Synthesizing

[Mezlo]

Re: Synthesizing

Last night i was synthing level 30 oak masks on my 21 carp, only getting local camp crafting facilities, and out of 10 synths, I failed twice.

[Aeni]

Re: Synthesizing

Last night i was synthing level 30 oak masks on my 21 carp, only getting local camp crafting facilities, and out of 10 synths, I failed twice.

They must've made things a bit easier now or the rank of the recipe changed. The masks are only Rank 27 so I wonder if they're trying to match the rank of the finished product to the rank of the recipe. A lot more to discover I'm sure.

[Aeni]

Re: Synthesizing

Has anyone noticed that during New Moon you're prone to bad streaks of failures? For example, no matter what you do, it seems that you get a failed synthesis and not for just two or three times ... as often as 6 or more times in a row. I've had this happen to me on recipes which I barely get 350 sp on (leves) and no it's not a gear issue or anything to do with training. Often times there's no training required (i.e., Iron Spatha) and elemental instabilities just keep coming out of the woodwork.

There are times when I have this eerie feeling that the game is intentionally wanting me to botch.



... speculation.

Looked around the 'net and people seem to be of the opinion that elemental instabilities progress as you rank up. Before Rank 10, you never get any instability (which is true from my own experience) As you approach Rank 20, you'll probably get one instability and they're easily able to be shaken off (within 1 or 2 passes) Approaching Rank 30, I'm seeing as many as 2 possibly even 3 instabilities in a session and they seem more difficult to shake off. I could turn and turn until the whole thing blows up without it stabilizing. And this is where the angst is ...

It's possible that you're almost required to pick up the abilities (guild mark items) which temporarily negates the effects of instability and you would equip them depending on what you're crafting. If you end up using primarily wind shards then you would guard yourself by equipping that ability (to use it, activate it during instability -- here's the pisser, IF IT ROLLS UP -- and then pass that in order to remove the instability)

You can see where this is going.

You can either live with frustration and just slog through it and quietly take your beatings or you can attempt to level EVERY SINGLE CRAFT to 30 and on the way pick up marks for each of them (which currently are only available RANDOMLY through leves) The casual players are screwed either way (like my friend) and are prone to frustration due to this issue just trying to complete leves.

I guess my opinion on the matter is that SE has two options:

-Get rid of instabilities for better or for worse
-Add the ability to purchase all instability "guards" from just one craft without requiring the need to level every craft and also remove the randomness of guild mark rewards from crafting leves.

[Dux]

Re: Synthesizing

Looked around the 'net and people seem to be of the opinion that elemental instabilities progress as you rank up. Before Rank 10, you never get any instability (which is true from my own experience) As you approach Rank 20, you'll probably get one instability and they're easily able to be shaken off (within 1 or 2 passes) Approaching Rank 30, I'm seeing as many as 2 possibly even 3 instabilities in a session and they seem more difficult to shake off. I could turn and turn until the whole thing blows up without it stabilizing.

Purely speculating this sounds like it could be an increasing need for +Control in your equipment, I had already speculated that at some point +Craftsmanship may becomes less usefull than +Control depending on what +Control really does. Using a little bit of association you are seeing excessive unstable elements in your synthesis, and the word Control can mean the opposite of Unstable so I dont think it's a million mile leap of logic to suggest dumping some of your Craftsmanship in favour of Control and see what happens over the next week or so.

And this is where the angst is ...

It's possible that you're almost required to pick up the abilities (guild mark items) which temporarily negates the effects of instability and you would equip them depending on what you're crafting. If you end up using primarily wind shards then you would guard yourself by equipping that ability (to use it, activate it during instability -- here's the pisser, IF IT ROLLS UP -- and then pass that in order to remove the instability)

You can see where this is going.

You can either live with frustration and just slog through it and quietly take your beatings or you can attempt to level EVERY SINGLE CRAFT to 30 and on the way pick up marks for each of them (which currently are only available RANDOMLY through leves) The casual players are screwed either way (like my friend) and are prone to frustration due to this issue just trying to complete leves.

I thought this was already well know, the crafting system already tries to force you to level every craft this is just another example of this system at work.

I guess my opinion on the matter is that SE has two options:

-Get rid of instabilities for better or for worse
-Add the ability to purchase all instability "guards" from just one craft without requiring the need to level every craft and also remove the randomness of guild mark rewards from crafting leves.

Or they could do nothing and try and force you to level every craft which seems to be exactly what they want.

[Aeni]

Re: Synthesizing

Or they could do nothing and try and force you to level every craft which seems to be exactly what they want.

Remember, Yoshi P said he wants to improve things, not leave it the way Tanaka left it.

Also, have you looked at what +control items are out there? I think you're overly optimistic with your comments. Remember, you have to also bear in mind AFFINITY has a lot to do with the other side of that instability coin. I didn't find very many +control pieces on gear at rank appropriate and affinity to BSM in the list over at YG. Maybe you have better luck than I do. The best I can come up with is roughly 44 control at Rank 28 (with a couple pieces that are not friendly to BSM in affinity) and in contrast I get stuck with over 70 to craftmanship still.

[Dux]

Re: Synthesizing

Also, have you looked at what +control items are out there? I think you're overly optimistic with your comments. Remember, you have to also bear in mind AFFINITY has a lot to do with the other side of that instability coin. I didn't find very many +control pieces on gear at rank appropriate and affinity to BSM in the list over at YG. Maybe you have better luck than I do. The best I can come up with is roughly 44 control at Rank 28 (with a couple pieces that are not friendly to BSM in affinity) and in contrast I get stuck with over 70 to craftmanship still.

