Development Cycle Archive

I don't think the failure rate is too high, at least for low resource requirement stuff.

The thing is, it seems to be misrepresented in game. While experimenting, the bar directly to the right of the experiment boxes always shows 0% failure rate. In actuality, it'ssignificantly higher than that. Your results indicate ~4%. While it doesn't sound high, it is when you're expecting 0% failure rates.

oh one thing. the copper I use is 990OQ and the chemical is 964OQ. No reason for them to ALWAYS fail.

I would like to amend my previous commentary with the following extensively tested observation. Architect Harvestor Efficency Experimentation, despite the % risk bar staying the same, when you experiment 3 boxes or less at a time your failure rate is within the normal range of failure, but if you but try to experiment the maximum number of bars at one time your rate of critical failure is 20% or higher. Yet on that same screen if you experiment with the maximum number of bars on the output hopper the critical failure rate goes back down to a 5-7% range. Hmm, seems strange that the one track that's far more important for the final product/end user is the one that suffers from a higher failure rate. And yes I have tested this on a large number of harvestors using topend ingredients, best tools, best stations, in low lag situations.

Padre

That's what I've been getting at. Only great or amazing successes show any real improvement. The problem is either with the terminology used, or with the experimenting process.

Note: we should be distinguishing between critical failures in ASSEMBLY (which destroy the item and any resources invested) and failures in experimentation (which create the item, but with lower stats than before experimentation started). The two are connected, but should be seen as distinct.

I just wanted to thank everyone for their responses and feedback. I'm seeing a lot of valid concerns and a lot of good suggestions. There is a lot of intelligent conversation and insight here, and I am very impressed with the amount and quality of independent research that has been conducted.

More than anything I really wanted to find out what the crafting community thought about these numbers and about the state of the current crafting and critical failure system, and that's exactly what I'm seeing here. I really do appreciate it.

I don't know if you've seen the test that Drashk (the DE corrospondant) has done, and I don't recall the forum link, however he has given me permission to post the results on a web-page:

http://members.shaw.ca/Ackis/droidqualityexperiment.html

This probably will help you.

Critical Failures are BAD BAD BAD. I personally don't think they should exist at all. What do Critical Failures add to the game? I find them frustrating and annoying. When I get a critical failure on assembly, I get annoyed. When I get 3 or 4 in a row, I log off, because the game isn't fun anymore. When I get a critical failure on experimentation, I usually end up destroying whatever I was crafting because I can't sell it.

I'm not 100% sure what critical failures add to the game. If they are meant to be a money/resource sink for the economy, it would make more sense to increase resource costs or reduce resource supply by 4% and get rid of critical failures. If they are meant to add "challenge" to crafting, they don't - they just make it irritating. The challenge in crafting comes from gathering the resources and getting good experimentation results.

My suggestion for critical failure rates is to either get rid of them all together, or make it so you don't lose resources but have to start the crafting process all over again. A game needs to be challenging, but any pen-and-paper RPG player can tell you that taking away a player's hard-earned stuff because of an unlucky roll is bad, bad, bad.

The only way I would want criticcal failures in the game is if we still received full XP for crafting the item on a crit. failure (i.e. "we learn best from our mistakes") and if Master crafters never got them at all. And even this is not as good as canning them entirely.

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Chrysalide wrote:

I just wanted to thank everyone for their responses and feedback. I'm seeing a lot of valid concerns and a lot of good suggestions. There is a lot of intelligent conversation and insight here, and I am very impressed with the amount and quality of independent research that has been conducted.

More than anything I really wanted to find out what the crafting community thought about these numbers and about the state of the current crafting and critical failure system, and that's exactly what I'm seeing here. I really do appreciate it.

A lot of the ideas that I've heard from many of you echo some of the ones upon which we've been trying to develop here, and I've also seen a lot of good points that we hadn't taken into account but are now looking into. Additionally, I've taken note of a lot of good concepts that unfortunately we cannot implement at this time, but we may want to add in a future publish.

I know that we've been a little bit vague with the details to this point, but we're still hammering out some of the initial numbers, and I will keep you all up to date as we make progress. Once again, I very much appreciate all of your comments, and I appreciate your positive outlook as we work on this system. Please feel free to continue the discussion on this topic, as we will continue to check on the thread and review the feedback.

As always, thanks!

Jeff "Chrysalide" Carpenter

Developer

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Thank you, Chyrsalide.

This is exactly the kind of communication we've wanted to get from the developers for 7 months.

I hope we can expect morelike thisfrom now on.