Topic

Over 60 days of skills left?

I realize I learned everything the "wrong" way but I just added up the time remaining to learn all the other skills and excluding BL4 and BL5 that total comes to about 60days.

The time in and of itself doesn't bother me. I think 3 months to "max" is acceptable.

What bothers me is that learning BL4 and BL5 right now would take 12 days which is the exact bonus time I'd save. (I already know 38 skills so the BL5 ability to "hold 37 in my head" probably doesn't apply and I don't really know what it means.)

My question is: how much more will my unlearned skills increase in time cost? Obviously 12 days to learn BL4 and BL5 would pay off now if I can keep expecting the skill times to increase.

(In case you're wondering how I got here: I logged in soon after the reset, ran through the tutorial again got my beta achievement, logged out, and clicked skills on the web for over a week or so. When I hit the cap (some skills require being lvl 3 and 4) I ran around a bit, leveled up, logged out and returned to web learning. I don't remember the total but I think it was around 34 skills learned before I hit the favor/achievement-gated skills.

I know that's not how the game is supposed to be played but getting the email that I'd finished learning a skill with a link to learn another set up a feedback loop. Just seems like a pretty steep penalty for not having maxed my Lem favor.)

Posted 15 months ago by Hydi Subscriber! | Permalink

Replies

  • I remember someone at one point saying that there seems to be the likelihood that so many skills will become available new ones will take months to learn. HOWEVER, they are also working on developing the UNLEARNING skill which will speed things up. Eventually most players will have to pick and choose in their "specialties." An idea which I rather like, tbh.
    Posted 15 months ago by Cerulean Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Picking specialties would make sense from a social/economic standpoint. But using time gates feels frustrating and until I did the math I had no sense of the penalty. I figured it would be a difference of a week or so, not months.

    What is the rate at which they increase? How many days/weeks would BL5 or mining 5 cost me if I leave them until last?
    Posted 15 months ago by Hydi Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Learning BL4 and BL5 will make a HUGE difference to how long the rest of them take and I'd recommend learning them right away: we're going to be adding new skills all the time (including a couple later today and more planned for the next few weeks). But, even if you never learned another skill other than the ones currently available, I'm almost positive learning BL4 and BL5 will speed things up more than your estimates (I haven't done the math, but bumping the point at which the penalty starts matters more than the increased learning rate).
    Posted 15 months ago by stoot barfield Subscriber! | Permalink
  • If new skills are added then the math definitely works.

    I just didn't realize that the top tiers would be effectively out of reach for, say, half a year. I will be choosier going forward now.

    I do think, however, I might not have been in this situation if more of the skills had had level requirements -- I wouldn't have been able to mindlessly click those "learn more!' email links :)
    Posted 15 months ago by Hydi Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Whatwhatwhat is this? New skills today?! Excited!
    Posted 15 months ago by Arii Subscriber! | Permalink
  • >  bumping the point at which the penalty starts matters more than the increased learning rate

    But I've already passed the penalty point (BL5 gives you 37, I've already learned 38). Will the time remaining reset when I learn BL5 or are my penalty-incurred times now fixed?

    (I suppose I'll know in ~18 hours when I finish learning BL3 haha)
    Posted 15 months ago by Hydi Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Any chance that as new skills are added, the amount of skills you can know before the penalty kicks in is extended proportionally?
    Posted 15 months ago by Cross Subscriber! | Permalink
  • The skills lengthen more with each additional one after the cap. So even if you're at the cap, moving it forward will decrease your time some on top of the BL bonuses. 
    Posted 15 months ago by Merrylegs Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Also, everytime you learn a new skill, the time for the others goes up by 5%... so there is waaaaay more than 60 days left of skills for you to learn. Hooray!
    Posted 15 months ago by La_La Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Edit, double post
    Posted 15 months ago by La_La Subscriber! | Permalink
  • 5%? Flat from the base or compounded?

    Also: wow. And thanks for the infor!
    Posted 15 months ago by Hydi Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Er... isn't there the possibility of donating stuff to the appropriate god in order to hasten the learning?

    (I mean: yes, there is. What I don't know is how much quicker the learning can get that way)
    Posted 15 months ago by Ayzad Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Yes you can donate to speed things up. 

    I was just interested in/not expecting the extent to which the skill times increase -- I didn't train as many in beta I guess. And, like I said, I don't have a problem with the full tree taking 3-4 months. I don't really even have a problem with certain skills being realistically unattainable because I think specialization makes for a better AH and a more connected community.

