Tradeskill Skill Up Formula

[Bidoof]

Sorry if this has been answered somewhere already and I missed it; my search skills are weak.

In the tradeskill section of the wiki, it lists the formulas for successful combines. I'm wondering if anyone can tell me the formula(s) for getting skill ups on tradeskill combines. I know most (if not all) tradeskills have a guide for getting skill ups, but I like seeing numbers and such, maybe even make a pointless excel sheet of it.

I couldn't find a p1999 answer to this in my searching. I did find this from 2004 on EQ Traders Corner about Live's formulas:
http://mboards.eqtraders.com/eq/showthread.php?15638-skillup-formula
Is this tiered two-check system also used here?

Thanks for any insight.

[Tecmos Deception]

Very nice. I'd never seen that formula before. I'm afraid I'm no help regarding the skillups though.

[August]

Heya,

I have a spreadsheet that calculates this stuff for you:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0ApEnERpgXbENdFRJaVN5TTRJZUVjQ3JZRDlDMC1UM Wc&usp=sharing

Please download and use offline (don't modify mine if you don't mind, I'll just have to roll back).

You can set your Skill Difficulty, your main stat, and your sill, and modify the trivial boxes to figure stuff out. I used it to level JC on Fippy.

Enjoy,

Tomtee

[Bidoof]

Thanks for the replies.

I kind of lied when I said I might make a spreadsheet. I *had* made a spreadsheet for this, I just wanted to know if the formulas were accurate for p1999. I started on baking, so at least I didn't do anything redundant (with yours at least) yet.

I do plan to do all of them though. Another pipe dream is to make a php script that will do a 0 to cap simulation of skill ups, where you pick which patterns to work on at which points, so you can see a "likely" number of combines you'd have to make. And since any middle manager will tell you they're essential, it'll have graphs!

On a side note, how do you like Google Docs for spreadsheets? I made mine in OpenOffice, where you can make new functions in the basic language. Since I'm too lazy to search it, do you know if Docs allows you to do something similar? Not that big of a deal, just curious since I saw you had the whole formulas in all your calculation cells.

But back on topic, yes, still asking if anyone knows if the formula is accurate for p1999.

[August]

I never leveled tradeskills on this server --

As far as the 'second roll' goes, I don't remember seeing a hump at 190 on Fippy. That formula is from 2004 so it may or may not be true for classic implementation.

It is really a lot of math for something that should be pretty obvious - make the things closest to your skill that aren't trivial.

The only thing I really learned from my experiment w/ the spreadsheet was when to switch metals (i have another spreadsheet that calculates cost per skill up in platinum).

[Bidoof]

You're right, it is really obvious *how* to skill up. I'm not doing this for any "useful" reason. For someone who doesn't play EVE Online, I really like numbers and equations. I just want to play around with it.

As for the second formula's 190 max, a .5 to 5% difference (depending where you are from 190 to 200)- itself just a fraction of the overall odds- isn't going to be really noticeable over the relatively small sample size that is one character's one tradeskill (probably over even all tradeskills for one character). That doesn't mean it wasn't there, its just not enough to speculate either way.

It is really a lot of math for something that should be pretty obvious
Some people really like math. Some people also really like the obvious, but I'm hoping I'm not in that subset too. I mean, really, the whole "which metal to use for cost effectiveness thing" has been done before, so your sheet could be considered superfluous. I just have a feeling you like math too, and are just to afraid to let us know it.

[August]

You're right, it is really obvious *how* to skill up. I'm not doing this for any "useful" reason. For someone who doesn't play EVE Online, I really like numbers and equations. I just want to play around with it.

As for the second formula's 190 max, a .5 to 5% difference (depending where you are from 190 to 200)- itself just a fraction of the overall odds- isn't going to be really noticeable over the relatively small sample size that is one character's one tradeskill (probably over even all tradeskills for one character). That doesn't mean it wasn't there, its just not enough to speculate either way.


Some people really like math. Some people also really like the obvious, but I'm hoping I'm not in that subset too. I mean, really, the whole "which metal to use for cost effectiveness thing" has been done before, so your sheet could be considered superfluous. I just have a feeling you like math too, and are just to afraid to let us know it.

You got me :P I have a degree in mathematics and in practice i am a machine learning specialist for a high-brow software development firm.

