Unjustified "fail @ 100%" synths -- a suggested tweak

[Peregrine]

Every RPG in the history of man has designed Rank 1 rats with 32 HP for Rank 1 heroes who hit for 28. Deal with it. You kill it in two full rounds. Not a round and a little bit of a part of one because you basically killed it.

Seriously, enough with the nickel and diming petitions. It's as if some people have never had to deal with any disappointment on any level in their lives, and this game IS their rank 1 rat that they hit once and it doesn't die.

WHAT? I was supposed to win that one!
No, you weren't.
You're underprepared and underlevelled for that synth. You're blinking red at 3 hp and it's the enemy's turn. Don't argue that they're almost dead, so their attack power should be next to nothing. YOU are almost dead so yours should too if that's the case. They're going to hit you for full damage, or they're going to miss you.

You better pray for a miss, because not even a parry is going to help you.

Again. You're almost dead, and it's the Bronze Hoplon's turn to hit you. Awwe the Hoplon hit you for 8. You are dead.

The Hoplon's not sitting there whining that you have 2 durability left, it should get a prorating on percent completion, because there's no way you can get 20% completion with 2 durability.

If we gave the prorating to you, we should give it to the Hoplon and start nerfing your % completion when you have <10 durability left because you don't have sufficient durability for a full attempt. Why should the Hoplon be subject to 10-30% progress completions when it almost has you whipped if you're not subjected to its full strikes if it has you whipped?

Fair. Moving on.

[Jesi]

WHAT? I was supposed to win that one!
No, you weren't.
You're underprepared and underlevelled for that synth. You're blinking red at 3 hp and it's the enemy's turn. Don't argue that they're almost dead, so their attack power should be next to nothing. YOU are almost dead so yours should too if that's the case. They're going to hit you for full damage, or they're going to miss you.

You better pray for a miss, because not even a parry is going to help you.

Again. You're almost dead, and it's the Bronze Hoplon's turn to hit you. Awwe the Hoplon hit you for 8. You are dead.

The Hoplon's not sitting there whining that you have 2 durability left, it should get a prorating on percent completion, because there's no way you can get 20% completion with 2 durability.

If we gave the prorating to you, we should give it to the Hoplon and start nerfing your % completion when you have <10 durability left because you don't have sufficient durability for a full attempt. Why should the Hoplon be subject to 10-30% progress completions when it almost has you whipped if you're not subjected to its full strikes if it has you whipped?

Fair. Moving on.

I already explained in other posts on this thread why I think a battle analogy does not work for crafting, so either you didn't read them or don't care/disagree with them. If by chance you didnt read them, the links are below, but I'll also explain further here.

Post 5 - top section of post
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...l=1#post108675

Post 16 - middle of post, para starting with "I am positive alot of players", also Example 1 & 2
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...l=1#post111654

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Side Note
It is a bit ridiculous I have to break it down like this, but I want to be thorough. If anyone readying this already agrees that overkill/over100% progress should not apply to crafting, you can just skip the next section, or just read the end result of the examples.
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Now The issue I'm talking about is just a nuance of the crafting system, not a player being "underprepared and underlevelled for that synth" as you put it. The system itself let's you craft over 100% progress when, logically, it shouldn't. Just to be clear, I'm going to refer to this as "overkill" since battle situations are the most common anaology people use to defend this, just like you did.


-== Logic of Overkill in Battle vs Crafting==-

As you mention in your first post on this thread(Post 9), there will always be a cutoff, and that's absolutely right, but that's only half the story. What really matters is what happens if you go past that cutoff point. If we examine real life situations you'll see what I mean.


= Battle =

In battle, your objective is to kill your oponent... or in other words, cease the fuction of the target's body with no regard to the final condition. So essentially, you want to do enough damage to meet or surpass a certain threshold(their max HP).

You can probably figure out where I'm going with each example, but just hear me out.
Let's say your target is a human and their max/current HP is 1000. Dealing damage to different parts of the body will have varying impact on their health.



