[dev1016] Post 1.20 HQ Crafting

[WinterSkyblue]

If the transaction is correct, and the statement "Basically, in order to synthesize an HQ final item, HQ versions of every ingredient must be used. " meaning that we are not possible to made HQ item if we don't have all HQ ingredient, then I think SE is TOTALLY IN WRONG WAY! This sound like all or nothing design, but which successful game will have such design? The most interest thing for me in the game is the uncertainty. For course, the random factor should never affect too much, but a little bit uncertainty will make the game more playable.
For me, the best modify way is to reduce the random factor in current synthesis. In my experience, I've got HQ when I make the Apple Juice at CUL34 with quality <30, almost got 1 HQ+1 for every 30 times. But when I try to make black pearl in CUL35, and each try got 200+ quality, I only got 2 HQ+1 for every 30 times. WTH! Synthesis of black pearl is 20 rank lower than Apple juice, and quality of each black pearl synthesis is 5 times of apple juice!
SE, you should blame of the random factor! I can't see linkage between quality and HQ. For the same synthesis at the same rank, I always find that i would get HQ with normal ingredient but NQ product with HQ ingredients!
For my opinion, it would be better if quality actually link to the HQ rate, and ingredient link to the quality:
0% HQ ingredient -> start with 0 quality
10% HQ ingredient -> start with 50 quality
20% HQ ingredient -> start with 100 quality
.
.
.
100% HQ ingredient -> start with 500 quality
------------------------------------------
500+ quality -> 100% HQ product
450+ quality -> 95% HQ product
400+ quality -> 90% HQ product
.
.
.
0 quality -> 0% HQ product
-------------------------------------
In this way, low rank crafter would make HQ product by using more HQ ingredient, experienced crafter or high rank crafter would use less HQ ingredient. If a crafter have correct point assignment, with master support, apple juice or other food stuffs, full moon phase, then it would be easy to make 200+ quality for same rank synthesis.
This design favor high rank crafter? yes, why not? i am not bot, i paid all my gil in crafting, i even sold my 50nm item for gil to buy crafting materials, i pay more time in rank up my crafting rank then battle rank, so why i can't make HQ product easier? People should get more if they pay more in this area, why this should not be true?

[Celtodeno]

There is a flip side to this issue too.

Rapid synth came into the world useless, but Bold or careful synth will also be rendered useless by this patch.

That means that only standard synth is now important and those skills that support rapid and careful are now all useless.

This means that certain classes skills are have no value and certain others are priceless.

[Medura]

Just gonna bump this, this is good reading I like this system ^^

[MariyaShidou]

Rapid still has some use with Perfection.

[zzapp]

This change is so typical of SE's over-reactionary fixes to broken aspects of the game. A perfect example of this is MP consumption, where they went from one end of the spectrum ridiculous to the other end of the spectrum ridiculous.

Anyone that's done any degree of extensive crafting knows the current system needs alot of work, but in effect, to essentially scrap the current system for this frustrates me to no end.

IMHO, the biggest problem with the current system is the very large RNG in the coding, and the resulting lack of causality in success rates and HQ's. I am of the silly notion that the higher my crafting rank the easier a particular recipe should be, the less penalty I should suffer for a failed attempt, the better chances I should have for HQ, etc.

A perfect example of how this is broken is in one of my recent crafting sessions in my attempt to craft a crab bow +3. After spending days gathering as much HQ materials as I could to synth some oak composite bows for the base ingredient - with very good gear, support and food, my very first attempt on a recipe that's 15 ranks below my rank, I crit failed my first 6 attempts at an oak composite bow. Seriously? >< Where is the causality here? Why is this so damn random? 15 ranks below me, mind you.

The randomness of materials synthesis is nothing short of a dice roll. There seems to be no direct correleation with success and rank. Synth after synth 350-500 quality it doesn't matter. To me it appears almost 100% random, which is very frustrating, especially after spending days farming materials.

