Significant decrease in Materials from Gathering Favors - Patch 3.07

[Grieve]

Just going to toss my Favor results in here. I did 60 favors over the past week and here's what I got. (Excluding the Hidden mats.) I also pre-prepped 4 nodes before starting each one.

Trader's Favor (Coerthas Western Highlands) - 20 favors - 80 Red Ooids
Trader's Favor (Dravanian Forelands) - 10 favors - 44 Green Ooids
Matron's Favor (The Churning Mists) - 20 favors - 83 Wyvern Warts
Matron's Favor (Sea of Clouds) - 10 favors - 40 Void Nuts

[MeridaQ]

Just going to toss my Favor results in here. I did 60 favors over the past week and here's what I got. (Excluding the Hidden mats.) I also pre-prepped 4 nodes before starting each one.

Trader's Favor (Coerthas Western Highlands) - 20 favors - 80 Red Ooids
Trader's Favor (Dravanian Forelands) - 10 favors - 44 Green Ooids
Matron's Favor (The Churning Mists) - 20 favors - 83 Wyvern Warts
Matron's Favor (Sea of Clouds) - 10 favors - 40 Void Nuts

So that seems like 20 per 5 favors is the average.

My results so far:

5 favors - 22 red ooids
5 favors - 19 green ooids
5 favors - 21 bladeleaf
5 favors - 22 yellow ooids

Not counting hidden which I average about two per favor set. I will update as I do more. Maybe we can add which nodes seem to work best per favor zone? I will have to try more spots, I will let you know.

[StouterTaru]

The English words themselves are basic, yes, but if you had actually attended college as you had stated you did in an earlier post, I'd expect you not to ignore a reference, and the point of even having them. In said reference, even people with advanced degrees in math agree that the particular phrase used is ambiguous with respect to Math, and should be avoided at all costs because of the duality of the meaning when you start trying to interpret them into Mathematical terms.

Your first reference talks about people misusing similar phrasing. Does it change the meaning of the phrase? You can argue that it becomes slang, and becomes an accepted alternative. The word forte is often mispronounced as having two syllables, and you will see it noted in most dictionaries that it has become an accepted alternative pronunciation for the word. However, that is not the case for "Increased By." It literally means what it literally means.

Your 2nd reference shows it used properly, and describes exactly what it means. I'm not sure why you linked it.

[Roth_Trailfinder]

''to'' and ''by'' mean different things. It is that simple. This is basic English. My earlier argument was not an insult as apparently it seems to be taken. This level of English is just that basic.


''you fill a glass to full''
''you fill a glass by filling it with water''
The different meaning of ''to'' and ''by'' can be infered by the different use of grammar in the two sentences.



''The yield of Favor items has been increased to 300% of the old value''
And everything after ''to 300%'' isn't even needed either.

omitting the part after the "to 300%" is exactly what would make it ambiguous.

Actually, no.

The word "to" tells you everything you need to know. Just as the word "by" tells you everything you need to know. However, they are not synonymous (that some think they are happens to be the unstated gist of the arguments in this thread).

To - the old value is discarded, and this new value is used in its place. The amount of adjustment is not specified.
By - the old value is adjusted by this amount, to a new, unspecified total.

Either way, you have to do the math to see what was not told.

[Aeyis]

The English words themselves are basic, yes, but if you had actually attended college as you had stated you did in an earlier post, I'd expect you not to ignore a reference, and the point of even having them. In said reference, even people with advanced degrees in math agree that the particular phrase used is ambiguous with respect to Math, and should be avoided at all costs because of the duality of the meaning when you start trying to interpret them into Mathematical terms.

I completely ignore the reference, because then I would have to explain either a) why the reference is correct but it does not support your argument, or b) why the reference is wrong.

I'm actually arguing on the basis of a) already, which is assuming that the reference is correct but you simply misunderstand it. That you need to use a reference at all seems to indicate you don't understand how this math works on your own accord.
Also, in science one doesnt typically use references for math, unless it's a rarely used formula or you omit parts of the equation.

advanced degrees in math agree

I failed my own advanced degress in math. That said, this is basic math, not advanced, nor scholarschip level. Having a reference by a math major doesnt make any arguments in regards to this any more valid.

omitting the part after the "to 300%" is exactly what would make it ambiguous.

