Training Help

[Jon Snow]

I know that skill gain during training is random, but I think something is seriously wrong with the infiltration training. I've been unable to gain any skill for the last 3 days, even though my skill level is only at 15%. I even spent about 16 hours with the expert tutor, and could do nothing but keep my skills sharp. I really think this is a bug, because training swordfighting was much easier before. Haven't done it since I changed to infiltrator though, so I can't speak for now. Can someone please tell me if training infiltration is supposed to be THIS hard?

[Zakilevo]

If your skill level is only 15% don't use the expert training option. You are just wasting gold.

Just use a normal tutor. Also, try to do two 6 hour sessions rather than doing multiple short sessions.

Also, go to your enemy's realm and do some infiltration actions. Don't do anything risky. Do something like counting coins or w/e it is called.

[Jon Snow]

Oh but I did use a normal tutor at first for about 12 hours or so. Absolutely no increase with that either. And is it safe for me to start the counting thing already? Wouldn't want to get banned before I even killed someone 

[Kwanstein]

Expert training does increase the chance of your skill increasing, so your gold was not wasted. It would, however, be advisable for you to use the normal trainer instead, as, I'm wagering a guess here, you're probably not filthy rich enough to afford the luxury of an expert trainer. The event of your skill not increasing after 16 hours of training, while improbable, is not impossible, so I wouldn't worry about it; it should average out in the end, anyway.

[Ketchum]

Random luck and lot of gold play a role in infiltrator training. You need a good financial backer(Hint, Duke currenlt) to help you with gold for training. Ultimately the random luck in skill increment, either you roll good head coin(increase) or bad tail coin(maintain). You can try keep track of your skill and see whether it improves with longer hours training or shorter hours training. Try average your hours, see this make a difference or not.

[Jon Snow]

The event of your skill not increasing after 16 hours of training, while improbable, is not impossible, so I wouldn't worry about it; it should average out in the end, anyway.

It was more lake 25 hours really, but I finally got another increase today, so maybe it was just really really really bad luck for me. And yeah, my infiltrator isn't rich enough to use the expert all the time. Not yet anyway  Once the bounties start rolling in... I was using the expert trainer cause I was stumped that I couldn't get an increase.

Random luck and lot of gold play a role in infiltrator training. You need a good financial backer(Hint, Duke currenlt) to help you with gold for training. Ultimately the random luck in skill increment, either you roll good head coin(increase) or bad tail coin(maintain). You can try keep track of your skill and see whether it improves with longer hours training or shorter hours training. Try average your hours, see this make a difference or not.

I actually got the increase today when I used a 2 hour session. Seems to me that it's better to break it up into a bunch of little sessions.
I could hold a trainer at swordpoint and force him to train me though  I'm an assassin now after all! Even though he's a hell of a lot more skilled than me... For now anyway.
Thanks for the help you guys!

[Tom]

Seems to me that it's better to break it up into a bunch of little sessions.

No, that is a persistent myth of the game.

There are no points in the game where doing the same thing X times for Y amounts of time/money/whatever is more benefizial than doing it once for X*Y amounts. The only exception is things that are distributed over multiple characters. 5 characters with a unit of 20 men each will have more CS than 1 character with a unit of 100 men. 3 characters doing 4 hours of TO actions each will have more effect than 1 character doing 12 hours of TO actions, etc.

But never will you gain an advantage on a single character by splitting actions up. It's a persistent myth and many players will insist and argue at length about why and how it is true in some cases. The fact of the matter is that it isn't and any evidence to the contrary is due to selective perception and small sample sizes.


What really happens is that whenever you train and don't get an advance, the game nevertheless remembers that you trained. All those "near misses" add up, so those 2 hours simply pushed you over the edge towards a skill gain that you wouldn't have gotten if there hadn't been those "failures" earlier.

[Bael]

No, that is a persistent myth of the game.

There are no points in the game where doing the same thing X times for Y amounts of time/money/whatever is more benefizial than doing it once for X*Y amounts. The only exception is things that are distributed over multiple characters. 5 characters with a unit of 20 men each will have more CS than 1 character with a unit of 100 men. 3 characters doing 4 hours of TO actions each will have more effect than 1 character doing 12 hours of TO actions, etc.

But never will you gain an advantage on a single character by splitting actions up. It's a persistent myth and many players will insist and argue at length about why and how it is true in some cases. The fact of the matter is that it isn't and any evidence to the contrary is due to selective perception and small sample sizes.


What really happens is that whenever you train and don't get an advance, the game nevertheless remembers that you trained. All those "near misses" add up, so those 2 hours simply pushed you over the edge towards a skill gain that you wouldn't have gotten if there hadn't been those "failures" earlier.

I strongly feel that this post should be immortalised in song, or bronze, or something. I am sure that it would give hope to many despairing players who cry themselves to sleep after not getting anything for their training.

