What is wrong with reclaim?

I am seeing nowhere near 90% success. It fails 2-3 times out of 10 attempts consistently. In fact, I generally don't get to 10 tries. After it's failed 3 times I stop - and that usually means I have only tried it 7-8 times.

Funny how I never see anything like that kind of "luck" when melding with a 10% chance. It has no issue holding out for 20-30 turns under those circumstances.

Sadly the way RNG works is that it's across the board, all servers and players. If you were to look at the sample size of just 1 or 2 players, that 90% for them might be 50% and for other players somewhere else it will be 99%. I too have had bad luck with it, so I decided I'd rather just NQ an item than risk losing materials to Reclaim. Most NQ's can be sold to recover costs and some are still profitable (the only exception are the artisan tools, these are rarely profitable as an NQ and often times you wont make back all of your costs).

I would not be surprised if Reclaim was found to be buggy.

For my part, I've had great luck with Reclaim. I hardly ever lose materials to a failed Reclaim - sure, it's happened, but it doesn't feel like anywhere near 10%.

RNG is RNG. Some people are lucky, some are not. Sounds like you're one of the unlucky ones. :/

With the way probability works, you'll see clusters of losses, and long stretches without a loss. If you're using reclaim enough to get a reasonable estimate on how often it fails, then you are doing something horribly wrong at crafting.

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Originally Posted by StouterTaru

then you are doing something horribly wrong at crafting.

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You mean like expecting the overall RNG average to be well.... average? Expecting PBP to not fail more than 10%? expecting up to 10-11 HTs under SH2 to actually succeed 8 times? Expecting RS to not fail 3 times in a row? It's one thing to be a butterfingers or miscalculate and lose your mats - quite another to have nothing but dumb luck doing it. Don't confuse luck with skill.

I have been making HQ artisan tools, just for myself. When you make 3 artisan tools in a row, all in the 89-96% HQ range - what would you expect to get? I know what I got - 3 NQ. I also know I have never managed to get reclaim to work more than 2-3 times on each attempt to make one (that's if it doesn't fail first try, which it has done to me on 3 occasions now). And guess when I am forced to employ reclaim anyway? yes, when RNG falls outside the norms, which is something it shouldn't be doing with such regularity.

If you are using reclaim enough to get an accurate gauge of it's actual success/fail rate (hundreds/thousands of times), then you are doing something wrong at your crafting.

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Originally Posted by XiXiQ

yes, when RNG falls outside the norms, which is something it shouldn't be doing with such regularity.

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Shouldn't, but can. Bell curves are bell-shaped rather than rectangular for a reason. You're on the wrong side of the bell curve. Will you stay there? There's no way to predict. The odds are against your continued bad luck, but a one-in-a-million chance is still greater than zero.

Does your seemingly consistent and predictable streak of bad luck indicate that the RNG isn't working the way that it should? No. In fact, the occasional outliers are one of the clearest indicators that the randomness truly IS random. If there was NO ONE having terrible luck, it would be suspicious. Similarly, if there was NO ONE having fabulous luck, it would be suspicious. It would indicate that something behind the scenes is "tempering" the good and bad luck to smooth things out and try to nudge results toward some kind of predefined "average".

Which, to be honest, may well be the better way to handle randomness in an MMO, rather than pure RNG. MAKE the bell curve rectangular to protect anyone from having to deal with wretched bad luck - maybe even trim down streaks of good luck, as well. Resorting to pure randomness is certainly much easier to program, though, and less draining on game resources since you don't have to keep a record of a player's previous successes and failures.

"Average" will never be a perfect indicator to prove when you are due a success or failure.

That said, with large enough of a sample size, it can be a partial indicator. If the sample is too small, it isn't an indicator at all.

The OP example is certainly the latter.

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Originally Posted by StouterTaru

If you are using reclaim enough to get an accurate gauge of it's actual success/fail rate (hundreds/thousands of times), then you are doing something wrong at your crafting.

