How skillups are calculated...

[Mav]

Hello everyone.

i'm a lvl 65 cook, and i have a question..

it seems like my skillups are random. sometimes i'll burn 2 stacks of each ingredient in a recipe and get no skillups, then suddenly i'll get two .1's back to back.

do i have a set base % to increase skill, or do i earn some sort of invisible exp per successful/failed synth that will cause me to get a .1 every time my exp turns over? also, i know the moon phase increases your chances of HQing in certain conditions (if anyone has a link to a guide explaning how to use the moon phase / day of the week to your HQing advantage, PLEASE provide the link, meloveyoulongtime), does the moon phase increase chance to get a skillup?

/confused

[LyonheartLakshmi]

Skill up rate post 60 is just fairly slow, and they will seem to come at very random times. From my experience, they also tend to come in bunches, like you observed two .1s coming close together.

There are many different theories on the impact of moon phase / day of the week on skill up rates. I tried to do most of my skill up crafting on either New Moon, or a day of the week that was strong against the crystal I was using, or both. But if you're working on a recipe that's really cheap (which is quite common with cooking) or one that actually yields a profit, I wouldn't let the moon phase stop you from crafting.

Craft when it's convenient for you. If you let the game's calendar force you to mess around with your own schedule, you'll just end up going nuts when you end up with results that don't quite meet your expectations.

[Mav]

yea, i dont really let the phase or the day sway my crafting. but i will plan my FFXI playtimes around HQing once i start going at it hammer and tongs for profit. i want the best gil return per synth i can get at that point.

perhaps it's a set % to skillup, but the more you dont get skillups, the higher your chances of skilling up become per synth? And then when you succeed in getting a skillup, it resets back to the base chance given your synth/day/moonphase.

anyway, just trying to make sense of it. :P


While i have you here, what kind of HQing results could i expect to get on mithkabobs around lvl 70 cooking? worthwhile/not worthwhile?

[kiffkin]

It really is pretty random - I did 82-83 cooking in a single stack (well, 12 synths, as I was doing chamomile tea) but have gone through a couple of stacks a few times post-60 without a single skillup. Generally speaking, synthing on strong-to-crystal-of-synth days (e.g. Fireday for Ice synths) and Darksday, and facing in that compass direction has got me a slightly higher rate of both HQs and breaks, though not skillups, while day/direction has got me more NQs and less breaks (I use a written out version of this (http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/Image:SynthingCompass.jpg)).

I've found level to be more useful for me as a guide to skilling up - the wiki has a good explanation here (http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/Crafting_Skill_Ups) and there's a very useful crafting timer here (http://ffxi.lokyst.net/timer2/crafttimer.html) that many crafters swear by. After a while, you start to get a sense of when is a good or bad time to synth - or maybe I've just been doing it too much lately :rolleyes: .

With regards to your second question, your chance of HQ is partially dependant on the amount you are above the recipe's level cap (as you probably already know :) ). There are three tiers of success:

Tier 0 - 0-10 levels above
Tier 1 - 11-30 levels above
Tier 2 - 31-50 levels above
Tier 3 - 51+ levels above

Tier 0 has an estimated HQ rate of about 1%-2%, tier 1 about 10%-15%, tier 2 about 25% and tier 3 about 50%. Below tier 0 (i.e. when your level is below the cap) HQs are pretty rare.

I've been making mithkabobs quite a bit lately, and at cooking 93, that puts me at tier 3 (cap for mithkabobs is 38). I'd estimate that my rates are:

NQ - 50%
HQ1 - 30%
HQ2 - 15%
HQ3 - had 1
Breaks - had 2

This is over about 5 stacks of ingredients, facing West and over different days and moon phases. I went through one very good streak on an Earthday with waning moon, where I got mostly HQ1s.

Right, now that's out of the way, to actually answer your question ;) . At level 70, you'll be at tier 2, so you should be getting at least HQ1 about a quarter of the time. You should be able to make a reasonable profit, and I'd recommend getting the garlic and peppers from npcs if you can, and farming the onions if the prices are excessive on your server (I've seen them go from about 2k to 50k per stack...). Also, check the selling prices for mithkabobs and chiefkabobs at all the ahs, as they can very pretty widely.

~

Sorry if that was all a bit long winded, and I hope it helps :thumbsup: .

Edited (twice) due to brainfart with tiers...

[Mav]

hey thanks for the info!! it's very helpful^^

would you mind explaining what the numbers mean on this website:

http://ffxi.lokyst.net/timer2/crafttimer.html

(the link you provided.)

it looks like if i knew what Adv. Support-1.40-0.90-0.40meant i'd be on relatively easier street^.~

anyway THANK YOU very much for that reply, it was uber helpful

[neighbortaru]

those are the difficult numbers for the synth based on your current skill vs skill cap, plus other factors. ideally, according to the timer, you want to be in the 2-4 range for optimal skillup chances

adv support, free support and no support refer to the crafting support you get at the npcs at the guild

[Mav]

what do negative numbers mean, and the 2-4 means what % chance of skilling up over say 0-1.9?

i've noticed my number actually goes DOWN with advanced support - if i want to get more skillups i shouldn't have it on?


