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I read a few different posts from a few years ago where Kodius said that the best crafting exp now comes from working on templates that you are in the 90% to 100% range of master-crafting. This isn't the one I read with those exact numbers but it says something similar (from 2013 though):
https://elanthipedia.play.net/Post:Crafting_Experience_Adjustments_-_06/08/2013_-_11:11
When I started crafting nilos ungent, it was on the top of the difficulty scale for me. I forget the exact messaging but it's something like "You fail to grasp all but the most basic concepts" or something when you study the book. At that time, I was going from clear to locked in three passes of my script, i.e. it took completing three ungents or so to lock.
Now I have gained some ranks and the messaging is:
>You review the abdominal ungent (external abdomen wounds) instructions and interpret many of the design's finer points. (2/5)
But making the same ungent it now takes me 5 passes of the script to lock from clear.
So I am getting closer to master-crafted level (above-average quality now, whereas before was poor or something) and my exp is actually getting worse on this item.
I'm not complaining about the overall exp gain because I think it is quite fair, I'm just trying to understand the system better, and trying to figure out how to gauge when I should move up. Any info on this?
By 5-6 counts you mean, making 5-6 of an item? Yeah I can lock it if I do that, but when I started this template it was 3 items from clear to lock.
Just trying to understand why it's getting less rewarding as I get closer to master-crafting the item -- it should be the opposite, although to be honest ~3 items from clear to mind lock is already plenty fast enough. I don't need it to be faster than that, but I want to understand why I'm seeing the exact opposite of what Kodius said. Could be a bug or perhaps I'm just misunderstanding the whole process
Just trying to understand why it's getting less rewarding as I get closer to master-crafting the item -- it should be the opposite, although to be honest ~3 items from clear to mind lock is already plenty fast enough. I don't need it to be faster than that, but I want to understand why I'm seeing the exact opposite of what Kodius said. Could be a bug or perhaps I'm just misunderstanding the whole process
You are learning less as you get closer to mastercraft for the same reason you learn less as you get closer to capped effect like with combat skills. E.g. as you approach the skill cap for the item/creature it becomes less of a challenge for you and so you learn less.
For combat skill, you simply move up the ladder to make things move well again. For crafting, however, there are two possible options. Moving up to the next tier of difficulty and/or adjusting the difficulty (workability) of the material that you are using. Moving up a tier often involves adjusting your workability, regardless, since there's a gap between tiers across a single workability level. E.g. if you're using a 50 workability item then try using a 20-30 workability item. You could also try moving up a difficulty tier, but you'd probably also have to adjust your material to one with workability 70-80 otherwise you probably would not have enough skill to create items well enough to learn well.
All of that said, since you've mentioned alchemy a few times in other posts... I think alchemy is a bit odd, since it's harder to fine tune the workability of your materials due to the fewer number of materials that have that stat. I.e. just the catalysts which only come in 20, 30, 50, and 70 for commonly available ones. As a result, I think alchemy just has to deal with more patches of slow exp gain compared to the other crafting skills.
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For combat skill, you simply move up the ladder to make things move well again. For crafting, however, there are two possible options. Moving up to the next tier of difficulty and/or adjusting the difficulty (workability) of the material that you are using. Moving up a tier often involves adjusting your workability, regardless, since there's a gap between tiers across a single workability level. E.g. if you're using a 50 workability item then try using a 20-30 workability item. You could also try moving up a difficulty tier, but you'd probably also have to adjust your material to one with workability 70-80 otherwise you probably would not have enough skill to create items well enough to learn well.
All of that said, since you've mentioned alchemy a few times in other posts... I think alchemy is a bit odd, since it's harder to fine tune the workability of your materials due to the fewer number of materials that have that stat. I.e. just the catalysts which only come in 20, 30, 50, and 70 for commonly available ones. As a result, I think alchemy just has to deal with more patches of slow exp gain compared to the other crafting skills.
Elanthipedia - https://elanthipedia.play.net/mediawiki/index.php/Main_Page
Epedia Admins - https://elanthipedia.play.net/mediawiki/index.php/Elanthipedia:Administrators
>>You are learning less as you get closer to mastercraft for the same reason you learn less as you get closer to capped effect like with combat skills. E.g. as you approach the skill cap for the item/creature it becomes less of a challenge for you and so you learn less.
What you say makes sense and meshes with my personal experience, but it directly contradicts several posts from Kodius (including the one I linked in the OP) which state that the best learning comes from about 90-110% of master-crafting the item. However I haven't found a recent enough post from him to make me sure that it wasn't changed sometime in the past few years. That's why I posted this topic.
What you say makes sense and meshes with my personal experience, but it directly contradicts several posts from Kodius (including the one I linked in the OP) which state that the best learning comes from about 90-110% of master-crafting the item. However I haven't found a recent enough post from him to make me sure that it wasn't changed sometime in the past few years. That's why I posted this topic.
