Synthesis Guide Part 2 Done (with link)

Hey guys synthesis guide 2 is now done, hope everyone gets good insight from it like the first.

http://www.technomicon.com/GameTech/...h-7-27-11.html

and for those that missed the first guide:

http://www.technomicon.com/GameTech/...h-5-21-11.html

Thanks! Great guide, indeed thoroughly written!

Sweeeeeets. Thanks a bunch!

I've noticed that in regards to risk the guide mentions that it increases over time, might i ask how accurate your sources are on this?
In my experience risk has a set value for any given time you start a synch (albeit one randomly? decided)
that doesnt actually increase at all.

When i synch a high success rate item the ones that go bad always go bad from the start (considering random luck) rather then after 70%~, in fact ive managed to save a few of those after 70% due to getting lucky.

Quick question. Have we determined if the timer in between synth actions has any bearing on success or failure rate?

A very thorough guide. Nice work!

Informative "Risk" chapter. Long suspected something like that but never quite found a way to put it into words.
Might also want to put the "Starting Quality" calculation into the guide as well:

NQ Ingredient => 0 base
+1 Ingredient => +100 base
+2 Ingredient => +200 base
+3 Ingredient => +300 base
Adjusted Base Quality = Sum(IngredientBaseQuality)/NumberOfIngredients
Actual Base Quality = Adjusted Base Quality + a small positive random value (~1 to 20ish)

E.g. So a 3 ingredient recipe where you use 1 NQ, +1 and +3 ingredient will give you around 133 quality.

If the timer has any bearing at all its very abstract.
It's the first thing that came to my mind as well when i first started crafting,
so i've seen from extensive experience that it doesn't seem to have any noticable effect.

My guess is that it's simply to allow time to decide on ability usage, without removing the pressure.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by tymora

Informative "Risk" chapter. Long suspected something like that but never quite found a way to put it into words.
Might also want to put the "Starting Quality" calculation into the guide as well:

NQ Ingredient => 0 base
+1 Ingredient => +100 base
+2 Ingredient => +200 base
+3 Ingredient => +300 base
Adjusted Base Quality = Sum(IngredientBaseQuality)/NumberOfIngredients
Actual Base Quality = Adjusted Base Quality + a small positive random value (~1 to 20ish)

E.g. So a 3 ingredient recipe where you use 1 NQ, +1 and +3 ingredient will give you around 133 quality.

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Small Sidenote to that, it seems that different ranges of End Quality give different ''Chances'' of getting +1, +2, or +3.
Quality definately effects HQ succession rates, but i dont believe its as set a value as most people think.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Aeyis

Small Sidenote to that, it seems that different ranges of End Quality give different ''Chances'' of getting +1, +2, or +3.
Quality definately effects HQ succession rates, but i dont believe its as set a value as most people think.

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Some JP did a fairly large test on this...forgot the link but I think it is somewhere on this forum.
If I remember correctly, +1, +2, +3 scales with quality at a different rate.

Ah...found it.
http://lodestone.finalfantasyxiv.com...4558&tag=11552

Excerpt:

Quote:

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Simplify linear approximate

+1 Probability = ((Finish Quality) × 0.04% - 2.00%) per touch up
+2 Probability = ((Finish Quality) × 0.02% - 2.00%) per touch up
+3 Probability = ((Finish Quality) × 0.01% - 2.00%) per touch up

(These can fit 200-350 Range only)

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So at 300 quality, you'll have a 10% +1, 4% +2 and 1% +3.
It also fits well with the observation that you can't get +2 under 100 quality and +3 under 200 quality.
His study didn't include touch-ups.

Taking that into account, using 300 quality as example...
Probability of +1 = 1 - (0.9)^x where x is number of touch-up attempts
Probability of +1 = 1 - (0.96)^x
Probability of +1 = 1 - (0.99)^x

So there is an additional depth to crafting which requires you to balance quality and final durability.

And just to add...moon phases and other elemental beliefs remain superstition for now.