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I have not used it hundreds or thousands of times. Not likely to either considering it's failure rate so far.

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Originally Posted by LineageRazor

Does your seemingly consistent and predictable streak of bad luck indicate that the RNG isn't working the way that it should? No.

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Whether RNG is working "how it should" or not isn't the root of the problem. If this is how it's supposed to work - with the same players getting shafted over and over with no end in sight (and if you use the bell curve as an example, you're talking about 10%-20% of them) - that is a serious game problem that requires addressing, rather than some interesting mathematical study.

I'm pretty sure the success rate of reclaim averages to 90% over a large enough sample size. For me, reclaim works the vast majority of times, although there have been times when I've had a number of failures in a row.

Like many players (most?), my luck seems to run in streaks, so I suspect that the algorithm used might not be the greatest.

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Originally Posted by XiXiQ

Whether RNG is working "how it should" or not isn't the root of the problem. If this is how it's supposed to work - with the same players getting shafted over and over with no end in sight (and if you use the bell curve as an example, you're talking about 10%-20% of them) - that is a serious game problem that requires addressing, rather than some interesting mathematical study.

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That's exactly why I said it may not be the best system. It is, however, the easiest system to implement, as it does not require keeping track of past performance in order to "nudge up" or "nudge down" future performance.

Folks were complaining at length about the "true randomness" of Atma drops a while back, and while SE DID bump up the drop rate, as far as anyone knows it's still truly random and will remain that way. There's a statistical possibility, however unlikely, that a player could STILL farm for years and never see an Atma drop. I don't expect SE to do anything about Reclaim aside from, possibly, upping the success rate - but if your bad luck continues to be bad, that won't help one bit.

After failing to reclaim on my artisan off hand crafts 2 out of 3 times..That was it..
After that, I worked on my rotation so I rarely ever need to reclaim.. and if I have to I'll just hit Byregots without a steady hand instead and go for the finisher..
Worked out good for me, only failed one craft since then so far and that was because I forgot to put in all the cross class skills..

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Originally Posted by XiXiQ

If this is how it's supposed to work - with the same players getting shafted over and over with no end in sight..."In fact, I generally don't get to 10 tries."

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Your results are as expected for a small sample size. Your desire for gratification is misplaced. A friend of mine botched 8 reclaims in a row. 0 tears shed, because that's how math works. And over the course of all her crafting she'll make those botches back.

If the risk is too psychologically upsetting, just NQ the item.

You will make 100s of millions of gil crafting and selling, blowing up 10-20 out of 100 tries, is the same cost of business we all have. If the RNG doesn't hit you in reclaim it will hit you somewhere else. It evens out. We are all being treated fairly. Sometimes monsters deal nothing but crit and blow up a raid, this is the same thing. It's a pay to play system. You have to do things over and over to progress.

Every single time I break on reclaim, I smile a little. Because I know the karmic balance of the universe will make it so I don't botch something important in the future, as a result of that break.

Think of it like that. You'll live happier.

Instead of being hostile, heed other people's advice, listen to what they're actually telling you..

3 star crafting, starting with hq mats?? You shouldn't need to reclaim at all.. Sure, if you fail 5, 6, or 7 HT, then maybe you need to.. But that happens very rarely..

In fact, on my most recent craft, Inferno Blade, I failed Rapid Synth 3 times, and HT 4 times.. I still managed to hit 76% hq.. and luckily got the hq from it.

It's not the RNG that makes or breaks a crafter, it's what you do to mitigate its effects, that's the true test.

oh man... why risk Inferno Blade NQ at 76% ;_;

reclaim!

It all comes down to experience and ultimately RNG. I haven't had issues thus far with reclaim and *in my experience* the success rate is closer to 99% but that's how probability works. People see 90% and forget that it doesn't mean that 1/10 times it will fail but rather you have 10% chance of failure on every reclaim. Just because something is 90% success doesn't mean it can't fail every time.

