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p = 0.000056


finelinebob

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What is the probability of failing 93 consecutive 10% RE attempts in a row? 0.000056

 

That's what I just did. I've been trying for 3 days to craft some level 43 gloves for a guardian of mine. I've spent over 150,000 credits on three different characters to get the Zeyd-cloth and Quadranium I need, as well as occasionally some Hypertech Artifact Fragments and Phond Crystals. Overall, I've wasted 186 each of the Zeyd-cloth, Quadranium and Hypertech Artifact Fragments plus 372 Phond Crystals in doing so.

 

In case p = 0.000056 means nothing to you, let me express it another way. Let's pretend this game has 1 million subscribers. Let's say they all had 93 items with an RE chance for success of 10% available. Let's say they all RE'd every one of those 93 items. Of those 1 million people, 56 would have zero successes. That about as plain an explanation I can make of it.

 

What about attempt #94 for me? Yes, I finally got a success. I got a Vehemence schematic. My skill 400 crafter got a Vehemence schematic for a piece of tank gear. In case you do not recognize the prefix, Vehemence means that it adds Alacrity as a secondary. So, after all of that effort, I now have a piece of tank gear with Alacrity.

 

Thank you very much, BioWare.

 

I know that customer service reps read these. I've seen comments from customer service to the effect of "constructive criticism is appreciated, but please don't bash the game or the developers." Well, I have seen thread after thread of constructive criticism and thoughtful suggestions on crafting and crew skills and it all has fallen on deaf ears, blind eyes. The best that BioWare's developers have been able to manage is the Legacy of Crafting, a money sink that barely raises your chance to get an augment slot on gear, introduced at the same time that augmentation kits came into the game ... something with a 100% surety of giving an augment slot.

 

You've gotten more than your fair share of constructive criticism. It's time you let people know whether you are actually going to do something about it all.

 

So please, whoever is reading this for BioWare, share this little story with those developers responsible for crafting. Ask them if the time and credits I invested into getting a useless piece of gear was worthwhile, was entertaining, was fun. Ask them if this is a system they are proud to have developed. I really am interested in their feedback.

 

The problem, once again, is not that the system is broken. For me to get a result that would be seen in 56 out of 1 million instances is Working As Intended. Worse yet, the fact that I had an even longer string -- over 140 consecutive failures at 10%, or p < 0.00000039 -- is also the system Working As Intended. The system isn't broken: it's insulting and contemptuous.

Edited by finelinebob
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You could have 1 million of each material and still have a chance of not getting a schematic, percentages are useless. The fact that schematics take so many reverses to make is good, it keeps GTN being flooded with materials and stops people selling things so damn cheap. Edited by Jayshames
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What beggars belief is that our crew have absolutely no ability to learn. Here they constructed and deconstructed the same item 93 times in a row and are (bizarrely) none the wiser! All that work an no improvement on their initial 10% chance whatsoever. And even after inspiration struck on that 94th attempt and they discovered a new and improved (if slightly strangely configured) version they are still none the wiser for the 95th attempt.

 

Was it Georg at the Guild Summit that mentioned they were looking at doing something address these long runs of bad luck? Either way we've heard nothing since despite the number of threads on this issue. Perhaps we need to give them a few ideas on ways to mitigate the impact of the RNG or add an element of "skill" into crew skills ...

 

How about simply increasing the RE chance by 1% for each consecutive attempt to RE an item? So long as you stick with the same item your chances improve but if you attempt to RE a different item your chance resets back down to the default. This would only require 2 pieces of data to be stored: the last item and the number of consecutive RE attempts on that item. This would improve our chances, caps the number of attempts at 80 or 90 and shows our crew learning (so long as you focus them on one item at a time). Hopefully it would take some of the sting out of a run of failed attempts.

 

How about increasing the base RE chance by 10% (for blues) or 5% (for purples) for each schematic of the next grade you've already discovered of that item? Trying to get your first blue from a green is 20%, second blue 30% base chance and final blue is 40% base chance. It would be similar for purples but the range for the base chance would be 10 to 30% with 5% increments. This doesn't require any additional information to be stored as the system already knows what schematics an item will produce and which of those you have already discovered. Hopefully it would take some of the sting of getting one of those, um, "less useful" purples (e.g. shotgun with shield and absorption bonuses).

 

How about replacing the Augment Slot Components produced by REing with some sort of Research Fragment? These would work in much the same way as Gift Fragments except there would be two ways to spend them. You could chose to exchange the fragments for Augment Slot Components (or perhaps use them to produced Augment Kits directly (thereby replacing Augment Slot Components)). Alternatively you could chose to use them to help you acquire a particular schematic, which might be implemented by a) using them to buff your next RE attempt (stackable?) or b) exchanged for a particular schematic through the UI or a vendor.