What I do wonder though is how the thread starter could train for three days and not get an increase with the above system? Inaccurate reporting?

[Jon Snow]

No, that is a persistent myth of the game.
What really happens is that whenever you train and don't get an advance, the game nevertheless remembers that you trained. All those "near misses" add up, so those 2 hours simply pushed you over the edge towards a skill gain that you wouldn't have gotten if there hadn't been those "failures" earlier.

That clears it up really. Good to know that the failures helped    I thought that the failures meant nothing but wasted hours.

What I do wonder though is how the thread starter could train for three days and not get an increase with the above system? Inaccurate reporting?

Thread starter? You could just say Jon    I'm absolutely certain that I got no skill gain for ~25 hours straight. Two days if you count constant hours.

[Eirikr]

No, that is a persistent myth of the game.

There are no points in the game where doing the same thing X times for Y amounts of time/money/whatever is more benefizial than doing it once for X*Y amounts. The only exception is things that are distributed over multiple characters. 5 characters with a unit of 20 men each will have more CS than 1 character with a unit of 100 men. 3 characters doing 4 hours of TO actions each will have more effect than 1 character doing 12 hours of TO actions, etc.

But never will you gain an advantage on a single character by splitting actions up. It's a persistent myth and many players will insist and argue at length about why and how it is true in some cases. The fact of the matter is that it isn't and any evidence to the contrary is due to selective perception and small sample sizes.


What really happens is that whenever you train and don't get an advance, the game nevertheless remembers that you trained. All those "near misses" add up, so those 2 hours simply pushed you over the edge towards a skill gain that you wouldn't have gotten if there hadn't been those "failures" earlier.

Does this also mean that a single successful training session of, say, 8 hours with an expert trainer grants you the same skill increase as two successful training sessions of 4 hours each, again with an expert trainer? While the probability is small, I have managed to have two successful training sessions in a row; it would be good to know I could've just done one session.

Similarly, though the probability may not change, is it not true that the smaller sessions grant multiple attempts at generating he right value for the algorithm? Since it IS probability, it is possible that multiple training sessions could provide multiple successes, whereas a single session provides a maximum of one increase. (Of course, this assumes every success has the same magnitude.)

EDIT: Sorry, I completely missed the cumulative failures portion as well. Is there some form of magnitude to them? If not, wouldn't spamming one hour training sessions cause that counter to move more quickly? I'm also assuming the whole thing runs on probability; I'm not sure how I'd see two successful training sessions in a row otherwise.

Of course, any potential cases of lucky breaks (like two successful training sessions in a row) would work their way back out in the long run due to the law of averages. This being where that small sample size comes into effect.

[Tom]

Does this also mean that a single successful training session of, say, 8 hours with an expert trainer grants you the same skill increase as two successful training sessions of 4 hours each, again with an expert trainer?

You can improve a skill by more than 1 % in a single session, yes.

Similarly, though the probability may not change, is it not true that the smaller sessions grant multiple attempts at generating he right value for the algorithm? Since it IS probability,

...it is mostly misunderstood. Probabilities and statistics belong to those fields of math that very few people really get.

Yes, the probability for rolling x amount of sixes is the same whether you roll 5 dice all at once or in succession.


I'm not saying all our algorithms are perfect. I'm sure that due to roundings, for example, there are some parts of the code where 5x3 really is slightly different from 3x5. However, I am quite sure that a) random chance greatly overshadows these effects and b) you would have to be really familiar with the code to be able to exploit them.

I maintain my position that any case of someone claiming that doing something for 6x2 instead of 2x6 or 1x12 hours is a matter of selective perception, small sample size and some parts of wishful thinking.

[Tom]

One clarification, though:

Some obvious things do accumulate, of course. Robbing the tax vaults twice results in both more gold stolen and a higher chance of getting caught. Someone might construct an argument that my above is wrong because "spending twice the amount of hours of robbing tax vaults does... bla bla".

I am, obviously, referring to things where you select the amount of time, gold, whatever to spend. Fighting 100 death duels does OF COURSE have a higher chance of someone ending up dead than fighting just one. But that's not a function of the time spent, but the number of events.

Adding this just because I know there are a few sophists in the BM community. :-)

[Eirikr]

Thanks, Tom! Those were both amazingly useful replies!

I do agree with your point that small sample size and selective perception is playing a major role in people believing one way or another. As we both know, probabilities only really work out in an definitive way with an infinite sample size. I think that's why so many people have issues with statistics... it's hard to imagine infinity. After all, it is possible someone could succeed every time, but it is ludicrously unlikely.

I was curious about the process because I'd recently hit a string of frequent training success, but I neglected to remember that massive dry spell about half a year ago. (In the meantime, I very rarely had time to train.)