Theory: Favor proc-rate = time of day MIN = Night / BOT = Day

For my past several favors I've been testing this theory that the Favor proc-rate is dependent on time of day. Since the Legendary Nodes are MIN = 5am - 7am and BOT are 5pm - 7pm I thought to start here. So far I have received > 4 procs for each Favor, this is for Yellow Ooids in the Churning Mists & Black Swan Feathers in the Dravarian Hinterlands. If anyone else wants to test this you're really not losing out on anything if it is in fact just random. I've gotten 9 Black Swan Feathers twice when gathering from 2pm to 7pm :cool:

I'll give it a shot, when I'm online

I farmed my last 5 blue Ooids favors in one session, so one half was in the night. Didnt see any difference, still only ended up with 11 after 5 favors :(

I'm about to burn through a bunch of favors now. I'll keep notes and report back. At this point in my RNG frustration with Favors, I'll try anything!

Fell asleep last night after 1 Favor but this is what I have so far:

SoC BTN 1pm - 4 nodes
TDF MIN 3am - 3 nodes
SoC BTN 1230PM - 3 nodes
SoC BTN 9pm - 2 nodes
SoC BTN 12pm - 3 nodes

Just finished my SoC favor stack of 5 at 15 Void Nuts, 5 short of what I need to stay 1:1 with Crafter Red Scrips...


...I hate this game


EDIT: I decided to take my BTN up to the northern part of SoC where the Sesame Seeds are and was beginning to get better results... also I began harvesting in the AM hours instead.

SoC BTN 4am - 7 nodes (2 hidden items)
SoC BTN 10am - 6 nodes
SocC BTN 3pm (back to PM) - 3 nodes

So far for me, I've had better results with BTN in the AM hours than the PM hours, which completely contradicts your results. Maybe there's optimal times per Favor? I refuse to believe this is 100% RNG considering ALL end game gathering up to this point has been linked to time of day.

I wanna say ive noticed a small consistency between HQ chains and bonus procs on crystals and a concealed node popping. I haven't been collecting any data though and its purely an observation, also I haven't run nearly enough to nodes to compile anything that would eliminate RNG.

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Originally Posted by ShiroSteve

I wanna say ive noticed a small consistency between HQ chains and bonus procs on crystals and a concealed node popping. I haven't been collecting any data though and its purely an observation, also I haven't run nearly enough to nodes to compile anything that would eliminate RNG.

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Well I normally collect the crystals and not the material so I've never noticed this. I'll give this a shot though.

I started testing the off-times myself to see if there was any difference, only once did I get BOT Favor nodes to spawn > 4 in the Night 2am - 7am. But when I did MIN I saw no difference I was getting > 4 each time, 2pm - 7pm. Maybe it's just don't do Favor farming at night?

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Originally Posted by ShiroSteve

I wanna say ive noticed a small consistency between HQ chains and bonus procs on crystals and a concealed node popping. I haven't been collecting any data though and its purely an observation, also I haven't run nearly enough to nodes to compile anything that would eliminate RNG.

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I also think there may be a relationship between hq hits and the concealed node popping. I recorded my hits on the nodes that popped concealed nodes, and if I remember right, about 30-35% of the hits were hq. Also, as I was counting the number of nodes I hit for each favor (I averaged about 37-38 per 15 minute favor in Coerthas Western Highlands), I estimate the pop rate to be about 7-8%, or at least in the general range of 5-10%. However, my sample size in that zone was only about 7 favors, so it's not really enough to say with any certainty.

Hey there,

I would be willing to add to the theory that each Favor has specific times of the day when the RNG is better. I noticed I have been having more luck with Fox Gloves and Violet Ooids at night, and Yellow Ooids dropped better between 12 am and 5 pm. I'm also thinking that maybe even the weather has a say in it.

My biggest problem with any of those possible theories is that SE commented on the forum that they are gonna adjust the spawn rate of the Favors, which would imply that it is just a really low percentage that is causing the huge irregularity in spawns and nothing else. I think they would just stay quiet if we simply didn't figured out the system yet, right?