 

Personally I quite like the concept of Research Fragments as they act as a consolation prize (much like Augment Slot Components do now) but also because it could be taken even further and, for example, fragments could also be produced by crew skill missions. So instead of grinding UWT to get Snythweaving schematics (which seems like an arbitrary connection to me) I could grind specific Snythweaving research missions. These mission would produce some fragment and occasionally, on a critical success, a full schematic. This means I could collect the 263 Synthweaving schematics without wasted missions (since I always get some fragments); without receiving any Armourmech schematics; with far fewer doubles; and with a lot less frustration.

Edited by Sunjammer
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...

The problem, once again, is not that the system is broken. For me to get a result that would be seen in 56 out of 1 million instances is Working As Intended. Worse yet, the fact that I had an even longer string -- over 140 consecutive failures at 10%, or p < 0.00000039 -- is also the system Working As Intended. The system isn't broken: it's insulting and contemptuous.

For one, I like how constructive this post is. OP knows his math, and he understands that the current system is "working is intended" even with the abysmal streaks that he got while REing. (Unlike some people who posted here QQing that "the system is broken, the system is broken, no way it's 20%, i learned a schematic twice in a row, how is that 20%?, it must be broken...")

 

While working as intended or designed, I would agree that the current RE system needs some tweaking, to mitigate player loss, frustration, and QQ. A pure random system is too.. bursty, and it will and WILL produce good and baaad streaks. Here are some tweaks I thought of::jawa_redface:

- Automatically grant a schematic once a player's streak goes beyond two or three standard deviations. This would be a quick & relatively easy fix, with the system only remembering how long the player has had any schematics learnt from REing a specific item or item group, and then giving a 100% chance to learn a schematic after passing that threshold for that item or item group. (Semi-random system)

- OR, an adaptive "learning" system while REing: Upon item RE, a stacking counter would tick on that specific item or item group that would just linearly/geometrically/logarithmically increase the chances of learning a new schematic.. It's like a learning-from-your-mistakes kinda thing from failed attempts on learning/developing new schematics. --More complex, but more realistic in a sense.

 

Until then, I'll just RE my way into this fog of pure randomness and just hope that an outlier player like our OP here would get bad streaks to balance out the not-so-bad streaks i'm getting.

(Statistically unsound but yeah ykwim.):jawa_angel:

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get mad at bioware about it. sigh.

 

There is someone else I should get mad at about it?

 

Or, better yet, I shouldn't get mad at all, right? None of us should. We should just accept the horrible system they are force-feeding us without comment because "it's just a game" or "they never listen" or something like that. The fact that all of us who stick around here for a couple of years will each spend hundreds of dollars supporting these developers' livelihoods means nothing and we should just shut up and take our lumps for being stupid enough to pay for a subscription, I guess.

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What beggars belief is that our crew have absolutely no ability to learn. Here they constructed and deconstructed the same item 93 times in a row and are (bizarrely) none the wiser! All that work an no improvement on their initial 10% chance whatsoever. And even after inspiration struck on that 94th attempt and they discovered a new and improved (if slightly strangely configured) version they are still none the wiser for the 95th attempt.

 

Was it Georg at the Guild Summit that mentioned they were looking at doing something address these long runs of bad luck? Either way we've heard nothing since despite the number of threads on this issue. Perhaps we need to give them a few ideas on ways to mitigate the impact of the RNG or add an element of "skill" into crew skills ...

 

How about simply increasing the RE chance by 1% for each consecutive attempt to RE an item? So long as you stick with the same item your chances improve but if you attempt to RE a different item your chance resets back down to the default. This would only require 2 pieces of data to be stored: the last item and the number of consecutive RE attempts on that item. This would improve our chances, caps the number of attempts at 80 or 90 and shows our crew learning (so long as you focus them on one item at a time). Hopefully it would take some of the sting out of a run of failed attempts.

 

How about increasing the base RE chance by 10% (for blues) or 5% (for purples) for each schematic of the next grade you've already discovered of that item? Trying to get your first blue from a green is 20%, second blue 30% base chance and final blue is 40% base chance. It would be similar for purples but the range for the base chance would be 10 to 30% with 5% increments. This doesn't require any additional information to be stored as the system already knows what schematics an item will produce and which of those you have already discovered. Hopefully it would take some of the sting of getting one of those, um, "less useful" purples (e.g. shotgun with shield and absorption bonuses).

