[GW2] Clawswitz: Still Alive, Still Reckless

#3 on my list of places to not bring a hardcore character.

I'm something of a map completionist.

Even on my alts, if I start doing a zone, I want to finish all of it.

This has caused some problems with my attempts to take a character to level 80 without dying or crafting. Here, for example, is Clawswitz (the Cautious Cowering Charr) standing on top of a vista in Timberline Falls.

Some falls from this tower are perfectly safe, and land you in water. Others send the character to a painful death on the scaffolding below. But that wasn't a big deal. Neither was the champion krait witch at the top of the tower.

The problem was Krait Nimross - level 60 mobs with pull, bleed, immobilize, and knockback. They're strategically placed right at the top of the tower, along the one log you follow to the vista. I took one look, and wondered whether this would be the source of another hilarious death.

Grrrrrr.

Fortunately, Clawswitz survived the vista... by waiting for everything to path away, and being thankful nobody else was around to pull mobs randomly. He's level 65, and very much alive.

Unfortunately, he's also neglected - recently, most of my time online is salvaging or dungeons on my guardian for gold. Hopefully I can find some time to push him the last few levels. (Ideally, time without my ISP dropping out on me randomly. It went down on Saturday while I was killing separatists with Clawswitz. The couple minutes until it came up were... awful.)

As far as hardcore challenges go, I'm not alone in the insanity - at least one other person is trying for 80 without dying or crafting. (The OP in that thread hit level 70 without dying - so doing it better than I am!)  A ranger hit 80 without dying (but some crafting). And a possibly-related youtube series has another ranger working toward 80. Of course, there are a couple skeptic threads on whether this is even possible.

Is it sick that part of me is wondering whether an ironman challenge is possible?

[GW2] Small Salvaging Samples

After paying an absurd amount of attention to salvaging rags, something of a consensus has emerged from the official forums, gw2guru, youtube, and reddit on how salvaging kits work. (I'm calling it basic chance theory after Zoodokoo.)

As noted in the reddit thread, one way to account for the minuscule differences in gossamer returns between salvage kits is that instead of increasing the amount of gossamer, the kit modifiers multiplicatively increase the chance for getting gossamer.

So, supposing that gossamer has a base 11% chance of being salvaged from a rag, the chance of getting gossamer with each kit is:
Crude:      11% * 1.00 = 11.00%
Basic:      11% * 1.10 = 12.10%
Fine:       11% * 1.15 = 12.65%
Journeyman: 11% * 1.20 = 13.20%
Master:     11% * 1.25 = 13.75%

As I noted in the reddit thread, this would be entirely consistent with the data I've collected so far.

While it is great to have a theory to test (other than just "everything is consistent with a bug") there are two things that are troubling about this theory.

If the theory is correct, then most kits aren't worthwhile (NeckNeckNeck's observation).

Supposing gossamer is worth 3.5 silver (350 copper) and silk is worth around 20 copper. So getting 1 gossamer is a gain of about 320 copper. A 1% increase in the chance to salvage gossamer is worth about one hundredth that, or about 3.2 copper. Getting a 1% increase in the chance of getting gossamer compared to crude kits must cost less than 3.2 copper to be worthwhile.

Therefore, assuming the base chance of gossamer is 11%, it is only worthwhile to upgrade to basic kits (for rags).

The bigger trouble is that statistically verifying the theory is going to take absurd amounts of data. The effect sizes here are tiny. As I discussed elsewhere, statistically verifying a tiny effect is tricky business.

Here, I've simulated the results of 1000 different attempts at salvaging 2000 rags, split evenly between crude and mystic kits. For each attempt, I recorded the size of the effect that was estimated and whether it was statistically significant. Sadly, I only find a statistically significant effect 33% of the time. And when I do find an effect, its overestimated.

What does it take to get it right?

Looking at different combinations of kits and sample sizes, its only after 10k salvages, or using absurd amounts of black lion kits, that results can be found reliably and accurately.

I don't even want to think about how much gold that represents. (Dear ANet: can we get a Tyrian NSF going?)

I'm taking a different approach. I've started to collect data on everything I salvage. I'm hoping that I can see a clear pattern where `rare' means 'higher tier of materials'. Hopefully, I'll also find a kind of item with a fairly high chance of being salvaged into the higher tier. This will make for a larger difference between the kits, and therefore something easier to estimate.

Wish me luck!

[GW2] Salvaging Scraps: Which Kit to Use?

