T9 harvesting: Complaint

Well Xegonite sorry is going for 4p 30g. But thats only over a few people undercutting eachother, the bulk of the items on the broker hits a sharp change when you See Reveneant having 80 xegonite clusters. You know he is botting. sorry

Ragnaphore wrote:

The main post is about how low your chances are of getting a rare are and how little harvesting gear actually affects your chances. If you would have read.

Traxor@Lucan DLere wrote:

Either that or he/she buys as soon as it hits the broker. And if you have information that the character is botting, you can report it and SoE will investigate.

Alvane@Unrest wrote:

I didn't mean scarse if you were out harvesting... I mean they are scares on broker because there is hardly anybody in those tiers anymore.
TBH "rares" arn't rares anymore... they are more uncommons. If you were back in the game in T5 you would know what I mean. You could go days without finding anything.
I went out again last night and pulled another 8 rares in about an hour before raid so yeah....I still think there is a "seed" luck factor number in all toons.

Traxor@Lucan DLere wrote:

I did read But just prior to my post people were complaining how scarcity is effecting their markets. Answer: It's not, realy.

Traxor@Lucan DLere wrote:

I still feel some are more "blessed" than others when it comes to harvesting. I know people who go out and pull rare after rare after rare with very little time and effort and may or may not bother with harvesting assists. I however can harvest for hours and might be lucky to pull one "common" rare.

Ynnek@Kithicor wrote:

1. yes
2. well, it gets you to eligibility faster and still helps lower tiers, but yes
3. yes
4. no, there is no cap. If you had +100000 harvesting skill you'd be rolling on that bonus table almost all the time.
5. I haven't posted exact numbers and don't plan to, since if we ever decide to change them the information would then be wrong. The differences depend on the level. We're never going to make the bonus table have an absurd chance of granting rares, but you might see a percent or a few percent difference depending on level range, and you also get a higher chance of multiple common harvests. And no, there's nothing that's going to make anybody go "OMG I'M SWIMMING IN RARES NOW!" because that would just be broken. The increases are small, but there.

It's fairly easy to see higher harvesting skill does make a difference if you go harvest a T1 zone and compare how many rares you get with your level 90 compared to your new level 2 alt. Obviously, at the level cap, it's harder to get that much higher harvesting skill than the nodes, so it will be less notable than it is at lower levels (but in another 50 levels from now, if you go back and harvest in Odus, it would be more clear).
The numbers in the first post are meaningless since, as my post specifically says, they were invented for the purposes of example and do not reflect reality other than as a rough example.
I will also add that since Kunark we haven't actually made rares any more rare, so there's the exact same chance of harvesting a tynnonium cluster as there is to harvest an ulteran diamond (assuming the same harvest skill relative to the node). If you are finding it's easier to harvest a tynnonium cluster nowdays than an ulteran diamond, then that's a direct result of your harvest skills being higher than the node so you're getting more chances using the bonus tables. Numerically, the tables are identical.

I wish I had stats and numbers for exactly how the harvesting tables work, but for what it's worth. I do a fair amount of harvesting and feel that my odds of getting a rare are fine. I don't get tons, but my estimate is that for approx. every 200-300 commons I get a a rare. I don't count node clicks, so I don't have that stat, but I generally pay attention when I clear out my bags.
When I harvest I use the following:
+25 Harvesting Cloak
+25 Earring of the Soltice
+47 Unicorn Mount
+20 Overclocked Automated Pickaxe
I'm not at home but unless I am forgetting something that puts me at 567 harvesting skill.
I also put 5 AA points in Bountiful Harvest (or whatever it's called) to give me 15% chance for an extra harvest on each node.
So if you are having poor results in your harvesting you might try getting those items at least. In particular, I love the Unicorn mount. I don't have to remember to "put it on" like the cloak and the earring and the 65% run speed is great. Of course the Far Seas faction and tokens take some time and effort.

Umub wrote:

Yeah, the crafting armor is great until you get jumped by a mob and get beat down since they have no AC. =P

LOL. Yes I have been killed while wearing my crafting armor. I don't currently harvest with my tradeskill armor on (I should probably try it though). So you can get over 550 skill with your normal armor by just swapping out for Harvesting Cloak and the Solstice Earring if you also have the Unicorn. I do this all the time even in places with lots of aggro.

