Mass melding statictics. {You can have this}

[Vantol]

My name is Vantol Aviner and here is my story of triple melding Felt Hat of Intelligence (Blue)+1 (looks like noone visits other forums, so I'll leave this thread in "General" so more people can see it and optimize their melding).

Equipment used (people say it's irrelevant for melding, but just in case):
Head: Weaver's Gibus
Hand: Electrum Needle+1 double melded (+30 DEX) (Luminary Needle for melding in case there is some meld+ hidden stat)
Body: Felt Gown of Mind
Belt: Dodoskin Shepherd's Belt
Hands: Storm Sergeant's Shortgloves
Legs: Felt Chausses of Dexterity (Blue)+1 melded with +6 DEX
Feet: Storm Sergeant's Crakows
Earrings: Coral Earrings +1
Neck: Electrum Choker +1
Bracelets: Militia Wristlets
L.Ring: Stormbringer's Ring
R.Ring: Spinel Ring +1

Phase 1

First I gathered +1 materials for ~100 synths. With around 75% success rate (HQ% during synths was usually 40-60) I got ~75 Felt Hat +1 (didn't really count) and, as a result, 50 Felt Hat of Intelligence +1 (actually 48, but let's pretend it was 50 for smoother numbers). It's lvl 50 synth, so it's ok, I can live with that.

Phase 2

Then I bought 100 Intelligence+15 materia (it was hard to get - first I bought all available on AH then shouted in Ul'Dah for 1-2 weeks, last 25 went for 400-500k per piece).

Phase 3

Again, I waitied for the Full Moon, equiped Luminary Needle, got Master's Clothshop, drunk Mulled Tea (just in case), sacrificed chicken, went to lonely zone. First I melded 50 hats with 1 materia and started melding second materia. X-failure, O-success.

1-8:X
09: O
10: O
11: O
12: O
13: X
14: X
15: O
16: X
17: O
18: O
19: X
20: X
21: O
22: O
23: X
24: O
25: X
26-50: X

So, out of 50 hats+1 I made 9 double melds. Avarage success rate was 18% when officially it was stated as 27% (Really, SE? Really?! It's not even close mathematical error!). The point of this post is that for the first 25 hats success rate was 36% (with the peak in the middle) and for the second 25 hats success rate was 0%. The only conclusion I can make is that after a few melds success rate lowers drastically.

Phase 3

First I bought 9 Intelligence+20 materia. Then to nullify my "luck" I moved to another zone, twice changed class, logged off for 1 hour, then again changed zone. It was still Full Moon. Success rate for triple-meld was 12.35% so by that time I just wanted to blow up all those hats and be done with it. And so I started.

1: O

Aaand I sopped right there with 8 hats pending. From now on I'll do only a few melds per day. So this journey alltogether costed me 105 millions gil and month of hard work. It left me devastated and with only 56k gil in the pocket, but still, it was successfull and now I have INT+55 hat.

TLDR. Conclusion. When doing double melds it's optimal to do 10-15 in a row per day, not more, because after a few melds your chances lower drastically.

I hope this my hell trip will help you optimize melding and save you millions. Thank you.

P.S. While we are on it. If I can make 1 more triple melded hat I wish to sell it for 50 mil, which is 2 mil less than production price. It will take me 1 week more (2-3 melds per Full Moon). You can contact me in the game during GMT time.

[Zyph]

26-50: X

Wait did you really blow 25 melds in a row? Damn.

[carraway]

I'm not a statistician, but your variance seems well within expected boundaries given the relatively small sample size.

[Ryans]

I've never thought the percentages for anything in the game were accurate. I've failed two 98% HQ crafts in a row, not to mention the number of 95%+ that I've sporadically failed and I've blown up 33 double tier IV melds in a row and 20 out of 22 double tier III melds. If I recorded all my HQ crafts, I'd probably have averaged more successes in the 70-80% range than the 90+ range.

Edit: I forgot about when I went 8/9 HQ on an average of 15% HQ chance.

[Siegtaru]

Makes me want to meld even less.

[Fievel]

I'm not a statistician, but your variance seems well within expected boundaries given the relatively small sample size.

This, yes.

Vantol you clearly have no understanding of how simple math works, none of this is conclusive in any way. All that you've really shown us is that you overpaid for a bunch of items and blew all of your gil on a hat that may be obsolete in 2 weeks.

Good job!

[NoctisUmbra]

If you really wanted to see the 27% begin to show itself, you'd need a trial size in well into the thousands... possibly 10s of thousands.

Like Carraway stated before me, your result seems well inside the standard deviation. Honestly, I was worried you were going to post results that provided a higher observed % than what was given by the game... that'd lead more than a few people on a craze of getting luminaries and melding only on full moons.

Here's a fun thing worth mentioning. Early on when materias were newly introduced I had a friend of mine do most of my melds in preparation for Ifrit. All were high 10s low 20s in % and I noticed after about 10-15 double meld attempts he had done for me on various gear, my success rate with him was 80%+.

Now I could have upheld him as the Archon of Materia Melding, but instead I simply concluded that I was one lucky mother-trucker.

[Fated]

Mass melding statistics = 50 attempts?

Yeah, okay. It might be a lot for your personal pocket, but that's still not much of a sample size.

[Meatdawg]

Should of done this going for your 5 meld with the Gamblers Crown.

Wayyyyyyyyyyy cheaper and you can get a lot larger sample size.

[Alderton]

Yeah, small sample size leading to what you believe is fact. As I've had to say a bunch of times:
Correlation != Causation.