What is wrong with "buying" skills?

It seems like this forum's general scope on spending money on skills is a negative one. I thought of this when I was reading the Chinchompa Nerf - Good or Bad? topic.

So how exactly did you guys come to the conclusion that it's bad to spend money on skills to get them very quickly?

Using ranged as an example... Back when hunter was released and chinchompas weren't very well-known, I was 85 ranged at the time. I ended up going from 85-99 in only 30 hours for only like 12M. I can see why THAT needed to be nerfed; low cost, high gain - it basically made every other possible range-training method completely obsolete.

Though after time they kept downgrading the efficiency of chinchompas. First they did less damage. Second they could only hit 9 targets max. Finally more and more people discovered them so they shot up in price to around 800ea. I think at this point they were balanced, since while you got about 200-250k XP/hour, you were also spending over 1M per hour (I forget the exact figures I had worked out long ago).

That seems fair, doesn't it? Apparently not... it seems that most people here believe that you shouldn't be allowed to gain such massive XP, regardless of its cost, as if it devalues the achievement for others or something.

I've got a lot of friends who got 99 ranged the old-fashioned way... doing things like training on fire giants for over 200 hours with iron arrows. I told them how I almost felt guilty since I got 99 so quickly and cheaply on muggi. Because of that, I never really wore the ranged cape haha

Though, when I decided to go for 99 ranged a second time, I looked into other methods since I believed chins were too expensive. This is another thing that surprises me...

People don't seem to realize that TIME = MONEY

Here's an outdated, yet simple example...

You make your money by rc'ing nats and you make about 300k an hour. You just got a berserker ring from Rex and you go to world 2 to sell it. You want to sell it for 3M, but the highest that anybody is offering is 2.9M. So you wait, and wait, and wait, and wait some more... an hour later you find someone who buys it off you for 3M. Here's why that is bad: you just spent an hour doing nothing only to save 100k. It only takes you 20 minutes of rc'ing to earn 100k, yet you spent a whole hour saving the money. If you had sold the ring within 20 minutes or sooner, it would've been a good deal. But since you didn't, you were better off selling it cheap then rc'ing :P

Here's another, more specific example (I'll be making up figures, however they'll have the same basic result of my original figures)...

Let's say you want to get 99 ranged. You're level 75 so you've got around 1M range XP already and you only need 12M more XP :P

You've got 1M gp in your bank; you aren't rich. However, to make money you range aviansies. Since your range level isn't too high, you make around 500k an hour there on average.

You look into using the bone bolts to train range...

You'll need about 200k bone bolts max to get 99 range and it'll only cost you 800k. That's affordable, right? The downside is, you only can get 40k XP/hour. So while it'll only take you 2 hours of aviansies to pay for the ammunition, it'll take you 300 hours of ranging to get the remaining 12M XP. Thus, using bone bolts will take 302 hours to get 99 range.

You look into using the chinchompas to train range...

You'll need around 70k chins to get 99 range and that'll cost you a whopping 28M! There's no way you can afford that! However, you'll be getting 200-250k an hour with these! You end up spending 56 hours to earn 28M and then you spend about 60 hours using the chins. Thus, using chins will only take you 116 hours to get 99 range. More than half the time you'd have spent using bone bolts.

As I said earlier, I was making up very broad figures, however when I was doing these calculations several months ago after the chins had been rebalanced, I was comparing several different methods and chins were by far the most efficient.

So what about the rich people? They're fortunate to not have to raise the funds needed to afford the chinchompas. That money had to come somewhere. Nowadays it's much easier to legitimately earn 20M+ because of God Wars, though in order to do that efficiently/reliably, you need to have good stats. So, let's not assume that the rich people did something bad such as RWT'd or lured for their money. Rather, let's assume that they worked hard for their money.

So I pose the question: Why don't they deserve to spend it?

(Sorry if I got off-topic a little by explaining time vs money... I feel that most people don't think that way when it comes to training skills which cost money)

I agree with you. Life is not fair. If you have the money to be able to raise skills quickly, that's fine. People that don't have that kind of money (i.e., me) will just have to use slightly slower methods. As long as you legitimately earned that money, it's fine to spend it on increasing skills quickly.

Well, I'll never be able to buy a skill (unless I somehow get dragged to God wars by a team (which will never happen either, stupid paradox)).

But hey, if you got the money to waste, and you want to waste it, go for it. It's not like you can spend it on much else.

I didn't read your whole post, but my instinct is that the people who can't afford to buy skills are jealous of the ones who can afford it.

It's the same as this 'honour' thing in the old wilderness. People didn't like the fact that they were getting killed so easily so they made up 'honour' to stop others being able to do things that led to them getting easy kills.

