Non trivial level v. Skillups

[Sedrek]

I have read various conflicting posts that the trivial of an item has a bearing on how often you skill up assuming the item is not already trivial. Is this true, has it been proven false?

I am currently 188 Smith. Now say I wanted to attempt Acrylia BP's, vice making something easier, are the skillups going to be fewer and father between because the trivial is much harder for BP's instead of something like bracers? I am aware that I would be able to make fewer successful combines but I would rather make something I could sell a FEW of rather than making a ton of something worthless.

Thank you in advance

[Boleslav]

Conventional wisdom, supported by some testing, is that you get a better skillup rate when you succeed in creating an item than when you fail. This would imply that skilling up on items far from trivial will take more combines than if you stayed as close to trivial as possible.

That said, the impact does not seem to be dramatic. For instance, a test I did back in the day involved to toons getting JC up to 102. The first character always used the next trivial recipe. The second character used Gold Amber combines from 0 to 102. (this was expensive, by the way…) The second character took a bit over 20% more combines to get to 102 than the first character did. All other stats on the characters were equal.

Boleslav Forgehammer
Paladin of Brell in his 65th Campaign
E'ci – Sacred Desitny

[Zeralenn]

Most of my experiments in this regard have shown that it's a 15-20% difference in number of combines staying within 20 points of trivial. Since I have not tested this at the upper levels, and because such differences tend to flatten out at the upper levels, my educated guess is that the difference in skillup likelihood between doing an item with your skill at 188 that trivials at 212 versus one that trivial at 242 is not that high -- but your chances of succeeding making that item are of course greater. Succeeding wastes a lot less money.

It would be an interesting experiment to try this experiment at high levels (180 to 220) with jewelcraft, one of the few skills where such experiments would be feasible. However, it would require several toons doing the same thing, and to be sure it was a controlled experiment, all of these toons would have to have identical INT or WIS for the experiment to be valid. I think it would be hard to arrange such an experiment.

Just realize that the RNG hates your guts from the mid-180s to 220, and that probably any such experiments are only going to yield the slimmest differences at that level. But given the experiments done at lower levels, I'm a "stick to the lowest trivial" theorist.

...Zera

[Itek]

As others have pointed out even the most stellar differences between "success skillup rate" and "failure skillup rate" are miniscule.

Depending on how you massage the numbers (which all statistics do to some extent) the difference might even be explained by "standard deviation" and "streakyness." (meaning: it's a RandomNumberGenerator thing, no one understands)

There is, however, a compelling reason to stay closer to trivial if you can. Success rates. The closer your skill to the "trivial" number the higher your success rate, which coresponds to higher sell back, which equates to less money lost.

So the real "calculus" of the equation is not "what is the difference in skillup rate between success and failure" but "is it more cost effective to use a 10 plat combine which is 40 points out of trivial or a 250 plat combine which is 10 points out of trivial"

Being as smithing is your current question I would suggest "the economical smith" ... (check the smithing forums or do a "search") It's a wonderful text with great explainations on which paths have what advantages and disadvantages.

[Obina]

Agree with the idea that, all things being equal, it is better to skill up making items with a trivial just above your skill level.

But in the range 188+, things are never equal! *smile* For almost all tradeskills (all but JC I think), the best thing to skill up on is whatever you can get the materials for, or perhaps which ever requires fewer clicks. Or what you can sell, looking at net cost and success rate rather than skill up rate. This gets very skill specific (e. g. for pottery there can be good reasons to skill up on Opal Steins versus Crucibles of Escape, depending on individual circumstances).

Net, I suggest ignore skill ups per combine, and look at cost, clicks, possible sale, or plain availability instead. You will skill up in the end. Enjoy the path as well a the result.

Obina Redemptus

[Fenadin]

Successes don't matter

If you go over to the tailoring forum you will see this thread:

Success and skill up data

I think that it is pretty clear from what I have read that you should try to stay within 10-30 from trivial if possible, but that you are no more likely to have a skill-up on a success.

[Sedrek]

Heres what I was thinking

Thank you to all those that already answered. Anyhow here has been my past experience so far.

Do the hammer quest.. make the boots for the un-necessary quest
1 - Combine

Get box .. make 8 more boots.. turn in get usless fancy-pants (no failures)

8 - Combines

Outfit my bard in in full Shadowscream since I sold all his gear.
13 items (2 bracers). [ Belt / boots / bracer / bracer /cloak / collar / gloves / helm / leggings / mantle / sleeves / tunic / veil ] Had 5 failures

18 Combines

/sigh to myself

Decide SS is usless armor so do some Acrylia too! heh

1- helm
1- Arms
1- Boots (bah! failed em)
1- Breastplate

4 combines total

===================================
Sooo .. 31 combines so far and no skill ups. Expected really.
I plan on finishing my bard up in full acrylia when I get the motive to go after those infernal windstones ! /grumble... but..

Instead of making collars / bracers till I'm blue in the face, sometimes I like to help out the noobies and give them armor that I make. Since Shadowscream has litteraly no resale value, I either give everyone in sharval enough bracers and collars to wallpaper the entire city... or .. I make some noobies very happy with full sets of armor.

I would only really do this if I'm not wasting my time with the hard trivials due to the trivial v. skill up rumor. The stuff takes too much time to farm.

That was my initial thought.

Then of course if I was to do acrylia should I do BP's which I can sell on vendor.. or do the Visors and probably just selling back to vendor. Id rather sell BP's in the bazaare and possibly give a few extras to friends twinks than really worry about the cash loss... then again only if I wasn't wasting my time with the trivial v skillup rumor.

=====================================
After reading the above posts, I'll probably stick with the SS collars / bracers and occasional acrylia visors till I get higher in skill lvl and THEN worry about becoming the local Bristlebane charity mascott.