3 star crafts too difficult, need fixing

Imagine fighting a challenging encounter, such as Titan Extreme. You have the right equipment, you know the fight, and you've been practicing. You and your party reach the end with ease. Then, at 5% health, the boss wipes out the entire party. There's no defense against it. He does this 20% of the time you reach that stage, and the only way past it is to fight him again and hope he doesn't do it the next time.

That is what three star crafting is like, and it is not fun.

If you go into the craft fully prepared and make no mistakes, you can still make a worthless item just because of bad luck. That shouldn't happen. No matter how difficult, there should be at least one way to guarantee a 100% HQ success.

I'd suggest reducing maximum quality to 4000. That still requires HQ materials, but allows the best crafters to HQ 100% of the time (with difficulty). It doesn't take away any existing crafters' accomplishments, it just prevents randomness from screwing over high end crafters.

NO! You are asking for handout HQ gear. That is horrible. I like that it is difficult, it is what makes this game....well....NOT WoW! I do not want gear handouts which is what you are asking for. 100% HQ on 3 Star shouldn't be guaranteed. If you are failing your synthesis then you need to be doing a little more planning before you start. I don't get 100% HQ everytime, but I certainly never fail a synthesis. It does take away accomplishment in my opinion. If there is a guaranteed way to 100% HQ, there is no accomplishment there because then theoretically anyone can do it, no longer making HQ even remotely uncommon and taking the value to near nothing.

HQing 3 stars is already easy.

Yes be he wants it to be like HQing 2 stars where it is 100% HQ every single time. No luck involved.

Luck has no bearing on difficulty or accomplishment. It is merely the result of rolling the dice enough times until they come up in your favor. It's not an accomplishment to hit the jackpot at a slot machine, it's just a matter of sitting there long enough and feeding in enough coins. Far from being challenging, it's actually rather boring.

If three star crafts had legitimate challenge instead of randomness giving the illusion of challenge, I would be in favor of it. The current RNG-based system is a terrible step backwards.

Because mathing out rotations constitutes a challenge as well. :rolleyes:

Fact is, you can already rig the RNG in your favour and come up HQ every time. The only thing challenging about 3 stars is getting people to sell the myth mats.

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Originally Posted by Lyrinn

Because mathing out rotations constitutes a challenge as well. :rolleyes:

Fact is, you can already rig the RNG in your favour and come up HQ every time. The only thing challenging about 3 stars is getting people to sell the myth mats.

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you can only get so much cp and control for the three stars. yes, if you have all hq items, 3 starring is usually easy. if you're trying to hq terminus putty, no calculation or amount of allowed stats will give you 100% quality 100% of the time. even without hq putty for leatherworker crafts, its pretty easy to hq the gear, unless you get some really messed up rng. but thats what it comes down to, rng. seems like I'm bashing the system but I'm not, i like that its not easy this time. the only thing I'm mad about it it not being ilvl 95 gear instead of 90. it would make it better than myth, and people would want it more, but it would also keep soldiery and coil gear as the better ones to get, yet are capped. the current gear still needs more incentive to buy instead of myth. ( i understand crafted it still better, but not everybody does, and for some people, its just not worth the money. if you added a 5 to the gear, people would go ape crap over it)

I like the idea that you can't 100% with 0 RNG everything. The problem i have is the rewards aren't that great.

Your analogy limps because a party wipe would be on the level of a failed synthesis, which isn't what's happening here. You miss HQ, you still have an NQ item.

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Originally Posted by FJerome

Your analogy limps because a party wipe would be on the level of a failed synthesis, which isn't what's happening here. You miss HQ, you still have an NQ item.

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If an HQ is super rare to achieve, it becomes a lot more of an accomplishment. If you get to the point where you just EXPECT it to happen. It means nothing, it's just another piece of gear. Most of the highest tier crafted gear was like that in FFXI. Like wearing 5/5 HQ Hecatomb gear or Zenith gear back in FFXI's prime. Or getting a piece of Khepri gear un-cursed a little bit later when Legion was released. You had like a 1-2% chance to acquire the HQ version. And when you got it, it felt like it meant something.

Here you can still get your percentage of HQ much higher than 1-2% even on 3 Star, the stat difference is a lot more negligible, and the materials a more plentiful. If you want an HQ item, stop crying that you can't go 1/1 on it every single time, and work towards it.

