Craftsmanship, Magic Craftsmanship, and Control - We need a solid definition of each!

[Asai]

I too would like some solid information on crafting. I've seen sites that have certain things like cloth robes and glasses listed as magical craftsmanship being the preferred type, and then iron barbuts and solerrets being craftsmanship, though nothing gives an idea of a set value like what Estellios said up above (as in, barbut requires 85 craftsmanship, etc). I can wrap my head around that, but I don't know which is which because it's not actually listed anywhere "official", it's always from some 3rd party website that has a "general idea" about what they're talking about or going on a single person's parsed results from far too little testing. I remember some "general ideas" from FFXI taking the direction you were facing into account depending on what element the synthesis was, and I never saw anything to back any of that up. Hell when I broke down and tried it I remember having worse results. I dunno, I might not have looked hard enough or tested enough, but unsubstantial theories were never enough to win me over.

[Estellios]

For which recipes use Craftsmanship or Magic Craftsmanship it's easy... just use one set like 2-3 times with a synth and switch sets and try it again. One set will be obviously easier and its success actions will more often reach the maximum potency. It looks like items within the same "family" use the same stat so for example, if you find out what stat a Bronze Pelta uses then all Peltas use that stat.

HQ Rates are notoriously extremely random which is why you get random +1s without trying and no HQs at all when you are.

Books and sub crafts are going to lose their necessity in crafting but currently if you don't have the book or proper subcraft, you will lose durability on every action no matter what, like around 8-10 per action even if you succeed. These requirements are going away this next patch, though, so these affects won't be around much longer.

Stat changes with food aren't shown at all, not just for crafting. I think they are making buffs be shown on your status screen this patch so that might fix it.

And I wouldn't worry about any moon phase/weather/date since 99% of it is baseless superstition.

[Invalice_Vangaurd]

And I wouldn't worry about any moon phase/weather/date since 99% of it is baseless superstition.

I'm a very skeptical person, but I was a hardcore crafter in XI, and moon phase and elemental day most definitely affected crafting. There were many of us who tested this with thousand upon thousands of synths. It was very obvious. This is the main basis for believing they also affect crafting in XIV.

As far as FFXIV, I'm not really sure if these actually do affect anything or not, because I haven't really paid much attention to it, but I wouldn't dismiss the concept out of hand just because you think it's baseless superstition.

[Viridiana]

For which recipes use Craftsmanship or Magic Craftsmanship it's easy... just use one set like 2-3 times with a synth and switch sets and try it again. One set will be obviously easier and its success actions will more often reach the maximum potency. It looks like items within the same "family" use the same stat so for example, if you find out what stat a Bronze Pelta uses then all Peltas use that stat.

That would be nowhere near large enough a sample size. From one synth to the next, with absolutely nothing else (other than in-game time) changing, I've gone from failing at 20% progress to succeeding at 75 durability left. The RNG in this game is so absurdly dominating as to make testing nigh-useless for some things. At the very least, you'd need a significantly higher sample size to throw off the random factor.

[Estellios]

That would be nowhere near large enough a sample size. From one synth to the next, with absolutely nothing else (other than in-game time) changing, I've gone from failing at 20% progress to succeeding at 75 durability left. The RNG in this game is so absurdly dominating as to make testing nigh-useless for some things. At the very least, you'd need a significantly higher sample size to throw off the random factor.

I'm just going off of personal experience, but swapping sets makes immediate noticeable differences and after grinding on the same crafting leves for a while you definitely do see trends. I'm not going out of my way to make an excel spreadsheet for a game though.

@ Invalice: Elemental day stuff was pretty obvious and made actual sense, but as far as I know there's nothing of the sort in 14. The moon phase I'd understand too but since for the most part crafting is so random at the moment it's tough to justify worrying about it too much.