First off, I don't want this thread to turn into a complaint thread about RNGs or how the crafting system is broken or whatever. Go to the crew skills page, there's 5 topics at any given time if you want to go complain.

I want to post something with real numbers and some thoughts about odds as they pertain to crafting in this game. Aiming for simply objective, empirical finds and thoughts. If anyone has thoughts to add or sees failings in my math please let me know.

If this looks like just a wall of text, or worse yet, math, then this post probably isn't for you... or potentially I think something is interesting and no one else cares

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The first thing I want to point out (and the main reason for this post) has to do with "you already know this schematic." I will assume if you get this you are REing a prefix green or blue item, and not something like a barrel or mod that simply goes green->blue->purple.

Let's say you start with your new green item. And let's say it takes you on average C times to crit on that schematic. The first time you crit, or after C REs, you WILL get a blue. But there are 3 blues, and maybe you wanted redoubt. That means you have a 33% chance of getting the one you want.

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Let's assume you didn't, and got critical. Now you go through C more greens and crit again. now you have a 1/3 chance again to get your redoubt. But you also have a 1/3 to get critical again, and thus the "You already know this schematic" message. The other 1/3 is that you get the other blue (overkill?).

Keep in mind at this stage you have an equal chance to get A) what you want B) what you don't or C) nothing.

If you get nothing, try again, go through another C greens and roll with the 1/3 1/3 1/3 odds again.

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If you got the other blue you didn't want, and really want to get that redoubt, here we go:

Burn through C more greens. Crit. You now have a 1/3 chance (as always) to get what you want, and a 2/3 chance to get nothing (you already know the other two).

This is important: To go from 2/3 to 3/3, you will burn through (on average) 3C, or 3 times the greens it took you to get the first one. The last one is the hardest

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So, on average, you use C to get the first, 1.5 C to get to the second, and 3 C to get to the third, so now you've gone through 5.5 C and gotten all blues. If we assume C is on average 10 items (in my experience it is less, but I may be lucky), That's 55 items.

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On Blue -> Purple it gets much, much worse.

The first Purple is C. Always. The second, has a 1/5 chance of failing, so on average takes 1.25C to get any other purple. The third takes 2.5C, the fourth takes 3.75C, and the fifth takes 5C, or 5x the amount you spent on the first purple (average, I don't want to hear whiners saying it took them so many times more. I'm sure it did. This is average). Total REs: 13.5C, or (assuming 10 per crit) 135 blues. That get's you all purples for a blue. x 3 blues = 405 blues to fill out an entire schematic.

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So?

So if you RE a blue looking for one specific schematic, and you don't get it the first 3 purples you get, keep in mind you have a long way to go just to get the next one. Maybe switch to REing another schematic. If the one you want is the only one you don't have (which by my math should be 19.8% percent of the time) maybe consider moving on before you go blow 5C blues trying to get the last one and crying about it on the forums.

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And now that I reflect on that 19.8% number above (odds you will get one you don't want = .8 * .75 * .66 * .5 = 19.8%), if you think you're going to get the exact 1 purple you want for 5 (completely separate blue) schematics, on average roughly 1 of the 5 (19.8%) will bring you to that final purple, and cost you that 13.5 C to get.

The system is set up to discourage one person from getting everything.

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If any of my math is wrong (it may be) or someone has something to add, I'd really welcome any objective, thoughtful ideas behind the numbers and odds behind REing.

Great post. Good understanding of the mechanic as far as I can see.

"The system is set up to discourage one person from getting everything."

Yes it is.

This guy sells A and that guy sells B. Both A and B are great to have. I don't see any reason why one person should easily sell *** "special" or "exotic" items. I like it this way. And I'm sure you're right. It was designed this way on purpose.

The system is set up to discourage one person from getting everything.

