GM smithing/tailoring success rates w/ Mastery 3, possible bug

[Twistagain]

Bah. I routinely crank out runs of 200-400 CEs...I'd have no problem doing, say, 1000 of each scenario. Hey, Tanker...wanna set me up two temporary characters like above and stand by me making sure I don't profit from them somehow while I do 1000 combines of GM stuff?

[Baltazor Goldsinger]

Here's one High Elf who would be willing to volunteer to do this test!!! Even a 1000 combines if it would help resolve this problem we are having now.

[Xulan]

The lesson learned for me is that Mastery is right now nothing more than a method for those with lower skill to receive similar results as those with higher skill (I do not mean this in a derogatory manner). It will not really help those with higher skill at this time (or in a very, very small way), especially on anything with a success cap. Take this as a warning to those who feel, as I did, that mastery 3 was a "must have" item for a trade skiller. It may be that in future expansions that higher trivial recipies will make mastery useful again for those with maxed skill.

In other words, I always just thought of this as something a tradeskiller would need. I now believe otherwise, that it is a lot more optional than I had thought, and does little to no good once a person's skill is 300 (at this time).

On a good note to those who want to keep JCM enchanter only, I no longer feel the need to want to have it =) (please, please no comments on this, I don't want this thread to be killed).

[Qaladar Bragollach]

The lesson learned for me is that Mastery is right now nothing more than a method for those with lower skill to receive similar results as those with higher skill (I do not mean this in a derogatory manner). It will not really help those with higher skill at this time (or in a very, very small way), especially on anything with a success cap. Take this as a warning to those who feel, as I did, that mastery 3 was a "must have" item for a trade skiller. It may be that in future expansions that higher trivial recipies will make mastery useful again for those with maxed skill.

In other words, I always just thought of this as something a tradeskiller would need. I now believe otherwise, that it is a lot more optional than I had thought, and does little to no good once a person's skill is 300 (at this time).

On a good note to those who want to keep JCM enchanter only, I no longer feel the need to want to have it =) (please, please no comments on this, I don't want this thread to be killed).

I don't mean to be rude, but this has been known since the last fan fair when Tanker released the exact skillup algorithm. That was several months ago and the thread about it went on for a long time but is gone now I think.

[Xulan]

I don't mean to be rude, but this has been known since the last fan fair when Tanker released the exact skillup algorithm. That was several months ago and the thread about it went on for a long time but is gone now I think.

Not rude at all and I'd be interested in the exact post so that I can see my folly from not having read past information.

There was no way to know until after this data was collected as far as I can tell (unless a dev came right out and said as much, in which case, I very obviously missed it, which is very possible =). It really all has to do with the success caps on the don armor combines. Without the caps, this thread would probably not have ever happened. Going into it some months ago, before DoN armors were around (again, not having read the jc forums on oow aug cutting and not any forum for a while, having taken a few months off between oow and don), it seemed Mastery 3 would be logical for a master smith. This would, after all, in my mind, be helpful for the wonderful new high trivial armor coming out with DoN. It was something the smiths I knew were going to get so that they would be able to make the new armor with some reliability (all in our minds, of course). There was no way to know that it would be success capped (though I should have known from the JC precedent, as well as the poison/alchemy and inlay combines) and that mastery would not help the high level tradeskillers until after we collected data and figured this out.

What it comes down to, is when we read the description of the mastery aa's and see "50% less failures" on level 3, we think, "Yay, 50% less failures!" We do not think about success caps, and such a thing was not around on smithed and tailored armor before DoN (as far as I know). We just wanted 50% fewer failures =) Not 50% fewer failures sometimes, depending on skill level due to success caps on certain items. If that had been in the description, I would have definitely researched it more and quite possibly never bought it =) 18 aa's is a lot to spend on something (for me) that does not work the way I thought it would.

At the very, very least, perhaps if a combine has a success % cap, Mastery aa's could grant a capped bonus %. In other words, cap the aa % as well, like 2, 5 and 10% bonus, or cut the failure reduction in half for level 3. Meaning that if an item is capped at 60% success, then give those with mastery 3 a 10% bonus to succeed, making it 66% success rate, or give a 25% failure reduction instead of 50%, giving us 70% instead of 60% success rate. I'm just asking for a little something to make those 18aa's work for me. I do understand not wanting armor to have a 90% success rate when the intention was for it to enter the world at a 60% rate.

[Phantron]

At 386 triival for DoN BP/Legs, only those with a 15% mod item would be able to make it 95% predicted by the formula so there was no reason to assume that mastery 3 would not help.

[Twistagain]

At 386 triival for DoN BP/Legs, only those with a 15% mod item would be able to make it 95% predicted by the formula so there was no reason to assume that mastery 3 would not help.

I'm not sure what point you are arguing here. As far as I can tell, we all think that Mastery 3 *SHOULD* help. The question is two-fold: is it helping? Is it actually (for some strange reason) hurting?