    But I definitely would have gone about the trees differently and stopped learning remotely until I'd achieved BL5 if I'd stopped to think about how BL5 would go from the default 14 hours to 9 and a half days.

    The mechanic seems pretty unforgiving without the ability to reset.
    Posted 15 months ago by Hydi Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Actually, I'm gonna need BL6, 7,and 8 really soon. :)
    Posted 15 months ago by Tibbi Subscriber! | Permalink
  • LOL Tibbi...  

    This is where I think the skill learning API fails...   I can line up too many skills and BL is not quite as effective as it might have been!

    I'm at work... can't play... but can line up skills to learn... and when THAT fails (meaning, runs out) I can dial in with my HTC EVO and, blindly, start up another skill!!!

    I've got Botany running right now 'cause I really want to season eggs!!!!  Then I'm getting BL IV back on track!! 

    LOL....  this game is so silly!!!!
    Posted 15 months ago by Pirate Apples Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Don't line up skills!  It prolongs how long all your other skills take to learn!
    Posted 15 months ago by Blitz Subscriber! | Permalink
  • re: " if I'd stopped to think about how BL5 would go from the default 14 hours"

    BL5 takes a minimum of 4 days to learn. So if you are under your skill cap and start it, it's 4 days 0 hours 0 minutes. Going to 9 days stinks, yeah, but it's not quite as bad as you made it out to be. ;)
    Posted 15 months ago by Mackenzie Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I learned lots of skills from numerous skill categories early on (dabbling in multiple subjects, as it were) when developing my Glitch... and if I had known all of this information ahead of time I would have NEVER learned numerous skills that I have discovered are near useless at present.

    Since Mood and Energy are the primary stats in the game, and it is so vitally important to keep those stats topped off in order to function.. I would much rather just learn everything from Cooking over to Animal Kinsmanship on the Skill Tree and just IGNORE -apparently- useless stuff like Mining / Tinkering / Alchemy. And now that I've got Meditation 3.. I wish I had never learned ANY of those skills. It fails out SO often and gives such MEAGER amounts of energy and mood per 30 seconds (or longer) that I'd rather just drop it and gain some skill slots.
    Posted 15 months ago by Death Cuddle Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Ah. Well, my bad. It says 14 hours on the wiki which I consulted because I couldn't remember what it started as.
    Posted 15 months ago by Hydi Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Hydi the reason the wiki is so off is that the *very* first skill you learn is super cheap. As soon as you have one skill learned, all the others get set to what I think of as their actual base learning times. (It would never actually be possible to do BL5 in 14 hours, because it has 4 skills you need to have learned first.) I don't know why the wiki has these as the "default" times. 

    I'd love to change it because I don't think those "default" learning times are helpful, but I'm overwhelmed by the task of changing the learning time for every skill in the wiki, and also worried about stepping on the toes of whatever decision-making process led to having them like that in the first place. 
    Posted 15 months ago by Meridian Subscriber! | Permalink
  • The default times in the wiki are based off the initial skills times, I'm pretty sure. When your very first skill is only 1m30s, BL5 is 14h.

    Just a note on the time it takes to learn the entire skill tree... how long was the time between the last resets? I managed the whole tree with 2 weeks spare, and I was less than careful about which skills I learnt first. I just went through systematically learning skills in order of length, so my higher level skills were left until the end and took weeks to learn. I seem to recall my last level of Tinkering taking over 19 days. Not to mention the lost time during server closures. I'm pretty sure with good planning I could have potentially shaved a good month off of my total learning time.
    Posted 15 months ago by faitaru Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I don't mean to hijack this thread, but I have seen a few people talk about learning things in the wrong order and time frames associated with learning.

    I don't know what any of this means.  :-p

    Can someone explain more about the "correct" order in which to learn things and what bonus time and all that is?  
    Sorry...I'm a silly n00b!  :-D
    Posted 15 months ago by Poppy of Detwoit Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @Poppy the Introvert: after your brain is "full" (you have started an amount of skills already, dictated by your current level of BL) every skill started after that will increase the time taken for every remaining skill by 5%.

    As the time taken to learn the high level skills in different parts of the tree differs massively, learning in a certain order will put you at an advantage/disadvantage. For example, learning Mining to maximum takes somewhere in the region of 6 days with an emtpy brain. Learning AK to maximum takes less than half that. If you wanted to be careful about your learning order, you might choose to learn the Mining tree first, given that it would be subject to a much greater penalty if left until later.

