4 Star Master Books - Completely frustrating and unfun.

Way to go square enix for ruining crafting that way.

Reclaiming due to bad RNG, still lose mats often
No 'Good' proc for Byregots, press Byregots and out comes an Excellent next step.

These tokens have really killed the fun of getting into 4 star territory.

Keep adding RNG and there will be no point in even trying anymore.

It's like a trial!

And if you can get this book, the actual 4 star crafts are easier!

I thought they were really good. They even made FCIII cheap to make them easier. Also, players who know what they are doing are going to HQ these at a perfectly acceptable rate.

If you're bad at books, you'll just be bad at 4* when you're making crafts that cost 10x as much.

I've wasted 30 FCIIIs to failed Reclaims so far, thats whats pissing me off the most. And some streaks of 3-4 failed HT in a row under SHII buff is just ridiculous.
Sure I've managed 6 books but the last 5 tokens I need are just not happening with this stupid bad luck.

RNG is incredibly annoying to deal with.

I wouldnt mind if they were NQ at least but no, they are completely wasted due to reclaim's "10%" fail rate.

Failed reclaim ... 3 times in a row ... I don't understand!

and got NQ 3 times in a row with 64 84 and 96% for my final book's last token

Truly, RNG is the future!

Best you can do really is get your craftsmanship high enough to progress in 6 steps, and maximize your CP through melds and food.

...and hope you get 10-11 stacks along with a good/excellent.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by RiceisNice

Best you can do really is get your craftsmanship high enough to progress in 6 steps, and maximize your CP through melds and food.

...and hope you get 10-11 stacks along with a good/excellent.

---

That is what ive been doing obviously.

RNG is screwed for 3.9 and above but SE says it's working as intended, so we just have to deal with it.

And once again as in many topics, I'm with you I've lost the count on fails at 90% on reclaim or Byregot Blessing, the countless fails in a row on HT @ 80% success.
But once you get used to it, it's not that hard anyway and 4* are way easier.

Don't give up.

i had the most fun unlocking carpenter. can go through the whole synth process right up to hitting Byregots.

if condition is good/excellent. hit byregots.
if condition is normal. Rumination :D. then reclaim.

keep repeat till you get good/excellent with byregots and 11IQ stacks ^^.

LTW is maybe the hardest. also i find weaver is a bit hard as well. Alchemist and Cul should be easy. i will use the rumination method for them.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Empty-handed

i had the most fun unlocking carpenter. can go through the whole synth process right up to hitting Byregots.

if condition is good/excellent. hit byregots.
if condition is normal. Rumination then reclaim.

keep repeat till you get good/excellent with byregots and 11IQ stacks ^^.

LTW is maybe the hardest. also i find weaver is a bit hard as well. Alchemist and Cul should be easy. i will use the rumination method for them.

---

That is the entire issue though.

if condition is good/excellent. hit byregots.
if condition is normal. Rumination then reclaim.

keep repeat till you get good/excellent with byregots and 11IQ stacks ^^.

This is not skill, this is binary logic dictated entirely by RNG. And sadly the only solution is to keep trying the same thing until RNG decides to give you what you want.
There is no real player skill in this kind of crafting.
Arguably the ONLY skill in this process is being able to use ToT on almost every Good, and "hoping" that RNG gives you enough Goods for enough CP to get more durability and an extra SH2 so you can get even MORE chances at the 80% RNG.
Then maybe you have a pre-planned finishing sequence where you can interchange the order of 2 PbP and BB, so you have 3 chances to see a Good or Excellent condition for BB before you would Reclaim.

That's it, that is the extent of the "skill" required for this kind of RNG based crafting. You build a slightly variable finishing sequence where you can freely change the order of some skills to "fish" for a Good/Excellent.
Then you run the same generic HT sequence that everyone else does. Hit ToT when you see a Good, HOPE your HT's don't fail, HOPE you get enough ToTs to make them worthwhile, HOPE you get a Good/Excellent for BB, and when all else fails, HOPE your 90% Reclaim doesn't fail as well...

