DoN Cultural Caps or Calculators wrong?

[hermitw]

So far I'm experiencing right at a 50% failure rate on GM Cuirass DoN combines (with tailoring at 298 and geerlok). I'm also experiencing a 50% failure rate on Chest and Legging Symbols via the smithing route (with Smithing at a lowbie 258).

The calculators on this board show high expected completion rates. Given that my sample size just passed 60 and is increasing weekly, I would expect to see this percentage trending toward the norm, but it is not. The same results I saw in the first 10 are still the results I got on the six I tried yesterday.

Now I am not all that up on statistics, having forgotten most of what I learned, but I do know that breaking my surveys down in to groups, as I have done, getting close to the same results across a series of groups as I have done certainly increase confidence in the results - and at this point I'm getting to where I rather pay another smith to make these combines than do them myself!

Is anyone else experiencing these kinds of results? I understand fully how chance can create these rare types of trends, but I've played bridge and others games of chance for years and understand quite a bit about the probability of outcomes (and thru experience and study about how rare this type of outcome is!)

At this point I just want to know whether this represents an extremely rare outcome or are the calculators wrong? Is there anything else that can be influencing my results? I generally do combines in the Bazaar... where stats aren't nerfed by carrying too much weight, but I have been techincally encumbered with plat while attempting an estimated 50% of these combines. (The rest have not been because of getting suspicious, but so far I can tell that weight or lack thereof is having any influence on outcomes.)

[Fesser]

As it has been reported in numerous other posts, there is a hard success rate cap on these combines. The best guess is that it is around 60% for GM BP and pants. So it sounds like you are getting pretty much the standard expected results.

[hermitw]

I thought maybe that only applied to the actual armor pieces? I'm 0 for 2 on Chest armor combines - which is easily believable with a 60% cap.

But I didn't think these applied to the Augs as well? What about Master's augs if your TS isn't close to Max? When I was still down at 285 I was experiencing a 80% failure rate on GM chest symbols via tailoring - but now that I'm 198 my success rate has (cautiously) been better.

The calculators here say that I should achieve the same 95% success rate using smithing (I have Mastery at 3 in both skills) to make Master's Augs as Tailoring - and smithing is the cheaper route using Shissar Scales versus two Nightmare Arachnid Silks. But my failure rate (with Smithing at 258) for Chest and Legging Symbols has so far been 80% also (with a very small sample size of 5 so far). I've made close to a hundred Master's augs so far, but after my experience via tailoring, I resisted switching to using the smithing route - just gun shy.

But yesterday I made about 15 Master's augs using smithing and had typical failure rates on all the lower ones (1 failure in 10) but I failed 4 out of 5 on Chest and Legs.

Seems to me perhaps if this is affecting Master's symbols also, that this might not be so much of a cap as a different formula at play?

[tnexus]

I'm pretty sure it applies to both.

[Phantron]

There was a theory that the modified chance to fail only applies to augs using one type of skill (Tailoring/Smithing) but not the other. If so it's probably a bug and I wouldn't count on it anyway.

[KyrosKrane]

Thus far, no one has brought any conclusive evidence to suggest that Master armor or augs has a fail rate cap. Your sample size of 15 combines is relatively small; that leads me to suggest it's just bad luck. Now, if you did 150 combines and you got this same pattern, then there may be something there worth investigating.

As to the success cap on GM items, the stats we've seen posted so far strongly indicate that the caps apply to both armor and augments, and that the caps are tiers according to the trivial. (That is, items with trivial 386 have a lower success cap than items with trivial 368, etc.)

[hermitw]

Thanks - that helps!

[Xulan]

Your success is a little low, I estimate the cap on GM bp and legs (and their symbols) to be ~62%. I am guessing the sample size on your combines is small, hence the lower success rate. It applies to augs as well as armor (the success caps).