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Prayer Skill Tweaks

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I can't really provide any insight on to how prayer skill gain was changed, but I can definitely provide some context as to how it worked before. Beyond that, I can say with certainty that 70 prayer in 70 hours is completely bogus. A quick math assuming unrealistic values would demonstrate that, using reported skill ticks. Here's one from my own experience previously.

 

Quote

[17:47:05] Prayer increased by 0.0060 to 37.8120

 

0.0060 skill gained in a ~30.0 second action. This results in a 0.0002 skill per second rate of gain. Of course, this assumes the player remains at 37 prayer for the entirety of the duration and gains skill on every tick (both unrealistic, but let's continue).

 

With 0.0002 skill per second, we multiply by 60 and end up with 0.012 skill per minute.

 

Transposed into hours, we multiply again by 60 and result in 0.72 skill per hour.

 

Finally, multiplying that value by 70, assuming the prayer skill gain remains stable at the rate that 37 prayer skill would provide, results in 50.4 skill after 70 hours.

 

Major disclaimer: All of this is nonsensical and represents a method of skilling that is entirely unrelated to the way skilling actually works. So let's move on to how skilling actually functions.

 

Prayer, previously, would use a skill check to determine your success which had a difficulty between (prayerSkill - 30) and (prayerSkill - 60) at random. If the value fell below 1, it would then default to a skill check with 1 difficulty (since the skill system does not work with difficulty below 1). Additionally, it would use your faith as a bonus value to curve your skill and adjust your skill gain accordingly. We can use the grinder tool to take a look at a few examples, using skill - 45 as an average for the skill checks:

 

50 Skill, 1 Faith: ~37% skill tick rate

Spoiler

K8PEsXN.png

 

50 Skill, 100 Faith: ~15% skill tick rate

Spoiler

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60 Skill, 1 Faith: ~35% skill tick rate

Spoiler

cgieOKl.png

 

60 Skill, 100 Faith: ~15% skill tick rate

Spoiler

laIpTWf.png

 

So that's tick rate estimates. But how much action time does it take to get there? Well, as it turns out, I worked with a mathematician at one point and devised a formula to closely represent the action timers, assuming no buffs (no vynora, no PoK, etc) to reach any given skill, assuming tick rate was ignored. The formula was as follows, for those mathematically inclined:

 

-difficulty/100*((skill*skill/2+100*skill+10000*ln(100-skill))-(100.5+10000*ln(99)))

 

This would result in a rough estimation of decaseconds (10 second intervals) required to achieve the desired skill. Most skills operate in the ~10 second action timer area, so this decasecond estimation is as close as we can realistically get without spending excessive amounts of work devising a more accurate formula.

 

So at this point you're probably reading this like "Ok Sindusk, weird flex but how about in laymens terms?" To which, I answer: Graph.

 

qsWheLA.png

 

This uses the above formula to estimate the rough amount of time in raw decaseconds it would take to achieve any given skill level in Prayer (or any 4000 difficulty skill). It would take 103,553 decaseconds, or 1,035,530 seconds of raw, uninterrupted, 100% skill tick rate prayer skill gain to achieve prayer skill 70. This equates to 17,258 minutes, or 287 hours.

 

Factoring in a rough 40% skill tick rate with 1 faith (somewhat unrealistically high, but we'll be optimistic), we're looking at 719 hours of skill gain required to get 70 prayer (without Vynora, PoK, etc).

 

If you have the standard 15% skill tick rate due to having 100 faith, you're instead looking at 1,917 hours of skill gain required to get to 70 prayer (without Vynora, PoK, etc).

 

We're also not factoring in Soul, Soul Strength, Soul Depth, and Religion skills which would have a negative impact on skill tick rate assuming higher values, especially at lower Prayer skill. These modifications are much more slight in nature than the ones discussed, so they can safely be ignored since we're not looking for pinpoint accuracy, just a rough ballpark.

 

Quote

"at 100 faith, the original skillgain action time to get to 70 prayer was roughly 70 hours"

 

I have no idea how this statement was reached, but judging from anecdotal knowledge and backed through the mathematics of what I've shown above, it's very far from accurate. Assuming the rest of the statements are true, and the new skill gain is roughly 3x faster, you're still looking at somewhere between 200 and 700 hours of prayer grind to get 70 prayer before factoring in skill gain bonuses.

