Battle pet capture chance does not increase by 20% with each failed attempt

[wdstudios2]

Realm where you noticed the issue: Mistblade

Description: Battle pet capture chance does not increase by 20% with each failed attempt

Current behavior: Battle pet capture chance does not increase by 20% with each failed attempt. As a result, it can take an unlimited number of attempts to capture a battle pet.

Expected behavior: Capture chance should be 35% on the first attempt, 55% on the second attempt, 75% on the third attempt, 95% on the fourth attempt, and 100% on the fifth attempt. Ergo, 35% of pets should be captured on the first attempt, 35.75% of pets should require exactly two attempts, 21.9375% of pets should require exactly three attempts, 6.946875% of pets should require exactly four attempts, and only 0.365625% of pets should require five attempts. It should never, under any circumstances, take more than five attempts to capture a battle pet.

[query-wow]

That's not how it works, the chance is multiplicative If the catch chance begins at 20%, the second attempt chance will increase that by 20%, which is 6, so your second attempt will have a 36% catch chance not 55.

[wdstudios2]

That's not how it works, the chance is multiplicative If the catch chance begins at 20%, the second attempt chance will increase that by 20%, which is 6, so your second attempt will have a 36% catch chance not 55.

I have no doubt that that's how YOU implement it. But that's not how Blizzard does it. Blizzard does it the way I described.

[Aithne99]

We have proof of it being multiplicative.

https://bug.tauriwow.com/index.php?do=details&task_id=12847

The bnet forum link is only available through webarchive, but the title is "Capture chance increased by 20%" something, and the thread is "So after 5 failures you should have a 100% chance to catch right? Then why after 8 attempts is this rare Restless Shadeling still evading my traps, and about to wipe my team? EDIT: Managed to catch him though... took 10 trap attempts and my last pet was down to one shot. This is not the first time this has happened to me."

https://bug.tauriwow.com/index.php?do=details&task_id=20222 Here is the wowhead comment linked, too which explains it as well. It's definitely multiplicative.

[Gescht]

It seems to me that it isn't guaranteed - we all miss way too often if our chances on throw 3 are actually 75%. Math says, as does the text, that the chance is increased by 25%. So:

Try 1 = base % Try 2 = Try 1 x 1.25 Try 3 = Try 2 x 1.25

etc. We don't know the base percentage, but let's say it's 40%. It would then follow that:

Try 1 = 40% Try 2 = 50% Try 3 = 63% Try 4 = 78%

I don't know about everyone else but my results after catching 200 battle pets reflect this model much more than 25%, 50%, 75%, 100%. Source

Something to note: As many others have reported, you can miss more than 4 times. Do not mistake the 25% as an additional 25% chance increase, it is 25% of the existing % chance to capture.

(x/25)+x Source

I'd like to know in which universe can this thing MISS 4 times in a row?

Reply: I think it's more of a 30% increase of a chance, not +30%. So it's like 35% first attempt, 45.5% second, 59,15% third and so on. Source

[query-wow]

That's not how it works, the chance is multiplicative If the catch chance begins at 20%, the second attempt chance will increase that by 20%, which is 6, so your second attempt will have a 36% catch chance not 55.

I have no doubt that that's how YOU implement it. But that's not how Blizzard does it. Blizzard does it the way I described.

Clearly https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/pristine-trap-failed-five-times/526702

[wdstudios2]

Well, back in MoP, I was somehow able to get the Zookeeper achievement/title without a single capture requiring more than 5 attempts, and with almost none of them requiring more than 4. So either i was insanely luck over an extremely long period of time, or Blizzard changed the way capture chances work at some point.

[Aithne99]

Considering that even in 10.0 wowhead comments on Pristine Trap complain about it, you must have been pretty lucky.

https://www.wowhead.com/pet-ability=135/pristine-trap

Just read a bit. And please stop opening bugreports without solid evidence.