Serious problems with Elemental Armor..sigh

[Gryfalia]

Ok, going to try to keep this un-rant-ish.

Having now failed 10 of 11 Elemental breastplates, including

4 PoE Plate Breastplates
1 PoW Plate Breastplate
1 PoW Chain Breastplate
1 PoF Plate Breastplate
2 PoA Plate Breastplates
And one other I can’t remember..
(not to mention a hurricane vambrace couple days ago)

Including 5 I failed JUST LAST NIGHT...

I am starting to wonder if my +15% on my Gauntlets is working correctly.

My skill level is 232 (well, was 231, but I gained on a failure).

We all know the RNG is crappy (I like how they admit that ‘while good over a couple million shots, it stinks at short range, but it’s not worth our time to fix right now’), but I cannot begin to explain how disheartening this is. I literally blew up over a million PP worth of gear for my guild.

The only good thing about it was the comment from an officer ‘Grats Gryfalia on failing a Breastplate from EACH elemental plane in under an hour!’, was quite funny.

Anyone out there using the Gauntlets of the Dark Forge have any comments? Any heavily bad luck recently?

Of course, perhaps it’s just me. I’ve failed 4 elemental JC combines in a row too (our JCM chanter has worse luck than I). On the flip side, I am now, like 29 for 30 doing Elemental Pottery. Problem is, if I had to choose, I would prefer insane good runs on Armor and not pottery.

Gryfalia ‘the disheartened’

[Cleben]

I use my akhevan sheers to make leatherfoot haversacks, and get success rates comparable to 252 in skill, and not as 222 in skill as I actually have. I think I have made 100+ haversacks total now.

I have the gauntlets of dark ember too, with smithing skill at 222, but haven't made that many 250+ smithing items, only about 10 emblems of air/water/fire/earth, and succeding about 2/3 on them.

Cleben Lege

[Nolrog]

I like how they admit that ‘while good over a couple million shots, it stinks at short range, but it’s not worth our time to fix right now’)

I can understand that it's disheartening, however, what exactly would you like them to fix in the RANDOM number generator? It's random, that's the point.

[Gryfalia]

No, it's streaky.

Random doesn't simply mean it's not "yes, yes, yes, no, yes, yes, yes, no".

It means random.

It is far, FAR too streaky. It shouldn't be '100 yes, 3 no, 100 yes, 3 no' which is generally what it is these days.

When almost every single tradeskiller has multiple instances of 'not skilling in 80 combines, then 3 in 4', there is a problem.

I know that when I gain a skill point, I should quickly try several more, because there are very good odds I will gain another point.

Someone (can't remember his name) flat out admitted it (the paraphrase I pointed out).

While true randomness does allow for the possibility of 100 yes and then 3 no, it shouldn't be so common as to be almost expected (as it is now).

Gryfalia

[eniamn]

i tried looking for that with mtp successes. i would get two in a stack about as often as i wouldn't get any in a stack and both less than 1 per stack. (this was when i was below 200). it seems to work ok. /shrug anooying but actually working as intended.

[Gurck-Quellious]

Hate to use the cliche phrase, but I really do think it is 'working as intended'. Random means random. Flip a coin for a few sets of ten repetitions, and imagine heads is a success, tails a failure. The 50/50 chance at either mimics the roughly 50% success rate at GM skill that we have on many cultural & PoP crafted items. I doubt you see much 5/5, more like 3/7, 8/2, etc. The only way for them to make it less streaky (which is the essence of random) would be for it to record your last combine; whether it was a success or fail, and work off of that - in which case it would no longer be random. Trust me, I understand your frustration - I'm 4/12 on EP armors at 240+ trophy (252 mod'd, at hardcap). But on my server the components cost a lot - in the neighborhood of 60k for an attempt at 2-scale pieces of farwater chain, for example - and that's at the prices I offer to pay. If I were to pay what the crack addicts in the bazaar want for components, it would cost closer to 80-90k. Those failures hurt badly.