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The only effective counter-argument to the above would be for someone official, such as the community manager,  to livestream it being done with clearly visible skillgains.

Edited by Etherdrifter

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On 2/5/2021 at 10:22 AM, Etherdrifter said:

The only effective counter-argument to the above would be for someone official, such as the community manager,  to livestream it being done with clearly visible skillgains.

Never gonna happen, its math and it works like being told before, it was only 70 hours and now so much faster!  

 

Ps. Having it slightly faster is awesome, but explaning what was meant with the 70 hours would be cool, otherwise it can understood straight up lying to ppl which isnt really healthy. 

Edited by Themystrix

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I'd have to look into the details around our tools, but they are based on effectively running actions in a simulated scenario! 

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Ok so to summarize my experience having done 70 prayer on two priests now its a bit of a slog but doable.

 

Here are the numbers for my Fo priest having got to 23 prayer before the patch only praying for faith gains then grinding after the first patch and continuing to 70 from there. I used sleep bonus almost the entire time and affinity food too.

 

 

Patch Total Actions Total Action Time (Seconds) Total Ticks Notes Tick size Effective Time (Seconds)
Pre 2021/01/28 1322 35572 827 Original (no sb) 1 19125
Initial Patch 5079 119641 2643 50% size and tick rate change 1.5 192969
Second Patch 6785 146880 3395 38% size reduction 0.93 146880
Total 13186 302093 6865     358974

 

This means for a new character it will take around 100 hours with sb to reach 70 prayer, whereas it took me 84 hours.

Here are some charts of my observed tick rate and cumulative action time.

xr5sbiU.png

 

And here is the data driving those charts if interested.

