I repaired my first unique item for a noble yesterday using my adventurer character. Unfortunately the repair only increased the item condition from 20% to 35%. The item was at about 35% condition when I originally received it from the noble so it's not been a success!
I had expected the item to be fully repaired once the sage had worked his magic, are the increases in item condition always so small? If so can you ever realistically fully repair an item as it's taken me close to 2 months to find the sage, find the item he needed and then find him again to conduct the repairs!
Now that you've found him, it shouldn't be that difficult to keep track of his travel while you find the other items you need to continue repairing it.
True it didn't take long to find the sage after I'd found the item as I had an idea of his whereabouts from before.
The problem is finding the item required to repair the unique item. As far as I know gathering is the only way to obtain the items required for repairs (or occasionally from hunting) and it is extremely time consuming. My concern is that by the time I've found the item required to repair the unique item once more, the unique item will have deteriorated again meaning my repair puts me back to its current condition!
I believe that the most recommended method is to build up a very large collection of common items before you begin repairing uniques.
I think you're right as it is too time consuming to gather them while the item is degrading.
Do all repairs lead to a 15% increase in an unique items condition or does this vary?
Quote from: MacTowas on November 30, 2012, 02:04:52 PM
I think you're right as it is too time consuming to gather them while the item is degrading.
Do all repairs lead to a 15% increase in an unique items condition or does this vary?
No, it varies. I suppose it depends on the quality of the item (extent of the bonuses it provides). I've repaired from 40ish to 100% before, though I've also had 10% or less.
And yes, building up and maintaining a large set of items is a must. Make sure to gather items 2 hours at a time, and rest when your fatigue gets too high. Also you'll find that certain items can only be found in certain areas (oak bark in forest regions, expensive toys in cities for instance).
This might be of use: http://wiki.battlemaster.org/wiki/Adventurer/Items (http://wiki.battlemaster.org/wiki/Adventurer/Items)
Thanks for the help guys.
Why gather items at 2 hour at a time and not an 8 or 12 hour block (assuming you have 0 fatigue)?
Quote from: MacTowas on November 30, 2012, 02:19:24 PM
Thanks for the help guys.
Why gather items at 2 hour at a time and not an 8 or 12 hour block (assuming you have 0 fatigue)?
Because a lot of players have a logical fallacy that doing something more times will be better. The game is specifically coded to
not have require that sort of silliness.
Sorry I still don't understand.
Logically whether I gather items 2 hours at a time 6 times in succession or gather items 12 hours continuously there should be no real difference? There's a probability of success each hour and the more hours you attempt it your chances of finding something should increase?
Unless the game is coded to decrease your chances of success for each hour you gather consecutively?
Quote from: MacTowas on November 30, 2012, 03:22:45 PM
Sorry I still don't understand.
Logically whether I gather items 2 hours at a time 6 times in succession or gather items 12 hours continuously there should be no real difference? There's a probability of success each hour and the more hours you attempt it your chances of finding something should increase?
Unless the game is coded to decrease your chances of success for each hour you gather consecutively?
No, you're correct. There are, however, a number of actions in the game for which many players will swear on a stack of Bibles that you can
always get
much better results if you do them X times for Y hours, instead of W times for Z hours.
In this case, though, there is actually a grain of truth to it. Gathering is less effective when you have more fatigue, and each hour of gathering increases your fatigue. Thus, if you gather for 2 hours, then
rest for 2 hours, you may have better results on your next 2-hour gathering session, simply because you will no longer be at risk of getting the "you were too fatigued to find anything" message.
I see, in that case I'll take your advice and revise my gathering techniques!
Thanks for the help!
Quote from: egamma on November 30, 2012, 02:59:06 PM
Because a lot of players have a logical fallacy that doing something more times will be better. The game is specifically coded to not have require that sort of silliness.
Is this also the case with training? If you do three blocks of 4 hours training each turn, I noticed that there is a good chance of success at least once, often twice. 12 hour intervals on the other hand seemed more dicey.
Quote from: Lefanis on November 30, 2012, 04:55:14 PM
Is this also the case with training? If you do three blocks of 4 hours training each turn, I noticed that there is a good chance of success at least once, often twice. 12 hour intervals on the other hand seemed more dicey.