No one will convince me there is not some periodic 'rage' mode in the coding. It happens way to consistantly. How often have you been crafting along for 8-9 synth with reasonable success/fail attempts, only to, all of a sudden 8 nasty fails in a row. Anyone who thinks thats totally RNG is crazy. Remove that crap, please.

So now, instead of fixing the existing sytem, this is what SE is going to do?

What this does, with the requirement for all HQ materials, is shift the emphasis away from crafting competence to gathering, NM drops, dungeon drops etc. Wonderful >< I'm so glad I wasted all this time leveing my crafting classes.

As far as for all the people in this thread that think a R20 crafter should have the same HQ success probability as a R50 crafter, get real, and at the same time, get off your lazy asses and go work on your crafting.

As loyal a FF fan as I am, and having endured all the shortcomings in this game for the last 11 months, I honestly am on the verge of throwing in the towel.

Afterthoughts:

Why take away the guild books that people worked so hard to earn? Instead, why not adjust the leves that require books for R10 recipes.

Why take away support requirements? Instead adjust the leves outside of the guild city that require > T1 support. Further, once you reach a certain rank in relation to the recipe, why not do away with the support requirement. It's silly that @ R50 I should still require support for a R20 synth.

Why take away subclass requirements? Instead, remove some of the ludiscrous requirements like alchemy R41 sub for jade crook.

Bottom line, the current system has the potential to be honed into something special, if the huge RNG was eliminated from the coding. Crafting success should be a direct function of competence, not some random role of the dice, or heavily reliant on items that come from drops or raids, etc. To give equal HQ success to a R20 as a R50, based solely on HQ materials content is just plain wrong.

[Amineri]

Rapid still has some use with Perfection.

I also can use Rapid Synthesis when making Wool Cloth (at +3 ranks), if I stack up Fulfillment and Culmination.

[Amineri]

Bottom line, the current system has the potential to be honed into something special, if the huge RNG was eliminated from the coding. Crafting success should be a direct function of competence, not some random role of the dice, or heavily reliant on items that come from drops or raids, etc. To give equal HQ success to a R20 as a R50, based solely on HQ materials content is just plain wrong.

My first impression of the new system was the same as yours. However, upon further consideration, there are some redeeming factors possible with the new system. I say possible, because a lot of the details have yet to be revealed. I'll try and tackle each of your points separately.

A lot of the systems we have in place were the result of rushed / compromised development, and would be difficult to adjust in an incremental way.

Weak correlation between Quality and HQ
Back in closed beta, there was a much stronger correlation between Quality and HQ. However, there was also a big decrease in success chance as quality grew. This decrease in success chance was simply a function of current quality. Attempting to use standard with 300 Quality was nearly impossible for an equal rank synthesis.

As a result, HQ materials used for synthing were considerably less valuable then the NQ version, as the gain in starting durability was far overshadowed by the increase in synthesis difficulty. The principle seemed to be that using HQ ingredients would provide a high chance of HQ, but at the cost of highly increased synthesis difficulty.

The dev team then modified this, so that the quality gained from materials did not count toward increasing the difficulty of the synthesis -- only the quality gained DURING the synthesis increased difficulty. Further down the line, this lead to HQ rates that were too high (overabundance of HQ items), thus leading to our current situation where the correlation between Quality and HQ rate is too weak.

However, simply increasing the correlation between quality and HQ isn't a good idea. It would tend to lead to overabundance of HQ items -- of which we already see a fair bit.

Facility requirement
Early facility access was for only 3 minutes, which was later extended to 60 minutes. I can't say for certain, but I get the feeling that the timer for facility access was a placeholder for a more involved facility mechanic that was not implemented. Looking around the various craft guilds, you can see machinery at use. For example, in the weavers guild there is a loom, an advanced spinning wheel, and a pattern table. The current simple 60 minute timer doesn't add much to game play, and the 3 minute timer was an exercise in frustration.

