My horrific experience with a master craft recipe

So I invested all kinds of time and gil to get my crafting gear and I got perfect stats for goldsmith to do 4 star and beyond, 395 CP with food.

I'm like ok, I got 1 million gil it's time to tackle the master recipe so I can start crafting platinum accessories:

I immediately say damn these fieldcrafts cost 40k each and I need 2 and it takes forever to farm my own since my desynth isn't super good on anyone just goldsmith has a 20% chance to succeed with something that can yield a fieldcraft III.

So I ask my crafter buddy who is 4 star in all crafts about rotations since I didn't want to waste gil, he links me Caimie Tsukino's rotations for this stuff. I'm like ok good.

I load up all the cross skills I'll need for these rotations, eat my food, verify my stats are perfect and they end up being well beyond what was recommended for these rotations. Score!

I begin my first craft, 2 failed piece by piece in a row... ok... Caimie doesn't say what to do after you fail these cuz he/she assumes you don't fail a 90% chance twice in a row I guess. I decide to carry on with the rotation so I can feel it out just once and I compensate the 20 durability loss and redo the piece by piece with steady hands II.

Whelp I proceeded to fail 6 out of 8 of the hasty touches I could use... at this point I just use reclaim and try again... I lost my ingredients with reclaim.

Ok... I'm like bad luck. I start over the next one, Piece by Piece succeeds twice, good... no tricks proc... ok I keep going with my Steady Hands II, hasty touch / rapid, rapid fails, rapid fails, rapid succeeds, I get 1 hasty touch, other fails... no procs... I hit master mend II... one proc.

I'm too CP starved to really do much so I just hit Hasty Touch hoping for another proc so I could use reclaim, it never happened, synthesis failed, lost my ingredients.

--------- This bullshit luck continued on and on and on until I now sat at 90k gil starting with 1 million and I did not succeed with a single synthesis.

At this point I found myself so angry that my whole body tensed up and I felt murderous rage wash over me, my face was on fire.

I exited the game. A game... it's just a game. A game that relies heavily on RNG and I am a person who is naturally unlucky. It takes me longer to get things done here due to my bad luck than it does some other people, but losing 910k gil without anything to show for it...

I want to hear that I'm not the only person who finds crafting to be unplayable due to being a naturally unlucky person so that I can feel better about myself. I sure as hell am not going to do that recipe again.

Oh look forum character limit. Hey SE, why don't you just move your forums to Twitter if you want to discourage discussion on your forums.

Actually, we on the US forums are to blame for the character limit (it's a long story). As for your story... sucks, and the luck needed in crafting is nightmarish (people getting HQs off 20% but rarely 90% is tales of legend... that'd be funny if it wasn't true). All anyone can say is, "Better luck next craft." Don't give up, though, your crafting is your major source of income. Capable of earning more than any dungeon runner can ever hope to.

Knowing my luck i would have the same issue..

Sorry for your loss.

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Originally Posted by Gilraen

Actually, we on the US forums are to blame for the character limit (it's a long story).

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Oh? Care to explain what happened?

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Originally Posted by Magis

Oh? Care to explain what happened?

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From what I read, people incited in massive flame wars, trolling, and other nonsense during the beta (dunno if from 1.0 or pre 2.0), which caused Square to slap down the post and character limits.

Reasons why I gave up crafting before even 2star... I do have a friend who's told me quite a few such nightmare stories of his own adventures in crafting. But yeah, bottom line is, this multiple RNG gating on top of having to have everything maxed out and ridiculously overmelded - it's bulls×××. You get the skills, hells, you even get the gear, you sacrifice hours and hours of your time and millions of your gil, to still only have just a chance at succeeding... And you keep sinking more and more of your time and money into it, the process itself is not even fun or challenging anymore - but hey, at least there are others around you who do one tenth of what you did and get their stuff no problem... Maddening.

And it does drive people away from the game in general, make them actually hate it. Said friend of mine is just one such example I know of.

So much pure RNG is really annoying.

A 910k loss is a minor setback.
You'll recover from it soon enough.

Better luck next try o/

Well I haven't read the crafting guide you refer to, relying on two 90% piece by piece's followed by a bunch of rapid synths is just terrible. Using that method/rotation, you opened yourself up to the onslaught of RNG way more than you needed to.

