Topic

pausing super fast learning

The "Keep in mind, if you switch skills you'll lose your super speed." warning is most ominous, but the meaning isn't entirely clear to me.

If you switch, does it throw away all or some percentage of the time you've "bought" at the shrines?  I accidentally temporarily switched skills a while ago and panicked because I thought it might chuck out 15 or so hours of purchased learning, but it seemed to save all my progress.

The skill I switched to wasn't in super speed mode, of course, but switching back to the original one restored the speed and (I thiiiiiink) the proper amount of time remaining.

If this is how it's supposed to work, then while you're learning a long skill and getting dangerously close to getting emblems with other giants, you should be able to switch to another skill, pour your 999 points into that second long skill, then switch back to the original skill without penalty.

If I understand correctly, the paused skill time will still be lengthened when you finish the original skill, but the time poured into it would not be lost.

Is this accurate?

I'm not anxious to test with half an Earth day's worth of shrine time...

Posted 17 months ago by Biff Beefbat Subscriber! | Permalink

Replies

  • I don't know but both the skills I've picked up on this test (both previously switched away from in earlier tests) are telling me I'm learning as fast as I can and won't let me spend favor at the shrines.
    Posted 17 months ago by Momo McGlitch Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Yeah... I understand that whole "diminishing returns" part of skill learning, but the quickening part of it baffles me. Because I thought when you "learn as quickly as possible" what it's supposed to do is for a chunk of time you learn twice as fast, the way a Pungent Sunrise works. But when I donate to the shrines, it takes an immediate piece out (which I honestly prefer). But if it's just taking a piece out, then why is the "Learning as quickly as possible" still there?

    It seems to me that there's some miscommunication because it's saying one thing but doing another. 
    Posted 17 months ago by Folderol Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I think the metaphor is that the rock is sweating and furiously flipping pages, but all indicators show that time is ticking down at the usual pace while the progress bar has been advanced a big hunk of time.

    The limitation seems to be that you can only donate away about half of the time on the clock.  I'm not sure if drinks and other tricks work beyond that point.

    It seems like the system is paying attention to the full length of the time of the learning (which will creep upwards, depending on the number of skills you have) and the amount of time you have hacked off the clock (including real time and bonuses).  A good test would be to half-learn a skill, switch it out, let the upward bound lengthen, and then see if exactly the same amount of passed time has been accounted for.

    That would be my guess.  If it were relative, then you could learn a bunch of skills to 99% early on and thus avoid most of the later penalties (although it's a strong-willed Glitch who can leave many tantalizing skills almost-learned).

    A key question for me is how the amount you can donate is determined.  I read a complicated explanation a while ago that didn't have any meaning to me, because I was too new to the game and couldn't figure out why anyone would toss a perfectly good music box into a toilet.

    The awarded time does not seem to be not relative.  That is, every donation point seems to be exactly equivalent to 5 or 10 seconds (whatever it is) regardless of any other factors.

    So, I wonder how the time you're allowed to hack off is calculated.  Is it always half the full length, so you could max out, put the skill on hold, learn something else, then donate still more when the full length of the learning time increases?  Or is it a hard-coded number based on the time you began the skill?

    Or something else entirely because my assumptions are crap?
    Posted 17 months ago by Biff Beefbat Subscriber! | Permalink
  • The way I understand it, if you pause a skill that you have used favor to "speed up", when you return to that skill, you will no longer be able to use favor on it.  You will get the "You are already learning as fast as you can!" message, whether you actually maxed out the amount of favor you could use prior to pausing or not.

    Because of this, I only pause skills if (a) I've spent no favor on them at all or (b) I've spent all the favor I can.
    Posted 17 months ago by Krikket Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I believe that Biff Beefbat has it right. We've been over this before in a previous forum thread recentlyish; perhaps someone more capable will pull up a link.
    Posted 17 months ago by katlazam Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Interesting.

    The situation I'm in now is that it's not really worth playing while I've maxed out my learning bonus, because I'll probably accidentally get an emblem I don't want and blow a ton of donation points (something like 3 hours?).

    Krikket's intel jibes with a faint memory of stoot's warning to make sure the rock doesn't lose his buzz.  Once he stops speed learnin' then he can't start up again on the same skill.  (Maybe.  Memory is fuzzy.)

    So, the upshot of this is that if you're going to play for a long stretch, pick a couple of skills with different favorite giants, and max one out, then the other.  You'll lose a bit of bonus on any paused skill, since you won't be able to make up the difference when the total learn time becomes longer, but you won't be wasting your giant favor either.

    Or just be patient and play linearly.
    Posted 17 months ago by Biff Beefbat Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Yeah, that's been my strategy to avoid extra emblems, though now that I've learned all the skills and levelling is pointless, I've been at a bit of a loss as well.

    Fwiw, I have heard that there are plans in the works for extra emblems so this hopefully won't be a problem in the long term.
    Posted 17 months ago by katlazam Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I've seen this explained by devs before, and I'll summarize as best I can.

    1) You can cut off half the time a skill takes via donations.  This has the effect of your skill showing that it will take less time to complete.
    1a) However, you'll only get half if you donate the exact second you start the skill and keep the faster learning up constantly.  You can never take off more than half of the time you currently have remaining on the skill.  If you wait to donate or it stops, you can take off half of the time you have left.
    2) When you pause while it's accelerated (while the rock turns pages faster), you will not be able to speed up that skill any more, but the time you have remaining on the skill will stay the same.
    2a) If you wait to pause until the rock is no longer turning at double speed or until you're already fully sped up (you can't donate more to get more time off), pausing won't impact you.

    I've also tested the above personally and it's worked that way for me each time so far.
    Posted 17 months ago by Magic Monkey Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Thanks for the help, guys.

    I'm using this info to keep my favor levels down.  The low level skills I don't want right now are good sinks for excess points, particularly since they can be maxed out quickly.  I've now got four skills paused at half-length.

    I need to pay closer attention to how they interact with their lengthening max times, but restarting a paused one after gaining a new skill didn't allow to me throw any more points at it. So I think the endgame will be letting a bunch of skills run their course naturally, without being a slave to the pots.  Which is nice.
    Posted 17 months ago by Biff Beefbat Subscriber! | Permalink