My hope is that the timer for facility access is being removed, and that more detailed and interesting facility access game mechanics will be added at a later time.

Training manuals
I am sad to see the training manual system go. However, as game mechanic it is too flat. Spinning training allows spinning of all threads/yarns at all ranks. Whether Hemp Yarn or Karakul Yarn, the same training, whether Hemp Cloth or Wool Cloth, the same training.

Considering that the people first making Hemp/Cotton Cloth would have had no opportunity to LEARN weaving training, this system was an exercise in frustration at the low ranks. By the time a weaver is in the mid-20s, she should have weaving training, for canvas, and then velveteen cloth. What next? Where does the system go to add depth of gameplay for linen, wool, karakul, silk?

The system needs to be reworked. Since it is a needless barrier for low level play, the dev team has planned to remove it for now, but I sincerely hope that an improved system will be added down the line. I can understand that they don't have a replacement system designed yet.

Shifting from crafting skill to gathering/hunting time, removal of parts
In part this is necessary. The current system has wildly unbalanced recipe difficulties, and tends to marginalize the role that gatherers and "hunters" play in the economy.

For example, the synthesis chain: Iron Ore ~> Iron Nuggets ~> Iron Ingot ~> Iron Wire ~> Iron Rings ~> Iron Chain ~> Iron Sabatons. This is so long, the the correlation between HQ level of the Iron Ore and the final result is negligible. This means that two things happen:

1. Crafters use NQ materials later in the synthesis chain to make HQ parts for low rank synths (e.g. make HQ Iron Chain from NQ Iron Rings, since the synthesis is only rank 24)
2. Crafters use NQ ingredients in the final synthesis, using repetition to make up for lower quality ingredients (e.g. use NQ or +1 Iron Halberd Head, since it is a rank 44 synthesis using four iron ingots)

In the end, this renders HQ gathered / dropped materials very low in value. There are a few exceptions to this ... those materials that are used directly in the final item synthesis have very high value.

Items such as a Jade Crook are relatively easy to make in the current system, since three of the five ingredients are dropped (walnut branch, acidic secretions, spoken blood), while the other two are exceptionally low rank syntheses (brass nugget: r4, nephrite, r10), meaning that a high rank crafter simply uses NQ materials to make the brass nuggets and nephrite.

Items such as the Jade Crook are examples where the crafting process ALREADY is shifted from "crafting skill" to "time spent gathering". The proposed adjustments are more a leveling of the system, making recipes more consistent. The jade crook is an EASIER synthesis then the Hempen Doublet example given. The Hempen Doublet consists of four parts, all manufactured, while the Jade Crook consists of five parts, only two of which are manufactured.

I saw one quote "Ingot + Ingot = Excaliber". In reality, we already have this system with Jade Crooks and Crab Bows, or worse. Ingots are actually manufactured items, whereas Jade Crooks are more the equivalent of "Ore + Ore = Excaliber". Details are scarce, as we have only seen a complex synthesis (hempen doublet) made simpler, but I hope to see overly simple syntheses (walnut mask, jade crook, crab bow, thousand needle) made more challenging.

How?

The simplest way would be to make all recipes require at least four ingredients, and to have nearly all ingredients be the result of a crafting process, and not simply dropped / gathered items. To keep gathered / dropped items relevant, the synthesis chain from material to ingredient should be no longer then 1 or 2 (e.g. ore ~> cobalt rings, ore ~> ingot ~> plate, fibre ~> yarn ~> cloth). Further, the recipes that make up ingredients should be more inline with the final synthesis. Finally, the ingredient synths should produce, as a general rule, only a single ingredient.