As Roth explained. 'to 300%' means you replace the old value with the new one. 'by 300%' means you add 300% to the old value.

Perhaps you don't understand basic English if you don't know when you are effectively calling someone an idiot or a child by saying that their education amounts to no less than what children are taught in their first years of English or Math. I suggest you go and review, and English is my first language, thank you very much.

I don't understand whether this particular part of English is considerate intermediate or basic. I'm a bit biased due to having learnt the language at an early age. That said. The math we discussed is truly taught to children around the age of 11-12 from I'm from.
Literally the first thing they learn is adding and multiplying. % I don't recall when it's taught, but the error made by some in this thread is not one of %'s anyway, it's the difference between adding and replacing.

you are effectively calling someone an idiot or a child by saying that their education amounts to no less than what children are taught in their first years of English or Math.

None of the words I used explicitely say that. But that does not change the fact that the math is incredibly basic, and the English not very advanced either. If as you say, you speak English natively, then I would think you know that both of this is true.

Making mistakes, no matter how basic they are; does not make one an idiot. Or uneducated.
Insisting you made no mistake however, well.. I will leave that up to debate.

[Alexiell]

I cant believe we are still discussing percentages ^^. To my understanding "increased by x" always means x was added to the original value. None of the sources that have been posted here says otherwise (if im wrong please quote the exact part). The ambiguity some people talked about comes from the difference between percentage and percentage points. For example if our current market board tax rate was 10% and they said "increased the market board tax rate by 5%" it could mean that the new tax rate is 15% (added 5 percentage points) or 10,5% (added 5% of the original 10%). In this case it would be pretty obvious that they mean 15% (pecentage points added) but in the case of our favors, the old spawn rate which was about 10% for each depleted node was increased to 300% (by 200%) of those 10% (10% -> 30%) and definitely not by 200 percentage points (10% -> 210%). So thats where our wording can be ambiguous.

[randysquirrel]

Please take these stupid posts about whether it is an increase TO 300% or BY 300%. I think we all understand they are different things, it would appear that the case is that it's increased TO 300%, but was mistranslated, but ultimately, who cares.

To get back on topic, I completed this week's favors, 9 sets of 5, and for each 5-set I came out around 20 mats, just as I did pre-patch. No real noticeable difference.

Rare mats, as before, are very hit and miss, sometimes I'd get three, other times none at all. Again though, it was like this before

[BonzaiFerroni]

I'm going to ask SE to change the name of this forum to Items, Synthesis, Gathering, and Communicating Percentage Change ;D

[dspguy]

Honestly, all this talk about "what does 300% increase mean" is sort of pointless. It can mean whatever you think it means, but the proof is in the pudding. Seems like most posters are reporting 4 mats per favor. And that's all that matters. If I recall, I was getting about 4 per favor before the patch as well.

However, they didn't actually address the problem. Gatherers spend their time getting red scrips for their token-exchanged gear. Crafters spend their time gathering favor mats themselves since gatherers aren't doing it since the only thing crafters have to offer gatherers are useless OH tools.

Put crafter-made gatherer gear (10 iLvl lower, but meldable) and gatherers will start posting more favor materials. And then there will be an actual viable economy with this ridiculous scrip token concept SE forced on us.

[StouterTaru]

Honestly, all this talk about "what does 300% increase mean" is sort of pointless. It can mean whatever you think it means, but the proof is in the pudding. Seems like most posters are reporting 4 mats per favor. And that's all that matters. If I recall, I was getting about 4 per favor before the patch as well.

But how many nodes were you clearing in 15 minutes, vs how many in 5 minutes?

The 4 concealed nodes take a much larger portion of your time in 5 minutes. Starting next to two nodes, pre-striking 4 nodes, and being able to hit one after the buff has worn removes a larger portion of your downtime, so that makes up for some of it. In the end it's 12+ nodes in 5 minutes vs 40+ in 15 minutes, which is why I thought increased by 300% would make sense for 1/3 the duration.