100% Success in Experimentation

Discussion in 'Tradeskills' started by Meirril, Jan 2, 2013.

  1. Meirril Well-Known Member

    Experimentiation is ment to be difficult, and very time consuming. All of your equipment doesn't help. There are no short cuts. Not only are the counters different than regular crafting, they are also hardly effective at all. Really, this brings back memories of the first year of crafting in EQ2.

    Its amazing what kind of tricks our memory plays on us to make such things seem pleasent.

    As with old style crafting, the real key is to keep durability from dropping. This is more important than progress. This is more of a concern than success in each round. All in all, using the durability counters every round is the second most important thing you have to do to guarentee success.

    The most important being you have to counter events. If you don't, this round is an automatic failure. If you do...this round could fail anyways. There is no guarenteed success on an event counter so don't spam progress. Remember: Experimentation is different than regular crafting. The rules are different.

    Now there is a problem. You want to use all 3 durability counters every round BUT each round is 4 seconds, each counter refreshes in 4.1 seconds. Problem? Eventually your going to push yourself back so far spamming all 3 that you'll hit the beginning of the next round. If there is a counter...you've just taken a big hit.

    I find it is better to start using all 3 durability counters, but after a few rounds stop using the last counter and pick it up as the first counter in the next round and then hit one more durability counter and allow the third to refresh. Your only using 2 of the 3 counters each round now. This lets you avoid falling behind and accidently getting into the next round. This also gives you more opportunity to work in a 3rd counter if you need to counter an event. If the last counter you used last round is need this round, make it the only counter you use. Better to use 1 and start fresh with 2 durability counters next round.

    If you have trouble telling when a round ends/begins there is a game sound that happens each round to mark the end. The sound varies between success and failure, but the crafting device only makes sounds at the end of a round.

    Towards the end of a crafting run (with maybe 20% progress to go) you can afford to start mixing in progress counters to hurry the combine along *if* your durability is high enough. If your over 50% on durability, going all progress should be safe. If your in the red, keep building durability agressively.

    Hopefully this helps in your endevors. Just remember not to fall into a rut and keep using the same counters over and over again. If you do, you will fall behind and you will accidently fall into the beginning of the next round which can result in a very big durability hit.
    Cyliena and Feara like this.
  2. Guiscard Active Member

    I have never seen more than 2 buttons for durability - the Question Mark and the Pick looking think
  3. Grumble69 Member

    Personally I hate experimentation. It's not particularly hard. The real enemy is boredom. It takes so stinking long to complete. And you have to repeat the exercise multiple times. My mind begins to wander--"Man, what the (BLEEP) am I doing here. I'm sitting here at my computer for X minutes pressing 1-6 keys while this line slowly creeps across the screen. ...I wonder why Microsoft hasn't thought of doing this for their software updates." And then that's when I usually get my critical failure.
    Cyliena and Guiscard like this.
  4. Meirril Well-Known Member

    If you use the default key set up, 1 2 and 6 are durability builders.
  5. Prrasha Well-Known Member

    There are two for "success chance", two for "durability", and two for "progress".

    The most you can gain on your own for durability is +11; hit the "+10 durability, -5 progress" button and the "+10% durability, -5% success chance" button. You can mitigate the success loss with the "-5% progress, +10% success chance" button (which Meirril seems to be counting as a third durability button... I use it with my durability gain buttons, so I can see why).

    That gives a total of +11 durability, +5% success chance, -5% progress gain. (If you happen to have the insight buff up, that's +1% more to everything... which adds zero durability because someone at SoE can't be bothered to check their arithmetic and realize that 1% durability never has an effect with the small numbers involved.)

    However, since the base numbers for durability are -50 for an ordinary failure and -10 for an ordinary success, that +11 doesn't actually add durability unless you have 40 times as many successes as failures (40 "+1" rounds to counter the single "-39"). You don't succeed that often. Not even close. You're dependent on countering events that have durability gain as a side effect, and critical successes--both of which are random--to actually gain durability.