What kind of training can you do in 12-hour intervals?
Quote from: Anaris on November 30, 2012, 04:57:37 PM
What kind of training can you do in 12-hour intervals?
Ahh, I meant 6 hours at the academy :-[
Well, I can absolutely guarantee you that adding more hours can never make it less likely to gain skill.
It's also worth remembering that a) you're not guaranteed to gain a point no matter what option you choose, and b) 6 hours is only 1.5x 4 hours (which should not give more than 1.5x the chance of gaining skill).
If you want to prove me wrong, then gather some data. Record each time you visit the academy, including your skill, which trainer, and how many hours (and, of course, whether you gain skill!).
Quote from: Anaris on November 30, 2012, 03:28:19 PM
No, you're correct. There are, however, a number of actions in the game for which many players will swear on a stack of Bibles that you can always get much better results if you do them X times for Y hours, instead of W times for Z hours.
In this case, though, there is actually a grain of truth to it. Gathering is less effective when you have more fatigue, and each hour of gathering increases your fatigue. Thus, if you gather for 2 hours, then rest for 2 hours, you may have better results on your next 2-hour gathering session, simply because you will no longer be at risk of getting the "you were too fatigued to find anything" message.
Would you agree doing three four hour sessions of diplomatic actions spent on the same thing is more effective than one session of 12 hours?
Quote from: Penchant on November 30, 2012, 10:34:08 PM
Would you agree doing three four hour sessions of diplomatic actions spent on the same thing is more effective than one session of 12 hours?
I honestly can't see how. I wrote that code myself, and the time is just multiplied into the effectiveness directly. It should scale absolutely linearly (though with a certain amount of randomness, of course).
Quote from: Anaris on November 30, 2012, 11:11:31 PM
I honestly can't see how. I wrote that code myself, and the time is just multiplied into the effectiveness directly. It should scale absolutely linearly (though with a certain amount of randomness, of course).
The randomness is what makes me think that the three sessions of four hours is better because it seems like you are more likely to have the randomness be a benefit as I assume the randomness is also affected by skill.So basically, the several sessions isn't always the best but it is on average IMO.
Quote from: Penchant on November 30, 2012, 11:17:53 PM
The randomness is what makes me think that the three sessions of four hours is better because it seems like you are more likely to have the randomness be a benefit as I assume the randomness is also affected by skill.So basically, the several sessions isn't always the best but it is on average IMO.
Huh? Randomness affected by skill?
The randomness is
random. You could end up with one really good session on the 12-hour one, or a really bad one. Similarly, you could end up with three good 4-hour sessions, three bad ones, or some of each. Or all of the above could end up neutral.
It will average out in the long run. You don't get the better of randomness by doing lots of short sessions of anything.
Quote from: Anaris on November 30, 2012, 03:28:19 PM
In this case, though, there is actually a grain of truth to it. Gathering is less effective when you have more fatigue, and each hour of gathering increases your fatigue. Thus, if you gather for 2 hours, then rest for 2 hours, you may have better results on your next 2-hour gathering session, simply because you will no longer be at risk of getting the "you were too fatigued to find anything" message.
However, to calculate effectiveness, you have to counter the 2 hours wasted resting against the probability of having found something in those 2 hours.
So, if you take 10 hours of available time, you can have:
3x2 hours of gathering
2x2 hours of resting
giving you 6 hours of finding something. Let's assume that the probability is 100% (it isn't, but leaving out all other factors, for this direct comparison, let's assume it is). That means you will find 6 items.
Now alternative A would be something like:
4 hours gathering
2 hours resting
4 hours gathering
giving you 8 hours of finding something. Let's assume that the probability goes down 5% every unrested hour after the first 2 (it doesn't, we're just playing "what if" here), then you have:
100%
100%
95%
90%
and that twice. Add that up and mathematically you will find 3.85 items, twice, for a total of 7.7 items. Even if resting for 2 hours only restores half the fatigue (it probably restores more), you'd still get 7.35 items.
Now if you went "!@#$ all this resting" and spent all 10 hours gathering, you'd end up with 8.2 items.
