Fix Rnd For Rares, or Remove Quests involving Harvest Rares

[Azn]

Well I'm here to bitterly complain about a broken system.  There are a number of quests that require rare or uncommon harvests.  For any I've done so far I've had to aquire them by alternate means.  This is because I have not gotten a SINGLE rare or uncommon harvest.   I haven't harvesting a single sparkling thing since they came out, or seen a single rare on any of my characters.

 

For what ever reason this is occuring, this makes these quests impossible without buying the harvested components I need.  I have read the forums and ran into a few others who have seen no harvests, or are unable to get the compents needed for particular quests.  In effect people are becoming grid locked on quests only because we are unable to get the components due to  a severely faulty RND number generator.

 

My character is 35th level, a 27th Armorer.  All of my skills are near max, around 170s.  They have't been going up much since I'm trying to get my rares/uncommons in teir 3 zones when I should have been able to move onto tier 4 by now = (.

 

I've talked with others and people are either just as discouraged or accept the system telling me I may never see a rare harvest through the entire time I play the game.   At my current rate this is a reality. 

 

I propose you either fix the RND number generator for rare harvests OR remove rare/uncommon harvests from all quests.

[Sacha]

This last week I have been having conn problems, so I havent dared to do any combat. I've been harvesting for 6 days, (mainly rocks for a new project). I put in several hours a day, up to seven hours some days, and my observations are the opposite. In fact I was wondering if the drop rate had been increased.

 

In those 6 days I found 20 Glowing Stones, 8 Rough Coral, 4 Silver Clusters, a Sisal Root, 3 Jasper, 1 Rough Opal, One Ruthenium Cluster, 1 Lapis Lazuli, 1 Copper Cluster, 3 Yarrow, 1 Dandelion Fiber, 1 Severed Alder, 1 Glowing Flower and 16 Severed Bones. It has allowed me to trade for some much needed Scholar books.

 

The fastest I got a rare was after 10 minutes. The longest I had to wait for one was 90 minutes.

 

Put the hours in, seriously, the rares are there. Good luck

 

 

Sacha

(btw I play on Test Centre but I dont believe we have had any changes to harvesting that Live hasnt had.)

 

Edit: Actually, the low population on Test does help. There is little to no competition so I can harvest solidly without having to search for nodes. Still, I have either been extraordinarily lucky and this character is bugged, or you need to put more hours in

Message Edited by Sacha on 04-26-2005 08:01 AM

[Lishara]

Sigh... This is exactly what the OP was talking about.  Some people find rares like they're candy.  Trust me, you don't just have to 'put in the hours'.  I spent days harvesting in TS last week because I was working on the tomahawk quest, needing to harvest the stones (by the way, it took me 80 stones just to get the 10 granite updates for the quest.  Don't know if that's typical or not).  I did not even find one uncommon harvest, let alone a rare and I was harvesting EVERYTHING in order to get stone spawns.  It's been this way since the beginning of the game.  I never find rares (or win lottos) yet someone who's been playing the game for a month in my guild has already found about a bunch of actual rares and probably about 50 uncommons (and gleefully announces it in guild chat each time).  It is VERY FRUSTRATING.

[gsxdarkk]

The rares are thier, I do mostly harvesting and can speak from experience.  Yes it does take a very long time.  I have found over 15-20 rares and stacks of Luminous.  I do harvest alot to get to these rares, I am talking anywhere from 1000 to 1500 normal harvest to find one rare.  Some are even harder to find then others:  Ebons can take me two weeks or even more of harvesting rocks, in that same amount of time I also find 3 or 4 Ruby rares.  Cedars I have only found one. 

Yes, I do believe they need to increase the drop rates just a little since the casual player can not put that amount of time into harvesting, which makes them not available to raids and guild activaties.  Harvesting for a rare is a lonely job

 

 

Message Edited by gsxdarkkon on 04-26-2005 05:23 AM

[Imri]

I really think the chance of finding rares is tied to crafting level. My wife who is a 35 ranger/38 provisioner finds them all the time. A guidlmate of mine who is a 39 guardian/22 armorer finds them a lot too, but not as often as my wife, and I hardly ever find them at 38 templar/13 sage. I could be wrong, but it's an awefully big coincidence.

[Lishara]

I think it's a coincidence.  My crafting levels are 35 and 34 on my mains, and I never find them.

