Since 1.2 came out reverse engineering has been easier and the item tells you the percentage you have of reverse engineering. However, since the patch just before the server transfer patch I have been having trouble with reverse engineering. The item I'm doing is a saber hilt, it say's 20% chance of reverse engineering and up until that patch it's always been 1 in 5 (20%). However, now I'm working on my new level 33 hilt and I've done 24 RE's and nothing. It say's 20% chance. I should have had my purple hilt within the first 5, but I'm sitting on 24 and nothing. Is RE broken? Is this item broken? Anyone able to shed some light on this?

Yes i can't get it to pop for a lvl48 Strength 'Focus' shield either :-(

There is a problem, but it is not clear what it is and unfortunately Customer Service says that all is working as intended.

 

My experience has been as follows:

 

Artificer -

 

All greens (both linear and non-linear items) will RE at 20% on average.

 

Blue linear items will RE to purple at 20% average.

 

Blue non-linear items will RE to purple at 10% average.

 

Green non-linear items have yet to generate a second blue non-linear type (i.e. overkill and redoubt). I am currently outside of the 1 in 10000 chance if the % chance is 20% and a bit better than that if the % chance is 10%.

I just reread your post... I haven't tried since the last server transfer patch asn I've been prepping for the transfer.

I have also been having problems. Too many people think it's just bad streaks. This is not true, they just haven't seen the consistancy and repeatability in the problem areas.

 

Most things seem to be working correctly but there are a few clear and repeatable exceptions. The ones I have noticed are:

 

Artificer:Wieldable tree - which includes the focus mentioned above

Armstech:Wieldable tree - most of my experience is with Vibroknife

Cybertech:Earpiece tree

 

I have not had repeatable bad luck in getting Hilts so that nay actually be just bad luck on your part. These others are way off and the whole tree is affected, not just one or 2 items. Hilts, Barrels, Augments, Mods, Armoring, equipable armor of all types, Med packs, Stims, and Implants seem to be working as advertised.

20% does not guarantee 1 in 5 crit.

Every single time you RE the game rolls a 5 sided dice so to speak but this gets rolled every time and your success on one roll does not change your chances on the next roll.

 

Random is random

20% does not guarantee 1 in 5 crit.

Every single time you RE the game rolls a 5 sided dice so to speak but this gets rolled every time and your success on one roll does not change your chances on the next roll.

 

Random is random

 

I'm afraid you are correct and incorrect. In this case, the 20% chance as listed in the tooltip is not correct for all RE's. The proof is in the math which has been posted many times before.

Artificer:Wieldable tree - which includes the focus mentioned above

Armstech:Wieldable tree - most of my experience is with Vibroknife

Cybertech:Earpiece tree

 

And I'd have to argue bad luck on your side. Just within the last month or so started my artificer and armstech. Learned all the generaters/focii I was looking for and vibroknives/shotguns with about the expected success rates. (even took the lvl 21 vibroknife to the "right" purple, to use up all the extra mats from selling augmented custom weapons)

 

can't speak much for cyber tech. learned pretty much everything I was interested in pre 1.2

I too have been failing at a MUCH higher rate than 80% lately. Even green items. Maybe i shouldn't reverse engineer until something is acknowledged and subsequently fixed. I wasting a lot of time and material and credits. I suppose I could always stockpile my stuff until something changes.......

I have also been having problems. Too many people think it's just bad streaks. This is not true, they just haven't seen the consistancy and repeatability in the problem areas.

 

Most things seem to be working correctly but there are a few clear and repeatable exceptions. The ones I have noticed are:

 

Artificer:Wieldable tree - which includes the focus mentioned above

[...]

 

You haven't seen consistency and repeatability in any meaningful sense -- one person's experience is an anecdote. BioWare actually has the stats for all hundreds of thousands of users, and I promise you they can tell if the stats go out of whack.

 

I'm an artificer and I've had no problems with the "wieldable tree", though I've had my share of bad streaks (over 50 failed REs in once case). That's just how it works.

Edited June 19, 2012 by Telanis

Most things seem to be working correctly but there are a few clear and repeatable exceptions. The ones I have noticed are:

 

Artificer:Wieldable tree - which includes the focus mentioned above

Armstech:Wieldable tree - most of my experience is with Vibroknife

Cybertech:Earpiece tree

 

Emphasis added by me.

