Is "Sweat Gathering" an ornamental skill?

[cortega26]

This question is directly related to 2 other questions?

1.- Can you get more than 22 bottles at once at some point?
Not that I know.

2.- Does the chance of getting a succesful pull (sweat of course) increase with the skill?
well, only rank 2 so don't really now but I'm guessing the rank/level doesn't affect either.

If anyone know better please enlighten me, thanks in advance.

PS: I know I gain Evade, Combat Reflexes, Athetlics, Courage, Alertness, Intelligence, Agility and even Psyche by gathering so just wondering about the "sweat gathering" itself.

 

[GoNi]

Headline Question: YES

Question1: No

Question2: No

 

[GoNi]

PS: I know I gain Evade, Combat Reflexes, Athetlics, Courage, Alertness, Intelligence, Agility and even Psyche by gathering so just wondering about the "sweat gathering" itself.

This skills you gain while sweating, really influence the amount of sweat / hour.

Why?

Higher Evade aso. results in less hits.
Less hits = Less interceptions of concentration
Less hits = Less revive, less running from revive to the mob

 

[Morella]

Um I think question 2 is yes. I sweat with a guy who has 1200ish SG and I have 450ish. He gets a success more often than me. Evade would have nothing to do with it since we usually get in the same number of attempts. Sometimes we sweat with another guy who has 70ish SG and he gets less successes than both of us. I know how often we each get sweat because we post the successes so we know when to kill the mob.

Unless you are telling me that Intelligence, Psyche or something affects the chance of getting a success.


cortega26: btw higher agility is an advantage in addition to evade if you sweat in the wilderness and use what I call the drag sweat technique. Basically you sweat a mob till it attacks then run. When the mob gets just before the edge of the inner circle on the radar, you stop charge up then start a pull. Then run. Then wait till the mob gets to the edge of the inner circle... Just don't do this close enough to other people or the mob might attack them. They will be mad at you, your mob will be dying and you'll have to find another.

 

[Loafers]

This question is directly related to 2 other questions?

1.- Can you get more than 22 bottles at once at some point?
Not that I know.

2.- Does the chance of getting a succesful pull (sweat of course) increase with the skill?
well, only rank 2 so don't really now but I'm guessing the rank/level doesn't affect either.

If anyone know better please enlighten me, thanks in advance.

PS: I know I gain Evade, Combat Reflexes, Athetlics, Courage, Alertness, Intelligence, Agility and even Psyche by gathering so just wondering about the "sweat gathering" itself.

Hello Cortega26,

You might want to PM Mega on the forums or ask him in game at Swamp Camp (Mega MegaVolt Volt) he has 3,100 Sweat Gathering Skills and can answer any questions you have.

 

[Mischief]

This question is directly related to 2 other questions?

1.- Can you get more than 22 bottles at once at some point?
Not that I know.

2.- Does the chance of getting a succesful pull (sweat of course) increase with the skill?
well, only rank 2 so don't really now but I'm guessing the rank/level doesn't affect either.

If anyone know better please enlighten me, thanks in advance.

PS: I know I gain Evade, Combat Reflexes, Athetlics, Courage, Alertness, Intelligence, Agility and even Psyche by gathering so just wondering about the "sweat gathering" itself.

Answers:

1. No
2. Increasing skills in Sweat gathering gives you more sweat per successful attempt, that's it.

Steve Mischief

 

[Midori Fairlona]

2. Increasing skills in Sweat gathering gives you more sweat per successful attempt, that's it.

That is an oft disputed supposition. All the test results I have seen were inconclusive in this matter. It is possible that the sweat gathering skill or profession give more sweat on average per successful attempt as they increase, but it is equally likely that they do not.

 

[Immortal]

For the record, it takes me about 10-15 minutes to sweat a trox. They hold 200+sweat, and Iget a hit 1/5. noob sweater.

 

[Coop_]

That is an oft disputed supposition. All the test results I have seen were inconclusive in this matter. It is possible that the sweat gathering skill or profession give more sweat on average per successful attempt as they increase, but it is equally likely that they do not.

At well past 3K SG skill, I'd say its much more likely that sweat skill is completely ornamental, and (at least past some very low amount) makes no difference in sweat gathering ability.

 

[cortega26]

Sometimes I make around 200 sweat/hour and sometimes I can make 400, so I don't think there's an easy way to know for sure about the amount per time period related to the SG skill unless someone tells "once reach x skill you won't ever get 2 bottles per sweat but a mininum of 3 or 4" but even in that case that would be measly contribution to amount per hour (changing all "2" per "3"). It's a known fact (to the best of my knowledge) that the max amount you can get at once is 22, so the only way that having more SG skills would help could be increasing the "minimun".

