Do not level up gathering skills too high on your farming teams.

[Araxxor]

Just some advice, as I looked into this and this was the case in the DS original, and wasn't changed here.

(If you're playing a later EO game, ignore this. All leveling up gathering skills there is increase the number of attempts.)

Mugwort. 50% chance.
Hardwood. 30% chance.
Red Fruit. 10% chance.

This is the data from the eastern B1F Chop point in EO1. As you can see, the chances don't add up to 100%. So if you manage to hit that missing 10%, you end up getting nothing. Thankfully no gathering ambushes in this game at least. This is where the gathering skills come in.

Gathering skills in this game not only increase the number of gathering attempts, they also increase the chances of finding an item. There is a multiplier of 1 at level 1 to 1.2x at level 10, which can actually eliminate the chances of finding nothing. But this comes at a cost...

Mugwort. 60% chance.
Hardwood. 36% chance.
Red Fruit. 12% chance.

With a level 10 gathering skill, the rates become equal to what I listed above instead. Except this doesn't add up to 100% either, going up to 108% instead. So what happens to the excess 8%? This is where the bad news comes in. The game still only does a X out of 100 roll here, and more relevantly, the game checks the rates from common to rate instead of rare to common like with item drops. Yes that's right, this means that leveling the gathering skills too high makes it harder to gather rare items! So the rates would actually look like this instead:

Mugwort. 60% chance.
Hardwood. 36% chance.
Red Fruit. 4% chance.

Ouch. A level 10 gathering skill makes it more than twice as hard to snag the rare drop here. While leveling gathering skills does grant more gathering attempts, it also makes it harder to hunt for rare items! Fortunately the multipliers from these skills don't stack, only the gathering attempts given. The game only checks for the highest leveled gathering skill, so you thankfully can't screw yourself into common drops only with a gathering party.

If you want to know where's a good stopping point, level 5 is a good place to do so at a 1.1x multiplier, which gives you a 1% chance of getting nothing at most points, but shouldn't screw you out of the rare drop at most points.

[Broso]

How do the later games handle this?

[Araxxor]

The gathering skills just increase gathering attempts. They have no effect on gathering success rates.

[耀玄 / Luminash]

Wow thanks for sharing this! Good to know!

[Vi-El]

All in all this is not bad advice but I feel you are min maxing your fun out of the game for a gathering party that is supposed to go in to... gather.

And sure maybe I wont get the amount of high quality items and special Items I could want on attempt one, I am pretty sure with 99 attempts present, eventually after like at the very least 3 visits, I will get the item I want or need.

I mean just going down to Stratum 5 and doing the what I call "The Infinite Money Glitch" jokingly, nets me like 45-50k a day with all my gatherers maxed to 10 in one team. Meanwhile Stratum 6 gives me less although more material from the other two spots right beside mining.

When it comes to this game which is already as grindy as it gets, do make sure to compare value over quantity. Cause value more often than not matters a lot more than wether or not you can get an item by grinding a lot. And also just to say this: This applies only to gathering spots. Not to defeating enemies with special or secondary drops for high end weaponry.

[Araxxor]

Originally posted by Vi-El:

All in all this is not bad advice but I feel you are min maxing your fun out of the game for a gathering party that is supposed to go in to... gather.

It's just not putting ~15 SP into gathering skills on a farming team. And level 5 all around would give you 50 gathering attempts. Your item pack can only hold 60 items and that never changes. Going beyond level 6 on a gathering team in general is pretty overkill unless you're trying to do a minimum day challenge and avoid resting at the inn between gathering sessions.

And if people care about getting all equipment (or at least certain pieces of them), some of then need a ridiculous amount of rare drops to unlock, and this will save some time on that.

[PhazonMotherBrain]

I have a couple questions.

1. If multiple characters have points in the same gathering skill, do the multipliers stack, or does it just use the multiplier of the character with the highest-leveled gathering skill? I'm guessing the latter, but I just want to make sure.

2. If I'm not mistaken, Cullinans have a 20% chance of being gathered at the earliest Mine point in the 4th stratum, right? If someone is crazy enough to farm for those, would Lv.5 mining skills altering the 50/25/20 chances to be 55/27.5/17.5 be better, or would it be better to go all the way to Lv.10, alter the chances to 60/30/10, and just throw out the non-Cullinan materials when the inventory gets full and rely on having twice as many Mine attempts?