Seriously, this is a whole lot of hoping and guessing and endless retrying, that is not what you would expect of an "expert level crafter", that sounds like what we did before we unlocked all of the lvl 15 skills, SH2, Careful Synth, and BB. Hope it comes out HQ, and if not, try again... But during those days, the materials were dirt cheap. Now, we are "elite" crafters, and WE ARE DOING THE SAME DAMN THING!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kenji1134

...

---

It's hard to make anything turn-based like crafting require "skill", it's mostly planning and strategy rather than execution. I mean, most you can really do with gear is lower the threshold of RNG and giving you a bit more to work with (less steps to finish the craft, more CP for MM, etc etc). Hell, even people who chastise others for doing something wrong sitll call to reclaims because they get 10 or lower IQ stacks.

RNG since 2.3 has exclusively killed my passion for crafting... at least introduce ways to mitigate this? NEW ITEMS!?!?! Reclaim percentage increase +10%? Chance of "Excellent" +5%? GIVE US AT LEAST SOMETHING!

I know it is for "the most knowledgeable crafters" but srsly I am not going to farm weeks for one of these only to fail

For what it's worth, I am just buying all my OHs because I make gil faster than it takes to collect the mats, this is feeding the gilsellers and lee7 players but SE seem to be supporting RMT more since 2.3 anyway <.<

Its frustrating. While i have not touched any 4* crafts just yet. Im going to stick with it till the end. Hoping that it gets better with future patches.

Seriously trying not to get angry but how does one... at 90% chance of success on Reclaim... lose not one, but two sets of materials within the same... 8 or so minutes of crafting?

At this point, I'm starting to believe that the RNG on Reclaim might not be as truthful as it's making itself out to be.

Unfortunately this is a love hate thing.

Call it RNG if you want, but it is entirely not called no skill.

I know of people who burned over 10mil gil trying to unlock one 4 star book during the first week of 2.4.

And meanwhile here I am, not enjoying even the most average luck of anything within this game, managed to unlock the crucial WVR/LTW 4 star books within just a couple of mil, and probably one of the first 5 or 10 persons in my server that was able to do 4 star reliably from day 1-2 and made a good profit out of it.

The RNG part is indeed shitty, but having the skill to devise a reasonable workflow with it differentiates those who are at the edge of crafting game and reap the most benefit out of it, VS those who are waiting for rotations or shun it.

Selfishly speaking I am not keen in a saturated market where it seems like everyone's mum can craft the current most difficult crafts. I was rather happy being one of the few dudes who could craft and sell the 4 star items considering the amount of time and effort taken to unlock then, or even craft them at the moment.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ooshima

Selfishly speaking I am not keen in a saturated market where it seems like everyone's mum can craft the current most difficult crafts. I was rather happy being one of the few dudes who could craft and sell the 4 star items considering the amount of time and effort taken to unlock then, or even craft them at the moment.

---

See, this is the kind of attitude that drives me up a wall. The "I've got mine, later for you" attitude that makes MMOs a toxic environment. What makes one person more special than everyone else that 3- and 4-star crafts should be gated in such a way that benefits such a small percentage of the community?

This is the very reason I proposed several (admittedly wild) proposals to make RNG less of a factor in 3- and 4-star synths a week ago. More people have to be allowed to do these crafts without having to burn several millions of gil in the process. That can only lead to buying gil.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Hayward

This is the very reason I proposed several (admittedly wild) proposals to make RNG less of a factor in 3- and 4-star synths a week ago. More people have to be allowed to do these crafts without having to burn several millions of gil in the process. That can only lead to buying gil.

---

I have no issues with making materials to enter into top tier crafting being made more readily available (cheaper), but the difficulty (RNG) doesn't need to be dumbed down.

I don't really see the point in getting 4* crafting. The design of crafted gear caters to the small percentage of people that push end-game and can afford to overmeld it. Maybe on a larger server with a lot of hardcore raiders this might be profitable, but on my smaller server this is a handful of people.

Honestly, the amount of gil I'd have dumped into getting 4* has been put to better use crafting my own spirit bind gear and selling Savage IVs on the market board.