    An unlucky number of fails and crit fails can destroy your item, even if you counter every event and use all three "durability" counters on every possible round.
    Cyliena and Feara like this.
  6. Caethre Active Member

    ((
    "+10 durability, -5 progress"
    "+10 durability, -5 success chance"
    "-5 progress, +10 success chance"

    Your addition is faulty. On those round where you can use all three (which is most but not all rounds, for reasons the OP describes), the sum of these three is:

    "+20 durability, +5 success chance, -10 progress"
    This more than makes up for the -10 durability of a standard success round.

    Like some other crafters (some being crafters since launch, who remember when crafting was actually a battle at times), I'm sitting at precisely 100% success rate on experimentation. Anyone can do this, if they actually learn how to do it.

    All it takes is learning the buffs and then concentrating. Players who like to watch TV or chat or do other stuff whilst crafting, well, this is not for them. It certainly does not need making easier.
    ))
  7. Prrasha Well-Known Member

    My addition is fine, your multiplication and/or reading comprehension is faulty. That's not two plus-tens, it's a plus-ten, and a plus-ten-PERCENT. Ten percent of ten is one. Ten plus one is eleven. Go start an experiment, hit those three buttons, and see what you get. It'll match my math... total durability change of +1 on a success, -39 on a fail. (If you counter something, that round and the round after may have different numbers, but that's because certain counters add a small amount of durability to that round and the next one.)

    If the RNG decides to hate you, no amount of durability-button-pushing and event-countering can save the item. It might be a one-in-a-thousand event, but I've had that one. Driving these 3 durability buttons the whole way (unless having to make a counter prevented it), 28 successful counters, 0 missed counters, 15 "crit success", 5 "crit fail", and item goes BOOM at the end. (1 or 2 crit fails is normal, 5 is the RNG kicking you in the nether regions. But with no way to intentionally gain durability other than praying for the correct counters to come up frequently, there ya go.)

    (And since oldschool cred means something, I still have my pocket alchemist alt, who probably made level 40 doing nothing but WORTs and ink for my other crafters back in the day.)

    And for the twenty-sixth time (my addition may be faulty here), no one is saying MAKE IT EASIER. I'm saying GIVE US SOME CONTROL OVER THE RESULT, especially since the ONLY WAYS TO FAIL are RNG hate, lag, and crashes.
    Cyliena, Guiscard and Rael like this.
  8. Atan Well-Known Member

    I like experimentation, one of the best things added to crafting in a long time.

    The ONLY thing I would change about it is I would have made the progress required per level to be on more of a curve. Making L1 about 50% of the progress it is currently, L2 70%, L3 90%, L4 same as current, L5 130%.
    Cyliena likes this.
  9. Guiscard Active Member

    Since they may be set up differently on some keyboard - Please give us the name of the reactives which correstpsone to 1,2, & 6 on your keyboard.
  10. Atan Well-Known Member

    This is a correct statement. If you understand the system, don't miss reaction arts, the only way I can fail an item is if the server crashes, I lose power, or internet goes out.

    I offer services on unrest to do L5 experimentation for 100p / combine as I have time, and I get a fair number of customers cause many players do not like the stress involved ;)
  11. Tetrol Well-Known Member

    90% fail at experimentation - even with dsl2 internet, I cannot cover the reactives in experimentation despite having little problems with regular crafting. I get about one lag spike per (regular) craft which is no consequence in regular crafting, but given the long period to experiment, think 2, 3 or 4 - more than enough to mean failure. As such = useless to me
  12. Meirril Well-Known Member

    I had a bad lag spike on a visionary combine. Missed 4 ticks, missed 3 events and when the spike ended...I hit the wrong counter. Strangely I was able to finish the combine successfully. It was in the red, but a success is a success. Agressive use of 3 counters to build durability may not result in actual durability gain but it can slow the loss enough to let you get away with multiple failures.
    Not that I would want to try and repeat this. I thought for sure it was going to fail.
  13. Gudum Active Member

