Give us a reason to use anything but standard while synthing!

So with the whole discussion on whether being afk and pressing "confirm" on a controller is considered botting and what not, it's pretty clear the synth minigame is flawed.

Main problem being that to get steady, stable exp, all you have to do is spam enter.

There was an adjustment of how much exp you gain in proportion to the quality of a synth, but it is still not enough.

I just burned through a stack of cinderfoot olives and spamming enter worked fine, not a single break. Half of the time I tried to get more exp by using careful synth, I suddenly got into streaks of failures, breaking my synth in the end.

The other 50% of those synths took me about TWICE as long as spamming standard while only gaining about 50% more exp - clearly too low and NOT worth it.

This still needs adjustment, for example make careful synth give more quality, or set a bonus for every successful careful synth.

Something needs to be done here, otherwise it's no wonder so many people spam enter for hours - doing anything else puts you at disadvantage.

Every craft class needs its own game. EXP must be based on the skill at playing the game (for example: if the game was like Tetris or Dr. Mario, you'd get more Quality from combo'ing clears and more EXP).

How much exp are you getting per synth? 150? Maybe 200 at best?

If you're trying harder synth you'll be getting around 400~500 range exp per synth, those you can possibly blindly spam standard and still get maybe a few successful synth.

However, if you're really pushing yourself and aiming for the 700+ range, you can't just blindly spam synth and hope for the best.

Basically, the people who are taking no risk, are ideally similar to the people who would kill Easy Prey mobs for EXP. Can't complain it's easy because it is easy.

I've just done another synth using only careful synth + tender touch. The recipe is 1 level above me. Used HQ items to get maximum quality bonus out of it. Got only 36% more exp and nearly blew the synth with 3 durability remaining. Remember, not a single failure while leveling from 10-14 when spamming standrad synth. Yes, it's that bad. -_-

I'd prefer an actual puzzle to do instead of this random junk system, but something that takes the same amount of time to complete a synth.

Kinda like the 'Walk-across-the-tiles,get-all-the-crystals' paradoxes in XIII-2.

Fast, and requires attention.

Not referring to the bonus from quality, talking about crafting level of the item. Such as if the recommended level for it is either +5 ahead of your current level, oppose to +1.

I've pulled off plenty of crafts giving me a return of 400ish on a consist base with minimal failures. Maybe 1 out of 20 crafts fails. If I aim higher than 400+ exp return, I take a bigger risk. I would need to pay attention more and take a bit longer to craft. That is out of my personal conform zone, but there are other people who do aim for 700+ exp on a consistent success rate, failing out of 1 out 20 crafts.

If I have pile of low level materials I just want to get rid of that still is worth at least 100+ exp each successful craft, then I would try to make use of them. However, anything below 100 exp is not worth my time or effort.

i use careful to bump my xp up a bit and rapid for easy mats

Again, this thread is not about getting low exp per synth - i know how to get 500-ish exp and I'm using it.

This thread is about not getting enough boost from using anything except standard. The bump from using careful is too low to warrant the synth taking twice as long. Standard synth gets you 20% progress on perfect attempt, careful gets you only 10%, while not giving you 2x exp on success.

This not a "no pain - no gain" situation, it's a "pain and no gain" situation.

I view quality as a small bonus, like EXP chain or link bonus.
And aiming for harder crafts would be synonymous to aiming for IT+ monsters.

However, before that, quality was suppose to be a key factor for HQ'ing items. Although, it was never a guarantee HQ rate. There might be a change to this coming next patch it mentioned "Revisions to balance and flow for HQ synthesis" and "Changes to the algorithm for determining HQ item attributes".

In short, if you're going for EXP, the return rate is higher when aiming for more difficult crafts, rather than wasting your time on generating higher quality.

I agree that the return rates for the time invested to raise the durability bonus is not worth the trouble, because each action you take to raise the durability is as the same time you could have spent just finishing the craft. Ideally it should be more similar to EXP chain and link bonus. Such as the player would reach a point where they realize the EXP chain is not worth the effort, and move on to harder mobs. But it muddles in with the HQ factors of the craft.

The thread title is generalize, but in the OP it's referring to only EXP, hence why I am replying back to your only reference to EXP oppose to HQ rates, or speed (rapid synth, hasty hands, bulk synthing), or anything else.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by lackofwords

I view quality as a small bonus, like EXP chain or link bonus.

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Except, it isn't. It's actually a huge penalty. Let's make an example: using a recipe +5 levels above you gives you around 500 exp. This means 100 base exp + 400 bonus exp for difficulty. This is based on the fact you get 250 exp with a recipe of your level and getting 260 is 10% bonus according to my chat log -> 100 exp is base exp

Assuming you manage to pull off all perfect synth attempts, you will have finished a standard synth in 5 synths (20% progress each) and need 10 synths for a careful synth (10% progress each).

Now, the maximum bonus exp i ever managed to get is 80%... which would be *drumroll* 80 exp points. So you get 580-600 exp for one careful synth, instead of getting 1000+ for two standard synth in the same time

Going for HQ should not be the only reason to use careful synthesis, else SE might as well implement a fast synth (just getting exp for standard synth) and a careful synth with a set chance of failures for both and get rid of this pointless enter-spamfest.