Maximizing Harvesting Stats(AKA getting the most crystals)

Discussion in 'Tradeskills' started by Zhevally, Jan 27, 2021.

  1. Bhayar Well-Known Member

    I'm exactly at this point. I literally spend 2-3 hours a day, my skills are up there (SH alone is 116) and I have yet to see one effin' orb after weeks of relentless harvesting. I'm sick and tired of playing this game that doesn't give a damn about how hard you work at it, it's all about your RNG. To have harvested for weeks now and at 2-3 hours a day and NOT ONE DAMN crystal is complete and utter BS. So when we get to the point that the staff is required, I'll be gone as well and I know another that's already said something. There's probably others that just haven't spoken up because they're just not logging in except to raid.

    I'll find a game where the employees actually give a damn about the product they're turning out and not focused on making the player base more pissed off than they are. I've never been so frustrated in my life at this game than this broken mechanic. Sorry, but life's too short to continue to put up with this kind of nonsense.
  2. Bhayar Well-Known Member

    Let me help you grab a clue, cupcake. This isn't about whining, it's about reality. I have posted about how much I shadow harvest every day. I've got the gear, and I've worked at it since day one. Apparently, gear doesn't mean crap, skill doesn't apparently help (hell, my SH is at 116) and neither does time. It's all about your RNG with this mess. I have yet to get one damned crystal and my stats are fine. I just completed another wasted 2.5 hours this morning. I'm happy you have your orbs, but stop insulting people who are working hard at it, because it's not whining, it's a simple fact of life. By accident, as much as I've been hitting harvesting on a daily basis, I should haven't gotten a crystal in the last three weeks. That's not a whine, it's fact.
  3. Sigrdrifa EQ2 Wiki Author

    Gotta agree with Bhayar. I have been shadow harvesting daily as much as possible, spending 2-4 hours each day on harvesting overall. I haven't gotten a single crystal, though I do get Orbs relatively frequently, like one per each pass through SW. RNGeezus needs more sacrifices.
  4. Sigrdrifa EQ2 Wiki Author

    And today I just got four crystals with an Orb immediately followed by the Staff. And two of those were definitely from fish nodes. RNGeezus, I tell you!
    Niami DenMother likes this.
  5. Ingerimm Well-Known Member

    If you take advantage of your options, which are available and adjust your collecting stats correctly, you have no problem.

    It is clear that the Balanzite Crystals do not jump over there, also not on with the better stats, it takes a certain amount of effort.

    Look, you only collected 7,920 resources in RoS. So that doesn't mean very much. I'm at 66,488 (about 10,000 i have collected before the rare chance collection correction patch was in) and have now stopped after 35 balanzite crystals for now. So you can calculate that i had about all 1650 collected ressources 1 balanzite crystal. For me it was 4 to 5 days of collecting some hours a day.

    Of course, this is only a quantitative statement of how much you have basically collected.

    For each shadow collecting with shadow prospecting I collect 5 to 7 shadow nodes, if possible. This increases the chances massively, so if you harvest many nodes instead of only 1 to 3 or something like that. So look for the right place, clear the possible adds beforehand and then collect them quickly and effectively.

    And that's how you succeed. But that doesn't mean that you get a balanzite crystal with every round, there are also 10 or 15 rounds without a crystall and then you also can have 3 in a round.

    Basically, it only has to do with improving your chances by optimizing your collection gear and then showing the necessary patience and sticking to it.
  6. Bhayar Well-Known Member

    And once again, after 3 hours of harvesting this am, nada.
  7. Bhayar Well-Known Member

    And by your own measurements, I should have seen at least one by now. Add to that another 3 hours of harvesting with lots of shadowed, two orbs within the first hour and none after that and still no crystals this am.

    Like I said, I'm glad someone is getting these, but clearly I'm not. And sorry, it's really patronizing to say someone has "only" collected almost 8K resources. Especially since this toon didn't start at the launch of the xpac. I was pulled in later for the raid. All said and done, I don't care how you want to qualify it, these harvesting results are pathetic. And no, I don't expect a crystal every time I go out. But FFS, I would've expected at least one by now.
  8. Ingerimm Well-Known Member

    It may or may not be the way you think it is. From my side it wasn't meant negatively.

    Only about 8K resources are to be collected normaly in only about 3 to about 4 hours at a time, no more rather less. I didn't mean to say anything more.

    So you have collected in additionaly 3h only about 1349 (sum: 9269) new ressources?

    It can of course be that your collecting gear does not fit, I do not know, the tips to measure your chances were all mentioned in the topic. Only you know which and how much of it you have implemented or can implement.

    As summary, so possible for you:
    - max shadow prospecting [108+] (mount equipment) => for the glass orb
    - max rare harvest chance [68+] {with the new helm 92+} (collecting gear, mount equipment, max leveled crafter familiar) => for the balanzite crystals
    - max bountiful harvest [110+] (collecting gear and bountiful harvest adornments), helps on both, a lot [i mean max possible is 144 at the moment]
    - collecting goblin buff
    - collecting buffs (to collect faster the different nodes)
    - max possible harvesting skill [1300+]

    So good luck with collecting, it will be fine, just have a little patience and then it will be for you too.
  9. yerbo Member

    I'm sorry, but you seem to know next to nothing about statistics, the person you quoted was right on the money. Everyone gets the same luck in the long run and the longer you pay the closer you get to the true average.
  10. Kaldrun Member

    Shadow prospecting at 104 , BH at 121, rare 79.5 and harvest skills at 1201. Total of 10,943 harvests from RoS zones. Using the staff and orbs when they were available, I have harvested 3 crystals. So should I expect to get my 20 crystals by the time I get to 73,000+ harvests?
  11. Miauler Active Member

    So, essentially what you're stating is that it's absolutely fine for an entertainment to be random to the degree of pointlessness.
    This is a game. What it's supposed to do is reward effort by measured reward. Relying on pure randomness to the point that people are on the tail end of the normal curve and not getting a reward (to the point of giving up in disgust, despite having spend time and effort on gearing up, learning how to do something properly and so on) is farcical laziness.
    I posted an article on the forums ages ago about fixing RNG for many things, and flattening out the statistical distribution over effort (based on Lorenz's Hydraulic method, which is a simple behavioural modelling algorithm). Very simple to implement, and simple to implement in the database layer (which doesn't suffer from the single threading issues that plague most of the game).
    To have a game with longevity (they are intending to keep EQ2 going right?), you need to keep the average person at least contented. The average people will spend several months after an xpac comes out just getting through the solos and heroics. Most have jobs and things that consume time, so spending hundreds of hours to do something isn't an option. They'd like to play and follow the story and put some effort in to garner some reward. So, assume about 5 months of solo/heroic, then another 3-4 months of raiding to get to the point this gate is required only to be hit with something that's statistically balanced to hold you back for months of your available play time seems a trifle nuts to me. And those months filled with frustration.

    It's kind of like your pay cheque. You like it reasonably consistent because that's what you need to plan with. If an employer turned around and said they were going to pay you completely randomly, and you had the chance of making a million in a month, but also the chance of getting paid nothing for a year, but it was fine because it'd even out over a 60 year cycle, you'd be suitably miffed. That's essentially what the ire is here; the projected time of stability is way too long and the deviation way too significant.

    I've run experiments on the RNG over small sample sets (hundreds of samples on what should be 50/50 probability), and found the discrepancies to be extreme. Consistently extreme. This does make me think that the RNG isn't a true RNG anyway, but a seeded pseudo RNG.