Foraging with and without the Foraging Machette

[Auricula]

Since I seem to spend more of my EQ time foraging than doing anything else (ONE more tailoring skill point ... for three days now ... but just ONE more, but I digress), I broke down and did the quest for the Foraging Machette today and gave it a test run. My base foraging skill is maxed at 200.

I did 100 forages in Western Wastes without the foraging machette equipped, and 100 more with it equipped. These were the results ... first number is without.

Glob of Slush Water: 28 21
Lichen Roots: 16 21
Wurm Egg: 10 13
Drake Egg: 15 6
Dragon Claw Sliver: 10 11
Arctic King Crab: 7 9
Tuft of Dire Wolf Fur: 5 8
Small Chunk of Velium: 4 7
Dragon Egg: 5 4

[Jianna]

Which leads me to believe I was right by putting mine in the bank for good.

[Jannelle Silverthorne]

http://mboards.eqtraders.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=2637

Deeger and some others have compiled some foraging stats on this as well. Doesn't seem to make any difference.

[Ndaara]

I was under the impression it would add a small % to skill and therefore gave it to my husband's druid with 195 foraging, at level 46. Apparently he's not as compulsive at foraging as i am

My understanding of foraging is, if you have 200 forage skill, you will ALWAYS forage something. At 199 skill and below, you have a chance to come up empty handed.

His druid is now at 199 foraging, exclusively from me foraging morning dew or tea leaves with him, and ALL with the foraging machete equipped. At every point (195, 196, 197, 198, and 199 skill) he STILL gets messages of "you fail to forage anything". I'll leave the machete equipped until he hits 200 foraging just cuz he's been doing a great job lately with the morning dew and i'm superstitious. But i've convinced myself that the machete doesn't actually do anything at all. If it did, at 199 skill, it MUST add enough skill that his effective skill is 200, and he should NEVER get a foraging failure message. Yet, he still fails. Not often, but he does fail.

It will really upset me if he hits 200 foraging and fails with the darned machete equipped :P

Of course this is all based on my understanding of how forage works. If i am mistaken, please correct me

hm. actually this is making me wonder if ANY of the skill % items work?

[Liwsa]

I have not failed a forage since I hit 200. Only time I come up empty handed is when I get a dup forage of a lore item(epic stuff in few zones druids have to forage in).

[Auricula]

Jannelle, thank you for the link to the prior data samples. Before I set off to do the Foraging Machette quest, I had read information about it on a couple different sites, but apparently didn't bother to do a search on these message boards for information. ::sigh::

Ndaara, your understanding of how foraging works is right on the mark. Based on your husband's failure to forage anything at 199 skill and with machette equipped, I would have to agree that it appears the modifier on it is broken. Perhaps this is unintentional and should be bug-reported to EQ?

I was going to hand it down to my baby ranger to help with their 90-ish foraging skill (after all, don't we all need more pods of water, roots and vegetables? ::giggle:, but now that even seems useless. Guess I will try to find an empty bank slot and hang on to it in case it is ever fixed.

[Lothay]

I don't believe the modifier is broken at all.

Foraging, like Sense Heading, is capped at a maximum of skill 200. The modfier does nothing if you are already at the max. Even with the maximum possible skill, it is possible, though rare, that you will forage nothing.

~Lothay

[Auricula]

Lothay, other than as Liwsa mentioned re: occassional messages about duplicate lore forages, I have NEVER failed on a forage since my character dinged level 39 and got her foraging maxed. That was ...ummm... last October, I believe. And I forage EVERY time it is available; I don't want to even want to think how many hundreds of hours I have spent JUST foraging stuff for tradeskill purposes.

If the modifier is working, 199 with the Machette would certainly give an effect level 200 and thereby no failures.

I do kind of understand that if max skill is 200, equipping it may not make a difference in ability. But does that mean that geerlocks and tradeskill trophies are useless when your skill is already 250 for the respective tradeskill?

Having a foraging skill of 200 already, whether or not the Machette is functioning as intended is not a huge issue for me. But there are races/classes that have a low limit on Foraging where the additional ability could make a difference.

[Itek]

It's simple.

Foraging and Sense Heading do NOT check for "success" if skill = 200, but checks it in all other cases.

Ok, now for the complicated explaination.

Any 200 skill forager will tell you "I never fail, unless I get a duplicate Lore item message." They can't all be smoking illegal plants. So we have "Given, you NEVER -fail- to forage -something- with a 200 ACTUAL skill."

Next we have someone that has a 199 skill plus a modifier item (and modifier items both work, and are proven to work there is no question) which gives EFFECTIVE skill over 200. These people still get "you fail to forage" messages.

It's WELL established that success/failure on forages is a seperate check from the "wheel o destiny" of what the RESULTS of the forage are.

So...

If skill = 200 skip "success" and goto "results"
else /ran "success"
if "success" > "threshold" then goto "results"
else "failed"
"results"

Having an "actual" skill of 200 skips the success test, that's all.

Now, as for "does having a higer skill, real or effective, increase the chances for a RareForage?" .... no one has really proven it one way or the other.