(A handle on our results: A discussion) - by Poundkake^^

[Poundkake]

** Disclaimer ** -If you truely believe that in FFXI, the crafter has no control over success/skillup/HQ rate, than this discussion is a bad one to join. I'd like to start a conversation in which people do not consider the effect of releasing personal thoughts about these issues on the economy. In other words, I believe that this late in the game, some real discussion about control wont cause a tidal wave of newer crafters to HQ insane amounts at insane rates.

I fully understand that when crafters say there are no variables or equations to synthesis results. Either that crafter truly believes the **incredible** crafting system on FFXI is all luck based, or they do not want to share there thoughts, and would discourage you from spreading thoughts about the issue. However, I cannot accept that a system so complex as crafting on FFXI would leave the crafter no controls to modify for desired results. It just doesn't make sense.

How could someone see the deep complex crafting system, then see the many ways elements appear to us in this game and simply settle for no connection. Even the 8 elements in this game are so complex its almost mind boggling. They make themselves available to us through weather, day, direction, furniture aura, gear, elemental resistance spells (carol/bar), and so on. Yes, it is very easy to sit back and make fun of SE and pretend that they are so dense, and nothing they do makes sense or has rhythm or rhyme. But we become so use to GM responses, representative responses, and fuckers like sage sundi that we forget what a complex mystery this game really is. Did SE make so many things and stats hidden because even they themselves are not sure of how they will work/effect certain other aspects of the game? possibly, but that's the beauty of this subject, It is largely opinion and their are no ways to prove anything. There is only personal experience.

I'll pose this question to you. If I Sit down and NQ 90% of 50 synths of the same synths one day, and HQ 80+% the next day, both after having checked or edited no variables what so ever, Is it more likely that The flip of a coin is just a bitch like that, or is there something more? Surely with results like that, there is some variable that changed and caused my HQ rate to increase. I leave this open to close minded people as a thought provoker.

Honestly i have heard no real discussion about this subject with any real intelligent input. Any time i see a subject of this manner attempt to bud, the whole shebang is ended swiftly by flaming or what have you. It seems as though nobody wants to even talk about the subject, and i would think this should be one of the most heavily discussed. Is it because at heart we are all ignorant, and no real discoveries have been made or theories proven? I should think the best way to beat ignorance is by intelligent conversation, sharing data and research, comparing results with one another. Either way, i have always really longed to take part in a discussion like this. I do not come to this website very often, and probably wont be able to reply to all questions very timely, but i would certainly enjoy hearing opinions, and results and how they match with mine and anyone else's.

As it stands, i have always noticed a massive increase in HQ and skill up rates through the use of The crafting compass and facing in directions of elemental strengths and weaknesses. This more than anything else has proven itself to me time and time again. The elemental directions are the easiest for me to believe in, being that they show themselves to us in-game from time to time. I hear that on a certain day it is possible to see the elemental directions in the sky from ru'lude gardens, also in certain bodies of water at night. Now to face in a direction of elemental strength to the crystal you are using would obviously strengthen your crystal. *I once thought that pushing your crystal's aura to the maximum of its element, would be the best path to HQ. One would think what lays beyond success is higher quality of success.* (But then I realized, no victory worth celebrating ever comes without risk.) And this lead me to the assumption that If i was to HQ I would need to risk a lot, i would need to lay heavy risk on the synth itself, with negative elemental energy to the crystal i am using. So to think of facing the opposite direction of your crystals elemental strength would be wrong, I would assume you would want to face the direction of the oppsoite element of your crystals element. Northwest is the direction for fire. So if i am using an Ice crystal and want HQ i face NW. It doesn't take much thought to know that Fire would overpower ice. This can be assumed. The same goes for every element, and its negative counterpart.

I began to look into other aspects of the game where i could lay down some control over my elemental aura. Elemental day has always been a given for me, HQ must be done by crafting on the day of the element that will overpower your beloved crystal's element. But it was then that i began to really desire the ability to push my elemental aura to a higher level. Day and direction, even synthing in an area that often has weather or double weather of an element that you need were not enough for me. (Id like to take a moment to add that my findings on weather has always displayed a different result than direction and day. Ill discuss in a moment.) It was then that i began to modify my moghouse elemental aura, with furniture. It is perhaps the only area of this field where you visually get some description of how strong u have stacked your aura, via your moogle. (faint, powerful, ect.) I just assumed that Stacking negative energy to my crystal would have the same results. But what i have noticed after purchasing many expensive beds, and furnishings is that i seem to have a far better HQ rate, when i stack my elemental aura in my moghouse to overwhelming with the SAME aura as my crystal. As you can imagine this shook the very ground i stood on. All my time and research, just to be wrong.. just to find out that positive energy really does bring High quality results? I just didn't know, This was a confusing time for me and my crystals. I was no closer to understanding the elements then when i started. Still so many questions. Will my aura count, if i'm not in my main city mog house? Will i gain the +1 crafting skill from my guild points furnishing item if i cover up the moghancmentcrafting) with what ever moghancment the item i needed for my aura overpowered it? I just didn't know. But rather than wallow in pity, i moved on and continued to collect data through experience.

