Harvesting modifier gear utterly pointless - Official?

The problem is, people don't want a "random number generator". They want a "give me whatever I am looking for right this instant" generator.
RNG means you get random numbers out of it, varying slightly based on how the number is seeded. "Random" has nothing at all to do with "fair".Random numbers are not amenable to value judgements like "fairness". And "random" means sometimes the numbers will be better for you while other times they won't.
I don't think you want "fair". I think you want utterly predictable results. It sounds as if you are demanding that if you harvest for 1.5 hours, you will always end up with 4 rares from zone X or some such (numbers totally made up here).
Harvesting isn't a bubble gum machine into which you drop the "coin" that is your time spent harvesting and get out a neatly packaged prize.
However, the real answer here is that the more you harvest, the more rares you will get. If you hate harvesting, or it's annoying the holy doo-dah out of you, there are lots of activities available that will give you coin, and you can buy the materials you need, or hire another player to harvest for you.

Kalyyn@Splitpaw wrote:

hehe, I don't agree with that at all
I've not found any difference in rares from t1 zones on a t1 player compared to a fully equipped T8. They both pull a lot of rares
The difference in rare chances in the two tables isn't significant for *any* tier.

Sigrdrifa@Lucan DLere wrote:

speaking for myself, this is not what I want at all.
Random is great, i dont want a system where I can guarantee getting X rares for every Y non-rares or every hour spent harvesting etc...
What I DO want is a system where going through the effort of obtaining a set of harvesting gear, that will increase my harvesting skills by well over 100 points, WILL have a significant effect on the results of my harvesting.
A character with a flat 400 harvesting skill, harvesting the same amount of nodes, should not receive the same rewards that a character with a skill of 500+ does.
To compare with the adventuring sphere, if i spent the time to get a full set of tier2 shard-armour for my character, that character will be significantly more effective in an adventuring instance than if I played the exact same character with a tier1 set.
What is the point of all this gear with + harvesting skills if it has no effect on the act of harvesting?

Adeyia@Antonia Bayle wrote:

I apologise, seems like only most of us agree with this then
Everyone will have a slightly different take on harvesting and the amount of rares they pull.
Speaking from my own experiences, I have levelled several characters through to cap in harvesting skills. And I always find I get significantly more rares when using a character that is well over the harvest cap for the area.

alyyn@Splitpaw wrote:

Ah, are you sure you are seeing what you think you are seeing ?
Are you saying that if you visit a T1 zone with a T8 character, the number of rares will be higher than if you visit a T1 zonewith a T1 character ?
Or are you saying that if you visit a T1 zone with a T8 character, the number of rares will be higher than if you visit a T8 zone with a T8 character.
The first scenario would prove that tables 1 & 2 have a meaureable difference in rare rates (at least for the lower level tiers, which would give higher level harvesters an advantage for these zones)
The second scenario just means that both tables in lower tier zones are more likely to give rares - this is basically what Domino has confirmed.
Most people are seeing scenario 2, but they are thinking that they are seeing scenario 1.

Adeyia@Antonia Bayle wrote:

This is what i tend to see (and ACT parses also seem to back this up)
If I was to harvest the T3 area (harvest skill required 90 and 140 required to move on to T4)
If I was using a high level TS/Adventurer with a harvest score well over the 140 I would see a much higher rare to non-rare ratio than if I was harvesting same area with a character that had a harvest skill of say, 130.
If i was harvesting a T8 area with a character with over 500 harvest skill I would see the same rare to non-rare ratio as if I was using a character with a flat 400 score.

This probably does mean the mechanic is working as intended (400 is higher than the skill required to harvest the zone) but stil means that + harvest equipment has no use at cap.

What I think we should take from this is that if you want more rares in a given time frame then sandlewood tools, +movement speed and knowing where nodes are beats out any amount of +harvesting skill, and even if you're in your combat gear it's fine to harvest a node as you pass by. Oh, and you really shouldn't bother looking for lower than T8 rares until you're well beyond the maximum cap for that teir, as the odds of getting a rare are significantly higher then.

Just pluging some numbers in for T8 harvesting, and it would seem that the +harvest items would definately make a difference to which table you use.
For example, at T8:
The minimum harvest level for T8 is 340 (examine node to confirm), and the bonus table kicks in at 390 (78 * 5)
A T8 harvester with a skill of 400 has a 82% chance of using table 1 (50 chances out of 61 possible values * 100), and a 18% chance of using table 2 (11/61 * 100)
A T8 harvester with a skill of 538 has a 25% chance of using table 1 (50/199 * 100), and a 75% chance of using table 2 (149/199 * 100)
So maxing out your harvest skill will increase your chance of using the "bonus" table 2 from 18% to 75%. That's a four fold increase !
Assuming you go and run through a test of 1,000 pulls from nodes (333.333 nodes ), and you get a perfect distribution of results, you will see the following:
Skill 400 - 820 base pulls, 180 bonus pulls
Skil 538 - 250 base pulls, 750 bonus pulls
The fact that there is no measureable difference to harvesting would suggest that those two tables are very nearly identical in T8 or we need to be looking at much larger sample sizes.
If there is indeed a noticeable difference in the lower tiers, then this would suggest the two tables are significantly different at the lower end.
I think I might go and buy some Red Bull and extra strong coffee for tonight and go and parse this all once and for all It certainly beats being LFG for hours on end...

