What the hell is wrong with crafting?

[Hachiko]

The best way to rank up now is probably through repeating local town leves. Camp leves needs a lot more running so can be pretty slow.

That would be great if there were multiple town leves at a given level. I know at 25 there are zero for CRP. There's one that is available that says lvl 30, but it is virtually impossible to complete at lvl 25.

Leaves you with a 5 minute walk to complete the other 25 levels. One of them only granting something like 2k exp the other giving 3.5... counting all the synths.

[Geesus]

Crafting is seriously tedious, already at lvl 15 I needed a break from LW. Compared to DoM and DoW the exp is very slow, especially considering that you can't join xp, do behest, parties or chain xp on your crafting class. I hope that there's some tweaking in the future.

However I will say this, the leve system makes crafting cheap, easy and accessible. However this game basically forces crafting down your throat as you are very dependent on crafters.

I tend to agree only because upper level crafters are abusing pricing of items since of course there are very few new items in the wards. After I recently hit 50 Con I said enough and went to crafting again. I'm tired of looking at over priced gear and or asking my LS mates for help.

[Reliquia]

That would be great if there were multiple town leves at a given level. I know at 25 there are zero for CRP. There's one that is available that says lvl 30, but it is virtually impossible to complete at lvl 25.

Leaves you with a 5 minute walk to complete the other 25 levels. One of them only granting something like 2k exp the other giving 3.5... counting all the synths.

Yeah, more leves should be acessible at certain levels. Suddenly you will find yourself grinding on leves with horrible xp because there are too many gaps between some level ranges.

[zzapp]

In regard to the OP random success/failure rates - you are so right on. I've been bitching about this since I started crafting. I've managed to level a fair amount of crafts, but not without many fits of bewilderment and outright anger. You see, I'm of the silly belief that the higher level you get in a craft, the easier a particular recipe should become, and HQ succes should be improved. The extent of RNG in the current coding is unacceptable. Crafting is such a big part of this game. To have stuff just random success/failure or NQ vs HQ with little or no regard to competency (level) vs. recipe difficulty is nothing but a major cop out in the coding. I'm so tired of endlessly farming materials, day after day, only to have materials HQ attempts fail time after time after time, even with 350+ quality and the recipe 30 levels below me, and the next one HQ with 30 quality. This just isn't right.

I've also am convinced there is a periodic 'rage' coding that kicks in time to time for 6-7 unexplicable fails, then the next 10-12 synths I finish with 70+ durability. This is plain, unjustified bullsh*t. If I wanted a game that was an absolute crap shoot, I'd go to Vegas. I expect better than this in this game.

While I do understand the need for some variability/randomness in the result, this isn't fun, nor is it acceptable. The pain associated with leveling a craft to ultimate level, buying/making the best gear, getting the best abilities like Hand of the Gods and Perfection should be rewarded, not ignored.

Kudos to the OP for bringing this up. I've posted on this very subject many many times, and not a single response from the development team addressing this ><

BTW I just got done synthing up some mythril nuggets, that @ R50 I get 26 xp for. Without getting cute, i.e. not just spamming Careful Synth, I failed this with Hand of the Gods and Perfection. Go figure ><

[tymora]

mythril nuggets

You didn't get support did you? Old recipes still need them. Not having the proper manual or support adds a flat (does not vary with level) amount of "risk" to your "small & negligible" random starting value.

My guess on risk is somewhat like this...
Starting Risk = Base + RandomValue + Manual + Support
where Manual and Support are 0 if you have them and reduced if insufficient
Base gets smaller as your level goes higher.

In any case, materials are dirt cheap in XIV. Get over the occasional breaks.

[zzapp]

Here's another good example of how crafting code is just plain broken. Today I was clearing out some inventory from my retainers and was synthing aldgoat leather, which @ R50 gives me 0 XP (read that ZERO). While I was ultimately successful in the synth, I failed 5 attempts @ Careful on white/yellow orb. Now, I ask how can this be? Where is the causality that should reflect my crafting competence vs. a recipe that is so far below me it renders 0 XP?