Take the Jade Crook, as an example:

1. Remove the walnut branch, and replace with a lumber that is of appropriate rank. Currently there is none in the game -- the lumber synthesis should be rank 41 to 45. The lumber recipe would convert 1 log to 1 lumber. Perhaps Rosewood would work here.
2. Remove the brass nugget, and replace it with gold. Since nuggets are going away, use a gold ingot. Gold ingot synth would be in the 45ish range, made from Gold Ore, with four gold ore making one gold ingot.
3. Replace the acidic secretions with an alchemy synth. Something perhaps along the lines of Growth Formula Epsilon, or a distilled acid made from the acidic secretions. This synthesis should be rank 41 to 45.
4. Change the nephrite synth to be a rank 41 to 45 synthesis. Nephrite is only used for four items : a rank 29 harpoon, rank 48 vintage robe, rank 48 jade crook, rank 50 jade hora. Remove it from the harpoon synth. Having a rank 10 ingredient synth for end-game gear is unbalanced, so update the synthesis rank.
5. Spoken blood could be updated or kept as is, given the changes above.

To justify the above changes: they are in-line with the cobalt sabatons recipe given. Indeed, the cobalt sabatons are more difficult to make, since they require six ingredients (instead of five), and three of the ingredients take two synthesis steps (the cobalt plates are made from cobalt ingots). Given that the crook synthesis is for a weapon, I would expect it to be more complex / difficult then a piece of footgear.

If the recipes are balanced in terms of requiring 4 to 8 manufactured ingredients, and if these ingredients are of a rank close to the resulting item, then the requirement that all ingredients be HQ in order to achieve an HQ result becomes a balancing restriction. The process of creating an HQ item shifts from "gathering the easy parts, spamming careful on low rank parts, skip the hard parts, make many HQ attempts", to "gather the high rank materials, spend time making every ingredient HQ". It is different, but it is not necessarily easier.

Finally, I'll point out that a great deal of the above is speculation, based on the scant evidence given to us by the dev team. However, there is certainly the possibility that the system can be a rich and enjoyable one -- they have not yet given us enough information to be certain, though

[Bobthefirst]

Current crafters life: "Hmm i want to make a HQ doublet", off to the market wards i go buy the mats (or farm them), try to make but... only NQ . Never mind let me try this again, two or three attempts go by. BAM! HQ!

So not only has this crafter put money in to the economy they have also put 4 new NQ doublets in to the wards for non craftes to buy.

The consequence of putting those four NQ doublets into the economy is that the seller doesn't value them, and is going to sell them at a price that reflects their worth.

Yoshi's crafters life: "Hmm i want to make a HQ doublet", off to the market wards i go buy the HQ mats (or farm them), try to make and... BAM! HQ!

So this crafter put money in to the economy but the by-product of NQ gear isn't there. the crafter isn't going to make/sell NQ stuff (even more so for low lvl gear), and if they make more HQ gear other then the piece they made for them selfs it will be out of the price range of the casual player.

Not having that NQ gear in the economy is a GOOD thing! Having items that are essentially trash to the seller on the AH serves only to lower the overall price of the item on the economy as a whole. A crafter making items for skill is going to be able to have a better chance at recovering a portion of their investment in the doublet now. This isn't theory - it is recollection from FFXI. As has been previously stated, crafting in FFXI was a huge gil sink. Getting to 100 skill in a given craft was a horrific expense, but the rewards once that milestone had been reached were incredible. It made the experienced crafters VERY happy, but discouraged competition in the market due to the immense expense involved in leveling even low level crafts. The proposed system is vastly superior in many ways, though not without its flaws. Changes will undoubtedly be made in the future, so let's not get too melodramatic at this point.

[Bobthefirst]

i Played FFXI for 10 years, i was a dedicated crafter i have to say you are defently correct in this statement, the only exceptions was when it came to endgame gear you would spend 200k on mats a NQ would be worth 20k and a HQ 500k. this is the way it should be too. that was endgame for crafters, huge risk vs huge reward.

I'm gonna have to call BS on this one... FFXI hasn't even been out for ten years. It was released in North America in 2003 - and I doubt you were playing the Japanese version which was released in 2002. Any way you slice it, I'm still calling shenanigans.