Honestly just wanted to drop off the link here since I saw you were looking into it. The formulas I used on my spreadsheet were to 'the best of my ability' researched 3 years ago. I got the information from eqtraders. I do remember adding a 'second roll' to the spreadsheet but I am far too lazy to re-hash what I've already done.

FWIW I used that spreadsheet to completely dominate the JC market on fippy. I was the first to 250 with it, the first to turn huge profits. I re-tooled the spreadsheet for pottery and leveled past 'impossible leveling paths' to be able to make the high skill luclin pottery ranged items that I discovered, if I sold a mere 40 of them, I would break even on the nearly 300k investment to get there.

I do in fact, love math. I love it so hard I want to use it to make everything better.

On Fippy, it made me the richest person on the server until the alchemy/egg exploit went wild and made my 'mountain' of cash seem inconsequential.

I didn't get back into it here as I joined late and tradeskills are a dead-end for profitability. I actually quit this server a couple of weeks ago because the same culture that dominated fippy has migrated here and made it wholly unenjoyable for someone who likes the end game but doesn't like sitting on spawn points for hours.

Anyways, yeah, just wanted to give ya the spreadsheet. It has the basic formulas - it may even have the second formula thrown in, I was just an idiot and didn't declare variable names so I can't really tell what I'm doing, and that's so many ((()())()()(,)<9<)<<,/,/ symbols I can't tell up from down.

[Bidoof]

That's cool. In the short time I went to college (who needs a degree, I thought stupidly), I bounced from engineering to math to computer science. I've always liked playing with the numbers.

I didn't mean to sound ungrateful for your spreadsheet, so I'm sorry if I came off that way. I've used (stolen) some of the layout details to make mine look better (I was never good at presentation).

As far as the second equation, I'd think there'd *have* to be more than the first equation. The first equation doesn't take current skill level into account: just what your INT/WIS is, if there's a INT/WIS penalty, what level of difficulty the tradeskill is, and whether or not you successfully combined. If it was only that equation, leveling from, say, 175-200 would be just as fast as 1-25. That doesn't mean the 2nd equation is the same as that posted, just that there has to be more than equation #1.

I'm sorry to hear you quit the server. If its not fun, then yeah, you definately shouldn't look back. I don't have nearly the time I did when I played live, so I haven't really run into any of the high end stuff here that seems to be have been the problem.

[Estu]

The key with the high-end stuff is to not care. If you don't care whether you have the best robe in the game or the fifth-best, then you can find plenty to do at high levels without having to go after highly-contested mobs. What does it really matter whether I have an extra 100 mana or whatever? Also, a lot of the stuff that's super-contested right now will be more accessible come Velious, so it's not like you'll never see it. Anyway, my point is that the server has a lot more to offer than whether or not you can easily get in on a Trakanon kill.

[August]

The key with the high-end stuff is to not care. If you don't care whether you have the best robe in the game or the fifth-best, then you can find plenty to do at high levels without having to go after highly-contested mobs. What does it really matter whether I have an extra 100 mana or whatever? Also, a lot of the stuff that's super-contested right now will be more accessible come Velious, so it's not like you'll never see it. Anyway, my point is that the server has a lot more to offer than whether or not you can easily get in on a Trakanon kill.

Estu - that is why I am taking a break until Velious. I am not gone forever - hence why I still post here.

Bidoof -

You say that there is no check against your current skill level, but that is wrong in that your success rate is determined by your skill. That is, percentage of which equation is followed (success or failure) is largely determined by your skill level:

=IF(SKILL_LEVEL-Trivial>=0,0,((((MAIN_STAT*10)/SKILL_DIFFICULTY)*(SUCCESS_RATE/100))+(((MAIN_STAT*10/(2*SKILL_DIFFICULTY))*((100-SUCCESS_RATE)/100))))/1000*MIN(0.95,(200-SKILL_LEVEL)/200))

SUCCESS_RATE is a function of skill versus trivial, so it does come into effect.

If you play w/ the numbers on my spreadsheet you will see this reflected -- put in a skill of 10 and you'll see skill up rates in the 40%, versus once you get up to 180+ you're looking at 3.4%, etc.

[Bidoof]

You're right, there is a change in % between 10 and say 180 when leveling up, on both our formulas. The change is where I disagree.