Next time I suggest trying to figure out a better method on your own. 99% of the time, crafting guides that people post online are garbage.

You shouldn't be ever failing PbP...unless you tried to do it without SHII for whatever reason. Unless CP restraints call for it, you should never do hasty touch without SHII. What are your crafting stats? If you have enough craftsmanship you don't even need PbP (allowing you to save an extra cross skill slot for BSM and LTW) unless you want those guaranteed hits at the cost of CP.

Why on earth did you opt to sink nearly 1m into a rotation which clearly wasn't working for you?

Sorry, but you should not be failing these recipes... You can NQ them, that's where the RNG comes into it, but considering you can now turn NQs in for a Fieldcraft III that's less of an issue these days. Comfort Zone > Inner Quite > Steady Hand II > Hasty Touch > Piece by Piece x4 (I'd risk one 90% PbP if a Good came up, but if there were multiple Goods I'd apply Steady Hand I) > Careful Synthesis > Masters Mend II > Steady Hand II > Waste Not II > Hasty Touch x4 > Steady Hand II > Hasty Touch until 15 durability > Byregot's Blessing closer (Great Strides/etc, depending on remaining CP) > Careful Synthesis II. Using Tricks of the Trade where applicable (not during Waste Not II).

If you're getting this angry over it, wait until 3.0 where these recipes should be extremely easy with the extra 10 levels, not to mention Specialist system.

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Originally Posted by BreathlessTao

Reasons why I gave up crafting before even 2star... I do have a friend who's told me quite a few such nightmare stories of his own adventures in crafting. But yeah, bottom line is, this multiple RNG gating on top of having to have everything maxed out and ridiculously overmelded - it's bulls×××. You get the skills, hells, you even get the gear, you sacrifice hours and hours of your time and millions of your gil, to still only have just a chance at succeeding... And you keep sinking more and more of your time and money into it, the process itself is not even fun or challenging anymore - but hey, at least there are others around you who do one tenth of what you did and get their stuff no problem... Maddening.

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What multiple RNGs? I can only think of three; Melds, which have mostly been replaced by Artisan's gear, and Lucis and Master II book recipes, though both of those are very forgiving. You get a 100% success rate on them easily, the only RNG with them is HQing, when you inevitably NQ you just trade those in to get materials back. Melds were the only costly and frustrating RNG in crafting, and nobody should be bothering with them this close to the expansion.

Stuff you'd actually want to craft for profit is typically very easy to HQ with the right rotation... Even if it wasn't, I don't know why people still want HQs for anything but i110. I don't bother HQing the Augmented i90 bodies and they fully funded my Master II book attempts.

My stats are like butt lol only 359 cp if i use fish soup lol.
I just do this modified rotation and it really compensates the lack of extra cp.
I know dat feels when u NQ a thing at 90%^ and HQ a masterbook 2 turn in at 1%.
Its rng till you get better stats in 3.0 lol.
If i were u i'd exit the game and call it a day after tht much bad luck lol cuz there is only so much a person can take before
Curl up
Try not to cry
Cry a lot
XD

I don't think Caimie's guides are up to date.. Even if they are, it probably accounts for rotations for pre-supra gear.. I've seen the general guide and it's very comprehensive, but it's a looong looooong read..Unless you sit down and try to grasp each and every word of it, you won't get the message until you try it out yourself.

1m is just too little money to attempt masterbook II tokens, even at 100k a pop you're only giving yourself 10 tries, 10 tries to get 3 hq and 5 nq? It's very possible even with just an artisan's mainhand, but you need familiarity in order to get it done.

Your RNG does sound bad, but it's nothing others haven't seen before, at that point you either reclaim and go for it hoping for a hq, and use the nq for supra turn-in.. Which is why doing masterbook II before getting your supra/lucis is recommended, nqs aren't useless anymore, you only need to hq 3 out of 8 instead of 3 out of 3, it's much more lenient.


Also, if you're looking to make plat accessories for profit, don't even bother, just get your books later when it's dumbed down after 3.0 There's not enough profit to be made there, most of the money in crafting is held up in desynth, and those aren't 4 star recipes.