The real problem is that hqs are equal to i90 gear...the nqs should be what the stats of hqs are and the new hq version should be i95 or i100. At the same time make the synths harder because perfect rng should still only give low chances to hq. So hopefully se gets their minds right on this crafting path as its fail atm.

Randomness is not challenge and good luck is not hard work. We already have plenty of work required to get to three star ready in the first place, and furthermore to raise the gil necessary for the expensive materials. RNG or no, we're still lacking challenge, and RNG presenting in lieu of challenge doesn't make for a better crafting system.

It might be a different story if NQ were ilvl 90 and the chance to HQ were 10% or less, but HQ is the expectation and NQ is a big waste of gil.

An alternative I think would be better is if the materials remained difficult to HQ, but the final product were easier. Putting together a bunch of different materials can be pretty fun, but it's frustrating to have all that work go down the drain because 99% wasn't enough to appease the RNG.

At this point, all you want is 100% HQ. That is all that is coming from this post. What would be the point of NQ if you could HQ 100% of the time? Nothing. So no, 100% is not a good idea. I don't know what your problem is either, I have never had issues selling NQ. I may not make a 500% profit off of the item, but it still gets sold and I still profit.

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Originally Posted by seorin

Randomness is not challenge and good luck is not hard work. We already have plenty of work required to get to three star ready in the first place, and furthermore to raise the gil necessary for the expensive materials. RNG or no, we're still lacking challenge, and RNG presenting in lieu of challenge doesn't make for a better crafting system.

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So which is more of a challenge, using math and algorithms to figure out a static rotation, or adapting your rotations so you make the best out of whatever situation you're stuck in? I'd argue the latter because a braindead monkey could push macro buttons 1-2-3. There's a reason there's an entire field of application/research dedicated to studying random systems and identifying what the best strategies to deal with those are; it's called operations research, go look it up.

Lies. Meld your crafter, and level other classes, OP. I've made considerable amounts of 3* items with little to no trouble since the launch. They are for top-tier crafters to make as HQs with regularity. If you aren't a top tier crafter, then you have to settle for NQ, or try your luck. There's no point in spending MONTHS since launch dumping every cent that you have into melding if the hardest stuff is easy to make. That is the reward for all of our blood, sweat, and tears.

I certainly didn't arrive at my conclusion from a lack of experience. I've had all crafters and gatherers at 50 since shortly after launch, my gear is max melded, and I have all the master books and new tools. I vary my rotation based on item condition to maximize my luck. I get HQ at least 90% of the time if not closer to 95%. That still means 5% of the time, even when I do everything right, I fail through no fault of my own. After all the effort I've put in, I want failure to be my own fault.

If there's going to be random chance, I'd much rather the HQ chance be 5% instead of the NQ chance. That would actually be fun, because you'd have a 95% chance of success and a 5% chance of awesome success. When HQ is expected 95% of the time, NQ becomes a failure state. It's 95% chance of average success with a 5% chance of failure. Which is more fun - having an awesome success 5% of the time, or failing 5% of the time? I'm going to have to go with the former.

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Originally Posted by seorin

If there's going to be random chance, I'd much rather the HQ chance be 5% instead of the NQ chance. That would actually be fun, because you'd have a 95% chance of success and a 5% chance of awesome success. When HQ is expected 95% of the time, NQ becomes a failure state. It's 95% chance of average success with a 5% chance of failure. Which is more fun - having an awesome success 5% of the time, or failing 5% of the time? I'm going to have to go with the former.

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Just price the 5% risk margin into the final product and deal with it. And this wont last long as I am sure we will get full i70 crafter set in 2.3 (if not in 2.25).

Why would you want to make it even easier than now? To make the MB flooded with 3 star goods? Currently there is already quite a lot of competition for 3 star goods already.

Anyways I don't think it should be made that accessible. A pentamelded 3 star head, hand, belt and feet, taking into account of the extra melded stats, makes them as good as the i100 weathered pieces.

A glass blower has about 30-50% waste. So your are mostly good. What is the point?
Not being able to get it handed out as easily as in 2.1 times?

This is the first MMO I've played where RNG HASN'T been a significant part of crafting - until now. In those other MMO's, a crafter would craft a bunch of stuff knowing full well that they would not all be successful (whether "success" meant HQ, or simply being able to create the item).

I recommend you treat this like other MMO crafters treat RNG: Sell the NQs at or near cost of mats, make a killing on the HQs. Factor the cost of the "failures" into the price you demand for the successful synth.