Yup, it is getting to the point where there just isn't one anymore. The amount of BS you have to put it is not worth the reward at all. When will crafting gear actually be good? Right now it is mostly glamour...pfft.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Meier

Yup, it is getting to the point where there just isn't one anymore. The amount of BS you have to put it is not worth the reward at all. When will crafting gear actually be good? Right now it is mostly glamour...pfft.

---

I mean the cost of Hard Hippo leathers has dropped so much that I can buy a stack of them and make my own i70 Gryphonskin gear (everything except earrings) for under 70-90k. If I get 1 Savage IV I've made over 500% profit from that alone. Hell, even if I get 2 Savage IIIs I broke even.

Why would I dump tons of gil into 4* just to get into an undercut war with one or two other people when I could make as much if not more profit selling materia that goes as fast as you put it up on the board.

I could make the same argument about Battle, Field and Master demimateria.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Sibyll

Why would I dump tons of gil into 4* just to get into an undercut war with one or two other people when I could make as much if not more profit selling materia that goes as fast as you put it up on the board.

---

Not everyone does it to try to make a ton of gil. I've unlocked all 4 star crafts except alchemy (I don't care about making reset books) and I haven't even tried to sell one piece of gear because I don't really care. I basically did it to make all my own gear and gear for my friends. I also didn't dump tons of gil into it either. Sure, maybe I technically did because I didn't sell my own resources I used to unlock them.

I enjoyed the whole process and I guess I can't relate to the people complaining about it. I personally would just not do something if I hated it so much.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Rocond

snip

---

I really enjoyed crafting when I was leveling. Every time I unlocked a new skill it basically redefined how I'd be crafting. I thought it was novel that every class had it's skills that it could use.

Then I hit 50 and realized that I needed to get the required set of cross class skills to do anything at that point. I'm curious what aspects you found enjoyable because frankly the idea of using Reclaim to bait on optimal RNG isn't that enticing.

I'm also aware that everyone isn't out to make tons of gil. I wouldn't even say that's what I'm out to do. However, if I'm going to invest tons of resources (gil and time) getting Artisan off-hands and Supras to be able to do the 4* recipes then I'd like to have a way to at least break even once I get there.

I simply liked the idea that there was a base rotation and I could improvise that rotation based on procs, rather than just pushing a macro button. I mean basically I guess I liked what a lot are complaining about in this thread, so it's probably not worth mentioning.

Well no it is. I mean the 3* turn ins were basically the same when they were current content. The only difference is I don't recall it being as RNG dependent. You weren't getting above 90% unless you had some reasonable luck. With the 4* it's more like you need a Good or an Excellent to get above 30%.

Maybe I just wasn't geared enough, but I don't recall the 50 HQ turn-ins getting to macro level until stat caps got higher.

You could macro them 100% right away when using HQ materials. In that scenario it was a good thing because you had to make 50 of them. In this case where you only have to make 3, I'm fine with the rng and having to pay attention.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Meier

Yup, it is getting to the point where there just isn't one anymore. The amount of BS you have to put it is not worth the reward at all. When will crafting gear actually be good? Right now it is mostly glamour...pfft.

---

what? tell that to the 99% of the bards population rocking the Kirimu Coat penta melded... :/

actually. make that 100%.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Meier

Yup, it is getting to the point where there just isn't one anymore. The amount of BS you have to put it is not worth the reward at all. When will crafting gear actually be good? Right now it is mostly glamour...pfft.

---

If you care about your own performance, all of the crafted gear is really good until you get higher ilvl upgrades. Crafted i110 is a straight upgrade to HA/Soldiery, especially in fixing acc issues for the later turns in FCoB.

I just got my last 3 master books today as well as my last 3 supra's. Finished all with 3 HQ, 5 NQ and 1 FOREVER LOST.

Each book and supra cost roughly at market board rates:
750k for the FC3's
100k in other mats
150k in shards let's say
500k to 1000k per mastercraft.
--------------------------------------
Total cost: 2.5mil to 4mil. Or 20mil to 36mil for books + supra's.

