I give up =(Follow

If you're really doing all that you say, then I don't know.

I fail 1/100 synths anymore, wearing mostly cotton gear and doing synths 1-3 above my rank for skill crafts. I get support when it asks for it from the guild but I don't have any of the training books. I try to do leves near or under my rank. I occasionally eat the control foods.

Now...if you're rank 15 trying a rank 20 synth in a leve, there's a pretty good chance you're going to fail. All 4-5 tries. If you're watching TV and spamming enter, there's a great chance you're going to fail. If you don't use abilities like Preserve or Maker's Muse, again you're gonna fail. If you don't pay attention to the colors and Wait on unstable or reds, yeah, you're gonna fail. If you use Rapid or Bold alot, you're gonna fail.

The game is designed so that you WILL fail trying stuff above your ability. Like 5 ranks above being very difficult. The system also gives you decent points for crafts below your rank, so my advice would be try to that. Example, you are rank 11, try rank 8-10 recipes that will still give 100-200 sp, instead of trying a rank 15-16 that gives 300 sp. Yes, 300 is more, but if you fail 1/2 times, then its not better.

All I can say is that I hope a lot of the design decisions in the game now will be the thing we look on a year from now and laugh while nodding and wining to one another and making glib comments like, "Tanaka-era design."

Too much random. Too many things not adequately explained.

If you focus on synth giving ~250/synth for non-leve (a bit less if a training book you don't have is needed) and about 350-400 during leve (again, 300- is better if a book you don't have is needed), you should not fail more than 1/10 on average if you use preserve, maker muse and tender touch appropriatly, aliong with the needed support. Of course you can't spam normal all day, need to wait sometimes.
You will get close call, but in general reliability is approrpiate now, so long as you don't go for 400+ sp/synth things.
I say that as a guy having pretty decent level in all craft and crafting with appropriate tool for my lvl and thats it. I'm about naked when I craft, I don't need the gear, can't see a use atm given my track record, I need room too since I'm leveling all crafts.
I only use distilled water as food since I made some when starting alchemy. Most of the time I forget to use it actually and can't see a difference either...

I crafted quite a bit yesterday and didn't notice anything different (aside from new colors when "succeeding" a synth) regarding crafting so far.

Please have another go at it, your experience with it is really different from the one I have. I can safely say I'm "happy" with crafting where it is now. I just wish repairing stuff would give a bit more sp, and not give such a low sp figure on low lv stuff....

Aside from that, I really love all the changes they made to everything related to repairing gear. autoselect of material, icon on ppl etc. It is now where it needs to be for this system to work and not be a huge bother. Pretty happy overall, I'm just running around in busy places trying to find repair contract to do now, it's pretty rewarding (maybe not finacially but I just love the feeling ^^)

Because pressing a button and waiting for a random result takes so much skill, am I right?

I have notoriously bad luck with random number generators. It has plagued me in countless MMOs. Now when it is such a huge factor in something that I usually love doing, it just makes me furious. I mean, I have made stacks upon stacks of Dodo leather at Rank 17 leatherworking then picked up a leave only to botch 3 of the 5 synths and fail it from things like getting a "HAHA TAKE THIS!" -25 durability, +2% progress hit from standard synthing a white orb at 90% progress.

I read Aurelius' post on trending then looked at my logs only to see an almost completely different story. While, yes, I do get the few that seem to follow, more than often my synths go Success! Fail! Success! Fail! Success! Fail! then they go towards a string of success, fails, or unstable element fun till the end. Other times they will start off with a long string of failures before shooting towards a success or ending up in epic failure. After a while, all the teeth pulling, failures and botches on things that I feel I should be able to succeed on really piss me off.

Personally, I would rather have the crystal synthing of FFXI back. It was completely random too, but at least it didn't give me a false sense that I should be in control of the synth. And when I failed, it was just a one time thing, lost a crystal, lost some mats, try again. Here it just drags on and on and on...

Yes, it's certainly dispiriting to fail a local leve, especially if you feel that it's the perfect level and you were really looking forward to the SP. I don't think you have bad luck. Judging by anecdotes, I'm fairly certain that every crafter has failed a good many leves, with many more barely over-the-rim shots.

It only affects sparking, nothing else.

