Tman wrote, The thing is, you need to make finished products. You can't pound the same pieces of metal into sword handles and expect to be able to pay the trainer. You need to make finished swords. Same with cooking/herbal/alchemy. You need to make and sell the finished product. Intermediates won't make you anything substantial.
I agree, but doing so would require a ton of material to make all these finished products you are talking about with blacksmith skills. So basically this means buying ore/hides (need tria, so grind), or mining/hunting (grinding) then doing crafting. In the end it would take even more time to level because you have to constantly seek out materials. To give you an idea of the amount, a full suit (6 pieces) of chain mail armor requires 19 stocks (25 with 6-1 patterns) to complete. Armor making is one of the skills where you have to complete something because it is a one way trip. Blades and shields are less resource needy because of recycling. Overall both ways take forever to gain one level but it is quicker to recycle.
I know a player with max in all armor and most weapon skills (think all but one) as well as max in a way (and really high in the rest). They still play the game and still enjoy it as well. I just want to get my player to the point where I can be self sufficient. To me this means maxing a weapon, armor, and a way. I also don't think that asking to not spend years in the game doing so is not a small request.
tman is right! you're doing it wrong: and you need to make finished product. intermidiate items costs are very low and you will not earn enough trias to pay for your next training, other than that I always found it boring to hammer and re-hammer the same sword handle... this kind of grinding can't surely be anything but boring, try completing a few product maybe you'll gain ranks faster and with less boredom!
About self sufficiency: this is multiplayer game, some challenges are especially designed for player's grouping. Albeit there are tons of challenges you can defeat single handedly there will be some you won't. Another point: if every player is self sufficient in not time what would be the point of markets, players helping other players and such.
I think sometimes players have the false expectation to reach self sufficiency very early on in every aspect of the game: asking for help to other players is not a crime, many people will be very happy to help ICly and OOCly.
Now a few suggestion on how to train more efficiently.
Combat:
- seeks the most powerful creature you can beat without loosing too much hit points, when you kill it too quickly switch to another more powerful one: it gives you more experience and more valuable loots
- use the arena: in a single map there is a broad range of different challenges, from newie (rats, clackers, ...) to maxed people (try challenging 2 dlayos at once).
- Don't use training dummies for exp!! Training dummies are there so you can safely test your attacks, your weapons, your spells without risking to die, you can even gain practice trough them but they will not give you any experience (on purpose!)
- Armor: always use armors! if you're a mage leather is your best friend, MA is the best choice for a fighter unless you have truly high STR stats, but when you train with the dummies your armor is useless and will only drain your stamina, put it off.
Crafting:
- even when you plan to grind a skill try to finish your product: you will maximize the tria, the experience you gain (and thus the practice you gain) and maybe you'll be less bored in the end
- the longer it takes for a process (the red/blue bar that pops up when crafting): the more experience and practice you gain!
- if you want to maximize your tria gain craft whatever you're able to get the highest quality, if you want to maximize the practice ponts (less training time) you have to craft the latest product your skill level allows you to craft. Example: if you keep hammering sword handles above 50 it will take forever to raise a level because it will give you few to non practice. Either way (if you finish the product) you should have enough exp to raise the skill to the next level.
Mining/Harvesting:
- to begin with look for a safe spot to dig harvest: there are many and even when dangerous NPCs are nearby they are usually programmed not to roam outside their given hunting field
- look for the "hot spot": the nearest you are to the field center the higher your chances to get the reward
- every field has a difficulty set, when your skill reaches past the point it's over the given diffculty you'll get less practice (or better get get the normal practice as you get a bonus each when your skill is lower than the difficulty)
- best way to gain tria is digging/mining until your inventory is full, don't run forth and back just to train!
On travels between cities:
- follow the track, it's safe from wandering monsters
- when you're spotted by a monster he turns to face you: get away from it and you won't be hurt.
- it you don't watch where you go you run the risk of running past a field full of ulbernauts: it's your fault!
Now I admit the case can be made that NPCs are too hard to fight currently.
Really, is that for real?
I keep hearing from a lot of people NPCs are too easy to fight, others complain the opposite
Mobs stats are the same since ages, the only thing that changed lately is their AI, I agree it can make things more challenging but well it was the purpose afterall
We have some problem in the lower end of the mobs' range of challenges because there is some power 'gap' that make it difficult for new players to find challenges that are not too hard for them but it's been like that since ages.