 

How about replacing the Augment Slot Components produced by REing with some sort of Research Fragment? These would work in much the same way as Gift Fragments except there would be two ways to spend them. You could chose to exchange the fragments for Augment Slot Components (or perhaps use them to produced Augment Kits directly (thereby replacing Augment Slot Components)). Alternatively you could chose to use them to help you acquire a particular schematic, which might be implemented by a) using them to buff your next RE attempt (stackable?) or b) exchanged for a particular schematic through the UI or a vendor.

 

Personally I quite like the concept of Research Fragments as they act as a consolation prize (much like Augment Slot Components do now) but also because it could be taken even further and, for example, fragments could also be produced by crew skill missions. So instead of grinding UWT to get Snythweaving schematics (which seems like an arbitrary connection to me) I could grind specific Snythweaving research missions. These mission would produce some fragment and occasionally, on a critical success, a full schematic. This means I could collect the 263 Synthweaving schematics without wasted missions (since I always get some fragments); without receiving any Armourmech schematics; with far fewer doubles; and with a lot less frustration.

 

We both must be super smart since I had many of the same ideas. I particularly like the concept that you term research fragments.

 

My wife and I much enjoy the learning experience of having a statistically almost 0% event (long long fail streaks) happen over and over again. It teaches us something although we are still not sure what. We also value the lesson in managing expectations so that when we finally end up with the purple it invariably has a key stat that is useless to us.

 

Hopefully after the f2p stuff is implemented (with some of the ten million expected bugs fixed) and one or two of the scores of promised content updates are in place, the two or three crafters left playing will get some love. At that time you ideas may be looked at.

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The fact that schematics take so many reverses to make is good, it keeps GTN being flooded with materials and stops people selling things so damn cheap.

 

I hear this argument all the time. It's speculation that does not bear out. Randomness does not make things difficult to get across the player population. With the sheer numbers of people playing this game, "rare" only means "rare to you." Equipable gear has not flooded the GTN because it does not sell, even though anyone who can craft an item crafts it with equal stats. It takes zero skill to craft an item as best as it can be crafted. There is no general perception that even Artifact-quality gear is worth the price while leveling.

 

The things that sell best -- item modifications -- are the easiest to RE. There are only one Tier 1 and one Tier 2 schematics for them, and you have a 20% chance to get them. They have no useless variations to foul up the process. So the whole argument of "if they were easy to get, people would flood the market" is baseless: the most valuable items are the easiest to get, and the market has not been flooded.

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it has never taken me more then 10 re's to do a 10%. you are **** outa luck

 

Does that not make the claim and suggestions invalid? I too have had almost no bad luck streaks (no more than 15 REs), that does not mean that a problem does not exist.

 

In WoW there was a similar but different random system where one profession (alchemy) generated extra creations at a low chance of success. I always said to players who complained about that system that actively seeking those extras only results in disappointment; treat the extras as a bonus and happiness prevails.

 

The SWTOR system though depends on RE schematics, so everyone, myself included, actively seeks them. When they do not happen in what most individuals would consider a reasonable amount of time, getting upset is a reasonable response.

 

I agree with the OP (and others) that a tweak is in order. The problem is coding it properly. Having the system keep track of what each person REs is not a simple task. Further, one of the advantages of the crew skill system is a major complication to tracking - being able to do other things/go other places, or being able to log off completely would probably reset any tracking mechanism; a character would have to stay put and logged in for any RE tracking to be effective.

 

I'm not saying it cannot be done, but I have a feeling that any tweak to the percentages that involves tracking RE progress would cause more problems than it solves.

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Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the OP is saying to BW:

 

"Come up with an alternative to the current RE system that is more fun."

 

This is different from a QQ thread. He's not complaining that the system is broken, he's saying that it isn't fun. This is a valid and well-wrtten criticism, imo.

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Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the OP is saying to BW:

 

"Come up with an alternative to the current RE system that is more fun."

 

This is different from a QQ thread. He's not complaining that the system is broken, he's saying that it isn't fun. This is a valid and well-wrtten criticism, imo.

 

That's exactly what I am saying.

 

I've made suggestions elsewhere and a rather in-depth one in the Suggestions Box; I'll recap some of the points here.

 

Several people in this thread have already pointed out good ideas for increasing RE success chance. One person pointed out that it would only take two more variables to be tracked. That is simply the case. It would not be a difficult thing. If RE success improvement depended on working on a single item to improve it, then one variable would be to keep track of what you are REing. These items are going to be indexed by some number in their databases, not those long text names, so storing a number that is an index in a database is simple. The other variable that needs to be stored is how many consecutive failures you have had. A simple check needs to be done every time you RE:

  • Was the last item you RE'd the same as the current one? If yes, proceed.
  • Did you fail on your last attempt? If yes, increase the fail counter by one. Proceed.
  • Modify the RE success chance by some function based on the fail counter. Linear, geometric, exponential, whatever curve desired.

