RHGesus

[MagicAura]

I understand randomness just fine, that's the thing, by definition ALL pseudorandom number generators are flawed, most in games are critically flawed. It's been tested.
Confirmation bias works both ways. The trick is to count, not "feel" how you are doing.
It's easier to check with gathering nodes, you get an actual % and you just count how many you get.
2 times I was collecting HQ stuff from trees or bushes, with ~25% chance for HQ, by the I got 10, I had 150 of the NQ. Both times.
I don't know what the drop rate for stuff off "sheep" is, but 6-7 runs through the little flock outside town has yielded exactly zero drop of any kind.
...Okay, just looked on a site that says Ornery Karakul is supposed to drop 40% for fleece and a leather at a lower rate.
I know fanbois hate criticism, of any kind, of their fixation, but I assumed most grownups understood that game RNG is always bad, sometimes worse than others. WoW and EQ were literally famous for it.
It isn't random, the more "streakyness" a pseudorandom algorithm, the worse it feels to those getting bad rolls.
People actually study this kind of thing, write papers on it. I don't think any particular game has been mentioned, but I haven't read that stuff in a few years.

I was not really looking for an in depth discussion of probability, I was just bitter about yet another bar to progressing crafting by making me harvest from an extremely small population of critters that never drop anything. Possibly getting a tip on how to proceed, since killing doesn't seem to work... may have to look into using a retainer for that.

I will ignore the whole "fanboi" (I am a fangirl btw) attempt to offend, it takes way more than that to push my buttons. I will also ignore your flawed generalisation "every pseudorandom algorithm is crap" as nonsense and not worth debating over because you clearly have no idea what you're on about. But since you want tips here's one for you:

At some point in the not too distant past I farmed fleece from those Karakuls. I used a level 80 dancer for instakills, I was farming around 2 hours, it was just outside the south gate of Camp Dragonhead. I managed to gather around 200 fleece from that.

Please note: Instakills, I optimised my path so I didn't have to wait for respawn, 200 fleece. I leave you to think how many Karakuls were downed. Whatever any website says about chance of dropping it's conjecture rather than official numbers. Hope this helps.

I will still suggest patience and a bit less attitude when replying.

Edit: Also consider that when Karakul drops fleece, it may drop one or it may drop more than 1 up to 7 or 9. I'd say the chance of getting fleece is pretty low. Otherwise I'd not be there for 2 hours as I was farming for my own use.

[Liam_Harper]

This is exactly how rng works.

Random does not mean you get a predictable pattern across a small sample size. Nor does it mean 97% is guaranteed to succeed or 1% is guaranteed to fail. It means random. You can predict the most likely outcome over time, but it's never guaranteed. You could get nothing from a 50% chance ten times in a row or succeed a 10% chance ten times in a row.

[MagicAura]

This is exactly how rng works.

Random does not mean you get a predictable pattern across a small sample size. Nor does it mean 97% is guaranteed to succeed or 1% is guaranteed to fail. It means random. You can predict the most likely outcome over time, but it's never guaranteed. You could get nothing from a 50% chance ten times in a row or succeed a 10% chance ten times in a row.

And the only way to notice those is to gather a lot more than 10. Way more. The larger the sample, the closer it will get to the specified percentages. And by large I mean very large. In my time gathering various things, I've seen all the things Liam mentions and more. My advice? Don't take the percentage as gospel, be patient, be prepared to spend some time gathering. As simple as that.