dragontouched armor crafting expectations

[gfunk]

Like it of hate it, this is what we have for armor crafting so all we can do is learn to live with it. Part of this involves around "managing expectations" (sorry for the use of this catch-phrase to those of you who are sick of it). Obviously, very few of us went in on our first attempt and crafted up the exact armor we wanted. As I will illustrate below, the chances of doing that are rather low.

I wanted to get a rough idea as to how many runs it would take to get the armor I wanted. Obviously, there is never a 100% chance you will get what you want in a random system, however you can determine the statistical likelyhood of obtaining the desired result if you know the number of possible outcomes.

Each of the tiers have over 20 possible upgrades, from what I have been able to discern from the various posts on the forums. It looks like tier III has at least 30 possible upgrades, and so far I cound 22 for tier II and 26 for tier I. I suspect the tier I and II numbers are a bit low but, for now I will use these numbers as the difference is not hugely material to the number or required runs.

With these numbers, the chances of getting what you want each time are (assuming there is only 1 outcome for each tier that you will find acceptable):

tier I: 1/26 or 3.8%
tier II: 1/22 or 4.5%
tier III: 1/30 or 3.3%

The chance of all 3 of these working out for you on your first attempt are very low:

3.8% * 4.5%* * 3.3% = 0.006%...

...not a bet any rational person would take, though it suggests that 1 out of every 16,667 people will get what they want the first time (probably that annoying person on the forums who brags about their luck... of course they are not lucky, they are just a statistic).

fortunately for us the 3 tiers upgrade independantly of each other, so our odds of getting what we want on subsequent upgrades increase markedly. I usually consider the 80% success rate as a number by which i can reasonably succeed. In order to have a 80% chance of the desired outcome it would take:

tier I: 41 attempts
tier II: 35 attempts
tier III: 48 attempts

of course this means, that 2 out of every 10 people will not have what they want after the above numbers of runs. These people are usually the loudest in their complaints, so I expect a fair bit of complaining about the number of runs required.

Also, the numbers required for a 99% success rate are:

tier I: 117 attempts
tier II: 99 attempts
tier III: 137 attempts

which basically means that 1 out of every 100 people will upgrade their armor over 100 times, and still not have what they want. These people will be the ones who post on the forums, thinking the devs are out to get them.

On a point forward basis though, these numbers are not useful for setting expectations. your odds of achieving success on your next try are always the same as your odds of succeeding on your first try... just something to keep in mind.

Oh, and other people like to know when their odds will be 50/50 as a bench mark. Those numbers are:

tier I: 18 attempts
tier II: 15 attempts
tier III: 21 attempts

[Turial]

Seeing as the runes are random and you can get the same effect two or more times in a row...doesn't that mean that you don't ever get a better chance of getting what you want?

A 3.8% chance at getting GFL is still a 3.8% chance no matter how many times you do it.

[gfunk]

Seeing as the runes are random and you can get the same effect two or more times in a row...doesn't that mean that you don't ever get a better chance of getting what you want?

A 3.8% chance at getting GFL is still a 3.8% chance no matter how many times you do it.

See my above comments about "on a point-forward basis", which is what you talking about here. It is often a difficult concept to get across to people that:

on their 20th attempt, their chance of succeeding is only 3.8%

but...

their chance of failing 20 times is only 54.4%.

think about it this way:

you want to get heads when you flop a coin... your odds are 50/50 if you get 1 chance.

If you get 10 chances what will the odds be that you will get it at least once??

[Browork]

I guess it is better if you just choose 3 of each tier that you could be content with.Therefore increaseing your ODDS.Kind of like playing craps in the Casino Cover 3 numbers per dice roll instead of 1 number.At this point in game it is really about just freeing up other slots, for me anyways. So what ever I get on my armor, as long as it frees up a spot to switch stuff around then it's all good.

[Lonewolfe]

Come on....this is working just as planned. It gives the power gamers that spend 12+ hrs a day something to do. With those kind of odds, how many people do you think will actually grind that out 100+ times. Hell, I won't do it 10x. The crafting system is used to lead the sheep into the barn. It gives you some sort of motivation to grind the same quest a million times and keep coming back for more. Which makes up for lack of content and the numerous problems that will never get fixed. I did my shroud grinding for my twin dwarven axes, and that is over. I will now only do it when bored or when guildies need help. You can grind it out for that armour if you want, but this sheep is staying out in the pasture.