If its not reclaim failing its rapid synth + steady hand 2 lol
Just damnnz..

There's nothing wrong with Reclaim that isn't also wrong with Rapid Synthesis, Hasty Touch, and Steady Hand II: An RNG system that feels more like Three-Card-Monte than an actual crafting project.

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Originally Posted by Duuude007

Every single time I break on reclaim, I smile a little. Because I know the karmic balance of the universe will make it so I don't botch something important in the future, as a result of that break.

Think of it like that. You'll live happier.

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With that in mind, every time I succeed on Reclaim, I know some day I'll NQ that 90% quality lol.

What I would like to see in the future is an Inner Quiet type ability for failing touches. Something that directly counters your bad luck with good luck. Maybe every time you fail a touch, Reclaim goes up by 1%. You'd have to fail 10 touches to get 100% Reclaim, which I think anyone failing 10 touches deserves, heh.

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Originally Posted by StouterTaru

If you are using reclaim enough to get an accurate gauge of it's actual success/fail rate (hundreds/thousands of times), then you are doing something wrong at your crafting.

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Well, not sure what you mean here. How do you craft HQ 4 star? As example, I just crafted up my PLD accessories (all 5). They each require 3 Platinum Ingot as an input to the final craft. These are 4 star (568/5783), as are the final crafts. Reclaim was essential to get all the 15 HQ ingots I needed. HQ'ing 4 star is easy if you have HQ mats - still easy but a bit of a grind if those mats are also 4 star.

Now, I didn't use reclaim enough to be statistically significant but that is only because I wasn't crafting tons of stuff (such as to sell).

It's all RNG. While I hate failing reclaim, I hate NQ'ing from 90% even more.

This looks like a job for Excel!!!

Here's an experiment for you guys.
Simulate 25,000 random rolls from 0 to 1. If it is less than or equal to 90, call it a success.
Sum up the results of these rolls in sets of 10, and use the frequency function to count how often each set of 10 has a given number of successes.

Here are my general results for sample sizes of 10.
10/10 = 36%
9/10 = 38%
8/10 = 19%
7/10 = 6%
6/10 = 1%
5/10 = 0.04%
Less than 5/10 didnt happen.

Now if we change the sample size from 10 to 25, the results are somewhat different.
25/25 = 8.1%
24/25 = 19.4%
23/25 = 25.4%
22/25 = 22.5%
21/25 = 14.3%
20/25 = 7%
19/25 = 2.5%
18/25 = 0.8%
Under 18/25 did not happen.

So with a smaller sample size, the maximum failure rate was 6/10, or 40% failures in a sample set.
With the larger size, the max failure rate went down to 18/25 or 28% failures in a set.

Ah statistics. Depending on how you present the data, even for a "properly random" source such as Excel, you can see how one person can claim that out of 3 attempts everything failed so they quit. Whereas someone else who (for some unknown reason) does high risk crafting nonstop and does some 100 samples per day would say that the rate is fine. A couple fail here and there but mostly fine.

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Originally Posted by Kenji1134

This looks like a job for Excel!!!

Here's an experiment for you guys.
Simulate 25,000 random rolls from 0 to 1. If it is less than or equal to 90, call it a success.
Sum up the results of these rolls in sets of 10, and use the frequency function to count how often each set of 10 has a given number of successes.

Here are my general results for sample sizes of 10.
10/10 = 36%
9/10 = 38%
8/10 = 19%
7/10 = 6%
6/10 = 1%
5/10 = 0.04%
Less than 5/10 didnt happen.

Now if we change the sample size from 10 to 25, the results are somewhat different.
25/25 = 8.1%
24/25 = 19.4%
23/25 = 25.4%
22/25 = 22.5%
21/25 = 14.3%
20/25 = 7%
19/25 = 2.5%
18/25 = 0.8%
Under 18/25 did not happen.



So with a smaller sample size, the maximum failure rate was 6/10, or 40% failures in a sample set.
With the larger size, the max failure rate went down to 18/25 or 28% failures in a set.