Hey Aeyis,

Its actually pretty easy to gauge risk as an outcome of "bad actions". Easiest way to generate risk is by "careful" spam failures. Orb sparking mid synthesis is a pretty good measure of high risk and the best way to see that is by chaining careful spams or other high risk actions. Granted its impossible to gauge risk as a value (which i do mention) but i'm certain that risk is both rng value placed at the beginning of a synthesis and a value that increases as a synthesis progresses.

As you focus on high quality driven crafting more, it becomes more obvious that quality pushes = risk, with the only exception i have found being perfection pushes. Perfection seems to generate little to no risk, and actually i have found perfection stabilizes things in the same way ingenuity does.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by RabidSquirrel

Quick question. Have we determined if the timer in between synth actions has any bearing on success or failure rate?

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I have not seen any pattern to support that, however when i first started crafting i thought that myself :D.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by tymora

Informative "Risk" chapter. Long suspected something like that but never quite found a way to put it into words.
Might also want to put the "Starting Quality" calculation into the guide as well:

NQ Ingredient => 0 base
+1 Ingredient => +100 base
+2 Ingredient => +200 base
+3 Ingredient => +300 base
Adjusted Base Quality = Sum(IngredientBaseQuality)/NumberOfIngredients
Actual Base Quality = Adjusted Base Quality + a small positive random value (~1 to 20ish)

E.g. So a 3 ingredient recipe where you use 1 NQ, +1 and +3 ingredient will give you around 133 quality.

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Hey Tymora,

I went into quality values pretty well in Part1, and i think i mention almost the same quality ranges you do in your post.
I have found lately that its more loose of range than i originally thought with plenty of +2's occurring in the 100-200 range and even some +3's occurring in the 200-300 range.

Well the thing is, i almost never get sparking on the things i craft, regardless of going for quality or doing a standard.
Unstables are a different matter tho.

If i botch something which i should have an extremely high chance of succesfully making, the sparking doesnt happen suddenly somewhere in my crafting.
It happens after i blow up several standard or bolds (usually at the very start).
Seems more like sparking is a result of ignoring your high risk, and getting a penalty because of it.

An the opposite end with the same item in the same batch, ive had crafts where i got much lower dura loss even on fails, resulting in a high ending dura without even trying.

From what i can tell risk kind of effects the odds of getting a success instead of a crit success, or a crit fail instead of a fail.

In hundreds of crafts i dont think ive even once seen a noticable increase in the rates of those during crafting,
baring unstable elements and sparking.

Risk goes up regardless of whether you succeed at the synth or fail it. I've hard sparks occur after a successful synth, but had a few fails prior to that. You just accumulate more risk for failures, especially careful/rapid failures. You won't see sparking very much unless you are attempting to make higher level parts with an offhand or have alot of consecutive rapid/bold failures with a synth close to your level. If you are much higher level over the synth, the risk is greatly reduced per success or fail.

This is why it's good to use harmonize towards the end of a finished item, or even in the middle of it to reduce the risk and increase chances of success. It also enables you to get more touch ups because that is directly correlated to risk. This is all from close to your level or higher point of view. Low level items it doesn't matter as much.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Madruk

Risk goes up regardless of whether you succeed at the synth or fail it. I've hard sparks occur after a successful synth, but had a few fails prior to that. You just accumulate more risk for failures, especially careful/rapid failures. You won't see sparking very much unless you are attempting to make higher level parts with an offhand or have alot of consecutive rapid/bold failures with a synth close to your level. If you are much higher level over the synth, the risk is greatly reduced per success or fail.

This is why it's good to use harmonize towards the end of a finished item, or even in the middle of it to reduce the risk and increase chances of success. It also enables you to get more touch ups because that is directly correlated to risk. This is all from close to your level or higher point of view. Low level items it doesn't matter as much.

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Totally agree Mad, been using Harmonize a lot at 70% mark and on and really pleased with the results. More so is lately i've been stacking control gear + food which also seems to keep things very stable when focusing on quality pushes.

I notice that your quality and durability using your control sets went down as your level went up?
This would mean that control is only useful when attempting items much higher than your own level and that when you are closer / above you should use craftmanship/mag craft

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Haru

I notice that your quality and durability using your control sets went down as your level went up?
This would mean that control is only useful when attempting items much higher than your own level and that when you are closer / above you should use craftmanship/mag craft

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In each test batch the control set had the best ending durability per rank.

