Survey question - specifically Plentiful Harvest and Alchemy surveys

Rittings · August 7

First off, let me set the scene... I have a crafter who knows all styles, all crafting is maxed out and knowledge of all traits in all disciplines are 100% complete.

I have a harvester who is level 50 in all crafting, is set to max proficiency in all disciplines, with all skill points and passives in every possible one too. Doesn't know traits, but figure that doesn't matter, because they are my sneaky and fast harvester.

My harvester has all champion points pushed into harvesting... Plentiful Harvest and Master Gatherer etc... same as my crafter.

When my harvester does any survey, I get the possibility of a double node. So, blacksmithing for instance I can harvest 18, 20, 36, 38 or 40. This is standard, of course. I'm not going to get into how Plentiful Harvest isn't 50% chance or anything, I've covered that extensively before how it's lower than 50%, but let's say for arguments sake - it's 50%.

All fine and dandy and working the same for both characters on Blacksmithing, Clothing, Jewelry and Woodworking surveys... not tested Enchanting, but I'm going to assume it might be working.... for now...

However... alchemy is different. On my crafter I have witnessed the following node pulls - 4, 6, 8 or 12 (which after googling seems normal). I found this over 20 surveys was consistent.
On my harvester... something different. 20 surveys - and I only pull 4 or 8 nodes. No 6, no 12. What is causing my harvester to have ZERO chance of pulling the 6 or 12 resources from each node? I see no other passives that would give this, and the only difference between both toons is that my crafter knows all the traits of all alchemical ingredients. Is this the difference? An unwritten buff from knowing all the traits??? or did I miss something in the achievements?

sarahthes · August 7

It's just bad RNG.

I get "streaky" results in the short term but the average over a very long period of time (hundreds of surveys) is correct.

Rittings · August 7

sarahthes wrote: »

It's just bad RNG.

I get "streaky" results in the short term but the average over a very long period of time (hundreds of surveys) is correct.

Nope... it's not. 40 surveys and only 4 and 8 pulls on the harvester now...

I tested on a different toon that knows all the traits of alchemy (that's the only difference) - and the first survey I pull a 6 and a 12...

Knowing all the traits, or having botanist is clearly affecting the amount you pull from alchemy nodes on surveys, and not a whisper of it anywhere... that's nuts!

sarahthes · August 7

Rittings wrote: »

sarahthes wrote: »

It's just bad RNG.

I get "streaky" results in the short term but the average over a very long period of time (hundreds of surveys) is correct.

Nope... it's not. 40 surveys and only 4 and 8 pulls on the harvester now...

I tested on a different toon that knows all the traits of alchemy (that's the only difference) - and the first survey I pull a 6 and a 12...

Knowing all the traits, or having botanist is clearly affecting the amount you pull from alchemy nodes on surveys, and not a whisper of it anywhere... that's nuts!

While I don't disagree that you may be on to something, 40 is not nearly a large enough sample size to draw definitive conclusions from.

DenverRalphy · August 7

sarahthes wrote: »

Rittings wrote: »

sarahthes wrote: »

It's just bad RNG.

I get "streaky" results in the short term but the average over a very long period of time (hundreds of surveys) is correct.

Nope... it's not. 40 surveys and only 4 and 8 pulls on the harvester now...

I tested on a different toon that knows all the traits of alchemy (that's the only difference) - and the first survey I pull a 6 and a 12...

Knowing all the traits, or having botanist is clearly affecting the amount you pull from alchemy nodes on surveys, and not a whisper of it anywhere... that's nuts!

While I don't disagree that you may be on to something, 40 is not nearly a large enough sample size to draw definitive conclusions from.

Keep in mind, 40 surveys would be 240 resource nodes. Pretty sure no bad steak is going to last THAT long.

LootAllTheStuff · August 7

DenverRalphy wrote: »

sarahthes wrote: »

Rittings wrote: »

sarahthes wrote: »

It's just bad RNG.