That is all it would take.

 

Another improvement would be to allow a choice of schematics learned when you succeed on an RE.

 

Those two simple changes would improve crafting dramatically.

 

Going beyond that, I've suggested that for every base item, we should be able to RE an Artifact-level item through a refining process. Have it involve pieces of junk loot that can be gathered from NPCs anywhere, the stuff that's vendor trash right now. Different pieces of trash can lead to different effects. If you want to improve the Surge rating above the standard schematic values, you need to find what junk will allow you to do so. Limiting improvements to one variation per base item would reduce the impact on tracking changes. Iterating the process of REing an item over and over would lead to incremental improvements in stats beyond the standard schematic values. This would give us a number of things. It would give us crafted items of varying quality. For crafters who bother to learn what different class builds need and what junk items would be required to tweak stats to meet those needs, it would develop skills in crafting and enable crafters to develop reputations for who to turn to when you want something of quality. New effects could be introduced beyond the stats already on items: with the right junk and successful REs, perhaps DOTs, HOTs, snare chances and such could be added to weapons. Another alternative would be to allow REing custom items to improve their ratings.

 

None of those suggestions would require that any player do anything different from what they are doing right now. If they wanted to continue crafting as they are, the base system would still be intact. Only people interested enough in crafting quality items would have to spend the extra time to do it.

 

BioWare is supposed to be about "story". The story of crafting in this game is muddling around, tinkering randomly, sending your crew out for burgers when you really need a roof over your head.

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If you flip a quarter and it lands heads-up 10 times in a row, what is your chance that you will get heads again when you flip it one more time? Answer: it's always a 50% chance, from the first flip to the last.

 

So, 20% chance to get a schematics just means it's a 1/5 roll every time you RE.

Even if you failed 1000 times before, the game still only gives you a 20% chance to succeed and an 80% chance to fail.

 

Just like the OP, I was never fond of a system that rewards the lucky and punishes the unlucky.

There should be a better way.

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Here is an interesting thought. I was trained many years ago as an Electrician by the military. Over the years I was in I received more training and more training. Now, with all this money put into training I was expected to be able to preform my duties without much of a hitch. Sure, sometimes I ran into challenges or things that just weren't in the book but I could generally fix the equipment I was working on.

 

Now, we spend credit upon credit "Training" our crews to make things. we have them go out and get the stuff they need and somehow, they still only manage to have a 10-20% chance to RE? If I had preformed to that level in the military I would have found myself washing dishes my entire time, or worse yet, peeling potatoes. Trained skill sets just don't work this way, your odds go way up the longer you do it i.e. the higher level you get. Maybe 10 or 20% is ok for a beginner but a trained crew member should be closer to 80 or 90%. I mean, sure, everybody has a bad day, but not that bad.

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Here is an interesting thought. I was trained many years ago as an Electrician by the military. Over the years I was in I received more training and more training. Now, with all this money put into training I was expected to be able to preform my duties without much of a hitch. Sure, sometimes I ran into challenges or things that just weren't in the book but I could generally fix the equipment I was working on.

 

Now, we spend credit upon credit "Training" our crews to make things. we have them go out and get the stuff they need and somehow, they still only manage to have a 10-20% chance to RE? If I had preformed to that level in the military I would have found myself washing dishes my entire time, or worse yet, peeling potatoes. Trained skill sets just don't work this way, your odds go way up the longer you do it i.e. the higher level you get. Maybe 10 or 20% is ok for a beginner but a trained crew member should be closer to 80 or 90%. I mean, sure, everybody has a bad day, but not that bad.

 

Playing devil's advocate, think about this though - the items you train to create in game are supposedly more and more difficult to create, hence the higher skill required. So, a 80% or 90% to fail to get an RE on a skill level 400 item is OK at skill 400, but a skill 100 item should be all but guaranteed. However, why would a skill 400 crafter concern himself with a skill 100 schematic? That would be akin to a master electrician who deals with high capacity transformers being hired to install a light switch in a house. So, the argument could be made that as one levels up in skill, the easier stuff is forgotten because you no longer use those skills. So the same 80% or 90% failure chance is arguably still valid.

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Once you've unlocked a schematic, you can craft it forever without failing. It's only when trying to learn a new schematic that there is a chance at failure.