Of course that's not the only reason, I'd be interested in finding out other peoples' views.

People are either stupid or ignorant, they don't take the time to figure that time = money as you've explained. They're also mad that they were the dumb/poor ones and spent 300+ hrs somewhere else, while the smart person with the money they worked hard for, decided he wanted range quickly. Honestly the people that are mad about buyable skills need to [bleep] off :-# .

Well, I'll never be able to buy a skill (unless I somehow get dragged to God wars by a team (which will never happen either, stupid paradox)).

 

But hey, if you got the money to waste, and you want to waste it, go for it. It's not like you can spend it on much else.

It's not wasting money, it's being smart lol

I never had over 3M at once on Karma while I was getting 99 range, and whenever I'd be on my way to Ape Atoll or whatever people would be like "wow you must be rich!"

Another example...

I got to 99 mage on muggi the hard way by alching to 94 and enchanting to 99...

I was planning on enchanting to 99 on Karma as well but then I looked into the string-amulet spell. While it costs a whopping 650k per hour, it gave 130k XP/hour. Since I had void and 99 range at this time I was making 750k-1M per hour at aviansies now.

I ended up saving about 20 hours of training magic by using string-amulet. Plus, the fact that spell is very fun to use since it's basically automatic, made getting to 94 magic a breeze! My friend who had like 20M didn't understand how I was getting to 94 so much faster than he was since I never had over 3M and he was alching 24/7

It's not about wasting money. It's about being smart with your time and funds.

Another note... I value "fun" more than efficiency. When I train slayer I realize I could be getting tasks done much quicker if I did certain things, but it's sorta stressful to go out of my way to do that. I enjoy relaxing on tasks and taking my time on them. Fun > efficiency

Well, I'll never be able to buy a skill (unless I somehow get dragged to God wars by a team (which will never happen either, stupid paradox)).

 

But hey, if you got the money to waste, and you want to waste it, go for it. It's not like you can spend it on much else.

Yes, I'm very interested in figuring out their reasoning as well. I thought about it for a long time and sadly the only conclusion I could come up with is: they're ignorant >_>

Jealousy.

People who got the 99 before the fast way came out must have pissed some people off.

People who couldn't afford it didn't want people to do something a much more efficiant method.

Also, People think that if you don't grind 200 hours for a skill it's not an achievement.

People on these forums dont understand that this isn't like the realy world where people can be born with tons of money. Everyone who has money most likely got it by spending lots of time playing (except for RWT's but thats not really a problem anymore.) So, someone who has spent time getting money should be able to spend less time getting their skills up, and vice versa. Someone who spent alot of time getting their skills up cheaply, will most likely have plenty of money left over.

Jealousy.

 

People who got the 99 before the fast way came out must have pissed some people off.

 

People who couldn't afford it didn't want people to do something a much more efficiant method.

 

Also, People think that if you don't grind 200 hours for a skill it's not an achievement.

Yes this is true too, unfortunately. I'll be honest and say after I grinded to 99 magic on muggi, I did feel sorta angry towards those who got 99 magic in under a month just from using ancients. Though, I don't feel that way towards anyone anymore since I hadn't realized time is money at the time.

I know what you mean, but everyone knows when someone walks into a group wearing an untrimmed cooking or fletching skill cape untrimmed, they know that they just wanted a skill cape, something that they could get cheaply and quickly!

This is why people frown apon it. If you see someone wearing the Attk, Str, def, HP cape, you know they had to put in the effort.

Now, people just alc for 99 Magic, use chins for 99 range and all the shortcuts just to get a skill cape as fast as they can, and as little effort as possible, remember, this is a Cape of Accomplishment, not cape of stilling waiting for some lobbies to cook, you don't even need to click!

A friend of mine is making ever single rune he needs to get to 99 Magic, not buying them along with some logs, he is 76 RuneCrafting and i know how many hours he sits in the ess mine, then running to the alters making ever rune, now that is a guy who deserved a Cape of Accomplishment.

This game, for a large population of players, is all about being better then the next guy. Between achievement capes, the High scores table, expensive amour (3rd age, dragon, GWD amour, party hats.....). Then add in the competitive atmosphere of a teenager. Players just get jealous when you can do something they cant, or did a slower way.

This game, for a large population of players, is all about being better then the next guy. Between achievement capes, the High scores table, expensive amour (3rd age, dragon, GWD amour, party hats.....). Then add in the competitive atmosphere of a teenager. Players just get jealous when you can do something they cant, or did a slower way.

Rofl, kudos to who sees the irony here.

People are either stupid or ignorant, they don't take the time to figure that time = money as you've explained. They're also mad that they were the dumb/poor ones and spent 300+ hrs somewhere else, while the smart person with the money they worked hard for, decided he wanted range quickly. Honestly the people that are mad about buyable skills need to [bleep] off :-# .

