Jabu wrote:Cham,
In chat last night you recommended that I do lvl 42 with an 8 Gap. I looked up the sp difference and at 42 with a gap of 8 I would get 8149 sp, while a gap 9 would give me 17204 sp.
My question is: How long do you think it would take to grind out lvl 42 with a 8 gap vs a 9 gap? Would it be worth losing 9055 sp doing an 8 gap?
Thanks,
Jab
Table of SP gain per level versus mastery spread
Ratio of EXP to SXP gained per kill at each level versus mastery spread
SP Calculator @ sro.mmosite.com
Comparing the first two tables at level 42, and using the SP calculator to find the exact amount of experience needed for that level, we can get an answer. I haven't run the numbers before so it could turn out that they do not agree with me. Let's find out.
The exact amount of experience required at level 42 to reach level 43 is 5,382,982 according to the calculator. Here I have excerpted the rows for level 42 from the two given tables. The column in red is merely the first multiplied by 400, giving the total amount of skill experience gained rather than SP.
42 905 1107 1358 1682 2113 2716 3622 5131 8149 17204
42 14.86 12.16 9.91 8.00 6.37 4.95 3.72 2.62 1.65 0.78
42 362000 442800 543200 672800 845200 1086400 1448800 2052400 3259600 6881600
Some quick calculations show that the second line multiplied by the third line gives us the total experience required for the level, or 5,382,982. More investigation shows that the horizontal rate of change is approximately 0.81, which is the square of 90%, which would seem to confirm the game help's claim that each added level of difference results in 10% more skill experience and 10% less experience.
So it appears the numbers do not support my claim that a mastery gap is "lossy" or results in more effort for less experience. The key is that although the amount of experience required to level is always the same for a given level, the amount of skill experience is not; therefore 1 exp does not have value equal to 1 sxp. That's how tripling your experience at a small loss of skill experience can be an equal exchange.
To answer your first question, since you would be gaining less than half as much experience per kill, you'd have to kill a little more than double the number of a particular enemy to level.
The answer your second question, let's look at the question holistically (considering the whole, rather than one particular aspect). First of all, you're not "losing" anything; the numbers show that your gains will be the same, merely weighted in one direction of the other. If it will take you slightly more than double the time to level, and you will recieve slightly more than double the SP, consider the following situation.
Character A and character B start from 42 with 0 SP and grind at the same rate. A has a 9 gap, while B has an 8 gap. They keep going until A reaches level 43. B reached that level in slightly less than half the time, and at that point he had 8149 SP, but he continues grinding as long as A is grinding, now also at a 9 gap. When A reaches level 43, they probably have roughly the same amount of SP, but B is a good 30-40% of the way to level 44. So what's the difference?
Ignoring the fact that character B has higher mastery and thus has spent more SP previously than character A (because it is not relavent to the case of a single player considering two different gaps, as he can't change how much SP he has previously gained or spent), the difference is that character A is able to use his SP to have more skills relative to his level, while character B is able to use his EXP to have a higher level relative to actual time spent on the game. In hindsight, this seems obvious - isn't that what SP farming is? But consider this; character A's lower mastery makes it more difficult for him to kill and to survive. Character A spends twice as much time at a given enemy, with great potential to go nucking futs because of it. Character A has less HP and inferior equipment due to his level, which makes life harder when he does things other than grinding (trade, hunt, thief, cape, war). Character A's common drops are worth less when selling to players or NPCs, and if by some chance he gets a rare drop (SoX), it will be worth exponentially less. There is always the cap to consider; this is not an open-ended game as far as level is concerned, and you *can* reach your goal.
It might then seem prudent to play the entire game with no mastery gap, using skills from only one tree, and farming all the necessary SP for your capped build once you reach the cap. However, there remains the problem of grinding quickly and safely; of equipping your character with the skills required to be able to grind at a reasonable speed. Also, the aforementioned ability to do things other than grinding at each stage of your character's life. You'll have a much easier time doing a 1 star trade at level 25 with no gap than you would with a 9 gap.
In the end, all these factors must be considered. Silkroad Online is a means to and end, which is to say that it has a purpose; but that purpose is not merely to have a strong end-game character. The purpose is to have fun. Some people desire so much to be the strongest, to have a perfect end-game character, that reaching that becomes their obsession, but is that fun? Entertaining? Or is it merely satisfying? And if they cannot be the strongest, are they still satisfied? If you have no satisfaction and no fun, there is no more reason to play. The only things that keep people here after they have exhausted satisfaction and fun are inertia, addiction, boredom, escapism, or feelings of loyalty or debt (probably to guildmates). I recommend that for most people, the most fun is likely to be had when you can grind reasonably well (choice of enemy and choice of build are as important here as choice of mastery gap!) and job reasonably well. It is not as important to PvP well until you get into 4x at the very least, and most people are not there yet. Those who are, should have been playing long enough to consider what I've said with their own experience, and make their own conclusions.
Personally, I would avoid a 9 gap like the plague until you reach level 64 and your end-game weapon (until the cap raise). I don't recommend farming at 16 unless you have an extraordinary tolerance for tedium and a seal weapon. Even then, I would discourage it because it excludes you from participating in most guild activities, which is good neither for you nor your guild. If you limit your skills to just the essentials, you can get enough SP with a 0 gap for a main tree at your level and a sub tree ~10 levels behind. A 2 gap will give you enough SP for both trees to be maxed (2 behind, of course), or for one maxed and one 10 behind but more skills used. And it's perfectly reasonable to keep a higher gap at lower levels, because you have lots of quests at those levels and they go by quickly. When you get to levels without quests, raise your mastery to get through them faster; when you get to levels with more quests, let your mastery stay low for a bit. And if you get super bored, raise a single mastery up to 0 gap without getting any skills, rush several levels, then use the cursed heart quest to go back to whatever gap you like while you explore a new area of the map.
^_^