Of course a random element is needed. But the thing is, for all we know there could be like 5 or 10 random elements right now. It might be a bit too much, don't you think?

Let me see. A random element? Let's see how many we can count in the crafting system.

1) I have a RANDOM chance to succeed or fail any given action.
2) I get a RANDOM outcome of progress/durability loss/quality based on #1 or based off some random check to my attributes. Who knows?
3) The game chooses a RANDOM orb color which then affects, in some way, the outcome of #1 and #2.
4) The game RANDOMLY selects when I can use a particular skill which I have equipped.
5) The game RANDOMLY checks to see if I get an unstable element added onto my synthesis every time I fail 1 action. And it increases this chance the closer I get to finishing the synth because unstable elements are oh so much fun to work with!
6) If the game has so graced me with one of these wonderful unstable elements (I hope you detect my sarcasm) it randomly chooses when it will go away. If I use a crafting action in the same turn as the unstable element is going away, it eats my action, explodes and gives me a HUGE durability loss.
7) If I succeed in making anything for a levequest, I have another RANDOM chance to receive either guildmarks or gil from the levequest. I cannot see what I am going to get before I do the hand in which makes getting guildmarks for crafting all that much more enjoyable.

Is that enough random for you? I think it's a wee bit too much personally.

I always keep it in the clear... except for my rope belt which only gives +1 control anyway and, supposedly, the grilled carp should more than make up for the -1 control >.>;

On a recipe I have never done before or something that I know is really high for me, I will never stray from Standard Synth. Once I get a feel for the synth, I will occasionally use bold synthesis towards the end if, and only if, I have ample durability to spare. I never use Rapid. It just doesn't work reliably enough.

I use Maker's Muse, Tender Touch and Preserve. I usually start with either TT or MM depending on which one pops first and use preserve towards the end. Most of the time when I fail it's due to...

- A fail train. For some random reason I start failing almost any synth regardless of orb color. I will use preserve Maker's and what have you and still fail almost every action even on synths lower than my current rank.

- Unstable elements. I don't know why, but for some reason I am getting unstable elements far more now that I ever used to. They pop up... and stay there forever. I will wait 5 times to see if it goes away... nope. I will brave the synth only to fail more often, get less progress and just wish I had a button that says "Give up now!" Earth usually plagues my weaving, Fire and Ice like to plague my alchemy which I find quite odd as Fire, Ice and Lightning are among my highest elemental resistances for those who want to harp on those. I used to get lightning quite often too-- usually during leatherworking though. Maybe I just haven't seen it because I haven't been raising leather lately.

- The random super bomb. I will fight with a synth up to about 90% and have about 30 durability left, when all of a sudden Lady Luck decides to bless me with a -20+ durability fail and give me no progress on a standard synth. Usually the next standard leaves me with 100% progress and 0 durability. I feel especially blessed when these happen to me with Tender Touch or Maker's Muse active.

You sound like you're someone who knows what they're doing, so please understand I don't intend to tread on any toes with the following suggestions - am only offering this info in case it's of any help to you.

(1) I strongly believe Harmonise would help you, and I'll explain why.

I tend to think of 'risk' in crafting as a thermometer bar. As you probably already know, the longer the synth goes on, the more risk is accummulated in that bar. The more risk, the more likely you are to fail and, conversely the more likely you are to get a good quality increase if you happen to succeed.

It's kind of like the old (1) new moon vs full moon, or (2) darksday vs lightsday, or (3) synthing to the strength or weakness of the crystal element effects on synths that we saw in ffxi. On bottom end of the thermometer we have higher stability & therefore success rate, but lower chance of HQ. At the top of the thermometer we have less stability & therefore higher chance of failure, but also greater chance of HQ.

At least that's the way I interpret it, I may be wholly wrong. It at least it explains to my mind why I tend to get more HQs when synthing above my rank, but that could just be luck ^^.

When you're synthing above the rank the accummulation of risk is much greater, additionally the progress and quality progressions are stifled, and to round it off the durability loss is increased compared to when you're synthing recipes at or below your level.