If SG (say amount per hour) isn't affected by SG skill, MA is misleading ppl by creating a "useless" skill, in that case they should eliminate SG skill and make it work just like (for instance) oil refining: no skill needed, no skill gained. Why would you have a skill that doesn't affect your avatar in anyway?. It's frustrating.

 

[Immortal]

Sometimes I make around 200 sweat/hour and sometimes I can make 400

I thought *I* was lousy. Guess it has something to do with a focus chip, health and armor too.

Taking this as average 250 sweat per hour *8 hrs a day =2k sweat. 10PEd (seriously... people sell for this low ) per day. the scorpius i use takes 1.5 secs to reload, and burns 20 ammo.= 12.5mins of use :\


WAit... that's just like real life

 

[Midori Fairlona]

If SG (say amount per hour) isn't affected by SG skill, MA is misleading ppl by creating a "useless" skill, in that case they should eliminate SG skill and make it work just like (for instance) oil refining: no skill needed, no skill gained. Why would you have a skill that doesn't affect your avatar in anyway?. It's frustrating.

Most people believe sweat gathering is now a redundant skill. It did serve a purpose back before July 2006 when there was a cap on how much people could sweat. After a certain level of sweat related skills were obtained the system simply stopped you from gaining more sweat.

I am not sure if there was an official reason why the cap was removed, but it is speculated that the intention was to reduce the number of duplicate avatar creations from people trying to avoid the cap.

In any case, when the sweat gathering activity was first coded by MA, there was never any intention for someone to get past 200 in the sweat gathering skill, so it is unlikely that they spent any time coding in any surprises for someone above that level. They may have done some extra coding when the cap was removed, or even afterward, but from MA's track record I doubt they would have spent much time developing improvements for a profession that does not earn them any money.

That doesn't mean that sweat gathering skill will not be useful in the future, but again I think they will concentrate on other priorities before making changes to the sweat system in the near future.

 

[ALEXANDER]

2.- Does the chance of getting a succesful pull (sweat of course) increase with the skill?
well, only rank 2 so don't really now but I'm guessing the rank/level doesn't affect either.


YES

I just compared my self with a new noob... both focused and protected.... I get much more sweat then he does... so i think it is a little skill dependent

 

[Immortal]

new noob...

Nice to see you identify yourself as not a new noob

 

[cortega26]

Nice to see you identify yourself as not a new noob

I'm an "old noob" ... hahaha

 

[cortega26]

Most people believe sweat gathering is now a redundant skill. It did serve a purpose back before July 2006 when there was a cap on how much people could sweat. After a certain level of sweat related skills were obtained the system simply stopped you from gaining more sweat.

I am not sure if there was an official reason why the cap was removed, but it is speculated that the intention was to reduce the number of duplicate avatar creations from people trying to avoid the cap.

In any case, when the sweat gathering activity was first coded by MA, there was never any intention for someone to get past 200 in the sweat gathering skill, so it is unlikely that they spent any time coding in any surprises for someone above that level. They may have done some extra coding when the cap was removed, or even afterward, but from MA's track record I doubt they would have spent much time developing improvements for a profession that does not earn them any money.

That doesn't mean that sweat gathering skill will not be useful in the future, but again I think they will concentrate on other priorities before making changes to the sweat system in the near future.

If they removed (which they did) the cap it is a logical reasoning that allowing ppl to gain more SG skill IS for a reason (other than the fact that I can see a number going up), I mean, otherwise why remove it?. The fact that some ppl may used (if so) to use duplicated accounts doesn't sound feasible, it's much easier to ban/delete those accounts (I think it's a EULA violation to have duplicated accounts anyway) for trying to cheat the game using multiple accounts and/or avoiding it restrictions.

I'm not pretending to get 22 sweats on every pull but I'd expect to see an improve in my perfomance (call it a higher % of succesful attempts or a higher amount per pull) as I gain skill points on SG. IMO that's the way it should be.

 

[jjmatrix]

If they removed (which they did) the cap it is a logical reasoning that allowing ppl to gain more SG skill IS for a reason (other than the fact that I can see a number going up)...

Exactly right!! There is no other reason than getting a feeling that at least something goes up!

 

[Xerces]

Exactly right!! There is no other reason than getting a feeling that at least something goes up!

