NEWS [UO.Com] Ask & Answer No. 16

[Tina Small]

Well, I answered one of my questions myself, I think, by horsing around on Test Center. Anyone who wants to is welcome to debate/dispute my results. However, this seems to be the order in which skills decay, from easiest/first to decay to hardest/last to decay:

alchemy
anatomy
animal lore
item id
arms lore
parrying
begging
blacksmithing
bowcraft/fletching
peacemaking
camping
carpentry
cartography
cooking
detecting hidden
discordance
evaluating intelligence
healing
fishing
forensic evaluation
herding
hiding
provocation
inscription
lockpicking
magery
resisting spells
tactics
snooping
musicianship
poisoning
archery
spirit speak
stealing
tailoring
animal taming
taste identification
tinkering
tracking
veterinary
swordsmanship
mace fighting
fencing
wrestling
lumberjacking
mining
meditation
stealth
remove trap
necromancy
focus
chivalry
bushido
ninjitsu
spellweaving
mysticism
imbuing
throwing

If you can afford to buy soulstones and flush unwanted skills and/or don't play on Siege or Mugen, just ignore the whole discussion and move on to reading about something that interests you. If you care to pick a fight or make a bigger deal out of this than is warranted, then be a troll and go right ahead and see where it gets you. If you're having a crappy day and decide I make a good target, then be your usual jackass self and step in here and post a nasty reply and take your frustrations out on me and show what a moron you can be, all in the name of trying to build a community.

I have absolutely zero control over which questions Mesanna chooses to "reply" to and which ones she doesn't. I once asked a set of questions that were of interest to me. I had no ability to go back later and delete the questions from the forum they were in because it was a closed forum. I regret sincerely now that I even raised the issue or that I even indicated I was disappointed with the brevity of her reply. This "community" doesn't feel much like a community anymore and there are days when I regret ever posting in here to begin with, for all the bad feelings and ill will I perceive many days when I check in here.

Take my contribution above for whatever it's worth. I'm posting it purely to be helpful and if you're too blind or too much of a jackass to see it in that light, I don't know what to tell you. I hope your day and your life gets better and you can wake up in a better frame of mind tomorrow.

Peace.

Edited to add: And if you want more information on the subject, go here: http://www.uocraft.com/skill-training/skill-decay/ . That is the article I recently discovered that included the tip about buying up alchemy skill (if it's possible on the shard where you're playing) to possibly help with getting your gains going again if you seem to have hit a wall.

 

[Pawain]

You probably know more about the mechanics of how the game plays than the devs do. Her answer proves it. Don't give up hope. We need you.

 

[SlobberKnocker]

does skill decay really need to be a worthy discussion. fragments are 1.2-1.5 mln. easy enough to wipe out what you do not want.

my thoughts are that given the current resources afforded by ea to this game, we'd be much better served petitioning the dev's on things that really matter, like making the 2d client more user friendly, art animation etc....

not trolling but just giving my opinion. wine rack?? is that really necessary.

maybe its just me.

have a good day.

 

[CovenantX]

Skill decay, doesn't increase your chance to "gain" skills, it just means the skills that decay faster, are the first ones to reach 0.0 before a different skill would start dropping as your training other skills.

Example:

100.0 Anatomy ↓
100.0 Parry ↓
0.0 Animal Lore ↑ Anatomy would be the first to hit 0.0 on your way to 120.0 Animal Lore.

It's not going to make your gains faster, but it could be handy to know for people who use lots of soul-stones, and often gain in a skill by accident above what they indented to reach, When they switch skills say 100 Parry for 120 Anatomy, it's going to take 20.0 skill points from another skill pointed down. the only ways to know which skill the 20.0 points are taken from is to either have all skills locked except the one you want to lower (safest bet), or to know which skills are going to decay first.

 

[Siabra]

IS there any possibility of "Books" being made to hold Recipes and another "Book" to hold Music Gears?
Please please please please

 

[cazador]

does skill decay really need to be a worthy discussion. fragments are 1.2-1.5 mln. easy enough to wipe out what you do not want.

my thoughts are that given the current resources afforded by ea to this game, we'd be much better served petitioning the dev's on things that really matter, like making the 2d client more user friendly, art animation etc....

not trolling but just giving my opinion. wine rack?? is that really necessary.

maybe its just me.

have a good day.