Apparently, science takes quite a few salvages (6k and counting...).

After opening 1000 bags to check whether they're affected by diminishing returns / magic find (spoiler: they aren't), I started wondering about salvaging. In particular, Lord Signis found evidence that "items may have their own rare salvage modifier value other than 1. (ie .52 from the item and .25 from the salvage kit means salvaging will yield rare materials 13% of the time) Further testing is needed."

Challenge accepted.

I bought 1500 rags from the trading post. Because I apparently have no desire to wear exotics. Ever.

To salvage the rags, I purchased 500 Crude, Basic, and Fine salvage kits. I recorded the number of silk and gossamer from each salvage, and appended this to Signis's data on 500 salvages with Mystic salvage kits.

For reference: Crude kits have no listed chance of giving rare items, a 10% chance for Basic kits, 15% for Fine kits, and 25% for Mystic kits.

Data can be found here.

As before, I see no effect from the anti-bot code. Salvage away without diminishing returns.

The expected number of silk / gossamer remains the same, whether on the first 100 salvages, or the last 100 salvages.

Visually, here is the average number of silk and gossamer from each salvage, by number of items salvaged:

The average gossamer yield from each kit was:
Crude: 8.6% (1.3%)
Basic: 13.0% (1.5%)
Fine: 12.8% (1.5%)
Mystic: 13.0% (1.5%)

(Standard errors in parenthesis.)

So, while crude kits had an 8.6% chance of gossamer, all other kits had a 13% chance.

While it is always possible that I was exceptionally unlucky with crude kits... it is exceptionally unlikely. The probability that I'd observe gossamer 8.6% of the time, when the true chance was 13%... is about 2%. So possible. But not likely.

This contrasts with the claims in this video of "100% certainty" that crude and mystic have identical salvage rates. Hopefully he'll be willing to share the data, and I can take a look at what is going on.

The crude kits leave me a little baffled. Without them, I'd say that gossamer had a 13% chance of being salvaged from a rag and that kits don't matter. With them... kits matter (at least on the choice of crude vs non-crude). But the rate doesn't match what is listed on the item. Hopefully I can salvage these results over the weekend. I've put in more orders for rags to check whether my crude data is just an unlucky draw, and started to collect other salvageable items to check those too.

TLDR: Salvaging rags with Basic, Fine and Mystic kits has a 13% chance of giving gossamer. Crude kits have an 8% chance. More testing required.

Update: I've done another 500 salvages with crude kits... still at about 8.7%. Now going to check other materials. I've decided to make it clearer that the I'm presenting standard errors of the means here, because otherwise I find +/- ambiguous / unfounded.

[GW2] Beautiful Square Peg, Tired Round Hole

Source.

Sometimes, reading some of the more negative reviews of GW2, I'm convinced the author and I are playing a different game. And its because we are.

"How you play the game can completely change the perception you get of it." The conditioning players have experienced in other MMOs often causes them to miss some of the most amazing bits of GW2. And the game isn't showing them another way to play.

Take combat.

Plenty of MMOs have conditioned players to believe that difficulty is defined by how complex the priority system / rotation is for the class. (Looking at you, feral cat John F* Madden.) MAX DPS is a solo endeavor. Learn a rotation. Do it well. And do it on every single boss. Ok, maybe coordinate some cooldowns from time to time.

So GW2 - where there isn't really a rotation - seems simple. Individual damage can be max'd by hitting 1. Sometimes 2. Keep up buffs. Dodge stuff that hits hard. Stay out of the fire. Standard MMO fare, but with easier button pushing.

But underneath that simplicity is a devilishly complex - and social - difficulty: coordinating combo fields and finishers.

For example, using a blast finisher in a fire field gives might to everyone in the area. So 8 blast finishers = 24 stacks of might (25 is the cap). Which is 720 power / condition damage. Which is about one-third to half of the total power/condition damage of someone stacking that stat. For everyone in the group.

Thing is, one person can't lay down the field and use 8 blast finishers quickly. That takes coordination. So difficulty is now social and coordinated, not individual.

So...

You will literally be hitting the same buttons over and over again, brainlessly, and not only will you succeed, but you will actually perform at almost max efficiency.

Well, you could do that. But max efficiency? Not so much. While our guild initially thought explorables were a bit rough, learning to use these combos like the devs suggested made runs both easy and short. To be fair, since GW2 does next to nothing to teach players how to effectively use combo fields, its all too easy to dismiss combat as trivial. (I have to look them up.)

