Minimum chance to fail a combine is dumb.

[Konjure]

Just wanted to ventilate my opinion that minimum chance to fail a combine is extremely silly.

If they want a combine to be difficult and fail a lot, just increase the trivial. If they don't want anyone to attempt it, just set a required skill for it. Minimum chance to fail is just plain silly and ruins the progression oriented part that EQ is all about.

If a warrior falls flat down and dies with 5000 HP left, because mobs was hardcoded to kill anyone after it did 4000 HP, no matter if you are a caster with 4000 hitpoints or a Tank with 12000 HP, people would be upset.

If mobs was capped so you could never do more than 50 damage per second to it, no matter class, level, spells, weapons you used, people would be upset.

But if you are a tradeskiller, you are supposed to accept that no matter how high skill you have or how many aaxp ranks you have, you have a minimum chance to fail certain combines.

For example... Minimum chance to fail: 35% = 65% chance of success, wanting to do a combine with trivial 327.

You can stop skilling up at 247 if you have a +5% geerlok.
You can stop skilling up at 226 if you have a +15% geerlok.
You can stop skilling up at 214 if you have +5% geerlok and AAXP mastery rank 3.

Even high trivials such as 386, is easily capped. You need a skill of 256, a 5% geerlok and aaxp mastery rank 3, and voila! All time spent trying to skill up suddenly becomes useless as it will not make you better. (Altough having 300 will _look_ better.)

Since the skillup "nerf" it's also those last points that are hard to get, and with minimum chance to fail, they are not only hard to get, they are completely and utterly useless.

Such caps would never be accepted by the community in the areas described above, so why tradeskills?

[Bumkus]

Personally I think it was a mistake to make any of the DoN items tradeable. All it takes is 1 high level tradeskiller of any class or deity to flood the market with symbols useable by anyone.

All it takes is one high level tradeskiller of each class to flood the market with armor pieces for that class. These items are really pretty nice and they will obsolete or devalue some of the better looted items in many zones.

To prevent players from destroying their own economy with cheap uber items, it seems a few steps had to be taken:
1. Restrict skillup path (at least in tailoring).
2. Reduce drop rate on key items required for Master and GM DoN combines. (CDD, GDH, MDS)
3. Introduce minimum failure rate.
4. Change Difficulty factor on Tailoring? (Did used to be 2, now 3? Pls correct if i wrong and I will edit this point out.)

This really isn't a gripe. It's more a statement of da way it is. It is only by readjusting my expectations that I can even consider pushing forward with DoN tradeskilling. Otherwise, it would be just too frustrating.

[Itek]

*sigh*

I feel your pain, I really do. I've been very annoyed when failing deep trivial items as I bought X number of components for subcombines to make Y final combines and now I'm gonna have to run to a vendor and have "left-overs" take up still more bank space.

That said....

Your whole arguement is flawed.

1) Level 70 warriors occasionally MISS deep green (possibly even level 1, not sure) mobs. This is the equivalent of failing a deep trivial, not dying at a specified damage amount.

2) Some things ARE no-fail. (Silk swatches) Some other things -become- no-fail if your skill is high enough. Things that are NOT no-fail can, do, and SHOULD fail occasionally.

If you want to be upset at the minimum fail on a specific combine I'd back you up (probably) as some of them seem pretty silly. But since NOT ALL high trivial combines have coresponding high-minimum-fail rates, AND there are some combines that require minimum skill levels to even ATTEMPT them, the "above 5%" minimum failure combines certainly do NOT make skilling up past the mid 200's obsolete.

Failing a combine sucks. But if you aren't willing to risk it you never get the successes either. And most of us are just masochistic enough to enjoy the failures. (Secretly you know it's true.)

[filobeto]

And most of us are just masochistic enough to enjoy the failures. (Secretly you know it's true.)

I didn't mind it when I failed a GM aug combine and got a skillup (293). I got a warm feeling for flushing 15k down the drain. So I ran and bought another hide, failed it and got (294). I was sooooo happy at my loss of 30k that I ran and bought another one.

I succeeded and didn't get a skill-up, I was sad

[Maisie]

I didn't mind it when I failed a GM aug combine and got a skillup (293). I got a warm feeling for flushing 15k down the drain. So I ran and bought another hide, failed it and got (294). I was sooooo happy at my loss of 30k that I ran and bought another one.