 

While I could draw a comparison between crafting a known item and doing a standard installation as an electrician, the RE for a new schematic would more closely relate to an inventor tinkering around in the lab, trying out new ways to improve upon an existing product.

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Playing devil's advocate, think about this though - the items you train to create in game are supposedly more and more difficult to create, hence the higher skill required. So, a 80% or 90% to fail to get an RE on a skill level 400 item is OK at skill 400, but a skill 100 item should be all but guaranteed. However, why would a skill 400 crafter concern himself with a skill 100 schematic? That would be akin to a master electrician who deals with high capacity transformers being hired to install a light switch in a house. So, the argument could be made that as one levels up in skill, the easier stuff is forgotten because you no longer use those skills. So the same 80% or 90% failure chance is arguably still valid.

 

Think of it this way, though. Apprentices do the easy work because they need to learn. We don't have apprentices, so we need to do it. All the same, the easy work should be automatic. It isn't. Skill 10 items have the exact same chance to RE as skill 400 items, no matter what your skill is. Raising your "skill" level grants you nothing other than base schematics.

 

Even when it comes to the difficult jobs, masters at their crafts are expected to perform successfully 100% of the time. Sure, sometimes even masters fail. But 90% of the time?

 

And when it comes to missions, how is it that we still get random garbage for our mission options? Again, along the lines of story, you would think we would be establishing suppliers, learning where to get the hard to find goods, ensuring a stable base of materials in order to work our crafts. We're supposed to be the elite of our respective factions. What kind of military procurement system would ever get a contract if it came back at you with, "Geez, I can't get the metals or compounds you need for your armor, but I do have a fine selection of gifts!"?

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Stupid question, and way off topic, but i have a lowbie synthweaver and i have discovered 2 purple lvl schematics, and all i ever get for names are Over kill, redout, or critical. Were do you get these vehmence schems and other named schems?? When i mouse over my purpble redoubt or over kill item it says that there is no research that can be done?
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However, why would a skill 400 crafter concern himself with a skill 100 schematic? That would be akin to a master electrician who deals with high capacity transformers being hired to install a light switch in a house. So, the argument could be made that as one levels up in skill, the easier stuff is forgotten because you no longer use those skills. So the same 80% or 90% failure chance is arguably still valid.

 

hu ? That would be like a math proffesor at some university being unable to teach math to their kid on junior high, or a black belt martial artist being unable to make very basics moves :eek:

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Stupid question, and way off topic, but i have a lowbie synthweaver and i have discovered 2 purple lvl schematics, and all i ever get for names are Over kill, redout, or critical. Were do you get these vehmence schems and other named schems?? When i mouse over my purpble redoubt or over kill item it says that there is no research that can be done?

 

Here's a link to a great guide on reverse engineering. It should answer your question in detail.

 

The short answer is that if you have a purple schematic that has an Overkill, Redoubt or Critical prefix, then the base schematic you started with was blue (Prototype). Items with one of those three prefixes are called Tier 1 schematics, regardless of the color of the schematic. You can RE Tier 1 schematics to Tier 2 schematics; here is a chart of the different prefixes for Tier 2.

 

If you start with a base item that is green (Premium), its Tier 1 versions will be blue (Prototype) and its Tier 2 versions will be purple (Artifact).

 

BTW, not a stupid question and not very far off topic.

 

Edit: just reread. Yes, some blue base schematics will not RE to Tier 2. It's very inconsistent about which ones will and which ones won't, in my experience. Probably more bugs in the system. Given that it's more RE bugs and fails for the system, then you're not off-topic at all.

Edited by finelinebob
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get mad at bioware about it. sigh.

 

Let's try a simple explanation, p = .000056 means that the odds are less than .0056% chance that his results were due to random chance. That's not even one half of one percent. It is in fact significantly less than one half of one percent.

 

In short, he should be mad at BW, they coded this ridiculous sh*t.

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Thanks fineline bob that helped alot. I have another characte running Ut Missions Nonstop for me, trying to get me schems.. Sadly i only get crap missions most time..

 

You should be getting most of your schematics from your crew skills trainer. The ones from mission rewards are nice, but REing them to Tier 2 is very expensive. Glad to help.

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Apart from the chances being horrible, I think the most horrible thing is how absolutely pointless it is to reverse engineer for the armor-making professions.

 

Why even do it? Any gear that you can get in that manner requires tons of effort put in, while it will be replaced by MUCH better stuff in a matter of days, even (or especially) at 50.

 

BioWare represented reverse engineering as an exciting way to craft better and worthwhile stuff. It has never been that. The only profession that might benefit from REing in a significant way is cybertech.

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