Imbue Nerf Announced

[Ekcin 2,404]

I do not know what "balancing" imbues are needing, sounds like a larger nerf, and a following "soon redesign" like with priest links. 

 

But obviously recent bloods are about to be turned defunct:

I am not sure what the fuss is about. Wanting to kill public slayings? Annoyed that people show up there with their premium paying alts?

 

And, as always, no discussion, no testing on the test server before implementation. Do they never learn?

Edited September 24, 2020 by Ekcin
typo

[wipeout 1,355]

They havent learned in the last few years what makes you think they will suddenly start now?

[Ekcin 2,404]

Well, let us be just. There is an outstanding example that the team can do better where it deserves praise, namely the new UI. Especially when taking in account that it was announced, coded, tested, and implemented under tremendous pressure of the steam launch, it was a role model how to do major changes.

 

First, it was announced and shown in official streams and announcements. Then, a test version was released, first on the test server, then live. All time, feedback was collected. Some changes took longer, many fixes were done in no time. Such conduct is likely to spread trust in the team and confidence in the future, even if some issues were handled bit more slowly, like the combat stances.

 

Ninja nerfs and "balancing" threats out of the blue are a fallback to the vices of the past.

 

My questions are:

 

Why do imbues need balancing at all?

Why do they have to be taken away from unique slayings?

 

Blood has been the loot every premium character in local equally received. It is the foremost motive why many players travel to public unique slayings, especially those of non dragons/drakes. And public slayings are always a pleasant community event strengthening the cohesion of the long term player community. The premium alts are without doubt a financial gain for the company. Why the damn "fixing" the unbroken?

Edited September 24, 2020 by Ekcin
add

[wipeout 1,355]

43 minutes ago, Ekcin said:

First, it was announced and shown in official streams and announcements. Then, a test version was released, first on the test server, then live. All time, feedback was collected. Some changes took longer, many fixes were done in no time. Such conduct is likely to spread trust in the team and confidence in the future, even if some issues were handled bit more slowly, like the combat stances.

All the while back peddling from "ui overhaul that promises to change the game for the better and away from as much right clicking as possible" to a simple "ui reskin with a few new features" yes they where open and transparent and involved the community like they promised before they would do which was good on them for doing that

Sometimes they do the right thing but so often they do the right thing only once and then fall back to doing their usual shenanigans because "its what we are used to" because well humans are creatures of habit and bad habits are hard to break and stop 

I just think that the devs have this feeling that "we have no clue what new feature to add but the people are expecting new features so we have to do something so lets go do random stuff" which again leads to what i talked about in the other topic posted by staff that they lack a creative direction a clear understanding of what they want to add to the game(which has been clear for a long time) the current devs would work so much better if there was someone with the creative vision of what wurm is and could become was there to provide them with idea's and throw those idea's out there for the community to see what the vision of the team is and see if that vision fits with the game as seen by the players

Poe does this really well with their rotating content where "expansions" are handled as timed events(leagues) and if a mechanic is seen as great it gets added to the base game if its seen as ###### its a maybe or a firm no
An example of this was the recent harvest league this was straight up not directly added to the game because it was more over an experiment to see if such content would work in the game and it showed they needed to make changes before letting it be part of it
But the league before that delirium its content became part of the base game because it did fit with the style of the game

And this is why jackal would be perfect you run your 3-6 month long "event server" where you throw content onto like the favor change and other mechanical changes for people to play on at an accelerated pace and get some kickback returns onto their mains(the points and a tiny bit better skill gain) and people just get to try out the new features and let these event servers run once or twice a year and aim to release the new content on those servers first and run a poll midway through that asks the question of "did you enjoy this mechanic" for every mechanic that was added and it can become clear what will and wont work with normal wurm

That way they get to test "controversial" changes to features we all take for granted and they get to mess with them and tweak them and push those content updates to normal wurm at the end of it while being able to still provide other content updates to both normal and event type

Sure its more work but it provides a proving grounds for quick rolling out of features that is beneficial for the game because 1 your given a challenge a timed event with a certain goal in mind while also having a place to test out new features on and in time such a event server can have its core feature swapped out for other content

It is pretty much what they have now with chaos and defiance where defiance has the raiding mechanic and chaos has not its a great way to test if its a great thing to have or not

[Shmeric 581]

