Does mashing the Combine button on the new GUI too fast reduce skillup rate?

[Zolina]

Just an observation I had, I did 120 combines in a row without a skillup at 213 pottery mashing the Combine button. Then I decided to be more patient and wait a few seconds between presses and got back to a roughly 1-in-20 rate. It could be coincidence, or it could be buggy code in the new GUI. I think I noticed similar behavior when I got impatient with jewelry combines. I'd recommend folks who have below-average skill-up rates to consider waiting a few seconds after the Combine button refreshes to click it.

[Cantatus]

No, but mashing your head on the desk helps. Well, actually it just kills some braincells which makes you think it's going faster...

Honestly though, several superstitions have emerged about how to get skillups faster. I'd honestly be surprised if anything like this ever was true. It's just the nature of randomness. You could do 500 combines 5 days in a row without a single combine, but then suddenly get a skillup the instant your phone rings. It's just random.

[vwdiesel]

Wasn't there an old superstition that having the tradeskill book in your possession and open while working on tradeskill X would help increase the chances of skill-ups and/or success? I never believed it but this thread caused me to remember that old rumor, and I wondered if it was ever tested in a scientific fashion.

[SauriaSoulfarer]

since the combine button stays greyed out for a set period (or longer if you leave the results of the previous combine on your cursor, stays grey till you hit the Autoinventory button or otherwise free your "hands") I would be surprised to see it work any different than the buttons for special attacks ungreying...you can mash flying kick and the button will bounce but you won't do it till the set refresh time is up and the button is available.

I would be amazed if mashing the greyed-out combine button did anything at all till it becomes available to press again. That's the established function of greyed-out buttons in this game, they don't function.

Unless they re-wrote the code just for this interface, the greyed-out button should be inert. Nothing about the skilling attempt should be in motion till you validly press it. (Logically)

That being said, they've made staggering mistakes in the past...bug it and maybe they'll double-check.

[Footsore]

No, no, no! It's all true!

Having the book open gives you better success AND more skill-ups.

PoK has the worst skillup rates; SFG has the best.

Facing the wall to reduce lag will give you better skillups, too.

Be sure you have full mana and health, aren't hungry or thirsty, and close/minimize all your chat windows - or you will get far fewer skillups.

Skill-ups are on a random timer. So don't click too fast or you will waste some of your materials without a chance of a skill-up.

You get many more skillups with the new UI.

If you can get into the secret room between Qeynos Hills and Black Borrow, you get like 50% more skillups.

Don't hold down your ctl key when hitting the combine button or you reduce your chances of a skillup.

I follow these rules and a few more secret ones I figured out that I'm not telling anybody. (But I think Verant has some code to spy on me and see how I do it, so I wait until the servers are down before I do any combines at all. Shhhhhh... don't tell anybody.)




Needless to say, I haven't GM'd (as in 250) any of the skills. But that's just because the RNG hates me!!

[Nairn Niteraven]

I'm willing to be convinced otherwise, but I've always considered a combine attempt the same as rolling dice at the craps table. Does it really matter when you throw the dice? Not that I've ever seen.

I've never bothered to do it, but I imagine if you parse your log file you'll find the overall average is about what others experience.

[Chenier]

/shakes the "what's-your-tradeskill-superstition" dead horse


/sigh

[Hibashira]

Yeah, and sit down stand up twist one round before every combine will cause you to re-seed the RNG.

[Dunthor Warsmith]

I figure this is 99% probably just another ultimately false superstition, but the conspiracy minded of me wonder if it isn't some code to reduce the efficiency of macroers, by "penalizing" them for being "too efficient" in their clicks.

[splunge]

Roll a die (dice) a bunch of times.

Why would the outcome be different depending on how long you paused between rolls?

Random is random is random.

[Fin]

/sarcasm on

If your average skill up is 1 in 20 combines, and pressing the combine button is equivalent to triggering the RNG just like doing a /rand 1 250 (or whatever), then do one combine, roll 19 times (or however many you want), and then hit the combine button, rinse and repeat.

/sarcasm off

-Fin

[ZealSZ]

lag and skillups

a long time ago there was a rumor that a certain amount of lag in the zone would give you a default skillup/success rate which was worse. so I did a lot of skillups in places like katta, halas, and fv which had less lag than places like bazaar, pok, shadowhaven which had lots of lag. you also can use the forges whenever you want and can max ally faction for prices which is fun too. there's also a rumor saying 110 is only the minimum cha cutoff and there are added boosts at 200 and 250, might be another legend.

[Dunthor Warsmith]

Originally posted by splunge
Roll a die (dice) a bunch of times.

Why would the outcome be different depending on how long you paused between rolls?

Random is random is random.

Random is random, but none of that is random.

Those rolls are governed by the laws of physics.

The RNG rolls are governed by the laws of SOE.

They can do whatever they want with their presumabled pseudo-random number generator code/list, and special case circumstances that we think are "random" to be clearly defined and not use the RNG at all.

The best "random" source from which to produce random data we have in modern day is electromagnetic background noise in space. We do not yet have a way to predict its values, or reproduce a sample. But ultimately, its not "random" either (well, actually, that depends on your interpretation of current quantum physics).

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I've yet to find any "tradeskill superstition" that I believe is true, but I do not preclude the possibility of one existing, because it is certainly within SOE's power to make many of these supersititions true.