Example 1

• Cut off his big toe
• This alone would yield minimal damage since a toe is not critical to life function. At best the bleeding will yield damage over time until it clots. So that would be about 4hp/min for 10mins, A total of 40HP
• Gradually create skin deep lacerations all over the body from head to toe (chinese torture method)
• Now this would cause many non-fatal wounds, but the combined DoT damage would eventually cause lethal blood loss, resulting in a slow & painful death (which why it's a torture method)
• If 1 cut = 4hp/min for 10mins (40hp), death would occur around 25 cuts depending on the uniformity of the cuts and blood loss (25 x 40 = 1000)

End Result - Minimal Overkill, but possible if over 25 cuts created in under 10mins



Example 2

• A shot or stab to the heart or brain
• This would cause immediate death due to their critical life function. So that would result in an immediate translation to 1000dmg + DoT from severe bleeding caused by high blood flow and difficulty clotting (50HP/min over 20mins, or 1000dmg)
• So, Instant death (1000) + blood loss (1000) = 2000 damage total
• But does that extra damage from bleeding matter? NO! They already died instantly

End Result - Being able to die twice-over from a wound is the definition of overkill



Example 3 - Extreme Overkill

• Burning to death via flamethrower
• This would cause widespread damage on the skin which would not cause instant death by itself, but overheating and internal tissue damage would result in a quick death as it continues.
• So that means it would start around 20HP/second and go up to about 100HP/second after 30seconds as the internal tissue starts to burn. It should continue to burn until all fat content in the body is consumed (30mins? Although, I've heard of corpses burning even longer <.<)
• So 20hp/sec to 100hp/sec over 30sec would be about 1865 damage. Then the other 29.5mins of burn time at 100hp/sec would be 177,000dmg. A grand total of 178,865 damage.
• Does that matter? No lol, they died in the first 30secs when it passed 1000dmg.

End Result - full body ignition causes extreme DoT damage and is extreme overkill


Obviously overkill makes sense in battle, so it applies in the battle system of the game. Now on to crafting.


= Crafting =

In crafting your goal is to turn specific materials into a specific shape, form, or condition. That shape/form/condition is the threshold you want to meet, anything else is a failure.

For these examples I specifically chose situations where making "progress" is done by the same type of action from start to finish because it translates to how the game does crafting. So to re-iterate, it's same mode of action, just variations in method, like how hard you turn your wrench or how long you let the pan sit over various amounts of stove heat, etc.

You can make the arguement this is not a direct correletion to when you synth a real life item, for example, building a car, putting on a tire is not really the same type of action as installing a windshield. Yet, if you break it down into multiple smaller synts. it matches the game's system very well. For example putting on a tire would be an entire synth, and tightening the lugnuts would be the repetitive action that is guaged by the progress bar.




Steak

• You apply various amounts of heat for at different durations; short high heat for a nice sear, then a long medium heat to cook it without burning
• There is definitive stop point that you want to reach, whether it is rare, medium rare, or well done. If you go past that point, you have failed to make the steak you intended.

End Result - overkill not applicable. stop at the cutoff point(100%) or fail



Sculpture

• You use your chisel with varying amounts of force from your hammer at well placed spots to shape the material into the final product
• Let's say you're working on a sculpture of a cube. Sure, you can pretend you're Thor and use mighty strikes of your hammer to get the general shape, but you cant do that near the end otherwise you'll just cause cracks and/or chip off a chunk you didn't intend to.
• Using excessive force and losing a whole corner of the cube is not acceptable

End Result - overkill not applicable. stop at the cutoff point(100%) or fail



Gemstones

• Use a grinding wheel to shape a raw stone into a precious gem by holding the stone up against the wheel for various amounts of pressure and duration
• You're almost done and only 1 tiny grind is needed to get a perfect shape.
• So would you just mash it against the wheel for awhile like you're just starting with a new piece? If you want to ruin it, yeah go ahead.

End Result - overkill not applicable. stop at the cutoff point(100%) or fail



Shaping a Metal Plate

• How about a Bronze Hoplon like in Peregrine's example.
• You're shaping a metal plate into a specific curved shape by using strikes of your hammer that vary in strength/pressure.
• You're almost done and just need one little tap in the middle to make it perfectly curved just they way you want it.
• Is it ok to just start wailing it like youre IronMan making a new suit now? Maybe go with a light and controlled tap and call it a day and success.

End Result - overkill not applicable. stop at the cutoff point(100%) or fail


I could go on, but it should be clear that overkill doesn't work when you're creating an item. I even went as far as to choose examples from actual in game synths (except for the scultpure unless you sorta count Crp offhand), so this should apply even more.

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Having said all that, the game mechanics of crafting need to be adjusted to stop letting you craft beyond 100%. It should stop at exactly 100% and end, or enter the "touch up" phase if it's a finished item.

I am not saying this because I'm some whiny crafter who's desparately trying to stop breaking synths, it's because there is a loophole in the logic governing the current crafting system. Saying, "stop crying and try harder by using better judgement with craft actions or using HQ mats" is not a solution to the problem. If you still think that after reading everything I said, you're completely missing the point.