 

This is actually just a bad streak on your part. I have an artificer, armstech and cybertech. I've recently RE'ed to purple a level 48 focus, a level 50 vibroknife and a level 47 earpiece. The progression was typical, with no extensive bad streaks.

 

Any collection of stats that "prove" the 20%/10% is wrong is not taking into account the many other crafters who are not contributing their stats to the discussion that would balance everything out.

 

Honestly, anyone who gets a good streak (I once got 3 10% purples IN-A-ROW) seldom come to the forum to say "hey, the 10% is broken I'm getting RE's too fast"

Emphasis added by me.

 

Any collection of stats that "prove" the 20%/10% is wrong is not taking into account the many other crafters who are not contributing their stats to the discussion that would balance everything out.

 

I'm sorry, but this is not correct. You do not need to take into account any other crafter. For a given statistical test, you only need one person's attempts in order to determine if things are working as intended statistically. Recently a Las Vegas roulette wheel hit 19 7 times in a row, then 15, then 19 again. You can be sure that roulette wheel has been taken down and examined. You aren't going to be able to convince anyone that they should take into account all other wheels as those eight 19's in nine spins would disappear in the wash.

 

Outliers are the bane of any statistic and most people want to sweep them under the rug, usually by grouping them into larger sets and showing that they are a small and insignificant number. But this is wrong as the 20/10% are intended for the individual, not the larger set of all people.

 

It is clear that there may be some issues with RE'ing as some testing by some people has indicated. However, those issues may be as simple as BW not explaining the math behind the crafting.

 

I should be even more clear on this for my case:

 

As an artificer, I find that the 2nd and 3rd blue of a given green wieldable item (the foci, generators and shields) seem to be on the 10% RE line instead of 20% although I have yet to learn a 2nd version of any of my wieldable items. Since I have limited resources, I have only been able to do about 20-25 of several different wieldable items. If the tool tip is indeed wrong and it is 10% once one is learned, then the math works out much more correctly.

Edited June 20, 2012 by Sothicus

As an artificer, I find that the 2nd and 3rd blue of a given green wieldable item (the foci, generators and shields) seem to be on the 10% RE line instead of 20% although I have yet to learn a 2nd version of any of my wieldable items. Since I have limited resources, I have only been able to do about 20-25 of several different wieldable items. If the tool tip is indeed wrong and it is 10% once one is learned, then the math works out much more correctly.

This is an interesting point.

 

You're saying that if you RE the first green to blue, you've experienced the 20%, but trying again for another prefix you've experienced a 10%?

 

I don't have enough actual collected statistics to make any statement one way or the other. I do recall occasionally taking a long time to get a second or third blue. On the other hand I also recall RE'ing 5 greens and getting all three blues in the same set of 5.

 

You may be right, but I don't think so. I have 5 of the 6 crafting professions to 400. I've unlocked many purple schematics for alts, companions and guildies. When I was actually tracking statistics, I had:

 

691 greens RE'ed - 132 successful

316 blues REed - 35 successful

 

These were close enough to the 20%/10% that I stopped counting.

That's correct. I have to admit that due to my limited resources I can only go off of the 60+ RE's I've attempted so far with no success for a second blue of a different trait. But at 20%, that is very unlikely... about 1 in 100,000 chance in fact. So there is something else underneath the math I think... if at 10%, I'm at 1 in 1000 which is not great either but I have a little less heartburn over.

 

Even so, if most of my greens pop a blue within the expected 1 to 10 tries (i.e. a reasonable curve) and everyone's second blues and even puprle's seem to come up on extreme ends... I think there is a problem with the success curve (again it all boils down to math which BW won't tell us).

Anectodal story incoming. It may be boring so feel free to ignore.

 

On the subject of RNG and statistics (and gambling -- the roulette example above reminded me).

 

My brother took me to Vegas for my 40th and taught me how to play craps. I spent all weekend at the tables and had a good time.

