Maker's Mark is obnoxious at high difficulty and should be adjusted ASAP

When there is a serious problem with some jobs, like after 4.0 release, there are "emergency patches" to balance them.
But when there's problems with crafting, has anything been rebalanced or fixed besides game breaking bugs?

Maker's Mark has been in the game for years, and was okay before, but as higher and higher difficulty crafts are added, it gets more and more stupid.
That's a shame, since it's pretty much the best crafting skill, although it's at the cost of 2 cross-job slots to use. That is... only to say it's the best if you ignore the time it takes to execute, which is minutes on the 320 crafts.

There's lots of problems with crafting, like how Weaver cloth can take 20-30+ mats to make something compared to the 1-5 of leather and ingots. It's like someone balancing that thought you can gather yarn. But... Maker's Mark seems to be the mostly glaringly obvious, objectively messed up situation that should be resolved, but no one really seems to care and they just overgear so they can ignore it instead.

This is especially bad because I think fixing Maker's Mark would be simple:
Also base how much Flawless Synthesis progresses based on recipe difficulty, but reduce the number of stacks Maker's Mark gives of free Flawless Synth.
ie: Flawless Synthesis from 40 to 60 progress when recipe difficulty is over 1400, but reduce the stacks of free Flawless Synthesis under Maker's Mark by 25%.
Further improve it to 80 when difficulty is over 3500, with Maker's Mark stacks further cut to 50% of what it is currently.
Further improve it to 100 when difficulty is over 6000, with Maker's Mark stacks further cut to 40% of the current amount.
These all equal the same current progress overall per use of Maker's Mark, but without creating an absurd number of times you have to use Flawless Synth.
This would still be 25 or 26 flawless synth for 6377 crafts. Still a significant amount. But 64, which it is currently, is ridiculous and just... dumb.

I'm not saying crafting should be easier. On the contrary, I thought crafting at 50-70 was too easy until these new 6377 crafts were added. The problem with Maker's Mark, which starts appearing at 61+, is that it just becoming monotonous and stupid, not hard.

The current formula for Maker's Mark stacks, which is difficulty*0.40/40, would remain. Break points to modify the final progress and stacks should be added, as described.
It's really simple. How it's working now, where you have 35 flawless synth for 3543 crafts and 64 for 6377 crafts, is just... busted. Super busted. It needs fixing, and soon. Crafting is half the game and stuff like this just gets ignored. Please stop ignoring it.

Please. And please don't let this wait until 4.2, or years for that matter. This has been brought up before, and only made worse.

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Originally Posted by Oshirigami

35 flawless synth for 3543 crafts and 64 for 6377 crafts

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You don't need to use MaMa for 3543 difficulty, 320 dow/dom is fairly reliable craftable with the new skills and basic requirements.
I agree it's rather broken when it's over 60 stacks would exponentially takes much longer time since we have to craft the mats first.
At this point, they should have MaMa a specialist trait that's adjusted based on our level. For example have Flawless Synth do 80 progress instead.
Or maybe to make it less easy/obvious, they could make Tricks of the Trade gain 40 cp.

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Originally Posted by uvuvwevwevweonyetenyevweugwemu

You don't need to use MaMa for 3543 difficulty

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You don't "need" to use any one method to increase progress. The main gamble with any progress increasing skill is the risk of either losing a step or not having enough left to finish with. The appeal to the maker's mark method is that it's a long and relatively safe approach compared to anything that relies on rapid that's good for a couple of high-end crafts but a huge pain in the butt if you're trying to craft stuff like potions and food.

That said, yeah the balancing on crafter skills feels a bit weird right now. I get the impression they didn't really pay much mind to old skills while adding the new ones.

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Originally Posted by Texa

You don't "need" to use any one method to increase progress. The main gamble with any progress increasing skill is the risk of either losing a step or not having enough left to finish with. The appeal to the maker's mark method is that it's a long and relatively safe approach compared to anything that relies on rapid that's good for a couple of high-end crafts but a huge pain in the butt if you're trying to craft stuff like potions and food.

That said, yeah the balancing on crafter skills feels a bit weird right now. I get the impression they didn't really pay much mind to old skills while adding the new ones.