Umub wrote:

I can't believe it took this long to mention Ample Harvest.
The sole biggest thing you can do to improve your chance of getting a rare is 5 pts in that aa. It gives you a 15% better chance of getting a rare on each pull.
Getting on the bonus table gives nowhere near 15%, im guessing

DominoDev wrote:

I'm not sure about that. Right now at 90 I can get enough skill to more than trivialize T10 nodes and be solidly into harvesting in T11. And I haven't even taken advantage of all the harvesting gear and skill boosts I could get. I think with the correct set-up it's possible to trivialize T11 nodes.

Jrral@Unrest wrote:

You can probably get enough skill now to start rolling on the bonus table for T9, but due to the way the function works the more skill you have above trivial for the tier the better the chance you have of rolling on that table. So being ~250 skill above gets you rolling on the bonus table a lot more than say ~100 skill above would. A (rough/aproximate) formula for the chance to roll on the bonus table is: (C-T)/(C-M), where C is your current skill, T is the point at which you can start rolling on the bonus table, and M is the minimum skill to harvest the tier. So if you have 550 skill, it takes 390 to harvest and the bonus table minimum is 490, you'd have (550-490)/(550-390) = 37.5% chance. If your skill was 750 instead, you'd have (750-490)/(750-390) = 72.2% chance. It's a classic diminishing returns formula, where you go up quick in chance just after you start rolling on the bonus table, but after that it starts slowing down.
Now that might not be the exact formula used (there may be some offsets or the like), but it's the right form of it for diminishing returns trending to a fixed point at infinity. I think that is what Domino was talking about in that quote above -- when you come back with more skill, your chance at rolling on the bonus table will be improved (and thus more noticable).

With that said, 5 AA in bountiful/ample harvest is definately the way to go if you do any kind of serious harvesting. 15% chance of a bonus pull means 15% more pulls for your time and thus more rares, since the bonus pulls have the same rare chance as a regular pull.

If you want actual hard data this is what you do:
Run ACT, get the harvest plugin. Go harvest T9 - 10,000 nodes without any harvest modifiers. Record and export your data. Rinse and repeat with your harvest modifiers.
These types of factual conversations have been had and data posted before. Long story short, harvest skill does very very very little for acquiring rares in the current tier. Mine is pegged at approximately .04% increase. The lower tier levels can be significant but we arent talking about lower tiers so no point in posting the figures on those.
As for lower tier rares being expensive - you betcha lucky. More people using the hirelings for raw harvesting = fewer people actually harvesting to get rares and raws = higher prices.

I'm so annoyed that I have well over 10,000 T9 harvests logged, but no record of what I was wearing when I did them, so they're of absolutely no use to the discussion.
Nothing I hate more than large amounts of statistically useless data......
-Ken

Umub wrote:

I do not believe there are any harvesting modifiers on the Far Seas crafting armor sets. You shouldn't therefore be wearing them while out and about. Off the top of my head, there might be some havesting bonuses on some of the jewellery or waist item.
When I harvest, I run at 598 mining, equipping the cloak, unicorn, unrest boots, pickaxe...etc.
I remain unconvinced there is a significant difference.

Given this, I would like to know how the same group of players have T9 rares on the broker in double figures. I have an idea how it's done, and if I am correct, fixing this and penalizing the players for cheating is the most important thing the crafting team at SOE should be doing.

Aemm@Splitpaw wrote:

There's lots of ways they can do it. One of the easiest is that they just buy up anything priced lower and add it to their listing (effectively trying to price-control the market and make money as the middleman). A few others might bot, although I think the middleman approach tends to be what I've seen the most.
Domino has said before that there are mechanisms to detect and penalize harvesting botters, but obviously she can't go into them (you can't work around what you don't know about).

Aemm@Splitpaw wrote:

FSSD does have a toolbelt that gives harvesting boosts (+5). You can buy this with the tokens. And when doing a FSSD instance, there is an earring that gives harvest boosts (+5) in the loot table. Of course, these aren't part of the armor "sets" but in addition.

Ooh why not have a chance to get one of those French truffle hounds or pigs to help find rares? I'd love to have a snuffling piggie rooting around in the bushes

Arcos@Splitpaw wrote:

LOL reminds me of a WoW low level dungeon quest. You get this snufflenose critter to summon. It digs around inside the dungeon looking for a particular plant. Once found, you harvest it. It was a fun quest.