You probably have a similar understanding to mine, but just setting out my understanding to make sure we're both on the same page. That you stick to Standard for difficult synths is the smart way to go. Something I try to do, but for some reason I have an addiction to the Bold button ^^. As you would probably guess, on those occasions when I give in to the addiction and hit the Bold, I usually end up failing the leve .... but do you think I've learned my lesson yet? Thank the heavens for the december update where failed local leves now mean you can pick up a different leve in it's place - that's all I'm saying. 8)

Anyways, back on track.

The above in mind - Harmonise is what you want because Harmonise reduces risk. I tend to hit it at around the 50% mark because it means that instead of having a risk progression during the synthesis that perhaps starts at 0 and gradually increases to end at 100, instead I end up with a risk progression that starts at 0, builds up to 50 around mid point, Harmonise then reduces it down again (perhaps to 0, who knows) so that the risk progression in the 2nd half of the synth is roughly similar to the degree of risk progression in the first half of the synth.

I wish I could import a bar graph to visually represent that last paragraph :/

Anyways what you end up with is a synth which has an average risk amount over it's duration of roughly 25%, instead of roughly 50%. Logically this should dramatically improve your chances of completing the synthesis overall.

Disclaimer : as I've mentioned throughout, this is just my perception of how it works, I may be completely wrong, and the figures quoted are just examples for demonstration purposes and don't represent actual risk amounts/progressions you have during synthesis in game.

(2) I don't particularly like using Tender Touch because I feel (again just my perception, no evidence) that it tends to also reduce quality and progress gains, as well as reducing it's stated durability loss.

(3) I strongly suggest you try Fulfillment in addition to Harmonise as it increases chance of success. Then round out your remaining choice with either Maker's Muse or Preserve depending on the synth type - ie finished item or mat.

I tend to be in two minds on Preserve. Half the time I get the feeling it's just masking a red glow in white, and while the preserved good conditions would mean less durability loss than if it was actually glowing red, I end up feeling that I would rather have known it was red so I could opt to 'wait'.

True. We're all just feeling our way along atm.

However my understanding of what 'risk' means has been formed, apart from my own crafting experiences by:
(1) the in-game text descriptions of various actions that either reduce or control 'risk'; and
(2) the following text from the 'ask the devs' post of 1/10 :
"Q. Is there a trick to synthesizing high-quality items?
A. Though synthesis actions carried out while the colored circle graphic is red suffer a reduced rate of success, they often serve to increase the quality of the synthesis. In addition, the successful execution of consecutive actions also serves to increase quality. Ultimately, the higher the quality of the synthesis process, the more likely it is to yield a high-quality result."
(3) ...and this 'ask the devs' post of 29/10 :
"Q. What steps can I take to ensure that the element of my synthesis does not become unstable?
A. The element has a chance of becoming unstable whenever any step of the synthesis process ends in failure. It is at its most susceptible when the glowing light representing the craft is colored, and is at its most stable when this light is white. Additionally, the chances of an element becoming unstable increase as a synthesis attempt nears completion. Naturally, the element which becomes unstable is determined by the type of crystal or shard being used."

Also from that same post :
"Q. What do the crafter-related attributes Craftsmanship, Magic Craftsmanhip, and Control each do?
A. Among recipes in the game, there are those for which the rate of progress and chance of success are increased by higher Craftsmanship, and those for which they are determined by Magic Craftsmanship. Control helps to reduce the occurrence of aetherial sparking (see below), and exerts its influence over both types of recipes just mentioned.

All recipes, however, have set attribute requirements. Attempting a recipe with attributes below those required will result in lessened progress and quality, even for successful actions."

Is it possible that (a) the requirements for the recipe you're trying have been adjusted or (b) have you adjusted your attribute point allotment? (as per the following table from 5/11 'ask the devs')

Class Related Attribute
Main Hand Tool Off Hand Tool
Carpenter VIT DEX
Blacksmith STR MND
Armorer VIT STR
Goldsmith DEX INT
Leatherworker VIT INT
Weaver DEX MND
Alchemist INT PIE
Culinarian MND PIE



copy & pasted from the version update details of 15/12:
-> The following adjustments have been made to local guildleves.
-> Local guildleves can now be abandoned.
-> Players with the maximum of 8 guildleves wishing to undertake another may freely select the guildleve they wish to abandon.
-> * Abandoned guildleves are treated in the same manner as failed guildleves, and cannot be reacquired until the next reset.
-> Local guildleve clients are now displayed on the map.