I found the post where he mentioned the 90-110% thing:
https://elanthipedia.play.net/Post:When_to_switch_materials%3F_-_03/02/2013_-_17:24
This was posted in the Outfitting folder. I'm not sure why he would have made the alchemy system any differently, but I'll have to assume he did unless someone chimes in with some more info. Could be a bug though.
You are right about the workability too, limited options for adjusting the difficulty of the item as yet. I saw some other posts in my search where Kodius mentioned we would eventually be able to mix catalysts together perhaps:
>My next big hurdle is figuring out how to handle catalyst mixing. I am hitting the same problems I did with Forging, where an averaging of the ingredients results in mostly useless mixes.
>So... I am leaning towards having two types of catalysts. Base catalyst and reactive catalysts.
>For example, pewter might give you a base of 80 potency, 50 efficacy, 30 solubility and 80 toxicity. If you add another base, they just average out 2:1. I am unable to track the volume of catalyst present, so adding more would just continue to average 2:1. This may be useful in some cases, but there is no grand design behind it.
>This is where the reactive catalysts come in. Reactives directly modify the base - no averaging involved. An example might be Diamondique with +5 potency and +3 toxicity. The system will allow you to attempt to add this multiple times, but the difficulty increases each time and a failure results in "bad things" happening.
https://elanthipedia.play.net/Post:More_Alchemy_Thoughts_-_06/09/2013_-_12:59
That's from over three years ago and appears to have been just before Alchemy was released, so not sure how much of that has changed. It's a fun system though, even in its current fledgling state. I'm looking forward to seeing what it becomes down the road.
https://elanthipedia.play.net/Post:When_to_switch_materials%3F_-_03/02/2013_-_17:24
This was posted in the Outfitting folder. I'm not sure why he would have made the alchemy system any differently, but I'll have to assume he did unless someone chimes in with some more info. Could be a bug though.
You are right about the workability too, limited options for adjusting the difficulty of the item as yet. I saw some other posts in my search where Kodius mentioned we would eventually be able to mix catalysts together perhaps:
>My next big hurdle is figuring out how to handle catalyst mixing. I am hitting the same problems I did with Forging, where an averaging of the ingredients results in mostly useless mixes.
>So... I am leaning towards having two types of catalysts. Base catalyst and reactive catalysts.
>For example, pewter might give you a base of 80 potency, 50 efficacy, 30 solubility and 80 toxicity. If you add another base, they just average out 2:1. I am unable to track the volume of catalyst present, so adding more would just continue to average 2:1. This may be useful in some cases, but there is no grand design behind it.
>This is where the reactive catalysts come in. Reactives directly modify the base - no averaging involved. An example might be Diamondique with +5 potency and +3 toxicity. The system will allow you to attempt to add this multiple times, but the difficulty increases each time and a failure results in "bad things" happening.
https://elanthipedia.play.net/Post:More_Alchemy_Thoughts_-_06/09/2013_-_12:59
That's from over three years ago and appears to have been just before Alchemy was released, so not sure how much of that has changed. It's a fun system though, even in its current fledgling state. I'm looking forward to seeing what it becomes down the road.
So.. from my experience with engineering (and alchemy could be and probably is different)
It isn't about mastercrafting the item as much as the item's difficulty tier. The closer you are to the tier being easy for you (which yes does have a connection to master crafting), the less experience it will give. Buuuut. You can still mastercraft within a tier well before you reach the point that the tier is considered 'easy' for you. Techniques also play heavily into this along with career/hobby (which allows you to jump up tiers and then be able to craft stuff that will always be moving your skills)
Now, the kicker for this is that this is more true at lower levels than higher... once you get around 700 ranks, as long as you are working hard work orders (regardless of number of items it requests since that matters nothing at all unless you are turning them in for trading exp) you should be getting mindlocked fairly quick usually around the 3 items made count but it can vary.
My biggest suggestion would be to check the tier of what you are making on elanthipedia, then look for something just 1 tier higher. Make that. see if it is moving your skill faster.
It isn't about mastercrafting the item as much as the item's difficulty tier. The closer you are to the tier being easy for you (which yes does have a connection to master crafting), the less experience it will give. Buuuut. You can still mastercraft within a tier well before you reach the point that the tier is considered 'easy' for you. Techniques also play heavily into this along with career/hobby (which allows you to jump up tiers and then be able to craft stuff that will always be moving your skills)
Now, the kicker for this is that this is more true at lower levels than higher... once you get around 700 ranks, as long as you are working hard work orders (regardless of number of items it requests since that matters nothing at all unless you are turning them in for trading exp) you should be getting mindlocked fairly quick usually around the 3 items made count but it can vary.
My biggest suggestion would be to check the tier of what you are making on elanthipedia, then look for something just 1 tier higher. Make that. see if it is moving your skill faster.
Well right now I am making the hardest "Somewhat challenging" thing that I have found. Yesterday I tried moving up to the lowest "Challenging" I could forage the mats for, but it was too hard and I didn't get past dabbling on it. I'm not picking up any techniques in Remedies, so that might limit what I can do somewhat.