Ah statistics. Depending on how you present the data, even for a "properly random" source such as Excel, you can see how one person can claim that out of 3 attempts everything failed so they quit. Whereas someone else who (for some unknown reason) does high risk crafting nonstop and does some 100 samples per day would say that the rate is fine. A couple fail here and there but mostly fine.

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There is nothing wrong with reclaim. It's a 90% chance, not 10% chance. A sample size of 10 and 25 is pointless and if you're relying on reclaim for 100s of synths then you're doing something wrong. Point being, with a sample size of 100, 1000, 10000 you start seeing it have an average success rate of 90%.

This thread needs to be allowed to die in peace.

That was his point, actually. There is nothing wrong with reclaim, as your sample size gets larger your failure rate approaches the intended amount; in this case, 10%.

And FWIW, a 90% chance of success usually corresponds to a 10% chance of failure. When looking at a roll of the dice, you look at the percentage for success and you have to roll less than or equal to that on a d100. So a 90% chance of success means that if you roll a 1 to a 90 you succeed, and rolling a 91 to 100 means you fail.

What does seem "wrong" sometimes is the amazingly streaky nature of RNG failure.

Now I will note that I do not craft as much as I used to... just waiting for Heavensward at this point... but I recall that there would be a lot of synths where I would have a much higher than expected success rate... typically leading to no reclaim.
OR I would have a synth where before I even touch an action... something explodes.

9 80% HT's? 7 exploded.
Goods to replenish CP? Nah you're good bro!
Absolutely horrible synth demanding Reclaim? Nope that blows up too!!!

Or my personal favorite. Having to do 2 80% RS at the start of the synth... boom, Boom... Reclaim... BOOM!!!! - on an expensive synths that is "put fist through monitor" rage inducing.

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Originally Posted by Kenji1134

What does seem "wrong" sometimes is the amazingly streaky nature of RNG failure.

Now I will note that I do not craft as much as I used to... just waiting for Heavensward at this point... but I recall that there would be a lot of synths where I would have a much higher than expected success rate... typically leading to no reclaim.
OR I would have a synth where before I even touch an action... something explodes.

9 80% HT's? 7 exploded.
Goods to replenish CP? Nah you're good bro!
Absolutely horrible synth demanding Reclaim? Nope that blows up too!!!

Or my personal favorite. Having to do 2 80% RS at the start of the synth... boom, Boom... Reclaim... BOOM!!!! - on an expensive synths that is "put fist through monitor" rage inducing.

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This is the exact thing that irritates me to no end. Yet, to hear elitists tell it, this situation doesn't justify modifying abilities' success rates to prevent such streaks from occurring.

RNG streaks like that really invalidate the skill that we work hard to attain and that is hardly justifiable.

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Originally Posted by ZephyrZ

There is nothing wrong with reclaim. It's a 90% chance, not 10% chance. A sample size of 10 and 25 is pointless and if you're relying on reclaim for 100s of synths then you're doing something wrong. Point being, with a sample size of 100, 1000, 10000 you start seeing it have an average success rate of 90%.

This thread needs to be allowed to die in peace.

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The truth is none of us actually know if reclaim is "working as intended" i.e. actually a 90% chance.

It's fine to say that a small sample is poinless, as it is, but where is the large sample to prove it is indeed 90% as stated on the tooltip.

I would say I probably have used reclaim 100 times over the last 2 years. That's like once a week on average.

From my experiance the % is likely to be more than 70%, but I'm not convinced it's actually 90% as stated.


Anyone care to test reclaim 100 times? :P

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Originally Posted by scarebearz

The truth is none of us actually know if reclaim is "working as intended" i.e. actually a 90% chance.

It's fine to say that a small sample is poinless, as it is, but where is the large sample to prove it is indeed 90% as stated on the tooltip.

I would say I probably have used reclaim 100 times over the last 2 years. That's like once a week on average.