Yeah, PBP has a 90% chance so with SHII it should not fail, and it should never be used beyond the very first synth turn (it quickly falls behind the other synth options after that.)

I threw in the towel on 4-star crafts. I thankfully didn't lose much money, but the uncertainty of them just completely turned me off, because up until then you had a way to guarantee HQ if you worked your gear/melds to your advantage. I'll return once 3.0 hits and it's a little less RNG.

My horrific experience with Calibrated Rose Gold Cog.
I was able to HQ 3 in 5 tries and as I proceed to make 3 more NQs for supra...... one of them HQ'd at 4% chance.

Even if I can earn that money back (which takes time), why would I want to bother? When RNG is involved and you have luck as bad as me, you can simply keep failing for an unknown amount of time perhaps never seeing success.

Yeah I can wait for 3.0 to do it, but 3.0 will add new crafting recipes all tucked behind a nice RNG wall. I have non-RNG rotations creates for my 1-3 star recipes but this one is the huge monster recipe that requires like 800 progress and has 8000 quality meaning non-RNG rotations will leave you CP starved especially when your bad RNG involves lack of tricks of the trade procs.

I can't realistically convince myself to keep doing this when RNG makes it impossible for me to determine how much gil and gil farming time I will need to keep wasting before I finally see success. That is what drives me mad the most, not knowing... RNG makes it so you can't have a time estimate, you can't plan when you can complete it, you just have to keep trying and trying until something gives. Those kinds of game designs really turn me away which is why I stick mostly to end game raiding where the only RNG is whether or not you will party finder a group of good players or not but otherwise it's your own skill lol. I realize drops in raids are RNG too but I at least feel I have fun doing that so the time isn't a complete waste for me.

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Originally Posted by Nalien

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In our current crafting environment, it's HQ or bust when it comes to the offhands and forager/artisan body. It doesn't help that those recipes are also diluted a good amount by non-HQ items (sealants and demimateria). When it comes to crafting in general, RNG is still out there (melds, HQing aforementioned items, etc). The best you really can do is take precautions (stats and HQ mats when you can) to give you just a little bit of buffer.

This is the reason I didn't go beyond 2-Star recipes. Another FC mate of mine is a mastercrafter, and on his journey to get that going, I could already feel his rage and bad luck. It's practically a humiliation torture.

Anytime I see something I can make, I think about, "are the materials hard/expensive to get?" If they are, then screw that, it's a pissed-off day waiting to happen. Which is why I usually stick to furniture crafting, you don't have to worry about HQ'ing crap. It's already impressive that OP has the stats to make 4-star stuff. Congrats on that part at least. Also, don't go balls-to-the-wall on that stuff. It might help to pace yourself, like if a couple fails, take a break and do something else, since it's what SE recommends as well, to not rush things...

...and to stay subscribed forever.

It's really not enough to load up a crafting guide and follow the steps blindly if you don't understand what you're crafting. There are some weird elements in your story (Failing Piece by Piece? Running out of durability without having the CP to use Reclaim?) that suggest that you're not really considering the full effect each crafting step is having on your overall synth. When you're trying to end-game craft, each of these tiny mistakes can cost you the entire synthesis and millions in gil, and that's completely separate from RNG.

It's amusing how many people refuse to go into 4 star crafting because of "horror stories" told to them by OTHER PEOPLE...

Can you sometimes lose a million or two while leveling up crafting? Sure, but in the grand scheme of things, what's a million or two when your gear and melds cost tens of millions? It's chump change, if the money's tight, then you just gotta make some more until you're comfortable risking a loss.

Besides, this mentality of "I must be a 4 star crafter to make money" is simply wrong. 4 star crafts are DOMINATED by people that have been doing for months before you ever got there, and they can be fierce, even willing to take a loss just to get you out of the market. Don't go swimming with the sharks, there's not enough money to be had.

If you're crafting to make gil, look at easy to craft items that you can sell in bulks, don't sit on an artisan's apron for 3 days to make a 1m profit, Just make 3 stacks of items that bring in 3500 profit each, there's your million and if you picked the right item, you should be able to sell way more than just 3 stacks in a 3 day period.

You can even expand your wares by finding similar items and selling stacks upon stacks of them, easy to dominate market, perhaps time consuming with all the crafting you have to do, but in the end, you don't have to babysit the MB as much, just list it and give it a few days.

