Does anyone know how much you have to play your instrument in order for its decay time to reverse 1 month? I've been hunting a lot lately (like around 2-3 hours a RL day) but it's still going down month by month. At this rate I might have to get a no-decay customization

I must admit the 'turn back time thing' is a tad bit slow. I fluctuate between 99-100 months, I use it probably the same rate you do.

I found it odd that I gained aptitude just by wielding the instrument, though..

Mine goes really slow, too. I wish it would speed up. It's not like I never play the damn thing.

*ponder* *pokes envoy* Heheh...

Yeah, I found it did weird things with the aptitude, or maybe it's just me. Like at first when I had a violin, I got 30% in two days. Then when I had my second instrument it became more like 5% a day... though when I logged in and initially played my instrument the aptitude would jump up 2%, then I'd go bashing for an hour and it'd go up 1%ish. But maybe that's just the way it is *shrug*

Aanyway, someone else in my guild reported that their instrument fluctuated around the 100 month mark too... coincidence? O_o

Hey, did you guys know that Instrument Bond doesn't prevent someone from destroying it by putting it into a Nexus? It's true. Terentia told me so.

An instrument will only go up 1% per Lusternian day. If you use it before a day ends and then use it again right after the day changes, it will seem like it went up 2%, when actually, you are just getting 1% from each lusternian day. If you bash for an hour straight, you will only get 1% because you only played it during one Lusternian day.

In summary, use it once an hour. You don't have to be logged in an hour as long as Lusternia ticks away a day.

I'm not so sure about that. When I asked Soll, he said that aptitude can only increase once per IG day, but it increases between 1-3%, the first time you play it in a day. I am absolutely sure that my aptitude increased 2% on a couple of times as I worked up my first instrument, but I never saw 3%, and 1% was by far the most common.

In terms of decay...sigh...I don't bash a lot, so it is still decaying. I've found that it's easy to gain back one month though, so I'm thinking it might be similar to gaining aptitude...

It's 1% a day with a couple marks jumping up 2%. It's probably some number that's more 2^x friendly, rather than 100.

Which is something *I* posted on the forums about five minutes after I got my grubby paws on Music.

Someone should probably move this to Mythbusters... then figure out which parts are myths.

Someone told me it was actually once every half hour - so if you play right when you log in, you get 1%, and if you play again in 30 minutes you get another 1%. I didn't keep very careful track of mine, but that seems about right compared with the progress on my violin.

EDIT: That's aptitude, mind, I have no idea about decay time.

Aah the decay time keeps dropping. I'm starting to suspect that instruments would only hover around the 100 month mark? That doesn't very... right.

Has anybody been able to get the decay time to increase two months in one month?

Using PLAY PRACTICE (which I still can't believe works), I could get my lute to go from 96 to 97 very quickly, but not up to 98. I'm starting to think it 'fluctuates' because it works like gaining aptitude, ie, you can only do so much one month.

It does seem to be capping at 100- I've been playing it daily (Lusternian) and monthly, hunting and otherwise, and it won't go over that.

What's PLAY PRACTICE?

"Practice" is the first skill in Music...and to play Music abilities, you do PLAY , hence comes out PLAY PRACTICE...which is strangely illogical, if you think about it.

So, how does it work?

Basically it's like playing any other chord/song in terms of aptitude gain except it costs no health or mana (or balance/equilibrium?). Also nice for roleplay purposes since it gives a message like "You play a lovely tune on a worn lute."

PLAY PRACTICE is probably a bug though, like SPIRITBOND MASTER in Totems.

Okay, so should the 100 cap thing be a bug then? I wasn't sure at first because I thought bugs were supposed to be something you can reproduce. Or maybe the envoys can submit something about this in *shrug*