely like to obtain more skills other than training. It gets a bit tedious after 12 years.

Such a contradictory statement...

Before you do any assumption, consider the fact that CCP is not interested in you being decked out in a minute. In fact, EVE is only 12 years old yet it takes twice as many years to master all skills.
At the meantime, you start to be relevant at day 3 for PvP (Propulsion Jamming and MWD, duh) and day 21 at shooting crosses (T2 tank, gun support skills, basic drones). You are becoming competitive at day 28 for PvP (t2 tank, t2 guns, cybernetics I, thermodynamics III) and about 40th day for shooting crosses (L4 ship of a choice, t2 guns).
Your skill are nearly perfect for a task at day 60 for most of activities. Perfect incursion pilot (Considered high end PvE stuff) takes 83 days.
Then? It's eternity to get an edge, pushing extra months and throwing loads of isks for measly 1-2% advantage which also comes with big "Shoot me in the face. Repeatedly" sign.

Your maths is rather off, the topic was first made 2015-08-25. Thats the 25th, so its the end of the month. My first post was "- 2015-10-03" at the very start of the 10th month, so its closer to a month not two months. Also this topic is on the front page of Skill Discussions when i first noticed it. I gave a valid reponce & the content that i gave is not outdated.

On another point.. you added information after me, So this kinda makes you a necro poster
.../Hands out another special cookie just for you

Mmm.. you don't like a multibox player!!! ...But they add more fun to the game / challenge do they not ? Extra cash income injected into this game. I noticed that your in a pvp corp "cough", so multibox players shouldn't be a issue for you.

You forgot to mention becoming a future Awful Loss Of the Day candidate, a newbie with millions of SP is still a newbie.