Remove the insane variance in high skill mining/woodcutting

[Ekcin 2,417]

When chopping up logs or mining at high skills (beyond 90, aggravating at 99,9x) the qualitiy variance becomes insane. When using a rare pick with Libila gathering rune at skill 99.91 at a ql96 vein, no more than 3 or 4 out of 10 are >=ql96, 0-max3 of them at maximum ql100. The rest is in low 90, 80, even down to 60ql. Same, only without ql100, with normal runed pick.

 

In comparison, when a skill 53 miner (my mag priest) is working on a ql50 vein with a runed pick, about 6-8 out of 10 are at his skill, rarely one under vein ql. In both cases, picks are ql>90.

 

There is no rational explanation why a more skilled miner should mostly yield crap ql. Same goes when chopping logs. I assume that it is a consequence of the brainless mining/woodcutting nerf of Xmas 20. As if that was not cruelty enough. Please fix.

Edited September 21, 2022 by Ekcin

[Archaed 2,280]

What veins are you mining? 

 

And as your skill caps the ql, you're more likely to see the results hitting the cap. The resulting ql is still 1-100, but skill-100 will cap at skill. 

 

What's the average ql and the lower range? 

 

Edit: 

Realised this wasnt a bug report, and took a little more time to explain what I mean using the grinding tool

 

When skill and vein ql is not the cap, you will see a regular distribution

 

When capped by skill you will see this:

 

 

It's just not seeing the > skill+rune+imbue rolls as higher, and thus you'll see more at that level. 

 

TL;DR resulting ql doesnt roll between 1 and your skill, it rolls between 1-100 and then caps the resulting roll at your skill. 

 

I hope that helps with mining at least, woodcutting has a weird broken system where it rerolls > 100 rolls until you get one that's <100, and often means you're landing on the lower end. 

Edited September 21, 2022 by Archaed
added pictures

[belacane 238]

Yes, thank you! If a toon is highly skilled at mining, there is little reason for crappy quality ore / shards to be produced so often.

 

Change the code.

[Jaz 2,666]

Woodcutting is the more annoying one as chopping max possible ql felled trees usually only the last bit of log is at the ql of the felled tree all the others are way lower (at 96 skill).

[Docterchese 1,570]

4 hours ago, Archaed said:

<pictures>

 

Also, this is when mining gold, which is one of the hardest veins (40 difficulty). Iron, on the other hand, is only 3 difficulty - 90+ql ore is much easier to mine.

 

 

This gets a -1 from me because 90+ql tools and resources aren't supposed to be easy. For instance, even an account with 100 blacksmithing and excellent tools will still need many, many hours to imp an item to 95+ql, let alone 99. Resource-gathering skills are the same - getting above 90ql is simply always pretty difficult. Making this easier would only serve to devalue high-quality tools and resources. It's also already a lot easier than it used to be before imbues and runes were introduced.

[Archaed 2,280]

43 minutes ago, Docterchese said:

 

Also, this is when mining gold, which is one of the hardest veins (40 difficulty). Iron, on the other hand, is only 3 difficulty - 90+ql ore is much easier to mine.

 

 

This gets a -1 from me because 90+ql tools and resources aren't supposed to be easy. For instance, even an account with 100 blacksmithing and excellent tools will still need many, many hours to imp an item to 95+ql, let alone 99. Resource-gathering skills are the same - getting above 90ql is simply always pretty difficult. Making this easier would only serve to devalue high-quality tools and resources. It's also already a lot easier than it used to be before imbues and runes were introduced.

Yeah I had to switch to gold because the easier actions just maxed out at the skill cap haha. 

 

 

[Ekcin 2,417]

If that explains anything, then that the ql distribution is broken as implemented. Fact is, the higher the skill, and the mined quality, the higher the variance. That does not make sense. And it is so with stone as well as with sandstone in similar extent, so does not scale with difficulty (it may do in the grinder simulation, but not in real mining). It was indeed better before the stupid nerf, maybe because the gathering rune (I rarely used imbues) masked the perverse outcomes.

[Archaed 2,280]

5 hours ago, Ekcin said:

If that explains anything, then that the ql distribution is broken as implemented. Fact is, the higher the skill, and the mined quality, the higher the variance. That does not make sense. And it is so with stone as well as with sandstone in similar extent, so does not scale with difficulty (it may do in the grinder simulation, but not in real mining). It was indeed better before the stupid nerf, maybe because the gathering rune (I rarely used imbues) masked the perverse outcomes.