Now to add in the Offhands
300k per sealant: 14.4mil
200k in other mats and shards: 1.6mil
-------------------------------------
Total cost: 16mil

Grand total: 36mil to 52mil Which does not yet include cost of materia yet or artisan body pieces. Everything calculated at market value, i mitigated a lot of my cost by farming most of the mats myself. Now the real question, can i break even or hopefully turn a profit before 3.0 :)

For anyone struggling because you can't see to use all the cross class skills that you want/need. I haven't seen anyone suggest this but do NOT use Careful Synthesis II, Basic Synthesis is more than enough to finish up :)

1) PbP
2) RS
3) HT
4) BB
5) CZ
6) ToT
7) WN II
8) SH II
9) ING II
10) INNO
11) RECLAIM

These are the cross class skills you desire and in most cases you will get all of them, the only exception is Weaver, making it the hardest. You have to give up something, either SH2 (don't suggest), ING II, INNO, RECLAIM or WN II. I gave up ING II and went for one more progress step, i kept inno because i like using to to bait out the good/excellent at the end. If i didn't have 11 stacks then i used RECLAIM. You should NOT rely on Rumination, why? Because you will know if you're going to get it or not, 11 stacks and didn't manage to bait out a Good, let it go NQ and towards your supra instead of your Master Book.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kenji1134

if condition is good/excellent. hit byregots.
if condition is normal. Rumination then reclaim.

keep repeat till you get good/excellent with byregots and 11IQ stacks ^^.

This is not skill, this is binary logic dictated entirely by RNG. And sadly the only solution is to keep trying the same thing until RNG decides to give you what you want.
There is no real player skill in this kind of crafting.

---

You don't need to have good/excellent to get 70%+ and having Rumination on your x-class skills list is a wasted of a much needed space. You'll know well in advance if you need to reclaim or not.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kenji1134

Now, we are "elite" crafters, and WE ARE DOING THE SAME DAMN THING!

---

That's the thing though, we are not all doing the same thing.

I have seen numerours hand-in/4* "rotations" and almost all have them have been bad advice (in my opinion). If you have to rely on following a semi-fixed rotation, you will be under-performing craft-wise.

These hand-ins and 4* crafts are situational and your rotation should be adapting as the synth progresses. Adapting in the most optimal manner seperates the different crafters in terms of "skill".


Crafting is like dps'ing as a BLM, if you do well, those who under-perform blame RNG xD


@xPeAcEx: Why WN2? xD That's got to me my least favourite lvl50 skill personally ^^

With the current market price in tonberry, the profit you can get from selling 4* gears are less than 200k. You see allagan silk at 80k and arachne web at 14k and then you see arachne cullotes of casting at 700k and people complaining that the cullotes is too dem expensive. I would really wish to smack some of these players head. But even more i would like to slap the heads of the crafters that sell the dem cullotes for less than 700k. There are hardly any profits left in 4 star crafting. if you fail to nq then you have to sell it for less than base mat price and these buyers demands guaranteed hq without understanding that you cannot guarantee hq 4* recipes. Nevermind the cost it takes to unlock masterbook 2. My advice, if you are trying to unlock 4* recipe for profit... Don't.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by scarebearz

@xPeAcEx: Why WN2? xD That's got to me my least favourite lvl50 skill personally ^^

---

I won't lie, it used to be my least favorite as well. I felt like too many steps were being wasted. Depending on how my rotation is going before the first MM II

3-4 Tots: Go into a MMII repeat rotation which include 14 80% HTs and has enough to finish with both GS, INNO and BB. It doesn't matter if we have 395 or 398 CP, we need 5 or 6 ToTs throughout the entire synth. 35-37 steps roughly.

Less than 3 ToTs: go into a WNII rotation, which depending on how it goes and CP available will have enough to proc a MM and recover 30 dura. Which has a minimum 12 80% HTs, 15 at 80% if you recover enough cp since i usually manage to fit in a 3rd full or clipped CZ as well. Now whether you choose to go SH II + WN II or WN II + SH II is something you will have to decide on the stop, i prefer SH II + WN II since it gives me a chance to proc ToT.

Scarebearz gets 4*, there is no rotation.
You have to feel it out, calculate your CP, adapt on the fly.