[Elda]

the entire concept of rares being gained through random means annoys me....why aren't they just given to crafters as the result of completing crafter only quests through the crafting areas? the rate of rares entering the game could be better tied to the repeat timers on these quests than the RNG....and also you wouldn't have to spend 7 hours doing something with absolutely NO SKILL REQUIRED.

adventurers get rares from killing epic mobs....crafters should get them from quests (with moderately long refresh timers, and the quested rares should be no trade)...not clicking rocks for hours on end.

 

[Sacha]

---

Lishara wrote:
Sigh... This is exactly what the OP was talking about.  Some people find rares like they're candy.  Trust me, you don't just have to 'put in the hours'.  I spent days harvesting in TS last week because I was working on the tomahawk quest, needing to harvest the stones (by the way, it took me 80 stones just to get the 10 granite updates for the quest.  Don't know if that's typical or not).  I did not even find one uncommon harvest, let alone a rare and I was harvesting EVERYTHING in order to get stone spawns.  It's been this way since the beginning of the game.  I never find rares (or win lottos) yet someone who's been playing the game for a month in my guild has already found about a bunch of actual rares and probably about 50 uncommons (and gleefully announces it in guild chat each time).  It is VERY FRUSTRATING.

---

It sounds frustrating. Believe me, I wish I knew the answer. I nipped to TS to get some belladonna roots the other day, and on the way stopped to harvest 2 wind swept stones. I got TWO Jasper out of ONE of those stones. I was harvesting for 5 minutes.

 

This morning I started harvesting at 0930GMT. At 0941GMT I found my first piece of Rough Coral.

 

Sorry for implying that you are not trying. I did not mean to minimalise your efforts.

Message Edited by Sacha on 04-26-2005 04:03 PM

[Azn]

Here's the thing that gets me.  People tell me to keep harvesting...  Most of them have gotten quite a few rare's if not alot.  About the worst I've heard are some people who have only seen 3-4 through their playing time.

 

I haven't seen a SINGLE rare or uncommon!

 

Not one, nada, zip, zero.  To tell you the truth, its so bad I'm tempted to unistall EQ then try to put it back on.  Every bone in my body tells me the code for getting one is server side, but my friends are telling me I should try it since you never know with Sony.  They need to fix it because at this rate I'm going to have a !#%!#% meltdown.

 

For the last week I've been putting in around 3-4 hours harvesting each day in TS, in an attempt to break my curse.  And to get some quests done (granite tommahawk and some other things).  Despite any amount of time I put in my situation has not changed...

 

FIX IT SONY

[Dazzler_Twodir]

Try mining in a zone that has 3-4 harvest bots in it. Whole zone is nothing but shrubs and shrooms.

[Kizee]

Don't fret... you will get a rare sometime.

 

I went 44 levels of provisioning before I got my first rare( harvesting all my own stuff and would be out harvesting all nodes in a given area to get the bushes to spawn again) I thought I was bugged.

 

Ever since I got 50 my luck seems to have gotten better... just the other night I got 2 rubies within 15 mins.

 

 

 

 

[Lishara]

I think they should at least implement some sort of weight so that the longer you go without finding one (or winning a lotto) the better your chances are the next time around.  It doesn't have to be drastic but sheesh, after harvesting like 3000+ things you should be almost guaranteed to get one.  It really does seem insanely weighted for or against people somehow.

[Valta]

2 chars doing T4 now, another 4 who are on T3, Im not sure how much I have harvested, but it must be some hundreds of stacks, I have found sofar: 1 silver 1 paladium 1 jasper 2 low quality pelts 1 medium quality pelt, end of story.

I have a friend who ALWAYS wins, it does not matter who is in the group, he wins any lotto. I have a friend who never wins, never. In pickup groups I win 60% of all stuff. We have tested it for a very long time and this numbers are like set in stone.

SOEs random generator does not work, no idea why. A computer cant generate a random number, its impossible, they work with complex formulas and some sort of programm tell them where to pick up their variables. To be "random" this variables have to be somewhere, where SOE have no influence at. I think they work with our names (just an example). A = 1, B = 2, C = 3.... so when your name is ABC, the random generator uses 123 as a variable (or to be more complex it makes 1+2+3 or 1*2-3 and so on). Actualy, who knows how it works? But it would explain, why some people seem to always have luck and some dont. Sachas char is maybe always creating high numbers that always (often) result in a positive check.