The same is true of the game world.

MMOs have conditioned players to expect that the UI will direct them where to go. No talking with NPCs to find hidden stuff. No clicking statues. Definitely no reading. Its a pretty fun way to play. But in GW2, its also a way to miss a ton of really fun stuff.

For me, it took the constant impending peril of death to make me realize GW2 is a little bit different.

I started to notice things, so I went back on my main.

Harathi Hinterlands has a statue. I'd learned from other statues that /kneel can yield buffs. Charr need no gods... but every cat loves its belly scratched.

So I light the candle, and kneel. Ghost pops up, tells a cool story, and directs me to start an event. Event is awesome! And just sitting there. Waiting for anyone ready to observe the world around them. (Cara Emm's video above does so much more to detail this.)

Its not just events. Its all those vendors I've been ignoring. Fleetze has a great post listing some fun and useful consumables found around the world. Summonable ranger pets for all. Instant vanish. Knockdowns. Fire fields. I'm probably going to lose half my gold porting to every vendor in the game and clicking the junk they have for sale, just to see if its actually useful. Oh goodness, did I just become a skritt?

For just for a little more willingness to explore, I've found so much more depth to the game.

Time for some sage quaggan advice:

ooooOOOOoooo Quaggan thinks you should smell the roses, maybe?  ooooOooOOOOooo

[GW2] Opening Bags: the Anti-Bot Code and MF

The Guild Wars 2 subreddit has been invaded by science, and I love it.

Recording the results of 500 rag salvages, Lord Signis found that salvaging items isn't affected by the anti-bot code. Marko did a similar setup, and found that salvaging isn't influenced by magic find.

This got me thinking: what about loot bags?

TL;DR: The loot obtained from opening bags isn't influenced by either magic find or the anti-bot farming code.

Setup:
In order to obtain a desirable sample size, I grabbed 1000 Bags of Pinched Goods from the Trading Post.

Doing this has one significant drawback. I'm essentially assuming that loot is determined at the time I open the bag, not at the time the bag is generated. I'm really hopeful that ANet decided to save on storage space. [Further testing required... its something I'm working on.]

On the upside, It felt like Asuran Christmas. With fewer explosions.

Controls:

• The first set of 500 bags was opened with 0% MF after a day of opening no bags.
• The second set of 500 bags was opened with 111% MF 24 hours later. (MF sources: 30 on jewelry, 53 on runes, 18 on gear, 10 from guild bonus)
• I stood in the same place without moving on each run.
• The bags were opened at 7pm EST 9/26 and 7pm EST 9/27.

Results:

Raw data can be accessed on this spreadsheet.

Each bag has a chance to contain a gathering tool (ex: axes, mining picks), a cooking item (butter, blueberries, blue meats), white crafting components (cloth/leather), or blue crafting components (claws, totems, etc).  In what follows, I'll break those categories down into gathering tools, white crafting materials, and blue crafting materials. I'll note whether the items are cooking components or not.

The Anti-bot Code.

The number of items contained within each bag does not decrease as more bags are opened.

For example, taking a look at the blue line in the center panel, across all 500 bags, if the bag contained butter, it averaged just under 4 butter.  This was as true for the first 100 bags as it was the last 500 bags. The order the bag was opened didn't change the amount of loot inside. [For the more stats-minded, the order the bags were opened was not statistically significant across several specifications of negative binomial regressions.]

The chance a bag contains a white vs blue item does not change as more bags are opened. Here, following Lord Signis, I'm taking a look at the change in the probability that an item contains a blue crafting material as the number of bags opens increases. While I had a run of good luck at the beginning, and a spot of rough luck around 250 bags, its fairly clear that the probability of a blue item hovers around 50%.

[Again for the more stats-minded, I confirmed this with a few specifications of probits of blue vs white on order with various controls.]

Based on the the first set of 500 bags, I didn't find any evidence that the anti-bot code changes the rewards from bag opening.

Magic find results. Here, I'm comparing the results of the first 500 bags (discussed above) to a second set of 500 bags I opened under identical conditions, 24 hours later, this time with 111% magic find.

Cooking Materials	0% Magic Find	111% Magic Find
Butter	317	324
Blue	16	18
White	24	23
Non-Cooking Materials	0% Magic Find	111% Magic Find
Blue	224	231
White	259	254

Not only is the difference between the two runs absurdly small, the difference isn't statistically significant. I only obtained seven additional non-crafting blues with 111% magic find - a 3% difference between the two samples, which is well within the margin of error (approximately +/- 4%).