What u don't feel the need to store your half empty wine bottles after hitting up the pixel tavern either..

I thought I was alone..however maybe if somehow I could turn you wine bottle into molotov's for PVP then I'd be interested in a wine rack of doom..

 

[Cetric]

Well, I answered one of my questions myself, I think, by horsing around on Test Center.

you do too much, thanks for your hard work.

 

[Tina Small]

does skill decay really need to be a worthy discussion. fragments are 1.2-1.5 mln. easy enough to wipe out what you do not want.

my thoughts are that given the current resources afforded by ea to this game, we'd be much better served petitioning the dev's on things that really matter, like making the 2d client more user friendly, art animation etc....

not trolling but just giving my opinion. wine rack?? is that really necessary.

maybe its just me.

have a good day.

HOLY COW.

Did you read the original questions? They weren't a petition to change anything; they were a request for information. They were also questions I posted over 3 years ago in the Ask the Devs forum (and asked again a year ago) and there was no way for me to delete them at any point once they were posted there.

Did you even read Mesanna's response? It's not an answer, it's a brush-off that probably took her 30 seconds to type. Sum total of dev time spent on my set of questions: Maybe 1 minute, if that. I doubt Mesanna's time spent on it affected anything you listed. Seriously.

 

[kelmo]

Tina is absolutely correct. Many of the questions submitted to Ask and answer are from a list of questions that have been submitted over the years. Stratics staff periodically looks over that lengthy list and gets rid of the questions that are no longer relevant, answer those that we know the answers too and submit those that we find intriguing or interesting.

 

[KLOMP]

from this page: http://uo.com/Ive-logged-Account-Management-page-now-what-do-I-do

Note for Ultima Online accounts: You have been assigned a Mythic Master Account. It is your Game Account with ‘_uo’ added. (If your Game Account is called “myaccount” your Mythic Master Account will be “myaccount_UO”.)

Great, I've been assigned a Mythic Master Account. I didn't used to have one of those, so what exactly have I gained? What do I do with it? And I'll tell you what else, I don't even really remember ever making an "EA Account" either, so I'm not even sure what's up with that. I dimly remember registering for UO back when Clinton was still in office and that's about it. I might have been assigned an EA Account at some point, but I've never registered anything else with EA so I've never really used it and don't know anything about it.

I used to put in my UO account name and password at the management screen, same as I used to log into the game. Now I have at least two other kinds of accounts too, apparently, and neither of them are called "UO accounts". Like whoa, I'm not even one of those people with lots of UO accounts. I only have one UO account, but apparently even just that involves at least two other kinds of accounts now.

 

[KLOMP]

Well, I answered one of my questions myself, I think, by horsing around on Test Center. Anyone who wants to is welcome to debate/dispute my results. However, this seems to be the order in which skills decay, from easiest/first to decay to hardest/last to decay:

I'd like to repost this quote from Logrus, who is after all a former developer.

Regarding decay, I would guess its a pretty simple explanation. The game probably just lowers the first one in the skill list which is pointed down. The list isnt necessarily alphabetical and so skills like chiv and necro that were added later in the game would probably before or after something like alchemy depending on which way it reads the list first to last or last to first.

And sure enough, if you look at your list, you'll notice all the AOS skills come after the original skills, and the SE skills come after those, then the ML skills, and finally the SA ones. It's the exact same list that used to dictate which title you received, back when every dexer was a "Grandmaster Healer" on his paperdoll due to Anatomy being near the top.

This is all exactly as one would expect, and has nothing to do with any conspiracy theory that certain skills will refuse to go down and thus deny you a gain in something else.

Edited to add: And if you want more information on the subject, go here: http://www.uocraft.com/skill-training/skill-decay/ . That is the article I recently discovered that included the tip about buying up alchemy skill (if it's possible on the shard where you're playing) to possibly help with getting your gains going again if you seem to have hit a wall.

This is one person's old abandoned site where even they say things like "many people say this is all a myth" and "if I'm crazy then so be it". This is not worth taking seriously. Tina, you're a sweety, but this is not the first time you've heard (or thought of) some completely random thing and taken it more seriously than most people would consider merited.

