Topic

Better Learning V Math from a Non-Math Major

I just finished learning Better Learning V. With that skill complete, I have exactly 37 skills learned. I started a brand new skill, and time was increased across the board, which proves that Better Learning skills ARE included in the no-time-penality count.

Anyhoo, here were my times before Better Learning V completed:

30m 36s
1h 31m 49s
2h 2m 25s
4h 4m 50s
8h 9m 41s
24h 29m 2s
97h 5m 6s

Here are my times AFTER Better Learning V finished:

24m
1h 12m
1h 36m
3h 12m
6h 24m
19h 12m
76h 48m

For a difference of:

6.6m
19.82m
26.42m
52.83m
1h 45.7m
5h 17.03m
20h 17.1m

For a total savings of:

1d 5h 5m 30s (29h 5.5m)

The problem of course is that each new skill I learn tacks on another 3.0009% worth of time to ALL of the remaining skills. So if I learn the 7 skills posted above, I effectively lose 6h 6.555m of previous time saved.

If this pattern continues, the benefits gained from Better Learning V will be completely LOST by the time you learn your 71st skill (there are 93 skills in total).

So while it appears you are training "faster" with Better Learning V, once you learn your 71st skill, you are at exactly the same point as someone who did not spend ~4 days learning the skill.

But then again, I wasn't a Math major in college. I could be wrong. :)

Thoughts?

Posted 14 months ago by Bashere Subscriber! | Permalink

Replies

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  • I think the best strategy without using Better Learning V is this:

    - Learn your most expensive skills FIRST, as 3.0009% tacked on to 30 minutes is a lot less time than 3.0009% tacked on to a skill that takes 4 days.
    - This means, if you start Mining I... go all the way to Mining IV before starting another lower-tier skill. If you start with Animal Kinship I... you better to get Animal Kinship VI before you learn how to cook. You'll save tremendous time that way.
    Posted 14 months ago by Bashere Subscriber! | Permalink
  • No, because when you are at your 71st skill, you now have the same times as the person without BL5 did back on his 66th skill - when he gets up to 71 he's now a full 15% longer time.

    The way I look at it is with BL5 you get 37 free skills, then 24 that start adding time.

    With BL4 you get 32 free skills, so then you have 29 that are adding time.
    Posted 14 months ago by Abby Smalls Subscriber! | Permalink
  • That is correct Abby... except you're forgetting that it takes 4+ days to learn BL5. That's where the savings comes into play. If 3.0009% WASN'T tacked on after 37 skills, then yes... BL5 would be absolutely worth it. But because it is, it completely negates the effects of BL5 because we have more than 71 total skills.

    If we had 70 total skills, then BL5 is worth it, because you end up saving a few hours. But because we have 93 skills, it's not worth it. 
    Posted 14 months ago by Bashere Subscriber! | Permalink
  • "If this pattern continues, the benefits gained from Better Learning V will be completely LOST by the time you learn your 71st skill (there are 93 skills in total).

    So while it appears you are training "faster" with Better Learning V, once you learn your 71st skill, you are at exactly the same point as someone who did not spend ~4 days learning the skill."

    If your brother is five years older than you, then in five years you'll be the same age as him, right?
    Posted 14 months ago by Fnibbit Subscriber! | Permalink
  • It's a 3% per extra skill. BL makes 5 skills that would be adding time into free skills.

    You have BL5. Your 38th skill takes 3% longer.
    You have BL4. Your 38th skill takes 18% longer.

    You have BL5. Your 137th skill takes 300% longer.
    You have BL4. Your 137th skill takes 315% longer.

    Also BL5 is a flat 8% speed increase over 4 that I'm not factoring in here. And I'm ignoring any compounding skill times as I don't know how that works, if 3% + 3% is 6% or 6.09%
    Posted 14 months ago by Abby Smalls Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I'm not sure if you're going about this the right way. My working goes as follows:

    BL4 reduces skill learning time by 12% and BL5 decreases skill learning time by 20%. BL5 also increases the threshold of skill learning penalty by 3 (from 34 to 37, I believe).

    This means that for all skills above the 37th skill, BL5 reduces the time by 1 - (0.8/0.88) / (1.03^3) = 16.8% or so relative to BL4. So the crossover point occurs when you have about 23.6 days*  of skills left to learn excluding BL5 under the BL4 regime. Above that, BL5 takes less time. Below that, BL5 takes more time. (This ignores the BL5 time saving on skills below 37.)