On the side, another couple points:

Anyone notice a vastly increased chance of first-attempt failures? I have, and it's not my imagination, or a poor string of luck either. It's almost like odds of failure 1st attempt are increased in the code. I swear I fail first attempts on recipes reasonably close to my level 65-70% of the time. Of course I don't have to say what this does to any chance of HQ. Right off the bat, if it was a crit fail, you're already @ 85 ish durability, and all of a sudden, instead of thinking HQ, your scrambling for synth success. This isn't right.

The in-game description of Careful synthesis is increased chance of durability loss. OK, I'm fine with that, but without question, I fail considerably more on Careful than Standard. If success rates are intended to be diminished on Careful, then change the damn in-game description to say exactly that ><

Whether everyone likes it or not, crafting is a huge part of this game. Dealing with the current bullsh*t RNG coding on a day in and day out basis is beyond frustrating, and SE should be ashamed of themselves for implementing such crap coding.

It would really be nice to get some sort of response from the development team addressing this issue, and what/when is the inteded fix, or is this going to be part of the finished game product. It becomes a little more bearable if this is an acknowledged problem and targeted to be fixed, as opposed to the thought that we'll be forced to live with this inept sytem in the finished game product.

[sdegrazi]

the occasional break, i can live with. since 1.19 there are no "occasional" breaks. there are random stints of 5-7 failed synths in a row, regardless of level, instabilites EVERY synth, and most of the time, 2 instabilities in one synth. before you blame my gear, or lack of support, i have the appropraite gear for my level, good amounts of control, craftmanship. and i use the appropriate guild support. this is UNACCEPTABLE. someone needs to really look into this. not just 1-2 synths and say "yep, its working".

[sdegrazi]

everyone apparently is "Putting up with it", and nothing is being done about it.

[zerrith]

One thing I was upset about was during the live letter from the producer segment Yoshi P declined to answer a question about lunar phase and other random things that affect synths.

[Hachiko]

I'm glad I'm not the only one feeling this way. It's clear that the system is broken, and people have brought up things That infuriate me which I forgot to mention in the original post.

The "failing on the first synth" thing is insane. I don't know why, but I will often fail on the first synth WITH makers muse... and of course about 30% of the time it will go unstable. In fact, I seem to see more fails on the first synth with makers muse than without, though that may just be a perception error on my part because I use it on harder crafts.

And the HQ system, is also completely ridiculous. Finish with 300 quality: Enjoy your normal quality item! If that's going to be the case, just get rid of +3 mats so I will have twice as much effective inventory space please. 90% of my high quality procs have been on things with less than 100 quality. It makes absolutely no sense. It seems if you want high quality you're better off just spam crafting as much as possible, rather than carefully going through with careful synth trying to build up quality.

And then to top it all off, the insane number of synths required to level and the amount of time required per synth. Seriously? I know that crafting should take some "effort" but forcing someone to sit there and spam a single button for 3 hours per synth is ridiculous. Even moreso when they're just making a bunch of items that will end up being vendor trash. Which, of course under the current system, is really the only way.

And don't get me started on NM's. Thanks SE, for making every rank 20-35 synth weapon or gear basically worthless, because anyone with a 50 will go camp a NM for a few minutes for its drop. It's sad when it's more profitable to make rank 5-15 weapons than it is to make 15-40. And of course, you have to make 50 of them to level, which everyone else has to do, which further drives the prices down to just above the vendor value. Ridiculousness.

My synthing strategy has changed from trying to do the more technical higher level synths, to just doing things that give 200-400 exp, and doing them over and over, with a turbo function. If it's just a single mat who cares when i lose it. I honestly wish there was less of an emphasis on crafting because it makes the game significantly less fun. But with the fact that gear is so incredibly more powerful with materia on it, crafting basically becomes something nearly essential for players to take part in.