 

[Victim of Siege]

...B. Would it be possible for our candles blessed by love to have a flame?(Falseprophet)

that was an oldie, i cannot even remember asking that question *chuckles*

 

[Tina Small]

I'd like to repost this quote from Logrus, who is after all a former developer.


And sure enough, if you look at your list, you'll notice all the AOS skills come after the original skills, and the SE skills come after those, then the ML skills, and finally the SA ones. It's the exact same list that used to dictate which title you received, back when every dexer was a "Grandmaster Healer" on his paperdoll due to Anatomy being near the top.

This is all exactly as one would expect, and has nothing to do with any conspiracy theory that certain skills will refuse to go down and thus deny you a gain in something else.



This is one person's old abandoned site where even they say things like "many people say this is all a myth" and "if I'm crazy then so be it". This is not worth taking seriously. Tina, you're a sweety, but this is not the first time you've heard (or thought of) some completely random thing and taken it more seriously than most people would consider merited.

Fine. I'll just go away. All you people who have played "forever" can just continue to treat the rest of the people who came later and who try to ask questions or get information as if they're just plain not good enough to rub elbows with the rest of you. I've about had it with this "community." Who needs enemies in RL when you can come here and have people who are complete strangers read all kinds of crap you never intended into everything you ask or say and try to make you look like you're just a looney tune that escaped from the insane asylum. It's utter BS.

 

[Cetric]

Fine. I'll just go away. All you people who have played "forever" can just continue to treat the rest of the people who came later and who try to ask questions or get information as if they're just plain not good enough to rub elbows with the rest of you. I've about had it with this "community." Who needs enemies in RL when you can come here and have people who are complete strangers read all kinds of crap you never intended into everything you ask or say and try to make you look like you're just a looney tune that escaped from the insane asylum. It's utter BS.

I'm sorry if i said anything to offend you in my post early (dunno). You are probably one of the most helpful people on these forums or in game in general, and probably one of only a few i'd care about offending lol.

 

[Viper09]

Fine. I'll just go away. All you people who have played "forever" can just continue to treat the rest of the people who came later and who try to ask questions or get information as if they're just plain not good enough to rub elbows with the rest of you. I've about had it with this "community." Who needs enemies in RL when you can come here and have people who are complete strangers read all kinds of crap you never intended into everything you ask or say and try to make you look like you're just a looney tune that escaped from the insane asylum. It's utter BS.

I think you're taking this whole topic a little too seriously if you're becoming offended by people who are actually trying to discuss it with you...

However I should add that I don't believe anyone will argue with the fact that the answer provided seemed to have made its entire addition to the A&A rather pointless (being that it isn't really an answer).

 

[Basara]

Tinkered Necklaces, Lucky Necklace, Ankh Pendant, Pendant of the Magi, Gorgets, Mempos etc basically the NECK SLOT. All races have NECKS, its the same slot. Now most people use the the slot for armor or Pendant of the Magi since they have mods and you really screw yourself if you want to use the slot for something like a necklace or ankh. So the question is "hey can we imbue our ankhs with mods" may be taken even further to give tinkering some love via crafted necklaces and ankhs with resists and imbuable.

My character Mylene still draws stares when people notice she's wearing a pendant of the magi, especially when I tell them that her suit is overcapped on most mage properties, and still 70+/70+/69/69/67 with protection cast. (3/7 with scrappers equipped, 110 LRC, 50% LMC, 17 MR, more than +25 INT, +8 mana, 68% SDI, 10%+ total Casting focus) - and I could fix the resists if I wanted to spend a week and millions of gold crafting replacements for 2 items.

 

[Gospel]

Fine. I'll just go away. All you people who have played "forever" can just continue to treat the rest of the people who came later and who try to ask questions or get information as if they're just plain not good enough to rub elbows with the rest of you. I've about had it with this "community." Who needs enemies in RL when you can come here and have people who are complete strangers read all kinds of crap you never intended into everything you ask or say and try to make you look like you're just a looney tune that escaped from the insane asylum. It's utter BS.

Hit the nail on the head here Tina. There are a ton of posters here (KLOMP is a prime example) that do nothing but boast about how they've played "since beta" and as such can never be matched in their vast knowledge of the game. They will look for any chance to correct/condemn any other opinions and seem to come here solely to boost their egos by putting down others. The truth is that many people have a tendency to only garner information from one or two sources, often missing out on information found by more persistent sources. Simply put; ignore the haters. They literally have nothing better to do.