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Originally Posted by GenJoe

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Well, tbh... it is these type of mentality that keeps alot of us crafters profitable. People not willing to learn the system or think it is too hard/too much rng related are kept out of the crafting scene.
There won't be much profits made if everyone can make their own thing, guaranteed HQ etc.

Though I am wondering if the specialist crafting will change the scene at all, I have an alt prepped up but that's still only 6/8 specialist since I heard you can only specialize 3?

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Originally Posted by Chihaya

Though I am wondering if the specialist crafting will change the scene at all, I have an alt prepped up but that's still only 6/8 specialist since I heard you can only specialize 3?

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The way they've talked about it made me think Specialists was just a way for someone to be able to craft on, lets say Culinarian, as well as everyone else without having to level everything. I think they mentioned that they didn't like how to be the best crafter you needed to invest in leveling everything up (dem lv50 skills), so that's why they're adding the Specialist system.

I could be mistaken of course, but it didn't sound like the system was in place to force players to specialize and create alts to do everything. Just there so more people can attempt high-tier recipes without leveling everything (though why people find leveling crafts so daunting is beyond me, Levequests trivialized it...).

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Originally Posted by Emstidor

It's really not enough to load up a crafting guide and follow the steps blindly if you don't understand what you're crafting. There are some weird elements in your story (Failing Piece by Piece? Running out of durability without having the CP to use Reclaim?) that suggest that you're not really considering the full effect each crafting step is having on your overall synth. When you're trying to end-game craft, each of these tiny mistakes can cost you the entire synthesis and millions in gil, and that's completely separate from RNG.

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While I appreciate your advice, I have been crafting since January and have a really skilled crafter friend who has helped me since. He has 4 crafts at 4 star with the master book and I sat next to him as he got his 5th 4 star book "Alchemist" I watched him spend 600k gil failing that master craft recipe.

I really didn't want to keep ranting in my post every single line by line step I went through for all 10 crafts would you really have wanted to see that?

I took risks praying on at least 2 more tricks proc to try to push out a couple more IQ stacks and condition. 2 more tricks procs would have spared me the failed synthesis. The alternative would have been to hit reclaim and fail the synthesis and pray I get my crap back or try to push out some more quality and wrap up the synthesis so I could at least have a 50% chance of grabbing it at HQ instead of a 25-28% chance. I took a lot of consideration. I sat there staring at my monitor deciding on what I should do next. I didn't just randomly follow a rotation, the rotation was used as a guide so I could better understand the synthesis process. Moreover, whenever I noticed I had an overage of CP due to extra tricks procs I would throw in basic touch over hasty which guarantees a stack increase.

You can't EVER avoid the RNG that comes from those monstrous master 3 star recipes. It would be a "relief" for people to hear that I am simply overexaggerating or I am an idiot but unfortunately I am not.

Now let me make another thing clear: I have a 100% HQ 1-2 star rotation and a 95% HQ chance with 3 star (that 5% chance to fail is when I quite literally hit rock bottom luck it's like the game hates me lol), these were all rotations I taught myself through experimentation using cooking because some of those cooking recipes use cheap ingredients I can mess around with the recipes without huge gil loss.

The RNG hells come from specific 4 star rotations and the 3 star master book recipes, like my pro crafter friend apparently failed 2 Kirimu's and didn't log on for a week after. I mean when no one is going to buy your item unless it's HQ (depends on the item btw), you are faced with 2 choices: Hit reclaim and fail out hoping to get your stuff back, or try to push out as much condition as you can and finish the synthesis and hope that you get it HQ without a high condition %.

Depending on the craft, you can only negate luck so far because you only have so much CP to work with so those "free" skills are necessary at points.

-- You start a craft.
-- You know how much CP you will need to perform your Byregot's limit break at the end with full control buffs on yourself as well as Ingenuity II if needed.
-- You plan each CP using move to make sure you can complete your Byregot's and finish your synthesis. Careless CP use will lead to a botched synthesis or unable to perform your quality limit break.
-- You compensate for RNG-based blunders by trying to sneak in Basic Touch and/or manipulation to squeeze out more turns.
-- You use your CP overage to use basic touch and, if you have 10 or 11 stacks already, use your overage in CP to try to wait out a condition change before using Byregot's.