I haven't messed around with the formula you posted and use in your spreadsheet, and if its giving you results like that, its significantly different from the linked one. The simple first formula in the link I posted is merely -after a simple reduction- this:
((STAT-x)/(Skill_Diff*y))/100
where x is 0 or 15 (depending on if its a INT/WIS skill or INT/WIS/other skill) and y is 1 or 2 (1 for succes, 2 for failure).

With this formula, successes increase your chance to skill up (obviously). Let's use those arbitrary numbers above. The best trivial to use at 10 is a theoretical 11, since you're most likely to succeed with it. At 200 INT, x=15 and Skill_Diff=2 (baking!), using the success equation for under 68 in the wiki gives us a success rate of 65%. If we do some ratio math and use just the above equation, we get a skill up chance of 76.31% overall.

Now, using the same INT, x and Skill_Diff, let's say our skill is 180 and our trivial is 181. Using the over 68 equation (what about equal to 68?!?), you shoot up to a success rate of 95%, hitting the 5% chance to fail cap. As would be expected from a higher chance to succeed, using *just* the formula above gives us a 90.19% chance to skill up. Obviously you might not be able to find a 181 trivial combine, so let's say 200 trivial. Then, your success rate is still 81.5% (higher than 65%), and your skill up chance is 83.94% (again higher than 76.31%).

If you add the second check- the one that actually directly uses your skill level- the 11 trivial with 10 skill barely drops to a 72.5% chance, while the 181 trivial with 180 skill drops drastically to 9.02%.

What I'm very lengthily trying to say is: either your formula (which I will admit I haven't done much with) is completely different from the first part of the one I'm asking about, or someone's math is off. I'd probably just say mine is wrong, as I like the appeal to authority fallacy, but feel free to take a look at it. This is more of a plunge back into math for me (even if its mostly just algebra), so I probably got something wrong.

Either way, I like this conversation. Its not often I get to talk math with anyone.

[August]

Yeah you are right - and in fact you do see that chance to succeed increases as you go up due to the formula change.

Looking at my code, I have another modifier in there. Don't ask me where i got it- I got it off of EQTraders boards some time ago.

* MIN (.95 , (200-SKILL/200))

Basically an overarching curve handler. I BELIEVE this was the result of the second roll that is mentioned, and perhaps was more complicated and boiled down to this result? I honestly can't remember.

What you can notice is that this also follows the rules of the '190' gap that was mentioned -- at 190 skill MIN becomes always .95 since 190/200 = .95. So, it could have been from different sources, or i could have used this very source and done the conversion, but there you have it.

FWIW This is a tool I used very heavily during leveling on FIPPY (which once again, doesn't answer your question about being valid here). My extended spreadsheet calculated 'expected combines til next gem' and so I used this to prebuy my mats so I could go sit in EC and sell while i enchanted my bars / leveled up. I was very nearly spot on, so I believe it has real validity. I know this server does not completely emulate what live was, however, so in all honesty we need a dev to chime in on the tradeskill formulas. If you look at things like the AC spawn and Pyzjin spawn, we clearly have our own separate implementaiton compared to live.

-tomtee

[August]

Yep figured it out. I took the original code, split it up into ratios, and then divided by 1000 since that is what the roll of N is for - giving the percentage of the chance that we would pass the first roll, given that, when you go the second roll, there is the curve modifier that checks to see if you win the roll based on the 190 artificial modifier.

So, more or less, my formula in the spreadsheet is that exact post bubbled down into some crappy algebra. It isn't pretty, but the curves it produces seem fine to me. (pun intended).

Whether or not that is P1999 implementation, who knows?

[Bidoof]

Figured I'd ask one more time, then I'll give up. Anyone happen to know if the formula post at the EQ Traders boards from 2004 (http://mboards.eqtraders.com/eq/showthread.php?15638-skillup-formula) from Live is the formula used here?

Also, shameless plug for something almost completely useless. I made my php script that does a bunch of randoms and calculations to give you a sample set of possibilities while raising your tradeskills. You input what trade, what your stat and skill scores are, and a set of trivials you'll use to level up with. In return it'll spit out a randomized outcome, including how many combines it takes, how many successful combines that includes, and the like.

Its in my sig, but I might as well post it here too: eq.e42randy.com/test.php. Its running off the formula above, so again, if you know of a different formula, please respond!

(Useless program? Yes. But at least its slightly more useful than the last thing I wrote (http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/info20175-WeKnow.html).)