Significant decrease in Materials from Gathering Favors - Patch 3.07

[TechnoTechie]

I'm not sure if you understand. They are both using logic (that applies their own rules, which in case of English is grammar, etc)

In English ''Increased by'' means (and only this):

EX:
''You take something and ....increase it by.... adding something to it ''
Not the underlined part. That's the 100% (aka, the base rate)

What you are talking about is:

EX:
''You take something and ....increase it to.... something more''

Notice the difference in bolded parts? These 2 words have a different meaning.
(disclaimer: my grammar vocabulary sucks, because I never cared, so I wont use the proper grammar terms to describe them)

Factors use different phrasing. A factor of 300% is not the same as 300%.

[A factor of 300%] = [x300%] , or well I suppose [n300%]? Well, whatever.
Point is, [increased by a factor of 300%] = [100% x 300%] = [x300%] =
Whereas for the sake of argument we assume [a factor of] = 1

I'd like to see your source where "increased by" strictly means "to add" because if you say something has "increased by three times" does that mean you're adding three times to it? no, it means you multiply it by three. By the same token "increased by 300%" is quite ambiguous.
The math was never the issue here; the only thing in question is how the English translated into Math, thus a language barrier. (the true meaning of "increased by")
Perhaps you are the one who was truly confused all along?

I suppose it's a little more then basic English, so I can understand if someone is confused if they don't grasp the difference between the two.
English is only one of many languages after all.


Math however is different. Since we are all using the same system of math. It's still quite possible to fail at it (I fail at math a lot), but this kind of thing you get taught at the age of what, 10-11?

completely unnecessary.

[PirateCat]

I'd like to see your source where "increased by" strictly means "to add" because if you say something has "increased by three times" does that mean you're adding three times to it? no, it means you multiply it by three. By the same token "increased by 300%" is quite ambiguous.

"Increased by three times" is ambiguous too. Imagine that they made a less significant change and shortened the duration to 10 minutes and multiplied the spawn rate by 1.5 to compensate. You wouldn't say "increased by half" and expect people to think that the new value is half the old value. "Increased by 50%" clearly doesn't mean that either. But if "increased by 50%" doesn't mean it's been cut in half, "increased by 75%" doesn't mean it was cut to three quarters, "increased by 100%" doesn't mean it's the same amount as before, and so on, at what point does it shift such that "increased by 300%" means three times the original value?

"Increased by a factor of three", "increased to three times/300% of its previous rate", or simply "tripled" as most of the other language versions of the notes appear to say, would all be clearer ways to describe the change.

[Nomad-phx]

That one is the worst. The fact that the concealed node isnt even close to the normal mining nodes really hurts.

I've tried the other area with 60 nodes there as well, works a lot better IF you have a bored DoW/DoM to kill specific groundskeeper mobs so you don't need stealth as much, though 2 pairsvof the nodes spawn concealed nodes at about a 10-12 sec flight. For voidnuts and black swan feathers I generally get less now cause a lot of time gets wasted stealth walking between crawlers and groundskeepers for nodes where as @15 min those 2 regions had a higher yield just from having more time to compensate for mobs. All the other areas are great though.

[Roth_Trailfinder]

I'd like to see your source where "increased by" strictly means "to add" because if you say something has "increased by three times" does that mean you're adding three times to it? no, it means you multiply it by three. By the same token "increased by 300%" is quite ambiguous.
The math was never the issue here; the only thing in question is how the English translated into Math, thus a language barrier. (the true meaning of "increased by")
Perhaps you are the one who was truly confused all along?

Yes, "increased by three times" does mean that you multiply it by three. However, you left out the step that follows it, where you have to actually factor in the base amount.

If I have 4 nachos, and I increase that by three times, then I am taking those initial four, and adding to them three times their number, or 12, for a grand total of 16 nachos. Increase BY three times.

Conversely, if I increase that to three times, then it is a simple multiplication problem (4 nachos times 3 = 12 nachos).

