Stealth changes / tweaks

[Catweazel]

This is probably a common subject after patches or when the RNG fails to satisfy, but I have been noticing far more failures with subcombines for the AAAA's since Christmas.

I was wondering if adjustments are made from time to time to control the influx to the market?

In particular, high quality steel success on both bricks/blocks and sheets, plus subcombines on poxy gearboxes seems far worse within the last month than at any other time in the last 6.

Just curious as to the ongoing adjustments that SOE might do with drops / TS's etc...and what kind of algorithms they have invented to control world economy.

[Ngreth Thergn]

This is probably a common subject after patches or when the RNG fails to satisfy, but I have been noticing far more failures with subcombines for the AAAA's since Christmas.

I was wondering if adjustments are made from time to time to control the influx to the market?

In particular, high quality steel success on both bricks/blocks and sheets, plus subcombines on poxy gearboxes seems far worse within the last month than at any other time in the last 6.

Just curious as to the ongoing adjustments that SOE might do with drops / TS's etc...and what kind of algorithms they have invented to control world economy.

nope.

Now periodically bugs can creap in. I do not believe this was the case here (just a string of bad luck) but it does happen. There was some evidence that the December patch introduced some bad data (data copy, not inherently bad data) overall to the servers (not just tradeskills) so it is possible things were wonky there, but it was so inconsistent we could not peg it. We did do a FULL data patch this patch, which is why it took so long despite the small amount of stuff patched.

If I am going to make a change in trivials I will say something. Usually to give a warning or sometimes "as it happens" (patch message) if I want to avoid "exploiting" or "hoarding." I will endeavor to never do it as "stealth" though I am human (or Ogre), and can forget to put it in a patch message.

[Catweazel]

Thanks for the rapid response Ngreth

I remember in a conversation with Rashere once he mentioned about tweaking drop rates for rogue daggers and went onto talk briefly about the reporting SOE has in terms of the number of items entering the economy.

Purely from professional interest I would imagine the game algorithms must get closer and closer towards real world markets, and it must be both exciting and tempting to want to play God mode on the development side and track the impact of changes made to seemingly obscure areas of the code....similar in a way to the "rules of time travel" where any change in the past creates potentially catastrophic changes in the future.

It has been interesting seeing the impacts on the game of the introduction of the Artisan Charm. People who never tradeskilled before are now asking for collapsible trade containers and tinkered tools, which in turn has raised the cost of coiled springs, which has increased the traffic in POI....

Fun stuff

[Ngreth Thergn]

And just think. That is WITHOUT me making it the best charm in the game like people wanted. (it is just amongst the best top 5 at least if not top 3) Just think if it was actually the best charm in the game and it was clearly always the best choice for everyone...

[Taushar]

I am not an expert on RNG or anything like that but here is my personal "conpiracy theory". Some RNG follows a sequence of RNG path based on a "seed" number they start with. I am not saying that EQ RNG follows this path because I know at all but using the seed theory, sometimes the numbers gets loaded in certain sequency. In my theory, somehow after a reboot or a patch, I tend to fail a lot more at combines then after a week or so later. Again, just my theory and I have nothing to back up the proof but I usually wait at least a few days after a patch before I do my serious combines.

[Flehmen]

Good idea regardless of reason as sometimes patches = badness for all.

(teehee, now that the big N is working on it, much less problems than before. So I'm going to blame the big N for all the improvement)

[Xislaben]

With a skill of 270, mastery 1, an 8% mod, and 465 int, I'm about 50/50 on the 351 triv combines for the AAAA. The calculator indicates I should be at 81.325%. Granted I've only got a dozen or two combines, but still, it would be nice to error in the other direction