From my experiance the % is likely to be more than 70%, but I'm not convinced it's actually 90% as stated.


Anyone care to test reclaim 100 times? :P

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I tested this a long time ago because i was confused how rng worked, not just for skills but for desynth drops as well. Reclaim, byregot's and hasty touch under SH II, each with a sample size of 250 on junk (Maple Sugar). They average out to 90%, 90% and 80%. Reclaim was the only pain to test, you can test BB multiple times in a single synth, same with hasty.

I also tested materia melding % to realize that it works under same principle as skills and desynth drops. Which is also why you can go on a rng mess and fail 100+ in a row without a meld. It all breaks even.

The biggest confusion is that people thing 90% refers to a probability, it doesn't. It refers to an average. For those that know discrete math, the average in this case would be the expected value.

Reclaim works great. All the RNG complaining is due to each individual's small sample size. If you manually tracked every action you took in game where you knew what the odds were, you'd find the RNG is spot on over long periods of time.

I've personally tracked (since I used to be an RNG whiner) my meld chances over what is now 1000s of meld attempts as well as harvesting odds for the supra/lucis/etc tools. I'm happy with the RNG. It works. It can be streaky when looking at short periods of time.

Maybe the solution is a kind of "destreaking algorithm"?

In another thread someone brought up the "Pseudo-Random Distribution" from another game, dont remember the game.
The idea was that the initial % chance is lower, but every time you fail your % chance goes up until you succeed, at which point it resets.

So lets say we do that here, maybe like this.

HT w/ SH2, 70% base chance. Each time you fail, your % chance goes up by 15%. So the maximum # of consecutive failures you could have is 2. 70% -> 85% -> 100%. Though TBH this would put HT 2/ SH2's effective success rate over time at 85%. :o

But that is the general idea, slightly reduce the initial success rate and add a failure bonus such that the maximum number of consecutive failures you can have for a given skill is 2.

Or make it a trait acquired at 50 called "Focused".

Focused: Every time you fail an action, add 1 stack of Focused. Each stack of Focused increases the success rate of all action of 10% (maybe 5%). Successfully completing an action removes all stacks of Focused.

Maybe make it 10% and have it cost 5 CP per use, so it would effectively increase the cost of all actions by 5, but not the cost of buffs.

We don't need any fixes for it.. You can counteract the streak of bad RNG by just crafting more.

You wouldn't believe how many people don't jump in a market for RNG based items (demimateria for example) because their perceived raw cost of the item is much higher than its real value.

For example:
Having desynthed more than 10000 bridesmaid's sandals, I know that average is about 18% FC3, 3% Clear, 5% Hippo Leather, then rest Spruce Lumber.

Which would put the raw cost of FC3 (considering everything else to be worth 0) is around 35k. Yet, I see so many people claim that FC3 costs 40k, 50k, even 60k to make. If these people are not willing to put in the work to extrapolate more accurate figures, let them stay in the dark, let them be their own worst enemy to Market board successes.

Same with crafting RNG, do I fail to hq 3/4stars? Of course I do, but I know with enough reliability how often I nq them, and what kind of money I'd lose on an nq. Thus, I know how to price my items accordingly to account for the inevitable losses I'll endure.


If some people don't want to figure it out the hard way, there are always third party sources, google, etc. They're not the most accurate but that's what you get for not putting in your own work. If you want the edge, put in your time and figure it out. Bad RNG? Craft 100 times, figure out your losses. Having to reclaim too often? Come up with a better rotation, you shouldn't need to reclaim that often anyway.

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Originally Posted by GenJoe

We don't need any fixes for it.. You can counteract the streak of bad RNG by just crafting more.

Having to reclaim too often? Come up with a better rotation, you shouldn't need to reclaim that often anyway.

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Agreed. The profits you earn from your HQ items should far exceed your losses from NQs or failed reclaims.

