4 Star Master Books - Completely frustrating and unfun.

[Kenji1134]

i had the most fun unlocking carpenter. can go through the whole synth process right up to hitting Byregots.

if condition is good/excellent. hit byregots.
if condition is normal. Rumination then reclaim.

keep repeat till you get good/excellent with byregots and 11IQ stacks ^^.

LTW is maybe the hardest. also i find weaver is a bit hard as well. Alchemist and Cul should be easy. i will use the rumination method for them.

That is the entire issue though.

if condition is good/excellent. hit byregots.
if condition is normal. Rumination then reclaim.

keep repeat till you get good/excellent with byregots and 11IQ stacks ^^.

This is not skill, this is binary logic dictated entirely by RNG. And sadly the only solution is to keep trying the same thing until RNG decides to give you what you want.
There is no real player skill in this kind of crafting.
Arguably the ONLY skill in this process is being able to use ToT on almost every Good, and "hoping" that RNG gives you enough Goods for enough CP to get more durability and an extra SH2 so you can get even MORE chances at the 80% RNG.
Then maybe you have a pre-planned finishing sequence where you can interchange the order of 2 PbP and BB, so you have 3 chances to see a Good or Excellent condition for BB before you would Reclaim.

That's it, that is the extent of the "skill" required for this kind of RNG based crafting. You build a slightly variable finishing sequence where you can freely change the order of some skills to "fish" for a Good/Excellent.
Then you run the same generic HT sequence that everyone else does. Hit ToT when you see a Good, HOPE your HT's don't fail, HOPE you get enough ToTs to make them worthwhile, HOPE you get a Good/Excellent for BB, and when all else fails, HOPE your 90% Reclaim doesn't fail as well...

Seriously, this is a whole lot of hoping and guessing and endless retrying, that is not what you would expect of an "expert level crafter", that sounds like what we did before we unlocked all of the lvl 15 skills, SH2, Careful Synth, and BB. Hope it comes out HQ, and if not, try again... But during those days, the materials were dirt cheap. Now, we are "elite" crafters, and WE ARE DOING THE SAME DAMN THING!

[RiceisNice]

...

It's hard to make anything turn-based like crafting require "skill", it's mostly planning and strategy rather than execution. I mean, most you can really do with gear is lower the threshold of RNG and giving you a bit more to work with (less steps to finish the craft, more CP for MM, etc etc). Hell, even people who chastise others for doing something wrong sitll call to reclaims because they get 10 or lower IQ stacks.

[NationOfZealots]

RNG since 2.3 has exclusively killed my passion for crafting... at least introduce ways to mitigate this? NEW ITEMS!?!?! Reclaim percentage increase +10%? Chance of "Excellent" +5%? GIVE US AT LEAST SOMETHING!

I know it is for "the most knowledgeable crafters" but srsly I am not going to farm weeks for one of these only to fail

For what it's worth, I am just buying all my OHs because I make gil faster than it takes to collect the mats, this is feeding the gilsellers and lee7 players but SE seem to be supporting RMT more since 2.3 anyway <.<

[Lemuel81]

Its frustrating. While i have not touched any 4* crafts just yet. Im going to stick with it till the end. Hoping that it gets better with future patches.

[Tahldon]

Seriously trying not to get angry but how does one... at 90% chance of success on Reclaim... lose not one, but two sets of materials within the same... 8 or so minutes of crafting?

At this point, I'm starting to believe that the RNG on Reclaim might not be as truthful as it's making itself out to be.

[Ooshima]

Unfortunately this is a love hate thing.

Call it RNG if you want, but it is entirely not called no skill.

I know of people who burned over 10mil gil trying to unlock one 4 star book during the first week of 2.4.

And meanwhile here I am, not enjoying even the most average luck of anything within this game, managed to unlock the crucial WVR/LTW 4 star books within just a couple of mil, and probably one of the first 5 or 10 persons in my server that was able to do 4 star reliably from day 1-2 and made a good profit out of it.

The RNG part is indeed shitty, but having the skill to devise a reasonable workflow with it differentiates those who are at the edge of crafting game and reap the most benefit out of it, VS those who are waiting for rotations or shun it.

Selfishly speaking I am not keen in a saturated market where it seems like everyone's mum can craft the current most difficult crafts. I was rather happy being one of the few dudes who could craft and sell the 4 star items considering the amount of time and effort taken to unlock then, or even craft them at the moment.

[Hayward]

Selfishly speaking I am not keen in a saturated market where it seems like everyone's mum can craft the current most difficult crafts. I was rather happy being one of the few dudes who could craft and sell the 4 star items considering the amount of time and effort taken to unlock then, or even craft them at the moment.

See, this is the kind of attitude that drives me up a wall. The "I've got mine, later for you" attitude that makes MMOs a toxic environment. What makes one person more special than everyone else that 3- and 4-star crafts should be gated in such a way that benefits such a small percentage of the community?

This is the very reason I proposed several (admittedly wild) proposals to make RNG less of a factor in 3- and 4-star synths a week ago. More people have to be allowed to do these crafts without having to burn several millions of gil in the process. That can only lead to buying gil.

[StouterTaru]

This is the very reason I proposed several (admittedly wild) proposals to make RNG less of a factor in 3- and 4-star synths a week ago. More people have to be allowed to do these crafts without having to burn several millions of gil in the process. That can only lead to buying gil.

I have no issues with making materials to enter into top tier crafting being made more readily available (cheaper), but the difficulty (RNG) doesn't need to be dumbed down.

[Sibyll]

I don't really see the point in getting 4* crafting. The design of crafted gear caters to the small percentage of people that push end-game and can afford to overmeld it. Maybe on a larger server with a lot of hardcore raiders this might be profitable, but on my smaller server this is a handful of people.

Honestly, the amount of gil I'd have dumped into getting 4* has been put to better use crafting my own spirit bind gear and selling Savage IVs on the market board.

[Meier]

Yup, it is getting to the point where there just isn't one anymore. The amount of BS you have to put it is not worth the reward at all. When will crafting gear actually be good? Right now it is mostly glamour...pfft.