4 hours ago, wipeout said:

And this is why jackal would be perfect you run your 3-6 month long "event server" where you throw content onto like the favor change and other mechanical changes for people to play on at an accelerated pace and get some kickback returns onto their mains(the points and a tiny bit better skill gain) and people just get to try out the new features and let these event servers run once or twice a year and aim to release the new content on those servers first and run a poll midway through that asks the question of "did you enjoy this mechanic" for every mechanic that was added and it can become clear what will and wont work with normal wurm

 

I agree with this. Would be a great way to public test major mechanics changes and new features, without dangering the ever continuous Wurm life where "fairly reimbursing everyone after things gone wrong" is close to impossible

[Retrograde 12,013]

Given the status is "not being introduced pending rebalance" 

 

This doesn't mean they are being taken away, this doesn't mean it's being pushed out with no testing or information. 

 

5 hours ago, Ekcin said:

Why do imbues need balancing at all?

It's clear that several of them are significantly overpowered, allowing someone of 70ish skill to obtain 100ql results reliably, which means that it scales far too high. It's easy to see that as a problem, but working out a viable solution takes longer and will no doubt be something long discussed

 

NO DECISIONS HAVE BEEN MADE AT THIS POINT

 

5 hours ago, Ekcin said:

Why do they have to be taken away from unique slayings?

 

I don't think this has been mentioned anywhere. Samool has stated they will drop from legendary creatures, but the potions cannot be crafted on the NFI until any balances are in. 

 

5 hours ago, Ekcin said:

First, it was announced and shown in official streams and announcements. Then, a test version was released, first on the test server, then live. All time, feedback was collected. Some changes took longer, many fixes were done in no time. Such conduct is likely to spread trust in the team and confidence in the future, even if some issues were handled bit more slowly, like the combat stances.

 

Ninja nerfs and "balancing" threats out of the blue are a fallback to the vices of the past.

Just like the UI this is our first mention of our plans to work with it. 

 

4 hours ago, wipeout said:

And this is why jackal would be perfect you run your 3-6 month long "event server" where you throw content onto like the favor change and other mechanical changes for people to play on at an accelerated pace and get some kickback returns onto their mains(the points and a tiny bit better skill gain) and people just get to try out the new features and let these event servers run once or twice a year and aim to release the new content on those servers first and run a poll midway through that asks the question of "did you enjoy this mechanic" for every mechanic that was added and it can become clear what will and wont work with normal wurm

The issue with this is it's a LOT of work for a small team, and means only content for the main game every 3-6 months, or longer. 

 

It works for PoE due to the scale of the game and it's their major draw (no one plays regular league). 

 

 

[Oblivionnreaver 5,174]

are you going to fix imping imbues being completely useless

[wipeout 1,355]

25 minutes ago, Retrograde said:

The issue with this is it's a LOT of work for a small team, and means only content for the main game every 3-6 months, or longer. 

 

It works for PoE due to the scale of the game and it's their major draw (no one plays regular league). 

 

 

And for a old game like wurm having a content update that adds new features every 3-6 months is a lot better if those features are tested properly then rushing to implement something leading to a buggy mess requiring multiple restarts over multiple days to fix newly introduced bugs and multiple balance tweaks

But again im not talking about "run a event server for 3 months every 3 months and start a new one straight off the bat" im talking about create the content and when its ready to be tested and flushed out and finalized get a few other projects to that point and then bring them all out together on such a server that runs for a 3 month or 6 month duration where everything gets tested out on and fully fledged out and it gives the perfect chance for players to make their place enjoy the event and try out the new features that are planned to be added its why im for a 6 month cycle where new features have a year the time basically to be fully flushed out with a 6 month running 6 month not running cycle

After all imagine a proper content update to wurm that happens once a year or twice a year that adds in a whole slew of properly tested features that make almost everyone happy
1 you can have set release times that everyone will know "around this time is the expected launch of these features we have been able to play with on jackal i cant wait"
2 it gives the devs either 6 months or 12 months the time to work on and fully finish and bug fix new features(bug fixes to existing contents will of course still happen at all times) and release them properly
3 it gives people ample time to voice their opinion after testing a idea that might seem controversial

