One time, I RE'd a schematic and got an upgrade on the first try.

I'm pretty sure that RE is actually 100%.

--or, trust Bioware on statistics, since realistically, they are the only ones with the *whole* picture.

You are all assuming the 20% chance is not weighted by the skill level of your crew skill.

My personal experience in crafting in SWTOR has been that I am more successful reverse engineering gray and green difficulty recipes than recipes that are yellow and orange difficulty. The 20% of one is not equal to the other because crew skill seems to be factored into the result. The more difficult the recepe in relation to your skill level, the less likely you will successfully RE it.

At least, that's my assumption. I do not have a max level crafter, but the same appears to be true of other missions. If you do a Rich Yeild mission that's gray, you're far more likely to get awesome results than if it is yellow or orange.

It also seems to factor in whether it is a blue schematic or green that you are reverse engineering. I have had far more successes RE green and getting blues than RE blues to get purples.

All of your mathematic analyses are assuming the 20% chance is not weighted by crew skill level or schematic quality, which it most likely is. If the system is truly weighted in those ways, and appears to be, it follows that no amount of statistical analysis against the hypothesis that it's a flat 20% chance as the tooltip suggests is going to give you any pool of data that will be accurate.

You are all assuming the 20% chance is not weighted by the skill level of your crew skill.

 

My personal experience in crafting in SWTOR has been that I am more successful reverse engineering gray and green difficulty recipes than recipes that are yellow and orange difficulty. The 20% of one is not equal to the other because crew skill seems to be factored into the result. The more difficult the recepe in relation to your skill level, the less likely you will successfully RE it.

 

At least, that's my assumption. I do not have a max level crafter, but the same appears to be true of other missions. If you do a Rich Yeild mission that's gray, you're far more likely to get awesome results than if it is yellow or orange.

 

It also seems to factor in whether it is a blue schematic or green that you are reverse engineering. I have had far more successes RE green and getting blues than RE blues to get purples.

 

All of your mathematic analyses are assuming the 20% chance is not weighted by crew skill level or schematic quality, which it most likely is. If the system is truly weighted in those ways, and appears to be, it follows that no amount of statistical analysis against the hypothesis that it's a flat 20% chance as the tooltip suggests is going to give you any pool of data that will be accurate.

The small sample size argument works against your assertions just as well as that of the OP's. You were probably just lucky. I on the other hand not so much...

I recently did a lot of low level REing (on my level 50 JK 400 synthweaver and my level 50 BH 400 Cybertech) to gear up an alt, and knowing that my sample is small I did not do nearly as well as you did - an example: it took me ten tries to get the blue Resolve Mod 6 schematic from REing green mods.

One time, I RE'd a schematic and got an upgrade on the first try.

I'm pretty sure that RE is actually 100%.

I laughed for realzies on this one

In the real world, I agree that crafting is a skill you develop over time and get better at as you go. In a game, where playing a PvE story is the most important aspect of that game, not so much. Pure randomness does a couple of things in a game environment:

 

- it creates specialists. certain players get lucky and can craft things that other players cannot. Those who cannot seek out those who can. This creates a form of community and builds the game economy. Yes, eventually there are more of those who can versus those who cannot, but that is when expansions and crew skill level caps increase and new schematics become available.

 

- it is a time and money sink. For those who really want a specific schematic they have to invest time and in game money to the process of acquiring a schematic they really want. This encourages players to keep playing. Some players dislike this and do not participate; they either leave the game or seek out the specialists described above.

 

I think one of the big issues here is SWG. In that game, being a crafter was a legitimate "class." you spent all your time crafting stuff for other players. You gained a reputation and players sought you out to craft gear for them. There was also the gear deterioration factor - gear wore out over time - so gear would have to be replaced, creating a consistent demand. SWTOR has none of these factors. Some players want those factors in SWTOR, but they do not work in SWTOR because SWTOR is a very different game than SWG.

 

Most MMOs I have played are more like SWTOR than SWG. You are presented with a trainer NPC that "teaches" you how to make items, you then make those items. Some randomness mechanic makes certain items desirable and valuable. You sell those items to players who are unwilling to make it themselves.

As you said, "some" randomness is good....but not 100% randomness. Real world examples are valid as a comparison, as they make sense.