 

Afterwards, (being a computer programmer by trade), I wrote a series of simulations as to dice strategy, using a betting system known as "Martingale" (you increase your bet each time you lose to cover the cost of previous losses). My first model was for trying to hit hard 4 or hard 10 (2+2 or 5+5) on a single roll. I "rolled the dice" 10,000,000 times in my program. The longer I "rolled", the more likely I was to have an insane loosing streak.

 

1. Hitting hard 4 or hard 10 in a single roll is a 5.5% chance. So you should be able to roll the dice 18 times and on average, you would get one or the other.

 

2. After 10,000,000 rolls, the "average" was 1 in 18. However, the program recorded a record loosing streak of 345 consecutive rolls without hitting hard 4 or hard 10.

 

3. Tried again with 10,000 rolls, the average was still 1 in 18. Worst losing streak was 156 consecutive rolls without hitting either number.

 

You can take away from this what you will. I still believe that there aren't any hidden maths and that the 20% and 10% tooltips are in fact, correct. That is mainly due to my RE history that I actually recorded (see above).

 

YMMV.

Edited June 21, 2012 by JeffKretz

That's correct. I have to admit that due to my limited resources I can only go off of the 60+ RE's I've attempted so far with no success for a second blue of a different trait. But at 20%, that is very unlikely... about 1 in 100,000 chance in fact. So there is something else underneath the math I think... if at 10%, I'm at 1 in 1000 which is not great either but I have a little less heartburn over.

 

Unfortunately the only way to remove the selection bias from the equation is to ignore everything that has happened up til now, and then start counting and recording the result. You must also post that result here regardless of what it shows.

 

There are several 100 throusand players, so it is likely that several experience 1 in 100,000 chances with a specific RE attempt. If they are doing more than one RE attempt, it becomes far more likely. It is likely that a player experiencing this will post on this forum about it, so we'll see it here.

Edited June 22, 2012 by Darzil
typo

20% does not guarantee 1 in 5 crit.

Every single time you RE the game rolls a 5 sided dice so to speak but this gets rolled every time and your success on one roll does not change your chances on the next roll.

 

Random is random

 

True, but the odds of failing as often as we do is very low...too low, it would seem, for it to be happening. For instance, on my latest reroll:

 

Might Armor 6, 60ish skill i think? Took me 17 tries to get a blue

Might Armor 7, 90 skill...22 tries and I still haven't RE'd a blue.

 

Maybe it is just bad luck, but it happens every time I start REing to get a blue...I never get one short of 10 - 15 tries.

Edited June 22, 2012 by Vember

the random number generator that mmos use are very" streaky". i have noticed and seen it with several of them.

 

one day you will have a true rng spread. the next time you will have a streak of either good or bad luck. i can go with no re upgrades in 25 tries and the next day i can get 7 out of 10.

 

however even if they are streaky in the long run they are random. the law of large numbers will prove this.

 

when you are in a bad streak just stop.

Ok. Where to begin.

 

I've been on since Early Release and now have 6 alts, 1 for each crafting skill. Needless to say, I've spent many hours crafting. In fact most of my ingame time, easily 25+ hours a week on average, has been spent crafting. So I think it's safe to say I have a pretty good feel for the quirks of reverse engineering.

 

When I began crafting with my first character, I noticed that there were occassions where the reverse engineering system seemed to be, for lack of a better term, "dead". By that, I mean that there were times I would burn through 20, 30, 40 or more items before a reverse engineering discovery. (Keep in mind, the discovery rate then was 10%.) What was odd is that these "dead" streaks appeared to be so much out of the ordinary. Everyone who's done much crafting knows to expect some long stretches without a discovery, but these extraordinarily long streaks didn't seem to fit that.

 

Since that time, I've added my alternate characters and done a great deal of crafting with all 6 crafting skills. As a result I now have a pretty good feel for all of them. From my experience, I don't think there is anything wrong with reverse engineering in respect to a particular crafting skill or a particular item. Reverse engineering behavior seems the same to me across the board. This is not to say there isn't a possible problem under certain conditions. In fact, I think there may well be.