[Aspenor]

Come on....this is working just as planned. It gives the power gamers that spend 12+ hrs a day something to do. With those kind of odds, how many people do you think will actually grind that out 100+ times. Hell, I won't do it 10x. The crafting system is used to lead the sheep into the barn. It gives you some sort of motivation to grind the same quest a million times and keep coming back for more. Which makes up for lack of content and the numerous problems that will never get fixed. I did my shroud grinding for my twin dwarven axes, and that is over. I will now only do it when bored or when guildies need help. You can grind it out for that armour if you want, but this sheep is staying out in the pasture.

I would rather still grind shroud than new stuff....

[Desteria]

ya the fact that you have abotu a 99% chance of making Exacly what you want befor your 20th shroud adn it would take a CRAZZY number of Sorjeks fro the same, um math useign the 50 runes and the 1 sov per um I think it;s still over 100 runs any way it;s in that ball park!!!!

I mena i'm purty hard core, I have often run 4-6 shrouds in one night and all BUt most fo my guys are stil only working towards 60th or 80th compleations.....

[Auran82]

You can also take into account that you get 50 draconic runes each time you beat the Sorjek quest, and these can be eventually traded for the type of rune you need.

[Desteria]

You can also take into account that you get 50 draconic runes each time you beat the Sorjek quest, and these can be eventually traded for the type of rune you need.

i was it;s 140 ? for a sov rune thast one extra ever almost 3 runs with 137 needed for a 99% sov shot thast still 100 ish runs....
Compared to shroud wich IS still a grind but is about 99% after 20 runs, and it;s 5x the grind and you have to do it ALLL with one character... and it takes aLOT longer to run....
Good group fro shroud 30 mins, (a slow run for me noramly)
Godo group fro all the pre **** and sorjek, about 20 mins each for the pre quests, then 35-45ish including sorjek fight so 1h40min or ruffly 3 times as long not takig in to account time lost getitng to each quest etc.... I'm sure some of the new stuff times will come down, but still it's goign to be longer significantly so adn it requiers 5 times the run to have the same odds.... thast a grind fest if ever i saw one...

luckly i have 2 guys that REALLY want specific armors unfortunutly one of them kinda wants 2 specific armors 1 won't go near it, one woudl benifit a LOT from it BUT is lower on my importance list, 1 can benifit if i get just the right set i think maby brestplate of destruction works fine she low priority, sadly shes also my str TWF with WoP so teh most ufull one to be runnign most fo the quests the other could also benifit a lot but hes my pally and hes more for farmign shroud now that actuly playign to much so he can wait froever fro his if he has to.
So in the end i onyl really need to grind heavy for 2 characters but 2 others coudl sure get a lot out of it will see if i'm willign to grind them afterr i finish my first few guys....

[Borror0]

Nice post gfunk.

[smithers]

I think your analysis shows the intended design of Dragontouched crafting:

Low grind to get armor with random features you can't get from the current loot tables. The random combination will probably not be your character's ideal set of abilities, but it is likely to have at least one thing you like and has a good chance of becoming your main armor right away.

I don't feel any kind of entitlement to have my ideal dragontouched setup. I realize I could get lucky rolls on my next pass, or alternately my sorc may *never* get the improved spell pen 8, greater false life, cha 6 setup he wants. (Meantime, he's already got 4 useful docents going...)

The numbers you came up with are interesting, but I tend to approve of the strategy they came up with this time: useful loot for moderate effort, with time/reward scaling up for those who are willing to grind for their perfect setup.

BTW, I'm doing armor for only 2 of my 5 capped toons. My main tank will continue wearing breastplate of destruction, becuase I realize the chances of crafting a better armor are low and would probably take enough repetitions that I'd rather focus on my other guys.

[Zenako]

You also get draconic runes from most of the chests out there as well. Not hard to snare another 20 doing quicky loot runs for example. (and some of that loot can be REAL nice as most players know by now....tomes, banishing rapiers, etc) Since you can buy the transforming Runes from the vendor you can get to the end goal in a number of ways.

Sure each time to finish any of the prequests you get another essence and rune as well. If you could ONLY get the Sovereign Rune from completing the 4th quest, that would clearly be a pain, but you can just purchases chances along the way. Once you lock in one desired result, you now move to the next one. Its a potential grind, but one you get incremental progress on.

[Dexxaan]

Nice post gfunk.

Yep. Just like a Daisy in the middle of a Cow Patty. or a Flashlight that shows us the Manhole were gonna fall into.

