Hit chance increase vs skill gains

[Merus]

I thought I had seen this topic discussed before, but couldn’t find it.

Generally for skill gains you need to fight mobs within about 20 points of your combat skill, which puts your chance to hit around 40%-60%.
If you add hit chance increase does it impact your ability to gain on that mob… making you have to move on to harder mobs sooner to stay in the 40-60 hit chance range?
Or
Does it increase your gains on the same mob by allowing you more successful hits?

 

[Dimax]

I thought I had seen this topic discussed before, but couldn’t find it.

Generally for skill gains you need to fight mobs within about 20 points of your combat skill, which puts your chance to hit around 40%-60%.
If you add hit chance increase does it impact your ability to gain on that mob… making you have to move on to harder mobs sooner to stay in the 40-60 hit chance range?
Or
Does it increase your gains on the same mob by allowing you more successful hits?

More hits more gains, I would like to think!

 

[Merus]

More hits more gains, I would like to think!

I would like to think so too, but with UO it’s not always logical

 

[PlayerSkillFTW]

The chance to gain upon successful hit is determined by a comparison of your Wep/Wrest/Magery (in case of Mage Weps) vs the opponent's Weapon/Wrest skill. HCI/HLD does not negatively impact the chance to gain, but in fact enhances it since you successfully land more hits against an appropriately skilled opponent.
Using a Crystal Ball of Knowledge (which basically tells you your odds of gaining), you can see that attacking an opponent that is Optimal with 0% HCI, will still say Optimal when attacking them with 45% HCI.

 

[PlayerSkillFTW]

When training Wep skills (or Magery) and Tact/Anat, i usually equip my character with a "Training Suit". I use Mace & Shields for the Helm to provide +30% HLD, and all the other armor pieces have +5 DEX/+10 Stamina on them, resists are irrelevant for what i train on. The Jewelry has +Dex/+Stam/15% HCI/10% SSI. The wep i usually use is a crafted 100% Poison Damage Dagger, with -29 Mage Wep/UBWS/15% HCI/30% SSI/42% HLD (my Hatchet version of this has 50% HLD). Dagger lets me use Infectious Strike and Shadow Strike if i want to try to train Poisoning/Stealth at same time, Hatchet lets me train LJ at same time. The UBWS lets any melee wep skill use and gain from it (Swords/Macing/Fencing can all gain when using a UBWS wep), and the -Mage Wep lets Magery skill gain when using it as well.
With this setup, even a 10 DEX Mage can swing the wep at max 1.25 sec speed with 45% HCI, which is the fastest way to gain Magery skill.
Here's what my Garg version of this wep looks like (which i made a Kryss for some reason).

You want your Wep Skill/Tactics/Magery (modified) to be within 25.0 points of whatever you're attacking. Anatomy and LJ gain regardless of the opponent's skills, so the easier they are to hit, the better (a disarmed Gregorio is perfect for these).

As for what i train against, i have a Tamer with a skill trained Wolf Spider. Wolf Spiders have 100% Poison Resist, and this one i trained up to GM Wrest/Tact, then i killed it once to drop Wrest down to 99.9 so it won't parry attacks. My training char will attack the Wolf Spider with one of my training weps, being unable to damage it yet still getting skill gains.

 

[TrackStar]

Wait, really?

Everything you said is exactly opposite of what I have always read and been told...

Wow.

 

[Anon McDougle]

The fact that this is the best way to train is all that is wrong with UO in a nutshell..

 

[Stinky Pete]

The fact that this is the best way to train is all that is wrong with UO in a nutshell..

As far as I know, the concept has always been:

Use a skill to get gains.

A smart player can find little tricks to gain faster. Makes sense to me. I know that a lot of things have changed on this front, but the basic concept above has pretty much held true for ~25 years.

I'm pretty sure that at some point the gain rate was rapidly accelerated. I recall it taking a long time to GM a skill back when I first started playing.

What would be a better way, in your opinion?

I'm not trying to be antagonistic, I'm just curious what you think would be better.

 

[Anon McDougle]

As far as I know, the concept has always been:

Use a skill to get gains.

A smart player can find little tricks to gain faster. Makes sense to me. I know that a lot of things have changed on this front, but the basic concept above has pretty much held true for ~25 years.

I'm pretty sure that at some point the gain rate was rapidly accelerated. I recall it taking a long time to GM a skill back when I first started playing.

