high-stakes gathering

[jars]

when I'm gathering I don't care about normal quality items, their only purpose is to clutter my invontory. I'd rather have a 60% chance to get nothing and a 40% chance to get a hq item than a 100% chance to get a useless nq item and 15% for a hq item.

[Matsume]

I wouldn't call NQ items useless, that's just insulting and far from the truth. As a crafter, I can HQ any and every end product recipe 100% of the time with only NQ materials. As a gatherer, I choose to harvest NQ materials rather than HQ because I can gather a much greater amount of NQ materials using blessed harvest II and kings yield II than I would aiming for HQ with Leaf Turn II. Personally, I find that HQ items clutter my inventory more often than NQ items.

That being said you do realize that Leaf Turn II / Unearth II increase HQ % by 30% ontop of the base 15% you can get from perception, don't you?

When I think of high stakes gathering, I think of elemental ore in Ifrit's Cauldron from FFXI - which I would warmly welcome.

[Shadygrove]

Ah yes, sneak mining.... I remember it fondly.

[LineageRazor]

Ah yes... That "Hrrrwuff!" sound that let you know that bomb wasn't QUITE as far away as you thought it was when you started casting Invisible... I remember it well. XD

[Covenant]

Don't forget the imbalance of landing a HQ items increase it's exp. If you increase ease of HQ, expect a nosedive on it's exp value. You sound abit like a low level gather. There are various methods to boost Perception(HQ stat) such as jobactions, gear, and food...not to mention based on other stats a particular node will boost HQ addionally by 10%.

If you didn't know, when you hit a certain level you get the "magnifying glass" job action(I can't think of the name) once it's activated you can left click over a particular node and it will pop it's bonus stat if any...Meaning you can skip regular nodes and only gather at nodes with increase bonuses if you so choose to.

[ReviiLagoon]

Would be more beneficial to have an ability that reduces your chance to get a HQ item to 0%....seriously they are useless. I have no idea why they sell for more on the market place, I just sell all my HQ ones and keep the NQ ones.

[Shirai]

....seriously they are useless.

Not really, they are great for synthing of HQ's at lower levels without relying on the RNG to get 100% quality.
which for leveling up is quite a sanity saver.

[Waeksyn]

While leveling up all of my DoH and DoL, I strived for HQ - they gave higher exp and were essential at the time for HQ'ing on DoH, which I needed for leveling up through the repeatable leves. I sold the NQ mats.

Now that I am L50 in all, I strive for NQ and sell all my HQ.

Seems like a pretty good system the way it is already implemented.

[Roth_Trailfinder]

Not really, they are great for synthing of HQ's at lower levels without relying on the RNG to get 100% quality.
which for leveling up is quite a sanity saver.

If you use entirely HQ materials, starting with half of the Quality bar filled, and about a 15% chance of HQ, and then fill out the Quality bar to 100% HQ, your bonus exp for making that synthesis is 240%.
If you use entirely NQ materials, starting with none of the Quality bar filled, and a 1% chance of HQ, and then fill out the Quality bar to 100%, your bonus exp for making that synthesis is 300%.
That is excluding other bonuses, such as food or FC.

The crafting exp bonus is based on the amount of Quality you add during the actual synthesis, and adding Quality beforehand through HQ materials cuts into that. What HQ materials also allow you to do is hit 100% more easily, potentially enabling 100% HQ for something you do not have the stats to 100% HQ without those HQ materials.