[Thrudh]

Compared to shroud wich IS still a grind but is about 99% after 20 runs

Shroud items are not 99% after 20 runs... Especially if you're going after a dual-shard item (which is comparable to the armor). Even if you only want a single shard item, it's quite possible to not get 2 scales, or 3 stones or whatever you need after 20 runs... There are 12 ingrediants that you need... and you getting the exact correct number of each is NOT 99% in 20 runs...

I think your analysis shows the intended design of Dragontouched crafting:

Low grind to get armor with random features you can't get from the current loot tables. The random combination will probably not be your character's ideal set of abilities, but it is likely to have at least one thing you like and has a good chance of becoming your main armor right away.

This is a good point... Getting the base armor is very low grind... And for many characters, it's good enough to immediately become the best armor you have (Both my battle-cleric and my wizard have so-so plate and robes respectively - they will probably use the new armor no matter what effects they get.

My barbarian/fighter can use the base armor as well (He has a Mineral II cloak, so the Vod plate isn't all that useful to him) and will gain 1-2 AC... I'd love to get the +3 dodge someday... not sure if I want to grind for it yet.... but the possibility is out there...

Base item is pretty darn good... low level of grinding.... helps casual players
Upgrades are VERY good... high level of grinding... good for powergamers

[gfunk]

Yep. Just like a Daisy in the middle of a Cow Patty. or a Flashlight that shows us the Manhole were gonna fall into.

I think your analysis shows the intended design of Dragontouched crafting:

Low grind to get armor with random features you can't get from the current loot tables. The random combination will probably not be your character's ideal set of abilities, but it is likely to have at least one thing you like and has a good chance of becoming your main armor right away.

I don't feel any kind of entitlement to have my ideal dragontouched setup. I realize I could get lucky rolls on my next pass, or alternately my sorc may *never* get the improved spell pen 8, greater false life, cha 6 setup he wants. (Meantime, he's already got 4 useful docents going...)

I kinda agree with both here... depending on the character i am trying to equip. Also, I think the way a person feels about it is going to have alot to do with what their current gear is (i.e. is the DT armor an improvement)..

I am quite happy with my first attempt at crafting on my fighter (getting GFL, and Sr22.. failed sorjek, so no soverign). Before I had her equiped in either plain jane +5 MFP or Full plate of giants (+4 full plate dr 5/ for those who aren't familiar with it). There are several upgrades that I would find acceptable.. but that is largely because the base armor is better than anything I was wearing before (because of less enhancement points towards TS mastery).

Conversely, I don't feel that motivated to run my ranger through, as I already have icy raiments, and it would take a pretty magical combination of effects to make me want to switch. In contrast with my fighter's example above, my ranger's current armor is far prefereable to a "base" robe. I did make a DT robe, getting a guard, resist +5, and improved combustion i think.. sort of neat, but not anything im likely to wear anytime soon. I could see many rangers taking it over the white dragon scale though, as it wouldn't take alot of tries to get something better than the protect +4, sheild clicky that the dragon scale offers. (though unfortunatley the white dragon scale robe looks far better than any of the DT armor).

with my sorc its likely to take alot of runs to improve on the blue dragon armor.

In the end, I'll try to run SOS frequently on my fighter (though a pure fighter often has a bit of a time getting into a pug), and only take my ranger and sorc through to help out others (and maybe they will get something cool by default).

On a side note, I recently saw an LFM where someone mentioned that their soverign rune would be up for roll (they were a ranger, and presumeably werent planning on crafting dt armor). Perhaps this will be a trend in the future which will help people get what they want in fewer runs.

[Junts]

I kinda agree with both here... depending on the character i am trying to equip. Also, I think the way a person feels about it is going to have alot to do with what their current gear is (i.e. is the DT armor an improvement)..

I am quite happy with my first attempt at crafting on my fighter (getting GFL, and Sr22.. failed sorjek, so no soverign). Before I had her equiped in either plain jane +5 MFP or Full plate of giants (+4 full plate dr 5/ for those who aren't familiar with it). There are several upgrades that I would find acceptable.. but that is largely because the base armor is better than anything I was wearing before (because of less enhancement points towards TS mastery).

Conversely, I don't feel that motivated to run my ranger through, as I already have icy raiments, and it would take a pretty magical combination of effects to make me want to switch. In contrast with my fighter's example above, my ranger's current armor is far prefereable to a "base" robe. I did make a DT robe, getting a guard, resist +5, and improved combustion i think.. sort of neat, but not anything im likely to wear anytime soon. I could see many rangers taking it over the white dragon scale though, as it wouldn't take alot of tries to get something better than the protect +4, sheild clicky that the dragon scale offers. (though unfortunatley the white dragon scale robe looks far better than any of the DT armor).

with my sorc its likely to take alot of runs to improve on the blue dragon armor.