So, unless you assume that the drop is considerably higher than 5%, the advise is still a fail. If it is 10%, then you get 7.4 items in the 2nd and still 6.4 items in the second case.
Basically: Don't trust things just because you've read them on the Internet. :-)
Also:
Do trust the game designers when they say the game is written to not reward silly, gamey behaviour.
Quote from: Anaris on November 30, 2012, 05:09:38 PM
If you want to prove me wrong, then gather some data. Record each time you visit the academy, including your skill, which trainer, and how many hours (and, of course, whether you gain skill!).
He can't prove you wrong. The game only tells him if he increased his skill, but not by how much. Yes, you can gain more than 1% at once.
Quote from: Tom on November 30, 2012, 11:34:28 PM
He can't prove you wrong. The game only tells him if he increased his skill, but not by how much. Yes, you can gain more than 1% at once.
Ooh, good point.
Quote from: Anaris on November 30, 2012, 11:22:31 PM
Huh? Randomness affected by skill?
The randomness is random. You could end up with one really good session on the 12-hour one, or a really bad one. Similarly, you could end up with three good 4-hour sessions, three bad ones, or some of each. Or all of the above could end up neutral.
It will average out in the long run. You don't get the better of randomness by doing lots of short sessions of anything.
That was said poorly on my part but it has seemed to me more often that the randomness works out, where like two out of my three smaller sessions are good but when I do the larger one it is 50% for good, so out of 24 hours I would have a very effective 12 and a not so effective one so about half my full potential, where I am getting two thirds my full potential. It obviously is not quite like that nor those numbers but I think you get idea. If I was always lucky the 12 would be better but if its not game mechanic based that the shorter times are better it sure feels like I am just luckier that way.
Yes, it FEELS.
Never forget that human intuition is usually misleading when it comes to statistics and probabilities. Our minds evolved to distinguish patterns, not randomness. That's why we see patterns where there are none - in clouds, for example.
Here's the thing with dice rolls:
If you roll 10 ten-sided dice, and compare it to one 100-sided die, the probability distribution is quite different. With the 10 dice, the probability of getting a very low or very high value are very, very small (the probability to get a 100 is 0.00000001%). With the one die, the probabilities are equally distributed, 100 is as likely as 60 or 50 or 1.
So doing the same randomness-based thing several times instead of once means your end result will be closer to the average, and neither better nor worse. Statistically speaking, if you do it very, very often. On every individual case, it can still be all over the place.
However, that is all only partially true for BM actions. Very few of them are purely random. Usually, they depend on your skill, some region statistics, some other values, and then there's some randomness added. Since these values could change when you do something, doing it again is not simply rolling another die. Depending on how the relationship is, it might be better or worse. For example, if you do something that, say, raises morale, and what you do is more effective with low morale, then doing it once with a large amount of hours is better than doing it in several small steps. But if it is more effective with higher morale, it is the other way around. And when it depends on other values as well...
Basically, stop trying to game the game. There are very few cases where I can imagine that such an approach would yield any measurable advantage. I am very sure that almost all of the cases where something gamey is going around as good advise are purely thanks to some kind of placebo effect.
Interesting read - glady I don't usually follow my own 'advice' (resting/gathering/resting is so cumbersome). 16 hour gathering shifts it is!
I always suspected I was better off with a 16 (or 12) hour run diplomatic act, to minimize losses to what I assumed was rounding down.
:P
If I train at the academy for six hours but do not raise my skill, does it make it more likely that I will raise my skill the next time? Of is it simply a random factor each time I try? I assume that my current skill level, the skill level of the trainer, and the number of hours spent all contribute but was wondering if past efforts contribute as well.
It depends.
Basically, the game calculates something like fractional skill levels, so even if you receive a "not enough to improve your skill" message (or no message for the many other places in the game that train skills as a side-effect), mostly that progress is not lost, it is still recorded.
However, it is well possible to actually gain no experience whatsoever. At the academy, it is unlikely, but not impossible.
Makes perfect sense. It hurts spending 20+ hours training with no improvement. I feel much better knowing that small steps are being made!
Mostly, you can trust the game messages. If it says you learnt something, but not enough to improve your skill, it means you DID learn something.