Skill Actions Action Time (Avg) Action Time (Total) Ticks Tick Size (Avg) SB Tick Rate
1 3 29.00000007 87.00000022 3 0.3689333333 FALSE 100.00%
2 10 29.10000001 291.0000001 5 0.19696 FALSE 50.00%
3 27 28.77777775 776.9999993 7 0.1412142857 FALSE 25.93%
4 17 28.35294115 481.9999995 10 0.09685 FALSE 58.82%
5 21 27.95238096 587.0000002 12 0.06984166667 FALSE 57.14%
6 35 27.77142858 972.0000003 19 0.05368421053 FALSE 54.29%
7 42 27.83333336 1169.000001 21 0.04333809524 FALSE 50.00%
8 35 28.11428578 984.0000025 23 0.03913043478 FALSE 65.71%
9 36 27.91666666 1005 30 0.03347666667 FALSE 83.33%
10 39 27.7692308 1083.000001 25 0.03016 FALSE 64.10%
11 47 27.6382979 1299.000001 35 0.02823714286 FALSE 74.47%
12 34 27.70588228 941.9999977 25 0.025632 FALSE 73.53%
13 48 27.31249998 1310.999999 33 0.02277272727 FALSE 68.75%
14 61 27.29508197 1665 48 0.02098333333 FALSE 78.69%
15 60 27.13333331 1627.999998 50 0.019818 FALSE 83.33%
16 64 26.890625 1721 54 0.01861296296 FALSE 84.38%
17 71 26.6197183 1889.999999 61 0.01630655738 FALSE 85.92%
18 77 26.51948053 2042.000001 66 0.01516818182 FALSE 85.71%
19 81 26.46913584 2144.000003 71 0.01420422535 FALSE 87.65%
20 128 26.3515625 3373 69 0.01405362319 FALSE 53.91%
21 162 26.28395061 4257.999998 71 0.01307605634 FALSE 43.83%
22 215 26.18139535 5629.000001 84 0.01194404762 FALSE 39.07%
23 64 25.875 1656 36 0.027725 TRUE 56.25%
24 56 25.74999999 1442 30 0.03335333333 TRUE 53.57%
25 74 25.68918917 1900.999999 31 0.03257096774 TRUE 41.89%
26 59 25.54237289 1507 33 0.02986969697 TRUE 55.93%
27 60 25.4 1524 35 0.02917142857 TRUE 58.33%
28 69 25.33333336 1748.000002 36 0.02770555556 TRUE 52.17%
29 69 25.14492752 1734.999999 38 0.02628684211 TRUE 55.07%
30 70 25.0857143 1756.000001 40 0.024995 TRUE 57.14%
31 73 25.02739725 1826.999999 42 0.02378809524 TRUE 57.53%
32 70 24.97142856 1747.999999 44 0.02264772727 TRUE 62.86%
33 109 24.79816513 2702.999999 47 0.02108085106 TRUE 43.12%
34 99 24.66666667 2442 49 0.0205244898 TRUE 49.49%
35 102 24.58823529 2508 51 0.01957058824 TRUE 50.00%
36 101 24.51485148 2475.999999 53 0.01869433962 TRUE 52.48%
37 95 24.37894737 2316 57 0.01782982456 TRUE 60.00%
38 89 24.35955056 2168 58 0.01706206897 TRUE 65.17%
39 123 24.21138212 2978.000001 62 0.01604354839 TRUE 50.41%
40 107 24.11214953 2580 64 0.01565625 TRUE 59.81%
41 125 24.00000002 3000.000002 66 0.01525454545 TRUE 52.80%
42 124 23.90322582 2964.000002 68 0.01456029412 TRUE 54.84%
43 144 23.79166668 3426.000001 72 0.01390555556 TRUE 50.00%
44 152 23.69736843 3602.000001 76 0.01324868421 TRUE 50.00%
45 138 23.57971014 3254 79 0.01263291139 TRUE 57.25%
46 160 23.475 3756 83 0.01208674699 TRUE 51.88%
47 185 23.43243244 4335.000001 87 0.0114183908 TRUE 47.03%
48 180 23.33888889 4201 91 0.01098681319 TRUE 50.56%
49 221 23.21266969 5130.000002 99 0.01012020202 TRUE 44.80%
50 196 23.15306123 4538.000002 100 0.010057 TRUE 51.02%
51 197 23.03045686 4537.000002 104 0.009597115385 TRUE 52.79%
52 217 22.88479263 4966 109 0.009173394495 TRUE 50.23%
53 203 22.80295565 4628.999998 114 0.008764035088 TRUE 56.16%
54 239 22.69874477 5424.999999 120 0.008303333333 TRUE 50.21%
55 218 22.61467889 4929.999999 125 0.0080224 TRUE 57.34%
56 273 22.53846154 6153.000001 131 0.007639694656 TRUE 47.99%
57 286 22.43006993 6415 137 0.007296350365 TRUE 47.90%
58 270 22.31111112 6024.000001 148 0.006769594595 TRUE 54.81%
59 432 22.18749999 9584.999996 224 0.004442857143 TRUE 51.85%
60 525 22.10095238 11603 262 0.003797709924 TRUE 49.90%
61 557 22.01974866 12265 270 0.003707777778 TRUE 48.47%
62 555 21.91171172 12161.00001 278 0.003596043165 TRUE 50.09%
63 554 21.81046931 12083 292 0.003419520548 TRUE 52.71%
64 633 21.68246445 13725 307 0.003249837134 TRUE 48.50%
65 627 21.60606061 13547 325 0.003091692308 TRUE 51.83%
66 714 21.51120448 15359 338 0.002946449704 TRUE 47.34%
67 724 21.40331492 15496 354 0.00283079096 TRUE 48.90%
68 762 21.30839895 16237 383 0.002602349869 TRUE 50.26%
69 773 21.20698576 16393 395 0.002526835443 TRUE 51.10%

 

 

If anyone is interested in extra info let me know.

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Thanks for that!

After speaking with the dev team and looking into the tools, it is apparent our hours required was wrong. That's on us, and we're sorry for the wrong details.

That said, the percentages were correct, and match what people said before about prayer when discounting our original numbers.

We've corrected the mistake and run the numbers more, and they match the above more or less, winding up at between 75 - 100 hours without sleep bonus at a totally optimal rate after all the changes to go from 1 to 70 prayer.

This is of course at a completely optimal rate, and will vary when it comes to individual experiences. 