The next thing, this random number is generated on the action. So a rock is there with "nothing", when you start harvesting, the random generator pops in, makes a number and tells you what happened, nothing, regular, rare harvest. The same for chest drops and the stuff in the chest or the lotto afterwards. I gues it would be much better when at least he ressources are generated before. So the next "windwashed rock" spawns with already 1 agate 1 electrum and 1 corale inside.

Thats actualy my little theory, I gues its quite stupid, but it works for me I have stoped harvesting for rares as it is wasted time for me.

[Erendil]

I agree, something is wrong re harvesting rares. I have played 4 characters, all of which have harvested exetensively.....a 40 guardian, a 30 ranger, a 27 guardian and a 16 sorc.....I have found 0 rares and 4 uncommons with all chars combined.

[Dart]

Level 45 guard, all harvesting skills are above 200 but Trapping (185 currently) and I have NEVER harvested a rare, my claim to fame is harvesting ONE Luminous, I played since the game released. So it is very random and silly if you ask me. The fact that some heritage quests require it only ENCOURAGE bots to farm the crap out of zones and inflate prices.

 

/groan I feel your pain.

[Roosty]

Let me say first that I am not on Test.  But I would like to offer some advice to those who don't ever find rares.  My opinion is that a number of rares are allocated per hour, per zone.  I have definitely noticed a higher ratio or rares to commons when only several people are in zone.  The more populated it gets, even if nodes are plentiful, the lower the ratio. Just my two cents, Roosty 32 Guardian Najena

[Lishara]

I've seen so many posts about this issue (well, combined with how much lotto stinks), and the devs have never responded to it.  That also is frustrating.  I'd like to be able to upgrade my spells to adept iiis, but I cannot afford the outrageous prices of rares.

[CherobylJ]

Awhile back on this part of the board there was a study done by an ambitious player that actually called the RNDM code into question.  He took a sample set of data from LOTTOs and showed how it had a abnormal distribution (not the nice pretty bell curve of a normal distribution).  He actually had some nice graphs and all that showed taht the distribution was schwed.

Now I cant find that post anymore (I spent a good chunk of time searching for it and i coulda *swore* I had floated it...maybe it was deleted) but it seemed to indicate taht the RNDM engine itself is in  question.

This is disturbing as that engine is used as a basis for most of the functional systems of the game; the melee engine, TS engine, harvest, LOTTO etc all.  His data was sound and I was very suprised there was no follow-up from SOE on the subject (I will keep looking for that thread).

Basically what I'm saying is it may not all be in your head. 

[Stimp]

I would really like to know how random works in this game and if it is completely random or has some other component tied to it.  I rarely win lottos and am level 49.  I remember one night in stormhold the same person won around 21 lotto's in a row.  I'd like a statistics major to work up the odds of one person in a group of 6 winning 21 straight lotto's.  I am sure the odds must be astronomical.  I've never seen anything quite as absurd as that again, though in Ruins of Varsoon, I saw one person win roughly 4 of every 6 lotto's.  I'd like to see an alpha loot option for chest drops and lotto the other stuff.  Then at least everyone would get something worthwhile.

[Lishara]

Been a long while since I've been in statistics, but I *think* the formula would be something like 1/6 ^ N where N is the number of times in a row.  So the odds of winning 3 times in a row (with a group of 6) should be 1/6 * 1/6 * 1/6.  So 21 times in a row should be extremely unlikely.

What's sad is I was duoing the other night and didn't win anything.   With a supposed 50% shot to win every time, I shouldn't have continued to lose over and over and over again. 

I know this always sounds like a bunch of whining, but seriously, it's enough to make me want to quit the game sometimes.  A round robin loot option would be really nice.  I *know* you can do it manually, but nobody I group with wants to go through the trouble of doing it.  And frankly, since I'm the only one in our regular groups who loses all the time, they don't really care.

 

Just wanted to add, I don't think if you do random say 1000 times you should end up with a bell curve.  That would be a problem!  I think over the long haul, you should see an even hits for each number in the range.