That does not require a big team it requires a shift in how content is released and a polishing of existing workflows to strive for developers to properly work on assigned projects vs "oh il do a bit here il do a bit there" and 9 months go by and they go "oh ###### i forgot to work on this" like has happened in the way back past a few times to a few devs(as you do as we all do it) but no one was there to remind them of those projects
It requires there to be some oversight to try and keep projects on task by keeping track of project progression to see if said project can be added to the next run of said event server hence why the 6 month on 6 month off cycle
With a 6 on 6 off cycle (or some other combination like 6,3 or 3,3) there is a 12 month cycle where devs can work on a project before it gets released 6 months in private and if said project is ready it gets added then over the next 6 months its worked on if needed to fix bugs flush out the idea more and such with a weekly update(no random downtimes to add 1-2 parts of the future) where new parts of said idea are added if needed and once said project is done and working fine they can focus on other projects that are currently going on or start new ones

That is the design idea behind poe's style of running their league system diablo 3 does this too and they have a small team that is shrinking with the month to keep adding new content(new sets get released every 2-3 seasons) and make changes and what not its just a different way of releasing content that works for smaller teams better then sporadic releases of small tiny updates that just annoy players as a lot of indie games out there that are small in playerbase because well features that break the game or slow updates so people quit struggle with this there is no structure no rime no reason to when features come out 

Sure both ways work but releasing content at set intervals with some form of public testing(be it a dedicated test server or an event server doesnt matter) to flush out bugs that can be overlooked or weird interactions you didnt catch or player outrage because "feature x ruins feature z's ability to be proper" or what ever else is minimized to it not affecting your core players your main permanent worlds

Yes it is a shift that can seem daunting but having a semi set release schedule of yearly or twice a year content updates for a old game is a lot better then once a month or once every few weeks small minor random stuff or when ever it rains suddenly content comes flooding down out of the sky

After all it gives you guys more time to work on projects it puts players at ease as it makes people know when to expect content and it gives you guys ample time to prepare and hype up the new features leading to happier people and thus maybe more players

But hey thats just an idea that i see a lot of companies who are doing long term support for products shift their focus too with rapid releases of content patches and bug fixes first (be it programs or games) and longer existing programs getting less frequent updates but more features per update so its worth sharing as to me it seems like it could do you guys some good to have this kinda way of releasing content but thats just me and what research i do into how companies are behaving so wanted to share it atleast as hey it might be useful

[Martynas5 435]

Are you going to add tailoring imbue for loom? atm it's lot better just to make cordages compared to squares ( maybe it's intended idk )

 

Imbues on imping tools are going to change or not?

[Beanbag 239]

It's neat to see how many software developers and publishers play wurm

[warrior 455]

Imbues are OP, basically don't need to work past 70 in any skill that has imbues available.

Good to see it's being looked at.

[Ekcin 2,404]

19 hours ago, Retrograde said:

  On 9/24/2020 at 7:13 AM, Ekcin said:

Why do they have to be taken away from unique slayings?

19 hours ago, Retrograde said:

Given the status is "not being introduced pending rebalance"  This doesn't mean they are being taken away, this doesn't mean it's being pushed out with no testing or information. 

Ok that sounds better than the announcement let fear.

 

Quote

It's clear that several of them are significantly overpowered, allowing someone of 70ish skill to obtain 100ql results reliably, which means that it scales far too high. It's easy to see that as a problem, but working out a viable solution takes longer and will no doubt be something long discussed

NO DECISIONS HAVE BEEN MADE AT THIS POINT

Ok, thanks so far. From practical use, I closely know mining imbues only, and those do not give anybody with 70 skill the ability to e.g. mine 100ql from any vein, not even a ql 99 one.

 

Quote

I don't think this has been mentioned anywhere. Samool has stated they will drop from legendary creatures, but the potions cannot be crafted on the NFI until any balances are in. 

Quoting Samool:

Quote

The bloods currently drop from the uniques, but are unable to be used in creation of the imbues until the changes are in.

If this means "in NFI only", this may be the case. Does it mean that creation of imbues from existing bloods in South Freedom is not affected right now? Or is imbue creation blocked everywhere until the changes are on? Of course, if imbue power is nerfed for some or all bloods in the future, this will affect SFI too. And further on, will blood continue to drop from uniques, or is that mechanism about to be "balanced" as well?

 

Edited September 25, 2020 by Ekcin
addendum

[Retrograde 12,013]

Creation is blocked in nfi only. 