[Araxxor]

1. It uses the highest multiplier.
2. It would actually be an 18% chance. But level 10s would be slightly better... at the cost of wasting a lot more time. On average you'd get 9 Cullinans per 50 gathers at level 5, but 10 Cullinans per 100 gathers at level 10.

[Vi-El]

Originally posted by Araxxor:

1. It uses the highest multiplier.
2. It would actually be an 18% chance. But level 10s would be slightly better... at the cost of wasting a lot more time. On average you'd get 9 Cullinans per 50 gathers at level 5, but 10 Cullinans per 100 gathers at level 10.

It might be just my luck but I have a party of 5 Archers all of which have the mining skill maxed for instance and I get plenty of rare drops from almost everyspot imaginable. Granted yes it takes longer but at the same time it gets me lots of money.

So in turn yes I get the big boy item slower but by the time I have it I can also afford it if that makes sense :o

To me its similar to getting the rare mob drops tho most of those are conditional really over just plain and simple grinding. By the time I get them, I got the cash to justify buying them.

[Raven]

so, at what level should you level them to reduce the reduction of the rarer item but also eliminate the chance of getting nothing if possible? Also, do gathering abilities stack or does the game just use the high character level? for example if I have two survivalist with 10 chop do i get the total combined gather attempts from two maxed out chops or do they not stack?

[Vi-El]

Originally posted by Orkin Man:

so, at what level should you level them to reduce the reduction of the rarer item but also eliminate the chance of getting nothing if possible? Also, do gathering abilities stack or does the game just use the high character level? for example if I have two survivalist with 10 chop do i get the total combined gather attempts from two maxed out chops or do they not stack?

They stack. If you got two maxed out chops, meaning 10 attempts respectively, you get 20 total. This does not change the chances of getting what item may drop. Although one could argue the amount of times you can pursue it now is a change in chance on its own. But ultimately it just makes you grind more efficiently.

[Raven]

thought this whole discussion topic was how the increases change the chance for items though. At least for EO1 anyway.

[Vi-El]

Originally posted by Orkin Man:

thought this whole discussion topic was how the increases change the chance for items though. At least for EO1 anyway.

Thats not what I meant. What I meant is that in terms of quantity it doesnt ultimately change. You will still get the items. Just not as efficient You can still grind but not to the efficiency that OP is proposing.

Personally I dont see why I should care about 8 percent.

My approach is quantity: I care about money. The rare items will come even if it is a lesser percent. This is why I personally dont see it changing. As you just have to grind more. You already are grinding. You get more money this way anyhow. Its just a plus plus to me.

OPs approach is quality: OP sees that you get less rare items by maxing out the skill. Which is true in terms of data. But ultimately also nets you less items overall for the grind which then in turn also nets you less money daily. Just for a higher percent chance of getting the rare item.

Its up to you what to use. But as for me, pushing it up to max level was never a problem. And I personally dont see the change much itself. But that could be just my luck.

If you wanna min max which wasnt what your question really was about: Do what Op proposes and dont max out the skill.

If you wanna just grind and get money: Max out the skills. They do stack. You get more attempts per day. Which is what your original question was asking about.

[Araxxor]

Originally posted by Orkin Man:

so, at what level should you level them to reduce the reduction of the rarer item but also eliminate the chance of getting nothing if possible? Also, do gathering abilities stack or does the game just use the high character level? for example if I have two survivalist with 10 chop do i get the total combined gather attempts from two maxed out chops or do they not stack?

I said around level 5 is a good place to stop. The multiplier only uses the highest leveled gathering skill in the party, so a party of level 5s still give you 50 gathering attempts. Though level 6s would give you 60 attempts, enough to fill out a full bag, though unless you come in with a fully empty bag every time on gathering trips, you won't need all those attempts.

Originally posted by Vi-El:

They stack. If you got two maxed out chops, meaning 10 attempts respectively, you get 20 total. This does not change the chances of getting what item may drop. Although one could argue the amount of times you can pursue it now is a change in chance on its own. But ultimately it just makes you grind more efficiently.