Possibly incorrect!! One reason for MA to remove the sweat cap could be to avoid being classified as gambling by autiorities. As long as one can earn their way in the game for free they cannot be classified as gambling because no money is contributed. With the cap in place, players were forced to trade or deposit to earn PED.

 

[Midori Fairlona]

If they removed (which they did) the cap it is a logical reasoning that allowing ppl to gain more SG skill IS for a reason (other than the fact that I can see a number going up),

Logic and MindArk are not often used together in the same sentence. They have their own reasons for what they do, but you will soon find that it does not usually follow the common "logic" of the average player base.

I mean, otherwise why remove it?.

The removal of the cap is to allow people to gain more sweat if they choose. The gain in sweat gathering skill is just a side effect of being allowed to acquire more sweat.

The fact that some ppl may used (if so) to use duplicated accounts doesn't sound feasible, it's much easier to ban/delete those accounts (I think it's a EULA violation to have duplicated accounts anyway) for trying to cheat the game using multiple accounts and/or avoiding it restrictions.

For much of its existence, MindArk have had about 40 staff to manage the company, design and code new VUs, fix bugs and act as the support department for however many thousands of people are using Entropia in any given time period. If they faced a choice between maintaining an arbitrary cap that causes a number of individuals to create multiple accounts in the quest for free money and an option to remove the cap that is causing these problems, which do you think they would choose? I doubt they would see the tracking and banning of multiple sweat-accounts as a good use of their scarce resources when the problem can be sidestepped so easily.

Besides, as I said in my other post, as far as I am aware this is only a supposition raised by other forum members since the sweat cap was removed. I do not know if there was ever an official reason cited by MA for the removal.

I'm not pretending to get 22 sweats on every pull but I'd expect to see an improve in my perfomance (call it a higher % of succesful attempts or a higher amount per pull) as I gain skill points on SG.

A lot of people expect to see that, but it doesn't change the fact that it doesn't happen. There are a number of stories that people come up with to justify why the sweat skill does or does not have any effect, though I have yet to read one that is statistically or scientifically valid.

If someone sees something occur five times and calls it a pattern, I would ask them what they would call the thousand times that it didn't happen.

There is no evidence that the sweat gathering skill has any effect on the amount of sweat you are able to obtain.

IMO that's the way it should be.

Good for you, but I thought your intention in this thread was to clarify how things are, not how they should be? If you still want the sweat gathering skill to have an effect, you may wish to post a thread in the Wish List sub-forum or submit a support case to MA.

 

[Coop_]

2.- Does the chance of getting a succesful pull (sweat of course) increase with the skill?
well, only rank 2 so don't really now but I'm guessing the rank/level doesn't affect either.


YES

I just compared my self with a new noob... both focused and protected.... I get much more sweat then he does... so i think it is a little skill dependent

I hope you sweated for many hours that way, because sweat production is so variable that just a few hours would tell you nothing.

One of the MA guides once said that SG skill does make a difference. For sure the 500 - 3,000 range makes no difference, but possibly a "new noob" is at a disadvantage until they reach 100 or so. Or quite possibly the guide was just misinformed. What was the old sweat cap placed at?

 

[Midori Fairlona]

What was the old sweat cap placed at?

It varied from person to person depending on the amount of their general skills, so in hindsight it was probably based on the Sweat Gatherer profession that we couldn't see at the time.

If I recall correctly, the cap usually occurred somewhere between 100 and 200 sweat gatherer skill points (or levels as they were referred to at the time of the cap).

 

[Morella]

In any case, when the sweat gathering activity was first coded by MA, there was never any intention for someone to get past 200 in the sweat gathering skill, so it is unlikely that they spent any time coding in any surprises for someone above that level. They may have done some extra coding when...

This I could see. I regularly sweat with two other guys. The 3 SG are 1200, 450, 70. There isn't a huge different between 1200 and 450. And it's likely the supposed difference isn't above a margin of error. However there is a difference between the 1200/450 and the 70. I am quite sure of this. I haven't done a test, but I haven't seen it not happen.

Has anyone done a test on this?

 

[Wody]

Everything I have seen is that there is no difference at all, between any number whatsoever. The differences come in getting attacked more (less evade) and so getting killed more often, and also, from the standard luck/no luck cycle. That is why it is useless to compare two people at a specific time, to do a proper test, you should both sweat a significant amount at the same times and places and mobs, and during an extended time, say a month or two.

 

[Jimmy B]

The simplest way to test this would be to get someone like Akbar (or I think someone mentioned Mega?) and record their successes (and amounts) and failures. Then get someone with low sweat gathering profession (not necessarily noob, just low SG) and repeat (on same mob type and maturity).

