Hi I just went from 0 to 96 standing next to my target, then i went through 1000 arrows with only .1 gain. is a certian distance going to be better for gains?
Distance does not matter, but your opponent relevant weapon skill matters for gains. SO if you're shooting at an unarmed guy with 0 wrestling you won't get the good gains. Shoot at someone with GM weapon skill like a Swordsmanship GM wielding a sword of some kind. Tactics however only gains on hits and archery range does factor into hit chance, IIRC 2 tiles away was the ideal
If you have a house anywhere near the Britain X roads, even a small, and you can lure one of those X Road guards out and trap one in your house they have super strength and at least GM tactics and weapons, set a healer up healing next to them (if you have a character with GM healing) and fire off arrows at them with the weakest bow you can get for very fast gains. They also run constant detect loops so are fantastic for house security but they do dissapear every 24 hours or so and you'll need to get a fresh one. Keep your distance from them after attacking too, they don't have town guards insta kill capabilities but 3-4 smacks from them and your grey screening it for sure.
Exactly what Alex said. It's best to train two warriors against each other starting w/ the same skill level and you will continue to see a 50% chance of gain on successful strikes. The only thing that would make it more difficult is way that skills are harder to gain as they get closer to GM here.
Actually... I wonder if distance does matter on this shard, since IIRC the to-hit formula for Archery does include Distance From Target as part of the formula. Typically in UO, if you have 0% or 100% chance to succeed at something, you don't gain skill. With Archery, your chance to hit is not strictly based on comparing your Archery to their weapon skill, but also includes what your distance from them is.
Weapon skills can gain on misses also, it's the skill of the opponent relative to you that matters. Tactics only gains on hit and consequently takes longer to GM