    This implies that the more skills there are, the more beneficial BL5 gets. Of course, since they're "always" adding new skills, this means that you should get BL5 pronto... it's arguably more necessary than TP4/5 (and that's a total game changer of a skill) when you get down to it.

    *4.5 days (BL V base time) * 0.88 (BL4) / 16.8% (time saved on subsequent skills above 37)
    This assumes you learned BLV as the 34th skill or earlier.  The benefit of BL5 decreases the later you learn it.
    Posted 14 months ago by Blitz Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Yeah, you've got your maths a bit messed up here :D Both with or without better learning you'll get 3% longer time per skill, and better learning lets you learn more skills before this takes effect. In addition to cutting everything down by 20% on top! That 3% is compound too, I've heard tales of the last skill in beta taking ~8 times as much time as it should have. So yes, it's definitely worth taking if you plan to get every skill. It's also worth learning the longer skills as soon as possible since they'll increase in time the most - saving mining 4 until the end might up it from 4 days to nearly a month!
    Posted 14 months ago by Sammage Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @Samemage: That's exactly the same conclusion I came to. See the 2nd post :)
    Posted 14 months ago by Bashere Subscriber! | Permalink
  • For skills after the 37th skill, the difference between better learning V and no better learning skills is 50% (or 100%, depending on where you re measuring relative to).  A skill that would have taken 2 days without any better learning would take just one with it.  This is because 0.8/(1.03)^(37-20) is approximately 0.48

    Actually, this isn't quite right, as if you neglected getting better learning, you would be doing your skills 5 sooner, so the improvement factor should really only be 0.8/(1.03)^12, which is approximately 0.56.  Regardless, it is a huge improvement that approximately halves your time.  As mentioned above, the benefits are somewhat negated by improperly planning out your skills, and perhaps the comparison should be BLV vs BLIV (and not vs nothing), but the better learning series does make a significant difference.
    Posted 14 months ago by Pazza Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Better Learning V does help, because if you can include all the long skills in your 32 (I say this because BL I - BL V *do* count towards the 37) then you will only get the 3% tacked on to short skills.

    I learned mining IV in 3 days some odd hours versus nearly the week it took me during beta, and I had better learning both times, just didn't fully understand it.  I am at 41 skills and my next longest is 19 hours.
    Posted 14 months ago by Laurali Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Don't trust the math already done by people with math or math-related degrees?

    I don't need math. I just compare.

    I currently have 52 skills. I grabbed BLV before my 20th had even hit. It took me a little over a day to learn with donations. I have not learned Mining IV, yet (because I am not focusing on mining). It is currently at about twenty minutes more than a week to learn. After learning 52 skills already, the longest skill left (which is one of the longest skills to learn in the game) would take around 3.5 days with proper donations for me to learn. Were I not to have learned BLV, I would have been at this point five skills ago.

    The BL skills are worth it, especially if you make sure you learn them before you hit the threshold of the last. So make sure you learn BL1 before you hit 20. BL2 before 21. BL3 before 24. BL4 before 28. BL5 before 32. Of course, as soon as possible is better, so you get the full advantage of reduction percentages. A block of BL skills only can get pretty boring if you're dependent on quests for a fun game, though.

    This is all my understanding as an English major having read both the skill descriptions and several threads like this. Stoot has explained the math. Various players have re-explained the math. It all works out. 

    Of course, nobody is saying you HAVE to learn any skill. It's just a good idea to learn the BL skills sooner rather than later if you're planning to learn them at all.
    Posted 14 months ago by Quirk Subscriber! | Permalink
  • All this made my tired head swim. I started BL5 with 67 skills under my belt. That was on Monday. I still have 8 days and 7 hours left to learn it. I'm pretty sure, this is a useless endeavor for me, since I have over twice what BL5 will help with, in the first place.

    Maybe I should pause it.
    Posted 14 months ago by Jarhaven Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Guys. Guys. 

    docs.google.com/spreadsheet...

    Ok, so I made this spreadsheet that automatically calculates how much each next skill will take. 

    Instructions: 
    * Download the spreadsheet (you won't be able to edit it in the browser)
    * For every skill you have completed, enter 0 in the "skill to complete" column
    * In the yellow unfinished skills field, fill in the number of skills you've paused.
    * The two columns with times on the right update to show how much time is needed to learn that skill next.
    * The totals at the bottom of the page are for your reference - this is an estimate of the time you'll need (without accounting for the 3% multiplier) to learn all the remaining skills.
    * All other fields will calculate automatically. Do not enter information (unless skill times are changed/updated) except in the green and yellow fields.

