Feedback wanted on High End Combine Trivials and Projected Failure rates

[Xulan]

Actually, he was asking about Master's, not GM gear, which is what the post you linked is discussing.

Reading Comprehension: 28,217
Xulan: 0

Thanks for pointing this out =)

I've been doing tons of combines, and short of the stray failure, I've had a very high (95%) success rate on master combines. The only thing that might be capped would be the bp/legs stuff. I didn't keep track, but it does seem like I fail a little more often on those. No impirical evidence. Could very well be the RNG and I attribute it as such for now.

[Cloud]

I find i tend to fail more of the sub-combine that is trival at 182 then the armor itself.

[Shamgar]

I am not quite getting this, so bear with me.

GM gear (tailoring and smithing) have a coded success rate cap. Are you saying augs have coded success caps too?

I don't understand, I really don't. Why have %mod's, 300 skill, and mastery aa's if you are just gonna cap the chance to make anything anyways? What use is that? I am completely appalled at the logic here.

If you want people to fail, make it an insanely high trivial. That way by getting aa's, raising your skill, or getting a better mod item, you increase your chances of making good items. What is the point otherwise? That is like removing the impact of aa's once a player reaches lvl 70. I could see if there was something really special you wanted to have a coded success rate for, but everything useful in tradeskilling appears to now have a cap.

I am totally disgusted by this. It is WRONG. There should be a reward for having tradeskill aa's, skill over 250, and having a good %mod item. I mean, look at it logically. Someone with 250 skill and VT gloves should not have as much chance of making an item as someong with 300 skill, BM3, and VT gloves. How does that make any sense at all?

Please come up with something to fix this. If you want a 60% chance of success or something for these items, make the trivial huge so that even with the best available skill/gear/aa you have a 60% chance, but then someone with 250 and a pair of gloves has a really small chance. Just on a whim i plugged a 500 trivial into the calculator. With mastery aa's, 300 skill and 15% mod, you have a 60.75% chance. WIth 250 and 15% mod, you have 5% (min). That makes sense. The augs and the GM gear is the epitomy of tradeskilling right now, why should someone with a drop and FIFTY points below max have a shot at it, and not just a shot, the same chance as the best crafter possible. Its ridiculous that increasing your ability in a tradeskill does not affect how well you can make an item.

[Fesser]

For an opposing position.

I have 300 skill in two different tradeskills (different toons) I have JCM3, TM3, and Salvage3 on my chanter and no trade AA's on my ranger. So I have a little clue about what I'm talking about. Does it irritate me that 300 JC and JCM3 doesn't help me all that much on one specific type of combine, sure but come on, chicks dig it and what about gem studded chains?

Having a maxed % chance of hitting a successful combine is fine as long as it isn't true for all combines in a skill. While GM gear and augs have a hard coded success rate there are many other things that don't, elemental bows for instance. They are L33T still right?

Anyway, from my perspective keep it going, it stops one or two tradeskillers from owning the entire market if it takes a 15% mod, 300 skill, and 18 AA's to get the max success rate; and it gives the average joe a chance at making high end gear without having to max out the skill (read getting to 300 fletching if you aren't a wood elf or karana worshiper).

Keep up the good work!

[Bobaten]

The thing to remember is that the luclin raid drops were never useful for someone with max skill. Pre DoN (when there were no success caps) you had a choice. You could get your skill to 240 and use a geerlok/trophy, or if you were a raider you could stop skilling up at 220 and use a 15% mod. Whatever choice you chose, the masteries were fully effective. When DoN raised the max skill, SoE added success caps to some combines to keep them at their former levels. The alternative was to raise the trivials on the augment combines (which they did actually do to the alchemy augment combines). This opened up a third choice to reach max success rates. For low level players you can still grind to the (now higher) max skill. For higher level players you can choose to grind some experience time on AA's rather than grind on skill ups, and for raid level players, you can forego both of these by obtaining a high level skill mod. The fact that augment combines were success capped was discovered and discussed here within the first few days of DoN going live, and the GM armor success rates were obvious shortly afterward. We didn't lose anything with the success caps, we only gained new choices. And this solution was much better than what happened to alchemists who suddenly lost the 95% success chance (with VT gear and mastery) they had pre DoN, and were dropped down to a 65% success rate and had to raise skill to get up to the 75-80% chance that rogues still had for the same combines.

[Ngreth Thergn]

I have mentioned this before, but will repeat myself.

Part of it was pre 300 cap.

Part of it was, keeping trivials at a level where skillups are better, yet still limiting how often the combine can succeed.

With Trivials in the 400, skillups are DIFFICULT.

putting skillup bonuses on these (and these do) means that if we ever increase the skill cap AGAIN... it becomes a skillup path that may not be desired.

So it was decided that these would be good for skillups, but not good for combines. Not being good for combines means that high skill and AA's do mean little.

It will always be a balancing act.

It will likely NOT have any recipes that give an advantage to people with high skill, and AA, AND is good for skillups. It will probably either be good for high skill or good for skillups and not both.

The other consideration is the rate these are desired to come in the world. Assuming drops are at the level they want (they are for the augs..., not the DoN Armor...) having the min fail controls the rate, while allowing more in the world for skillups.

Alternatively, the min fail could not be put on, but the item will be so rare that there would be complaints about the rarity.

There is no win - win situation here. So a path was chosen, and stuck to for that expansion.

A little at a time I am starting to introduce items where skill and AA's matter, where I do not care if it becomes easier if the skill level is increased again. I have so far not used the max success rate anywhere that I did not believe it did not fit the "lore" of the item. Take the Holepoker as an example. With a 404 trivial, you need all 3 AA's and a 15% mod to get it to 95%. Without the AA's or a 15% mod it is Success chance = 48.5%

That does not mean that I will not find myself with a set of items where we want a cap to how often they succeed no matter the skill. When I do, I will try and fit a piece of lore around why, instead of just having it be as the previous stuff. But the fact is that sometimes we only want something to happen so many times, and that is it. Yes, it sucks for people with the AA and max skill, but it may be the way it needs to be. Not everything can be tailored to one group of people, there are just too many groups of people in the game that need attention to give it all to one group.

[Bobaten]

Every time you talk about tinkering having a 15% mod and a Mastery AA's Ngreth, I get warm fuzzy feelings hoping this means we get these things soon

[Qaladar Bragollach]

Yeah what tinkering aa?

There's a 10% tinkering robe that drops off Shei, but I'm not aware of any 15% mods.

Its good to know that we're NOT paranoid... the devs really ARE out to get us.

[Shamgar]

Sorry for the rant, I reacted badly.

I totally understand the idea that the skill-up path makes it a very valid reason to add the caps. I was (of course) looking at it from only one perspective.

I guess too I was thinking that all the best combines out there had this cap, and that it would mean everything would, and I was frustrated about that.

I personally like the idea that some combines should be so difficult that a person with max skill/aa/etc has the best shot at it, but not the only shot. I also like having a good skill up path, and I am glad that thought was put into this.

Again, sorry for the rant.