Astrology

[Michic0_oL]

for for the idea of it, could entropy post the number of ppl having Skeptic perk in

the top 200 a/d

the top 200 manu / craft / tailoring / engeneering

the top 200 potion

 

it would be cool to make some statistics.

[heu]

What I noticed from my astrology is that I always get everything good or everything bad, and that always alternates every RL day (I mean good, bad, good, bad,...).

Well I only studied one sign, so it's clearly possible that other signs have different relations between the curves (which ones track together).

 

Also, taking harvest events as an example, my definition of "good" (low events) may be different that another's definition of "good" (lots of events).

 

But your alternating every RL day is 100% consistent with my findings of a 2-day cycle in the curves (a day of "good" shifting into a day of "bad", rinse, repeat).

 

I think the idea of astrology is very interesting, but it should be more random. I already harvest a lot, but when I'm in a bad astrology day (every other day), that's the only thing I can do. If I feel like doing something else, the game "forces" me not to.

I just didn't get skeptic yet because I hope this will change. If radu said it won't change, I would go for it.

[korrode]

I just didn't get skeptic yet because I hope this will change. If radu said it won't change, I would go for it.

Here you go:

As I was saying in a previous thread, there will not be any significant changes in the astrology, except for implementing the two unused values (failure and magic), and maybe some SMALL adjustments, nothing really life changing.

The only other thing that might change is having some other astrology affecting values, such as affecting the chance to flee from combat, items loss when you die, etc. But that's not something I really have in mind, although I am not excluding the possibility of adding those things later on.

 

Oh, and there is another thing I might add, but I will make the players vote for it, and I think the vote will be negative, so I won't bother. That thing is adding a random sign to some high level monsters. so that the astrology will affect them as well. This, however, would not be dependent on whether you took the perk or not.

 

Anyway, the idea is simple: If you like how the astorlogy is implemented, don't take the perk. If you don't like it, take the perk. No cards in my sleave, no tricks.

(emphasis mine)

[big_duo]

Not to necro my own thread but I am again curious about people's opinions after about a year of astology in the game now.

 

My main question though is if it is worth it getting the skeptic perk for myself? I pretty much only harvest/alch these days, with a little bit of manu mixed in. Opinions?

[Lorck]

My main question though is if it is worth it getting the skeptic perk for myself? I pretty much only harvest/alch these days, with a little bit of manu mixed in. Opinions?

My humble opinion: no. For mixers, astro is a very good thing, since you can check your astro and decide what to do accordingly to it. You can mix an item which doesn't have a rare version when you have bad astro, and mix items which have a rare versions (like LEs, FEs, Jagged Sabber, etc) in days of good astro. Also, its a nice bonus to mix stuff above your level in days of good astro, this days for instance i mixed spider stones with 90% of success (due to very good astro+pot) being myself 1 level bellow its recommended level! Astro can be awesome, if you use it right.

 

Also imo, skeptic are for the "free spirit" folks who like to do stuff when they want to do, without bad astro getting in their way, and without caring for the astro's potential benefits.

Edited November 13, 2009 by Lorck

[SlimPickins]

Astrology means almost nothing to me. I do what I want regardless of fail rates. I haven't taken skeptic, though.

 

I probably should have mentioned that my alch level is high enough that I don't have to worry about fail rates even when I have bad astro. Most people aren't in that position, so skeptic may help. But remember, your levels will increase with time, but skeptic is permanent. Even a reset won't remove it.

Edited November 13, 2009 by SlimPickins

[Garnoo]

Not to necro my own thread but I am again curious about people's opinions after about a year of astology in the game now.

 

My main question though is if it is worth it getting the skeptic perk for myself? I pretty much only harvest/alch these days, with a little bit of manu mixed in. Opinions?

I got skeptic and I love it. It's very nice being able to do whatever you want whenever you want and not having to bother with indicators and other crap.

[Lorck]

I got skeptic and I love it. It's very nice being able to do whatever you want whenever you want and not having to bother with indicators and other crap.

You can still do whatever you want, you would just get a penalty on bad days. And as i said above, if you use it wisely, you can get a nice bonus to mix high level stuff, fight higher level monsters, mix rare items, etc, etc. And ofc people who got skeptic don't regret it, they can't get astro back anyways. ^^

[hussam]

if you use it wisely, you can get a nice bonus to mix high level stuff

A good mixer will get his mixing skills up to a level that doesn't need good astro to mix high level items.

