Ur first GM skill

So- if I'm understanding correctly- the end result is the same.

The players who turn skill advancement off obviously gain no skill levels for a while, then dump all the pooled xp into one skill to advance it quickly.

The players who leave everything on advance skills more evenly, but cannot advance one very quickly.

But at the end of the day... all else being the same. Both players have the exact same amount of xp in their skills.

 

Effectively yes. But that's given that people are playing the same number of hours I work 8-5, so that kind of kills a lot of play time I could have Silly jobs.....

 

Pickpocket... >.>

 

@EMPstrike, this is one of the best and most concise explanations about this subject I've seen in this forum so far. Definite FAQ material

 

I'm focusing on being a healer. I grand mastered healing ray a few days ago. I've also been working full time since release. I have been playing a lot since release though and getting that skill to 100 wasn't trivial.

Going from 90 to 100 was almost a couple million exp give or take. When I solo the undead I usually make around 50k exp an hour. In a group doing a control point it's around 100k an hour. So as you can see it's 15 to 30 hours of constant playing in very high end places to get a single skill from 90 to 100.

That's quite a bit of effort but some people are grinding 12 to 16 hours a day, every day. It's hard to balance a game when some people are so hard core about it. I probably have put in over 100 hours since release myself, which is pretty insane.

I'm playing more casually now and my intention is to GM all the major healing spells. When someone sees the little arrow beside my name with only healing abilities in it, there will be no question what my role is.

 

I dont really understand people who lock all their skills, get up 1 to 2 mil exp pools and then unlock to raise skills.

Its seems to me that they are missing exponential gains actually letting the needed skill raise to help benefit them to therefor gain skill fast while they are doing it and/or moving to harder areas with the skills to gain even more efficient XP.


Would you take all your savings and stuff it under the bed making no interest for 3 years until you had a million dollars and then put it in a CD, or put it in a CD in the bank making 5% as you earn it in during those 3 years. After 3 years you would surly have more money if you stored it in a CD.

 

The skill that you want to raise might not necessarily be one that you're currently using to gain xp.

 

Yes....yes I would, but it wouldn't be under the bed. It'd be in money bags, or gold coins, in a giant vault, that I swim in from time to time
But no, I usually have 1 skill training at a time, the rest are locked. And it's usually a passive. I save my massive XP dumps for innates.

 

Saving millions is a little excessive most of the time. The sweet spot where you get maximum skill dump per skill use is around 500k according to a lot of people. I usually keep it around 250 myself.

If I'm working on a particular skill though, why would I ever turn it off. The exp is going to end up there anyhow. In that sense I agree with the previous poster. If it's going to end up there anyhow, pooling it doesn't help.

Raising the skill while playing saves you having to grind using it in many cases too.

 

I think the simplest way of looking at it is that you should usually be using whatever skills can gain the most xp for you at the moment, because it's much easier to spend xp than to gain it. For example, if you had a high blade skill level but you decided that you wanted to switch to bludgeon, the fastest way to skill up bludgeon would be to continue using blades up until the point that you had enough pooled xp that bludgeon could surpass blades. It would take a lot longer to get to the same point if you immediately switched to bludgeon and started hacking at stuff no skill, because you'd be killing things slower. There's also going to be lots of things skilled up strictly for attunement or non combat purposes that would slow down xp gain if they were to be used in combat.

 

A few points regarding this:

• I assume the 1-2 million xp pools were a thing of the past 2x and 4x skill bonus eras. Not sure, but currently anything more than 300-500k is a LOT of work.
• The "saving xp strategy" is actually effective only when 1) working on a skill that can not be used to gain XP or it gains it only in minimal amounts; AND 2) the said skill XP gain can be triggered only rarely in specific situations. In all other cases, it's simply a feel-good measure, but it DOES feel good to dump a lot of XP in a short time Who are we to deny folks of that?
• While the XP costs are exponential, the skill gains are at best linear, and often worse than that. Therefore the potential skill difference (that could help in gaining the XP) of an average max pool size is minimal
  
• In most cases, the "XP dump" is quick, precise, and effective. Investment in terms of time is minimal.

 

I'm planning on taking gathering and meticulous gathering skills to 80. I'll also max out various combat. magic and strategy skills at 80. I'll see where to go after that.

 

Not sure, but so far, fishing is in the lead!

 

Yeah, unless you have all other skills locked then it's not going to be of much benefit.

 

Pool up the xp pool to 250k to 500k, then train 1 innate and 3 other non innates While grinding for more xp, keep it floating, not decreasing, not much increasing either. You'll gain the fastest that way. Once all that is done, you can dump the access ammount to your specific skill or innate, don't drop down below 200k pool.

 

The only thing I've GM'd so far this release are crafting related skills, due in no small part to huge contributions of resources (thousands of ores) from guild to us crafters. The % success chances to continue to scale (for 2nd attempts) on mw/enchanting so its well worth doing. I agree with the overall sentiment that the cost. vs benefit for getting most things above 80 just isn't really worth it until you've got everything levelled up to where you want it.

 

Skills like taming that have a cost associated with trying are the ones you see massive pools over a million. This saves collars when the skill is rising fast per attempt versus lots of attempts. Taming generates no xp, you didn't kill the mob you tamed it. So it's better to pool then raise.

Another skill is fishing. It is xp negative in the low twenties, and cost a worm per attempt. So it is better to build a pool and then work it at the fastest possible speed, rather than grind out millions of xp only earning 20 xp and paying a worm per attempt.

Another skill is crafting. Sine you can gather for free but crafting cost you items to salvage, repair kits to repair things, or materials to craft with. Some people gather for a large pool then craft to deplete. This saves them money and let's them gather stuff they need anyway.

For most skills you are correct most people are wasting time building pools and then dumping xp. Especially on skills that would help them grind xp faster

 

Nice! You are my hero. This is exactly what I'm working towards. I've just finished GM in table dancing

 

I don't even understand why an RPG would allows players to lock skills when the entire system is "on use".