I succeeded and didn't get a skill-up, I was sad

Whats sad is I understand this thinking completely and would feel the same way

[Neebat]

I didn't mind it when I failed a GM aug combine and got a skillup (293). I got a warm feeling for flushing 15k down the drain. So I ran and bought another hide, failed it and got (294). I was sooooo happy at my loss of 30k that I ran and bought another one.

I succeeded and didn't get a skill-up, I was sad

Wow. I'm completely unsure if you're joking. Some people would LOVE those failures... some would HATE them. I... just... don't... know.

As far as minimum failure rate, I love that. In fact, it's the ONLY reason I told my wife to go on with her jewel craft. As a rogue, her odds of successfully cutting an OoW aug will eventually be the same as someone with JCM3.

The enhanced failure rates are exactly like under-con mobs. They exist for specific game-balance purposes. Sony control which recipes can be used to skill up, separately from which recipes fail a lot. They still get the failure rate intended, even if they decide to raise the skill cap to 500. Without enhanced failure, those "super high trivials" won't stay super forever.

Disclaimer: This is just my opinion. The deed is done by Sony and if you want to complain to them, eqforums.station.sony.com/eq/

[filobeto]

I am 100% serious.

At first, I was bummed that I failed but the skill-up over-shadowed the failure. When it happened again, I was stunned / shocked / screaming with joy…..the skill-up, especially being the 2nd skill-up in a row easily covered the hit to my bankroll.

When the third try was a success without a skill-up, I was happy. But not as happy as I would have been with another failure and skill-up!

[KyrosKrane]

Guys, we're going a bit off topic.

The argument is simple. The highest-end combines, in addition to having a very high trivial, also have a minimum fail rate. If a combine has a minimum fail rate of 10%, say, then you will ALWAYS fail 10% of the time on average, even if your skill and AA would otherwise reduce that to 5%. Put in perspective, it means you will fail twice as much at that combine.

This essentially negates and devalues the time and effort a tradeskiller put into getting max skill -- usually, the primary benefit of skilling up is specifically to reduce fails on high-end items. (Yes, there are other benefits like a Master title, but that's more aesthetic than practical.) Minimum fail rates mean (if you only do combines that have them) that your success rates will be identical to a tradeskiller with significantly lower skill.

Combined with the significantly increased difficulty of skilling up past 269, it means there is less benefit to skill up all the way to 300.

[Twistagain]

Combined with the significantly increased difficulty of skilling up past 269, it means there is less benefit to skill up all the way to 300.

I completely agree. The combines are already hard enough, expensive enough, and rare enough as it is. To make it less likely to succeed, artificially, is just insult to injury.

I've been working my butt off to try to get to 2100...and I'm not really all that close (1820.) The more I examine it, though, the more I think that it's just not worth it. I've got almost as good a chance at 99.99% of the combines out there as someone who is 2100 with all the masteries. I don't think that's really fair to those people (and I have no masteries, and am just now about to buy Salvage I.)

[Mannwin Woobie]

This essentially negates and devalues the time and effort a tradeskiller put into getting max skill -- usually, the primary benefit of skilling up is specifically to reduce fails on high-end items. (Yes, there are other benefits like a Master title, but that's more aesthetic than practical.) Minimum fail rates mean (if you only do combines that have them) that your success rates will be identical to a tradeskiller with significantly lower skill.

So true! Just another slap in the face.

[Konjure]

Can add that I wouldn't care (much) if they put a minimum fail-chance on combines where every ingredient is storebought. Then the reason for minimum failure could be logically explained by it being a "platinum remover".

However... the only things I see minimum failure on is the combines where the product is actually useful, and the ingredients are extremely rare drops (according to bazaar prices) from mobs.

Combines with minimum failure should be assigned with warning label as you press combine.
"Warning - you are about to make a combine, where your high skill is useless because successchance is capped at 65%, are you sure you want to continue?".

[Angelsyn]

I think that, if they really wanted a "maximum success rate" on a combine... then the best way to do it would be to have a person with 300 skill, a +5% item (thus 315 skill) and Mastery 3 have that success rate.

Thus, if someone was fortunate enough to have a +10% or +15% item, then they deserve to have a moderately higher chance of success... or be able to attempt the item a little sooner.

[Phantron]

I'm pretty sure the min fail rate exists so that you don't separate tradeskillers into the Have (Mastery 3) and the Have Nots. For example we currently believe GM BP/Legs have a 60% success rate or equivalent 40% min fail rate. If you have mastery 3 you can do hit this at 256 skill, and 296 skill for those without mastery 3.