 

There has been no mention of changing how it drops from legendary creatures. 

 

A balance would apply to all servers however, but they continue to operate as usual in sfi 

[Raamkozijn 201]

An imbue rebalance is long overdue, to the point where after years time people assumed this ridiculous power is intended - with no dev comment ever implying otherwise in the past - and people made it part of their endgame Wurm experience/preparation. Some people make sure to always have thousands of high QL items in stock, while some of us keep veins around to mine from as needed, as the stupidly broken power of imbues were in the game for many years without much needed rebalancing. Over 5 years now.  It seemed fairly safe to assume it was considered intended in its power.

 

Now it looks like I'll have to take a break from my break, prem up, and start hoarding as many 100QL ores/lumps as possible in as little time possible in case the rebalancing makes high QL effects as meager as the rarity system does for gathering tools. After all, rarity system was made to give severely reduced effectiveness at >90QL and practically no effect at >98QL as it was deemed brokenly powerful otherwise.

 

I selfishly hope the rebalancing won't happen in the next 5ish weeks so I can get some RL stuff done and then spend  a whole month doing nothing but mine and cut trees before inevitably extending my break from the likely burnout it'll cause.

I'm aware this is FOMO (fear of missing out), but seeing how windows of opportunity can make a significant difference in availability of items, better safe than sorry. Hopefully the changes turn out to  be quite alright and the following month is me being silly.

 

I think the fact it took over 5 long years before a sudden "oh my, it's too strong, let's 'fix' it!" dev message appeared, that has most people respond with such dislike.

 

In case suggestions are already being gathered:

As being able to mine max QL ores at like 82 skill or so is a big issue, it could perhaps be changed to increase the max QL you can mine by up to a few QL (to offset the lack of 100QL and rarity of 97-99QL capped veins), and have the effective QL cap shift be affected by mining skill. For example at [100] power imbue, you could mine vein QL +10 (73QL capped vein gives max 83QL ores),  or mining skill + 3, whichever is lowest.

May require tweaking of course, but this would still require 97 mining to get a shot at 100QL ores, and alleviate the pain of vein QL caps without outright removing those caps altogether. And being able to mine 90QL ores at 87 mining seems more reasonable than current 82ish skill for 100QL (iirc).

 

And I, too, would love to see some love for the imbues that don't deal with resource gathering.

 

-Edit-

I was reminded of the fact that "+10%" runes exist. This makes the impact of even severe imbue changes less painful, though honestly I wouldn't be surprised if they'd change that as well. 10% at base 91QL would still be 100QL,  after all.

Edited September 25, 2020 by Raamkozijn

[RainRain 591]

The damage has been done in sfi and theres zero resson to balance it there; its probably only going to be given the changes since they need to patch out all servers, but its p clear they dont want that stuff in nfi.

 

Not sure if its news to you but im assuming the devs are trying to take their chance with NFI much more delicately with all the rebalances and changes and slowed introduction if new content specifically as to not repeat how broken it was in the past.

 

though it doesn’t really help the argument that the old servers dont matter that much anymore heh

Edited September 27, 2020 by Retrograde
Really hoping that was a typo!

[Ekcin 2,404]

To add a few fact to the speculations about power of imbues:

I just am mining a bit for an incoming impalong, working on a ql64 gold vein in my mine. My mining skill atm is 95.66, I am using a rare steel pickaxe with 84 imbue and gathering rune of Libila (+10%ql). Max ql pulled is 84.76 (nice result indeed), with a rare pick with gathering rune only it is 71.90 . Average ql pulled (over 500 ore) is 65.16 , share of max ql is 26% , minimum ql pulled 2.60 (holy rng).

 

In result: Imbue effect is certainly impressive, but still I fail to see the ease of  a skill 70 character to pull ql100. With my pick (not a bad one after all, "only" ql 92 would be possible, maybe ql100 could barely be reached with 100 imbue, yet from my experience the percentage of those would be significantly below the 26% I yielded. For other imbued tools without gathering rune effective, reaching ql 100 would most certainly be impossible.

 

If nerfs are imposed, I shall not be happy, but they should at least be founded on facts, not FUD and rumour.

[Retrograde 12,013]

What quality is your pickaxe? 

