Quick Learner

[tailings]

OK, I've been thinking about Quick Learner quite a bit. I'll admit my math skills are average at best, so I'm sure this could all be expressed more elegantly than I've done below. It's even quite possible that I'm missing something key, and my calculations are all wrong. If so, hopefully this will spur someone else to crank the numbers and shed the true light on Quick Learner.

As I pointed out in an earlier post, Quick Learner is only of use if it can be shown that using that skill will eventually pay for the cost of taking it. The key is to know how long it takes to pay for the skill points spent on Quick Learner. The cost of a level of Quick Learner is 1 skill point, or four experience levels. Thus, each level of Quick Learner requires an additional 4 levels of experience to earn that extra skill point to cover its cost.

Beginning with Quick Learner level 1, I reasoned that X experience equals L levels. Quick Learner Level 1 gives 5% extra experience per kill, and thus a player with Quick Learner level 1 earn 1.05 experience for the same number of kills, and thus 1.05 Levels. At that rate, a player with Quick Learner Level 1 would earn an extra level for every 20 levels gained. It would thus take 80 levels of experience to earn the 4 extra experience levels for 1 extra skill point to cover the initial cost.
(1.05 x 80 = 84).
Assuming a player took Quick Learner at Experience Level 4, that player would break even at level 88:
[4 + (1.05x80)] = 88.
A player with Quick Learner 1 would be at level 88 for the same amount of effort as a player without Quick Learner would get to level 84.

At Quick Learner Level 2 you are earning 1.10 Levels for X experience. However, 2 skill points have been spent and so 8 additional levels have to be earned to recoup the initial cost. If a player picks Quick Learner level 1 and 2 as their first two skills, that player would break even at:
[4 + (1.05x4) + (1.10x79.8)] = 96
It would thus take 87.8 Levels worth of base experience to earn the additional 2 skill points it cost to take Quick Learner 1 and 2. This is slightly (.2 base levels of experience) faster than having Quick Learner level 1 alone.

Additional levels of Quick Learner would each require a progressively larger amount to pay off the initial cost. Quick Learner Level 3 would require 12 additional experience levels earned to cover cost, and thus would break even at:
[4 + (1.05x4) + (1.10x4) + (1.15x79.5)] = 104

Once the base cost is payed off, however, a player would begin to out pace a player without Quick Learner. At Quick Learner level 1, additional skill points would be earned for every 80 levels of base experience. This gets halved to one additional skill point for every 40 levels of base experience at Quick Learner level 2. Quick Learner level 3 would reduce it to every 26.7 levels. Quick Learner level 4 every 20 levels and Quick Learner level 5 every 16 levels.

Well, there you have it. Quick Learner WILL pay off, eventually, but it takes a looong time to do so. One great unknown here is how far can/will a player typically advance in the game. Looking at signature stats, it appears very few players have come close to level 88 so far. The high player levels we're seeing are not so much a necessity as the result of grinding between releases. Once the game is complete it may be that a typical player only has to reach level 60 or 80 or 100 to actually finish the game.

I invite the forum to check my analysis and correct it where wrong. Hopefully this will also spur someone to explain it in a much simpler fashion than I have done.

Cheers.

[Bornain]

Whether or not your calculations are correct, I didn't see quick learner as a means to recoup my skill points, but a way to make my character stronger faster. Did you take into consideration your attributes increase? I saw it as my character at 1 skill point would grow 5% faster for the same effort.

[Mino]

Nice analysis, but I feel part of the value of Quick Learner is also in comparing it to other skills you could use the points for. But you bring up an excellent point about it maybe not being as helpful for a new player starting on a completed version of the game. As it stands now though, I think you have to take non-math factors into consideration. These are based on my personal opinion.

It is a unique skill in that you can only gain this from using a skill point. So to me that makes it more valuable than Weapon Accuracy, Hard Hit, and Dodge, which you can increase through regular level ups, which would happen faster (even if only slightly) if you use Quick Learner.

These skills might seem very enticing to a beginner but as you continue playing and gain drop items (gold, meat, sell-able items like weapons or boots) they will lose value: Merchant, Treasure Hunter

These skills are only valuable if you don't use the "save often and reload when needed" approach (but if you don't do that, they seem very helpful): Evasion, Failure Misery, and to an extent Strong Mind, Enduring Body, and Pure Blood. These will also be come less needed as you power up and find yourself able to kill off most monsters first as long as you get first attack.

The most valuable skill is Combat Speed, which you can only spend up to 2 points on. Increased Fortitude is also helpful, and you can use more than 1 skill point on it, but 1 is probably enough if you start it early on. More Criticals is also a good skill and requires an equal skill level of Better Criticals, but as you continue to level up, as long as a good portion of that goes towards increasing AD, you really only need 1 or 2 skill points put into each, and there's also items that can increase CC%.

These skills are good, but there are also items that offer the same effect:
Bark Skin (unless you want more than 2-3 DR), Corpse Eater, Regeneration

So after putting a couple points into Combat Speed, and 2-4 into More & Better Criticals, how much more useful are those other skills compared to Quick Learner, which would allow you to level up more quickly which means increasing your AD, AC, BC (or even HP) more quickly?

I didn't include Magic Finder because that entirely depends on how badly you want those extraordinary and legendary items or if you already have enough of the ones you want. I wanted them enough to use 10 skill points on this one.

