Development Cycle Archive
Thread: Crafting Critical Failure Rates
What about in products where anything less than a great result might as well be thrown out? Buffs for instance? I'm not a rich doctor, so when I make buffs I only have a limited supply of avian meat. Last time I tried to make ONE set of buffs (just 5 of them, action doesn't use avian)I went through 502 of my 736 units of meat on 22 failures. This was with using both of the new crafting foods, for the beginning anyways. My drink stomach filled up on bespin port. This time around I got about 2 or 3 "good" successes, but the rest of the 22were honest and true failures. The new system? I don't even want to begin to think about it.
I think the biggest problem with this new system is you haven't given us ANY feedback saying that our products should turn out witha similar end value to what they do now. You haven't explained to us at all what is going on. I'm more confused than anything becauseyou say resource qualityis going to begin counting as if it DIDN'T already. Try making a 900 level buff without anything but 950OQ/950PE avian meat...and 950OQ+ reactive gaswhile you're at it. Try making a good T21 withreally high damage and low speed. Maybe its just me, but I seem to remember most smiths wanting to get certain material qualities as high as they can. In fact, most are willing to pay VERYhigh amounts of money for VERY high quality materials. Why are they doing this if resources don't matter right now?
The only difference I see in this new system is that it really doesn't matter toooo much how high up in the smith skills you are, it matters more what resources you have. Is THIS the intention? I'm just having such a hard time seeing what is even remotely good coming with this change. I'm sorry, but nothing you've said so far has made me feel any better about it. I think this thread will change 180 degrees in tone if you would just try and see this from our point of view. You are trying to push a GAME WIDE nerf on us. This effects every aspect of the game. EVERY SINGLE product will be reduced in quality. This is completely unacceptable.
Please, just say something to us that doesn't sound like "we don't care what you ACTUALLY want changed, this is whats happening and its for the good of the game". Have you already forgotten how much it sucks to have people not in the knowto tell you what is good for you or not? (No offense, but you and every other developer has admitted they can't play the game as much as us or beginto know as much about theoverall game as us) Even better and probably easier, just please explain to us what is happening back there.
Thunderheart wrote:
WarlordRhawn wrote:Out of three suits made I had 17 critical failures and i believe its an error in the city specialization Research center. I say this because i moved my base of operations out of this area and since then I have made 5 suits with 4 critical errors which in my opinion is much more reasonable. Again this isn't firm data but I am staying out of towns now to make armor.
Natanial Storm
17 critical failures is insanely high. Something sounds suspect there. If you get a chance, it would be helpful if you could post the details of your experiences in the In Test Crafting Thread. Thanks.
The problem with critfail rates on live has always been not the 4-5%, but the fact that it's 4-5 per check, with up to 13 checks per item, so your aggregate chances of a critfail per item (not counting the subcomponent checks, which add up to another 13 checks each) is way, way high.
Pilai wrote:
What about in products where anything less than a great result might as well be thrown out? Buffs for instance? I'm not a rich doctor, so when I make buffs I only have a limited supply of avian meat. Last time I tried to make ONE set of buffs (just 5 of them, action doesn't use avian)I went through 502 of my 736 units of meat on 22 failures. This was with using both of the new crafting foods, for the beginning anyways. My drink stomach filled up on bespin port. This time around I got about 2 or 3 "good" successes, but the rest of the 22were honest and true failures. The new system? I don't even want to begin to think about it.
[snip]
Just an architect note:
Try it with structures that use 75,000 resource units each. Not fun.
Fivo Asia
I am just going to add my 2 cents in. It doesn't appear very random to me. I am a Master Weaponsmith. I will craft the same item 3-5 time in a row to get the best item possible. I get the following all the time.
Craft a weapon. Start my experiment. fill in 5-7 boxes hit the experiment button. First time get a moderate success. Fill in 2 boxes get Great. next great, and finally great.
Do the same weapon, this time the first experimentation only fill in 2 boxes, and 2 boxes each one after. Moderate, great, great, etc.
I may craft 3 weapons only to find out that the first experimentation is always a moderate. So i only use one box on the first craft then, maybe 2 after that.
For something that is supposed to be random, it sure had a pattern. Are you sure you didn't confuse this with unlocking your FS, hehe.