I get "streaky" results in the short term but the average over a very long period of time (hundreds of surveys) is correct.

Nope... it's not. 40 surveys and only 4 and 8 pulls on the harvester now...

I tested on a different toon that knows all the traits of alchemy (that's the only difference) - and the first survey I pull a 6 and a 12...

Knowing all the traits, or having botanist is clearly affecting the amount you pull from alchemy nodes on surveys, and not a whisper of it anywhere... that's nuts!

While I don't disagree that you may be on to something, 40 is not nearly a large enough sample size to draw definitive conclusions from.

Keep in mind, 40 surveys would be 240 resource nodes. Pretty sure no bad steak is going to last THAT long.

Unless it involves leads in West Weald or fishing mastery?

Joking aside, it does depend on what the probability actually is, but if it's close to 50% (even if it's still under a bit) I would expect 240 nodes to be a reasonable sample.

Rittings · August 7

Well, guess what... I learned all the traits on my harvester. And now I'm doing surveys and getting 4,6,8 and 12s... And it seems like the likelihood of getting a 6 (or 12) is the same as getting a 20 (or 38/40 on a blacksmith node say)... so pretty common. Almost like half the time.

Definitely agree that 240 nodes without a single instance would almost certainly be enough of a sample size to say there was something missing.

However, there's zero mention of this factor ... ANYWHERE???

virtus753 · August 9

1) Re the proc rate of Plentiful Harvest supposedly not being 50%:

In 8061 pulls of blacksmithing, clothing, jewelrycrafting, and woodworking that I've recorded since they fixed Plentiful Harvest (which, yes, used to be capped at 40% due to a bug, but has been fixed), outside of resource events, I have the following rate of drops for the base mats:

3x: 3406 (42.25%)
4x: 620 (7.69%)
6x: 2907 (36.06%)
7x: 1046 (12.98%)
8x: 82 (1.02%)

Since 3x and 4x represent no PH proc, while 6x, 7x, and 8x represent a PH proc, these are the rates for the proc from those pulls:

No PH proc: 49.94%
PH proc: 50.06%

For alchemy nodes, I have fewer pulls but the following info:

1x: 186 (49.87%)
2x: 187 (50.13%)

I'm not sure how much closer to 50% it's reasonable to expect it to get. If you have data that doesn't seem to align with this, I would very interested to see the numbers.

Note, though, that Plentiful Harvest doesn't double the whole yield of the node. It procs on a per-mat basis on eligible mats from eligible sources. It only procs when you draw one of those mats to begin with, so on average over time it doubles the amount you get, but it doesn't change the chance of getting anything in the first place.

2) Plentiful Harvest doesn't work the same way on all the things it procs on, again probably due to bugs:

Number of base mats: For BCJW non-survey nodes, you can get 3 or 4 without a PH proc, and then 6, 7, or 8 when it procs. For surveys you can get 18 or 20 without PH, and then 36, 38, or 40 when it procs.

The distribution matches what we'd expect if the game is rerolling the number again when PH procs.

But for alchemy, PH always doubles the number. That's why you can only get 4, 6, 8, or 12 (4 or 6 being no PH, as you noted, and 8 and 12 being the PH procs for those numbers, respectively). Unlike BCJW surveys, you will never get a mix and match of the two base rolls, so no 10s. Just 4 x 2 or 8 x 2, never 4 + 6 or 6 + 4.

Other things it works irregularly on:

Pulverized Titanium: PH dramatically increases - at least about doubles, according to my numbers - the normal chance of getting Pulverized Titanium x1 from a jewelry seam. It also provides a tiny chance of getting x2 from the same node, which doesn't appear to be possible without it. I believe it may be providing another independent roll at this mat rather than rolling only when it's drawn initially, as is the case for other mats.

Bait: PH works (in an unexpected way, akin to Pulverized Titanium) on bait from clothing surveys, enabling 4x bait from a single clothing node, but PH doesn't work on bait from alchemy nodes (survey or otherwise) and doesn't work on bait from non-survey clothing nodes.

