Grind Success Rate Documentation

[Soultrigger]

So I am currently in the process of reverse engineering grinding. A huge misconception about grinding is that each risk that is displayed is consistently the same, which is not true. So for instance, one Danger could be 45% success whereas the next Danger can be 40%. (These numbers are arbitrary, but the point still stands)

I've compiled a Google Doc that covers the Success Rates:

View-Only: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AltnsB1gh03-dEFlM2lyaVZqX2dKbmNoRWFiQm1KTGc#gid=0
Calculator: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AltnsB1gh03-dFBFRUw0d29RRDZYWmxRYWJraXFTYXc&hl=en#gid=0

How to read Success Rate Chart:
-Each value has 4 Success Rates: Base/+5%/+10%/+20%
-C is Certain
-S is Safe
-W is Warning
-D is Danger

How to use the Success Rate Calculator:
-Light grayed box mean the Success Rate may have an additional +5%
-Dark gray boxes means the data has yet to be collected

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Known Facts:

These are things that, based on collected data, MUST be true:
-Certain = 100%
-Safe begins at 80% *
-Warning begins at 60% *

*Note: These assume intervals of 5%. May have an additional percent of up to, but not including, 5%.

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To Do:

-Acquire data for 4~6* weapons.
-Acquire data for 10* weapons.
-Acquire data for 9* units.
-Verify 1~3* weapons have identical success rates.
-Verify 4~6* weapons have identical success rates.
-Verify 7~8* units have identical success rates.
-Verify success rates remain the same after leveling innate ability.

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Issues:

It should be noted that there are 2 major problems with testing the success rates:
1. I do not have access to a 30% Grinder booster
2. Due to 15% not existing, this means the results can never be foolproof as gaps exist in the data

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Logical Assumptions:

With that said, there are many logical assumptions I can make based on patterns:
1. SEGA most likely implemented the success rates based on intervals of 5
2. SEGA most likely made the risks labels at multiples of 10 (and not inbetween these multiples)

To support my claim, look at the values for grinding a 1~3*:
............. 0 ... 5 .. 10 .. 15 .. 20 ..
+1: ...... C ... C ... C ... C ... C ...
+2: ...... C ... C ... C ... C ... C ...
+3: ...... C ... C ... C ... C ... C ...
+4: ...... S ... S ... S ... ? ... C ...
+5: ...... S ... S ... S ... ? ... C ...
+6: ...... W .. S ... S ... ? ... S ...
+7: ...... W .. W .. S ... ? ... S ...
+8: ...... W .. W .. W .. ? ... S ...
+9: ...... W .. W .. W .. ? ... S ...
+10: .... D ... W .. W .. ? ... W ...

You may notice a diagonal pattern if you fill in the ? with the right success rates, with the success rates shifting right every level. Based on this, I can make these conclusions:
-Success rates exist in intervals of 20%s
-Certain = 100%
-Safe = 80%~95%
-Warning = 60%~75%
-Danger = 5%~55%

Of course, it is very possible that the success rates for +4 and +5 as well as +8 and +9 are exactly the same. In the case of 7* weapons for example, the pattern best fits when only changing success rates after increments of 2 grinds. In any case, even if these assumptions are wrong, the error is simply within 5%.

Note that, in the Success Rate Calculator, the grayed boxes show the worst case assumption, but have potential for an additional 5% (or additional <10% if the 5% interval assumption is wrong as well).

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Failure Rates:

Another thing to consider is how the percentages of penalties work out. There are two possible ways this could be done:
1. The different Failure Rates is mixed with the Success Rate, making a total of 100% that allocates between penalties.
2. The Failure Rate is simply the remainder from the Success Rate, and does a second roll to determine penalty.

The distinction is important because:
1. if the first case is true, then the Failure Rates can be reasonably guessed, if not proven using a 30% booster
2. Grind Boosters and Grind Protects would work vastly differently in both cases.

In the case of the first scenario, here's an example of how it may work (for 1~3* weapons):
.......... +1 .. 0 .... -1 .... -2 .... -3 ..
+1: ... 100 .. 0 ..... 0 ..... 0 ..... 0 ...
+2: ... 100 .. 0 ..... 0 ..... 0 ..... 0 ...
+3: ... 100 .. 0 ..... 0 ..... 0 ..... 0 ...
+4: .... 85 .. 15 .... 0 ..... 0 ..... 0 ...
+5: .... 80 .. 20 .... 0 ..... 0 ..... 0 ...
+6: .... 75 .. 20 .... 5 ..... 0 ..... 0 ...
+7: .... 70 .. 20 ... 10 .... 0 ..... 0 ...
+8: .... 65 .. 20 ... 15 .... 0 ..... 0 ...
+9: .... 60 .. 20 ... 20 .... 0 ..... 0 ...
+10: .. 55 .. 20 ... 20 .... 5 ..... 0 ...

Of course, if you look at the jp wiki (http://pso2.swiki.jp/index.php?%E3%82%A2%E3%82%A4%E3%83%86%E3%83%A0%E5% BC%B7%E5%8C%96), the pattern doesn't match after 1~3* weapons (notably, the fact that Danger can still only have a penalty of -1 in some cases).