I will agree though, that it was the Math<==> English barrier that confused things. Math is very precise. English is .. not. How often do people use a double negative to mean a single negative? How often do people say "I don't know nothin'" when they really mean that they don't know anything, or that they actually do know nothing? People don't always use words that mean exactly what they are trying to say.

The point is .. the English patch notes explicitly stated that the node increase was by 300%. That has a specific mathematical meaning. Apparently, however, the patch notes were in error, and were not intended to convey that particular meaning.

[Alistaire]

In german it is:

Die Auffindrate von versteckten Sammelstellen wurde verdreifacht.

which means: The rate is tripled. So the english one is a bit misleading.

Yup. Wikipedia definitions will never trump arbitrary boosts made by a gaming company about in-game items even in their native tongue let alone post-translation.

[Valinthor]

Thank you all for the Posts,

Since my last post I've done 60+ Favors with the following results....

On average I would gather 17-18 materials per 5 Favors with the Lowest being 13 and Highest being 22.

Looking forward to seeing your results and whether or not anyone is gathering more then pre-patch per favors.

[MeridaQ]

Thank you all for the Posts,

Since my last post I've done 60+ Favors with the following results....

On average I would gather 17-18 materials per 5 Favors with the Lowest being 13 and Highest being 22.

Looking forward to seeing your results and whether or not anyone is gathering more then pre-patch per favors.

I did 10 favors last night one set of 5 got me 20, another I got 21. The most I got was 25 for 5 favors, 3 round, 22 red ooids. That was extremely lucky though I think.

[Valinthor]

Nice haul,

I suppose I should've clarified my gathering as I only count the Hidden Materials and not the Rare, because at this point it seems 3 Crafter Tokens for only 5 Vendor mats although HQ doesn't seems worth it when you have a fairly good chance of getting HQ with just Normal Quality Crafter Vendor Mats( Purified Coke, etc )

But that is a discussion for another post.

[Aeyis]

I'd like to see your source where "increased by" strictly means "to add" because if you say something has "increased by three times" does that mean you're adding three times to it? no, it means you multiply it by three.

Uhm............
In English classes? In school? I mean this is really, really, basic (? or intermediar?) English. How exactly does one argue the rules of a language? Why would someone argue the rules of a language?

The math was never the issue here; the only thing in question is how the English translated into Math, thus a language barrier. (the true meaning of "increased by")
Perhaps you are the one who was truly confused all along?

Are sure about that? Because I don't need to use external links to prove basic math. And math was my weakest class in college.

completely unnecessary.

This entire discussion is unnecessary. But I tried to find an explaination anyway, on how it's possible that people would argue basic math or English.


Honestly, not sure what people are trying to prove by arguing this. It's not you will die from shame by realising you made an error or misunderstood a language for a moment.

The JP version 従来の3倍に引き上げられます, if I read it correctly, says the drop rate has been increased to 3 times of what it was. So if it was 10% rate before, now it is 30% rate.

This thread has me doubting my English and Japanese. :x

Originally 10.
Increased to 300% = tripled = now 30.
Increased by 300% = now 40.

Understandable! Almost has me doubting my English as well. And that's quite impressive. But it's really just as simple as you say.

[Aeyis]

I will agree though, that it was the Math<==> English barrier that confused things. Math is very precise. English is .. not.

If you write math in English you have to be very accurate with your context. As suddenly each word because a piece of a formula. They could of avoided that by either direct translation, or better phrasing in English. [Increased to 300% of the old value] [Increased by 200%] [old values x3]

Increased by ...% might sound more fancy, but there's no need for that in patchnotes, where the players just care about data.

Thank you all for the Posts,

Since my last post I've done 60+ Favors with the following results....

On average I would gather 17-18 materials per 5 Favors with the Lowest being 13 and Highest being 22.

Looking forward to seeing your results and whether or not anyone is gathering more then pre-patch per favors.

From my own results and what others posted, it seems to be (on average) the same as before.