That is not how gathering skills work in EO1. In later games yes, the amount of gathering levels = the gathering attempts. But in EO1, each gathering level gives you 2 attempts. A team of level 5s would have 50 total attempts, not 25. This isn't quality over quantity, it's both in this case. Your inventory is only 60 spaces, if it was more then yes leveling up the skills to max would actually be worth it. But you can't use all the gathering attempts in that case unless you constantly throw out items, which just wastes more time. And once the inventory is full, you're just better off going back to sell all those items, rest up, and have a new day to farm again. Or alternatively, you end up getting all the items you need and don't have to waste more time farming. But a team of level 10s would have 100 gathering attempts, 40 extra they won't use for the day. And not having to level all skills to 10 saves some time since you wouldn't have to grind up the Survivalists all the way to get 30 SP.

Originally posted by Vi-El:

Personally I dont see why I should care about 8 percent.

My approach is quantity: I care about money. The rare items will come even if it is a lesser percent. This is why I personally dont see it changing. As you just have to grind more. You already are grinding. You get more money this way anyhow. Its just a plus plus to me.

OPs approach is quality: OP sees that you get less rare items by maxing out the skill. Which is true in terms of data. But ultimately also nets you less items overall for the grind which then in turn also nets you less money daily. Just for a higher percent chance of getting the rare item.
If you wanna just grind and get money: Max out the skills. They do stack. You get more attempts per day. Which is what your original question was asking about.

Going from 4% to 12% triples the drop rate in this case. That's a pretty big. Especially if someone decides to farm up some equipment that needs a ridiculous amount of rare gathers. Grinding is grinding yes, but reducing the amount of time helps a lot in that case if they choose to grind. Like I said, you get 50 or 60 gathering attempts across an entire team of Survivalists, so you're not really losing out on any quality.

Now granted if you aren't going in with a team of Survivalists and only have a few gatherers on the team, then yes, there is an argument of maxing out gathering attempts to waste less time in that case.

[Vi-El]

And I PERSONALLY dont see a problem with 4% over 12%. Thats why I use the word "personally". I said that by the data itself you are correct. Min maxing for rarity makes more sense. But since we are grinding anyhow, the money we get simply outweighs the grind we have to do for me PERSONALLY.

As for the 2 over 1 attempts, yea ok. Got that wrong. Misremembered it actually, been a while since I played EO1 since I last posted on this thread actually. Few months back.

I still stick to what I said tho. And yea we only have 60 inventory slots. That means you just gotta do two trips. Which to me PERSONALLY isnt a big deal. I need the money either way. Stock up on other stuff. If I dont get the rare item within 8 tries, I will still continue cause I will get it eventually. The rare item is not the priority for me PERSONALLY. Cause ultimately to be able to even use what it can create I need the money.

So if I have to do two trips with one of them being 50 items and the other 49 items per daily attempts, I dont mind if I get the rare item less in that. Roughly 100 tries and a 4% chance of getting the rare item is good enough to me PERSONALLY. 60 tries and a 12% chance is better flat out if you wanna go for the most min max opportunity. Which is 100% better. But you still end up needing the money. So you still end up needing to grind for more money.

Thats how I see it. There are some weapons in the game that cost a crap ton of money. And you can get them from specific mob drops. If I would wanna go for that, id need to grind out early game just to get that item specifically (not as a drop, I mean money). And will I get another drop for it later due to how low of a chance a mob has to drop it? Probably not. But I have one. And that thing is powerful af. And now that I actually got the money to use it, its great.

Grind is Grind for me. 4% over 12%? 12 is better. But at that point you are optimizing the fun out of your game and think more about time value rather than the experience of playing the game. And yea I am not saying the grind itself is ultimately worth the experience. But you can use the grind to stock up on other stuff you need just as much. So its just a win win at the end of the day for me.

PERSONALLY.

[Araxxor]

Originally posted by Vi-El:

So if I have to do two trips with one of them being 50 items and the other 49 items per daily attempts, I dont mind if I get the rare item less in that.

Resting at an inn refreshes all gathering attempts (or more specifically, when the clock goes to midnight), and if you're back in town, might as well do that to heal up and stuff anyways after unloading to the shop. Not like doing so wastes that much time since you'd have to do that anyways once you run out of attempts with 100 gathers or so, and it's basically force of habit for most people to just rest up at the inn after leaving the labyrinth.

If you're gonna level up the skills to 10 anyways, you could get away with only having 3 Survivalists if you wanted. Less time spent grinding them up for all the SP needed since exp is split among living members, though Picnic makes that pretty fast at any rate.

This thread was made in order to inform people of a flaw in the gathering formula, one that people might want to know about, since there were a bunch of people back in the day of the DS release complaining about how hard it was to get the rare drops from gathering. Whether this is something they take into account or not is up to them.