Why are skills "stuck" at 90+ ; A game mechanic explanation!

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.. UO Stratics - Counselor Blues ..

Posted by Counselor Poe on September 01, 1999 at 16:46:05:

Greetings,

I have always received many calls from players that complained that their skillgain is "stuck" at a very high level. There's an explanation to it wich I like to share with all of you. I was send this explanation, that is very accurate, by a player who's marriage I arranged once and he received it from a player that posted it to a messageboard. I have edited it a bit, but not much. Have a look and remember this essay when you are in the same position.

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Getting a good skillgain is not a science. It is an art. When to use a skill over and over again (read macro / attended or unattended), or rather when not to do that is, IMHO, the question. I
read posts that want tips on how to get from 99.9 to 100! Are you trying to mak me laugh? I re-read these posts just to make sure. *sigh*

Many skills are VERY hard to rise when used over and over again in the promise land. Any weapons skill, parry, healing. well, it use to be and a host of others. Some are near impossible. Carpentry, smithing. Others are well suited for using over and over again - at times. Magery & resist off the top of my head. Of course there are skills that macroing only makes sense. Hiding and tinkering for instance.

I use the mundane skill of fishing as an example. I read a post that said he had a "couple of days" to GM as he was now in the low 90s and using the 125 item trick. All recent GM fishers know this is probably NOT EVEN close. A week or 3 maybe as he is "macroing nearly 24/7,
whenever the shard is up". OH? If you macro continuously for hours up on hours you are, for the most part, wasting your time. Fishing using the 125 item trick is gonna S L O W down tremendously when you reach higher numbers. Like all skills, the more you use it in repetition, the slower the skill gain. We all know this. We all know why, too.

*COUNTERS!*

We have all experienced it. THE WALL. We have all ignored it too, havent we? Fish for hours from the shore at 90+ and you could gain no skill at all. Nada. ESPECIALLY if you have macroed the skill almost exclusively. Now jump in a boat and go to sea, fish manually for an hour and you could gain (as I did) a full point. (94.5 to 95.5 in 55 minutes)

First. If you have questions on what to macro, the bestest info is oft to be found at "uo.stratics.com" Many skills have already been researched. Why re-invent the wheel? You will, however have to fine tune the info to fit YOUR needs and your shard. "What do I use, when
for resist?", is about as FAQ as it gets. Its there, Go read it.

Best skill gains are when the shards first come up. I look at this 2 ways. I can macro for a bit and gain some, or I can adventure for a bit and gain alot. Why do I see you in your houses summoning you fannies off, or walking around town with your heads bursting in flames, when
you can be in a dungeon, using the same skills gaining skill points faster? (Rem. those nasty counters?)

It has cost us all a great deal of time, money, and aggravation to get that lousy 0.1 gain. Why do we do it? "Just keep at it, it�ll happen." Yes, it will. Eventually.

Look, far be it from me to say you shouldn�t set up a macro before night nights. Or before you go get drunk, play while being nude in reallife or whatever. If the skill gain has slowed way down, stop macroing and go adventure. I see four benefits.

(1) Its more fun. Now a swordsman in Shame with 70 skill is pretty lame, BUT if you can survive you thrive.

(2) Its cheaper to use a skill and get the reward of the kill than it is to macro macro macro. Duh!

(3) Its oft the fastest way to gain skill. Especially at the higher levels. Using multiple skills, doing multiple actions, resets the counters.

(4) This was the last to occur me. It helps keep you alive! You actually learn how to use the skill and your character. I cant remember all the times someone told me I had no chance against them as they were "5-GM" or such trash. OHMY! Yeah, they had hot characters all right, they just didn�t know scrap about playing them. After a particularly easy kill against one such opponent, he had the audacity to actually say, "Just wait till I get my resist up!" Funny on two levels. He will still suck at 7GM & I had hacked him to death; I didn�t use a single offensive spell. Keep in mind my mantra for UO: "DIE AND LEARN".

If you REALLY want that pretty character - if 7GM is that big an ego trip, then by all means macro. Just keep him away from me. He dies.

Thanks for your time and I look forward to your comments.

By: BeesKnees

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