    Edit: Apologies in advance for any errors/ambiguities in the spreadsheet. This document is yours to tweak when you download it. And if you improve on it in any way, or update it as new skills get added, feel free to upload it and take any credit that is due :) This is just a sketch - something I made for myself because I wanted to know the best way to learn skills. I wish I had time to improve/update it but I'm super busy atm. W
    Posted 14 months ago by Prof. Woland Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Coooooooooooooool.

    That works really well!  

    The only comments I have is that  the numbers were a bit off unless I included the skill I was currently learning  - either by putting a 0 in the "Skills to Complete" column or adding 1 to the Unfinished skills field.

    Secondly,  I feel that the instruction "In the yellow unfinished skills field, fill in the skills you've paused."  would be clearer if it said something like "In the yellow unfinished skills field, fill in the number of skills you've paused (plus one for the skill you are currently learning)."

    Super-smart work though
    :)
    Posted 14 months ago by shhexy corin Subscriber! | Permalink
  • [double-postmund]
    Posted 14 months ago by shhexy corin Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I don't think it works.
    Posted 14 months ago by Electric Wizard Subscriber! | Permalink
  • It worked fine for me!
    Posted 14 months ago by shhexy corin Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Disregard that, it works perfect, thanks!
    Posted 14 months ago by Electric Wizard Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Actually, there is an error in the spreadsheet - if better learning 3 is 0 and better learning 4 is 1, the numbers are completely messed up! Could you please fix it, this is the exact stat i need!?
    Posted 14 months ago by Electric Wizard Subscriber! | Permalink
  • have you included the skill you're currently learning somewhere in the spreadsheet, that might fix it?
    Posted 14 months ago by shhexy corin Subscriber! | Permalink
  • nope, doesn't help!
    Posted 14 months ago by Electric Wizard Subscriber! | Permalink
  • smash it with a hammer!
    Posted 14 months ago by shhexy corin Subscriber! | Permalink
  • i'll smash it with a recycle bin there i said it wanna fight about it
    Posted 14 months ago by Electric Wizard Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Don't think of it in terms of how many skills you've already learned. What it really depends on is how much time you have left to spend on training skills. Even if BL5 takes ages for you, if you have several other skills that also take ages, it'll still help you. If more skills are added in the future before you are done training the existing ones, it'll also help you.
    Posted 14 months ago by Snokatt Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Slow and steady wins the race. Its tough to start out learning the long skill trees, but soon I will have no skills over a day long, and I can fly through all the low level skills. The longest I spent learning any skill was 4 days!
    Posted 14 months ago by Laurali Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I hope I'm not necroing this thread too much, but if I have well over 37 skills, would it be better to invest in BL5 (currently 9 days) before learning other things?
    Posted 14 months ago by Evadrepus Terramere Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Evadrepus,

    Even though it takes 9 days, it will help two ways: 
    a) you can finish up the current skill tree in less time than you would if you don't get it (finishing BL5 will lower the times on all the remaining skills)

    b) as more skills are added to the skill tree, you will benefit from shorter learning times for those skills as well.

    Depending on how many skills are added and how many you have left, it's very likely that you will save more than 9 days if you are learning all the skills.
    Posted 14 months ago by WindBorn Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Something's wrong with that spreadsheet, it says Mining IV takes 5 hours, it means 5 days.

    Also depending on which skills he has left BL5 might not be worth it, if for example he's finished all the heavy skills (Mining IV, Engineering skills that are 1+ day long, G5, AK7) and all he has left are skills that are mostly under a day, or he's set in a way where he has one or two more skills 1~day long and then all the little stuff like Spice Milling, and such, he may be better off just leaving BL5 for last, because without more skills coming out any time it wastes at the end doesn't matter.
    Posted 14 months ago by Bluigi Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I still have mining 4, all the engineering ones, teleport2 and the like to do. I have been basically doing short skills during the day and a long one overnight, which would give me a lot of fun quests to do in my limited pastime. I'm new to Glitch- I had no idea there wad a skill strategy. :(
    Posted 14 months ago by Evadrepus Terramere Subscriber! | Permalink
  • 9 Days?! Learning BL5 when it takes 9 days is NOT worth it. Yes, you do get a 20% reduction on your remaining skills, BUT... you'll never make up 9 days worth of OTHER skills you could have learned in the meantime.