I did some red ooid mining in coerthas the last two days. I did 10 and 9 of them gave between 2 to 4 ooids without any roundstone.

The 10th was started at 3pm ET time, nothing spawned until 4pm ET and weather changed to blizzard, to the end of this 10th favor I gathered 11 ooids and 2 roundstones. So maybe like fishing, there is a weather + time component. I'll do the next favors on this either at blizzard or 4pm ET and then a combination of both again.

one question for the favor do you have to just touch other node like ephemeral node ?
or you gathering till the favor node spawn ?

You must deplete it, touching is not enough

Hey, don't forget moon phase! That's always a popular one when coming up with oddball superstitions related to RNG.

Man, it's like FFXI crafting all over again. Face west during full moon on Watersday for best chance at HQ when crafting with Fire crystals! I totally tried this once and I got the HQ so it must be true!

To be fair, in FFXI, the devs kept all sorts of secrets from the player, so it's not as surprising for players to speculate that there's some kind of hidden trick to getting things done better. In this game, though? Not so much. I would be astounded to learn that there's some super-secret method to improve chances that the devs don't come straight out and tell you in some quest or whatever.

Yeah, I for one am choosing to believe the null hypothesis (it's just a straight RNG roll against a fixed percent chance, and everything else is small sample size or confirmation bias) unless someone comes up with a robust data set that suggests otherwise.

My own gathering data suggests that the HQ gather theory is likely false. Yes I've had a few nodes pop after getting 2-3 HQ items from one gather, but I've also gone 4/4 HQ (thanks to buffs) on nodes with nothing, and one of my best runs was from gathering crystals. If there's anything to this, it could be a sign that FFXIV's RNG tends to produce clustered results - if so, then there may be a correlation between the game rolling well for you on getting HQ items and then rolling well for you again when it decides whether a favor node pops. But this doesn't really lend itself to something players can influence.

Reminds me of that JP atma theory people were swearing by until SE came out and said no such thing existed. RNG is RNG.

In all my favor grinding, I can't really see a trend where HQ gathers affected spawn rate. I'd be more inclined to think it may be weather/time related. However, at this point I'm going to go with flat RNG. I see no rhyme or reason to all of this so far.

I've had nodes spawn after missing all gather attempts. So far all hard data suggests that only RNG affects it.

I have a question, what happens if I get hq can I still hand them with the NQ ones?? Or hq and nq to be handed separately ; ; ??

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Originally Posted by Empty-handed

I have a question, what happens if I get hq can I still hand them with the NQ ones?? Or hq and nq to be handed separately ; ; ??

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You can use the "Lower Quality" action to change the HQ items to NQ then combine them with your stack of NQs to turn them in.

I haven't had enough HQ items at once to see what happens if you try to hand in 10 HQ items, but I'd imagine that it would let you do it (possibly after giving you the "are you sure you want to hand in HQ items when you don't need to" prompt.)

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Originally Posted by Lyrinn

Reminds me of that JP atma theory people were swearing by until SE came out and said no such thing existed. RNG is RNG.

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I was thinking the same. They'd be better off just having us trade scrips for the materials directly. This is the biggest waste of time.

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Originally Posted by Lyrinn

Reminds me of that JP atma theory people were swearing by until SE came out and said no such thing existed. RNG is RNG.

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That theory actually worked for me, got 9/12 on my 1st attempt, looking back it was just pure random luck.
The Moon theory is interesting, because I got 8 BOT during a Full Moon and I only knew because my LS for Hunts.

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Originally Posted by PirateCat

You can use the "Lower Quality" action to change the HQ items to NQ then combine them with your stack of NQs to turn them in.

I haven't had enough HQ items at once to see what happens if you try to hand in 10 HQ items, but I'd imagine that it would let you do it (possibly after giving you the "are you sure you want to hand in HQ items when you don't need to" prompt.)

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i just did that, oh thanks for the tip ^^