So basically I am trying to do this without any bonuses, which means mastercrafting at a higher tier than my raw ranks will allow is going to be impossible, I think. I mean I can still lock the skill, it just takes a whole lot longer now than it did when I started this template. And I can't move up yet so...yeah. Time to forage 300 nilos grass I guess
So basically I am trying to do this without any bonuses, which means mastercrafting at a higher tier than my raw ranks will allow is going to be impossible, I think. I mean I can still lock the skill, it just takes a whole lot longer now than it did when I started this template. And I can't move up yet so...yeah. Time to forage 300 nilos grass I guess
Without any techniques that is probably part of your problem. They make life sooo much easier.
And yeah for a while it is just going to be rough because the earlier tier levels are so much smaller, it can take some time to find that perfect middle ground. I can say it will get better, even without techniques..
And yeah for a while it is just going to be rough because the earlier tier levels are so much smaller, it can take some time to find that perfect middle ground. I can say it will get better, even without techniques..
Well I just discovered something which makes perfect sense now that you said what you did earlier...
I've been using mostly well-crafted tools since I've been on the islands, but I came back to Crossing for something else and a few minutes ago I picked up a masterfully-crafted sieve and pestle from the Market. I'm still making the same nilos ungent as before, which is:
>You review the abdominal ungent (external abdomen wounds) instructions and interpret many of the design's finer points. (2/5)
So that hasn't changed. But with the new tools, I just made three ungent and...
> Alchemy: 286 96% nearly locked (33/34)
with the result being:
>You thoroughly analyze the nilos ungent (external abdomen wounds), revealing some of its secrets.
>This appears to be a type of external abdomen wound remedy that is finely-crafted.
>The ungent is a somewhat challenging piece to make.
>It was made by someone with abilities close to your own skill.
>Roundtime: 7 sec.
The ungents I made two hours ago were "above-average" in quality, so the new tools pushed me closer to master-crafted and that greatly increased the exp gained. That is in line with what Kodius posted, although it doesn't explain why this template started out locking me in three items when I could barely even complete it, then got progressively worse in terms of exp until I got these new tools. My old tools were pretty damaged and I have a suspicion that they brought my quality down a lot. But even with damaged tools, the ungent quality kept increasing as I gained skill -- even as exp gain decreased.
Without knowing the formulas behind the system I can only speculate, but I reckon that as your skill increases over the range of a template, the exp that you gain per item crafted is somehow proportional to the quality of your result. In other words, the system is expecting you to produce a Tier X item at Y quality based on your current ranks, and it uses that as a baseline. So if your tools are all trashed and your quality keeps dropping relative to that baseline, then even though your crafting skill (in ranks) is increasing at a pace that does slowly increase the final quality, you are getting farther and farther from that baseline and thus getting less and less exp.
I'm hoping to be able to start on hulnik around 300 ranks, so I'll try to document more closely what goes on throughout that tier's template (while keeping my tools repaired, of course...)
I've been using mostly well-crafted tools since I've been on the islands, but I came back to Crossing for something else and a few minutes ago I picked up a masterfully-crafted sieve and pestle from the Market. I'm still making the same nilos ungent as before, which is:
>You review the abdominal ungent (external abdomen wounds) instructions and interpret many of the design's finer points. (2/5)
So that hasn't changed. But with the new tools, I just made three ungent and...
> Alchemy: 286 96% nearly locked (33/34)
with the result being:
>You thoroughly analyze the nilos ungent (external abdomen wounds), revealing some of its secrets.
>This appears to be a type of external abdomen wound remedy that is finely-crafted.
>The ungent is a somewhat challenging piece to make.
>It was made by someone with abilities close to your own skill.
>Roundtime: 7 sec.
The ungents I made two hours ago were "above-average" in quality, so the new tools pushed me closer to master-crafted and that greatly increased the exp gained. That is in line with what Kodius posted, although it doesn't explain why this template started out locking me in three items when I could barely even complete it, then got progressively worse in terms of exp until I got these new tools. My old tools were pretty damaged and I have a suspicion that they brought my quality down a lot. But even with damaged tools, the ungent quality kept increasing as I gained skill -- even as exp gain decreased.
Without knowing the formulas behind the system I can only speculate, but I reckon that as your skill increases over the range of a template, the exp that you gain per item crafted is somehow proportional to the quality of your result. In other words, the system is expecting you to produce a Tier X item at Y quality based on your current ranks, and it uses that as a baseline. So if your tools are all trashed and your quality keeps dropping relative to that baseline, then even though your crafting skill (in ranks) is increasing at a pace that does slowly increase the final quality, you are getting farther and farther from that baseline and thus getting less and less exp.
I'm hoping to be able to start on hulnik around 300 ranks, so I'll try to document more closely what goes on throughout that tier's template (while keeping my tools repaired, of course...)
The answer is in your original linked post. Tool quality matters a lot, and those numbers assumed 99 quality tools.
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