As for the mechanics in question, not only have I heard of it, but I've lived by it for years. And while all-knowing KLOMP seems to think its a myth (probably because he's ignorant), it has been rigorously tested and proven in the past.

The general idea was that when you gain a skill, two checks are made. One to see if you have room to go up, the other to see if your decaying skill had room to go down. As some skills decay easier than others, it was speculated that putting an easier skill to decay would make it easier to get over the hump to getting an actual point gain. As I said, it was tested thoroughly and did prove to show an increase in skill gain over slower decaying skills. Some myth, huh?

As far as their order, all I recall is it was roughly alphabetical. Your list looks right to me, I even recall Parrying being in a weird place. So no, you're not crazy. And yes, many of the "vet" players here don't know as much as they think they do.

 

[Tina Small]

If Test Center ever comes back from maintenance (it's been gone for 2 hours now), I was going to try my own test comparing the rate at which 3 skills from the above list decay as another skill is raised on a character that has a full slate of skills totaling 720 skill points.

I am going to try the test with 3 different gargoyle characters from 3 different accounts, completely logging out of the client after testing each one to make sure there's absolutely no chance of something wacky happening with "guaranteed gains." I'll give each character these skills to get them up to the 720 cap:

120 tailoring
120 blacksmithing
120 magery
100 arms lore
100 tinkering
60 imbuing

That adds up to 620 points. Then each of the 3 characters would get one more skill, which is the one I want to use for testing the difficulty of decay, so it would be the one skill on the list that would be turned down to decay as another skill (imbuing) raises: 100 alchemy (#1 on the list of 58 skills by their order of decay), 100 musicianship (skill #30), or 100 throwing (skill #58).

Then I would have each character imbue 10 daggers with LRC/luck, aiming for approximately 53% success chance for each round of 20 successful "imbues." I'll keep track in a spreadsheet of when each gain occurs and the total amount gained after imbuing 10 daggers with each character. I'm trying to do something that's relevant for me and other people who might be trying to jam a "new" skill like imbuing into an already crowded list of skills while slowly sacrificing the usefulness of another skill as the new skill raises.

I can't speak to why the skills decay in the order that they do. When I use the classic client to look at my characters, this is the order in which their skills appear:

Miscellaneous:
Arms Lore
Begging
Camping
Cartography
Forensic Eval
Item ID
Taste ID
Combat:
Anatomy
Archery
Fencing
Healing
Mace Fighting
Parrying
Swordsmanship
Tactics
Throwing
Wrestling
Trade Skills:
Alchemy
Blacksmithy
Bowcraft/Fletching
Carpentry
Cooking
Inscription
Lumberjacking
Mining
Tailoring
Tinkering
Magic:
Bushido
Chivalry
Evaluate Intelligence
Imbuing
Magery
Meditation
Mysticism
Necromancy
Ninjitsu
Resisting Spells
Spellweaving
Spirit Speak
Wilderness:
Animal Lore
Animal Taming
Fishing
Herding
Tracking
Veterinary
Thieving:
Detecting Hidden
Hiding
Lockpicking
Poisoning
Remove Trap
Snooping
Stealing
Stealth
Bard:
Discordance
Focus
Peacemaking
Provocation

I vaguely recall there being a different order to the skills list at one point, but I cannot find among my characters any that show their skills in a different order than what is above and I don't remember much about it. I think the above order is what's been used in the CC since 2007 after the KR client came out and Haven was revamped. It's been a while since I've used the Enhanced Client, but I seem to remember that it splits the skills list in a similar fashion.
Anyway, that's my plan. I'll report back with the results if/when Test Center ever comes back and I get some uninterrupted time to mess around there.

 

[Pawain]

Tina is absolutely correct. Many of the questions submitted to Ask and answer are from a list of questions that have been submitted over the years. Stratics staff periodically looks over that lengthy list and gets rid of the questions that are no longer relevant, answer those that we know the answers too and submit those that we find intriguing or interesting.

So, we have more questions than the devs can answer?
Sounds like some of the game mechanics are too complicated, outdated, unknown, or not needed.
Or, the community rep needs to spend more time with the community.