Yea, we already knew that. That isn't the issue. First and foremost, almost no crafted items compare to gear you can get after a few days of farming PvP dailies. That makes the massive amount of time you spend getting your single item worthless. So I don't get everything. In fact, I get nothing. The reward you get from "not getting everything" isn't worth the amount of you spent not getting it. It's not even worth it once you DO get it. The RE rates are only a symptom of the real problem, and that is that most crew skills are more or less worthless at end game. Because they take so long just for you to get a few decent items, they can't even be used as a crutch until you get ops gear. It will take you much less time to get Columi gear out of a few hard modes than it will to spend a week REing the same item over and over again, including the time it takes to farm the mats, just to get the particular combination of stats you require. That's a broken system. The whole "you already know this schematic" only adds insult to injury. You finally got a proc, but it ended up being useless. The crafting system in this game is broken. It's in dire need of an overhaul.

Good post. Honestly.

But your concussions are wrong about what the system does, as opposed to what it is meant to do.

First off, I'm "that guy". I want EVERY schematic there is for my trade skill. And ... I have them. Once you hit 50 and can make 150k credits doing 7 daily quests, the RE system is just a time sink, one "that guy" is very willing to invest it. Getting 20 purples at 49 in SW:TOR took me less time and effort then getting a single trade maxed in everquest ... and I did that 8 times!

So the system might be designed to discourage that. but it doesn't in any way. It just locks out the less crazy guy trying to get one useful thing to justify his investment.

Second, of the combination of stats on items you can make, only one (or sometimes two) sets are in any way desirable for any given RE chain. So when I'm REing my aim / endurance heavy armour and gets alacrity, crit and you get shielding, presence we didn't both get something awesome to sell. I got something awesome, you got something useless.

This system is completely broken, and one of the worst I have ever seen for the casual trade skill guy. For the hardcore trade skill guy like me, it's fine I guess. No game has ever loved trade skills, so the bar is pretty low.

Great post.

Good post. Honestly.

Thanks

I want EVERY schematic there is for my trade skill. And ... I have them...

Good work (no really!). You're right, it certainly is possible. I thought I'd share this info maybe as a cautionary tale if nothing else. It seems like a lot of folks don't have the tenacity you do, and are surprised how much work / time / credits / whatever may take to get where you are. When I started working for purples I assumed it was going to be a lot easier than it turned out to be.

This system is completely broken, and one of the worst I have ever seen for the casual trade skill guy. For the hardcore trade skill guy like me, it's fine I guess. No game has ever loved trade skills, so the bar is pretty low.

I wouldn't go so far as to say broken, but it is different than I think people assume it is, or should be. But you're right, the bar is very low. I wonder what an amazing crafting system would even look like though. But I don't want to derail my own thread

I see crafting in this game as something to gear alts with. It is 95% useless for any main character, but it can be handy to gear out an alt.

The only thing I use from artificing is the relic. The offhands last a little longer than some gear, but unfortunately everything quickly gets replaced by flahpoint/OPs gear.

I have cleared EV once and done the first 2 bosses in KP. Along with a handful of hard mode flashpoints, my relics are all I have left from crafting. I really wish I could help out my guild, but every time I offer to make a color crystal, focus, light saber, enhancement, etc they almost always already have better. Even the fresh 50s.

They need to lower the level req on all crafted gear by 3 and give us a way to obtain higher patterns, at least as high as entry level OPs and flashpoints. Let me help gear my guild for nightmare mode OPs.

First and foremost, almost no crafted items compare to gear you can get after a few days of farming PvP dailies.

this is blatantly false in terms of pve. pvp of course you are correct seeing as we cant craft pvp gear. a nice chunk of the crafted items are as good and in many cases better than columni, and atleast implants are equal to rakata for sorcerers.

@op i like the fact it discourages people from getting everything. it means i have something to actually spend credits on since they are near useless at this point. also while there are some truly terribly itemized pieces i havent found very many that arent usable by someone, be it an ac or a companion somewhere.

companion somewhere.

You are right there, crafting can be good for companions, at until you have all your ops gear then you use that,.