Again, the punchline: the quality and amount of loot from bags isn't affected by either magic find or the anti-bot farming code.

Update: dev post - MF only works on kills.

[GW2] The Culminating Point of Defeat

I've realized one very important thing in my never-dying challenge. My subconscious gamer is better at staying alive than I am.

In the back of my mind, I keep thinking that after setting myself a goal of hitting level 80 without dying (or crafting), it'd only be sensible to play defensively and cautiously.

I promptly ignore this voice.

Instead, I'm running around with a greatsword, offensive traits, mostly offensive utilities. No survivability on my gear. And a big helping of stupid.

This has led to some rather predictable results.

Clawswitz Sr. At level 10 I encountered a 5-pack of level 14 mobs (two ogres and their pets). Charging in, I remember thinking that "this is probably a bad idea". It was. They were being leashed, and so their health was increasing. I fled... straight into a destroyer. One poison bolt later, I was back to character creation. And I take forever at the character creation screen.

Clawswitz II died in Hoelbrak. At a vista. Just after getting there, I thought "maybe I should go down the safe way". And then, I jumped... to his death. Not the brightest idea.

Clawswitz III died doing the dolak capture quest in Wayfarer Foothills. Yes, the one where all you do is shoot nets. I hadn't seen skelk there before. When 6 popped up on a calf, I charged into attack. They roflstomped me.

After Clawswitz III, I finally decided to to be sensible about things.

Clawswitz IV is a defensive powerhouse. Traits, utilities, even gear. All defensive. Its amazing. Veterans can't even dent the health bar. Regen keeps him topped.

It is amazing to me that just changing traits and gear - while keeping the same weapon - makes for a completely different playstyle. My level 20 signet-build warrior has 95% crit. Touch a mob, it explodes. Pull several... I explode. Swap to defensive. The greatsword is now a glorified whittling knife.  But it doesn't matter. I'm virtually invincible.

And I love that about GW2.

I'm finally making real choices about survival vs offense. I can go defensive... but that makes any fight so much longer. Trait and utility choices can cover some weaknesses, but my character always has vulnerabilities. And nearly everyone makes different decisions about these tradeoffs... so there are a much wider range of gameplay choices / specs than I've experienced in any MMO.

But don't worry, I'll find something hilarious to die to any minute now...

[GW2] Clawswitz the Cautious Cowering Charr

I've become vaguely obsessed with death in GW2.

It all started with the the Experience Survivor achievement for the monthly. 100k experience without dying.

I kept looking at the bar. But it wouldn't move! I wasn't dying, but it wasn't moving, either. So I started tracking things. Experience since my last downed state. Experience since my last overflow. Moving zones.

I realized that moving zones / logging reset the counter. Silly bugs. Started a fresh zone, got my 100k. Phew.

But the lifetime survivor achievement... it isn't moving either. Could it be that I need 500k experience on a character that has never died? Only one way to find out...

This actually struck me as a fun way to play. Remember Cautious, the warrior who leveled to the cap in WoW without dying?  Or Neverdied, the frost mage with a snazzy video? Sounds excellent.

Enter Clawswitz (the Cautious Cowering Charr).

Normally, he'd be running into the fire. Sword in hand, he'd scream out his warcry and charge right into the mayhem.

Instead, I'm trying to get Clawswitz to 80 without dying. Ever.

Ground rules:

• No deaths. Downed ok. Vengeancing from downed to come back to life, awesome.
• No escort services. I could cheese this thing by getting my 80 friends in a group and tagging what they kill. That'd be lame.
• No crafting. Stockpiling mats to just zap from 1-80 isn't quite the spirit of the challenge.
• Anytime I run from a challenge, I need to fess up to it. So that fire elemental in Metrica Province? Admitting it right now: I didn't go near it.

Some stuff I've realized.
Going with melee wasn't exactly my wisest decision. Soloing a skill challenge with a greatsword is suicidal. Soloing it with my rifle is cake. This might be different if I stacked vitality instead of power... but nobody said charr had to think things through. I'm a bit unsure how warrior will work out - I'm jealous of thieves and the ability to flee combat right about now.

I'm not rushing with this. More of a fun side project for when I want a break from crushing opponents in WvW.