From my experience, putting points into the 9/9 level of a craft for hireling loot tends to raise the base crafting material results for the weapon/armor crafts like blacksmithing, clothing, and woodworking. The hireling seems to yield around 5 of the material (determined via the 9/9 in the craft) if you're 3/3 in the hireling.

For provisioning in particular, I have noticed no real improvements with provisioning materials except the quantity if I put any points into the prov passives other than hireling 3/3.

Enchanting seems competely RNG with aspect rune results. The potency rune can be controlled by putting points into potency improvement though.

sorry for my newbness... but what is the acronym RNG?

AlexDougherty wrote: »

neueregel wrote: »

sorry for my newbness... but what is the acronym RNG?

Random Number Generator, it's an old fashioned term meaning it's randomly generated.

Even further discussion. Loot or items are usually put in a list. Different levels can have different lists. Say you have 20 items in the list, then the RNG is used to figure out which of the 20 things is given as loot. It could be the 4th one time, the 17th the next etc. This can make it so that all items on the list have an equal chance of being handed out as loot.

In this game, some things are more rare than others as loot. So either a RNG is used to choose which list to pull from, then another RNG for the item in the list. Or, more likely, the list itself has something like 80 Ta's 10 Jejota's, 6 Denta's, 3 Rekuta's and 1 Kuta in it. Then the random RNG has less of a chance of picking the better aspect stones.

Hi Sideline. The last comment I made "There are many items that I loot, that I don't get from the hirelings." I was referring to provision items that we get from barrels and other containers in the world. It seems there are many that you get in these containers, that I have never seen come from the hirelings. For instance, tangerines, bear products, and others. From my experience, the provisioning hirelings only have maybe 15 profiles that include the mats they send me. Many of the items I get in containers, I don't get from the hirelings. I hope that more clearly explains that sentence.

Nestor wrote: »

neueregel wrote: »

Many of the items I get in containers, I don't get from the hirelings. I hope that more clearly explains that sentence.

I have a character with Prov at 50. I had respecced all the points out at one time to make him a better fighter while leveling. So, recently I added in the 3 points for just the Hireling, no other points in Provisioning.

For the last week and half, how long I have had the points for the hirelings, the only things the hirelings have sent me are things I can get from in world containers.

I have 8 players. 1 is my main, the other 7 are alts that carry things, and get hireling mats. All 8 have 3/3 in hirelings so I get these items twice a day on all players when I have time to do so. I have had this configuration for about 4 months now. That said, I have had a lot of time and emails from hirelings to see that I get all the same items from each player (I think ;P, hence the post...), including my main player who has all skills maxed in provision, and has so since about early May. I say this to reference your comment above about the change you made. All my alts, up until last night, only had hirelings at 3/3. No other skill points were added to the provisioning skill tree, which aligns to your recent change. I always receive pepper, oats and tomatoes with these 7 alts. So much so that I have almost two stacks of Pepper. I used to sell the pepper, but I am saving it in case I get that recipe. I am constantly making my two VR5 food recipes with oats and tomatoes as well, so I know I get tons of these two items from all 8 of my players also.

What I did yesterday after reading some of the comments was add 2 skill points to recipe improvement and 3 to the other... or vice versa... dont remember the order... Basically the top skill I added 2 so it has 3/# and the one under that, I have 4/6. I only did this for one alt. I want to see if there is a difference over the next week or so from what I receive from his hirelings, compared to the other 6 alts. I suppose I could have just examined more of what my main player was getting, verses the other 7... but he is maxed in all skills.... and I wanted a better comparison. I dont want to have to max all the provisioning skills for these 7 alts.

I hope that reassures you that you still should get rare items just adding skill points to the hirelings, because I have for months now in this configuration. I am just hoping that adding more to the others may increase the amounts I receive, or get other items I haven't been paying attention to that I only am getting on my main player...

