Need help with collectability

I put on Collectors glove, hit the node to uncover the goods, hit collect, the box pops with zero rareity and will not let me start a rotation. My Gathering is 578 and perception is 580.

What am I doing wrong?

Are you using the skills such as discerning eye, impulsive appraisal, methodical appraisal etc? To be able to collect and item you must first use these skills to increase the rairity of the item, then collect. (Don't go over the 30 durability or you will have a 5% chance to gather.) A typical rotation would be discerning eye than methodical appraisal two to three times (assuming you are below 60) to get the rarity needed to turn in. Hope that helps.

I don't even get the chance to use MAA or anything...the collect box shows rareity of zero and will not allow me to do anything.

Don't click Collect before you have used the appraisals and buffs

It should go like this:

Have collector's glove up
Uncover item and click it again
Box pops up saying 0/30 wear and 0% rarity

Using your various collectibility actions you can raise rarity while also raising wear. Do not exceed 30 wear! This typically means you get 3 appraisals (though one particular appraisal skill increases wear by 15 -- nobody uses this, and there's an ability to reduce wear incurred to 5).

You want to get rarity above the minimum (and not much more) that Rowena will accept. Going for tier 2 is definitely not as good as getting more tier 1 items. Appraisals increase wear and reduce the % on the node's bar so you won't be collecting a lot of items. It's very different from gathering normal items. Best case scenario you walk away with 4 items, though 2 is typical.

In any case, after you've used those abilities you can now hit the collect button. You'll then be prompted to keep the item as collectible or not (if not you'll collect a normal version of the item). Note that you can still miss even though it's no longer displayed as prominently (technically you can get HQ as well which still affects exp and the visual/ sound generated but has no additional effect on rarity). If you're overflowing with GP or your gathering rate is too low not to use a +gathering rate ability then go ahead, but usually you'll need all or nearly all of your GP for the expensive collectibility actions.

Thanks all it works that way. I feel silly, but you all really helped.

I'm more concerned with how appraisals don't increase rarity according to your perception, like the tool tip says. With 450 perception, the 1.1 x appraisal gives me 100 rarity, not 495.

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Originally Posted by Hieral

I'm more concerned with how appraisals don't increase rarity according to your perception, like the tool tip says. With 450 perception, the 1.1 x appraisal gives me 100 rarity, not 495.

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I'm just going to say that the tool-tip was likely mistranslated; and keep in mind the English version of the game is probably 100% translated from Japanese, with nothing from English being translated TO Japanese.
On that note, every 5 perception is worth about 2 rarity with exceptions on the higher or lower end of the spectrum, and yes it's a spectrum, because there appear to be hidden decimal values that relate to 1.0x that don't always math out to the right number when you take the integer value at 1.5x or 0.9x and apply the proper rounding (or the game is not doing proper rounding).
Another thing to note, is that every item has a separate floor or ceiling with respect to perception; meaning that your 450 perception is worth 100 rarity on that one item (I assume it's a level 54?), but it'll be worth 86 rarity (at 1.0x) on a level 56 item, and only 80 rarity (1.0x), on every item that's 58 or higher (I'm unsure if there's even a level 57 collectable?).

Oh, good. Than you for the clarification. Have they acknowledged a translation error or misleading tooltip or do I need to report it?

I think you'll have to report it. I don't remember seeing any mention of them acknowledging that the tool-tip is slightly misleading, but they probably also wanted people to figure out what it actually does on their own, like many aspects of the game. If you want to skip the experimenting though, Looney Bob even put together an awesome perception-to-appraisal guide :D

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Originally Posted by Loony_BoB

All you need to know about which rotation is best for your stats at each node, and what gathering is required to one-shot reveal them.

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