Something is really messed up with the skill up system!
It took me 35 feeds to get the last 2 skill ups on Horus!
I know most will say that RNG is RNG - but I really don't believe that anymore. I really believe that the RNG is modified by a number of things.
this includes what you have in your box and what day you are trying to farm items.
I've had a terrible time skilling up a few of my gods - but worse, I've had a horrendous time trying to evolve the skill up material.
for example I was farming the dungeon of water for a large number of sapphilits yesterday - It took 24 runs of the cave master (120 stamina) before obtaining a single drop. When the sapphilits did infrequently appear they did not drop.
today the drop rate is better, but still way below what I would expect if they were appearing "randomly"
This is not uncommon, and I believe that the rate was lower yesterday because the friday "shrine of spirits" was running and that the rate in the dungeon of water was modified.
Gungho does not publish drop rates. Gungho has never even said that drop rates are RANDOM. I find it amusing when people post that RNG is gonna RNG when in fact there is no way of knowing if the system is actually random to begin with.
Why would it benefit Gungho to randomize the system when they obviously play with the drop algorithm all the time - Every event has different rates (2x festivals - 3x godfests - this mob only drops during this event).
the drop rate is designed to make you spend stones.
the algorithms are designed to make Gungho money.
don't get me wrong, they got me ^^ - I've spent a fortune trying to create a number of teams, but I'm not blind to the fact that it is easy to change the drop rate at *any* time.
And, before this gets ranty or too long I'd like to put forth that it would be easy to further customize drop rates - say modifying a drop rate for a whale or large spender - or modifying a drop rate for a prolific forum poster that has his or her account number publicly available and has incredible luck without spending a penny....
I really like this game and it is therapeutic in a lot of ways during the stress I have during studying and working to "turn my brain off" for an hour or so broken into segments over the course of a work day - I just don't want to think about the data mining and statistics used to generate revenue and how I feed the machine - because I will continue to do so as long as I'm enjoying the experience.
TL,DR - Random is Random - PAD is not Random.