Yeah i noticed that too. However for these tests in guide part 2 i wanted to focus primarily in terms of ease of completion. So everything was done from the standpoint of "whats going to help people stat wise get through the synths the most effectively.

This of course is jsut my opinion on the matter but when grinding syntheses purely for rank up, the goal is the fastest route and not the most HQ. As for HQing these tests aren't what i would consider good rank for crafter vs. the synth. What i mean is that if you the crafter are going for HQ rates, you would want to perform your synths at the highest rank in your favor, and not the other way around. Performing iron celeta visors at R33 when the synthesis rank is r40 is purely to capitalize on the sp bonus for harder syntheses.

Interestingly enough going control heavy when you way out rank a synthesis also helps with HQing. I recently switched to a max control set + control food for my HQ synths, and even though each action seems to produce less quality i am able to push teh quality much farther because of the reduced unstables and fails.

wanted to share this combo i was using for some HQ parts. Turned out to be the highest single quality push from a bold i have ever seen 118 quality from one bold action using innovation/inspiration combo.

http://lodestone.finalfantasyxiv.com...entry?e=226257

Thank you for this guide it is wonderful. I have a question. My play time is very limited and I can only play 2-4 hrs a night. In your opinion what would be the most efficient way of leveling up a craft?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Royal

Thank you for this guide it is wonderful. I have a question. My play time is very limited and I can only play 2-4 hrs a night. In your opinion what would be the most efficient way of leveling up a craft?

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Rank up on the highest possible recipe that you don't break too often. ~75% success rate should be good enough.
For example, at rank 39, I am doing rank 48 recipe for skill-up.

To do so, make sure you have the training book, guild support and updated equipment.

Ok thanks.

Awesome guide. Excellently written and full of useful hard data.

I have a question - do you have any idea what Ease the Burden does or when it's useful? I purchased it, and I notice absolutely no difference after using it aside from losing 10% progress.

For abilities i have tested a lot of them, and find the ones that work best for me are Hands of the Gods, Perfection, and Ingenuity. These are my workhorse abilities and i will add in stuff depending on what i'm aiming for.

Ease of Burden specifically i played around a little bit with but wasn't convinced by what i noticed in terms of effect.

Tymora's advice on rank up is very good, although i will add that using the above listed abilities will raise your success rate up quite a lot. To give you an example currently im ranking ARM doing a tuff 700sp synth and botching maybe 1-2 per rank. I am completely certain that those abilities are what's making this possible.

If you're looking for risk reduction i recommend using Harmonize, its low slot cost and low rank to learn is very nice (learned at CUL rank10). I tend to use this late synth (70% progress or there about) on HQ attempts.

And if you're encountering too much difficulty on a recipe that doesn't quite make sense, try switching focus from one craftsmanship to the other. The difficulty will probably be dramatically reduced and you'll have found the type of focus for that class of recipes.

Good stuff Tymora, also for those looking to speed up their synth rank grinds, try loading as much control or simply using control food. Ran a bunch of tests and found that Control heavy sets completed batches of hundreds 30/40 mins faster than craft heavy sets.

Also the grid doublet is a very nice 1.18 addition for crafters giving 20 mag craft to a chest slot (although not "all class" like linen coatee)

Until they make food updates, all foods in the same category should give the same bonuses when all conditions are met (optimal rank, stat and attribute). So the lowly Grilled Carp is equivalent to the a Miq-abob as far as eating is concerned.

This should save some gil.

Good to know Tymora, i usually just use tuna since i can either get it free or just buy from the npc in uld. As for the cost that is good to know, but honestly 9k for a 30min buff is pretty cheap when your crafting a weapon or armor that can be worth mils. Not meant to cheapen your point on the cost, but showing my viewpoint on it.

One thing I'd like to know is if food does the calculation based on what you're current gear is when you eat it or changes if you happen to change gear (or does gear even come into account and it just goes off your mainhand tool?). For example, eat control food while having max control gear on to maximize the effect, then switching to what you'd craft in normally. Since of course the UI doesn't display food effects directly it'd be hard to test.

Very neat and informative.

Thank you Twinkles very much :)

Thanks Shinobi glad you dug it :)