 

[Pawain]

If Test Center ever comes back from maintenance (it's been gone for 2 hours now), I was going to try my own test comparing the rate at which 3 skills from the above list decay as another skill is raised on a character that has a full slate of skills totaling 720 skill points.

You have the right to do that testing. I commend you for being persistant.

But, who will gain from the knowledge? I have characters with random skills that have ten points or less. Do those really affect my gains on skills I want?

Can you put weapon testing on your schedule? My macer could benefit from a good gen purpose 2 handed weapon.

 

[Tina Small]

You have the right to do that testing. I commend you for being persistant.

But, who will gain from the knowledge? I have characters with random skills that have ten points or less. Do those really affect my gains on skills I want?

Can you put weapon testing on your schedule? My macer could benefit from a good gen purpose 2 handed weapon.

Well, since it appears that no one on the dev team wants to answer the question, if I want the information to be able to plan how to squeeze skills into an existing crowded template that has already hit the 720 skill point maximum and don't have soulstones to use to flush any skills, I'll have to do the research myself to see if this whole idea is hocum or has some kind of merit to it.

If you're not interested in the subject matter, it won't mean anything to you and truly is there any reason to make a fuss over what I choose to spend my time on and is it somehow ruining your day if you see a post I make about it? Just move on to another post if you don't care. No need to smash me in the face over it, is there? Unless somehow I've done something to offend you that I'm unaware of and therefore can't do anything to rectify and you think belittling my efforts is some kind of payback that's just going to make me go away.

 

[Lord Frodo]

Or, the community rep needs to spend more time with the community.

Now this is funny, I am not saying you are funny, just that statement is funny. We have a community rep?

 

[Lord Frodo]

Well, since it appears that no one on the dev team wants to answer the question, if I want the information to be able to plan how to squeeze skills into an existing crowded template that has already hit the 720 skill point maximum and don't have soulstones to use to flush any skills, I'll have to do the research myself to see if this whole idea is hocum or has some kind of merit to it.

If you're not interested in the subject matter, it won't mean anything to you and truly is there any reason to make a fuss over what I choose to spend my time on and is it somehow ruining your day if you see a post I make about it? Just move on to another post if you don't care. No need to smash me in the face over it, is there? Unless somehow I've done something to offend you that I'm unaware of and therefore can't do anything to rectify and you think belittling my efforts is some kind of payback that's just going to make me go away.

What shard are you playing on? I may have some Soulstone Frag Tokens that you are welcome to.

 

[Tanivar]

I vaguely recall there being a different order to the skills list at one point, but I cannot find among my characters any that show their skills in a different order than what is above and I don't remember much about it. I think the above order is what's been used in the CC since 2007 after the KR client came out and Haven was revamped.

I recall the problem way back when of expecting skills to decrease in alphabetical order when transferring points to another skill and finding that it wouldn't always work that way. The reason given was that the system used an early list of skills and that some skill names had been changed as shown in game. That system list alphabetical order was the one used when the game took a skill point to increase the skill set to go up. Whether that is still true, I don't know. On Prodo shards I just developed the habit of visiting the Alchemy NPC and shifting 25 or 30 points to that skill then set Alchemy to decrease, shifting more points as needed.

EDIT:

As an example, consider this:

You have a 120 skill on a soulstone and want to put it on a full 720 skill point character. You set Scroll Making to go down and Macing to go down. Macing being the first alphabetically will go to zero with the remaining 20 points needed dropping Scroll making to 80. Great, your left with a fair bit of Scroll Making skill and only need to earn 20 more points later to GM it again. You transfer the 120 points from the soulstone and cuss because Scroll Making is suddenly zero and Macing is at 80. You gripe about the skill changes not working in the usual alphabetical order on the Stratics forums and get a reply telling you that Scroll Making used to be called Inscription and the game system still uses the old names internally. Sorry but you should have asked first and that it can't be undone. Your SOL.

 

[NuSair]

I have to admit, Mesanna's response to the Ankh Necklace question really caused me to pause for a moment. I am guessing she really didn't pay that much attention and just saw necklace = gargoyle and didn't think in terms of slots. A forgivable mistake considering that she was probably in a hurry (at least I hope that is what happened).