    When I learned BL5 at 4 days, I just BARELY make up ground before all the skills are completed.
    Posted 14 months ago by Bashere Subscriber! | Permalink
  • New skills are being added all the time.  It's been less than two weeks since 2 new ones went on to the skill tree.
    Posted 14 months ago by WindBorn Subscriber! | Permalink
  • My BL5 was close to 9 days when I started and I still have a bunch of 5~9 day skills left to learn. :v
    Posted 14 months ago by Elly Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Someone needs to create a little program that tells you the best way to learn skills based on which skill you WANT to learn first.

    Also, has anyone figured out what the TOTAL TIME it will take to learn all the skills, yet?
    Posted 14 months ago by Bashere Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @WindBorn - Both of those skills are notably worthless. Eyeballery is a bit slow with it's scrolling and mostly gimps you, Screenshottery does nothing that Printscreen doesn't do.

    @Bashere - shouldn't be too hard to come up with a list, basically all you need to know is that BL always takes preference, but you want to also get your main skill tree (and only your main skill tree) finished as early as possible (due to length of the skills), past that after you have your full main skill tree and all BL, you want to get the longest skills out of the way first.

    Let's say you want AK, you go with:
    AK1-2 (By this time you're lvl 3getting BL1-2)
    BL1-2 (Earlier if possible, basically as soon as you can)
    AK3-7
    BL3-5 (Getting these as fast as possible, you will want to look at the benefits of AK and decide if getting one earlier or not is worth it.

    Another thing to consider is that since alts aren't against the rules you can easily just go full on BL with your main while making an alt to get the stuff you would typically need to profit, a good example is the entire cooking chain, it's very long and to be avoided on your main for starting, so what you do is get it on an alt (still going for BL1-2 as early as possible, then maxing all of those out), so you can make some dosh while your main gets everything maxed in as little time as possible.

    Also, @Bashere - Depends on the order in which you learn it, someone posted (don't recall if in a group or the forums) the most ideal path, and I believe the time was 3 weeks~1month, of course you can bring this down a lot with donations.
    Posted 14 months ago by Bluigi Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Bluigi,

    Whatever your assessment of how much fun those skills are, it is nonetheless true that new skills are being added frequently, and that some new ones have been added since the game came out of beta.
    Posted 14 months ago by WindBorn Subscriber! | Permalink
  • It's not it's fun factor that I am arguing against, it's the usefulness it has.

    With that said it doesn't take much 'time' off the total, but the point is that there are many skills that you can do without or just ignore until the end, those two are some of them. Penpersonship is another one that doesn't hold too much value, it does have value, arguably more than those two, but it's not earth shattering.
    Posted 14 months ago by Bluigi Subscriber! | Permalink
  • in a game like this "fun factor" and "usefulness" are exactly the same thing.

    Not everyone is in a race to get to the top of the leaderboards, or to get over 100,000 currants stockpiled, or to level up as fast as possible. 

    For you, the "fun" in playing this game seems to revolve around XP and currants.  For others, that's not true, and your personal assumptions about "usefulness" are irrelevant if they don't match the assumptions about "fun" that other players hold.
    Posted 14 months ago by WindBorn Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Actually my fun in games like this isn't from XP or currants at all, those things are rather boring, once you hit the limit of their usefulness they are useless.

    And no fun factor and usefulness aren't the same thing at all, eyeballery just lets you check the whole map while standing still, but it's only about what 1.5x faster than walking, and if you eat spinach it's probably slower or at around the same speed as you (plus you get to the other side of the map!), it's snap back to you effect is cool, but also a bit of a little time waste. Are they fun in the sense that they act in a way that is cool? Who else is going to see it besides you other than the eyeballs you already see on the map though? So there's no social aspect to it, it's just 'hey I can check the whole map!', that's about it. and the screenshots, those would be useful if it was the whole map, just an area is basically just saying "Why don't I use my screenshot key!", the only benefit I could see is if it removes UI and you reallllly care that much about a picture you're taking.