I've not seen much evidence either way. The point is that it is difficult-to-impossible for us, as players, to gather enough components to make attempts to show one way or another. Devs say it is working as intended. It may be. But some people say it isn't (I know, they don't really have valid evidence to support that...just small samples which could be bad luck), but we *CANNOT* refute their claims, because we don't have enough evidence, either.

[Xulan]

I believe Phantron is actually agreeing with what you are saying Twistagain, that one would believe that mastery 3 would still help with at least GM bp/legs (unless one had a 15% mod) and there was no reason to think otherwise.

I'm currently of the opinion that things are working as intended, that the success cap is around 60% for this armor.

The only question that remains in my mind is that there *may* be a problem with people receiving greater than that with lower level (250ish) and mastery 3, but the data for this is sketchy as I have only seen shorter runs (10 or 20 attempts). Until I see longer sets of data for anything over 60% success rate, I am going to believe that the blips are apparitions.

I believe it is working as intend, just not how I thought it should =)

Anyhow, please post any data that shows a bug or disproves a bug (all data =).

[Qaladar Bragollach]

Not rude at all and I'd be interested in the exact post so that I can see my folly from not having read past information.

There was no way to know until after this data was collected as far as I can tell (unless a dev came right out and said as much, in which case, I very obviously missed it, which is very possible =). It really all has to do with the success caps on the don armor combines. Without the caps, this thread would probably not have ever happened. Going into it some months ago, before DoN armors were around (again, not having read the jc forums on oow aug cutting and not any forum for a while, having taken a few months off between oow and don), it seemed Mastery 3 would be logical for a master smith. This would, after all, in my mind, be helpful for the wonderful new high trivial armor coming out with DoN. It was something the smiths I knew were going to get so that they would be able to make the new armor with some reliability (all in our minds, of course). There was no way to know that it would be success capped (though I should have known from the JC precedent, as well as the poison/alchemy and inlay combines) and that mastery would not help the high level tradeskillers until after we collected data and figured this out.

What it comes down to, is when we read the description of the mastery aa's and see "50% less failures" on level 3, we think, "Yay, 50% less failures!" We do not think about success caps, and such a thing was not around on smithed and tailored armor before DoN (as far as I know). We just wanted 50% fewer failures =) Not 50% fewer failures sometimes, depending on skill level due to success caps on certain items. If that had been in the description, I would have definitely researched it more and quite possibly never bought it =) 18 aa's is a lot to spend on something (for me) that does not work the way I thought it would.

At the very, very least, perhaps if a combine has a success % cap, Mastery aa's could grant a capped bonus %. In other words, cap the aa % as well, like 2, 5 and 10% bonus, or cut the failure reduction in half for level 3. Meaning that if an item is capped at 60% success, then give those with mastery 3 a 10% bonus to succeed, making it 66% success rate, or give a 25% failure reduction instead of 50%, giving us 70% instead of 60% success rate. I'm just asking for a little something to make those 18aa's work for me. I do understand not wanting armor to have a 90% success rate when the intention was for it to enter the world at a 60% rate.

OK I found the threads...

Here is the thread containing the psuedo-code (and nice graphs to go with it).
Fan Faire June 2005 Write-up (Plus Tanker handout)

Here is the thread where I concluded (and others agreed with me including Ngreth).
Mastery vs. Salvage

At that point in time, we had solid evidence that aug cutting was success capped in the 60-80% range and knowledge that DoN GM armor has some kind of success cap on it. It was an educated guess that it was a similar or identical cap. Of course, I was assuming 70% but it looks empirically like its more on the order of 60%, making the numbers for mastery uselessness being 260+15% mod or 284+5% mod for smithing and tailoring.

I stand by my assertation with some minor revisions in numbers... if you can or intend to at some point get a raw skill of 285ish in a given tradeskill, don't buy mastery aa... it will be a complete waste of your time.

[Leana]

Qaladar,

The thread you linked primarily addressed how the two AAs affected getting skill ups. The primary conclusion of that thread was that *IF* you stayed close to trivial when skilling up, salvage would be more beneficial in aiding you in the skill up process. That is not relavent to this thread.

There was some discussion, posted by you, related to the lack of beneifit of mastery if you were max skill (300). You stated in the thread that based on imperical data, it appeared that there was approximately a 30% minimum failure rate on GM armor. This dicussion is the only part of the discussion on that thread that I found to be relavant to this one.

Your arguments are valid, but they do make a huge assumption that all tradeskillers will be able to skill to 300 or close while doing close to trivial combines. If this were true, then the skill would be a total waste.

On the other hand, there are people like me who skill up while practicing the trade instead of grinding thousands of combines. Yes, I do grind a few sickles now and then, but my primary method of leveling is to make things for guildies and sale in the bazaar. I have made better than a hundred grandmaster combines and with a skill between 250-273. That makes mastery 3 a very lucrative and beneficial AA for me to have. When I reach 300, and the mastery 3 AA is pretty useless, I'll consider it 18 AAs well spent. It will have served me well for the time I used it.

I have the same situation in tailoring, which is trailing behind my blacksmithing. I will probably get mastery 3 for tailoring. I will probably skip mastery 3 for all other tradeskills.