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Actually, the main appeal of Maker's Mark is its longevity. While under the effect of Maker's Mark, Flawless Synthesis is a free action that uses up no CP or Durability, making it the ultimate stalling action. This allows you to rebuild CP after using a good amount of it in other ways while slowly adding Progress as well. For the current Lv70 2* recipes, this can be quite beneficial when working with NQ mats.

I'd rather have a new tier that exchanges speed for lowered success rate.

Flawless Synthesis II
80% Chance
Advances Progress by 200.
Can only be used while under the effect of Maker's Mark.
Consumes 5 stacks of Maker's Mark.
Cannot be used while under 5 stacks.

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Originally Posted by Joe777

Actually, the main appeal of Maker's Mark is its longevity.

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That's what I meant by safe. It's safe because while it uses more cp to start out with then steady hand and rapid you can get all your initial CP investment back and it's rare to miss more than like 5-6 of your freebie synths. I missed like 10 once but that was plain bad luck.

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Originally Posted by Texa

That's what I meant by safe. It's safe because while it uses more cp to start out with then steady hand and rapid you can get all your initial CP investment back and it's rare to miss more than like 5-6 of your freebie synths. I missed like 10 once but that was plain bad luck.

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It's worth more than that though. Maker's Mark on the current endgame has the potential for so many Tricks of the Trade usage you can build your Quality and get a good amount of CP back before Maker's Mark runs out, if lucky.

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Originally Posted by Joe777

It's worth more than that though. Maker's Mark on the current endgame has the potential for so many Tricks of the Trade usage you can build your Quality and get a good amount of CP back before Maker's Mark runs out, if lucky.

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The worth of crafter moves is still situational though. Maker's Mark is really annoying to use if you're trying craft a whole lot of stuff, like a stack of hq dps food for your raid group. That's where it can be worth the risk of losing mats or a couple of hqs(i usually save lq food for 24 mans) by using a much shorter rotation that lets you produce in higher volumes.

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Originally Posted by Texa

The worth of crafter moves is still situational though. Maker's Mark is really annoying to use if you're trying craft a whole lot of stuff, like a stack of hq dps food for your raid group. That's where it can be worth the risk of losing mats or a couple of hqs(i usually save lq food for 24 mans) by using a much shorter rotation that lets you produce in higher volumes.

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It is likely Square Enix took that into account and therefore made the Lv70 2* Culinarian recipes all the same difficulty as opposed to the other class' specialist recipes having such a high difficulty in comparison.

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Originally Posted by Joe777

It is likely Square Enix took that into account and therefore made the Lv70 2* Culinarian recipes all the same difficulty as opposed to the other class' specialist recipes having such a high difficulty in comparison.

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I'm kind of getting the impression that you're looking for reasons to nitpick me specifically over something that is kind of subjective because the forums are so dead during this time of the day.

The two star weapons and the two star food have the same difficulty, 3543. It's the new crafter gear and tools that have the really high difficulty of 6377.

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Originally Posted by Texa

I'm kind of getting the impression that you're looking for reasons to nitpick me specifically over something that is kind of subjective because the forums are so dead during this time of the day.

The two star weapons and the two star food have the same difficulty, 3543. It's the new crafter gear and tools that have the really high difficulty of 6377.

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It's just conversation lol no need to find fault in it. And you do have a point about what doesn't have the increased difficulty among the specialist recipes, but frankly furnishings, barding, orchestrion rolls, and minions were never an issue anyway since quality isn't necessary XD Also one of the furnishings plus the mount have high difficulty comparable to the ala mhigan stuff, not to mention the snailfish oil and ala mhigan fiber.

Allow flawless to double on a good and triple on an excellent when markers mark is active.

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Originally Posted by Masekase_Hurricane

Allow flawless to double on a good and triple on an excellent when markers mark is active.

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That wouldn't change anything, as you would still use ToT for those steps. MaMa isn't about getting to 95% progress, it's about getting to 95% progress for a small or even negative cost of CP and durability.

There aren't any emergency fixes because this isn't an emergency. If you don't like maker's mark there are rotations you can use that don't involve it, even if they are a bit less efficient if you have gear and are able to take advantage of good procs it shouldn't matter.

Playing a DoW/DoM job isn't an emergency either. You can play a different job if a current patch has it underperforming too much.