    Do you have anything else on your network that might be causing the lag spikes? I used to have that problem with a slower DSL connection, caused by a webpage on another computer that kept reloading the advertisements every few minutes.
  14. Meirril Well-Known Member

    I was talking about Calibrate (-5% success, +10% durability gain), Revise (-5% progress, +10% success), and Augment (+10 durability, -5 progress). After looking at them again, it is obvious that Revise doesn't include durability. However, the improvement in success chance without lower durability still makes this a good choice for minimizing durability loss which is what is important at the beginning to middle stages of an Experiment combine.

    Only towards the end should you consider if you can afford to risk major durability loss to speed things up. If your over 50% durability in the last 20% of the combine, I think you can risk a little -durability to speed the combine up.
  15. Tetrol Well-Known Member

    yes - real life lol - 3 other family members all internet users, either computers or smart phones and a son using xbox live - I am moving next week and may be able to access better internet so fingers crossed
  16. Alenna Well-Known Member

    Note to self when learning how to experiment turn everything else on my computer off while crafting including ACT. nothing but EQ2
  17. Encori Active Member

    At first, it seemed like I had no control over anything (besides not failing a reaction), but I seem to be having success with +success and +critical success. I also hit the durability buttons, as this thread recommends, but I think gearing for success (figuratively and literally) is a good idea.

    My original main has a full set of crafting gear, pretty much everything. All the durability and progress bonuses do nothing, including the ones that you have to take as prerequisites in the experimentation tree itself, but the bonuses to success chance I believe do work, as I am now able to comfortably perform experimentations. Also a good use for all those otherwise useless researcher potions for success and success chance.
  18. Meirril Well-Known Member

    When the devs say nothing works, I trust that nothing works. Dev said that no AA or gear will give bonuses. Good practice at using the counters will definately raise your success rate. Unfortunately there isn't any way for us to test if +success gear has any effect on crafting, much less experimentation. It isn't like +20% success is testable.

    Seriously, there is no way for us to emperically test success and crit success rate. The best you can do is get a "feeling". "Feeling" does not equal science.
  19. Tineren Active Member

    There isn't even any reason to try empirical testing. The character screen has a separate section for experimental crafting stats. You can even watch that window while experimenting to see the effects of each counter and event as it happens.
  20. Umub New Member

    I have had very good success with a somewhat simpler approach. But Meirril is very correct that the timing length of the spells is very critical. You have to watch the cycle of your counters because it will slide later into each cycle.

    I don't know if I can describe this well from memory (haven't experimented in a few days), but basically, there is a period of time in each cycle that is safe to hit a button without fear that something that needs to be countered will pop up right has you click or type. This is critical with experimentation because if you miss 2-3 events to counter your are in big trouble.

    My general technique is to use 6 repeatedly as a durability aid, but only early in the cycle as its availability to cast starts to slip towards the middle of the cycle I switch to 1 (just one time) so I can switch back to 6 at the very beginning of the cycle again. This is of course what happens when there are no bad things to counter.

    Once there is something to counter, I obviously counter it. But then immediately hit either 1 or 6 depending on which is available readily. Then wait for the event to clear or a new event to pop. If no new event pops immediately then you should have the same brief window of opportunity to safely push 1 or 6 depending on which is available.

    I have had great success with this and the key is that I am ready to counter at any time and not accidentally hitting a key right as a bad event pops up. For me, trying to squeeze in 2 or even 3 clicks in each cycle greatly increases the likelihood that I click at exactly the wrong time or the counter I need isn't available in time. The exception to this is if I have some bad luck at the beginning and durability starts dropping more quickly, then I will switch to a cycle of mostly 1 and 6 except when i need a timing "reset". But this doesn't happen very often for me.