Message Edited by Lishara on 04-26-2005 01:55 PM

[laymu]

Well.. I've had to resort to being superstitious about getting rares...  My Coercer has a RIDICULOUS number of Silver and Blackened Iron clusters.. IIRC (at work now) I have 4 blackened iron banked and 7 Silver (with 4 used).  Just running around and soloing in CL and harvesting nodes while my power regen'd (pre-breeze.. adept3'd right away :smileyvery-happy:) and I got em by the bushel (not really by the bushel seeing as soloing is very low exp and I had a lot of downtime between battles pre-18.5).  My coercer is now happily equipped as is my dirge (still a bard but w/e) and if someone would mule my Blackened Iron over to my zerker in qeynos.. whoa boy!  I think.. As far as everything else,  My zerker and Monk hunt EXCLUSIVELY in Stormhold with combat exp off and absolutely no questing to be done (I want that Sword of Thunder for my guildmates and for a few pp for my mains) and have yet to see jack-squat regarding anything.. Is that Stormhold-no-chest-to-be-found theory still alive?  I may subscribe to it.. been hunting Defiled (insert mob variation here) for an eternity. Now my Warlock and Assassin are different stories altogether.. I have found uncommons on back-to-back nodes TWICE and i can frequently get them within 20 mins of questing mobs and then harvesting in the little bit of downtime (kill mob, harvest, kill mob etc.),  but cannot find a RARE if my life depended on it (a single rare with my warlock.. Jasper.. 20 levels ago)..  HOWEVER, to be noted, I seem to win a disproportionate amount of rares on mob drops.  3 Opals in Nek castle with my assassin as well as 2 t4 Pelt substitutes (unfortunately i got the 2nd one as that new patch was comin.. sucked) and my warlock does pretty well with the Ruby drops (2 from Zygoth in Obelisk). It seems there is a sort of bell curve, but as of today my guildmates have gotten more rares than on any other day... Go check the nodes today, they seem to be dropping like pollen during allergy season

[Zholain]

---

CherobylJoe wrote:

Awhile back on this part of the board there was a study done by an ambitious player that actually called the RNDM code into question.  He took a sample set of data from LOTTOs and showed how it had a abnormal distribution (not the nice pretty bell curve of a normal distribution).  He actually had some nice graphs and all that showed taht the distribution was schwed.

Now I cant find that post anymore (I spent a good chunk of time searching for it and i coulda *swore* I had floated it...maybe it was deleted) but it seemed to indicate taht the RNDM engine itself is in  question.

This is disturbing as that engine is used as a basis for most of the functional systems of the game; the melee engine, TS engine, harvest, LOTTO etc all.  His data was sound and I was very suprised there was no follow-up from SOE on the subject (I will keep looking for that thread).

Basically what I'm saying is it may not all be in your head. 

---

I have read the post you're mentioning, and you're right.  This poster had some very interesting data.  The main thing I seem to remember though, is that his data(most of it was related to the lotto) seemed to suggest that your chances of winning the lotto were dependent upon at what point you joined the group...i.e. 1st person and 5th person were 3x more likely to win lotto than 2nd and 4th person (not actual results..just example).  And is was a problem with the RND generator, was essentially what s/he was proposing. I don't imagine that it is unlikely the same problem could exist in harvesting...with some other statistic being the influence..for example, 12th and 25th player to enter a zone have x% more chance of harvesting rare, etc. As a woodworker, I have harvested at least 2000 severed ash from TS, and not found 1 piece of fir.  5 rares since game release..3 silver clusters and 2 severed bone.  And guess what...ALL of these were found when server population was very low...all were found less than 10 minutes after the servers had come back up after either scheduled update, or some other unspecified downtime.

[TooFarGo]

This might be coincidence, but it seems that in the group i usually play with (fury, wizzy, pally) the healer wins most of the lottos... Even when mentoring lower level guild members, the healer seems to win more lottos. I've not done any log parsing or anything...it would be interesting to see if rewards are skewed more towards one class or another, but to do a really good test would take a mountain of data...where is the post that was referred to earlier in this topic? oh, to add my data..I've been fairly lucky, finding at least 1 rare stone per 7-8 levels of xp (currently level 42).  I do not "rare hunt", I harvest for tskilling and quests, and thats it.  I've found 2 rare woods in my career, and about 5 glimmering things since they were put in the game. Oh and I found 2 rare average quality pelts a looong time ago, still have them in the bank =P.  I've seen maybe 5 rare drops from mobs, and won one in lottery.

Message Edited by TooFarGone on 04-27-2005 08:58 AM

[CherobylJ]

---

TooFarGone wrote:
where is the post that was referred to earlier in this topic?

Message Edited by TooFarGone on 04-27-2005 08:58 AM

---

I cant find the darn thing.  It had a developers name in title so someone may have deleted it...not sure. I will keep looking as in my opinion it is a valuable piece of data.