...and yes - it works, had it happen myself. If you haven't noticed it - (1) have you used up all the mats? coz mine didn't drop off the journal list until all the mats were used up, and (2) as above, you can't re-select the failed leve in the same reset period.




One more thing we're feeling our way with ^^. Works for you, doesn't work for me so much >< .
8)



Ok ^^. Well, (good luck) with things & (See you again!)

Wow... just wow... I used fulfillment while skilling up leatherworking on Dodo vamps... (I'm rank 18). Used fulfillment on the first action and failed the next three synths with -25 durability each, the last one ending up with an unstable wind element...

Dodo leather vamps recommend Cobbling Training and Cobbling Training is one of those books where it can really hurt if you don't have it. I know your frustration and I know it well because I also went through the dodo vamps stage of ranking up and between that and a particular armorer leve in Gridania, I actually opted to pick up Cobbling Training with LW marks even before Tanning Training.

Thanks for the tip Aurelius.

Guild marks needs to be given out for regularly.

They should have been given out at rank 1. So by the time you get to rank 20, and did the guild quest, you have enough points for your first book.

My carpenter is rank 23 and Weaver is rank 20. So far both only have 2.5K guild marks.

I agree that it's early and we're still learning. I think the difficulty right now is that even those of us who feel like we're starting to get a handle on things aren't really able to articulate a lot of what we've "learned" in a meaningful way.

I have 189 combined ranks in crafting classes. Bordering on obscene. I still can't tell you what impact (if any) weather has on crafting. I CAN tell you that if you have any other choice, avoid the hell out of crafting when the little moon phase icon is half orange/half black. What that means exactly, I don't know. Frankly, I don't care. What I can tell you is that the other day I sat down to do some skilling up and the moon phase stayed in the half orange/half black phase for three straight game days. 2-3 hours of RL time where crafting was a right sodding chore. Failed action after failed action after destabilized element after...bleh bleh bleh freaking bleh. And as soon as it switched over to a different phase everything smoothed out...

So how do you market that to a "casual" player who has spent a week farming mats and shards an hour or two at a time and they finally sit down to synth and find themselves in the middle of the worst possible conditions? Is that living up to the claim of FFXIV being about "do what you want"? I don't think it is.

Before I reply, since we're managing to keep this civil let me just preface this by saying that what is to follow is not a condemnation of you or your point of view, but certain things stood out in what you said.

The tragedy with that whole thing is that you end up pointing to these things from FFXI like they were confirmation that facing a particular direction made a difference and it never did. That was, finally, after years of testing, debunked as a myth. And the irony is that it was debunked not directly, but by a maturing gamer community that came to be able to distinguish on some level the difference between meaningful testing and superficial testing passed off as "confirmation". And when they finally got around to starting to have a clue about how to test, they realized that all this "testing" that had been the basis for any sort of conclusion was, in fact, useless.

Ever been in the market for a new car and you know exactly what kind of car you want and while you're humming and hawing over finances and such, all of a sudden everywhere you go you're seeing that make and model of vehicle? It's a subjective bias. People see what they want to see.

At no point in any of the NPC dialogues or book texts did it ever explicitly tell you that facing a certain direction had an impact on crafting outcomes. Not ever. It showed the relationship between the elements and used their position in a circumference around the night sky to illustrate, but what happened is that players saw that and said, "Oh, they're appending directions to the elements, therefore it must mean..."

No. That's not how it works. But what would happen is some well-meaning numpty would face direction <x> with <y> crystal and do ten synths and it would go well...maybe they'd even get an HQ or two...and they'd say, "Wow! This really works!" And then someone else would come along and try the thing and get three failures and say, "No way...that's a load of garbage. It makes no difference. If anything, it makes it worse." And then instead of a debate around the methodology of the testing (aka the part that would have spelled the difference between relevant, meaningful testing and superficial garbage), it's a debate over this profession skill level vs. that one and moon phase vs. this vs. that and, in typical wanna-be theorycrafter fashion, they completely and perpetually overlooked the fact that NEITHER of their tests were conclusive or ever had any meaning.