Akbar has done a lot of studying related to Sweat so he may already have some of the answers, I don't know.

 

[Coop_]

The simplest way to test this would be to get someone like Akbar (or I think someone mentioned Mega?) and record their successes (and amounts) and failures. Then get someone with low sweat gathering profession (not necessarily noob, just low SG) and repeat (on same mob type and maturity).

Akbar has done a lot of studying related to Sweat so he may already have some of the answers, I don't know.

Really, you just need a brand noob (and I would guess that skills like courage would put an otherwise skilled player at too high SG Profession). For anyone above 200 SG its just 20% success, average pull around 12.

 

[KP708]

The simplest way to test this would be to get someone like Akbar (or I think someone mentioned Mega?) and record their successes (and amounts) and failures. Then get someone with low sweat gathering profession (not necessarily noob, just low SG) and repeat (on same mob type and maturity).

Akbar has done a lot of studying related to Sweat so he may already have some of the answers, I don't know.

There are acually 2 tests to do here:

1. Get Ms High SG and Mr Newbie SG to sweat separately on the same mob type/maturity over several hour long periods, and compare success rates

2. Get Ms High SG and Mr Newbie SG to sweat at the same time on the same mob, over several hour long periods, and compare success rates

Non-scientific observation in the past when I was sweating with someone who had twice my SG suggested that in case 2, the lower SG person got less success. ie there was a competition element when 2 ppl sweated the same mob at the same time. (I don't mean the same mob type and maturity I mean actually the same mob)

I wanted to test this, but it never happened for various reasons. I'm not saying I believe this is true, just that it's another theory and maybe worth testing. Perhaps I'll get back to it when I have managed to loot some pixie feet :S

 

[Coop_]

There are acually 2 tests to do here:

1. Get Ms High SG and Mr Newbie SG to sweat separately on the same mob type/maturity over several hour long periods, and compare success rates

2. Get Ms High SG and Mr Newbie SG to sweat at the same time on the same mob, over several hour long periods, and compare success rates

Non-scientific observation in the past when I was sweating with someone who had twice my SG suggested that in case 2, the lower SG person got less success. ie there was a competition element when 2 ppl sweated the same mob at the same time. (I don't mean the same mob type and maturity I mean actually the same mob)

I wanted to test this, but it never happened for various reasons. I'm not saying I believe this is true, just that it's another theory and maybe worth testing. Perhaps I'll get back to it when I have managed to loot some pixie feet :S

Akbar and I have several times sweated the same mob and compared output for the same amount of time. Oddly, the lower SG skill usually won out. Granted it wasn't a huge difference in SG, but it was often significantly less sweat by the higher SG skill.

And I'd be happy to hook you up with some pixie feet. Just PM me ingame

 

[Mega]

I "raced" Danielle twice. Timed over 1 hour she was on big Snables (CND) and I was on Exos/Daik

I won the first hour.

She won the second hour.


Not very scientific i know.

 

[KP708]

Akbar and I have several times sweated the same mob and compared output for the same amount of time. Oddly, the lower SG skill usually won out. Granted it wasn't a huge difference in SG, but it was often significantly less sweat by the higher SG skill.

But this might just mean one of you was consistently quicker with pressing the sweat key. You really need to compare success rate (ie successes per attempt) to eliminate other factors. I know this is an obvious point which you would have seen already - not trying to teach my granny to suck eggs here

And I'd be happy to hook you up with some pixie feet. Just PM me ingame

Thanks - I had considered PMing you already, and I've had a few offers from other ppl too. But it's not that I need them for wearing, though I might wear them from time to time - I actually want to loot them. Quite a different target, and one which is currently turning into something of an obsession. :S

 

[Coop_]

But this might just mean one of you was consistently quicker with pressing the sweat key. You really need to compare success rate (ie successes per attempt) to eliminate other factors. I know this is an obvious point which you would have seen already - not trying to teach my granny to suck eggs here

Could be, though my guess is that we are both quite adept at perfectly timing the sweat cycle

Thanks - I had considered PMing you already, and I've had a few offers from other ppl too. But it's not that I need them for wearing, though I might wear them from time to time - I actually want to loot them. Quite a different target, and one which is currently turning into something of an obsession. :S

He he, once I wanted to loot an M pixie thigh to complete a full set to sell. Killed snables till I couldn't stand the sight of them anymore. Nothing.

So I decided that looting them from auction at a good price was just as satisfying