Remove/Raise the Soft Cap on HQ Gathering

15% is absurd. I'm 48 MIN now, wearing entirely HQ gear and even on a level 1 node my cap is 15%, 20 on a +5 fortune.

I understand wanting to limit the flow of HQ goods, but as it stands it basically renders GP skills pointless. There's nothing more depressing than hitting up one of those 5% nodes, using Unearth II for 50% HQ and not getting a single HQ item. Massive waste of 300 GP. Honestly I get far more HQ resources without using it, sometimes I'll string up 5 in a row.


I loath the RNG to the core of my very being and while it's a necessary evil, I don't think it's asking too much to scale it better. Remove the soft cap, and have the default HQ rate scale up with Perception based on the level of the node vs your character level & perception stat.


This way even on level 50 nodes, you won't be able to get massive default rates - not without forbidden melds, in which case that's fair game given the cost associated with that.

I think if it worked similarly to how HQ'ing in crafting does it'd be fine. That is, you meet the basic threshold and have the flat 15%. Then it goes up, slowly at first as your perception increases, until you hit the critical mass (in crafting's case, over 50% quality) and that's when HQ chances rocket.

I think this would be a great idea if they implement it correctly. I think one thing that could help gathering classes a bit, is to have special traits for lvl 50. One example would be the HQ limit, because 15% isn't much. If we can raise a crafted piece to 100% everytime (with luck, materials, and/or skill), then we should be able to do roughly the same on gathering classes. Maybe not as heavy on HQ, but if you hit 50, there should be some sort of limit removers.

I would think other than breaking the 15% HQ limit, we should also be able to boost the amount of items we get by at least 1 using the same method, and even increasing shard amounts as well, not sure about crystals or clusters as much. That way the grind to 50 is one accomplishment, but then you give the gathering classes some end game content as well. Otherwise, hitting 50 only lets us gather more materials, but still has the same usefulness as other levels.

I agree that perception should have more impact on HQ rate but I wouldn't let it go over 20-25%.
That's why we have abilities to increase HQ chance.
Having 100% HQ chance on low level nodes would make mining and botany useless for lower level gatherers because the market would be flooded with HQ materials.

And you can't compare mining and botany with fishing or crafting either.
When you are fishing you can't tell which fish will bite. You have a selection of fish which you can get at a spot but you can't fish Red Coral only.
When crafting you won't get to 100%HQ if you are not far above the level of the item, and even then most of the skills don't have a 100% success rate, so you always have a chance to fail.

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Originally Posted by Dakre

I would think other than breaking the 15% HQ limit, we should also be able to boost the amount of items we get by at least 1 using the same method, and even increasing shard amounts as well, not sure about crystals or clusters as much. That way the grind to 50 is one accomplishment, but then you give the gathering classes some end game content as well. Otherwise, hitting 50 only lets us gather more materials, but still has the same usefulness as other levels.

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We already have such abilities. The Ward skills or King's Yield do just that for example.

What they could do is to give gatherers a trait which increases GP regeneration based on perception stat when not gathering and a boost to GP return for every gathering attempt. Maybe even with increasing return for gathering chains.

I was really hoping that the percentage would go up by the time that I got to 50. -.-

Another thing to consider is that under the current system, you only need to hit a base amount of perception to HQ the unspoiled nodes, which AFAIK is easily obtainable without perception materia. This effectively renders said materia completely worthless as it won't do anything to further enhance your gathering class.

Heck, they could even tie the rates to your primary stats. For example, IIRC MIN is STR for the Pickaxe and MND for the Sledgehammer, and so raising those stats higher could effectively increase your HQ cap, allowing you to stack more perception. That's just one option anyway.

No. It's already easy enough to obtain HQ items. There's no need for this.

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Originally Posted by Kyana

We already have such abilities. The Ward skills or King\\'s Yield do just that for example.

What they could do is to give gatherers a trait which increases GP regeneration based on perception stat when not gathering and a boost to GP return for every gathering attempt. Maybe even with increasing return for gathering chains.

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You don\\'t understand my point at all. I know there are skills you can use to increase different stats, but i\\'m talking about something like an unlockable trait. Traits are passive and always on, but we don\\'t need anything too game breaking. An extra 5% to HQ or a chance to receive an extra item would be awesome to unlock when you hit lvl 50. Right now if you hit 50, you could compare it to lvl 40, but with higher level equipment and 1 extra skill.

I think it's good where it is right now, even as much as I hate RNG sometimes. I've been a victim of 90%-success-yet-4-fails-in-a-row, too.

But considering a NQ success might give you (hypothetically) 50 exp, yet a HQ gives 400 exp for the same ore..... raising HQ rates will not only flood the market with HQ mats (and possibly items), but increase the number of DoL 50's as leveling up would take a fraction of the time (Cordials anyone?)

RNG does seem unfair sometimes. Just last night, I was making Cotton Yarn. Quality was 701 out of 702, and I ended up with a NQ piece. The best advice I could give is suck it up and be careful what you wish for.

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Originally Posted by NefGP

15% is absurd. I'm 48 MIN now, wearing entirely HQ gear and even on a level 1 node my cap is 15%, 20 on a +5 fortune.

I understand wanting to limit the flow of HQ goods, but as it stands it basically renders GP skills pointless. There's nothing more depressing than hitting up one of those 5% nodes, using Unearth II for 50% HQ and not getting a single HQ item. Massive waste of 300 GP. Honestly I get far more HQ resources without using it, sometimes I'll string up 5 in a row.


I loath the RNG to the core of my very being and while it's a necessary evil, I don't think it's asking too much to scale it better. Remove the soft cap, and have the default HQ rate scale up with Perception based on the level of the node vs your character level & perception stat.


This way even on level 50 nodes, you won't be able to get massive default rates - not without forbidden melds, in which case that's fair game given the cost associated with that.

I think if it worked similarly to how HQ'ing in crafting does it'd be fine. That is, you meet the basic threshold and have the flat 15%. Then it goes up, slowly at first as your perception increases, until you hit the critical mass (in crafting's case, over 50% quality) and that's when HQ chances rocket.

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Quick question regarding your theory. Are you basing this 5%-15% on just the nodes at your level? If that is the case then how SE has it should be good. Now say you were 45 and you went to a rank 5 node and were getting 5% then that should be fishy. I was able to take my 50 miner to a rank 5 node and get 100% chance to HQ with unearth II. Your % of HQ should scale based on your level to the node level.

Btw, SE uses a HUGE @$$ sample size to calculate the average. Unfortunately, we feel gipped because our sample size is much smaller compared to the company sample size (over the course of say 1 million swings assuming everything stays the same and you don't level, you will get about 150k HQ items.) I know that's no comfort, but it is what it is and is done rightfully so.

Also, you need about 600+ GP for the un-spoiled nodes for you to be able to use Toil + Unearth to increase HQ chance.

It's because of the pure randomness with theese skills. I also had this wtf moments alot this evening. For example:

Node 1: I use skill and get a 45% chance to HQ. Result was I got NO HQ item from the node.
Node 2: I didn't use any skill. I got 4 HQ items out of 5 attempts.

In these moments you indeed think that these skills are just eating your GP and they feel simply useless. And it's nothing new. I remember the random devil from FFXI when something had a chance to drop around 50% and you still didn't get anything after 15 attempts. That's why I only like the skills which yield more items, because it does also mean you'll get more HQ items on standard nodes.

It's not a theory, it's fact.

There's a soft cap of 15% that never increases without either abilities or the +5% node. So, anyone who's bought a tier IV perception materia has basically wasted their money.

That is bad design on SE's part.