I will say though, than on my 2nd character, which I now only play to try out alternate choices, I actually used the Weapon Accuracy and Dodge skills because I don't plan to level up that character, just play the quests, so I wanted the quick boost.

[tailings]

You all are correct in that I did not take stat point increase into account, only the cost of the skill point. Indeed, a player with Quick Learner will earn stat points at a faster rate, and see benefit from those stat points immediately. I never said Quick Learner was useless, only that it's a bit more costly than might appear at first glance.

[Chest_Rockfield]

Another thing to consider is that the Quick Learner bonus will actually act more exponentially than in the linear fashion in which you described.
Faster leveling generally means that the player can kill tougher monsters faster which drop a higher exp/min ratio which is even further increased by the Quick Learner skill. No way to know how much of this exponential growth would be offset by the skills that the other player would be taking instead of the QL. To each his own, but I don't think it's worthless. [I didn't think it was worthless 5 times ]

[nyktos]

mino +1
i totally agree, and very well put.

a lot of excellent reading here...
good topic, IMO. thanks guys!

i tend to see the skills that lend unique abilities as the most important,
that was actually my first stipulation when browsing the list the very first time.



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I didn't think it was worthless 5 times

[Mino]

[I didn't think it was worthless 5 times ]

Well said!

I'm actually thinking of using most of my future skills points for Quick Learner, except for 1 towards Increased Fortitude somewhere in the middle, to eventually get to 50% and maybe even 100%. It looks like there's no cap, so you could even go past 100%, but since I'm planning to leave the Iqhan caves and go after the RoLS after getting to level 100 (which is a ways off), I won't be leveling up as fast, and I may choose to use more points for Magic Finder if I get too frustrated.

[TheFSM]

Beginning with Quick Learner level 1, I reasoned that X experience equals L levels. Quick Learner Level 1 gives 5% extra experience per kill, and thus a player with Quick Learner level 1 earn 1.05 experience for the same number of kills, and thus 1.05 Levels. At that rate, a player with Quick Learner Level 1 would earn an extra level for every 20 levels gained. It would thus take 80 levels of experience to earn the 4 extra experience levels for 1 extra skill point to cover the initial cost.
(1.05 x 80 = 84).
Assuming a player took Quick Learner at Experience Level 4, that player would break even at level 88:
[4 + (1.05x80)] = 88.
A player with Quick Learner 1 would be at level 88 for the same amount of effort as a player without Quick Learner would get to level 84.

I do the maths differently, by looking at xp.

The amount of xp required to gain the next level is:
(level^2)*55
Therefore, at lower levels a 1.05 xp bonus is not overcoming the xp increases between levels, at level 41 however you for the first time have a smaller than 5% gap between xp required for that level and for the next, from here on a minor bonus is noticed.

If you get quick learner at level 4, the 5% xp bonus pays off with a full extra level worth of xp at level 59 (5% of the sum of xp between level 4 and 59 is the amount of xp required to gain level 60) for a 5% increase at level 4 to be worth four levels you need to reach the equivalent of level 242 (by which time the 5% xp bonus will have given you levels 243-246).



However for me, at level 51, if at level 52 I decide to increase my xp by 5%, it will pay of in one level by at level 80, and as four levels at level 244 (notice only two levels difference here as if I had put the points in at level 4).

At lower levels I think investing in increased fortitude (up to level 2) and corpse eater (up to level 5) should be the main way skill points are spent, while other points from levelling up are spent on higher AC and AD. The increased speed of levelling from being able to attack stronger creatures and not having to heal as often is probably more than the increased XP, at least at lower levels.

[nyktos]

[lets just say, you start with 2 in QL]
the way i see it...

if you gain 10% xp with 2 quick learner skills...
you get to Level 10, when everyone else hits 9!!! [or 11 when they hit 10?]

every ten levels gives a 2QL player another level of XP

i hit 100 when you hit 90, right?
{with my impossible example of having 2QL @ lv1}
{you (the example) never took QL}

unless i totally misunderstood 'the code'....


::EDIT::
---plus, as said in another post... XP growth can be considered exponential---
i will quote this later, if deemed necessary.

[Samuel]

IMO the math is very easy:
As this topic exists, put every skillpoint in Quick Learner.

• Skills that improve Combat Skills (Weapon Accuracy, Hard Hit, Dodge, Bark Skin, More Criticals, Better Criticals, Combat Speed, Cleave, Corpse Eater, Increased Fortitude, Evasion, Regeneration, Strong Mind, Enduring Body, Pure Blood) should not be needed when you are high on the list, because of level up improvements. (AC, BC, HP, AD) You may seem to need them if you are not high on the list, but on the long run they are senseless.
• The Magic Finder skill is bad, because it keeps you from leveling once you get all items.
• You do not need gold if you level up a lot, so Treasure Hunter and Merchant are senseless.
• There only remains: Failure Mastery. I could understand an argumentation to put skillpoints there. (dying by mistake will not remove XP anymore)

However I will not put skillpoints anywhere. As well as I avoid taking sides in quests. (I actually do not start any quests, but simple bed quests - I even do not kill unrespawnable bosses) So I have a good base character that can be used for any purpose.

BTW: If you play for fun - put the skillpoints anywhere you want.
Don't take this post too serious.