JCM to be fixed in Oct 8 patch

[Aanny Crowdteaser]

Just a heads up for those who haven't read the FanFaire update thread the Denmother posted in General....

Jewelry Craft Mastery AA fix is supposed to go live in the patch on Wednesday, Oct 8th....

....and there was MUCH rejoicing amoung chanters everywhere!

[slinkity]

But was it? I got a small patch today...

[Shere Khaan]

The big patch is actually for October the 9th or about 6.5 hours from the timne of this post

Shere Khaan

[Asmo]

Just did 60 gem studded chain combines. 39 successes with jcm3. Seems broken still to me or for sure isnt working as it used to atleast, unless i got extremly unlucky.

[Itek]

Hm...

working backwards...

39 / 60 (presuming 60 is a large enough sample size, which, of course, it is NOT)

65% success

presuming you have a 252 -effective- skill (why in agnostics name anyone would have JCM 3 and NOT have 250 skill with some skill mod item i would never be able to guess)

65% = expected success (X) + (0.5 * expected failure (100 - X))

65 = X + 50 - (X/2)

15 = X - (X/2)

15 = X / 2

X = 30

expected success = 51.5 + effective skill - (0.75 * trivial)

30 = 51.5 + 252 - (0.75 * Z)
30 = 303.5 - (0.75 * Z)
-273.5 = - .75 * Z
-273.5 / -.75 = Z
Z = 364.666666.....
Z = 365 effective trivial

Broken (OLD) JCM was Failure - 50%
Intended (NEW) JCM is Failure / 2 (50% -reduction- in failures, as PRINTED in the text)

OLD JCM 3 on a 30% success formula was 80%.
NEW JCM 3 on a 30% success formula is 65% (30 + 70/2)

Now, admittedly, that's an OUCH!

However I think everyone should admit that it's not CURRENTLY broken, but was, in fact, broken before. It's working now as the text has ALWAYS stated. It reduces the chance to FAIL by 50 percent, rather than INCREASING the chance to succeed by 50 percent.

People -already- view JCM 3 as a -huge- advantage for Enchanter Jewellers. (it is) And one that, for a long time, was hugely unfair.

Itek: Hmm... most people fail this 50 percent of the time, but I -never- fail. *dance*
*Itek has been slain by a_horde_of_angry_shaman_03*
*Itek has been rezzed by an_angry_cleric_01*
*Itek has been slain by a_horde_of_angry_gnomes_04*
*Itek has been rezzed by an_angry_cleric_02*
*Itek has been slain by an_angry_halfling_tailor_07*
*Itek has been slain by Cigarskunk's_troll_smithing_legion_01*

Get the point?

It was bugged, it's now "working as intended" and everyone that got tons of plat the old way wander off quietly and fondly remember the golden (platinum?) old days. Openly complaining about them "fixing" JCM will lead only to great debates of the merits of "Fletching Mastery 3" for rangers.

[tawnos]

For one thing, its not 30% success. The success rate is pretty well known without working backwards to be 45-50%, so if you use the 'nerfed' interpretation of what the aa skill says it should do, success rates should be somewhere around 72.5-75%. So, it is not 'working as intended' if the success rate is indeed 65% as stated previously unless the recipe has been altered so that the success rate is now 30%.

Intended (NEW) JCM is Failure / 2 (50% -reduction- in failures, as PRINTED in the text)

The text says 'This ability reduces the chance of failing any jewel craft combinations by 10, 25, and 50 percent.' Its a semantic argument as to whether this means it should work the old way or the apparent new way. Note however that 'as PRINTED' it does not specify which way it should work.

My own tests so far have yielded 47/59 (79.7%) successes. This is more in line with what one would expect to see from the new interpretation of the description of how jcm works.

[Itek]

Oy.

There is NO semantic arguement.

'This ability reduces the chance of failing any jewel craft combinations by 10, 25, and 50 percent.'

'This AA reduces (the chance of failing) any JC combo by 50 percent'

(the chance of failing) = Failure Rate

Period.

Failure is quite different from success, I think is a solid statement.

X = success rate
Y = failure rate

X + Y = 100
Y = 100 - X

X + (100 - X) = 100

Reducing "the chance to fail" means a reduction in Y not an increase in X.

X + 50 != Y / 2 .... EVER. Well, it does if X = 0 and Y = 100

So for combines that NO ONE else can do JCM 3 gives a 50 percent return. That's freaking INCREDIBLE. No one else IN THE GAME as ANY chance for success and you walk away 50 / 50 ??

Let's consider a more reasonable number.

Druid gets 10% success.
JCM 3 Enchanter gets 10 + 90 / 2 or 55% success.
OLD JCM 3 Enchanter gets 10 + 50 or 60% success.

Oh, and as for the difference between 30% and 45% expectation of success...