MonroeThanes wrote:
anyone but me notice that when you critical fail on the first experimentation attempt you always get an amazing right after that? but the critical fail takes the value to 0% so the amazing doesnt do anything after that. hardly random
Yep, I have two swoop bikes that have 0%. I should generate one and see what the ham is. If it is 0 it will just blow up in my face. lol
For a flat 5% chance of a critical failures I sure get a lot of them. I think somebodys math is messed up. As far as being a research city I really see no real benefit to it. It isn't worth the credits. It doesn't seam to reduce the amount of critical fails either.
Using +42 crafting stations and +14.97 crafting tools.
Alen Vonder
Radiant
Master Artisan, Master DE
I live in a research Center (Juganoth Valley, Tatooine, Chilestra), last time I made a run of Composite suits (2 full suits) I had no less than 40% failures, either complete failures, or less than "great success" .. I'm using the highest quality crafting components avaliable, 41% effectiveness crafting stations, and even the crafting tool is over a 14 rating. .. AND I was using the crafting drug (forget its name now), while using this, i had 2 failures in a row using the same equipment. After it was said and done, i had a pile of "Seconds" and a pile of armor to sell .. nearly equal piles .. your welcome to come take a look over my shoulder while I'm working.
-Oseef
I've been a master armorsmith on wanderhome for several months. I currenlty have the highest rated crafting stations and crafting tools that I know of. I have +19 assembly and +20 experimentation from attachments.
I don't have the values anymore but I once calculated thatwhen 'manually' crafting armoraround60% of the resources (this includes creature loot like krayt segments) I start with are ruined by critical failures during assembly or experimentation. After I did this work I changed my pricing structure to reflect this risk. I make as much as possible in factories. I allow for an extra five attempts for each schematic.
Being a master should make anything below Good Success impossible.
MrMud wrote:
I see alot of bashing on the critical fail rates in this thread but i see very little statistical evidence to back up the claims.
Sure having 3 critical fails in a row do suck but is in no way a statistical impossiblity.
Yeah that's true, but who really plays/pays for this game to write down every result over 1000 crafting attempts...which is what you'd have to do to get any reliable statistical information... probably more. Then you have to do those 1000 attempts in the wild, in a city, in a city with research center, in a city with manufacturing center, with and without good crafting tools.
This is something only devs can do with their ability to change their locations, values and with their unlimited resources.
I mean seriously, who knows? You might have to try at different levels of your profession, maybe its screwed up only after you get over +100 experimentation points. Maybe its only screwed up for some professions.
It is essentially pointless for players to do this kind of statistical analaysis, the devs need to thrash the crafting system automaticallywith a massive number of attempts and see what the statistical evidence is from that. Getting players to do it is a waste of time.
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I still don't see any need for critical failures in the game anyway. Most people probably agree that its some sort of attempt to match combat with crafting, in combat you have a chance of failing and dying, in crafting you should have a similar 'failure'.
We do.
Its called producing the wrong item, or selling it at the wrong price, or not selling it at all because it was crap and not what the customer wanted. Crafting failures come from not reading the market properly. This business of destroying resources and items and generally just annoying crafters and wasting their time for no good reason is pointless.
I hear somewhere the argument "SWG has crafting failures because all games have crafting failures.", well World of Warcraft doesn't, they should learn from an industry leader and try breaking the mould every once in awhile.
Think outside the box for a change, you might be surprised.
The testing was poorly thought out and the results were poorly presented.
I've said it before in other threads but I will say it here again.
SOE needs to hire some experts on actaully playing SWG.
So far I have seen no developer or other staff member who has a reasonable understanding of on the issues and problems players face when playing the game. There is a huge difference between a the way a rocket engineer sees a jet plane and the way a pilot sees a jet plane.
Guys, you are never going to get it right until you have some staff who play the game for hours a day and understand first hand what the players are talking about.
Looking at the tests done here the first thing that popped into my head was the "NEWBIE" in big bold flashing letters. I could state the reasons but I reading this thread there is no need to repeat what others have already said.
Please, you guys are developers, and TH you are a customer rep. Please, please get some people who know the game. Don't ask them to do anything to do with programming, CS, or office filing. Just get them to play 2 or 3 alloted professions throughout the day, and report back to you on issues they are having. That would be your greatest resource in understanding player complaints. The money you pay them will be chicken feed compared to the headaches and wasted time you will avoid. Point in case being the several days that these two staff members just spent doing something totally useless because they were not familiar enough with the game from a players eyes.