How am I "dumb/poor" for getting 99 range before this method came out? I got 99 range "the old fashioned" way and have done the 4M experience after that.

I just dislike the method - spend a load of money and get nothing in return. On my way to 99 range I earned myself three party hats, purely from ranging.

Before chins came out there were probably only 2000 99 rangers, if that. Now there's over 10,000. It's just become a less "respected" skill and it also annoys me how some people assume I used chins to get to 99, I spent hours on end at greaters and my "achievement" has been "downgraded" thanks to the chinning method.

I don't hate chins as much, if people earned the money for it (Not by getting lucky at GWD...) or got the chins themselves then fair enough. It just seems every man and his dog has 99 range these days and 75% of those used chins to get there.

I am kind of a mix of both sides. There are some stats that I have grinded away at, and others I just power train. If it is a stat I truely enjoy I usually dont mind doing it the most fun way in my opinion, even if it is slower or more expensive than other methods.

On my first account I got 18.5M range exp without ever throwing chinchompas, on my second account I did 1-97.5 with slayer mostly and did 97.5-99 with chins (that I got from a drop party) and I dont think that my first account deserved the cape any more than my second.

With magic I alched to 94 and bursted to 99 on my first account, on my second account I did 70-99 with fire bolt, slayer dart and fire way on metal dragons and dagannoth kings. Although it took MUCH more time and money on my second account, I dont feel that I deserved the cape any more than someone who alched, I just feel that I would rather do something I enjoy to get the 99 than do a grind JUST for the cape.

I am currently going for 99 summoning, and I know some people have been flaming others for bursting the whole way, just because they have 300M+ to sink into the skill they dont deserve it as much as someone else. The reality of it is that the people who didnt burst for it just camped waterfiends, are they any better because they want fast charms but just spend less? I dont think so. I have done a big mix to get my charms from slayer, rock lobsters and mith dragons, but I dont feel that I will deserve the cape any more than people who bursted the whole way, I just dont have the money to fund that, but if I did have the money I definitly would have bursted it all.

The way I have mostly gone about my non-combat stats which I do not enjoy that much, but need the levels for quests or other things is I sink as much money as I see needed into it, because in the hours I would spend getting the levels slowely and cheaper, I could easily have made that money back doing dagannoth kings or another money making method. I know that if I ever go for 99 cooking or fletching, I will be doing sharks and mage longs, just to cut down time and give me more time to do combat related stats (which I enjoy more).

It's just become a less "respected" skill and it also annoys me how some people assume I used chins to get to 99

maybe its because of your siggy,that ppl on tif think that :lol:

but you have a good point there ;)

People are either stupid or ignorant, they don't take the time to figure that time = money as you've explained. They're also mad that they were the dumb/poor ones and spent 300+ hrs somewhere else, while the smart person with the money they worked hard for, decided he wanted range quickly. Honestly the people that are mad about buyable skills need to [bleep] off :-# .

 

 

 

How am I "dumb/poor" for getting 99 range before this method came out? I got 99 range "the old fashioned" way and have done the 4M experience after that.

 

 

 

I just dislike the method - spend a load of money and get nothing in return. On my way to 99 range I earned myself three party hats, purely from ranging.

 

 

 

Before chins came out there were probably only 2000 99 rangers, if that. Now there's over 10,000. It's just become a less "respected" skill and it also annoys me how some people assume I used chins to get to 99, I spent hours on end at greaters and my "achievement" has been "downgraded" thanks to the chinning method.

Yes, but until you accept that as RS continues, every method of training will become easier and easier, you're bound to be disappointed for using the less-efficient methods.

I don't hate chins as much, if people earned the money for it (Not by getting lucky at GWD...) or got the chins themselves then fair enough. It just seems every man and his dog has 99 range these days and 75% of those used chins to get there.

There's nothing wrong with getting lucky at GW and spending your money wisely :P

And yes many have 99 range now, though surprisingly a lot of them did it the old-fashioned way even after the release of chins because they don't think they can afford it.

I respect people with their capes to a certain extent, but not really that much. I think it's wrong to work your [wagon] off for a cape just to be validated by other people, and I also think it's wrong to care about what other people think about you (whether or not you "deserve" to wear a cape). I don't care what other people think of my training methods or my stats or anything - I have the stats I want, and that's all that matters to me.

alot of people are angry about the buyable skills because no one is doing them for fun, but just to boast about it.

when you say "i was thinking of getting a cooking cape for an easy 99" its not respected cause you arent respecting the skill.

spending cash on combat stats is intended. Jagex always wanted that once you reach another lvl, you can buy the appropriate gear.

rune at 40, granite 50, dragon 60, barrows 70 and so on cause it makes the skill easier. Combat stats also benefit you all the time while a cooking cape is mainly just for show.

im glad that people have had the success to buy capes but when you say you enjoy a skill like cooking or fletching i just kinda :roll:

alot of people are angry about the buyable skills because no one is doing them for fun, but just to boast about it.