30 + 50 = 80
45+ 50 = 95
(a difference of 1 success in 6)


30 + 70/2 = 65
45 + 55/2 = 73
(a difference of 1 success in 12)

Do you really think you've done a big enough sample with one 252 skill non-JCM 3 and one 252 skill JCM 3 person to state with statistical ASSURANCE that your observations are more accurate than someone else. (All I did was use the numbers he provided, and, this is hardly surprising, your numbers are not highly different.)

If indeed the normal expectation is 50 percent than indeed the expectation would be 75%

(By the way, this would then be the formula with the greatest swing from OLD (100% return) to NEW (75% return) wouldn't it. That would make it change from "the best method to churn plat in the game" into "only a huge advantage.")

60 combines at 75% yields 45
39 / 60 would be 6 short
47 / 60 would be 2 extra

86 / 120 would be 4 short

4 / 120 would be 3.34%

Um... standard deviation ... it's been a while...

(read: YOUR SAMPLE SIZES ARE TOO SMALL, you are well withing the expected randomness, it's not broken)

Let's get to the HEART of the matter.

Gem Studded Chain costs (roughly) 250 pp per attempt.
They sell for (roughly) 300 pp in quantity because they are one of the consumables for solstice robes.

100 percent return for 100 combines yields 5000 plat PROFIT.
95 percent return for 100 combines yields 3500 plat PROFIT.

45 percent return for 100 combines yields 11500 plat LOSS.
75 percent return for 100 combines yields 2500 plat LOSS.

JCM 3 enchanters undercut the market to a point where NO ONE without JCM 3 could compete. At all. Ever. They had a "sure thing" money maker with almost no competition. That is no longer true.

The cost for Gem Studded Chain will rise a bit. But, because of JCM 3 still working as intended (finally) it will still be the exclusive market of JCM 3 enchanters.

Whom does this hurt?

The JCM 3 enchanters who've been making plat hand over fist on a "never fails" combine since Luclin came out? Nope.

The enchanters who haven't yet spent 18 AA on JCM 3 who can now make an informed decision about buying it? Nope.

Non-JCM 3 tailors and people wanting the Solstice Earring? Oh yeah. Prices for them are going to go up.

I suggest you go over to Tailoring or Quests Requiring Tradeskills and complain about your financial crunch. I am sure you will find MANY shoulders to cry on. (one can now actually STEP on the sarcasm in this post)

It WAS a bug. You KNEW it. It's FIXED now. Deal.

To quote Dennis Leary "Get a helmet."

[Viken]

Reduce the chance of failure by 50% can in fact have two meanings:

1. Going from 75% to 25% is a difference of 50% (75% - 50% = 25%)
2. Going from 75% to 37% is a difference of 50% (75% x 50% = 37.5%)

It all depends on your perspective. Is your frame of reference the 75% or is it 100%?

JCM3 used to work like No. 1 and now it works like No 2. which makes more sense.

[Cigarskunk]

*Itek has been slain by Cigarskunk's_troll_smithing_legion_01*

1) I don't have a legion of trollish smiths - we're all bakers

2) We've got nothing against jewelers having a 90% success rate - this means that with fewer failures there are far more and far cheaper Temptest earrings with thier wonderful fire saves for all us low fire save trolls

3) We've got nothing against you feeling the way you feel about JCM3 - just don't call the first version of it an exploit - it's neither nice nor fare to do so

[Itek]

No, Viken, it can't have two meanings.

Going from 25% success to 75% success INCREASES SUCCESS 50 percent. It does NOT reduce the "chance to fail" by 50 percent.

Failure Rate - 50% != Failure Rate * 50%

They are NOT equal, they have ENTIRELY seperate meanings.

Yes, Skunk, it was not nice of me to say.

No, Skunk, it was ENTIRELY fair of me to say. It was working in a manner VASTLY different from it's intended purpose. Those who knowingly took advantage of the situation WERE exploiting. (Exploiting: using a known bug to your advantage.)

It's clear this is a fix, not a nerf. (Since the language of the PATCH MESSAGE clearly states FIXED.)

[Aloura]

I think there is a minor misunderstanding here, without taking part in the emotional banter that is taking place I'll try to clarify.

The term "fix" refers to the recent issue that developed with JCM where it had no effect at all on the sucess of a JC combine.

For the past few weeks JCM has had no effect on JC. AKA with JCM 3, we were getting 45%ish success on gem studded chains..... it is not possible by any interpretation of the functionality of JCM for an enchanter with the ability, even with a skill of 0, to fail 55% of the time.

Many of us petitioned for a fix, and they granted one.

My actuall suspicion on the subject was sony said "oh JCM is working better than its supposed to, lets disable it until enough people complain and then put it how its supposed to work. At that stage people can not cry that we are nerfing it, we can be 'quickly fixking it' instead."

[Lothay]

This thread is being closed before the debate becomes more personnal, or indulges in more Sony-Bashing.

~Lothay