Bottom line, right now it cannot even be considered crafting, its gambling no more or less then buying cartel packs. Without the ability to improve on one's chances through learned skill, that is all it is. The entirety of the argument regarding a learning curve is to move it away from gambling to actual crafting.

As you said, "some" randomness is good....but not 100% randomness. Real world examples are valid as a comparison, as they make sense.

Bottom line, right now it cannot even be considered crafting, its gambling no more or less then buying cartel packs. Without the ability to improve on one's chances through learned skill, that is all it is. The entirety of the argument regarding a learning curve is to move it away from gambling to actual crafting.

You are confusing crafting with schematic acquisition. crafting is the skill or art of making something. In this game you take materials and make something from those materials. That, by definition, is crafting. On the other hand, schematic acquisition in this game is both trained/learned and random. Basic schematics are trained and then you have a chance to improve upon them by trial and error. And even in the real world not everyone always succeeds when they try to improve upon an already existing thing. No matter how hard they try. And those are people who spend their lives in their craft.

Which leads me into...this is a game where the crafting is a secondary feature. Your character's "profession" is his/her class and advanced class and skill tree specialization; that is what you improve on consistently and persistently over time; your "learning curve." Crafting is something you do on the side, a hobby. If there was a synthweaver class or a armormech class, etc, I could see how the randomness of schematic acquisition would be annoying. But this is not the case.

It's a 20% chance to learn the schematic each time you RE the item. That means you have an 80% chance to fail each time you RE the item.

Each RE is an independent event, so each time you RE is a new 80% chance of failing to learn a schematic. RNG will make you unhappy sometimes, and other times you'll get that shiny Dread Guard schematic on the first try. Yay random outcomes!

It's a 20% chance to learn the schematic each time you RE the item. That means you have an 80% chance to fail each time you RE the item.

 

Each RE is an independent event, so each time you RE is a new 80% chance of failing to learn a schematic. RNG will make you unhappy sometimes, and other times you'll get that shiny Dread Guard schematic on the first try. Yay random outcomes!

You obviously haven't even read the first post? The OP is making a claim that it is in fact a very very low probability that the actual RE-chance is 20%.

That test proves absolutely nothing. It's the same crap with WoW of people claiming that people roll hacked when someone rolled 100 twice in a row. The chance of that happening is 1 in 10,000, yet it happened all the time. If you have thousands of people REing stuff, some people will get the short end of the stick, some people will be extremely lucky.

This. Playing FPS games, I love it when people cant tell statistics; they rage and call everyone hackers, yet still admit that maybe 1 in 10 aren't really hackers.

I asked him if he ignores every 10th person he gets mad at, hilarity ensued.

It's been about 3 weeks since the original post. Is there any more data to hand? Has the deviation from 20% gotten worse or better?

Most likely never will be until the next thread is created with a similar small sample size.

You obviously haven't even read the first post? The OP is making a claim that it is in fact a very very low probability that the actual RE-chance is 20%.

I did read the post. I'm suggesting that the OP doesn't understand statistics, independent events, and random outcomes. A truly random 20% chance at an outcome when it comes to independent events means that over a very large sample size (IE, not people complaining on forums, in gen chat, or from a few guilds), crafters will learn a schematic 20% of the time they attempt a RE. As I said before, this means you have an 80% chance to fail each time. The game doesn't care how many times you tried before.

An event can be random and produce what looks like a pattern, it can randomly produce outcomes that are bad for you, or it can randomly produce outcomes that are good for you. People love to complain about getting really lousy outcomes when it comes to RNG, but nobody posts with a complaint saying, "Bioware, I've been getting schematics on the first try too much, please nerf my RE rates."

A bit unrelated, but I'm betting it's actually pretty close to 20%, and the reason the RE rate will be dropped to 10% for the 72 tier of raid gear is that Bioware is unhappy with how quickly people geared out in full 63s.

I did read the post. I'm suggesting that the OP doesn't understand statistics, independent events, and random outcomes. A truly random 20% chance at an outcome when it comes to independent events means that over a very large sample size (IE, not people complaining on forums, in gen chat, or from a few guilds), crafters will learn a schematic 20% of the time they attempt a RE. As I said before, this means you have an 80% chance to fail each time. The game doesn't care how many times you tried before.