[Lorck]

if you use it wisely, you can get a nice bonus to mix high level stuff

A good mixer will get his mixing skills up to a level that doesn't need good astro to mix high level items.

Yep, but not instantly, training mix skills takes time or do you think every manuer has manufacture skill above 87 to mix Icy dragon plate armor? You can try to mix stuff slightly above your level with good astro... and well, if you like to mix only stuff way bellow your level, you may still like the bonus of increasing the chance of mixing rare items. Edited November 13, 2009 by Lorck

[chr0nik]

I like astrology. The variation in a/d gives me reason to change up my training kit a little. The criticals bonus is nice for invasions. Make rare/fail is also useful for me as a mixer. Astro indicators give me some motivation to train engineering for my own personal use. Anything that adds variety to the EL gaming experience is good for me, but of course that's not the case for everyone. Obviously some people like things to be constant, xp/hr on mobs or the 80 million sapphires they polish, leather helms they make or magic ess they mix - and that's all fine too.

[Zamirah]

A good mixer will get his mixing skills up to a level that doesn't need good astro to mix high level items.

Even with 5x reccommended level do you still loose more on bad astro days.

I loose sometimes 2-3 iron bars out of 50 on bad days.

But I like astro, I know when the risk is high for items like alembics and vial molds to break, it's not just random.

 

And then, I made night visor with level 50 on a good day, the reccommended level.

Edited November 13, 2009 by Zamirah

[RevengeKiller]

My experience: I took skeptic recently and appreciate it for two reasons. Firstly, I no longer feel the need to consider what I ought to do on any given day in response to my astro. Secondly, I am no longer angry with somewhat unusual [fails/breaks/no rare items made/no stones found] on good astro days - for me at least that was also something worthy of consideration in taking the skeptic perk. Prior to taking it I waited for good astro days to do certain things and had high expectations on those days... when the expectations were not met I was annoyed and when they were I was, well... satisfied. So overall, it has been good for my peace of mind. Now I have fewer expectations so when unusual levels of breaks/fails occur I am more understanding and when I make rare items/harvest stones I am more appreciative.

 

Considering what Korrode was speaking of in relation to a/d training it seems to me that Mr. Skeptic there will ultimately have a somewhat higher a/d level than Mr. Astro in the long run... due to Mr. Astro deciding against training when his astro is particularly bad. Conversely, (without getting into all the possible considerations of what each person w/ somewhat different a/d lvls will be training on and how much money they'd be making from their respective mobs)... it seems likely that Mr. Astro (if he follows the expected behavior of not training on certain days, etc.) will have somewhat more gc in the long run than Mr. Skeptic due to fewer breaks. That aside, if Mr. Astro did not pay attention to astro and did as he pleased when he pleased - it would all even out in the long run.

 

Cheers

[korrode]

1.5 years later, i stand by my original comment:

 

Skeptic FTW!

[eagleprince]

1.5 years later, i stand by my original comment:

 

Skeptic FTW!

Actually, it's 1.666 years later!

 

but yeah...skeptic ftw

[Ateh]

1.66666666 years later ive taken the skeptic perk long ago and tbh if it wasnt written in the encylopedia i wouldnt know astrology ever existed

[nathanstenzel]

I became skeptic after 5 days in a row of bad astro for fighting when I was trying to train A/D. If you think about the EL to real life day, that is 20 or so EL days. Most of an EL month.

 

Considering my horoscope for about a full EL Month said my char was screwed, I doubt you can blame me. Imagine reading a horoscope in real life and seeing nothing but bad things in store for you for a whole month.

[Ermabwed]

Considering my horoscope for about a full EL Month said my char was screwed, I doubt you can blame me. Imagine reading a horoscope in real life and seeing nothing but bad things in store for you for a whole month.

But then, in real life horoscopes are bullshit and meaningless whereas in EL the "astrology" feature does influence your character.

[bkc56]

I became skeptic after 5 days in a row of bad astro for fighting when I was trying to train A/D. If you think about the EL to real life day, that is 20 or so EL days. Most of an EL month.

Astro runs on roughly a 48 hour (rl) cycle. It's impossible to have 5 rl days in a row of bad astro unless you were logging in at different times each day basically tracking the bad part of the curve. Even then you'd have to skip almost 24 hours straight, twice, to have missed the good parts of the curve in a 5 day stretch.

 

 

But no matter. If skeptic works for you, great. That's why Entropy added the perk. It would not work for me. I'm just to dependent on the good-mix and low-harvest-event astro for doing my day-to-day activities.