Talk:Learning

logic correction

I am not sure that I follow the reasoning here. According to the experience page on this wiki, for 'Hero A' to achieve Level 22, 117,134 experience has to be gained. 'Hero B', who starts with expert Learning, receives 15% more experience than Hero A. You would think, then, that Hero B would have 1.15 x 117,134 = 134,704 experience. Hero B would therefore also still be level 22, not level 25. You would have to argue that hero B achieves each level-up slightly earlier than hero A and therefore is able to take on larger fights slightly earlier, but this seems quite a stretch. First, this depends on how big each fight is - the argument is definitely not valid if the first fight on the map yields 117,134 experience. Second, during those moments that Hero B has a higher level than Hero A, there should be fights available that B can take, but A not - the argument is again not valid if hero B's extra level does not make a difference in the ability to take fights. Third, this argument is only valid when hero B is not hampered in gaining experience by having one skill slot less than hero A. Finally, even if B's earlier level-up does indeed lead to a noticeable experience advantage over Hero A, it is not clear to me how one can be sure that this leads to hero B being level 25 when Hero A is level 22.

Perhaps it is more cautious to say that Learning allow heroes to be one level or so ahead, and that this is basically never worth choosing the skill, especially because up to three of the levels gained have to be invested in Learning? -Entelechy 13:32, 9 July 2014 (CEST)

You, unknow visitor, are absolutely correct! I have a vague recollection, that I "copied" that text somewhere because the logic was nice, and did not bother to check the facts. Anyway, this only makes Learning worse. :) –Kapteeni Ruoska 14:25, 9 July 2014 (CEST)

You are not alone, Kapteeni Ruoska, I have also heard such arguments before :-). And I am happy to reconsider if the above reasoning appears invalid. Until then, I can make some changes to the current page. Feel free of course to see if you agree with them. And apologies for not logging in right away (I am working from behind a different computer today). -Entelechy 15:12, 9 July 2014 (CEST)

...

Learning could have used a buff, but we were worried about it becoming a ‘required skill’, so we errored on the side of ‘underpowered’.

Greg Fulton, the lead designer of HoMM3 (RoE and AB)

Behemoth Cave [1] Interview (2020.11.20)

Fanstratics Newsletter #10 (June 2021)

User commentary

I considered changing this myself, but as I'm not exactly a regular in the HoMaM 3 community, I figured it might be better to post this here rather than replace the entire 'user commentary' section. Put simply, despite the relatively negative view of the Learning skill portrayed in that section... it's still far too positive. Learning is straight up negative value. My suggestion for the blurb is this:

" Learning is far and ahead the worst skill in the game, easily beating out even Eagle Eye and Mysticism (note that the latter is buffed in Horn of the Abyss). Whereas those two skills still grant marginal value, Learning straight up makes your hero worse in every situation. The idea behind Learning is that you will level up faster, giving you access to other skills more quickly.

In reality, as you can find from the experience table, even Expert Learning gives less than 1 level over not having Learning at all. However, Expert Learning takes up three secondary skill points. When being generous in favor of Learning, you spend three secondary skill points in exchange for one secondary skill point and one primary skill point. In other words, you pay two secondary skill points for a single primary skill points. With primary skills actually being much more readily accessible on the map and through items, it's questionable whether even a 1-to-1 exchange is worth it, let alone a 2-to-1 exchange.

Once you reach a higher level, this issue only becomes worse. Because you have limited secondary skill slots, you effectively have three secondary skill points less than a hero without learning, again exchanging this for only one primary skill point - so it becomes a 3-to-1 exchange at this point.

Put simply, the idea of taking Learning is to get ahead in the power curve. The reality is that you're putting yourself behind, and there is not a single secondary benefit to taking Learning, making it an active detriment to any hero in any situation. "

I also want to specifically mention that the current blurb is somewhat misleading, as it indeed argues that Learning speeds up your hero development, which isn't actually correct - a single primary skill point isn't going to weigh up against the benefit of two secondary skill points, even for a low level hero. 20% damage from Offense versus 5% damage from +1 attack, -10% damage taken from Armorer versus -2.5% damage taken from +1 defense, and so on, not to mention the greater versatility offered by secondary skills.

I have no clue how often people actually read this page, if I come across this again in a few weeks or months and it turns out no regulars have actually seen this, I'll just edit it myself.