Hellswrath@Blackburrow wrote:

QFE

If at a harvesting rate of 400, it takes 2 hours of solid harvesting to get a silicate loam (that's on a lucky day, unfortunately), then...
120 minutes * 400/400 = 100% harvest speed = 120 minutes
120 minutes * 400/540 = 77% harvest speed = 88 minutes
That's probably generous, so let's smooth it out a bit by only counting each point-over-cap for 1/2 a point:
120 minutes * ( ( 400/400 ) / 2 + ( 400/540 ) / 2 ) = 87% harvest speed = 104 minutes

That's a 13% speed increase in rare drop rate for completing several lengthy quests. I don't think that's out of line at all. Although it makes you wonder if the reason there is +Harvesting stat on so many items is because it was known at SoE that it does next-to-nothing for current tier harvesting. I'd really hate to think that...

Uguv@Mistmoore wrote:

This is mainly the effect of the harvest depots in guild halls, in my opinion. Fewer people out there actually harvesting means fewer materials. They are no less common if you actually go out and harvest, however.

DominoDev wrote:

Even if the same number of us are now harvesting as before the depots we are far more likely to put our excess into the depot than on the broker.

Jesdyr@Unrest wrote:

I just harvested a Moors of Ykesha mining node for 10,000 pulls at a mining skill level of 400, and 528. I did see about the difference expected. However, the difference IS small; there's less than 1% difference between the lower and higher level tables from level 20 on, so it's not going to be something you notice overwhelmingly, or something that will necessarily show up clearly with a smaller sampling. (Keep in mind too, the chance of rares isn't the only thing changing between the result tables; you also have an increasing chance of 5-pulls instead of 1 or 3-pulls, so there are other advantages besides rare rate.)
Like much of the game, whether you wish to spend the time and effort min-maxing your stats (whether they be harvesting stats or raiding stats or anything else) for every scrap of advantage, however small, is a choice that every person makes for themselves. What person A thinks is worthwhile, person B may not wish to do. We try to provide different options so that there is a choice to make to suit everyone!

Yay, thanks Domino, you've just saved me several hours of harvesting and number crunching
I suppose I could do it anyway to work out what the benefit is of the +harvest buffs with regard to harvesting more than 1 item at once, but then again life needs a little mystery now and again

DominoDev wrote:

Thank you
in the future .. could we possibly get bonuses like the TSO AA for double harvests. That is much more usefull than +harvesting skill gear and I think might have a greater effect on rare rates but dont want to crunch numbers (that I would only be guessing anyway).

DominoDev wrote:

So what I got out of this post from Domino was this:
1. We added all this equipment to boost your gathering skills, but it does very little good.
2. the "small" difference that it makes is not worth the hassle it takes to get it. Clearly the dev's should be able to see that.
If your going to create items in this game and make them obtainable, make them useful. Else, simply scrap them with your failed fighter changes.
Also, my 2 cents, Stop this crap of putting furniture on station cash. Shame on the developer who created that item to be sold on it.

MCS-Apophis wrote:

Wow ... just WOW ...
1st Part - some people like fluff. Not everything needs to be usefull. I did the harvesting quest because I wanted the rock illusion and 50% size increase. I did TS missions for gear and Unicorn mount because of appearance. The other stuff is just there as well
2nd Part - Furniture is completely useless. Acording to your first point none of it should be in the game at all.

Jesdyr@Unrest wrote:

Wow.... just Wow....
1st Part - Some people did do it because we thought that IT WAS NOT A WASTE OF MY TIME !!!!!
I did it to hopefully get more rares FLUFF means nothing to me ( Total waste of my time hours and hours wasted ty so much )
2nd Part - dont care

DominoDev wrote:

Ok so with a less than 1% increase that means: if I work to 5 rares per hour in t8 i have to harvest 20 hours to see 100 rares and a bonus 1 rare from having 548 mining compared to the 400 necessary. If I work to 8 rares an hour that comes down to 12.5 hours harvesting to get an extra rare. At 11 rares an hour that would take 9 hours of continuous harvesting.

I chose 5, 8 and 11 because those are my bad day, normal day, and best day harvest rates.

I would see more raws though in that same time period as well though. Food for thought. 1 extra rare on average for 12.5 hours of harvesting, in that same time whilst harvesting I would kill enough drachnids or fishmen to easily be able to by 4 or 5 extra rares

LivelyHound wrote:

I'm thinking people are reading Domino's comment the wrong way. From what she has said before your chance at getting a rare on the "improved" table is about double to tripple the regular rate. HOWEVER in the entire range of 1 to 100 it is less than a 1% difference from level 20 and up. From previous discussions on this topic, I believe that is a fairly accurate way to describe what is going on with the two harvest tables.
By going on the higher table, you arn't dramatically raising your actual number of rare harvests. One thing that does benifit greatly by being on the better table is the amount of regular harvests obtained per pull. I suppose some people here only care about rare harvests but to be honest I spend more time harvesting t8 bushes than I care to. The extra common harvests are welcome in my book.

MCS-Apophis wrote:

I'm not into furniture, so I couldn't care less, BUT I think you missed the part where they announced to hire _additional_ developers with the money raised through station cash to develop items for station cash. That developer was hired just to do those items. I hardly see any shame in this. And you wouldn't see those items at all if it wasn't for station cash. This is a non-issue. (there are other legitime issues with station cash, this isn't one of them)