This game has seriously messed up RNG

[seekified]

Yes, failing a gather or craft at 95%+ several times in a row seems like "bad RNG". But if you do 10000+ gathering/crafting attemps, the total observed success rate is likely to be close to the stated base success rate.

That being said, I think that the amount of mechanics that rely on RNG in this game is too great. I can understand some of the crafting abilities being RNG-based, but have RNG decide whether or not I hit that rock in the correct way with my pickaxe is a little silly. Also, crystal FATE grinds etc is a stupid thing to have in a long, grindy quest because two people doing the exact same thing on the exact same quest should see the exact same progress. Any other outcome just seems unfair.

[MN_14]

I'd say they were even - while a few extra tools were thrown in, you get to use MM instead of a single RS, precise touch is nice but even it occurring inside the quality phase is - yep.... RNG. however, with more steps required, it's evened out again.

I actually don't find them to be even myself. In ARR, you absolutely were required to use RS multiple times in a craft along with a whole ton of HTs. There wasn't a lot of room for RNG reducers such as PT or even swapping HTs with RNG free abilities like BT or ST. In HW, you can start with up to 50% quality and unless you're starting from 0 or near 0 quality, you usually can start swapping out RNG abilities halfway through the synth. That's the biggest factor on why crafting i220s while geared in 190s is really simple. With a quality requirement of only 10k, not only do you need fewer successful touches, but you can also usually simply cut out half of the RNG.

In ARR, several crafts such as artisan's tools or gear forced you to start from a max of ~700/4500 and 1200/5600 respectively. 4* crafted materials were even worse, forcing you to start from a max of 500-600/5600 iirc. HQ materials weren't worth the extra cost (absolutely minimal benefits) so in practice, you were forced to craft 4* materials from all NQ.

In HW, even from all NQ, I find opportunities to switch out RNG abilities for RNG free ones to guarantee 100% on occasion so HQ rates are definitely higher and more consistent than before. This is also just looking at synths in which you start from 0 quality.

If you're starting from 4000-6000 quality on a 4* craft, I find that I usually don't even need Byregot's Blessing and there probably is a RNG free way of crafting them if starting quality is that high (haven't looked into it myself). At 6K quality, you'd be able to absorb 8 misses no problem.

On an side note, HW crafts aren't really that much longer compared to 3* or 4* ARR end game crafts. My typical 4* craft is around 50 steps, whereas my ARR crafts were around 38-45 steps usually. They take longer than before but the difference is exaggerated.

[XiXiQ]

I don't think on its own, from a purely mathematical perspective, the RNG is "wrong" in some manner. But its employed very badly - too many things rely upon stings of it - one good roll doesn't matter, you need to get 5 or more in a run. The longer that string is, the more limited your odds become. even the "side stuff" is RG heavy, like acropolis or WT. POTD gearing upgrades, chest drops, having to roll and pray after every battle. The odds have been so long in some cases, it's simply banging your head against a wall. Basically, the mathematics of RNG aren't the point any more, it's been so heavilly over used it's destroying the enjoyment of the game.

[XiXiQ]

My typical 4* craft is around 50 steps, whereas my ARR crafts were around 38-45 steps usually. They take longer than before but the difference is exaggerated.

You've just quoted yet another 5-12 failure points, and yes, it does matter in the end.

[MN_14]

You've just quoted yet another 5-12 failure points, and yes, it does matter in the end.

Ok, I understand your dislike for RNG as I've seen my share of failed rolls on loot. But I honestly don't see RNG is a problem in the crafting system as I've gone through thousands of synths myself. You do sometimes get 7-8 misses (and will see 5-6 misses routinely) but consistently seeing 7-8 misses 30% of the time doesn't make sense (I've had brief periods where I've seen multiple crafts turn out like that in a row and it's rare). Your sample size is probably way too small.

Crafting isn't complete random luck like loot rolls or even gathered items (BTN and miner shouldn't be a problem now aside from aetherial reduction; if you can meet the minimum gather requirements for the newer 1* and 3* gather points, you can increase the rate to 100% just by spending 100 GP). The 5-12 extra failure points from Maker's Mark don't matter unless you're consistently missing 5-12 extra times (which I've never seen in all of my crafts). On top of that, difficulty is adjustable via your starting quality.

Once you design a strategy where your average expected result from all NQ is 100%, you'll find yourself HQing practically everything left and right.

If you're writing off crafting simply from some bad experiences with a small sample, I really do think you're missing out. I can see why some players might have found the gearing daunting (fixed in 3.3) and materials expensive, but the system is so flexible especially in HW that RNG should be the least of their problems. I hope you do give it a shot again because I really do find it to be an enjoyable mini-game myself.

[XiXiQ]

I actually still do it, but just as needed, I'm geared enough to do maybe 3* now, but not interested in grinding blue scripts to buy an action, or in RNG tossing out mats that have either taken a long time to grind or come at great expense. Or in wasting millions in crafting gear failures and melding failures - My "small sample" is probably 50-100 creafts per week. sometimes for blue script, usually the red ones, plus I make pots/food for my gathering, and sometimes for the crafting or furniture items. I just can't take it seriously anymore, or invest much skin in it, it's just too much of a crapshoot for me. With the exception of the food, I'm way overgeared, so the RNG doesn't affect the final outcome in the majority of cases - but I still see the same patterns of failures over and over, and know that's just going to continue with higher recipes as well. I honestly wish it was just a case of a few bad experiences and a small sample, but I've also gone through 1000's of synths since HW came out and am just seeing the same thing over and over. I might go back to it more seriously in time, will just need to wait and see what SB has to offer.

[Squigley]

The RNG does feel extremely streaky at times. For example last night I was using my mount roulette and it gave me the same damn Sanuwa four times in a row. IIRC Apple had this same "problem" when they introduced shuffle to iPods etc. The randomness was too true, if you can say that, and people complained that it didn't feel random because same songs seemed to be playing too often. So Apple had to tweak their algorithms a bit. Couldn't find a source for this with 20 sec googling, sorry. IMHO at least some RNG aspects could use tweaking in this game. Like the mount roulette I mentioned. If I keep rejecting some mount, maybe reject those results automatically?

[CookieMonsta]

My "small sample" is probably 50-100 creafts per week. sometimes for blue script, usually the red ones, plus I make pots/food for my gathering, and sometimes for the crafting or furniture items. I just can't take it seriously anymore, or invest much skin in it, it's just too much of a crapshoot for me. With the exception of the food, I'm way overgeared, so the RNG doesn't affect the final outcome in the majority of cases - but I still see the same patterns of failures over and over, and know that's just going to continue with higher recipes as well.

50-100 may sound like a lot but this is actually peanuts when it comes to RnG. This game's RnGenerator is rated for 10^23 iterations or something, true RnG is rated to infinity. We humans are just so prone to confirmation bias because our minds cannot envision infinity (or 10^23 for that matter).

[Stormfur]

Reclaim fails a lot more often than 10% of the time.

[XiXiQ]

well, as I said, I have no idea if RNG is mathematcally wrong, and it's unlikely to be. It's the heavy reliance on it that's the real issue. 50-100 is insignificant on its own - but to see the same pattern repeated week after week, over many 1000's is begging incredulity. At this stage I'm not even complaining because my crafts fail, I'm at the stage where the failure rate simply doesn't affect it much. It's still obviously there, though.