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Dump the crafting RNG system, its awful.

Discussion in 'Release 30 Feedback Forum' started by Oba Evesor, May 31, 2016.

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  1. Womby

    Womby Avatar

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    This is where mathematics meets psychology. The system must not only function correctly, it must function in a manner perceived as fair by the player. Although it is theoretically possible to have 10 or 20 consecutive failures, the vast majority of players will not tolerate more than 4 or 5. In those cases perhaps we need to modify the algorithm. For example if a player has had 4 consecutive failures, then guarantee a success on the next try. To compensate for the slight increase in total percentage of successes, drop the percentage chance of success slightly. Result: same overall success percentage over a sample of all players, but no more unhappy players complaining about 7 consecutive failures at 70% probability of success.
     
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  2. Drocis the Devious

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    LOVE IT
    @Bzus
     
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  3. Daxxe Diggler

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    FWIW, I posted part of this in another thread but thought it would be relevant here too.

    On SP Offline, I altered my crafting stats so that ALL of my crafting skills were at 200, just to see how the skills affect this RNG system. This includes the masterworks and enchants skills. It's simple to do this. Just save a game, open up the saved game file, and scroll down to the "Character Sheet" section. After figuring out which skills related to crafting, you just bump the value up to 99999999999 and save the file. Then load that saved game and you now have level 200 in that skill.

    Anyway, so with all crafting skills set to 200, my "Exceptional Item Chance" was only 20%! That means skill level has little to no impact on this aspect of crafting.

    In addition to that disappointment, masterwork chances were as follows:
    1st attempt = 95%
    2nd attempt = 95%
    3rd attempt = 60%
    4th attempt = 20%
    5th attempt = no clue... never was successful on a 4th attempt. I got tired of trying after destroying around 35 pieces.

    The Alchemy Enchants were all identical chances and I didn't even attempt those until I had a bunch of pieces with 4 masterworks on them. I'm assuming that masterworks don't affect enchant chances and vice versa.

    So, even with a 200 skill level (one which is pretty much impossible to even get to the honest way) there still is no incentive to level up a crafting skill as they don't significantly raise your chances of successfully adding the stat.

    To be fair, I should note that I was using basic crafting stations since the expert ones were not available offline. I was however using crafting tools with True Bronze Engravings which gave me +30% production time bonus and +5 skill level (so technically I was at skill 205 for the main skill in the tree). Perhaps an expert station will make a slight improvement on the chances... but still not enough IMO.
     
  4. agra

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    Expert stations are currently +5 skill level, so you were, in effect, replicating their bonus with the tool. Of course, with the Expert station AND the tool, it would be +10, but even so, that's a very small difference. (5/210 2.4%)
     
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  5. Lord Dreamo

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    Unfortunately RNG is sort of a odd necessity in games to create more rarity. If you can always make exactly what you want, eventually the market becomes flooded with the best/perfect gear as there would always be more and more master crafters to make the gear as time went on.
     
  6. Noric

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    Back with my results from bulk crafting:

    Attempted to make 101 pairs of iron boots. (Expert table, 96 smithing, hammer of prosperity)

    I did not get a single exceptional within the first 20 attempts. The probability of this occurring is.... under 1/180.

    After that i had multiple sprees of 2-4 successes in a row.

    At the end of the day i got 28/101 exceptional (expected 23.25 ).

    This is not the first time I've seen some insanely low odds events occur with regularity. I expect there are some issues with the RNG because it regularly has chains of luck with a very low probability of happening.
     
    Last edited: Jun 4, 2016
  7. Net

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    It is really hard to judge, sounds like roulette "problem." Every sequence of red and black numbers has the same (very low) probability of happening, but people do notice only sequences of reds or blacks in the row. Same for this game, any sequence of success and failures is rather rare, yet people focus on streaks of luck or bad luck only.

    I think the truly random numbers are bad for human perception. Also I think either the chance of success should grow over time to meet % on the xth try (10% on first attempt, 20% on second... 100% on 10th), or, if you fail to harvest, the resource should be destroyed on the second try so you wwill not bother with trying to harvest it for half an hour. This would not solve the isue of bad luck streak so I think that every failure should increase your percentage next time (and every success should reset it).
     
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  8. Noric

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    I think a shifting system might be better - but i still think their RNG can't be correct atm.

    I had both the 20 fails in a row combined with the 4 exceptional in a row. Both of those are quite rare events and i saw them both. Then there is @Xander Xavier in his own thread:
    I mean there aren't that many crafters in this game and i think i've seen most of them get some funky rng numbers quite regularly. Even though improbable things can happen - i think we see a lot less of the nonspree's or short back and forths than we should.
     