To adequately prove implementation #1, one would need a 30% booster and preview the results for a 1~3* weapon from +6 to +7. If the penalty changes from -1 to None, then this proves that Failure Rates are mixed in with the Success Rate. However, if the penalty does not change even after reading a Success Rate of Certain, then this does not prove anything.

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Practicality:

So why is this information useful? If the success rates are known, you can achieve the optimal success rates for the associated costs. For a simple albeit useful example, let's assume a 10*+10 has a success rate of 35%:

....................... Full ................. 20%+Full
1st try ............ 0.35% ............ 0.55%
2nd try ........... 0.5775% ........ 0.7975%
3rd try ............ 0.7254% ........ 0.9089%
4th try ............ 0.8215% ........ 0.9590%

Going by Ship 2 prices:
20% = 8 x Recyle = ~1.55mil
Full Protect = ~1mil

If you compare 1st try 20%+Full and 2nd try Full, Full not only beats the success rate of 20%+Full but comes out costing less. Even if the success rate was as low as 25%:

....................... Full ................. 20%+Full
1st try ............ 0.25% ............ 0.45%
2nd try ........... 0.4375% ........ 0.6975%
3rd try ............ 0.5781% ........ 0.9089%
4th try ............ 0.8336% ........ 0.9084%

You can see that 4th try Full (~4mil) has a higher chance than 2nd try 20%+Full (~5mil).

I'm sure all these costs will vastly change once innate abilities come out, but just a practical example of how to calculate success rate/cost.

[IndigoNovember]

Interesting data and assumptions you have there. I'll be sure to contribute when I have time to play PSO2 again (thank you finals).

[Soultrigger]

After some thought, I realized it is impossible for Safe to be 85%. This is because a Warning that becomes a Safe after a 5% boost does not become Certain after a 20% boost.

With that said, it is highly likely that Warning is 60%, therefore making Danger anything below that.

Aside from 9* units which probably follow 7~8* unit success rates, the last thing I need to do is compile information on 10* weapons, but that will have to wait until I find another 10* worth grinding.

[gigawuts]

I intended on noting down every single grind I did, as a way to ease the frustration of 20+ consecutive failures. I lost track ages ago, though.

I'm fully convinced the game has a hidden streak system, though. A good RNG on its own should not result in so many ungodly streaks. I'm 99% certain there's either account-level or character-level modifiers, possibly changed daily or weekly (if at all) to how easily you can do certain things.

Try and try and try as I may, I have horrible luck with rare drops but phenomenal luck with disk drops. Level 14 disks on first rare enemy 2/3's of the time kind of luck, such as with sa foie, surprise knuckle, and about 6 other 6* disks. RNG only explains that to a certain degree. My grinding is atrocious sometimes, other times I fly right up, and I swear I have better success with 8-10 grinds than 4-7.

Just a thought from 6 months of experience in the game. I don't have any verifiable evidence, but a lot of people seem to agree that they've always been able to do some things with ease but some other things almost always fail for them despite the apparent average experience for everyone else.

It could just be the RNG working its magic, it's meant to be random after all. Even still, if it's any good it should tend towards the true rate over extended periods of time.

[Miraclearrow]

I know how you feel. I remember we had an opposite conversation about how lucky i was grinding my twilight rune. Lately i've been grinding my gram and black wing set and the black wing set is so easy to grind, i have every piece up to plus 10 and lately been finding TONS of red items. And my grinding of my 9 star is so much easier. Then other times i drop 200 grinders on everything and only get a weapon at the end to +7 or 8 max..... I know how you feel, not sure how it works lol.

[Soultrigger]

I intended on noting down every single grind I did, as a way to ease the frustration of 20+ consecutive failures. I lost track ages ago, though.

I'm fully convinced the game has a hidden streak system, though. A good RNG on its own should not result in so many ungodly streaks. I'm 99% certain there's either account-level or character-level modifiers, possibly changed daily or weekly (if at all) to how easily you can do certain things.

Try and try and try as I may, I have horrible luck with rare drops but phenomenal luck with disk drops. Level 14 disks on first rare enemy 2/3's of the time kind of luck, such as with sa foie, surprise knuckle, and about 6 other 6* disks. RNG only explains that to a certain degree. My grinding is atrocious sometimes, other times I fly right up, and I swear I have better success with 8-10 grinds than 4-7.

Just a thought from 6 months of experience in the game. I don't have any verifiable evidence, but a lot of people seem to agree that they've always been able to do some things with ease but some other things almost always fail for them despite the apparent average experience for everyone else.

It could just be the RNG working its magic, it's meant to be random after all. Even still, if it's any good it should tend towards the true rate over extended periods of time.

While I admit there's no such thing as a true RNG, there's also this thing called confirmation bias. It's like saying affix success rates have a random modifier. Come back with a legitimate screenshot showing a failed 100%, then I'll believe your claims.

[gigawuts]

While I admit there's no such thing as a true RNG, there's also this thing called confirmation bias. It's like saying affix success rates have a random modifier. Come back with a legitimate screenshot showing a failed 100%, then I'll believe your claims.

