Proposal: Hidden Refinement Attribute for HQ'ing

This is a proposal to add a refinement attribute for HQ'ing. The rationale is that the more you refine any piece of ore, for example, the higher chance you will have that the product is of higher quality. Look at it this way: If I have a ton of ore, and I melt it down into nuggets, then I take the very best of those nuggets, I am more likely to get higher quality ingots from THOSE nuggets than I will from the others.

Currently, the way the system is set up, only items that are dropped from monsters have any sort of realistic use in an HQ item. Getting things like plates, spikes and other materials to +2 or +3 is so prohibitively difficult that there's not much use in trying.

Let's take a back-of-the-napkin math ride, here, as we try to figure out what our chances of synthing a +3 iron plate are.

We start by gathering 4 stacks of +3 iron ore.

Let's assume: 10% of +2 synths = +2 end, 3% of +2 synths = +3 end
Let's assume: 15% of +3 synths = +3 end, 5% of +3 synths = +3 end

That is to say, when we use all +3 materials, we will end up with a +2 end result about 15% of the time and a +3 result about 5% of the time. When we use all +2 materials, we will end up with a +2 end result about 10% of the time and a +3 end result about 3% of the time. This math is probably a little too generous, in truth, but even using generous figures sets the stage for exactly how much effort it takes.

Let's start by making ore into nuggets:
End result: 180 +2 nuggets and 60 +3 nuggets

Now we need to make ingots:
End result: 5 +2 iron ingots, 2 +3 iron ingots

Now we need to make plates
End result: If we're lucky, 1 +2 plate and 2 +1 plates, but no HQ3.

Total cost of the above: About 1.7 million gil.

In fact, to get a mathematically good chance at getting a +3 iron plate, we need to do 700 combines of +3 iron ore. This is about 12 million gil worth of materials just to get a SINGLE iron plate +3.

So how do we fix it?

Obviously there is some background calculation going on to tweak HQ chances by a multitude of factors. I am proposing for one additional one to be added: Refinement. Every time a material is refined into another material, it should increase the HQ chance
of that next material by some amount. Note, we're not talking FINISHED items here - finished item HQ chance is fine the way it is, we should not be drowning in +3 items. I am only talking materials.

Let's see how the above iron plate scenario changes if we double the HQ chance for materials each time the item is refined:

HQ Ore->HQ Nugget : +2: 10%/3% +3: 15%/5% (unchanged)
HQ Nugget->HQ Ingot : +2: 20%/6% +3: 30%/10% (x2)
HQ Ingot->HQ Plate: +2: 40%/12% +3: 60%/20% (x4 total)

How does this change the effort in getting a +3 iron plate?

After the same 100 +3 iron nugget synths, you should mathematically end up with 5 +2 iron plates and 1 +3 iron plate. For a 1.7 million gil investment, this is probably fairly reasonable.

As you can see, it is not terribly game breaking, it just allows a more reasonable chance at obtaining these items through effort than the current system allows. It gives a much more fair chance at materials synths.

That sounds reasonable Solipse. Something has to be done though, I know SE loves their time sinks, but +3 mat crafting is currently unrealistic and exceedingly frustrating. I like your idea. It would make 3rd and 4th generation mats much more realistic to HQ.