Leana Soulwarden
Blacksmith
Inevitable Storm
The Seventh Hammer

[Xulan]

Thank you =) I never did follow the first thread past page 1 (the info is on page 3), to my own detriment, and I never did read the salvage vs. mastery thread as well. I was just starting to play again about the time the threads started (~2 months ago) and I wasn't reading the boards very much then. Search would have been my friend, however, in this discovery.

I had mastery 3 before then though - I was never looking to see whether it was worth buying, and discussion about whether to get it did not interest me as I already had it.

Finding this out (the hard way for me) was actually a side-effect of this whole thing.

[Qaladar Bragollach]

Your arguments are valid, but they do make a huge assumption that all tradeskillers will be able to skill to 300 or close while doing close to trivial combines. If this were true, then the skill would be a total waste.

Thats not an assumption its a fact... not everyone will choose to do it but they CAN.

For smithing, shadowscream to 267, then sickles (max success on sickles at 282+geerlok... a bit of a gap but its close enough).

For tailoring, LoY ribbons, then velious stuff all the way to 300 (wyvern, then othmir, then holgresh).

Obviously there are other paths... perhaps even better ones.

[Leana]

Very crafty how you picked one statement to quote out of context in order to avoid addressing my main point. That's a fine art.

Isn't the point to tradeskills to make things? If that is the case, then I submit that mastery 3 is not useless, but getting to 300 might well be. If you can be just as good at tradeskills with approximately 250 skill and mastery 3, then reaching 300 is a hollow and pointless victory. It certainly isn't worth spending mucho plat and many hours grinding sickles, well not to me. The only thing that would compel me to take that path is if there was a significant benefit to be gained. Instead, I'll use my tradeskills as they were intended to be used and allow my skills to rise gradually.

Perhaps that is the point to what SOE has done. Perhaps they are trying to preclude and eliminate the need for people to live through the tedium of grinding useless tradeskill items for hours. As I remember, that is one of the long standing complaints of tradeskillers. Now, if you want to avoid the perpetual grinding, you can spend 18 AAs, bypass that pain, and be just as productive as someone who chose to grind to 300.

Leana Soulwarden
Blacksmith
Inevitable Storm
The Seventh Hammer

[Qaladar Bragollach]

Very crafty how you picked one statement to quote out of context in order to avoid addressing my main point. That's a fine art.

Isn't the point to tradeskills to make things? If that is the case, then I submit that mastery 3 is not useless, but getting to 300 might well be. If you can be just as good at tradeskills with approximately 250 skill and mastery 3, then reaching 300 is a hollow and pointless victory. It certainly isn't worth spending mucho plat and many hours grinding sickles, well not to me. The only thing that would compel me to take that path is if there was a significant benefit to be gained. Instead, I'll use my tradeskills as they were intended to be used and allow my skills to rise gradually.

Perhaps that is the point to what SOE has done. Perhaps they are trying to preclude and eliminate the need for people to live through the tedium of grinding useless tradeskill items for hours. As I remember, that is one of the long standing complaints of tradeskillers. Now, if you want to avoid the perpetual grinding, you can spend 18 AAs, bypass that pain, and be just as productive as someone who chose to grind to 300.

Leana Soulwarden
Blacksmith
Inevitable Storm
The Seventh Hammer

Thats a tradeoff you have to make... time spent on 18aa versus the time spent gaining skill. Thing is if you spend the AA then eventually you might also acquire the skill just incidentally from making things. This would make the aa spent a waste of your time. The reverse is not true. If you spend the time to skill you are not going to accidentally also spend the AA.

Also, consider the opportunity cost of spending AA versus the opportunity cost of gaining skill. Frequently, one can to at least some extent tradeskill in dead time when you are unable to be gaining exp and your effectiveness at actually going out and killing things is unaffected or affected less. To spend AA though, you have directly lost that AA that you could have spent gaining things that WILL make you more effective at killing stuff (well maybe anyway).

As to your arguement that the point of tradeskills is to make things, that is not universally true. Believe it or not, but there are some sickos out there (*whistles innocently*) for whom the magic 300 number is a worthy challenging goal in and of itself. The making of useful items or the making of profits is of secondary concern. You've probably seen a few of them around... like those insane non-karana non-woodelf 300 skill fletchers.

Welll everyone has their own priorities... so lets not drag this out. The point of the original thread was debate over which was a better way to spend AA, salvage or mastery. I hope you'll at least agree that the answer to that question is salvage (applies to all 7 (8, 9, etc.) tradeskills, never under any circumstances becomes obsolete, etc.)

I only brought that thread into this one to bring it to the attention of Xulan who seemed unaware that his/her comments had already been hashed over and the same conclusions reached several months ago.

I apologize if I pissed anyone off.

[Mannwin Woobie]

If you can be just as good at tradeskills with approximately 250 skill and mastery 3, then reaching 300 is a hollow and pointless victory.

Which is exactly my point.

Maybe 250 with Mastery 3 should be like, or close to, 300 with no mastery. However, 300 with Mastery should be better than both.