Obsidian Potions and how they broke mentoring- A thought to fix

Mentoring was a concept I have known since a MUD called Dragorealms where you would group with players and they learned more while grouped and you were in 'teaching mode'

Seeing it in Shroud really brought back memories and its why for times before persistence, and after, we held monthly crafting mentoring sessions. During these times it required folks to trudge in with their mats to be mentored (now global banks yay) and learn 10% faster meaning 10% more of their pool went into learning per combine which in crafting meant less mats to level. The same held true in hunting with amount sucked in.

However with the advent of Obsidian Potions of Guidance, spending IRL money or gold for those potions leaves the unique skill of mentoring in the dust since 10% is nothing compared to 300% with the potion.

In the game I mentioned, teaching whether it be languages or bandsging or disarming traps, had folks sitting in a circle much like our crafting mentoring and talking with each other. While not avidly hunitng it was a campfire teaching event for the passive skills.

While I love what obsidian potions of guidance do, I feel they broke a key social aspect of the game. And while mentoring stacks with the potions, it would be nice to have a teaching skill that bumped the effectiveness of mentoring and allow folks to specialize in this as a tertiary spec and not take away from their 2 specs. Allow it as a new skill that does not count against other specs but that they must invest xp into .. in order to help others.

Just a thought.

 

I definitely scratched my head a bit when they introduced that potion. I wrote a feedback post at the time, but the gist of it was that it didn't feel right at all being able to go from 1 in a crafting skill to GM in under 20 minutes (assuming one had enough exp pooled and resources available).

I know lots of folks here are against the 'grind', but GMing a tradeskill before these potions felt like a pretty big and satisfying accomplishment. Now it's just kind of a side effect of having enough producer exp.

 

@Lace Hm, my understanding is GM is 200%, and so when you combine the potion + someone with GM, you get 500% learning. That's been my experience with combat skills, at least. So having the two together is very handy.

 

Ya. That's my take on it to. Using both is best and so no..... It didn't make mentoring obsolete. I apprentice all the time.

 

What they ^^^^^^^ said.....

 

My primary reason to take part in GM training had been the 10% XP less needed, not the enhanced speed (exception: MW + enchant which cost a lot of mats).
AFAIK the mentoring adds +10% XP to skills - at the same cost of pool XP being used, so a +10% to your total pool.
For normal skills like smelting it is not the time which counts but the producer XP pool - which is still hard to get.
So from my point of view the potion did not really diminish the mentoring advantages.

And BTW: thanks a lot for your mentoring @Lace

 

Greetings all, The Potion of Guidance is from the Replenishing Obsidian Potion of Guidance Box which replaces the “2 Week Skill Head Start” reward for Benefactor Immortal Adventurers. They are trade-able so non-benefactors are able to use them also but it was a replacement for a promised item during the kickstarter campaign.

 

Anyone can buy them with a gold COTO from an obsidian potion vendor as well. I.e., they're relatively cheap and available to anyone.

 

Thanks Mishikal
I did not know they were on the Potion merchants. Yet another thing that Port gave the backers for backing the game and then gave to everyone else also. Or maybe they were talking just about the Box of potions. Just like the backers crafting stations vrs the add-on store crafting stations. The only difference between then is a flag on the backers version.

Replenishing Obsidian Potion of Guidance Box
This box of potions replenishes 12 Obsidian Potions of Guidance per year, once each month. This reward replaces the “2 Week Skill Head Start” reward for Benefactor Immortal Adventurers.

Sorry don't want to derail the OP, just frustrated.

 

yes, the box gives backers one free potion a month. So only backers (or people who have the box, anyhow) get the freebie.

 

I was thinking perhaps @Lace meant the bonus one gets from being in a party on earning XP (Vs the rate at which you spend XP, which is what GM & the guidance potion affect.?). not sure.

 

it does not make it cost less, to level a skill is always the same, it just puts more in per use.

 

A major part of my game is in mentoring and working with newer players who need a bit of help with their game.
@Lace was a big part of my intention to go that way as I was inspired by the effort that was put out.

 

Here, I fixed that for you!

 

It does not grant you extra experience points. What it does is push an extra 10% 100% of your already collected experience from your pool into the skill. It does the same thing as an obsidian potion of guidance but at a smaller scale.

 

Hm, I swear somewhere I read/saw that GM increases your learn rate by 2x (200%), rather than 10% (which makes it pair nicely with an obsidian potion). Certainly GM + obsidian is noticeably quicker than just obsidian on its own. I wonder if it's an additional 10% of the total granted by the 3x of obsidian potions.

Example scenario of XP usage in that case:
Base: 100 XP per use of skill
GM only: 110XP (100+10%)
Obsidian only: 300 XP per use
Obsidian+GM: 330 XP (300+10%)

I'd have to play around with this on QA to give a solid answer though.

 

I don't know the actual number is for training a skill while grouped with someone who has it GM'd but the potion provides +300%, so if a skill use would normally push 100 points into the skill then it would be 100 + (100 x 3) = 400 points with the potion.

 

I've gone back and forth on that. If the base is 100 XP, then 300% is 300 XP. It doesn't say it's an additive effect (400XP). I'll have an answer soon though. Just waiting on QA to update.

 

It actually says +300% (note the plus).

 

Here's the break down (Bladed Combat was used). Thanks to @Belladonna Rose for providing the GM.

Base: 134 XP
GM only: 280 XP
Obsidian only: 748 XP
Obsidian + GM: 1232 XP

One question is, does the amount of XP pulled from your pool increase as your skill level increases? Otherwise these don't seem to quite add up. I'm thinking perhaps:

Base: 134 (initially)
GM only : 280 (base 140? (280/2))
Obisdian only: 748 (Base 187 (748/4))
Obsidian + GM: 1232 (Base 176? that's 1232/7, which is... odd). Could be base of ~246, which is 1232/5

In any case, the answer is clear... GM+Obsidian rules, and it's a lot more than 10% @Lace