No, none of this noted in PH's tooltip, which is incorrect anyhow. That's unfortunately consistent with the way many, many things in this game are not adequately explained in the game. It's also quite possible these exceptions in #2 are bugs, in which case they wouldn't be explained because they wouldn't be intended.

3) Whether Botanist achievement/trait knowledge is a factor in getting the 6x from alchemy surveys is testable on the PTS, since template characters get surveys but do not come pre-formatted with trait knowledge. The PTS is an EU copy right now, and I don't have the Botanist achievement on that server.

On my first survey I got 4x, 4x, 6x, 4x, 4x, and 6x. It's not exactly the 50%-50% split I expect over time, but it's only 6 nodes. On the PTS it's possible to get 6x without Botanist or knowing any traits on any of these reagents:

If you did indeed get only 4x and 8x for 240 pulls, then something is going on, but unless it's a bug that is coincidentally getting fixed next patch, it isn't this achievement or trait knowledge causing the issue.

ETA: I'll test if it's a bad interaction between Plentiful Harvest and Botanist/trait knowledge, but it definitely isn't the latter on its own.

Nope, got 6x and 12x with Plentiful Harvest maxed.

Rittings · August 9

Okay, so I've had several guildies test this, and had my wife test it also. Not having the Botanist achievement on a character is seemingly the factor between getting 6 and 12 pulls on alchemy nodes.

100% of all pulls without that achievement have come back as only getting 4 or 8 from an alchemy survey node... whilst having the trait on a character has resulted in lots of 6 and 12s. For sure, go test for yourself and come back and show me the results

virtus753 · August 11

Rittings wrote: »

Okay, so I've had several guildies test this, and had my wife test it also. Not having the Botanist achievement on a character is seemingly the factor between getting 6 and 12 pulls on alchemy nodes.

100% of all pulls without that achievement have come back as only getting 4 or 8 from an alchemy survey node... whilst having the trait on a character has resulted in lots of 6 and 12s. For sure, go test for yourself and come back and show me the results

You can't have the Botanist achievement on a character. It's account wide, so your whole account has it or is missing it. You proved this achievement was not a factor when you noted that you had two different characters on the same account experience different things with 4 vs 6. The testing on the PTS confirmed that.

Trait knowledge is also not a factor, as shown in the screenshots I posted above from the PTS.

In further testing, the issue is reproducible on the PTS, but not with either of the parameters you identified.

On a fresh template character without any alchemy trait knowledge (and without Botanist on the account, as shown), I got 6s and 12s no problem. That character by nature has level 50 in alchemy and came with all the alchemy passives filled. I tested it as such.

When I passed alchemy surveys to my level 6 character, who had never unlocked Alchemy at all, they only got 4s for 3 surveys in a row.

So there is something that seems to unlock the ability impact the chance to get 6, but trait knowledge and Botanist are not it.

I will continue to test to see if I can figure out what the unlock is.

Update: Back on the template character I used to test, on whom I got 6x and 12x no problem in my previous post, I removed all the alchemy passives (except 1/8 in proficiency, which cannot be removed).

Three surveys, all 4x and 8x.

Something in the alchemy skill point passives seems to be affecting the drop rate for 6x/12x.

Update 2: Maxing all the passives except the first (Proficiency), I still got only 4x and 8x from three surveys.

Update 3: At 7/8 Proficiency, I was able to draw 6x and 12x, but the rate may well be lower than at 8/8 Proficiency. Three surveys resulted in only 3 of 18 nodes producing 6x or 12x.

Based on this, I'm thinking that the drop chance of 6x/12x may increase with skill points invested in Solvent Proficiency, until it reaches the equal chances between 4x/8x and 6x/12x at 8/8 in Proficiency. It will take further testing to know better.