North-West Other West
Adv. Support -0.40 0.10 0.60
Free Support 0.60 1.10 1.60
No Support 1.60 2.10 2.60





OHHH KAY!

i get it. the thing explains itself. i didn't know you could click on the text in there, god i'm such a rube.

[neighbortaru]

no, it's not a percentage, it's just a difficulty number (calculated from your skill vs cap, adjusted by other things). negative means it should be a trivial synth (though not immune to failure).

thus something like 2.10 means you are synthing as effectively 2.10 skill points from cap and have the chance of success associated with being at that level. whereas -0.40 means you are effectively .40 skill points over the cap.

[Mav]

no, it's not a percentage, it's just a difficulty number. negative means it's a trivial synth (though not immune to failure). right, right i see that now. the thing explains itself, but i didn't know you could just click on the text for an explanation XD ROFL

thanks for answering dumb dumb questions:)

[LyonheartLakshmi]

Tier 1 - 0-10 levels above
Tier 2 - 11-30 levels above
Tier 3 - 31+ levels above

Tier 1 is generally considered to have a HQ rate of about 10%-15%, tier 2 about 25% and tier 3 about 50% (tier 0 - being less than the level cap - has an estimated rate of about 1%-2%).
I think your HQ Tiers are a little off.

Tier 0 - 0-10 levels above
Tier 1 - 11-30 levels above
Tier 2 - 31-50 levels above
Tier 3 - 51+ levels above

From personal experience, I consider being less than the level cap to have a neglible HQ rate (it's either 0%, or very, very, very close to it). I also tend to call the Tiers "Tier 0", "Tier 11", "Tier 31" and "Tier 51". You might see those terms used as well from time to time by other crafters.

[Lleo]

Instead of chasing the moon and day, I normally use brute force when skilling crafts. :)

My experience says me that when the gap is normal (1-5) will I in average get a skillup every 4th synth past 60. So I just churn out synth after synth, as I know that over time will my skillup rate be 1 in 4.

In my opinion is the infuence on skillup by the factors used in the crafting timer at best exaggerated.

When it comes to HQ I normally use a simular stategy. The most important factor to influence the HQ rate is the tier of the synth. No other factors are proved (but there are lot of theories). I know which tier my synth is in, and expects HQ rate over time to meet the average for that tier, regardless of moon and day.

The HQ percents given by kiffkin seems to be somewhat off. In my experience is tier0 (0-10 over cap) 1 to 2 percent. Tier11 (11-30 over cap) is somewhere between 5 and 10 percent. Tier31 (31-50 over cap) is around 25 percent. Tier51 (51 or more over cap) is around 50 percent. You can use support and guild gear to reach a tier your level is a little low for.

[kiffkin]

I think your HQ Tiers are a little off.

Tier 0 - 0-10 levels above
Tier 1 - 11-30 levels above
Tier 2 - 31-50 levels above
Tier 3 - 51+ levels above

Yes, you're absolutely right. Dunno what planet I was on when I wrote that bit :wtf: . I was just doing some Marron Glace earlier and thought to myself "I'll be at tier 1 for that soo... omg wtf was that rubbish I was writing earlier :cry: .

(I'd writen the HQ percents correctly but the levels wrong - why I don't know as I spent soooo long trying to get 51 levels above the recipe for Fish Broth (37 and 88 respectively)).

I was just hoping I could nip back in and change it before anyone noticed...

Edited for clarification. I should probably give up now.

[Mav]

i got my cooking up to 68 and i tried making some mithkabobs.

Advanced support
98% Moon
Windsday

10 NQ
1 HQ (12 mithkabobs)
1 HQ (6 chiefkabobs)

on my server the prices are a bit down, so i'll probably barely make any profit on these :P

i imagine i might have had better results had i waited for iceday, but honestly i didn't want to sit around for an hour, heh.

Also i didn't make that much of a profit because mithkabob prices / chiefkabob prices are down atm. i will try again.

On a side note, i'm making seriously good money on Pear Au Laits, and i skill off those.

[LyonheartLakshmi]

For HQing recipes that use fire crystals, I'd suggest a combination of New Moon and either Watersday or Darksday. That's my preference, at least.

And since you're only 30 levels above cap, I'd suggest making sure you have image support to break through to Tier 31. Unless you already have your Chef's Hat, which will do the same thing for you.

[Mav]

For HQing recipes that use fire crystals, I'd suggest a combination of New Moon and either Watersday or Darksday. That's my preference, at least.

And since you're only 30 levels above cap, I'd suggest making sure you have image support to break through to Tier 31. Unless you already have your Chef's Hat, which will do the same thing for you. yea i had adv synth support, which put me over the cap. i thought that HQ's were best achieved when your element was used on the day that it is strong against (fire crystals best results on iceday, example)