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so if the change was made due balance concerns about the duration it'd take, are they going to be undone?

also, what exactly was the otol that you use?

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14 minutes ago, RainRain said:

so if the change was made due balance concerns about the duration it'd take, are they going to be undone?

also, what exactly was the otol that you use?

We're more concerned with the relative improvement of the change, which ended up at a similar point in the fixed simulation, rather than any given target hours. We feel it's a good middle point between preserving the efforts of the skilling done before the update (as that is something that we're always going to consider when changing any skilling mechanics) and making it much much less of a pain to get up, so no, it's not going to be undone.

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3 hours ago, Retrograde said:

......winding up at between 75 - 100 hours without sleep bonus......

I just don't get it that you need to spend that amount of hours for any reason on a useless skill.

if you play 4hrs a day that can get to 25 days. almost a month worth of subs. Makes one think.

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3 hours ago, Retrograde said:

Thanks for that!

After speaking with the dev team and looking into the tools, it is apparent our hours required was wrong. That's on us, and we're sorry for the wrong details.

That said, the percentages were correct, and match what people said before about prayer when discounting our original numbers.

We've corrected the mistake and run the numbers more, and they match the above more or less, winding up at between 75 - 100 hours without sleep bonus at a totally optimal rate after all the changes to go from 1 to 70 prayer.

This is of course at a completely optimal rate, and will vary when it comes to individual experiences. 

Happy to share, my guess was 100 hours with sb but without affinities, 70 ish nutrition, no pok, no journal and no deed bonus so I guess that all adds up.

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2 hours ago, Samool said:

We're more concerned with the relative improvement of the change, which ended up at a similar point in the fixed simulation, rather than any given target hours. We feel it's a good middle point between preserving the efforts of the skilling done before the update (as that is something that we're always going to consider when changing any skilling mechanics) and making it much much less of a pain to get up, so no, it's not going to be undone.

good or bad change.. I like the part where devs/staff comes out and gives a reasoning behind actions

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9 hours ago, Themystrix said:

Never gonna happen, its math and it works like being told before, it was only 70 hours and now so much faster!  

 

Ps. Having it slightly faster is awesome, but explaning what was meant with the 70 hours would be cool, otherwise it can understood straight up lying to ppl which isnt really healthy. 

Sshh...  I just wanted to make Retro suffer the horror of prayer grind.

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7 hours ago, Finnn said:

good or bad change.. I like the part where devs/staff comes out and gives a reasoning behind actions

True Finnn! I hope they continue to keep improving their transparency and the information they provide us. 

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i'm not particularly satisfied by the answer since it doesn't actually answer what sort of tool they used to come to that number, nor what the mistake was (or how they found it). i'm more concerned with being able to see that tool/math they used to come to their numbers and ensure it's actually properly correct here. in fact, i think it's a little weird that they are intentionally dodging showing the numbers

i don't have much of an opinion on the prayer change itself but i find it hard to trust the rough estimate of 75-100hrs if the original estimate was also wrong; basically, i don't like just being given a number and being forced to assume it's correct, especially where there's evidence of that having been incorrect already- though i am glad some steps have been taken to be transparent at least. 

 

11 hours ago, Samool said:

We're more concerned with the relative improvement of the change, which ended up at a similar point in the fixed simulation, rather than any given target hours. We feel it's a good middle point between preserving the efforts of the skilling done before the update (as that is something that we're always going to consider when changing any skilling mechanics) and making it much much less of a pain to get up, so no, it's not going to be undone.

to simplify, you weren't intending to go for any certain # of hours needed for prayer, but rather wanted to make it faster by a set %- i.e, if your intent was to make prayer 50% faster, you would be satisfied whether or not that change was changing 300 hours into 150 or 150 into 75?

if that is indeed true, is there any particular reason you want for that angle of change? again, i don't have a strong opinion on prayer- i think it's a useless skill but benediction is powerful; my preferred alternative would be to just change the requirement (for example, instead of cast a 95 power spell, you could have it be reach 99 channeling which is hilariously easier than the old requirement, or cast 1000 90+ power enchants. or anything that's grindy and still fulfilling to do). it just seems odd to only be concerned with the relative change rather than the end result

Edited by RainRain
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