So you see star charts that plot the location of the elements and you WANT to believe that aligning your character model with a particular element on a particular day will have a particular result and you get so convinced of this that when things work out and you have a good string of synths, that's your confirmation that it works. And if you have a bad string of synths that would bring into question the validity of your conclusions, you write it off as a string of bad luck.

And I've already had a run-in with someone applying the exact same logic as was applied in FFXI and, what's worse, he was using the "it worked this way in FFXI, too" line trying to teach newcomers that in order to maximize your chance to succeed, you have to face a certain direction based on the type of shards/crystals you're using. Because if you look on your stat screen it shows the elements in a circle/wheel and it pretty much shows you right there which direction to face, right? And his "testing" had confirmed that it made a significant difference in his outcomes. In typical fashion he refused to reveal what his testing consisted of, or how he dealt with synths involving two different kinds of shards/crystals. Any of that.

And the consequence...really the only part that matters in the context of this discussion...is that if this kind of extravagant bullsh*t is allowed to spread throughout the community because the devs preserve their false impression that we actually LIKE this crap, it becomes very overwhelming and confusing for new players. That is not casual friendly. If you're trying to explain to someone that with this crystal type you face this direction and that direction for that type unless you're also using the other crystal type in which case whichever crystal you're using more of (crystals count as 16 shards!) then you face that direction unless it's such-and-such weather in which case spin it around and flip it upside down...

And if the moon phase/polarity is half light/half dark, don't even @#%^ing bother...

Fun? Deep? Meaningful? Rewarding?

No. And SE really needs to get a handle on that. I don't pay them so they can sit around the office snickering at the superstitious misconceptions the players come up with because they, as developers, don't have enough respect for us to give us the straight goods on the basics of the game.

Refer me to the proof that the direction you face impacts outcomes. It's not necessary for me to point you in the direction of something that disproves something that has never been proven.

Dear Aurelius,
Your proposition that I must prove the absolute existence of the effect of direction on synthesis outcome is an argumentum ad ignorantiam. As Carl Sagan once said "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence". I suggest that what data there is available to support the theory, while not absolute, is sufficient to accept the probability of it being true. Just because the available data for the theory could be said to be more on the ambiguous than absolute, does not rule it out from being true.
To help resolve the debate for my part I will concede there is a certain degree of ambiguity in the data which suggests the synthesis direction theory of FFXI, and further concede that perhaps I was being too absolute myself in earlier asserting that it must be true. However, I offer the following points as ones which strongly back the probability of the theory being correct :
(1) As provided in-game by the NPCs Kaela, Adaunel, and Lago-Charago, the following elemental stellar map:
http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/File:Stellar_map.png
(2) As provided in-game by the NPCs Julio, Villion, and Yuhito-Kubhito, the following elemental relationship chart:
http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/File:Elemental-relationships.jpg
...and lastly....
(3) 3+ years of personal ffxi playing time in which I persistently experimented with the theory of elemental direction & day affecting synthesis - of which, to my overall personal experiences, held true.

However, I have to say that I take at least a small degree of umbrage in your own responses to me, in
(A) implying I am, in some way, by holding the synthesis direction theory to be true, being somewhat immature and incapable of distinguishing rumour from adequately tested evidence....



and (B) clearly and distinctively stating that actual debunking of the theory had taken place but then being unable to reference said debunking. I can admit that it's entirely possible my adhering to the FFXI synthesis direction theory might be me just being a victim to a meme. I make no claim to perfection. However if you are unable to reference your stated debunking - if your belief that it has been debunked is based mainly on rumor or your own perhaps failed synthesis experimentation - then are you not just as potentially likely to be a victim of a "it's all superstition, there's no evidence!" meme?




- Whether or not they 'admitted to .... copying and pasting terrain to save time' I couldn't say, I don't remember reading that. Though I do recall reading they had admitted to copying & pasting terrain to save on memory usage.

- Even in the face of the evident unpreparedness of the game for full release, I have to admit that I still held out (naive perhaps) hope the ffxiv devs had actually knitted together a full and coherent elemental synthesis system. However, I think you'll find I mention in one of the above posts that I don't think they have implemented one ... where I refer to the sun (day) element cycle and having concluded that SE haven't 'turned it on', so to speak. Still, there is information within the game itself which implies that eventually SE will do so. Namely the aforementioned tomes, the mentions of the 12 gods and their attributes, etc.