I am just updating my spreadsheet now to try and parse some useful data out of unstable elements synthesis results. At the moment it is only min, max and average number of Waits before it stabilises but in the future is could be more sophistaicated.

Yes I did look into every single piece of crafting gear and I now have a matrix of it all inside my spreadsheet so you can break it down by slot, affinity and attribute. After having looked at the gear in earnest it seems to me there are no reasons why some things are aligned with particular crafts and some of them make absolutely no sense at all. The more I understand what has been done the less confidence I have that affinity means anything at all, so until either I or somebody else generates real data and analysis on affinity I'm of the opion it means nothing.

[Aeni]

Re: Synthesizing

The more I understand what has been done the less confidence I have that affinity means anything at all, so until either I or somebody else generates real data and analysis on affinity I'm of the opion it means nothing.

It's getting to be noticeable during New Moon but you're right that under normal conditions it's too small to even measure accurately. The last New Moon I crafted under was very horrible for me. I couldn't complete a Rank 30 leve that I was able to do from Rank 26 (Rank 28 now) Can you imagine that? This same leve that I've been working with for the past 2 ranks for nearly 2 weeks without issues completely fell apart for me this last time out. Two ranks higher, appropriate to ranking requirements on gear etc etc etc Nothing changed in my habits, what I do, how I do things etc etc etc

Every single attempt had one thing in common: elemental instability. The successful attempts (Only 2 out of 6) had only 1 elemental instability which blew up because it became chaotic. I completed two times with less than 20 dura. The other 4 botched at under 70% progress because of more than two instabilities OR because the instability did not want to go away and it was also EARTH instability, one of the worst ones to get.

It was frustrating enough that I logged out and played a bit of WoW instead.

[Dux]

Re: Synthesizing

Here again are the synthesis results of my last 100 attempts at undyed canvas with the data for elemental instability broken down by elementa added to the bottom. It does lack some functionality that I plan to add in later on to give more information but right now the basics are working.

It is unfortunate it is so difficult to get large quanitities of data for this unless Aines observation that elemental instability increases over time and there is nothing that can be done about it, in which case more data will become available in due course. Although right now I wouldn't read too much into it as the sample size is tiny

For what it is worth here it is. http://i.imagefra.me/5e7i1jfk

[Aeni]

Re: Synthesizing

Dux,

Am I reading your data correctly when I noticed that increasing craftsmanship increased failure and decreased generic success? It's under the "difference in work unit outcomes". Because if this is so ... I'm gonna go buck naked and craft >.> This could explain why my failures have been increasing and chances of elemental instabilities resulting from those failures may not change but due to increases in failures the amount of instabilities I'm noticing will increase.

[Dux]

Re: Synthesizing

Dux,

Am I reading your data correctly when I noticed that increasing craftsmanship increased failure and decreased generic success? It's under the "difference in work unit outcomes". Because if this is so ... I'm gonna go buck naked and craft >.> This could explain why my failures have been increasing and chances of elemental instabilities resulting from those failures may not change but due to increases in failures the amount of instabilities I'm noticing will increase.

I suspect this is more a result of RNG and a lack of stats so I wouldn't read too much into it, i was only wearing an Iron Needle and the Cotton Vest.

[Aeni]

Re: Synthesizing

i was only wearing an Iron Needle and the Cotton Vest.

You flirtatious tease!

[Dux]

Re: Synthesizing

Well it looks like once again they are changing the Synthesis Process in patch 1.16 so I think for now my investigation in +Craftsmanship is on hold until the system settles down. We know enough about +Craftsmanship to be moving onto something else in the short term.

So as we have no leve refresh tonight here in UK I will run a test on +Control and see what effect this stats has on crafting, results to be posted tomorrow if all goes well.

[Dux]

Re: Synthesizing

+Control Test Approach
Undyed Canvas Recipe Rank 29 Weaver
My rank was Weaver R28
Main Hand tool was Iron Needle Iron Needle - Item - Final Fantasy XIV Database - ffxiv.yg.com
Tested with +0 and also +14 Control
Used Main Hand Only
Used Standard synthesis option only unless it went unstable then it was Wait only until it went stable

Assumption
None as I have no idea what Control does.

Gear Used
Leather Smithy Gloves Leather Smithy's Gloves - Item - Final Fantasy XIV Database - ffxiv.yg.com
Canvas Coif Canvas Coif - Item - Final Fantasy XIV Database - ffxiv.yg.com

Analysis
Here are the results from punching the data through my spreadsheet http://i.imagefra.me/da2i2bcz

Looking at the numbers there is nothing immediatly obvious to show what +Control does, whatever the effect is it is quite subtle. Sadly today I dont have enough time to really look into it but I will try and come back to this later on in the week, however I have put in two items in the speculation column as this is the area I expected to be impacted by +Control.

Conclusiosn
I have no concrete idea what Control actually does the effect is so subtle I am having difficulty in finding a way to measure it.

Speculation
It might reduce the number of unstable elements you receive during synthesis.
It might increase the number of Sucess Work Units you receive during synthesis.

[Aeni]

Re: Synthesizing

I think the problem is that control is not found in copious amounts (at least not enough to match the amounts of Craftsmanship) and I'm not sure if the DR ceiling is lower as a result or the same as the other two stats. What's intriguing is Magic Craftsmanship as that is the stat I see common with certain kinds of gear and more abundant R30+.

I did forget to mention food and that you can gain +control from eating certain dishes. That could actually be very, very valuable, because if a food gives +8 to control and you only have 33 on your personage, that is a huge increase (24%) versus eating a food giving you +8 craftsmanship on an 80 total (10%)