[Daikoku Ashikaga]

Combines on the plate is Very rare, I know the smith in one of the other guilds was 0-9 at one point and gave up on plate, chain succeeds easier, at a 1-2 ratio for me, not had a chance to try plate, we would only do farwater, and they have been using the ice for other stuff.

farmiing water, /gag

Dai

[xaanru]

2 for 2 on livestone plate BP. Only elemental I have attempted.

[eniamn]

what's the point of gm smithing if you still failed 9/10 times? seems ridiculous.

[Cavel]

The point is that you should be able to succeed more often at higher skills. Being that I am not a programer for SOE nor do I claim to know about how they coded either the Trade skill engine or the RNG I can only speculate...

As such it I theorize that there may be some type of logic in place that takes base skill into account before adding the modifier to determine success. For example if the base skill is 250 then add 20% chance to succeed if the base skill is 230 then add 5% chance... If the modified skill is 252 then add 10% additional.

Again Theory only and not tested but would explain some of the threads here that I have been seeing where a 230ish Tradeskiller with a 15% mod item is not getting the same success as a 250 tradeskiller with GM trophy.

Anyone else have thoughts on this?

[Auricula]

As such it I theorize that there may be some type of logic in place that takes base skill into account before adding the modifier to determine success.

I would agree with this based on a thread long ago about the Foraging Machette, which gives a modifier for foraging. Someone posted that their experience was that with 199 foraging skill and the Machette equipped, they still would fail to forage anything on rare occassions. (At 200 foraging skill, you get something every time you forage).

[Fudapuda]

4 for 4 on water chain thus far, but that means absolutely nothing statistically.

Fudapuda
Bertox

[Hibashira]

Current speculation of EP smithing trivial might be around 350, based on the formula we've been using and the average success rate people are having (20%-40%) at effective 250 skill.

Culturals (including Haversacks) should be just a tad above 250. Not even a close comparison.

[AbitooXev]

Random means independant and random.

Lets use a roulette example. Lets say black has come up 10 times in a row. What are the odds (assuming all numbers are red or black) that it comes up black on the 11th roll?

Answer: 50%

Now, what are the odds that after 11 rolls, all rolls will be black?

Answer: 0.50^11 or .0488% or 1 in 2048.

What's different between the two situations? Simply that in the first example, the first 10 rolls have already occured, making the 11th roll a single independant event. In the 2nd example, all 11 independant rolls must be made successfully.

People have a misconception that because something has previously happened, it will affect the outcome. This simply isnt true. Here's another example:

What are the odds that last night's lotto numbers will be rolled again next drawing?

Answer: The same as any other number combination.

Random does not mean 1 up 1 down. In fact, it rarely goes every other (for a 50% random)

[Zdapus]

I have had some training in statics and understanding many of the arguements being made that all is working as it should. But dang there are some oddities out there like multiple failures one after another on items that are way below your skill level and multiple skill ups one after another after long runs of no skill ups. These occur at a frequency that seem to me rule out truely randomness. I wish I would have collected data on all the combines I have made (17 tades over 240+ and 4 over 220+ currently on multiple characters)

The following example gives me pause to think but I know the sample is much to small to actually draw conclussions:

A friend and I decided to work on the Aid Grimel quest by working on our trade skills and collecting materials via the bazaar prior to completing the flags for elemental access. Once Sol Ro went down, we had enough materails on hand to complete the quest in one night. I being the more experienced crafter ran both characters thru the actual combines. I altered between my main and his at each step. My main never failed on any of the pottery, tailoring and fletching steps. My friends main went one for one on pottery, two out three on tailoring, and one for two on fletching. My main had maxed skilled with a pottery geerlok and tailoring and fletching trophies. My friend used only geerloks and had the same skill as my self in tailoring and fletching but only 222 in pottery. All these combines were made over six hours with lots of zoning and logging in and out between actual attempts. I hate the elevator with a passion.

Why was I so lucky on my main and not my friends??? Hehe, I ended up charging 100k for my excess materials I supplied to complete his earing.