Success or Failure? Does it really matter?

[Boleslav]

A little over a year ago (maybe longer?) there was an active thread on this issue. I did some research, and had some people send me some data from their own runs.

The data consisted of what skill level was being attempted, how many attempts it took to gain the skill level, and if the combine that actually gave the skillup was a success or a failure. The results were weighted by Ishwar's success formula (the one in the FAQ) to balance the fact that at low skill levels the chances of a success are lower and at higher skill levels the chances approach 95%.

My data paralleled the other data that folks sent me. It showed a pretty consisted 50% bias toward getting a skillup on a successful combine. There was one troubling trade though. The data for pottery showed an actual bias toward getting a skillup from a failed combine. This was consistent for two independent sets of pottery data from 0 to 150 or so. This was before the patch that changed some of the skillup rates though. The behavior of pottery skillups may have changed since then.

One example I specifically remember is that I leveled two characters with equal stats to 102 in Jewelcraft. For on character I made Gold-Amber combines, and for the other I used the next recipe to trivial. The one that made the next trivial combine took 20% fewer combines to get to skill 102 than the one that made the Gold-Amber combine. This was consistent with about a 50% better chance to get a skillup on a successful combine as on a failed one.

If anyone really wants to see it I can try to dig the data up and post it somewhere.

Boleslav Forgehammer (the statistics freak)
Paladin of Brell in his 60th Campaign
E'ci - Destiny Awaits

[Prizzle]

When I was raising Smithing I noticed many more skillups on succesful combines than on failures. It was less noticeable for other trades.

I believe tradeskills to have been coded by different developers and thus having different progressions (which later were tuned to be back in line with one another). It might still be that some tradeskills (like Smithing) have more chance to get a skillup on success, others (like Pottery) high chance of skillups, others (like Fishing) a chance to break your "combiner" as well as spill beer you dont have.

[Laurefin]

skill ups w/success

I did a simple analysis of a ton of baking data(4 characters making fish rolls from 0 to 135).

Here is a link to the graphs
http://www.geocities.com/laurefinlonestarr/success.html

What I determined was that while you ARE more likely to skill up on a success than a failure, it had no effect whatsoever on the overall skill up rate.

Laurefin

[Iustus]

I specifically asked Dan at a Fan Faire if the skill up chance was better on a success than on a failure and he said, yes, that it was. He was quite definitive about it.

-I

[Bennan]

Excellent, so your chance to skill up is GREATER on a successful combine.

Which is interesting, for those nasty Velious Tailoring combines, which fail so much, it would be better to have a modifier at hand ... But when doing say Shadowscream, which I find to have a large success rate, it would most likely not be needed (a modify device).

I suppose to extract the best of both worlds getting 255 <insert_prime_stat> and having a modifier equipped should be the standard.

But that begs the question, if by equiping say a Geerlock, that would reduce your prime stat below 255, would it be worth it. The data other posters have discussed here, seems to indicate the factor is quite small (skills on success and failures).

Hmmm I suppose I will be pushing for 255plus now, and being able to equip a Geerlock, any little thing helps.