At 60 nodes (10 surveys) with 7/8 Proficiency, I have gotten 6x or 12x on only 12 of those pulls (20%). (ETA: 22 of 102 nodes now, or 21.6%.) That's too low a number to know for sure what the actual drop chance is, but it does at least seem it's lower than the 50% chance at 8/8 Proficiency.

virtus753 · August 11

This seems to be alchemy's equivalent for how you get higher amounts of mats from survey nodes of higher tiers when it comes to other crafts:

Lower tier nodes (e.g. iron [1/10] and pewter [1/10]) give 12, 14, or 16 without Plentiful Harvest.
Middle tiers (e.g. nightwood [9/10], ebonthread [5/10], and electrum [4/5]) give 16 or 18 without PH.
Nodes of the highest tier (rubedite [10/10], ruby ash [10/10], platinum [5/5]) give 18 or 20 without PH.

(Furrier's traps have their own quantities, as there's only two of those nodes per survey, but the pattern appears here as well.)

The tier of those nodes depends on whether the node rolls for being based on the character's level or the character's rank in the respective passive. Increasing the rank in the respective passive increases the tier - and therefore the potential quantities dropped by the node - for the spawns that are based on rank.

Alchemy nodes don't have tiers like BCJW nodes do, so instead it seems the chances of dropping the higher of the two potential quantities (6x rather than 4x) scales with the character's rank in Solvent Proficiency.

Nestor · August 12

Whether or not you can get Botanist on an individual character or not is moot.

However knowing all the traits for every reagent, base game and dlc, does trigger higher multiples for Alchemy Surveys. Lazy Learner Addon helps with this. Not sure if it matters, but I run through the solvents too.

barney2525 · August 12

I'm missing something.

The character can harvest how many Thousands of Mats in an hour?

And the complaint is that it's not enough ?

virtus753 · August 12

Nestor wrote: »

Whether or not you can get Botanist on an individual character or not is moot.

However knowing all the traits for every reagent, base game and dlc, does trigger higher multiples for Alchemy Surveys. Lazy Learner Addon helps with this. Not sure if it matters, but I run through the solvents too.

On live I took my survey character and reduced his Solvent Proficiency to 1/8. He knows all the traits for all reagents, including DLC. In 17 surveys (102 nodes), I got 6s on none of them (0%), despite having full trait knowledge.

On PTS I used the same template character from above with 8/8 Solvent Proficiency but no trait knowledge for any reagents and did 17 surveys on that character. I got 6s from 58 of 102 nodes (56.7%).

While that's not enough to rule out trait knowledge having any impact at all on the drop chance for 6s, its impact (if it exists) seems to be negligible compared to the impact of maxing Solvent Proficiency.

What trait knowledge definitely does increase is drop rates for master writs. Tmbrinks has tested that and published the results for each craft. (It may be Botanist and the other achievements that matter here for alchemy rather than trait knowledge per se.)

Rittings · August 14

virtus753 wrote: »

Nestor wrote: »

Whether or not you can get Botanist on an individual character or not is moot.

However knowing all the traits for every reagent, base game and dlc, does trigger higher multiples for Alchemy Surveys. Lazy Learner Addon helps with this. Not sure if it matters, but I run through the solvents too.

On live I took my survey character and reduced his Solvent Proficiency to 1/8. He knows all the traits for all reagents, including DLC. In 17 surveys (102 nodes), I got 6s on none of them (0%), despite having full trait knowledge.

On PTS I used the same template character from above with 8/8 Solvent Proficiency but no trait knowledge for any reagents and did 17 surveys on that character. I got 6s from 58 of 102 nodes (56.7%).

While that's not enough to rule out trait knowledge having any impact at all on the drop chance for 6s, its impact (if it exists) seems to be negligible compared to the impact of maxing Solvent Proficiency.

What trait knowledge definitely does increase is drop rates for master writs. Tmbrinks has tested that and published the results for each craft. (It may be Botanist and the other achievements that matter here for alchemy rather than trait knowledge per se.)

I have now tested on 4 accounts with 8/8 vs Trait Knowledge (botanist achievement).

