What is wrong with reclaim?

[XiXiQ]

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.

[Darra]

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).

[scarebearz]

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

[LineageRazor]

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. :/

[StouterTaru]

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.

[XiXiQ]

then you are doing something horribly wrong at crafting.

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.

[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.

[LineageRazor]

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

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.

[Duuude007]

"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.

[XiXiQ]

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.

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