Quote Originally Posted by Callinon View Post
Sort of.. but it's really just adding more random factors.

I'm convinced that if the goal is to add difficulty to crafting, then some kind of wholesale redesign of the system is necessary. There just isn't any room for actual difficulty in the current system.

Now, that being said, I'm NOT convinced SE's goal is to add difficulty to crafting. I know there are people here who (vocally!) want it, but I'm not super sold on the idea that it's actually what SE wants to do.

About the only thing SE could do right now to at least discourage macro use is to have quality thresholds so unbelievably high that it'd just be actually impossible to reach it without fishing for condition procs. And I mean... I guess... but that'd make crafting gear upgrades feel pretty awful. I don't think there's a good solution to this.. certainly not a simple one.
Not all RNG is bad.

Some RNG is good.

RNG is bad when the RNG dictates whether or not you win or lose (regardless of your inputs). But if you took the idea I presented and tailored it enough that with the right decision-making (along with some margin of error being allowed, less margin for endgame crafting), you should be able to succeed 90% of the time, then you'd end up with the good sort of RNG that does not dictate win/loss unless you get extremely unlucky.

The idea is to make it all based on decision-making based upon the current condition, with some planning, forethought, and contingencies if things go wrong. The skilled player will look ahead and know when it is safe to take a gamble, or when he should play it safe and not do so. The skilled player will know what actions to use under what conditions.

The unskilled player will make lots of mistakes, and end up with NQs and failed synths, which is how it should be.