After doing 20 surveys on each account, equally 80 surveys (480 nodes)... 160 with 8/8 no traits, 160 with 1/8 full traits, 160 8/8 full traits and 160 1/8 no traits...

320 = all 4s and 8s and no 6s.or 12s
160 - quite a lot of 6s n 12s...

the 8/8 with botanist was the winner...

virtus753 · August 14

Rittings wrote: »

virtus753 wrote: »

Nestor wrote: »

Whether or not you can get Botanist on an individual character or not is moot.

However knowing all the traits for every reagent, base game and dlc, does trigger higher multiples for Alchemy Surveys. Lazy Learner Addon helps with this. Not sure if it matters, but I run through the solvents too.

On live I took my survey character and reduced his Solvent Proficiency to 1/8. He knows all the traits for all reagents, including DLC. In 17 surveys (102 nodes), I got 6s on none of them (0%), despite having full trait knowledge.

On PTS I used the same template character from above with 8/8 Solvent Proficiency but no trait knowledge for any reagents and did 17 surveys on that character. I got 6s from 58 of 102 nodes (56.7%).

While that's not enough to rule out trait knowledge having any impact at all on the drop chance for 6s, its impact (if it exists) seems to be negligible compared to the impact of maxing Solvent Proficiency.

What trait knowledge definitely does increase is drop rates for master writs. Tmbrinks has tested that and published the results for each craft. (It may be Botanist and the other achievements that matter here for alchemy rather than trait knowledge per se.)

I have now tested on 4 accounts with 8/8 vs Trait Knowledge (botanist achievement).

After doing 20 surveys on each account, equally 80 surveys (480 nodes)... 160 with 8/8 no traits, 160 with 1/8 full traits, 160 8/8 full traits and 160 1/8 no traits...

320 = all 4s and 8s and no 6s.or 12s
160 - quite a lot of 6s n 12s...

the 8/8 with botanist was the winner...

Thank you for testing further!

Could you please post each test and its result clearly, i.e. list each test separately with its parameters and the resulting numbers of 6/12s drawn out of total pulls? The figures given do not add up as described. There seems to be a result missing.

freespirit · August 14

I've been following this thread with a certain amount of curiosity but it only struck me earlier that one of my survey gatherers might actually not know all the traits of all of the plants/mushrooms, so I checked.

She only knows four traits on four plants/mushrooms, three traits, two traits. one trait on some and no traits at all on eleven. She has 8/8 and all other passives except for snakeblood fully unlocked.

So I did a few surveys with her just out of interest, the first one I got only 4 from 5 nodes but the 6th node gave me 12. After that every survey gave me at least one or two 6 and 12's, one gave me only 6 and 12's.

My sample size was tiny in comparison to you guys but I can definitely say you do not need all traits unlocked to get 6 and 12's to drop.

I had never actually checked her knowledge before which tells me that I have always received 6 and 12's when gathering with her because I would certainly have stopped using her or maxed her knowledge if I had not!

virtus753 · August 15

freespirit wrote: »

I've been following this thread with a certain amount of curiosity but it only struck me earlier that one of my survey gatherers might actually not know all the traits of all of the plants/mushrooms, so I checked.

She only knows four traits on four plants/mushrooms, three traits, two traits. one trait on some and no traits at all on eleven. She has 8/8 and all other passives except for snakeblood fully unlocked.

So I did a few surveys with her just out of interest, the first one I got only 4 from 5 nodes but the 6th node gave me 12. After that every survey gave me at least one or two 6 and 12's, one gave me only 6 and 12's.

My sample size was tiny in comparison to you guys but I can definitely say you do not need all traits unlocked to get 6 and 12's to drop.

I had never actually checked her knowledge before which tells me that I have always received 6 and 12's when gathering with her because I would certainly have stopped using her or maxed her knowledge if I had not!

Thanks for your interest and contributing your results!

I am grateful for Rittings to starting this thread, as I had not ever encountered a situation in which I only got 4s/8s from a survey. I had never done an alchemy survey without a maxed character (both passives and trait knowledge), so this has been interesting to me as well.