In the end, I'll try to run SOS frequently on my fighter (though a pure fighter often has a bit of a time getting into a pug), and only take my ranger and sorc through to help out others (and maybe they will get something cool by default).

On a side note, I recently saw an LFM where someone mentioned that their soverign rune would be up for roll (they were a ranger, and presumeably werent planning on crafting dt armor). Perhaps this will be a trend in the future which will help people get what they want in fewer runs.

i've been giving away tempest and eldritch runes for a while, or trying to trade them for essences so i have to run that **** less - i also recieved a lot of them from friends who were done and reflagging when i was still working on mine.

it probably took me 45 eldritch to get that slot right, but that still only took me about a week - its not that hard when one run of the monestary gets you 8 rolls.

[Mindspat]

Each of the tiers have over 20 possible upgrades, from what I have been able to discern from the various posts on the forums. It looks like tier III has at least 30 possible upgrades, and so far I cound 22 for tier II and 26 for tier I. I suspect the tier I and II numbers are a bit low but, for now I will use these numbers as the difference is not hugely material to the number or required runs.

Do you have a list of the individually unique bonuses that are present for each tier? The best I've seen is 21 possible eldritch affects and 23 dragonic. I am using this thread as a basis even though it hasn't been updated in some time.

thanks in advance

[maddmatt70]

I am bumping this thread.. Shows how folly this dt armor business is..

[gfunk]

Do you have a list of the individually unique bonuses that are present for each tier? The best I've seen is 21 possible eldritch affects and 23 dragonic. I am using this thread as a basis even though it hasn't been updated in some time.

thanks in advance

http://rpgamerd00d.150m.com/DDOCraftingCalculator.html
these add to 27 when you consider the seperate elementals, stats, and potencies. Some people have disputed the accuracy of this site, but i haven't personally done enough crafting to say one way or another

It is quite likely that this list I used is not complete, and that inaccuracies exist in the list, however i did the analysis to give people a rough idea, and some perspective on how randomness works.

Such data would only be useful for planning if you had a very large number of characters to craft for. My gut feel is that it would start being an accurate estimate if you had a couple dozen or more characters to run (so maybe useful for smallish guilds to budget # of runs required).

I have really only been actively working on my fighters upgrade.

Their first upgrade in each tier was:
eldritch: greater false life
tempest: sr 22
Sovereign: greater elemental energy (20hp)

optimally i would have liked healing amp 20% for tempest, and dodge +3 for my sovereign , but I'm not complaining. I totally lucked out with each tier being quite useful for my fighter. I don't relish the idea of how many SOS runs I would need to do to get dodge +3, but in the meantime I will keep elemental energy (until I craft a mineral II cloak), and just accumulate runes. Tempest runes aren't that onerous to accumulate, so when I have 20 I'll give it a shot on trying to get the healing amp.

[Do'Urden]

I would rather still grind shroud than new stuff....

Agreed.

Nice post OP. I don't think people have a big problem with the odds of getting something they want. What we have in addition to that, however, is loot with questionable benefits and the silliness of bound crafting ingredients. Oh and an outdated re-flagging mechanism that we know people dislike. All of those factors have combined to create a stifling atmosphere of apathy surrounding DT crafting. In other words, the loot just isn't good enough to overcome the silliness of everything that's strapped to getting it. So...IMHO...the main problems with Mod 8:

Marginal raid loot
Random crafting
Bound crafting ingredients
Outdated flagging mechanism

Do people like running the Shroud for the 100th time on a single character? I don't think so, but people still keep almost all their toons on Shroud timer because:

1) The loot is fantastic...the best weapons and some of the best items in the game.
2) The time investment is low. An average PUG can complete in 45 mins and you don't have to run the pre-reqs unless you need ingredients for new greensteel.
3) The crafting is based on set recipes (i.e. NOT random like the unbelievably stupid DT mechanism)
4) The crafting ingredients are not bound. You can probably trade with other people for what you need to finish an item even if you're incredibly unlucky (i.e. you go 20 runs without pulling a Large Scale or a Supreme Shard, etc.)
5) You have a reasonably decent chance at a +3 tome that will benefit you at 20, 40, 60, 80, etc. Or you get an Essence of Cleansing which is also potentially very useful.
6) The quest is designed for 12 people...consequently you see ALOT more groups with open spots (especially when combined with the interest level due to the above)

I sincerely hope the Devs have observed community reaction to Mod 8 and adjust accordingly.