How can this go wrong?

Ok so you're working on a 4 star craft that has around 5900 quality to HQ it and increases in progress and quality are less than your 3 and 2 star friends. You are doing your Comfort Zone and IQ to start... , no tricks procs... ok whatever so you hit steady hands II and waste not, start doing some basic touch... 5 basic touch = 90 CP. Steady Hands II = 25 CP, Waste Not I = 56 CP, 5 Basic Touch = 90 CP, well you've just waved goodbye to 157 CP, Comfort Zone gave you 14...

You started with 395:

You're now at 238, you saw one tricks of the trade proc throughout all of that because RNGesus has condemned you to hell.

258 CP now.

You have 55 progress left.

You hit Steady Hands II:

Basic Touch x 5 (Please RNGesus give me a tricks proc)... none

OOPS you're now at 168 CP, your IQ stacks are at 10 though yay... ok so you hit Manipulation, Great Strides, no condition change... you are at 48 CP... you use Innovation as a filler... no condition change. OK shit... you take the Byregot's which takes you somewhere around 50-60% quality and now you're at 25 progress with 3 turns left and no CP...

At this point you realized you forgot your progress OOPS LOL shit! You used 180 CP on guaranteeing a quality increase. This is why for the high-end recipes you can't just use all your CP on avoiding the RNG of hasty or even rapid synthesis in some cases.

Now if you mix your hasty touch with basic touch you give yourself a greater chance of succeeding because you are saving a lot of CP. But ultimately if you start failing those hasty touches (which someone like me will fail them... a lot) you can at least finish your synthesis but you'll be at 50-60% HQ or much lower.

With good gear, 2 and 3 star can be completed with minimum RNG, I still mix some hasty in with my 3 star but my condition is usually 70% or higher if the hasties do fail which can still give me an HQ sometimes.

I only went on this rant because people assume that I have no idea what I'm doing or that I don't take consideration in what is going on when I craft but I do. The fact of the matter is that if RNG isn't on your side, HQing that item likely isn't going to happen, moreso those monster 3 star recipes. (Calibrated Rose Gold Cog, Rich Tomato Relish yata yata). I ain't going to be convinced by anyone that crafting is all skill and no RNG. All you can influence is utilizing proper decision making during your craft to minimize how much RNG you need to deal with but it'll always be there... always.

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Originally Posted by Elusana_Celah

While I appreciate your advice, I have been crafting since January and have a really skilled crafter friend who has helped me since. He has 4 crafts at 4 star with the master book and I sat next to him as he got his 5th 4 star book "Alchemist" I watched him spend 600k gil failing that master craft recipe.

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This really doesn't seem to be the case if you're failing PbP because you didn't use SHII. A wasted step on something that costs CP is a huge loss compared to using SHII steps for PbP, esp since you;re using comfort zone and you want to prolong your craft as long as possible to benefit from it.

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Originally Posted by Elusana_Celah

You can't EVER avoid the RNG that comes from those monstrous master 3 star recipes. It would be a "relief" for people to hear that I am simply overexaggerating or I am an idiot but unfortunately I am not.

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Four stars is actually easier than the 3 star recipe books. If anything, it's more or less similiar to 3 star crafting. I mean even I'll admit that HQing for the recipe book is RNG, thats why you try to fish for it and cut your losses if you forecast a fail with reclaim.

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Originally Posted by Elusana_Celah

The RNG hells come from specific 4 star rotations and the 3 star master book recipes, like my pro crafter friend apparently failed 2 Kirimu's and didn't log on for a week after. I mean when no one is going to buy your item unless it's HQ (depends on the item btw), you are faced with 2 choices: Hit reclaim and fail out hoping to get your stuff back, or try to push out as much condition as you can and finish the synthesis and hope that you get it HQ without a high condition %.

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Read above with 4 stars being closer to 3 stars as far as difficulty/RNG is concerned. HQing materials like kirimu leather is a feat of its own...that's why you have other items that can be HQ'd when it comes to crafting those equipment (such as kirimu coat) And honestly, a kirimu leather is pretty low-profile crafting compared to an offhand or a piece of equipment that you can mass produce these to increase HQ yields anyway. If a crafter is going to quit because they got 2 NQ on materials whose starting quality cannot be boosted, then I'm sorry, but you really wouldn't have the nerves to get into high-end crafts, espesically if it was to provide for the FC or to make a business out of it.