I rarely nq a 4* item. Sometimes i have to do it 5,6,7 times to Hq using reclaim... And yes, sometimes reclaim fails me, but I'd estimate I sit at least an 85% Hq rate and I've done hundreds of 4* synths.

4* is a ton of fun, is stress... But, it's eustress.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Bubblegum01

With the current market price in tonberry,

---

thats pretty much the tonberry market. where the end product is cheaper sold than the cost of the mats :/

2 reasons:

- too many crafters. (leads to blind undercutting. people become impatient and just want to get gil flow even at a loss!)
- less demand. or if there is demand. people are cheap and not willing to pay for the items.

our market sux overall.

i have a friend in Odin and i do check their market regularly, the prices are appropriate vs the cost of the mats. granted everything there is 3x the prices in tonberry. but as i said:

Odin: crafted product = profit+cost of the mats
Tonberry: crafted product = generally a loss + cost of the mats.

if you want to make up for the loss in tonberry you have to 100% gather EVERYTHING and craft all the mats YOURSELF!. and be 100% self reliant.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Bubblegum01

With the current market price in tonberry, the profit you can get from selling 4* gears are less than 200k. You see allagan silk at 80k and arachne web at 14k and then you see arachne cullotes of casting at 700k and people complaining that the cullotes is too dem expensive. I would really wish to smack some of these players head. But even more i would like to slap the heads of the crafters that sell the dem cullotes for less than 700k. There are hardly any profits left in 4 star crafting. if you fail to nq then you have to sell it for less than base mat price and these buyers demands guaranteed hq without understanding that you cannot guarantee hq 4* recipes. Nevermind the cost it takes to unlock masterbook 2. My advice, if you are trying to unlock 4* recipe for profit... Don't.

---

That is what happens when too many crafters compete for the same stuff.

The problem you are facing is that people leaked the rotation online. When the patch first came out, I spend millions experimenting with rotations uses and for what works for me. Noob crafters are now able to do the same without any research or any investment. They just read it from pioneers who went before them. The other issue, is that it used to cost 10 million or so to get 1 craft up to 4 star. Now it cost maybe 2 mill. This is why leaking stuff bites you right back in the end.

I fear for Odin too. Everyday it seems there is a huge influx of 4 star. All wannabes who powerleveled their way to 4 star without any research or investment. People who plundered their mommies creditcard to buy gil and then powerlevel up to 4 star.

Prices gets dumped at Odin too. But usually once the competition is gone, we rise the prices right back up. You need a 100% margin at least to make gil. Some of the crafters bought mats at ridiculous prices and tried to sell them for tiny little margins. They probably thought they were smart when they were playing a fools game. Something that cost 2 mill to craft and up for sale at 2.3mill is just what you expect a fool to do.

It didnt occured to them that if they get unlucky once with reclaim or if they NQ it once, they are downright in loss and need to sell 10 crafts to just break even.

Prices that are too high are a big problem aswell. Margins that are too high lures too many people in trying to powerlevel to 4 star which is a problem. And it lowers turnover rates. I rather sell 5-6 a day rather than 5-6 in a week any time.

Leaked rotations? It's the old 3 star rotation with an extra step. If it took you millions to work it out, you did something wrong. The whole problem is that 4 star has no benefit for end game other than glamor.

To make things worse, many people who play this game for end game battle have no real means of making the sheer amount of funds needed for a full glamor set without buying gil. Especially when there are better glamor sets. To make things worse, once the level cap is raise, all current gear becomes obsolete.

As for the loss you are talking about, there is only a potential loss with the 3 star artisan off hands because those need to be HQ and the 4 star foragers vest. The rest of the gear is mostly used for glamor and most crafting requests are for normal quality and not high quality.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Truedragon

snip

---

You think it's good design to gate crafting progression with a 10 million gil investment? Not every crafter is leveling crafts to play the stock market game on the MB and get undercut all day. Some actually level crafting so that they don't have to depend on the absurd prices that idiots charge on the market boards.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Empty-handed

what? tell that to the 99% of the bards population rocking the Kirimu Coat penta melded... :/

actually. make that 100%.

