Mining/Foraging/Forestry/Skinning - Critical Success - Extra Materials

Discussion in 'Crafting & Gathering' started by KenoZuki, Jul 1, 2018.

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  1. KenoZuki

    KenoZuki Avatar

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    So, I was asking around as to why anyone would go higher than grand master in the base gathering skills, or even level 85. I got word that the base gathering skills will both increase the critical chance, as well as give extra materials.

    I also heard tell that there was a developer stream that confirmed this. So I was wondering, does anyone know if this is true, and does anyone know when this stream was? If anyone has any spreadsheet records that they could share that confirm this, that would be cool too.

    Also a ***note for the Developers***, can there please be a tool tip on these base gathering skills, that will answer this question now, and for the future population of this game PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE? I mean... The base skills don't even say that they raise the chance of success for harvesting these nodes.
     
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  2. Barugon

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    I think the base skill may affect your chance at getting the higher level materials (beetle carapace, pine resin, etc). I can't confirm this though.
     
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  3. KenoZuki

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    Yeah, I am looking for definitive answers. But this is more that the developers can confirm.
     
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  4. Barugon

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    I'd like a definitive answer too. Currently, I have all my gathering skills locked at 90.
     
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  5. kaeshiva

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    I'd like a definitive answer as well. EXTENSIVE testing between my GM level skills and my alt's level 75 has not given conclusive results about critical chance or node yield, or yield of secondary materials. If anything, large data samples (ie over 1000 harvests) showed my alt actually doing better on beetles, tin, etc. (marginally). This leads to me to think that either these chances is is unrelated to level, or if there is a correlation, the RNG on it is so high that it makes the investment of additional exp dubious at best. I'd really like data on crit chance, again, I'm not seeing much difference there either. My main did get more crits than my alt out of the same number of attempts, but it was again, too marginal to be definitive. Likewise, my alt had a lower displayed success chance on nodes due to the lower level, but actually failed less in the same data sample.

    I threw my hands up in despair at this - determined if it was that flaky that you couldn't notice after that many attempts I'd spend exp elsewhere.
     
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  6. KenoZuki

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    Honestly, i'm both surprised and thankful that you did a test for this. But yeah, I assume that if there is a critical chance buff from the main gathering skill, it would be very minimal. probably 1% for every 20-30 levels. You would really have to do 5k + nodes to really get an idea of the difference. Also, that 5k nodes would have to be done with both the alt, as well as the main.
     
  7. kaeshiva

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    Yeah, sadly I lost interest in the project when after 1000 it seemed to make no discernable difference. The results vary widely, even looking at 1 character doing the same thing in two different play sessions - IE, 10 hours of mining, looking at the copper to tin ratio will on one day be 3:1 and another day be 5:1, on the same character, with the same skills levels/tools mining the same scene. You'd need an incredibly large data sample to try and draw any real conclusions, and the fact that the benefit, or not, of raising skill higher is so hard to detect/notice I've made the decision that its likely not worth the experience investment.

    Personally, I think that they should remove the 'survey' skills and instead give a crit chance / secondary materials passive instead.
     
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  8. StarLord

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    I second that. "Survey" is pretty much worthless once you know where the resources are. Crit is not that useful either (it only speeds up, AFAIK you do not get additional XP or mats). Secondary mats would be a great help though.
     
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  9. xadoor

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    There needs to be a reason to take all these skills higher. 80,90,100 is too easy to get to.

    Ore nodes that can't be mined till you are 110, 120, 130 etc
    food that can't be cooked till you are 110, 120, 130 etc
    swords that can't be created
    enchants that can't be gotten
    etc etc

    Thats the best way to keep people from doing everything.
     