    I hope that makes sense.
    Posted 15 months ago by faitaru Subscriber! | Permalink
  • No worries n00b. Their is no right or wrong way to do anything in this game. Learning better learning skills first allows you to learn more stuff faster. But that might not matter to you.
    Posted 15 months ago by erik Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Yeh, as erik says, it only really matters if you care about that sort of thing.

    I have completionist OCD, so I have to do it as quickly as humanly possible :(
    Posted 15 months ago by faitaru Subscriber! | Permalink
  • >  Their is no right or wrong way to do anything in this game

    I am beginning to think that is not correct with regard to Better Learning. There are significant penalties for not learning it in the "correct" order. 

    The "amount your brain can hold" is not retroactively applied. In other words, the time increase added to skills above how much your brain can hold are never undone, which means learning BLs after you've passed the holding limit undoes that effect.

    When I had learned 46 skills in total but not BL3, my time to learn BL5/Mining5 was 9.9 days. If I'd learned BL5 as my 32nd skill it would have only been 4 days. And if I hadn't learned it as my 32nd but my 47th, it would have taken maybe 6 days (honestly no matter how hard I've tried I can't account for the exact formula -- so someone else with spreadsheet skills might want to jump in) because instead of incurring 26 time-increases to each skill I would only have incurred 14 time-increases.

    The complexity of the BL mechanics and the clear differences for not doing it the "right" way are extremely counter-intuitive to the Glitch ethos in my opinion.
    Posted 15 months ago by Hydi Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Thanks for the replies.  I *think* I have a better idea of how that all works now.
    Since I already have 28 skills learned, I guess it's too late for me to worry about it.  LOL

    I did decide to go down the BL path, however.  I think I'm currently learning either BL 4 or 5.  It's going to take a day and half!  But that is ok, I'm in no hurry.

    I figured there is really no right or wrong, but I guess I was curious about what the more efficient way would be.  So far, I think I've been playing haphazardly.  But, that's how I am I guess.  :-p  
    I've just jumped in with no real strategy.  I was wondering if that would come back to bite me in some way.  LOL

    Thanks again for the help.  :-)
    Posted 15 months ago by Poppy of Detwoit Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I think the Skill page needs to make clear that there's such a thing as brain capacity. The only way to find this out is via threads like this or the wiki. Devs, please fix this!
    Posted 15 months ago by Victoria Subscriber! | Permalink
  • The page mentions it but you really don't have a sense of how it's going to play out until you've learned over 40 skills.

    And if the time-gating is meant to encourage people to specialize then that too should be made more clear. I.e., when you're brand new you get quests for every skill and that leads you to think you should learn all of them. Before you know it you've over 20 skills without having been encouraged to learn Better Learning in a similarly direct way.
    Posted 15 months ago by Hydi Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Cool new skills!! - Eyeballery I and Snapshotting I

    They both sound really cool...

    Unfortunately I only have better learning II as in the early days the extra 3% for going from II to III just didn't seem that compelling. I currently have III standing at around a day, IV at almost 3 days and V at almost 10 days. That's two weeks right now without taking into account the extra 5% each time... but I really want RHK next.

    Sadly it looks like the fun new skill will have to wait :(
    Posted 15 months ago by geekybird Subscriber! | Permalink
  • wahh eyeballery LOL..I know what skill am choosing next..hehe  I am that very lazy erm ...energy efficient Glitchy hehe!! :D 

    I never look at the times..It doesn't bother me how long they take..If its one I want I choose it...If its wayyyy...tooo long like mining 4..I leave it..till I can be bothered...and I will certainly now be working towards..SnapShotting..after I do the Eyeballery tonight.. :) x  
    Posted 15 months ago by Cryztal Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I agree the data is obtuse. Even stoot doesnt seem to get the system sometimes! ;;)

    The skills page could use some tips. And a "brain capacity" bar. Newbs consistently dont get that, aside from BL being important, training long skills asap is also important. Buying my papers instead of getting BA2 was great, but it's so... unintuitive! Will we be seeing unlearning anytime soon? Is it really buggy at this point?
    Posted 15 months ago by FlirtyvonSexenhaven Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Hmm, just noticed that actually BL3 is not available until you have spent the first emblem of Lem which is almost certainly why I didn't proceed any further down that track to start with... Just got that as I was going along yesterday.

    It seems a bit unfair if it's such a crucial skill as it takes shed-loads of donations to get an emblem when you've got few skills and little experience.