---

It is still not BIS. One piece for all the work they make us do with the crafting? Nope. It's just not worth it to me. I'll eventually do it, but taking my time lol.

What I meant was, they could make the crafted item drop from the raid and let us craft it into something, etc. But..I don't want to turn this too off topic. Just my own thoughts. I doubt it'll ever happen anyway haha.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by xPeAcEx

Leaked rotations? It's the old 3 star rotation with an extra step. If it took you millions to work it out, you did something wrong. The whole problem is that 4 star has no benefit for end game other than glamor.

To make things worse, many people who play this game for end game battle have no real means of making the sheer amount of funds needed for a full glamor set without buying gil. Especially when there are better glamor sets. To make things worse, once the level cap is raise, all current gear becomes obsolete.

As for the loss you are talking about, there is only a potential loss with the 3 star artisan off hands because those need to be HQ and the 4 star foragers vest. The rest of the gear is mostly used for glamor and most crafting requests are for normal quality and not high quality.

---

Lol@you for talking smack to me.

If the rotation is so easy, then how come you could literally count with 1 hand how many crafters could craft 4 start 1 week after the patch. Yea it is so easy to talk smack now. But back then, only 1 or 2 guys were able to sell 4 star. Thats called pioneering, little kid. Only a handfull were able to craft it coz only a handfull of crafters were top of the game.

It took 60 million to get several 4 star books for crafts at that time. The mats were that expensive. You could not find anyone posting any rotation anywhere. It was grey territory. Completely not like today where you can get your 4 star book for a mere 2 million and where you could read up what you needed to do and how to do it. Someone else has already done all that for you.

That is called pioneering, little kid. Like the great explorers of ancient times. The landscape was barren, wild and unexplored. You were the first to set foot. Its not like today where you walk into a street and the road is paved for you with traffic lights and public transport.

Experimenting with the rotation costed me millions at that time. 1 allagan leather was 800k on the market. And you needed 3 for a simple craft. 5 for a chest/ pants. Has nothing to do with me screwing up. Its called economics. Its as simple as that. The very first people who got those mats were greedy bast%^!# and set the prices that high. I have no control over that. For me the only question is, will I buy it at that price.

As for gear becoming obsolete. Well, that is true for every type of gear, be it dungeon or crafted. Do you really think dreadwyrm will still be BiS when the new expansion arrives. They will be as usefull as current high allagan gear = nice for subjobs but for your main you will be upgrading into the new stuff.

As for BiS set up, there is a thing called stat weights. You might want to check it out yo. Some of the crafted gear are BiS. And some, while they may not be BiS, they will be the second best for a very very very long time. Its not like the bard dreadwyrm coat is farmable for 98% of the players. And yes, Kirimu Coat is BiS untill that day you beat the randomluckgods and you can farm T13. We all know that is not something you can do in a week. And even if you were to farm T13, it could literally take 6 months before you get your coat. Thats where crafted gear comes in. BiS or not, you control the stats essentially bypassing all the randomness.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Sibyll

You think it's good design to gate crafting progression with a 10 million gil investment? Not every crafter is leveling crafts to play the stock market game on the MB and get undercut all day. Some actually level crafting so that they don't have to depend on the absurd prices that idiots charge on the market boards.

---

Yes, that is good design. You need some sort of investment. They are not going to give it to you for free. Nothing in this world is for free. By the way, SE does not set the prices. It is players that set the prices. So if it cost you 10 million to get to 4 star, then thats because players set the mats so high that it took 10 million to get there. SE has very little control over those prices. They can make stuff easy to obtain and in that case the mats will drop in price as the market gets flooded. But the initial price is what players set it to be.

Yo, Truedragon guy, please get out of here.

I started 4 star crafting without knowing what to expect and made HQ items right away (ok that 47% one was pure luck through a bad luck rotation).

There's no big secret and no "pioneering" I didn't look for info on 4 star rotations, I went with what I knew of making the master books and adjusted.

Please stop thinking you're some kind of elite crafting god.

Man, people like you are annoying as hell.