Have to agree with Tina- just because someone else doesn't consider a question to be important, doesn't mean it's not important. You have to look beyond just what your feelings/thoughts are and consider those of others (actually, it's estimated that 2/3 of people never make it to this level of development) and realize they are just as important/valid as well. That dismissive answer was in rather poor taste.

Why anything is added in mass to the game these days and not made stack-able initially is beyond me.

 

[Petra Fyde]

I recall the problem way back when of expecting skills to decrease in alphabetical order when transferring points to another skill and finding that it wouldn't always work that way. The reason given was that the system used an early list of skills and that some skill names had been changed as shown in game. That system list alphabetical order was the one used when the game took a skill point to increase the skill set to go up. Whether that is still true, I don't know. On Prodo shards I just developed the habit of visiting the Alchemy NPC and shifting 25 or 30 points to that skill then set Alchemy to decrease, shifting more points as needed.

That older list can be found here: http://uo2.stratics.com/skill-guides/stat-and-skills-general/skill-titles-order
As you can see, item id used to be called 'appraise' and parry was 'battle defense' which would be alphabetically correct in the list Tina gave.
Therefore, if multiple skills are set to decrease, they will go down in alphabetical order - by the original listing.

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

The whole skill decay thing has me scratching my head somewhat.

It's never been my experience that some skills go down more-readily than others, nor have I ever personally heard of such a thing. Weird.

-Galen's player

 

[Gospel]

The whole skill decay thing has me scratching my head somewhat.

It's never been my experience that some skills go down more-readily than others, nor have I ever personally heard of such a thing. Weird.

-Galen's player

Well apparently it HAS been your experience as that is how the game functions. Just because you've never noticed it doesn't mean it's not there. I don't know what's so weird about it or why you'd even bother posting this when it's obviously been discussed and resolved.

 

[Dropixel]

Now this is funny, I am not saying you are funny, just that statement is funny. We have a community rep?

Yep, I'm always here even if you can't see me.

 

[Tina Small]

As promised, I spent several hours last night and most of this morning working on this on Test Center. I ended up using four freshly-created gargoyle characters with each one associated with a completely different UO account. Below is a summary of the results of my testing. I also copied the spreadsheet I created to this Google spreadsheet, if you want to see more details: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Aj2lpjetLFwwdDdKNDFNdktLZ2VSeFo3LU51el8xQXc&usp=sharing .

THURSDAY NIGHT
1. Character A had the following skills, which all together total 720: 120 tailoring, 120 blacksmithing, 120 magery, 100 arms lore, and 100 tinkering, all locked; 100 throwing, set to decay; 60 imbuing, set to raise. Character A imbued 10 exceptionally crafted daggers 20 times each with either luck as the only imbued property or luck on top of hit dispel. When imbuing luck, I tried to make sure the success rate was somewhere between approximately 53% and 54%. When imbuing hit dispel as the first imbue on a new dagger (to be followed by 19 successful imbuing attempts adding luck with an approximate 53% chance of success), I was aiming for a success rate of around 60% for the hit dispel imbuing. The net gain in imbuing skill after this trial of 200 successful imbuing attempts was 5.5, with a corresponding decline in throwing skill of 5.5.

2. Character B had the following skills, which all together total 720: 120 tailoring, 120 blacksmithing, 120 magery, 100 arms lore, and 100 tinkering, all locked; 100 musicianship, set to decay; 60 imbuing, set to raise. Character B imbued 10 exceptionally crafted daggers 20 times each with either luck as the only imbued property or luck on top of hit dispel, with the same goals as above for the success rates. The net gain in imbuing skill after this trial of 200 successful imbuing attempts was 7.1, with a corresponding decline in musicianship skill of 7.1.

3. Character C had the following skills, which all together total 720: 120 tailoring, 120 blacksmithing, 120 magery, 100 arms lore, and 100 tinkering, all locked; 100 alchemy, set to decay; 60 imbuing, set to raise. Character A imbued 10 exceptionally crafted daggers 20 times each with either luck as the only imbued property or luck on top of hit dispel, with the same goals as above for the success rates. The net gain in imbuing skill after this trial of 200 successful imbuing attempts was 4.6, with a corresponding decline in alchemy skill of 4.6.