What would be a better way, in your opinion?

I'm not trying to be antagonistic, I'm just curious what you think would be better.

Fighting sheep to gain parry?
Sitting on a boat for resisting spells?? All my toons were above 100 at the start of hythloth yet not one made 120 despite fighting casters (imps in particular curse etc as much as spectral do..)
Using skills in Normal game play should be best way

 

[Draig]

Fighting sheep to gain parry?
Sitting on a boat for resisting spells?? All my toons were above 100 at the start of hythloth yet not one made 120 despite fighting casters (imps in particular curse etc as much as spectral do..)
Using skills in Normal game play should be best way

I agree 100% and it's one of my chief complaints, not trying to tell people how to play, but it just comes to a point where you legit just stop gaining skill. Let your weapon skill overtake your parry and GL getting those like 13.4 points through normal game play.

 

[Anon McDougle]

When my children and friends I've tried to bring in gamers everyone they laugh and lose interest in trying to figure it out

 

[Stinky Pete]

I see your point and agree that normal gameplay should be the best way to gain skill. Unfortunately it's pretty much impossible to programmatically determine "normal gameplay."

I appreciate your answer and I have had the same problem when trying to teach a friend how to gain skills effectively. I think I heard them say that they are working to combat this in NL by using quests for skill gains which seems like it could be a better way. Time will tell if that works or not. I can definitely see some problems that could arise from it though. Namely, that is a lot of quests to write, and also some quests are stupid, so making them mandatory to progress a character kind of goes against the spirit of the game itself.

 

[PlayerSkillFTW]

I'm pretty sure that at some point the gain rate was rapidly accelerated. I recall it taking a long time to GM a skill back when I first started playing.

That, plus the fact that back in the day we didn't know precisely how the mechanics worked, or what skill levels various creatures were. Now, due to understanding precisely how the mechanics work and knowing how to optimize for it, i can take a char from 30-120 Weapon Skill/Tact/Anat/Magery/GM LJ within just a few hours.

I see your point and agree that normal gameplay should be the best way to gain skill. Unfortunately it's pretty much impossible to programmatically determine "normal gameplay."

I appreciate your answer and I have had the same problem when trying to teach a friend how to gain skills effectively. I think I heard them say that they are working to combat this in NL by using quests for skill gains which seems like it could be a better way. Time will tell if that works or not. I can definitely see some problems that could arise from it though. Namely, that is a lot of quests to write, and also some quests are stupid, so making them mandatory to progress a character kind of goes against the spirit of the game itself.

Numerous games that have skills based on usage have tricks for accelerating skill gain and efficiently "power leveling". The Elder Scrolls series in particular is guilty of this. There has always been tricks since TES II: Daggerfall (when they first introduced the skill system into TES) that allowed you to accelerate skill gain and power level. I've always been good at figuring out strategies for optimizing skill gain in these types of games.

 

[Stinky Pete]

The Elder Scrolls series in particular is guilty of this

In Morrowind I like putting a rubber band around the jump button before bed and jumping over buildings in the morning.

 

[PlayerSkillFTW]

In Morrowind I like putting a rubber band around the jump button before bed and jumping over buildings in the morning.

Yep, there was also stuff like using unenchanted Iron/Steel weapons against Ancestor Ghosts (which had Immunity to Normal Weapons) for weapon skill gains, or summoning an Ancestor Ghost and pissing it off to absorb it's spellcasts via the Atronach Sign to regain Magicka for training spellschools with 1 Magicka cast custom spells. Or wearing the Robe of St. Roris (before it was patched) for constant HP regen as you'd take hits from a swarm of low damage creatures to quickly gain Armor/Block skills.

 

[TrackStar]

In Morrowind I like putting a rubber band around the jump button before bed and jumping over buildings in the morning.

Back in 1997 I used to leave a stapler on my keyboard to train hiding, etc.

 

[Stinky Pete]

Now you've just gone and reminded me of a classic post I made a few years ago.

[Hiding] - Fastest way to gain hiding/stealth these days?

What's the fastest way to gain hiding and stealth these days? Nobody has posted about it in a long time, not sure if there's been any changes. Raising it in a house still work well? Right now my hiding and stealth skill are just over 50.

community.stratics.com

Back in 1997 I used to leave a stapler on my keyboard to train hiding, etc.