    I think I might have to put off RHK, learn the two new skills and then BL3!!
    Posted 15 months ago by geekybird Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Hydi wrote: The "amount your brain can hold" is not retroactively applied. In other words, the time increase added to skills above how much your brain can hold are never undone, which means learning BLs after you've passed the holding limit undoes that effect.

    You seem to be contradicting yourself in this sentence.

    For clarification, I believe this is the way that it works:
    1: Skill has base time
    2: BL discount is removed
    3: BL skill threshold is taken into consideration and penalties per skill over the threshold are applied

    Learning a new level of BL will recalculate the skill times anew.

    As an example, the base time for BL5 is 5d. I have just learnt it as one of 38 skills (I am technically still learning the 38th now, but even starting a skill counts it towards the threshold total). My current BL5 time is now 4d2h52m48s. This is a 20% discount, plus an x% penalty for being 1 skill over.

    I'm pretty sure it's not 5% as myself and others have alluded to previously, but it's somewhere in that area.

    If someone wants to work it out exactly, my 10m base skills are at 8m14s with BL5 and 38 skills.
    Posted 15 months ago by faitaru Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I'm sure my math is wrong somehow. All I know is I learned BL3 as my 47th skill and my BL5 went from 9 days 9 hours to 8 days 13 hours and 22 minutes. The new total is what you'd get by retroactively removing 4 rounds of penalities (Base_Time * 5% * 4) or, less accurately, by applying the 8% reduction -- but not both.

    In any case, I'm tired of doing math about this. I think the entire skill "process" is opaque, has unexpected results, is fraught with potential disappointments for those who don't plan ahead or research cookie cutter strategies and ultimately feels like it's "not working as intended". 

    I don't think a game should punish you in any way for not planning ahead back when you're wandering around ooh'ing and ahh'ing over the newness of the experience.

    Do I really care that many of the skills I haven't learned I won't see for ages? I suppose truthfully "No". But it's the principle that bothers me. In a game where dying and going to hell incurs no penalty and is actually entertaining, I find it odd that poor planning and lack of research and a basic game mechanic can lead to regret.

    And, lastly, because this isn't a game where you're going to reroll a character or create an alt, everything I've learned about skills is entirely meaningless from a game perspective. Yay, now I know about the skill strategy! Whoop-ti-do. If anyone had tried to tell me about the skill learning penalties and optimizing for more skills (and therefore recipes and available activities) in a shorter period of time I would have thought "um, wow, that seems really annoyingly complicated for such a cute looking game."
    Posted 15 months ago by Hydi Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I've been trying to minimize the amount of time my skills take by getting the BLs as soon as possible and knocking off the skills with the highest times first. But I have to say, it's so boring! It was exciting for a bit when I was rushing to get my house with Mining, then also using Mining to get emblems. Now I have the BLs and am working on the last Mining, next will be Tinkering and Teleportation, Meditation... Snore, because I can't really do much with these skills. 

    Tinkering will get better higher up thankfully, so I'll actually have something to do. I can't wait to sink my teeth into Alchemy and Smelting/Refining, then all the planty, animaly, and cooking skills.

    I'm at a bit of a loss about the new Snapshot skill though. Yes, Eyeballery does seem like it will be useful (as someone said, especially for rocks), but with Snapshot, can't I just take screenshots myself without a skill anyway? Seems kinda pointless to have a skill for it unless you get a nice little framed picture that you can stick on the wall of your Glitch house or something.
    Posted 15 months ago by Serilyn Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @Hydi
    The equation to determine skill learning time is the same as for compounding interest.  So, it would go like this:

    Skill learning time = (Base learning time * BL modifier) * 1.03^(Total # of skills - BL skill threshold)

    where 1.03 accounts for the compounding 3% increase in skill learning time for every skill you learn over your Glitch's brain's current capacity.

    So if you have BL3 and are learning Mining 3 as your 35th skill, you'll have a time of

    Skill learning time = (24h * 0.92) * 1.03 ^ (35-28)
    or 27h 9m 20s
    Posted 15 months ago by Marebito Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Ah. 3%. I was compounding w 5%.
    Posted 15 months ago by Hydi Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Yep, 3% makes much more sense. Just finished my 38th and started 39th skill.

    AK1 is now 8m 29s, which is 8m * 1.03 * 1.03

    Thanks for the clarification @Marebito
    Posted 15 months ago by faitaru Subscriber! | Permalink