Yes, because nobody would think of forcing that to work 100% of the time. Nobody at all.

Sega has a history of doing systems such as these. Section ID's gave no indicators of what they would find in drops - you just saw the icon pop up after submitting your char name with no other information. Photon fortune also existed in PSU.

This is not confirmation bias. This is a simple observation and theory. I've already said I don't have any verifiable proof because I never actually recorded all my grinds (edit: I know they're logged, but I don't know if they note the rarity of the item they're grinding), but even if I had and there was a thousand consecutive failures some ass would show up and go "BUT LIKE RANDOM LOL."

[Soultrigger]

What's flawed about your support is that you're going off drops that inherently have low drop rates. That's where RNG will have the most variation. I could care less about your personal experience with that because, unless you somehow sampled 10%+ of the server randomly, then the luck of one person is completely meaningless to me. But what you're going off of is probably like 50~100 people from your Friends/Team List, who'll probably agree with you to vent their personal frustration/gain approval from you. Again, confirmation bias.

So let's just assume you aren't bias: what good is your theory without ANY reproducible or verifiable support? And yes, SEGA has been known to do this in the past, but again, where's your support? At this point, it's just a conspiracy theory that adds nothing substantial.

Now to refute your claim: you CAN guarantee a grind to be Certain at specific levels/rarity. But does anyone do it? No, because it's a low level grind and you're better off gambling 3 grinders on an 80% then blow off 1.5mil for like a +3. So then where does this magical modifier come in? And even if said modifier existed, why would SEGA implement such a thing and not advertise whatever the heck feature it is when there's already RNG involved to begin? Not that SEGA makes much sense, but you're really grasping straws at this point.

[gigawuts]

Man, you are really angry about this for some reason.

Either way I looked in the logs and they give the actual item name, so I'm working on a spreadsheet to sort everything I've ground.

[Soultrigger]

I'm fully convinced...
I'm 99% certain...


There's a distinct difference between a hypothesis and a claim. If you're going to make statements like these, be prepared to defend your claim. This is a thread dedicated to determine the exact (or sufficiently close to) probabilities of success. I'm going to attack your claim if I find it logically baseless.

EDIT: Don't misunderstand, I'm not trying to create meaningless drama. It's not about who is right, it's about what is right. I don't want people going into this thread and leaving with misleading information. That is why I adamantly attacked your claim. Based on what I know, I don't believe in such a modifier. Can it exist? Maybe. But we can't go on much unless there's some sort of proof.

EDIT2: Deleted part of my reply since I feel my argument was becoming too much of a derailment on merely a suggested theory.

[Miraclearrow]

I've now became very disinterested in this topic now that I realize who's posting it LOL

[Soultrigger]

I'm considering an alternative to finding the penalty rates, but this would require a lot of help from the community:

I need to accumulate grinding logs across multiple rarities. I'm mostly interested in 7~9*s, since I don't think the other rarities are grinded enough to expect a large enough pool.

How I would do this is sort the logs based on rarity, grind level, and result (+1, 0, -1, -2, or -3). Once I acquire a reasonable amount of grinds at a specific level (e.g. 200), I can basically divide the results and see how close they approximate towards a given percent (and since I've deduced most of the success rates, it should match up if there isn't too much variation).

Understandably, most people use grind protects and/or boosters at around +7 and up. For this reason, I ask that if people submit their logs, that they mention where they start using protects.

Another thing to note is that it may be tempting to simply submit a long log to show the unfortunate loss at grinding attempts. I ask that submitted logs are chosen without any motivating reason other than for the sake of data collection.

After much thought, I suspect the hypothetical streaks are a result of high penalty rates, which is something I would like to confirm. If the data matches up accordingly to how I expect it, I also might be able to determine if failure is allocated among the remainder of the success rate.

[gigawuts]

There's a distinct difference between a hypothesis and a claim. If you're going to make statements like these, be prepared to defend your claim. This is a thread dedicated to determine the exact (or sufficiently close to) probabilities of success. I'm going to attack your claim if I find it logically baseless.

EDIT: Don't misunderstand, I'm not trying to create meaningless drama. It's not about who is right, it's about what is right. I don't want people going into this thread and leaving with misleading information. That is why I adamantly attacked your claim. Based on what I know, I don't believe in such a modifier. Can it exist? Maybe. But we can't go on much unless there's some sort of proof.

EDIT2: Deleted part of my reply since I feel my argument was becoming too much of a derailment on merely a suggested theory.

You haven't stared at 6 failed soul attempts, followed by 1 success, followed by another 12 consecutive failures.

You need to throw more money at dudu with .0001% results coming out of it to get a whiff of the shit he's brewin', and you need to do it over an extended period of time.

There's random, sure, it's not impossible and that usually means it'll happen eventually. But then there's just bullshit when 6 50% failures in a row are not even uncommon. Where did I even get this idea? It only occurred to me after I'd spoken to enough people that had played PSU with similar or identical incidents that got them equally frustrated.

I'll just be leaving it at that, good luck with the thread.