Nestor wrote: »

neueregel wrote: »

I hope that reassures you that you still should get rare items just adding skill points to the hirelings, because I have for months now in this configuration. I am just hoping that adding more to the others may increase the amounts I receive, or get other items I haven't been paying attention to that I only am getting on my main player...

I figured I would just make the Consumate recipe that uses dropped items and not worry about the tomatoes and oats. I am not sure if I am going to keep the provisioning hirelings going, but I will keep them up for a while just to see what I get.

I have seen a change just from giving my Alts who have the hirelings some levels in the crafting. And not all of the lines either. I have 4 Mules, each with 3 Hirelings at L1 for WW, Cloth, and BS. Had them for about two months now. Out of those 12 emails I would get 2 to 4 of tempers a day, mostly racials and low end materials. About what I expected.

However, this weekend, I decided to give the mules some love, so one is deconning Wood, one for Cloth and one for BS. I am not doing any other deconning at the moment. They only decon Intricate and White items, so only have them at L4/5 in one crafting skill each. Since I started doing this, I have noticed a higher amount of tempers in the emails. Just yesterday, 10 out of the 12 emails for the Mules had a Temper in it. This is not enough evidence to state any trend, as the RNG could just be nice to me this week.

Either way, more tempers are always a good thing.

Are you saying that you added skill points to the decon skill for these mules? And in addition to that, you are actually deconing items? I am not sure the game would take into account if you actually decon items, or just have the skill points assigned. If that was the case, then I should be making food and drinks to get better provisioning items. But who knows!

Just a comment on the last couple days having made the changes I described. I used to just start on my bottom alt and work to the top one when getting my hireling emails. Not actually opening the messages and extracting the items until my last alt. I decided to look more closely at what each alt is getting. Including the one I added skill points to for recipe improvement and quality. In the last two days, I do not see any indication that adding these skill points made any difference. I actually got the same mats this morning on this player, that I did on another alt that didnt have the skill points added. I will look at this for the next couple days and determine if this is even necessary for provisioning at least...

I am also looking at what someone else said above about enchanting, and aspects from hirelings. I know I have received Kuta in the past, but gathering them like I did, I am not sure if that all came from my main, who is maxed in enchanting. So I am now paying attention to what the alts are getting from this hireling, and my main. I have also added skill points to one of the alts aspect skill so that it is at 4/4. I will see if both he and my main get different aspect runes than the others.

neueregel wrote: »

Are you saying that you added skill points to the decon skill for these mules? And in addition to that, you are actually deconing items? I am not sure the game would take into account if you actually decon items, or just have the skill points assigned. If that was the case, then I should be making food and drinks to get better provisioning items. But who knows!

The only deconning they are doing are the Ornate White items my VR ranked characters find. Nice to watch the skill bar shoot up 1/3 of the bar on each decon at these low levels. I won't give them Green or above as my main crafters are fully skilled in Extraction, and I get excellent returns from deconning with them.

The Mules only have the 3 points the game gives you once you are placed in the world. I have one point each in the 3 main Hirelings.

Well, last night screwed my initial thoughts up entirely. My first two mules were giving me Blue and Purple Mats, one Gold too. Then the second two, who had higher crafting skills from deconning gave me trash (basic mats, racials and traits). So, it all comes down to RNG.

However since about a month into the game, I have had these 4 mules sitting in the first town in front of the bank doing nothing but being storage mules (and having the hirelings). It was only this week they went anywhere but the bank interior or the steps outside. I have enough mats to make an entire set of Legendary gear in Cloth, Leather and Metal. Even though I doubt I will ever make a full set of the stuff Legendary. I upped a staff from Blue to Legendary and it did not seem to make that much of a difference in damage output, so not sold on going above Blue for most things.

neueregel wrote: »

sorry for my newbness... but what is the acronym RNG?

RNG is the short term for the little gremlin in the machine that psychically determines the thing or event you most want to have or to happen, then gives you the exact opposite. It goes by many names (found in every spoken language known to man), all of them sure to be censored on most forums.... so we use RNG as a placeholder.