 

An event can be random and produce what looks like a pattern, it can randomly produce outcomes that are bad for you, or it can randomly produce outcomes that are good for you. People love to complain about getting really lousy outcomes when it comes to RNG, but nobody posts with a complaint saying, "Bioware, I've been getting schematics on the first try too much, please nerf my RE rates."

 

A bit unrelated, but I'm betting it's actually pretty close to 20%, and the reason the RE rate will be dropped to 10% for the 72 tier of raid gear is that Bioware is unhappy with how quickly people geared out in full 63s.

Nobody has proved that the RE success are independent events. Nor has anyone proved that the chance is 20%. What the OP said is that IF the RE success rate are independent events that are evenly distributed, then he has a high confidence interval that it's not 20%.

The key words are 'Independent events', 'Evenly distributed', and '20%'. The first 2 has never been proven at all.

I did read the post. I'm suggesting that the OP doesn't understand statistics, independent events, and random outcomes. ...

*Sigh*

I may disagree with the OP about sample size, but there is NO DOUBT that he has a thorough and advanced understanding of statistics. You are completely misunderstanding the point he is trying to make. I would suggest looking up "Confidence Interval" and "Standard Deviation" and re-reading his post.

I also recommend re-reading post #17 and #18 and review the graphs both posters supplied supporting their points.

This thread is, at it's heart, a mathematical analysis of RE.

The usual gamers fallicy...

 

"Again, the fallacy is the belief that the "universe" somehow carries a memory of past results which tend to favor or disfavor future outcomes."

 

It's a 20% chance each time you re an item, it's not a 20% chance of all your re attempts.

If it's really a 20% chance, and you do it enough times, the actual results should show something very close to 20%.

The question is, what is "enough times" to prove the 20% out? It's not going to be measured in 100's or even 1,000's. Any statisticians care to answer that?

If it's really a 20% chance, and you do it enough times, the actual results should show something very close to 20%.

 

The question is, what is "enough times" to prove the 20% out? It's not going to be measured in 100's or even 1,000's. Any statisticians care to answer that?

In order to have any chance to prove/disprove it would take an exhaustive effort, to either get the entire server to co-operate and provide their results for an entire day worth or RE results, or take a server where you have unlimited access to things to RE and are the only person on the server. Good luck finding that amount of co-operation in this community, b/c you are not going to get the second option.

*Sigh*

 

I may disagree with the OP about sample size, but there is NO DOUBT that he has a thorough and advanced understanding of statistics. You are completely misunderstanding the point he is trying to make. I would suggest looking up "Confidence Interval" and "Standard Deviation" and re-reading his post.

 

I also recommend re-reading post #17 and #18 and review the graphs both posters supplied supporting their points.

 

This thread is, at it's heart, a mathematical analysis of RE.

How can you possibly provide a mathematical analysis of RE without having access to the code? TBQH without knowing what the RE code is, what the RNG code is, and how it is implemented you can't possibly give any real accounting of the results that you see in the game.

after going through too many materials i decided to check the reverse engineering rate of going greens to blues which is stated to be at 20% according to the tool tip in game. I have collected the number of reverse engineering attempt and success that i have had going from a green to a blue, I have not counted the times where I RE'ed and there was no chance of a plan to me gained.

 

<Wall of numbers>

 

This gives a 13.4 percent mean. Using a standard confidence calculation with 99.7 percent boundary if 20 percent is the true mean as defined in the tool tip the average for the sample above should be between 14.3 to 25.7 percent. With the mean sample is out of the 99.7 boundary that mean that it is almost impossible that the 20 percent is the true rate of getting a new plan.

You're doing it wrong.

The current crafting system is equivalent to wearing level 50 tank gear that does not increase any stats, improve one's chances to mitigate damage, dodge, absorb. A crafting system without a learning curve, without the ability to improve one's skill, chances, percentages is a failed system. Its really that simple.