So obviously 345 (300+15%) + mastery 3 only succeeds 60% of the time, and that's the best anyone can do in terms of skill. Now we raise triival so that this person makes it 60% of the time. The new trivial would be (345 + 50 + 80) = 475.

Now the guy with 296 skill and no mastery will fail them (475 - 50 -296) = 129% of the time, so he'll make them successfully 5% of the time.

The guy with 256 skill and mastery 3 will fail (475-50-256)/2 = 84.5% of the time and succeed 15.5% of the time. So the guy with mastery 3 suddenly is 3 times better. But wait, that's not all. Let's say they both decide to skill up, and we'll ignore the fact that guy with mastery/lower skill obviously has an easier time gaining skill, so both gain skill at the same rate.

The guy with no mastery 3 with make 5% of the time with a modified skill of 330, a gain of 34 skill points.

The guy with mastery 3 now has (256+34) = 290 skill and will fail (475-50-290)/2 = 67.5% of the time, or succeed 32.5% of the time. Of course his success rate is likely to be much higher since going through 256->290 has to be easier than 296->330.

Setting 300+5% won't really work because the difference betwen 300+15% and 300+5% is 30 points. At any rate you still get the same problem that gives even greater gains to those with mastery 3 the more you raise the trivials.

[Lothay]

There's another factor which might be why SoE decided to implement the "minimum fail rate." To control the rate at which some items enter the game.

The factors that control the rate at which a tradeskilled item enters the game are, drop rate of components, trivial level, and difficulty of the skill. By implementing the "minimum fail rate" the componets can drop more frequently than if they were the control. The trivial can be set high, but not so high that the items in question couldn't be used as a skilling path and/or allow for the possiblity that skill caps might go up in the future (I don't think I can rule that again, heck they did it twice.) And skill difficulties have changed, but I don't think they're not likely to change often.

So, if they have a new factor for controling the rate at which new, useful, powerful items enter the game, they can open the valve (so to speak) on the other factors.

For example (And I'm speaking purely as someone who has done game desgin, not about anything in particular. I haven't played EQ for years at this point.) The Leahter Hauburk of Uberness can be made by someone with tailoring and has a high trivial. This item (for this example) is the BEST leather bp ever in the game. Someone with a max skill and maxxedd out AAs can get a pretty good success rate. Without "minimum fail rate" then only the difficulty of getting max skill and components controls the rate at which these enter the game. Once anyone has max skill, that no longer provide much of a control to the rate, since he will be cranking them out as fast as he can get the drops. (Haversacks anyone?) If the drop-rate is at all rasonable to the players, then soon enough everyone who wants one will have The Leahter Hauburk of Uberness and all encounters will have to be factored around its presence.

By adding minimum fail rate, they don't have to make the drop uber-rare, nor do they have to set the trivial to say ... 600 and hope the cap never goes up.

So, before saying it's a completely horrible idea, flip it around and look at it adding another factor they can use in balancing decisions. It's probably nothing more than that.

[Bumkus]

I think that, if they really wanted a "maximum success rate" on a combine... then the best way to do it would be to have a person with 300 skill, a +5% item (thus 315 skill) and Mastery 3 have that success rate.

Thus, if someone was fortunate enough to have a +10% or +15% item, then they deserve to have a moderately higher chance of success... or be able to attempt the item a little sooner.

Well I am just gonna keep saying it til it sticks. Not all races have equal skillup paths and there are a heck of a lot more of say, 300 Woodelf tailors than any other race. Since Woodelves can't make my Ogre Leathers, and since ALL races use the same component for the Augs and armor and since Ogre Bloodpact armor is statwise no better than GM woodelf, then what you propose makes it harder for an Ogre Bst to get the same item as any Woodelf leather class. Since all the other classes are consuming the key ingrediants and converting them specifically into items that other classes specifically cannot use, then DoN armor is clearly favoring certain races or classes over other.

Its been said that "thats just the way it is." I am fine with that. 60% success? Sure it sucks, let's deal with it and move on. But unless the people that have made 300 GM pieces are wearing like 12 sets of gloves and 3 tunics, I suspect that the main gripe is that the DoN plat machine if not producing as expected.

You wanna fix DoN armor? Make everything NO DROP and increase component drops rates back to reasonable levels. This makes it a reward for Tradeskilling. If you are just looking for a license to print plat, then eBay.

And this really isnt directed at Angelsyn in particular. Min failure rate complaints are getting a LOT of play time right now. We've identified the min failure rate, let's move on. My bigger fear is that a few of the high end tradeskillers are going to get traction with a top-10 list proposal which will further exclude certain race/class combinations.