Before the thread was started, I had collected some data on live using a character with full trait knowledge and 8/8 Solvent Proficiency. The character had Plentiful Harvest maxed, and these pulls were collected after PH was fixed. In 264 alchemy survey nodes, I have: 68 4s, 66 6s, 64 8s, and 66 12s. Plentiful Harvest procced 49.24% of the time, and the split between 4s/8s and 6s/12s was exactly 50%. The actual chance of getting a 6 could well be 50%, but it could be somewhat more or less. We should have a 95% certainty that the actual chance is between 44 and 56%. (Statisticians, please correct me if I've misunderstood this.) We'd need larger sample sizes to narrow this down further.

My first test on the PTS with no trait knowledge at 8/8 Solvent Proficiency gave 58 6s in 102 pulls (57%). To see what value it approaches with more pulls, I've been doing more surveys with no trait knowledge. As of now I'm at 171 6s in 324 pulls (52.8%) for 8/8 proficiency and no knowledge, so it's moved closer to my drop rate with full trait knowledge. We should be 95% certain that the actual chance is between 47.3% and 58.2%, which overlaps substantially with the range for 8/8 proficiency with full trait knowledge.

So my results are currently:

Live (NA), 8/8 proficiency, full trait knowledge: 132 6s from 264 nodes (50%) [chance: 44-56%]
Live (NA), 7/8 proficiency, full trait knowledge: 22 6s from 102 nodes (21.57%) [chance: 13.6-29.6%]
Live (NA), 1/8 proficiency, full trait knowledge: 0 6s from 102 nodes (0%) [chance: < 3%*]
PTS (EU), 8/8 proficiency, no trait knowledge: 171 6s from 324 pulls (52.8%) [chance: 47.3-58.2%]
PTS (EU), 1/8 proficiency, no trait knowledge: 0 6s from 102 nodes (0%) [chance: < 3%*]

*Rule of three: 3/102 = 2.94%

When we look for the effect of trait knowledge, there's not enough of a difference in these results to know whether it's doing nothing, increasing the chances, or even decreasing the chances. (I don't expect that last to be the case, but stranger things have certainly happened in this game.) These results do show that its impact, if non-zero, is very low compared to that of changing proficiency. I'll see if I can fit in a few more surveys before the start of the academic year, especially to fill out those 1/8 scenarios.

Rittings · August 15

What's really odd is this morning I decided I would video a controlled experiment using the same survey in Rivenspire... I started with my 8/8 full trait and got expected results... then I jumped to my 8/8 no trait... and got 6s and 12s.... is this a quantum mechanics effect called the "observer effect" that I studied? haha.

MGRza · August 15

DenverRalphy wrote: »

sarahthes wrote: »

Rittings wrote: »

sarahthes wrote: »

It's just bad RNG.

I get "streaky" results in the short term but the average over a very long period of time (hundreds of surveys) is correct.

Nope... it's not. 40 surveys and only 4 and 8 pulls on the harvester now...

I tested on a different toon that knows all the traits of alchemy (that's the only difference) - and the first survey I pull a 6 and a 12...

Knowing all the traits, or having botanist is clearly affecting the amount you pull from alchemy nodes on surveys, and not a whisper of it anywhere... that's nuts!

While I don't disagree that you may be on to something, 40 is not nearly a large enough sample size to draw definitive conclusions from.

Keep in mind, 40 surveys would be 240 resource nodes. Pretty sure no bad steak is going to last THAT long.

Thats true, but then again, RNG can be terrible

virtus753 · August 15

Rittings wrote: »

What's really odd is this morning I decided I would video a controlled experiment using the same survey in Rivenspire... I started with my 8/8 full trait and got expected results... then I jumped to my 8/8 no trait... and got 6s and 12s.... is this a quantum mechanics effect called the "observer effect" that I studied? haha.

I know that feeling XD Appreciate you checking on this.