And I already said in the OP, that yes you don't have to use it. MaMa is extremely strong, and makes difficult crafts easy at the cost of time. But 25 stacks of it would still be a long time. 64 is obnoxious.
So yes that's what most everyone does. They overgear so they can just use PbP and use the Maker's Mark stacks more just for orb fishing if they use it at all.
MaMa was a good idea when it was initially added, but it was ignored.

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Originally Posted by Joe777

Actually, the main appeal of Maker's Mark is its longevity.

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Yes, somewhat. MM is best when it's like 13-18 or so uses.
40% of 64 would drop it down to 25 or 26 uses, which is still very long.
The current 64 is excessive and dumb.

In the sense you're saying, yes this actually makes MaMa broken. Like I said, though I didn't go into more detail, MaMa is the best cross-job crafting skill at the cost of taking 2 slots. You can finish 2 WWYW before the 64 MaMa stacks in some cases.
That's just another reason why Flawless should scale with difficulty and MaMa stacks can be reduced. 25 is enough to get a WWYW off or nearly off.

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Originally Posted by magnanimousCynic

I'd rather have a new tier that exchanges speed for lowered success rate.

Flawless Synthesis II

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I mean.. still 100% with steady hand I, so the success rate isn't really lower. Just another skill on the bar. I already have 31 skills on my bar that I all use for my specialists, plus macro hotkeys.
What you'd do with that in a 6377 craft is like have 50 of the 65 stacks consumed with that, then the remaining 15 you'd flawless I to fish for orbs. The end result would be roughly the same, same 25 uses of flawless, and you're simply suggesting to require another button for that same request. Granted, you'd stick Flawless II in a macro like your Flawless I macros, and only have Flawless I on your bar while fishing for orbs.

It's much simpler to just have Flawless Synth scale with difficulty like MaMa does.

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Originally Posted by StouterTaru

That wouldn't change anything, as you would still use ToT for those steps. MaMa isn't about getting to 95% progress, it's about getting to 95% progress for a small or even negative cost of CP and durability.

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Yes but you only need 2 tricks of the trade to have full cp at the end.

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Originally Posted by Masekase_Hurricane

Yes but you only need 2 tricks of the trade to have full cp at the end.

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Not if you toss in IQ, a couple Precise/Prudent, and Manip II. If all you're getting out of MaMa is about 28% progress and a net ~100 CP, you might as well be using Initial Preparations.

I would be down for seeing these adjustments such as Flawless Synthesis II (As an ability or trait), that being said, Maker's Mark isn't really something I'd personally do unless I'm on minimum requirements, with low CP. If my CP is capped, and my craftsmanship above 1520 then I swap Maker's Mark for Initial Preparations.

For what its worth, and for how powerful Maker's Mark is, it's definitely not something that needs immediate adjustment, monotony aside. Maker's Mark, although significantly longer, requires very few HQ materials in comparison to Initial Prep.

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Originally Posted by Masekase_Hurricane

Yes but you only need 2 tricks of the trade to have full cp at the end.

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That's actually not how it works with MaMa on the 6377 difficulty crafts.

You get 64 stacks of it. That's enough to throw in 3 PbP, and nearly max out the craft with the remaining Flawless Synth's, though you need more orbs to pay for the steady hand and 3 PbP, among other things in how it's really made use of.
So instead what you do is, once you fill your CP back up with CZ and Tricks, you go your WWYW and quality progress in the middle of MaMa, and then as CP gets low you use Flawless again to fish for orbs.
At these high difficulties and many stacks, MaMa is used more for the free turns to fish for orbs and to make use of WWYW, much more so than it's used for its potential 40% progress.

There are reliable consistent macros for 6377 crafts on minimum stats, but they'll only roughly half fill the 28k quality, so even with all HQ mats you don't get 100% quality on them without being overgeared. MaMa is a requirement for crafting your own HQ Ala Mhigan set without having one already.

Once you get into like 1400 control or so, iirc, you can just use HQ mats and macro them, but that doesn't change that MaMa is pretty broken and dumb both in how strong it is, but also how obnoxiously dumb it is to use to make the most use of it in high difficulty crafts. But the fact that you can do this, and the problems of MaMa no longer matter when you are overgeared and no longer need MaMa, does not mean MaMa doesn't have issues. One of the most pressing, yet easily fixable issues. If it was less annoying to use, it wouldn't be ignored in favor of simply using PbP or Rapid Synth when overgeared.