Specific Surveys Not Dropping For Days In A Row

snailbrick · August 6

I do daily crafting writs on 18 characters and have noticed in the last two weeks I've not been getting as many Clothier or Jewelry surveys. I didn't get a single Clothier survey for 3 days in a row, then I got 5 or 6 to drop, but now my jewelry surveys have been non existent in the last 2 to 3 days. I haven't had any issues with Blacksmith, Enchanter, and Woodworker surveys.

Is this just bad luck on the drop rate? I can barely keep enough supplies for Ancestor Silk and Platinum Ounces to do the dailies on 18 characters to begin with. Then if the surveys stop dropping, I'm completely hosed on supplies.

DenverRalphy · August 6

Just the nature of RNG. This past weekend when harvesting all my surveys I had a distinct lack of Blacksmith surveys. I run surveys every other weekend, and they're usually evenly distributed across the BCWJ surveys. I haven't bothered with A and E surveys in ages so I just guild trader those whenever my stacks grow past 200.

allochthons · August 6

I haven't noticed a difference in clothier surveys, but I used to be able to keep well ahead of all my alts crafting Jewelry on level 5, but I've been running out of platinum much more frequently lately. I'm buying it at guild traders for the first time in years. That makes me think jewelry aren't dropping at nearly the rate they were.

But I haven't kept any data. Just one example.

MidnightDuel · August 6

Hadn't really noticed any changes to the drop rates, but then I really only look at the surveys when I need mats. I'm about to do my dailies and this is where I'm starting:

I'll give an update when I'm done with writs on seven characters.

LootAllTheStuff · August 6

Ironically, this morning I got two surveys when I usually only see one or none. They were (given the OP) for jewellery and clothing resources...

RNG at it's finest!

snailbrick · August 6

I figured it's RNG, but its very strange that this hasn't happened to me before. Normally out of 18 characters I will at least drop 1 Jewelry or Clothier survey, and typically I'll get 2 surveys of Jewelry and Clothier. It's just strange when it goes 3 to 4 days in a row without dropping a single one.

I remember once they screwed up the Jewelry survey drops and they didn't drop for a week or more. After that happened, I guess I became skeptical every time I hit a bad 3 or 4 day streak of no surveys.

MidnightDuel · August 6

After doing a double set of daily writs on seven characters, I received 12 surveys, including three (3) Jewelry and one (1) Clothier. Excluding provisioning dailies, that's 1 survey for every 7 writs (1:7 or 14% drop rate). Despite the small sample size, crafting surveys appear to be dropping as normal for me.

Here are the results:

Note: To save time with inventory management, I will pick-up writs one day but not complete them until the following day, when I can pick up a second set to do. Then I only have to deal with the bank, deconstruction, etc. once every-other-day.

MidnightDuel · August 6

Just to add (since I cannot edit previous posts), here's what surveys I've received from daily writs since the NA Character Copy for the PTS:

18 Alchemist
14 Blacksmith
18 Clothier
6 Enchanter
15 Jewelry Crafter
15 Woodworker

So with the exception of Enchanting, the drops seem pretty consistent across the other crafting disciplines.

tmbrinks · August 6

While I haven't done as many writs this patch... my continued tracking has not noticed anything that would indicate that the drop rate has changed at a statistically significant level.. (link in signature to the spreadsheet of data I've been tracking for years)

snailbrick · August 6

No jewelry surveys dropped on 18 characters again today. I guess its just bad luck RNG. Just seems so unlikely statistically to hit a string of 3 days in a row without a single jewelry survey.

I just looked at the chance of this happening statistically speaking if you use a community "standard" 12% or 1 in 8 chance of survey drop rate. Also my personal stats for clothier are 1 in 8.65 and jewelry 1 in 8.46 on over 8000 writs. To go 3 days without a single jewelry survey drop is roughly 1 in 995 or 0.1005%.

It just seems unfathomable this not only occurred with jewelry surveys, but also with clothier surveys exactly 3 days before that.

If they are looking for quality of life ideas, the entire survey/mats system is ripe for an overhaul. Add a companion or assistant that helps with survey gathering. Make all surveys in your inventory for a specific site lootable in one action rather than gathering 6 nodes X 20+ surveys. If they don't want to do that, then make the survey reset instantly without having to run away a certain distance.

Also, I don't understand why some surveys are right next to a convenient wayshrine and the next survey will be out in the middle of nowhere 700m or 800m away from a wayshrine. There's no rhyme or reason in the design of some of the survey locations.