[Ekcin 2,404]

91.24 (been lazy on imping lately)

Edited September 27, 2020 by Ekcin

[warrior 455]

I mean 20ql over maximum vein ql and you're saying that's not OP?

You're mining the most difficult ore and getting 65ql average off of a 64ql vein???

 

I think if anything you're just showing them our OP imbues are lol

 

Would be cool if imbue just increases the max ql of a vein but doesn't go above your mining skill.

Edited September 27, 2020 by warrior

[Ekcin 2,404]

Obviously you have no clue about mining. There were 3 factors contributing to the quality increase: 1. rarity, 2. gathering rune, 3. imbue . And your aspersion just show that you have nothing to contribute. Stop trolling.

[RainRain 591]

Considering it's gold, feels pretty busted to be yanking lumps 20ql above. Do it on an iron vein next, as it's actually a material that matters and doesn't have such a huge difficulty to mine it top quality.

[wipeout 1,355]

Is it really such a big issue to have the ability to mine a ql 100 ore out of a vein of 68ql or higher? its not like its game breaking uber op or anything like that not having such an imbue or rune for that matter means mining skill+1/2/3 depending on rarity as your max with average being around vein ql which would result in a depletion of ql 100 ore in no time for players(not even talking about the market itself) and for smiths who want to imp to ql 95 or past using ql 100 makes the job quite a bit easier then say using 95 or something like that
Below is part of the code of how imbue interacts with mining so figure out what you want from it
 

if (createItem == false) return done;
            try {
                imbueEnhancement = 1.0 + 0.23047 * (double)source.getSkillSpellImprovement(1008) / 100.0;
                if (mining.getKnowledge(0.0) * imbueEnhancement < power) {
                    power = mining.getKnowledge(0.0) * imbueEnhancement;
                }
                CaveWallBehaviour.r.setSeed((long)(tilex + tiley * Zones.worldTileSizeY) * 789221L);
                m = TileRockBehaviour.MAX_QL;
                if (normal || itemTemplateCreated == 38) {
                    m = 100;
                }
                max = (int)Math.min((double)m, (double)((double)(20 + CaveWallBehaviour.r.nextInt(80)) * imbueEnhancement));
                if (state == -1) {
                    max = 99;
                }
                power = Math.min((double)power, (double)max);
                if (source.isCrude()) {
                    power = 1.0;
                }
                modifier = 1.0f;
                if (source.getSpellEffects() != null) {
                    modifier *= source.getSpellEffects().getRuneEffect(RuneUtilities.ModifierEffect.ENCH_RESGATHERED);
                }
                orePower = GeneralUtilities.calcOreRareQuality(power * (double)modifier, act.getRarity(), source.getRarity());
                newItem = ItemFactory.createItem(itemTemplateCreated, orePower, act.getRarity(), null);
                if (itemTemplateCreated == 39) {
                    performer.achievement(372);
                }
                newItem.setLastOwnerId(performer.getWurmId());
                newItem.setDataXY(tilex, tiley);
                newItem.putItemInfrontof(performer, 0.0f);
                performer.getCommunicator().sendNormalServerMessage("You mine some " + newItem.getName() + ".");
                Server.getInstance().broadCastAction(performer.getName() + " mines some " + newItem.getName() + ".", performer, 5);
                TileRockBehaviour.createGem(tilex, tiley, digTilex, digTiley, performer, power, false, act);
                if (performer.getDeity() == null) return done;
                if (performer.getDeity().number != 2) return done;
                performer.maybeModifyAlignment(0.5f);
                return done;
            }

And here is the part of how it interacts with imping

                        float imbueEnhancement = 1.0f + source.getSkillSpellImprovement(skillNum) / 100.0f;
                        double improveBonus = 0.23047 * (double)imbueEnhancement * (double)runeModifier;
                        float improveItemBonus = ItemBonus.getImproveSkillMaxBonus(performer);
                        double max = improve.getKnowledge(0.0) * (double)improveItemBonus + (100.0 - improve.getKnowledge(0.0) * (double)improveItemBonus) * improveBonus;
                        double diff = Math.max((double)0.0, (double)(max - (double)target.getQualityLevel()));
                        float skillgainMod = 1.0f;
                        if (diff <= 0.0) {
                            skillgainMod = 2.0f;
                        }

