Zukminbirf: bug or a feature?

[Derpella]

I have a char with:
-level 63
-maxed astral
-maxed int
-staff, wizard hat, clover
-655 MA
-over 200% magic exp
and I get 5 powders/ore.
I had worse stats on other char and got 6.
On IRC, o11c said that I should have either 520, or 660 MA to make 6.
Not a great problem, because I guess it'll go better as I level up, but one thing bugs me: Was this made on purpose, that your spells get worse as you advance?

IRC log (I hope it's not indiscreet to publish :O):

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<derpella> Damn... I have over 200% magical exp, maxed astral, 99int+3hat, 655 magic attack... And I make 5 iron powders. WTF?
<temporizer> oh
<Mrgrey> damn indeed... hm
<derpella> what can be the reason?
<Mrgrey> hm... well what's your level again?
<derpella> 63
<derpella> I am sitting next to you, btw
<Mrgrey> hm, I can't be sure, but it could be something that improves with actual level
<Mrgrey> or i believe there's another amount of magic mastery, like 450% or something
<derpella> derpella with level 7x made 6 powders when restated to mage...
<Mrgrey> i believe i make 6, even with less m attack than what you mentioned before, though i could be wrong
<derpella> well, I guess the only thing I can do is level up more
<Peablog> With over 100 intelligence and focused on astral soul level 9, I make six iron powders per iron ore every time.  With a lower intelligence I mostly made 5, sometimes 6, and every now and again 7 iron powders per iron ore.  Someone told me that that was to be expected, based on something that I do not understand........
<o11c> no, it has nothing to do with level
<o11c> although due to a quirk of the formula, you actually have a better chance of making 6 powders with some lower amount of m.attack
<Mrgrey> hm strange
<o11c> granted, I'm assuming that spellpower == mattack
<o11c> it hits a partial maximum when spellpower is a multiple of 140, such as 560
<o11c> hmm ... spellpower = spellpower + (skill(caster, MAGIC) + skill(caster, school)) * 10;
<o11c> of course, I have no clue if that actually works
<o11c> so with general and transmute level 2, that's a bonus of 40
<o11c> so you actually want 520 m.attack
<o11c> or 660
<derpella> so should I get naked?
<derpella> will the ring +1 give me +5 MA?
<o11c> dunno
<o11c> it's really late
<derpella> and does level up give ma bonus?
<o11c> just make sure (at skill level 2 in both general and transmutation magic) that you have either 520 or 660 m.attack
<derpella> ok...
<o11c> Mrgrey would probably know that one
* o11c raises SIGINT and gets caught by a handler
<Mrgrey> lol, yeah every level you get about 1 m attack that ive seen
<derpella> damn, disrobing only lowers me to 580
<derpella> is it a bug or a feature?
<derpella> not disrobing, but being better being worse

[Piateluca]

With a lower intelligence I mostly made 5, sometimes 6, and every now and again 7 iron powders per iron ore.

Is that possible???

[Big Crunch]

Not in my experience. But I've only had the highest possible mattack, so take it for what its worth.

[o11c]

There is more randomness at lower levels.
spellpower = matk + 10 * (sum of magic skill levels in general and school)
For most players, spellpower = matk + 40.

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With spellpower ≥   0, guaranteed 1
With spellpower ≥ 140, guaranteed 2
With spellpower ≥ 280, guaranteed 3
With spellpower ≥ 420, guaranteed 4
With spellpower ≥ 560, guaranteed 5
With spellpower ≥ 700, guaranteed 6

With spellpower ≤ 680, possibility of 1 more
With spellpower ≤ 460, possibility of 2 more
With spellpower ≤ 240, possibility of 3 more
With spellpower ≤  20, possibility of 4 more

The "possibility" varies continuously, so you get a local maximum when exactly on a number in the "guaranteed" list (although after 680 there is no more "possibility").

So the ranges are:

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pwr     prod
  0- 20 1+4=5
 21-139 1+3=4
140-240 2+3=5
241-279 2+2=4
280-419 3+2=5
420-460 4+2=6
461-559 4+1=5
560-680 5+1=6
681-699 5+0=5
700-839 6+0=6

[DefinitelyNOTMrWho]

I have a char with:
-level 63
-maxed astral
-maxed int
-staff, wizard hat, clover
-655 MA
-over 200% magic exp
and I get 5 powders/ore.
I had worse stats on other char and got 6.
On IRC, o11c said that I should have either 520, or 660 MA to make 6.
Not a great problem, because I guess it'll go better as I level up, but one thing bugs me: Was this made on purpose, that your spells get worse as you advance?

You make only 5 because your magic attack is noob-like, wait till you get closer to 700 and then you will always make 6 powders

[Derpella]

Yay, helpful post <3
Yeah, I know that as soon as I'll reach 68lvl and get 660 MA, I will make 6, but the question is, why this mechanism works in such a weird way? I mean, I always get 5 now, and with lower MA I had lot of 6.

[Jenalya]

Yeah, I know that as soon as I'll reach 68lvl and get 660 MA, I will make 6, but the question is, why this mechanism works in such a weird way? I mean, I always get 5 now, and with lower MA I had lot of 6.

I don't know why it was designed that way, but imagine it from the roleplaying point of view:
You (your character) is learning some very complicated things! How to transform some bunch of iron ore into powder just by the power of your will. It's naturally that you get better with more experience, but sometimes it works better, sometimes not (hence the randomness) and once you progress to a certain level of knowledge (see the borders of guaranteed numbers of powder), you have to assimilate with the new knowledge first and might get even less powders than before until you memorized the new knowledge properly (got even more magic attack).

As I said, I don't know what the creator of it thought, this is my try to interpret.