I've also found that if you're starting with HQ materials, the chances of an NQ result are really remote. The trick is to find a reliable method of crafting 4 star materials starting from 0 quality, without the use of reclaim. Fortunately, it's not hard to get an HQ yield of at least 80% on those (90%+ if you can optimize your method) and if you can manage that, the finished products are a breeze.

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Originally Posted by GenJoe

Which would put the raw cost of FC3 (considering everything else to be worth 0) is around 35k.
Come up with a better rotation, you shouldn't need to reclaim that often anyway.

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On the server I am on, FC3 goes for.... 35k. As desynthing is one big dice roll... why bother?

shouldn't need to reclaim often? But we've just been told over and over unless we reclaim often, our experiences are meaningless.

I've found reclaim to work as expected. I very rarely use it though. In fact, I don't think I've had it fail on me before, but my personal sample size would be small and I'm more likely to take chances on a low~ish quality % than risk losing everything for most crafts.

Mostly these threads crop up from confirmation bias. Many claim to have never seen anything favorable happen when the odds are low, but I think most people just ignore it or feel relief instead of excitement. I've personally managed to meld a fifth piece of materia (7%~ish) on the first try twice. I've had several others that went on for dozens and dozens of materia as well of course, but I do try to take note of all the long odds that turn out in my favor.

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Originally Posted by XiXiQ

On the server I am on, FC3 goes for.... 35k. As desynthing is one big dice roll... why bother?

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That's the thing, because a lot of people think that desynthing is one big RNG to tackle, many don't enter the market.

I started seling FC3 when it was 100k until it went down to 50k.. that was over a more than a month long period, made some decent money there..

The reason it's reaching equilibrium at 35k just proves my point, its raw cost is 35k and there's very little demand now, it's the same on Jenova, it sits around 35k now, the ship has sailed. People are just selling it at break-even point.. Truth be told though, since that doesn't count the price of lumber, clear materia and hippo leather, if you sell those things, it's pure profit. But because people don't have the exact figures, they're afraid to enter the market.

You can desynth about 1000 sandals over 2-3 hours (6m), break even with the FC3s, then sell the rest of the items for profit.. You'll still end up with over a million gil in profit.

Same deal with mastercraft and battlecraft IIIs, prices sure have dropped but there's still profit to be had there, this is the one area where veteran crafters won't re-enter the market because it is so time consuming and inefficient, many don't consider it worth while but if you're new, every little bit helps.

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Originally Posted by Kenji1134

9 80% HT's? 7 exploded.
Goods to replenish CP? Nah you're good bro!
Absolutely horrible synth demanding Reclaim? Nope that blows up too!!!

Or my personal favorite. Having to do 2 80% RS at the start of the synth... boom, Boom... Reclaim... BOOM!!!! - on an expensive synths that is "put fist through monitor" rage inducing.

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I'm still wishing we could get an achievement for Hasty Touch blowing up 8 times in a row with Steady Hand II active or even blowing up 10 HT's in 1 synth sitting with SH2 up. I'd have that achievement in a heartbeat. Just would be nice to have an achievement, don't care what it is. Call it "You Tried" and our title is a star icon. Or give us the title "the Forsaken" or something to show that we didn't have RNGesus's blessing. I'm sure everyone will have it when they start on their Master 2 books. Least it will be something to look forward too while throwing gil into the fire.

First of all, selective perception is real, I mean really real. Unless you've got real statistical data and analysis, your whining over a particular string of fails means next to nothing in regards to the actual rate of the ability.

Second, the RNG in this game really does seem weird. Statistically it is correct (meaning out of 1000 Reclaims, 900 of them will work) but this game tends to give you periods of consecutive successes and periods of consecutive fails, which further fuels the selective perception that you are failing more than the tool-tip suggests.

For example, Hasty Touch is 80% when buffed but I have had periods where I go for god knows how long without any fail. Of course, selective perception will make these "lucky" streaks go without notice by most people. When you get unlucky streaks though, you not only notice, you rage.