    They're about as fun as wearing a hat on your bottom, it's silly and 'haha' for a moment, and then you suddenly realize it was probably one of the most inane things you've ever done.
    Posted 14 months ago by Bluigi Subscriber! | Permalink
  • You know what would be great? If someone who was prohax wrote an online skill optimiser/calculator that would read the skills your character had already learned, optimise your future skill learning by suggesting the next best skill for you to learn (maybe even give you the option to ignore a skill if you "never" want to learn it) and tell you how long you still had to learn all the things assuming you were going to take the optimum learning order (and if it was really really really prohax, it could tell you how much time you'd be adding on if you deviated from the optimum route (as most of use are bound to do). I don't think it'll be that difficult - the API already gives you all the data you need to calculate it. My programming skills aren't up to it or I'd have a go myself ;_;
    Posted 14 months ago by Prof. Woland Subscriber! | Permalink
  • That could honestly probably be done in google docs without too much trouble, you just need to either calculate the optimum order yourself, or ask them to put them in order so that you can calculate the 3% added on.
    Posted 14 months ago by Bluigi Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Your logic is a bit off, but the point you are getting is valid.

    You will always learn a new skill faster with better learning 5 than someone who only has 4 if you have the same number of skills up to that point.

    The problem is that at 5 days or so learning time, better learning 5 needs to be learned pretty early on in order for it to pay off.

    If you have already gotten most of your big time cost skills out of the way, then you actually stand to make it take even longer to get your other remaining skills learned by picking up better learning 5 first.

    So if you already have the big time munching skills like better mining 4, gardening 5, animal kinship 7, tinkering 5 and Teliport 5 and the skills required to reach them then you will likely actually do better simply to skip better learning 5. You can spend those 5 days learning other useful skills that you can profit from. (I am just roughly estimating the numbers in my head.)
    Posted 14 months ago by Melting Sky Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Someone asked for an API-based skill training calculator thingy?

    http://agent86.nfshost.com/glitch/skill/

    This isn't perfect by any means, it's just a first pass.  I'm using a 'greedy' algorithm to search for the most expensive skills and queuing those first. 

    You can click the + icon next to a skill to prioritize it, which means that it will be considered for learning in a group before the other non-prioritized skills.  If you have a better learning level prioritized, it will take precedence over other prioritized skills, otherwise it will perform the same greedy algorithm on the priority skills as it does on the normal skills.

    There's no way currently to say "I don't care about skill X" but that would be something I'd consider adding if this was useful.
    Posted 14 months ago by agent86 Subscriber! | Permalink
  • According to that API-based skill trainer the most efficient training order with no favor points for fast learning will take you 44 days 5 hours to learn all skills.
    Posted 14 months ago by TRB4 Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Interestingly, even if doing things very poorly (I.E. taking Min4, Tele5, Gard5, Tink5, AK7 dead last) that's still all skills in under three months.
    Posted 14 months ago by Abby Smalls Subscriber! | Permalink
  • My girlfriend has taken almost every skill that does not require an emblem to be spent and her time for mining 4 is about 2 weeks now. She only has better learning 1 and 2.
    Posted 14 months ago by TRB4 Subscriber! | Permalink
  • No guarantees that it's bug free :)  I'll keep poking at it, it would be nice if it would exclude any skills you've already got.  We'll see if I have the time to keep at it...

    Interestingly, the API has entries for a few skills that don't actually exist yet - there's 3 levels of 'unlearning':
    "Brain feeling full? The power of Unlearning I means that any skill can be wiped from your memory in 50% of the time it would take to learn, leaving your neurons clean to soak up new information.",Levels 2 and 3 reduce this to 15 and 5% respectively.
    Posted 14 months ago by agent86 Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Just a note- using the Google docs form from earlier in this thread and some math skills of my own, it appears I'm able to properly answer the question of worth of learning BL5 late.

    With 61 skills it will take me 10.5 days to learn the skill, however it will save me just over 23 days of training time. That's assuming I get everything, like eyeballery and the like.
    Posted 14 months ago by Evadrepus Terramere Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Unlearning was on the skill tree until just before the game went live.  It was added in early summer, but never activated.  (it required the Impossible Achievement to learn).  Supposedly it will actually be available sometime in the future.
    Posted 14 months ago by WindBorn Subscriber! | Permalink
  • What about Bureaucratic Arts 3? I heard that required the Impossible Achievement as well. 
    Posted 14 months ago by TRB4 Subscriber! | Permalink
  • That's a great API based skill calculator, one thing I'd like though is to detect the skills you already know (since it's using the API) and subtract those from the formula there, currently it's juts showing me all skills, why connect to API if it's not going to work with what you have?

    That said it's still very awesome.

    Looks like thanks to Penpersonship and some cooking skills I'll be taking 3 days longer than the best.
    Posted 14 months ago by Bluigi Subscriber! | Permalink
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