- You mentioned earlier being perplexed on how you can get HQ results on synthesis outcomes with a low quality result of, say, <50 yet not get more frequent HQ results with quality results much higher. I've had similar experiences (eg no HQ for a quality result over 400, but getting a HQ with a quality result of @ 20). I having a feeling that the most recent updates in which they tinkered with the mechanics of synthesis a bit have slightly messed up the probabilities of HQ outcome. However, as many others have suggested, the current period of no-monthly-fee play time should probably be interpreted as a continuing open beta (at least I'm treating it as such) and therefore I'm remaining as patient as I can with the synthesis system's current inconsistencies.

- I referenced in one of the above posts the ask the dev posting (point/attribute allotments, I think the dev post was titled) which indicated the attributes a character has can affect the likelihood of HQ result. I'm currently experimenting with this. I've reassigned points and amped up primarily on DEX, and to a lesser degree on MND - the suggested combination for main (DEX) and sub (MND) weaving HQ success. So far I can't say I've noticed much difference in HQ result, but it does seem that my successful completion rate in weaving has become more stable. On the flip side I only successfully completed what previously had been a relatively easy goldsmithing leve by the skin of my teeth. Though I have to admit my methodology in experimentation so far hasn't been that consistent, I'm only getting a 'feel' of it at the moment. Perhaps I/we could design a more scientific sampling? Eg stocking up on a lot of low cost, readiliy accessible, low shard use items like moko grass -> hemp yarn, or rye -> rye flour, then strip off all cloths, try to remove/note down any other potentially affecting variables, and do a heap of synths using varying point allotments.... interested?

cooking - 19 : smithing, armor & gold - 18 : cloth & wood 20 : leather 22 : alchemy 24.

take your pick ^^. though I am trying to get all of them to 20 atm, so if you have a craft around that level it might be better.

we would need to control for potential variables.

- The difference between receipe & rank lvl is one so do we choose a recipe far below so little likelihood of ranking up mid session? Could still count the fail rate (I still get those on occasion even with a 10+ lvl diff)
- dunno if leveling up physically between sessions would be another - should we wait til we hit 50 phys? I'm not far off, maybe another week...
- I think it's likely (as per above debate ^^) we could rule out direction and elemental day of the moon cycle as possibly impacting at this point, but better safe than sorry - so ... always face north and maybe do the sessions on every 8th day?

I'm good with the grilled carp suggestion as a sample recipe.

- the rank diff between our culinarians needn't be a problem - we could use it for a broader analysis.
- however we would need to reach agreement on how much of the point allotment is to be amped purely towards one stat for the purposes of this experiment, and how much a participant could retain for their own benefit while not participating in the experiment. (I hear if you reassign points too frequently they start tapering the points you get back over a period of time? need to confirm that)
- Would probably be a good idea to have a table set up online to keep record of synth results as we progress.
- Then the question is - do we just record final result, or things like frequency of failure, normal & success during the synth.
- should we always stick to the standard synth choice for consistency?
- should we rule out any use of the abilities and only allow for use of 'wait' if the ball is red, and maybe yellow?

thoughts?

1) I suppose so... though it would be a factor of difference. Getting my culinarian up a few levels would not be difficult, but I only have the merchant bought weathered skillet at the moment which would, undoubtedly make the process of going from 11 to 15ish unpleasant.
2) Agreed.
3) Also agreed.
4) Ideally, we would probably record S/F/N for every action, quality of end result, durability of end result, HQ/Not,
5) You would have to stick to Standard Synth. The others have their own success/fail rate different from Standard.
6) Ideally, no abilities should be used at all if we are measuring only the success/fail/hq based on stats. A lvl 2 recipe should not require abilities to complete. If it does, then S-E really needs to fix the system. Color of the ball is too random and since the durability loss from using wait increases by one each time you use it in succession, it could skew the results more than if we just plowed through. I would suggest recording number of different ball colors, but that is likely too much to record between individual actions.



We could, but I believe they have a rather significant wind shard cost. Maybe not for hempen, but with both our weavers at 20, cotton would probably be the best one to use as it is a slightly higher level than the easy level 1 starter recipe.