Personally I can attest to person 1 (person forming) and person 6 (last to join) getting abnormal LOTTO distributions.  But that is subjective and without real data this is all in the realm of opinion.

Probability of that btw is (1/6)^16 or 5.421 to the neg 21st power...an incredible small number.

 

[Lishara]

Heh heh heh, nope, I am a healer and never win.   I'm almost convinced the program is hard-coded against me!:smileymad:

[jwdanie]

I just want to share some insight regarding this process.  I have been playing the game since the day before it launced (don't ask) and I have done a lot of harvesting.  Originally I didn't find any rare objects for the first two months.  Lately I have been finding a lot.  What does this tell me?  There is nothing wrong with the system and it all evens out eventually.  If the chance of finding a rare is .01% (1 in 1000) you will not necessarily find one just because you mine 1000 nodes.  It is even possible to find 1 after mining 1 node. If, however, you mine 100,000,000 nodes, odds are you will find 100,000 rares approximately.  If your sample size is too small, your study cannot be accurate.  The problem is not that the harvesting system is broken, it is that you don't feel you are getting enough rare harvests.

Same with the lotto system.  If there are 6 people in a group, the chance of winning an item is 1 in 6.  If the same person has won ten drops in a row, the chance that they are going to win the next one is still 1 in 6.  Again the problem is not that the system is broken, it is that you don't feel like you are earning enough stuff.

Writing a random number generator is simple.  Most calculators can generate random numbers.  I find it impossible to believe that the code for generating a random number in this game could be broken since I was able to write computer code myself to generate random numbers when I was about 7 years old.  Please stop whining about stuff like this in case the devs actually do bother to check their code every time this argument comes up.  They have much more important things to be fixing that are actually wrong with the game.

[Blackin_DeMast]

I'm lvl 47 Ranger. I've kept all my forage skills maxed since my teens. I forage like amd in my spare time, always searching for a rare. Up till a couple weeks ago, I had NEVER found a SINGLE rare. Ever. I decided I'm high enough lvl now I need some Ebon weaps and armor and set myself a goal to forage non-stop every night till I had 2 weps, arms and legs in Ebon.

4-5 hours a night, for 5 days straights. Nothing except dozens and dozens and dozens of stacks of foraged crafting componants. Then, out of the blue, I found 2 ebons on a single node and the very next node was a severed cedar. 30 mins later, I found another ebon. The next evening, the second node I hit had ANOTHER ebon. This was 2-3 weeks ago. I've not gotten another rare since.

I see absolutely no rhyme or reason to it honestly.

Black

[Ruben]

This may be pure luck or not but I tend to do most of my harvesting in the 3 to 5am EST time slot on those off times where I cannot sleep. I would say when I harvest that time frame I will usually get 2 to 4 rares and 5 or 6 uncommons. Normally I play from 6 to 10 PM est and since launch I have only gotten 3 rares in that time zone. If I am not forgetting something I think the am time zone has netted me about 20 rares and 35 uncommons. Just saw a post where someone said it might be number of people in zone dependent if so then this would tend to back that or it might just be I am more lucky when sleepy hehe.

[strath]

"This last week I have been having conn problems, so I havent dared to do any combat. I've been harvesting for 6 days, (mainly rocks for a new project). I put in several hours a day, up to seven hours some days, and my observations are the opposite. In fact I was wondering if the drop rate had been increased.

 

In those 6 days I found 20 Glowing Stones, 8 Rough Coral, 4 Silver Clusters, a Sisal Root, 3 Jasper, 1 Rough Opal, One Ruthenium Cluster, 1 Lapis Lazuli, 1 Copper Cluster, 3 Yarrow, 1 Dandelion Fiber, 1 Severed Alder, 1 Glowing Flower and 16 Severed Bones. It has allowed me to trade for some much needed Scholar books.

 

The fastest I got a rare was after 10 minutes. The longest I had to wait for one was 90 minutes.

 

Put the hours in, seriously, the rares are there. Good luck "

 

 

Ok thats a lota time harvesting, myself ive done about the same for 3 WEEKs solid...ive goten 5 luminous..1 ruby..theres definatly an imbalance here somewhere, and the last time i put 3 good solid 6 hours a day into  harvesting weeks...i got a fig root and a couple of opals..

[Lenefir]

Oh, well...  Seems I'm not smart enough to be able to link an URL so I'll just write it out... http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=tech_support&message.id=41833

Message Edited by Lenefir on 04-28-2005 04:57 PM