Now i can list more but meh it isnt needed i think anyway i just wonder why people find it so op in the first place to me its just a normal part of the game that is a nice to have and really doesnt need to be messed with from its current setup its just 1 of those end game things that is nice to get like a trim on your armor in rs except here its a bit more useful

[RainRain 591]

24 minutes ago, wipeout said:

Is it really such a big issue to have the ability to mine a ql 100 ore out of a vein of 68ql or higher? its not like its game breaking uber op or anything like that not having such an imbue or rune for that matter means mining skill+1/2/3 depending on rarity as your max with average being around vein ql which would result in a depletion of ql 100 ore in no time for players(not even talking about the market itself) and for smiths who want to imp to ql 95 or past using ql 100 makes the job quite a bit easier then say using 95 or something like that

I genuinely can't tell if this is sarcastic or not.

Yes, it's extremely gamebreaking to be able to mine ore 30 quality above that the vein is (as it makes having high quality veins much less needed, and raises the abundance of such ore/items made from said ore, which in turn devalues literally everything in the game made from said ore)- not only that, but if it allows you to mine that quality above your mining skill, it's even more busted as it greatly devalues the need to even raise the skill in the first place.

[Ekcin 2,404]

I do not know where your fantasy figures stem from. So far, I can verify that a 85% imbue raises the quality pulled from 71.90 with rarity and gathering rune only to 84.76 with all that and imbue. That is an increase of 12.86 ql not 30. Why do you have to bloat your claim that dishonestly? Just to mention that mining skill caps ql pulled, so that is the base for any rarity, gathering rune, and imbue effect. To my experience, the amount of best ql stuff pulled (independently of buff considerations, but ofc working there as well) scales with mining skill, denoting that your are spreading FUD and fantasy figures.

 

Further on, even on higher mining skill, there is always only a fraction of the ore pulled at those maximum values. And while the 26% I previously reported may be bit underestimated (caught "bad rng" probably), I could verify an increase (on a 96ql iron vein) to 33% of ql 100 ore pulled compared to 22% without imbue (pick data as cited above).

 

Taking in account further that unique blood is not freely spilling over the whole cluster every day, several bloods (5-8 depending on rng and skill of potion maker) necessary for a full imbue of a tool, and imbue decay during usage, the game breaking properties especially of mining imbues (the GL one of the more elusive uniques in addition) are hard to see. This may be different in other crafts I cannot tell about, though.

[Retrograde 12,013]

1 hour ago, Ekcin said:

I do not know where your fantasy figures stem from. So far, I can verify that a 85% imbue raises the quality pulled from 71.90 with rarity and gathering rune only to 84.76 with all that and imbue. That is an increase of 12.86 ql not 30. Why do you have to bloat your claim that dishonestly? Just to mention that mining skill caps ql pulled, so that is the base for any rarity, gathering rune, and imbue effect. To my experience, the amount of best ql stuff pulled (independently of buff considerations, but ofc working there as well) scales with mining skill, denoting that your are spreading FUD and fantasy figures.

 

Further on, even on higher mining skill, there is always only a fraction of the ore pulled at those maximum values. And while the 26% I previously reported may be bit underestimated (caught "bad rng" probably), I could verify an increase (on a 96ql iron vein) to 33% of ql 100 ore pulled compared to 22% without imbue (pick data as cited above).

 

Taking in account further that unique blood is not freely spilling over the whole cluster every day, several bloods (5-8 depending on rng and skill of potion maker) necessary for a full imbue of a tool, and imbue decay during usage, the game breaking properties especially of mining imbues (the GL one of the more elusive uniques in addition) are hard to see. This may be different in other crafts I cannot tell about, though.

The numbers come from the example that Wipeout gave. 

 

A 100 imbue rare pick with the 10% rune can pull 91.85 ql rock out of a 68ql vein, that's an increase of 22ql beyond the cap. 

 

As for mining gold, it's a difficult task so while you can argue that it's balanced in that sense, it's also not the major focus, given that the bigger issue is the ability to pull much more common ores out at capped ql. 

 

While I do understand the feeling that the rug is being pulled out from under you, I'd like to remind you that we haven't released any information regarding the balancing, and your speculation of them being turned "defunct" is based on zero information beyond us saying "Yes, they are going to be looked at as we feel they are overpowered in their current implementation" 

 

We don't wish to make them useless, but we also don't want them to defeat the purpose of raising your skill past 75