I don't think the distribution is broken, nor do I think higher skill is a punishment, you still wind up with more ore that's higher quality than the lower mining character 

[Ekcin 2,417]

It is a slap in the face of a highly skilled miner that s/he gets less ql according her skill and the vein's ql than a low skilled miner of hers. It is frustrating and insulting. It is a broken mechanic worsened by the brainless nerf.

[Joemog 732]

-1

What a silly idea

[Archaed 2,280]

36 minutes ago, Ekcin said:

It is a slap in the face of a highly skilled miner that s/he gets less ql according her skill and the vein's ql than a low skilled miner of hers. It is frustrating and insulting. It is a broken mechanic worsened by the brainless nerf.

The low skilled miner is capped at her skill, the high skilled miner gets higher quality. 

 

It's like rolling a d6 and getting anything from a 1-6 vs someone rolling a d6 and counting anything higher than 3 as a 3, of course they're going to roll more 3s than the other player

 

I can't understand what you are missing here. 

[Ekcin 2,417]

The quality one can mine from a vein of given ql is limited by the skill. So far ok. It is not ok that an ever lower share of the ore of a given quality can be extracted with higher skill and higher quality. The broken Formular even results e.g. in qualities down to 22 (!) and often 45 to 60 from ql 95 veins while this never happens from a ql60 mine mined by a skill 53 miner. It demonstrates that the formular is braindead. Some variance is ok, but an ever spreading variance with higher skill/ql is absurd.

Edited September 22, 2022 by Ekcin

[Archaed 2,280]

So a lower skill miner never gets lower ql results than a higher skilled miner? 

 

You're saying that a lower skill miner gets more ore at their skill cap, than the higher skilled miner gets ABOVE the lower skill miners cap? 

[Ekcin 2,417]

The lower skill miner gets most ore around the skill/ql cap, e.g. the variance is lower. The high skill/ql miner seems to have a variance from ql1..100, and, albeit rarely, even undercuts the minima of lower skill miners, and frequently lands inside their range.

[Archaed 2,280]

Yes, that's working as intended and always has been the case. 

 

I think you're missing the actual mechanic here and focusing on the idea that the lower skill miner is actually getting better rolls. 

 

I've explained the mechanic, how it works, and how it's actually just the system working perfectly fine, so I hope that helps! 

[Ekcin 2,417]

No, it does not help to put lipstick on a pig. It is irrational that quality is "rolled" over the whole quality range so that high quality materials by high skilled miners may yield worse results than those by lower skilled miners. It is just a braindead formula. The previous possibilities by the gathering rune made up for somewhat (I am not discussing imbues though their nerf was certainly stupid too), as this advantaged the higher levels and shifted the idiotic variance somewhat upward.

 

Edit: In fact, there could and should be some cap downwards like skill level always constituted a hard cap upwards, other than e.g. with imping. A skill 99 miner or logger must not yield below a ql 70+ range, or at least with extremely low likeliness (compared to exceeding the soft cap upwards when imping), and should have most of yield around and above her skill in normal distribution.

Edited September 22, 2022 by Ekcin

[Drogos 518]

afaik, this is one of the two things blood does. For lover level people it boosts the quality, for higher level people it normalizes the quality higher. I might be wrong here, but I think they nerfed this right before blood was intorduced on the northern isles. With a sup picaxe at q 95+ with the enchants, runes, imbues, etc, you get ok average q again after level 99.8 ish. Is this too harse? Yep, I think so at least. So, does it make sense, kinda, your average q does in fact go up the higher level you are regardless of equipment, it is just less and less for each level. My guess is that it is like this so that people do not reach end game with blood too early and get bored, at the same time as having a meaning for blood. That was at least my two cents on how it is atm, but yeah, I do have all that is needed to get decent amounts of q100 ores, and I am still pro this change

Edited September 22, 2022 by Drogos
typo

[Ekcin 2,417]

You are right that it was one of the panic nerfs, like the crippling of priests, done before rifts were implemented on NFI, but not due to bloods (unique hunts started prior to Xmas 20) but rifts, and thus runes. And true, already with a rare runed pickaxe, you may pull some ql100 ore starting with skill 99.87 ca. Before, 91 was the point where you started to pull a few ql100, a nice carrot to improve that yield. Mind that ql100 proper is just for fun and vanity as long as you are not striving for skill 100 in a craft, that is true for both mining and woodcutting, and even then, the demand is very limited because a single lump/log holds for quite a time when imping, and you do not grind with most material consuming items mostly. So the nerf was completely pointless, panicky, and cruel.

Edited September 22, 2022 by Ekcin