The crating system is fine, it does indeed have a learning curve to it. The more items you RE the more recipes you have and less you have to learn, which equates to a CURVE if you graph it. But seriously, why are you even complaining? most of the time when I RE a loot drooped MOD, Armoring, or Enhancement lately (even lowbie ones which used to have 0% chance to gain a schem) I have gotten a schematic. Maybe you are REing the wrong items? Instead of trying to bilk all the people trying to level characters out of credits, why don't you try REing those sexy end game mods that loot drop in OPS?

In order to have any chance to prove/disprove it would take an exhaustive effort, to either get the entire server to co-operate and provide their results for an entire day worth or RE results, or take a server where you have unlimited access to things to RE and are the only person on the server. Good luck finding that amount of co-operation in this community, b/c you are not going to get the second option.

Not just this community.

Fact is that everything we as players do to try to prove or disprove a feature is working as intended is irrelevant; anything anyone professes is anecdotal at best. I've said before and I'll say it again, we as human beings cannot help but see clusters as purposeful and even distribution as random when in fact the opposite is overwhelmingly more often true (clusters are random and even distribution is purposeful). SuperGrunt is on the right track that the only way to get reliable data from players' observations would be to get a massive number of players doing a massive number of REs. And he is right, good luck getting that to happen.

How can you possibly provide a mathematical analysis of RE without having access to the code? TBQH without knowing what the RE code is, what the RNG code is, and how it is implemented you can't possibly give any real accounting of the results that you see in the game.

Actually, that was sort of the point I was trying to make to the OP. His sample size was too small.

However, the nature of his analysis was, in fact, a mathematical one. It was refreshing to see a post about RE that wasn't grounded in an emotional perspective.

Headpunch's post that "the OP doesn't understand statistics" threw me, as anyone who has studied the type of math being described in this thread can tell that Darth_Sweets isn't likely to be lying when he presents his field of expertise (post #11).

Not just this community.

 

Fact is that everything we as players do to try to prove or disprove a feature is working as intended is irrelevant; anything anyone professes is anecdotal at best. I've said before and I'll say it again, we as human beings cannot help but see clusters as purposeful and even distribution as random when in fact the opposite is overwhelmingly more often true (clusters are random and even distribution is purposeful). SuperGrunt is on the right track that the only way to get reliable data from players' observations would be to get a massive number of players doing a massive number of REs. And he is right, good luck getting that to happen.

Like I said though it would have to be from one server, unless you did multiple servers and compiled the results based on server. Time is the only variable that would change on a computer that would allow you to change the number generated with a random function, so you would want the server time as a constant, as 2 different computers using the same time based random function would generate 2 different random numbers.

after going through too many materials i decided to check the reverse engineering rate of going greens to blues which is stated to be at 20% according to the tool tip in game. I have collected the number of reverse engineering attempt and success that i have had going from a green to a blue, I have not counted the times where I RE'ed and there was no chance of a plan to me gained.

 

<Snips RE "statistics">

 

This gives a 13.4 percent mean. Using a standard confidence calculation with 99.7 percent boundary if 20 percent is the true mean as defined in the tool tip the average for the sample above should be between 14.3 to 25.7 percent. With the mean sample is out of the 99.7 boundary that mean that it is almost impossible that the 20 percent is the true rate of getting a new plan.

As others pointed out, all you did is prove that random is random.

I've literally looted an item that stated a 10 percent chance to RE, went ahead and did it on a lark, and got the next quality tier schematic.

And yes, I've hit it where it takes at least 10 items to get a schematic from RE.

Fact is that everything we as players do to try to prove or disprove a feature is working as intended is irrelevant; anything anyone professes is anecdotal at best.

Hehehe

This is exactly the sort of 'knowledge is impossible' reasoning I was talking about. There is no margin for error, there is only absolute knowledge, and as absolute knowledge cannot be obtained, we cannot learn anything from observation.

'Anecdotal' information is still information. People love that word because it lets them sound science-y, yet still be dismissive without having to engage in any actual analysis. The original poster took a number of 'anecdotal' data points and compiled them into a collection of data. Your argument that no one could ever take a number of instances and draw conclusions from that is not reasoning, but instead just a convoluted call to faith. You can argue with the original poster's margin for error based on his sample size, but instead you claim nothing is provable because observation cannot result in understanding, merely 'anecdote'.

Close your eyes, foolish mortals, and cover your ears, for nothing that passes can you ever comprehend.