I wonder if Ivar can tell us how the Plarium logarithm works. I.e is it based on the number of times each separate item is upgraded. Or are all the items per  hero /shaman set amalgamated, or is it simply the number of upgrades each player attempts, irrespective of which set, for the hero and the shaman. 

We do already know that the odds of failure increase the higher the upgrade level attempted.

Yup :) I can share what I know about it. The chance of an equipment upgrade is determined automatically according to the theory of probability, previous attempts to upgrade are not taken into account by the system in the calculation. If you have tried to upgrade a piece of equipment several times, this does not mean that the chance of success increases. Each time the system performs the calculations again. 

Well .. I tried another two 85% chance of success upgrades to level 6, one worked and one failed ...... hardly an 85% success rate !

   That is now 3 successes and 4 failures in the last 7 attempts which by my reasoning is less than 50% success rate.

One difference is that the success was with an item the hero was wearing.

Ivar - can you please check with your programmers that the logarithim used does actually guarantee an 85% success rate as advertised ? Resetting to a 50:50 chance each time is not a guaranteed 85% success rate.

For an 80% chance, the probability of 8 successful outcomes from ten attempts, I am told, is 30.30%.  The probability for seven successful outcomes drops to 20.13% and the probability for zero successful outcomes is vanishingly small, 0.00001024%.

The arithmetic is beyond me but if you want to see it put "The Binomial Distribution: A Probability Model for a Discrete Outcome" into a search engine.

Your results over seven attempts, while very thoroughly unlucky, appear to be well within the range for normality.  If you can keep up the under 50% rate for another hundred or so attempts it will be time to smell a rat.

You may be correct about me being more cynical than yourself.

However cynicism doesn't really have anything to do with facts, or opinion, does it?

Something which I had missed  doing so before, referencing your 

"I guess if Plarium advertised your chance of success at less than 60% a lot of people would not bother spending extra on coffers and hero energy trying to upgrade? 

Of course players might not ,wouldn't, and the game won't say this, even if they know it's true,they leave things vague, leaving players to come up with believing what they want to believe,as you wrote here. 

"Well I believe 85% chance of success means 4 out of every 5 attempts should work."    

What does 85% really mean? As I tried to say  before elsewhere, same as with the promise of the 35% boost,35% of what? What is the exact effect it gives? 

Hence the reference to buying a pup. 

I was going to try and explain again by returning to the flipping a coin scenario, but I see lots of movement on this topic, and John referencing another way of looking at events,something similar to which was written before on the forum on this kind of issue.

Surprised and relieved that Ivar answered you, and wrote in agreement with what I have been trying to put across in my posts, that each attempt is independant from any other attempt, and that repeating attempts doesn't mean you will be succesful as you had described and you thought you  would should be.

and another two attempts to upgrade to level 6  ... (I have been storing them up hoping the odds would improve lol ) ... a 95% chance of success worked,  and an 85% chance of success also worked, so now my efforts at 85% = 4 out of 8 attempts successful = 50% despite what John said.

John: presumably that 30.30% is what you get  if you don't have a programming logarithim pushing the results to an advertised  80 - 85% success rate?

(If the program already counts simultaneously  how many times you kill each type of invader,  ghost and the number of troops, the number of times you get blocked  and change names etc, for each achievement, it should be able to count how many times your attempted gear upgrades are successfull ?)

I wish you still could edit out part of a quote.

I think you are still missing the point.

I believe John is saying that the mathematics of an 80% chance  gives an actual 30% favourable outcome with 8 out of 10 attempts, which might be more in keeping with players findings.

Yes the game is counting certain items, because it needs to.

It does not need to count attempts of upgrading.

It is not a cumulative thing.

Each time you try it's like you never did it before, it's always an 85%chance, you either succede or fail at this rate.

As I said the game text is vague, it lets you believe what  you want to believe.

So you were right with your  'if they told is it was less likely we wouldnt attempt it'

I would like to suggest that if the game advises that by contributing x amount of helheim fire you will have 85% chance of success then the game should be counting each attempt so that alternate 5th or 6th attempts  fail. Quite simple really !

 And those that want to keep count can simply ugrade their less useful (i.e. less frequently used item ) on the 5th or 6th attempt. 

(Are you saying that to get a success rate of 8 out of 10 attempts you have to repeat the exercise three times to get to get just one successful 8 out of 10 attempts ? That really sucks, unless the other two excercises give 10 out of 10 and 7 out of 10 and that does not seem to be happening either).

My alt has two more items to raise to level 6, both with 85% chance of success. I should invite people to bet on the odds - i.e. on both succeed, or both fail, or one of each. 

( I think most would select one of each = 50%, despite the string  of failures suggesting the next 4 should succeed, and ignoring Ivar's suggestion that the system resets each time so it can fail every time indefinately).

No, you are still not getting it.

You could keep on doing it and still fail and  you would still be having an 85% chance each time, it  would just something statistically unusual, but in the bounds of possibility, and leaving you being very unlucky.

I understand you and many others think the whole thing is bad and doesn't work like you think it should

If they guaranteed you suceeded 8 times out of 10  though it might be welcome that wouldnt be 

correct.

Your idea that after five failures in a row the game should award one guaranteed success seems to me quite good as it might, slightly at least, mollify those who have a bad run of luck and are left, like yourself, feeling aggrieved.

You might put that suggestion in the Ideas and Suggestions section.

I don't know if you would support a corresponding provision such that five successes in a row are to be followed by a guaranteed fail.  That would clip the wings of those, like myself, who experience a run of good luck.

John: I was suggesting 5 successes in a row per 1 failure !

Surprise surprise: both attempts to raise my alts legendary gear with 85% chance of success to level 6 were successful. 

 I see palace levels below 32 can now win runic coins again. Maybe this gear upgrade % has been fixed too? 🙂

My alt did an item upgrade to lv 7   with 80% chance of success, and was successful 🙂

several gear upgrades later and they have all been successful including one at 80% and two at 85% chance of success. Things are looking up ! 🙂

Of course they haven't said they have done anything to the parameters, so you may just be having a run of good luck to equal out the bad, ...... unless!............

It would be interesting to know if any one else has noticed an improvement in their success rate.

My run of successes continues so no change in my case.  I am getting towards level 7 to 8 so am steeling myself for a disappointment or two.  Happily it takes me so long to gather the materials that I will have time for disappointment to fade before the next failure comes along.

After a string of several successful gear upgrades including quite a few at 85% I had my first failure since my last post 14/6 so no complaints.  That success, combined with now being able to compete for runic coins, and the chance to buy 1.5 million coins again (that option disappeared for awhile), I have to admit I am enjoying, and spending more time, in the game lately. Thank you Plarium