Anyways, thanks for the feedback and sharing your drop information. I'll just chalk it up to horribly wretched RNG for the past 6 days.

DenverRalphy · August 7

I just happened to remember this thread this morning while knocking out my daily writs, so took a quick screenshot of my LWC stats. All of my surveys are holding pretty consistent across the board at approximately 1 in 9. Perhaps a minor dip in Blacksmith and Jewelry (as I'd observed in my earlier reply), but for the most part pretty much on track. At this stage, I don't know how large a fluctuation would be required to move the needle.

Veinblood1965 · August 7

MidnightDuel wrote: »

Just to add (since I cannot edit previous posts), here's what surveys I've received from daily writs since the NA Character Copy for the PTS:

18 Alchemist
14 Blacksmith
18 Clothier
6 Enchanter
15 Jewelry Crafter
15 Woodworker

So with the exception of Enchanting, the drops seem pretty consistent across the other crafting disciplines.

If you can't edit previous posts due to not seeing an edit button, it is there but you can't see it. Hover your pointer a little to the left of the #11, or #3 which is in the upper right of your post. I thought I'd lost that ability also as it disappeared a while back...

snailbrick · August 7

I did 18 daily writs again and the flood gates opened on the Jewelry Surveys. I dropped 7 jewelry surveys after dropping 0 for 3 days in a row. This follows the pattern of not dropping clothier surveys for 3 days and then getting 5 in 1 day.

Something strange is definitely happening. I guess its possible it's all truly random, but it just seems very unlikely to me. The chance to drop 7 or more jewelry surveys in 1 day is 1 in 219 or 0.456% chance. That is using the estimate of 12% chance droprate.

LootAllTheStuff · August 7

Feast or famine pretty much confirms RNG. If you got a consistent drop rate month after month, it would mean that the code was massaging the drop rates. Distribution of run lengths (number of consecutive wins or losses) is one of the ways statisticians check for true randomness.

decaffeinated · August 7

I am getting surveys overall, but I've noticed fewer of specific types as well... usually the ones I need for "Gather from 15 X type nodes."

The week I had woodworking nodes, I got 2 TOTAL woodworking surveys out of 140 total woodworking dailies done that week.

This week it's clothing, and got about half as many clothing surveys as everything else.

Jewelry is less overall, because I get 10 master writs each day, all of which get sold because they're too expensive to make. I'd much rather get FEWER purple jewelry master writs (which barely sell as is) and more surveys.

tmbrinks · August 7

decaffeinated wrote: »

I am getting surveys overall, but I've noticed fewer of specific types as well... usually the ones I need for "Gather from 15 X type nodes."

The week I had woodworking nodes, I got 2 TOTAL woodworking surveys out of 140 total woodworking dailies done that week.

This week it's clothing, and got about half as many clothing surveys as everything else.

Jewelry is less overall, because I get 10 master writs each day, all of which get sold because they're too expensive to make. I'd much rather get FEWER purple jewelry master writs (which barely sell as is) and more surveys.

master writ drop and survey drops are independent of one another.

The only thing that changes when you get a survey drop is that you don't get the refined materials.

MidnightDuel · August 8

Veinblood1965 wrote: »

If you can't edit previous posts due to not seeing an edit button, it is there but you can't see it. Hover your pointer a little to the left of the #11, or #3 which is in the upper right of your post. I thought I'd lost that ability also as it disappeared a while back...

Thank you for the tip to see the option to Edit! Yes, it was invisible to me.

snailbrick wrote: »

I did 18 daily writs again and the flood gates opened on the Jewelry Surveys. I dropped 7 jewelry surveys after dropping 0 for 3 days in a row. This follows the pattern of not dropping clothier surveys for 3 days and then getting 5 in 1 day.

Something strange is definitely happening. I guess its possible it's all truly random, but it just seems very unlikely to me. The chance to drop 7 or more jewelry surveys in 1 day is 1 in 219 or 0.456% chance. That is using the estimate of 12% chance droprate.

Glad to hear the surveys are dropping for you again. NRG can be cruel, but given enough numbers it evens out over time.

Aislinna · August 8

Could be Frequency Illusion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frequency_illusion

Basically, "I never noticed something before and now I see/hear it everywhere". It could be that your surveys have always dropped in this type of pattern, but because you had a specific need for clothing surveys, you noticed that none had dropped and now you are looking at all your survey drops more closely.