 

I remember reverse engineering problems being a hot topic among crafters during release and for a while afterward. Then discussion slowly tapered off and was sporadic for a while. This coincided with game updates that included changes to the crafting system, in particular the reverse engineering discovery rate, and a decrease in server population. However, with the recent character moves and much higher server populations, this topic is once again being widely discussed among crafters.

 

As I said, I experienced what I call "dead" streaks at game launch and wasn't really sure what to make of it. Over time, I experienced this less and less although it never totally went away. Since character moves have been implemented and server populations (server loads) have increased dramatically, the "dead" streaks are back. And the higher the current server population, the more often I experience this. To me this observation doesn't seem to fit with the "you're just having a streak of bad luck" argument. And it doesn't appear that I am the only one to notice a behavior change in reverse engineering.

 

I have come up with what for me seems to be a workaround for this. When I hit what I see as a "dead" streak, I quit the game client and then log back into the game after 5-10 minutes. This gets me back to what my experience tells me is normal reverse engineering behavior. I would be curious to hear about other gamers as to whether this makes a difference for them with reverse engineering.

 

To me it seems that there are times when the reverse engineering roll is not being performed or the roll variable is not updating correctly. It also seems that this is more likely and more comon under heavier server load. Don't misunderstand. I'm not saying this is what's happening. I'm just describing my impression of what I see. And, although I don't believe this is the case, I also cannot absolutely rule out the possibility that this is simply a perception issue.

 

What I would suggest is uncovering the reverse engineering rolls in the UI. I don't think it would be too difficult and it would certainly help in determining if there is an underlying problem in the live server environment. And if this is all a simple matter of misperception on the user's part, it would dispel that rather quickly.

 

I apologize for the rather long post. Regards to all and I welcome all constructive discussion on this topic.

2. After 10,000,000 rolls, the "average" was 1 in 18. However, the program recorded a record loosing streak of 345 consecutive rolls without hitting hard 4 or hard 10.

 

3. Tried again with 10,000 rolls, the average was still 1 in 18. Worst losing streak was 156 consecutive rolls without hitting either number.

 

You've just demonstrated the flaw in the system. Odds mean nothing except odds. They are just a chance, that is all. If they meant anything people would not be losing their shirts in Vegas, and it would be called Caesar's Shack, not Caesar's Palace.

 

As proven, a streak of 345 and 156 can and will happen, and that is unacceptable. I'm currently in my second round of REing a blue barrel for a second alt. I'm up to 24 on this round. I believe I hit about 30 the last time I tried and quit. Both times I've blown through mats scavenged over the course of the month with a cost estimate in the 50k range.

 

On a spread-sheet with no variables included, this may seem balanced over time, but in real world practice these are unacceptable results for a level 17 item with a life expectancy of a few days and a worth of around 3k.

Edited June 23, 2012 by Blackardin

If you have collected a pitiful amount of data of course you may get some odd results. You barely did anything at all.

 

RE'ing works for me and the rest of the community. Or these threads would be everywhere.

 

1 in 18 lol

You've just demonstrated the flaw in the system. Odds mean nothing except odds. They are just a chance, that is all. If they meant anything people would not be losing their shirts in Vegas, and it would be called Caesar's Shack, not Caesar's Palace.

 

As proven, a streak of 345 and 156 can and will happen, and that is unacceptable. I'm currently in my second round of REing a blue barrel for a second alt. I'm up to 24 on this round. I believe I hit about 30 the last time I tried and quit. Both times I've blown through mats scavenged over the course of the month with a cost estimate in the 50k range.

 

On a spread-sheet with no variables included, this may seem balanced over time, but in real world practice these are unacceptable results for a level 17 item with a life expectancy of a few days and a worth of around 3k.

 

If you think the system sucks, head over to the suggestions box with your suggestion for how to make it better, but a bad system does not mean a broken system. The system is working as advertised.

To me it seems that there are times when the reverse engineering roll is not being performed or the roll variable is not updating correctly. It also seems that this is more likely and more comon under heavier server load. Don't misunderstand. I'm not saying this is what's happening. I'm just describing my impression of what I see. And, although I don't believe this is the case, I also cannot absolutely rule out the possibility that this is simply a perception issue.