4. I decided to repeat the previous trial using Character C again. After resetting her imbuing and alchemy skills, I started off again but only made it through the first dagger. After 20 successful imbuing attempts, imbuing skill was up to 60.4, which was 0.1 less than on the previous trial after 20 successful imbuing attempts. At this point, I decided to go to bed and try again in the morning.

FRIDAY MORNING
5. This morning, approximately 9 hours after stopping trial #4, I logged on to Character C again and reset her imbuing skill to 60 and raising and alchemy to 100 and decaying and then repeated trial #3 above. The net gain in imbuing skill from those 200 successful imbuing attempts was 5.3, with a corresponding decline in alchemy skill of 5.3.

6. At this point, I decided perhaps it was worthwhile to try the trial with yet another character (Character D) and a different skill set to decay. It should be noted here that I didn't just plunge right into her trial. I created her and then went through the routine of clearing her bankbox and consolidated reagents, requesting resources, setting crafting skills and eating 95 crafting recipes, and then consolidated resources and deeding up some of the imbuing ingredients because the supply at the house was running too low to continue. For this trial, I picked anatomy as the skill to decay. So all the parameters were the same as above with anatomy substituted for alchemy. The net gain this time in imbuing skill after 200 successful imbuing attempts was 4.8 in gains.

7. It seemed like it might be a good idea to see what the results might be if the character trying to raise imbuing skill from 60.0 had absolutely no other skills. So, I wiped all the other skills off Character D and left her with just 60.0 imbuing skill, set to raise. After 200 successful imbuing attempts, with similar success chances for the attempts as all the other trials, the net gain in imbuing skill was 4.4.

I honestly don't know what to think at this point. What I do know from the testing I did a few days ago is that skills that are set to decay follow a set order when they decay. What I can't prove at this point is whether certain skills are more "resistant" to decay than others. What I suspect at this time (and actually have suspected for a while) is that there may be a "diminishing returns" mechanic in place with regard to skill gains that may override almost anything else you might decide to try to do to optimize your skill gains. So, it just might not matter which skills you set to decay if you have a full slate of skills and want to train up something new or even whether you decide to try to take off every possible skill you can using soulstones, hoping to avoid decay resistance (if it even exists) and maximize your guaranteed gains. It just may all be for nought if there is some other mechanism in place to try to slow down your gains/increase your resource usage if you choose to work on raising a particular skill for longer than a certain amount of time within a given timeframe.

Or it could just be that the RNG is a fickle beast and laughs at all of us.

 

[wilki24]

Tina Small
Regarding decay, I would guess its a pretty simple explanation. The game probably just lowers the first one in the skill list which is pointed down.
The list isnt necessarily alphabetical and so skills like chiv and necro that were added later in the game would probably before or after something like alchemy depending on which way it reads the list first to last or last to first.

Yep, he's right. There is a logical order, but it's based on what the skills are called in server code, and not the actual names used in the client. Some of those names come from well before launch, when they were named something completely different.

Also, there really wasn't anything in the skill code that checks to see what skills you have marked down when it decides to if you've gained a skill point. It's been a few years, but I remember that much


****


Oh, and after thinking about this for awhile, it reminded me of the first time I got the chance to pour over the skill gain code. I thought back to all the effort I went through trying to GM tinkering back in the day... I had this routine I did that involved crafting stuff while running across the server lines in Buc's Den, killing myself every time my pack filled up, and recalling back and forth between there and my house. I'm pretty sure I ate food, and did some other random actions to try and get those magical gains after 98 skill or so.

And it was all nonsense after all! The random number generator really, really didn't care if you ate food, died recently, or managed to smoothly spin your character around 3 times without moving a tile while chanting the eight mantras backwards next to the server line.

Good times!

 

[wilki24]

Or it could just be that the RNG is a fickle beast and laughs at all of us.

Pretty much!

You'd have to run those kinds of tests hundreds of times to start to get an answer, and thousands of times to be sure. But I can tell you from what I can remember (and I looked at this code many, many times over the course of years) that the code decides whether or not to give you a skill gain, and only then checks if you have room to actually gain it. After that check, if it passes, then does it call the function that does the skill increase, and inside of that is what handles the lowering of another skill if needed.

So, at the point that the skill is gained, the code has no knowledge of if you even have room to add it, much less which skills you might have marked to lower.