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  9. Quenton

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    If I have a 95% chance to succeed, and it fails for me 5 times in a row on a regular basis because I keep rolling a 1-5 on the dice and missing the 6-100 - that's fine.

    The only time I'll have an issue is if I'm rolling 6-100 and for some reason I'm still failing.

    So if the devs tell me it's working as intended - and presumably that means that I'm just rolling 1-5 really regularly because I'm super unlucky, and that it is truly random, I'll accept that.

    Is that the case?
     
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  10. Noric

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    The devs also told us that the durability bug was fixed with the last patch - you can go look at all the threads confirming that it wasn't. I'm not saying we shouldn't believe the devs, but some degree of skepticism is helpful when beta testing.
     
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  11. tekkamansoul

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    What do you guys think about failed crafting providing a "broken" object that can be used as an additional crafting ingredient in the next attempt for a large percentage bonus?
     
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  12. Bluefire

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    Better than what is happening now.

    Personally I don't get the failures for anyone over level 65. Failing to do something you've done many times before is just goofy.

    How often does a carpenter fail to make a final product after they are competent? How often does an electrician fail after they've had basic training? How many defective products does a factory put out everyday, especially considering the low tech items we are making? I know they put out some, but the numbers are typically less than 1%.

    Failure in the beginning, sure. Failure after a general mastery - should be far and few between. This system is simply inflating the prices of objects and culling those who will be interested in crafting by infuriating the player.

    A broken object is a better idea - add a few ingredients and fixed.

    I can imagine how short of a crafting stint I would have done in SWG if I failed all day long making components that were needed to make larger modules where I failed time after time while getting ready to make the final product. I doubt I ever would have made a final droid as I would have quit and many people would not have received their cute and free MSE droids or their healer R* droids, etc.

    For some reason it is desired to create a niche of masochistic crafters. Prices are going to be ridiculous on decent gear and I sincerely doubt I'll be in a rush to ever buy it.
     
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  13. Ancev

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    How about using the salvage skill to salvage the broken item? A high salvage skill could recoup...say 25% of the resources. Guess there's a few ways you could go about making things less difficult. However, this will probably normalize the price of enchanted gear, the more difficult it is to make the higher price it would command.
     
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  14. Lifedragn

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    Often enough, when an RNG has consistent issues with streaking, it is often because it is seeded from a time or clock cycles basis. Over large sets, the streaks will average out to the proper proportions.

    For those interested, here is a talk about the issues with the STL rand() in C++ - I will need to admit I've not followed the development close enough to even know what language SotA is being coded in, but C++ is pretty common. It's very technical programmer stuff though, so fair warning. https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/GoingNative/2013/rand-Considered-Harmful
     
  15. Noric

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    Good link.

    I am aware of the issues with using pseudoradoms from time/clock cycles from a cryptographic perspective, but had not seen this exact presentation. I would not be surprised if they had related issues.
     
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  16. Lifedragn

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    It is entirely possible the only problem is perception bias, though it seems many people are experiencing similar "streaky" behavior. I know my perception is that at 95% success rate I will succeed 50 times in a row and then suddenly fail 5 or 6 in a row. Over large sets it is appropriate, but when you only run 10 and fail 6 it really sticks out. I am still of the mindset that it is perception bias for that reason, but I thought I would bring this up, just in case.
     
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  17. SmokerKGB

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    I would say they're using "tailor skill" instead of "masterwork" skill to show you your chance %, because at beginning skill 1 you should have no chance to masterwork anything, so how is it you have 98% chance? You should always use regular gear to practice on, to build your "Masterwork" skill to at least 50 before attempting to do any real masterworking... It could be that you're % goes down, when your masterwork goes up, that would mean its a 98% fail chance, since you only have skill 1 in masterworking...

    Just speculating...
     
  18. Noric

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    I'm convinced that the streaks are not perception bias. Is there any way we can figure out the random function they are using short of disassembly? (which I'm assuming is against the TOS)
     
  19. agra

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    If it's whatever Unity is providing, it should be in the Unity documentation.
     
  20. Gravidy

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    I feel like the intention of this is to introduce pain in the system, to force people out of the system (either entirely, or partially). This is a supply-side mechanic to constrain the supply of crafted items. It is a poor design choice, and a failure of creativity.

    The RNG has no place at all in crafting except for the very edge of your results. Losing materials that takes several hours to grind is painful. Getting a +4 vs a +3 modifier on the other hand is fine, since nothing is lost, I just didn't "get lucky." If I get the +3 and choose to salvage the item and start again, then I lose materials and time, but it's the crafters choice (and to some extent, the market's choice, as the +3 might have no demand).
     
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