 

What I would suggest is uncovering the reverse engineering rolls in the UI. I don't think it would be too difficult and it would certainly help in determining if there is an underlying problem in the live server environment. And if this is all a simple matter of misperception on the user's part, it would dispel that rather quickly.

 

I'm actually really in favor of this. Just like in other MMOs using the 'd20' system showed your attack rolls and skill checks, being able to see if you were close or far can do a lot to soothe a bad string of RNG hits. And if, as mentioned, it has 'dead' streaks, we could see if it really did roll 77 twenty-five times in a row, and open a ticket - presumably the RE rolls would then be visible to the CSRs who respond to the tickets, and can confirm them.

 

And if it does jump all over the place, and just doesn't fall within that 20%, we'll know that as well, and some people can finally accept a random system is random. (or as close as an electronic one can be, anyways.)

 

On a spread-sheet with no variables included, this may seem balanced over time, but in real world practice these are unacceptable results for a level 17 item with a life expectancy of a few days and a worth of around 3k.

 

Yes that is the rub.

 

On the other hand, this game is very gear dependent. Running through content with augmented purples at any level is a delight. My wife and I are running alts at the moment. The first time through we did a Heroic 2 on Tatooine in pretty decent gear and had a heck of a time. This run we are fully geared in augmented purples and at one level below the the first run in the same Heroic, just ate everything in sight. We were surprised how quick and easy the quest was. We make our own gear because there is very little to be found on the GTN (Harbinger) and we find that the few listed top level gear items at any character level are very very expensive (way above 3K in cost).

 

Because of the way the rng system operates, no player will ever be able to determine if if RE is working as advertised and the "odds" are correctly implemented. On one character, I can run my full affection companions in Slicing and often get nothing and then on an alt run run three missions on almost zero affection characters with no Slicing crits and end up with two missions returning augmentors and the third critting on a lockbox mission. Yesterday I got a companion that uses cunning. I am leveling armormech so things are moving together. I decided to craft him upgraded bracers and gloves that were only a level or two different from each other. The bracers (higher level) hit blue after two tries and purple after three and I made two pieces of gear, one of which critted. The gloves took about twenty tries for blue and I am into about another thirty for purple with no luck. Armormech is the only crew skill that I do not have at least one character at 400 level. I run a lot of crew missions and my subjective experience is that the system is probably working as indicated, but as one person analyzed above, can be streaky as all heck.

 

Fortunately, I have cargo bays full of mats and can RE until the cows come home. So I end up getting what I want. Is it worth the effort for leveling characters? No, not really or if you hit a bad streak not even close. I could sell the mats that I use for a ton and end up rich, fat, and happy. Yet the result of the RE effor is a purple recipe that I will then have forever and a character or alt that is a powerhouse in gear which I can get in no other way and which makes things so much more approachable and doable.

 

PS - As an LOL afterthought something that happened yesterday that emphasizes gear importance comes to mind. My wife and I were riding along on Tatoonie when we came across three players that were starting a 4 man Heroic. So we stopped to watch. The group was a few levels above us. Of course, they did everything wrong. They charged into three golds without ccing any of them and missed a fouth gold who was waliking by and who joined the fight. Quickly one of the group tried to run for it and the oher two were at about 20%. health. As the runner passed by me I felt sorry for him and tried to toss him a heal to keep him alive. Thanks to the magic of ability delay, I was an instant to late and he died at my feet. My wife thought I was joining to fight and so force leaped into the middle of the pile of golds. So with our two companions firing away, I started thowing heals to her and dpsing when I could. The four golds went down quickly (my wife is a killer and it was six to four against the golds with us not part of the group) and I was able to keep the other two players in the grooup up and my wife's health topped off. No thank you was forthcoming and as we road off into the double suns, we wondered if the group would be smart and give up or would try to keep going on the heroic. The point is that my wife's warrior destroyed the golds and my healer (when not healing) did some pretty good dps.and the biggest difference at the point in the fight that we joined was our purple augmented gear. So the purple gear is way nice when levveling.

the random number generator that mmos use are very" streaky". i have noticed and seen it with several of them.

 

Random numbers are very streaky. Try flipping 1000 coins and seeing how long the streaks you get are! If you didn't get long streaks it'd indicate that MMO RNG is wrong.