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Originally Posted by Elusana_Celah

At this point you realized you forgot your progress OOPS LOL shit! You used 180 CP on guaranteeing a quality increase. This is why for the high-end recipes you can't just use all your CP on avoiding the RNG of hasty or even rapid synthesis in some cases.

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What kind of crafter gets themselves into this scenario? At that point you would've been better off cutting your losses with a reclaim if it was really that bad. I mean there's bad RNG, and there's butting your head straight into a failed craft.

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Originally Posted by Elusana_Celah

Now if you mix your hasty touch with basic touch you give yourself a greater chance of succeeding because you are saving a lot of CP. But ultimately if you start failing those hasty touches (which someone like me will fail them... a lot) you can at least finish your synthesis but you'll be at 50-60% HQ or much lower.

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From what I see, you're using basic touches whenever you can. The problem is like you mentioned, you're expending so much CP.

If you're trying to HQ from it, you'll benefit hugely from prolonging your craft as long as you can to increase the number of good conditions and to benefit from comfort zone. When I do my crafts, I always use hasty touch with SHII. This allows me to have enough CP over to prolong my step for a second comfort zone, one MMII, and a second MMII if I get 4 TotTs. This is over the course of 20+ steps, instead of being sub-15 steps because you run yourself out of CP.

You are stuck in the box too much, trying to follow some strict method - even that strict CP counting.
No one said RNG is not involved - without the RNG - crafting could be pointless if people can just pop HQ left and right 100% of the time.

There are many different ways to approach the 801 synths - the approach I do is that I will finish majority of the progress first before I work on the quality.
Another glaring problem is that your bregot's kill zone is 1 move too short with only innovation - you can fit another move in before greater strides ends.
For these 801 synths - unless you still need NQ for your supra - reclaim immediately if you can't get good or excellent during your bregot's or if you feel your IQ stack is too low.

Test out different methods, different ways, find which works the most - I don't even use waste not sometimes for these synths depending on the ToT. Nor do I burn CP on basic touch unless it is high IQ stacks with excellent condition. In most of my 801 synths I will pop at least 2 comfort zones, sometimes even 3 if I get lucky on ToT procs.

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Originally Posted by RiceisNice

What kind of crafter gets themselves into this scenario? At that point you would've been better off cutting your losses with a reclaim if it was really that bad. I mean there's bad RNG, and there's butting your head straight into a failed craft.

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That was actually an example of how you can't just use strictly basic touch and not use hasty. Please don't take it so literally as to imply anyone would actually do that. I literally never use hasty unless Steady Hands II is up, I'm not retarded lol.

I agree the PbP without the SH is lame but meh. I would also like to mention that I once went 18 steps without seeing a tricks proc. When that happens, it's bad and you will be mad. It seems impossible for people to believe the luck I experience while crafting but my post was a huge wall of text to point out two things:

1: You can't HQ high-end crafts without hasty touch RNG.
2: You can't HQ high-end crafts without tricks of the trade procs.

Well, you can HQ them but the condition % will be very low so whether or not that HQs is also a RNG factor.

Keep in mind that any condition OR any skill used that is under 100% chance of success has a chance of failure. I've heard of people failing with 98% condition (which is a very rare scenario even for my bad luck, but it does happen).

With this in mind, it is possible for people who have been forsaken by RNGesus to experience a really bad time with crafting the most difficult recipes. (I mean the only reason I can do 3 star so good is because of gear allowing me to get away with using less RNG-based skills LOL yay!)

Your rotation must be wrong like the others have said.

And of course there will be RNG on hasty (tricks can be mitigated) otherwise it would be like 1 star crafting.

Instead of using all your Gil trying to craft a completed item, you should always practice on the cheapest synth before committing. Materials such as leathers and cloths are pretty cheap. Once you have a good rotation then you should be having the same amount of hq as your 3 stars.


The markets on my server are already flooded with hq 4 star, its no longer profitable to craft them.