 

 

 

when you say "i was thinking of getting a cooking cape for an easy 99" its not respected cause you arent respecting the skill.

 

 

 

spending cash on combat stats is intended. Jagex always wanted that once you reach another lvl, you can buy the appropriate gear.

 

rune at 40, granite 50, dragon 60, barrows 70 and so on cause it makes the skill easier. Combat stats also benefit you all the time while a cooking cape is mainly just for show.

 

 

 

im glad that people have had the success to buy capes but when you say you enjoy a skill like cooking or fletching i just kinda :roll:

That's why I learned not to take achievement capes very seriously anymore :P

If you look up someone's XP in their 99 skill you can usually figure out their motive for that 99. If they have 13,035,000 XP or something barely over the 99 quota, then you can assume that they either got 99 in the skill yesterday, or they got 99 in the skill cuz they just want the cape

But like I said, I really don't care much about people's capes or 99s lol

A 99 is supposed to be an accomplishment not for showing off tbh. Chinning is not an accomplishment you put such little work into such a great output. A 99 should be something you enjoy too and if you enjoy chinning go ahead and do that for 20M range xp since you enjoy it so much. Also it's just sad that that person can't stand doing it the 'right' way. Sure you save time which is money but you had absolutely no fun and there is where you fail at life when you take this game so seriously you'll do anything to get a level as fast as you can. I swear most of us started this game for fun and yet some turn away from that and grind to be better than their friend or beat their friend or the same for someone on the Hiscores. Frankly it's just sad sometimes.

the only 2 capes that show real skill to me now are the fire cape and the quest cape. Both demonstrate the ability to not stand in one place and left + right click over and over again.

A 99 is supposed to be an accomplishment not for showing off tbh. Chinning is not an accomplishment you put such little work into such a great output. A 99 should be something you enjoy too and if you enjoy chinning go ahead and do that for 20M range xp since you enjoy it so much. Also it's just sad that that person can't stand doing it the 'right' way. Sure you save time which is money but you had absolutely no fun and there is where you fail at life when you take this game so seriously you'll do anything to get a level as fast as you can. I swear most of us started this game for fun and yet some turn away from that and grind to be better than their friend or beat their friend or the same for someone on the Hiscores. Frankly it's just sad sometimes.

I went from 1-13M range XP from chinning.

Then I went from 13-19M range XP from using range in all of my RS hobbies.

I didn't get 99 range because I wanted my cape back - I got it because I needed it for all of my hobbies. If anybody thinks less of me for using my time wisely then that's their problem :P

the only 2 capes that show real skill to me now are the fire cape and the quest cape. Both demonstrate the ability to not stand in one place and left + right click over and over again.

I didn't know reading and following a guide was tough.... :wall:

the only 2 capes that show real skill to me now are the fire cape and the quest cape. Both demonstrate the ability to not stand in one place and left + right click over and over again.

 

 

 

I didn't know reading and following a guide was tough.... :wall:

if you can do mournings end ptII without a guide you deserve a special skillcape

the only 2 capes that show real skill to me now are the fire cape and the quest cape. Both demonstrate the ability to not stand in one place and left + right click over and over again.

 

 

 

I didn't know reading and following a guide was tough.... :wall:

 

 

 

if you can do mournings end ptII without a guide you deserve a special skillcape

But yet most people use guides on quests.

I didn't read your whole post, but my instinct is that the people who can't afford to buy skills are jealous of the ones who can afford it.

 

 

 

It's the same as this 'honour' thing in the old wilderness. People didn't like the fact that they were getting killed so easily so they made up 'honour' to stop others being able to do things that led to them getting easy kills.

 

 

 

Of course that's not the only reason, I'd be interested in finding out other peoples' views.

I have more than enough money to pay for skills, but I still dislike the concept of buying skills. My opinion is that Runescape is based around these skills. You should not train them for the sake of training them, you should train them because you like the skill, and throwing money at it to get it done quick and reap the benefits defeats the purpose.

I think if you want 99 cooking and you have 99 cooking, it should show that you enjoy cooking, finding the materials, making different types of food, collecting some of the raws yourself. It shouldn't be "Hey I want a skill cape so I'll go throw 10M at it." That's why I don't respect Cooking skill capes at all, most of the people who have them don't care about the skill at all, only the benefits and the cape.