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  10. Daxxe Diggler

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    I think the gathering skills all need to be revisited. IMO, the only skills in each of those trees worth putting exp into are the base skill and the "swift gathering" skill. Here is why:

    Survey - As others have mentioned, once you know where the nodes spawn, you don't really need this skill. This is especially true when talking about Field Dressing... I mean when you kill something, the corpse is there. No need to go looking for it. The only exception to this might be for Foraging where some of the smaller plants like Garlic and Mandrake might be easier to spot if the glow intensity gets stronger as you level the skill up. But I'm not even certain it does that enough to warrant the XP spent.

    Meticulous - There are 2 main reasons why not only should you NOT GM this skill but why you are actually better off without this skill at all!

    The first being the fact that none of the Meticulous harvests give you more XP for the extra time spent on the extra attempts of that node. So, you are losing Producer XP per hour when you are hanging around for the meticulous chances.

    The second being the fact that you don't get extra rare materials on the meticulous chances. For example, when skinning, you will get extra animal hides for them, but you will never get extra suet or carcasses or primal bear teeth, etc.... and when mining, you will get extra ore, but you won't get extra nickel, tin, or tungsten... when harvesting cotton, you will get extra raw cotton, but you won't get extra beetle carapaces.... The point being that meticulous chances only give you more of the base item for that node.

    Now, if instead of hanging around for meticulous chances you just move on to another node to harvest... you will both get more XP per hour and more chances of getting the rare materials per hour.

    So, IMO (and many other players that I've spoken to about this) the Survey and Meticulous skills are not worth putting any producer experience into at all. In order for them to be worthy of taking, Survey will need to do something like make nodes respawn faster or open more node spawns up for that player (that others can't see without the skill)... and for Meticulous to be worthy, it will need to give chances to get extra rare materials on each attempt and also give extra producer XP for that extra time spent.
     
  11. Lord Tachys al`Fahn

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    With corpses, you even have a label hanging out over the body as a sign post...
     
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  12. Lord Tachys al`Fahn

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    On topic, I haven't noticed an increase in special materials related to skill level, only in the zones I go to, as I have had my main gathering skills locked for some time. For instance, I hardly ever get a Borer, but making a half dozen loops or so through greymark forest usually lands me about 15-20.
     
  13. KenoZuki

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    Well, critical chance speeds up in the long run. I look at runs over the course of 1 hour to 2 hours, and then calculate my xp per hour, gold per hour. So critical chance is really worth it.

    I totally agree with this, I was GM in the meticulous skill a couple of days ago, but I recently used a tome of unlearning to go back to level 1, and I talked to a trainer to dump the skill entirely. Then I did a run, and my gold per hour didn't really change at all, but my xp per hour jumped like crazy.
     
  14. KenoZuki

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    On a side note, I do believe that meticulous would be a lot better, if every proc was an automatic critical.
     
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  15. Talimar

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    There seems to be a hidden stat that nobody talks about in regards to t2 materials. You'll notice it when you hit lvl60.

    Anyways... critical hits and meticulous collection are two very distinct mechanics that affect your outcomes.

    The crits only affect the base option. So for mining it's granite,copper,iron. This basically only doubles or triples that one single strike and it nominally affects gold/silver strikes.

    Meticulous collection it repeats the cycle but as far as I can tell you will only ever yield a +1 per collection.

    In regards to beetles: beetles aren't part of the base set for cotton and is considered a t2 product as far as I can tell. As such improving the odds of a beetle will be noticeable in your ratios. I haven't leveled the hidden stat for foraging high enough to see if it will occasionally yield 2 beetles.

    The issue with the t1/t2 yield ratio. A friend and me have tested the difference from 100-105 of mining and saw no discernible difference. (Basically same stats in every other field.) After 100, you'll garner higher yields ratio if you improve the hidden stat; for the amount of xp expenditure.
     
  16. KenoZuki

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    I mean... I am GM in the base skill of mining, and the swift gathering, I was GM in meticulous before I dumped it. I havent noticed anything to do with a hidden skill. Why is it hidden in the first place? lol
     
  17. Talimar

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    Mostly because the other 3 are talked about only that nobody pays attention to the fourth
     
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