Next i attempted to bring gear into play. SE would tell us that it has no roll in crafting, but then again, what has an SE representative told us that we believe, or that they even know for sure? So i started using what i had at my disposal, And gathering more as i went. Osode, bombqueen ring, genbus kabuto, suzaukus sune ate, (trying for all the HQ beastmen hats, among other things.) These are/were yet another piece to my puzzle that leave me almost farther back in the research than before i started. The amount of unanswered questions to elemental gear is overwhelming. Shit, my research has shown that -element, (example: bombqueen ring) of the same element as your crystal Helps me with HQs, on an average day with average moon in a moghouse with no aura. So now with gear i am smacked in the face by a new factor. I now have element, negative element and minus element, fuck. But as i compile information i notice that minus element on gear supports my original theory. Only now, not only do i raise my negative element of the crystal, i also lower my positive element. But then i re-examined the gear, and thought about this issue. The visual stats that you see displayed below your gearbox in your equipment menu, is displaying a tally of your total resistance to that element. And resistance is the word that severely fucked me up. >.< resistance, resistance i say to myself as i think about its meaning and the role that it plays in the equation. Because would not resistance to an element, reverse its meaning? oh lord, what have i gotten myself into. up is down, black i white, but still i ponder. If you wear suzakus sun ate, and gain 50 fire resistance, when synthing with a fire crystal, would that not be the same as lowering your aura? Or by this games standards, do raising your aura and gaining a resistance to it go hand in hand (much like trying to land a spell on a mob that has the same elemental base of that which you are casting, which we know, doesn't work.)(*think of skeletons and why bard sleep is easy. They are dark based being undead, and as such, they have a resistance to dark. AND are weakened to light, Thus, lullaby being light based lands easily) HaHa! Score 1 PK. Through my own research and thought, i had come to the conclusion that elemental resistance on gear, in fact strengthens you to that element! And i would even go so far as to say it lowers your aura to the negitive element! So if i was going to use a fire crystal and wanted an HQ, it would be reasonable to say that i could wear a bombqueen ring, and a genbus kabuto. This would do two things, It would lower my fire resistance(aura) by 75 and the water would raise by 50. And if all my calculating is worth a damn, the 50 water would do two things for me. It would lower my 50 by another hidden 50, and also raise my water by 50, which is the element that overpowers fire.
Of course bar spells and carol would have a similar effect as the gear. They would work to raise my elemental resistance which i concluded was the same as aura, and beyond this, they would lower my resistance to the opposite element.

At last i felt as thought i had made progress. I was truly starting to understand the complexity of elements in this game and their effects on crafting. Of course the harsh reality of this, is that all of my research is based on the theory that negative elemental aura through all of these processes will have the effect of increasing the likelihood of An average HQ. And still i have unanswered questions upon unanswered questions. If all of this is true, Than why does weather in outside zones, seem to effect my HQ rate in a positive manner when i use a crystal of the same element? Why does my moghouse elemental aura have the same contrasting issue as the weather. Both of these variables go against my theory. When i face a direction, is my elemental aura decided by which direction my character is facing, or which way my screen is facing (like if I'm in third person watching myself synth)? How does moon effect all of this? does it negate everything if its in a certain phase? It certainly seems to at times. And yet i know the moon plays a large roll on crafting, I have gotten my skill ups and HQs during full moon than any other moon phase. But another unanswered question would be, how the fuck did the moon effect every analyses i have ever done? I try my best to try every experiment tons of times, in every possible combination of the given variables, but I'm only one man, and some times the moon makes a fool of me. I seriously hate the fact that there is a very slow moving force that may just govern everything i know from my personal experience.

Well there was my story. Long as fuck. Probably boring as fuck. But I feel i have an extremely strong knowledge of the elements in this game. And that knowledge being based on my own personal experience is credit enough to respect me during the replies to come. Do not judge me or label me naive, for believing there is something more to crafting than luck. And please be respectful to each other as you share your opinions in this discussion. I don't care, i know its long, its the BG forums, and that means a lot of you have enough time and interest to not insult me for its length. If it gets to be some kind of a discussion of weather or not I'm silly, I'll just erase my post and take my thoughts elsewhere.

Thanks everyone. ^^

[Falaras]

I couldn't read it your sig distracted me ;;

[JoOeetheplatypuS]

I couldn't read it your sig distracted me ;;

With a post that long, the sig is no excuse to read the 1st 3/4. Use that joke sparingly.

Very interesting read. I used to be big into researching this shit but then at some point I cracked and said fuck it to crafting. I'm a 90+2 smither.

My current concept is that you don't have an 'overall aura' persay, but instead you have a total effect calculated differently. For example, moghancements will improve all results, using opposing moghancements will not do anything. The effects of the moghancement is 100% seperate from the effects of, say, the day of the week. Like, say, moghancement is +5% HQ rate,+5% success rate,-5% item loss rate. Strong day would be +10% HQ rate, -10% success rate, no item loss rate change. Different in the calculations, see?

Anywho, I hope for a good discussion here.

[Talus]

I'd rather not see the topic derailed by flames. Poundkake has put a lot of thought into this and typed it all out, and you respond with a card? No one is forcing you to read the discussion he is trying to encourage. Just go to the next thread or whatever you're interested in.

Now, as far as the topic at hand goes, I see what you mean about it being late in the game. Pretty much every craft is saturated with 90+ and even 100(+1/+2/+3) crafters. One idea I've had is that you can't apply one set of rules across the board to every craft, i.e. the consensus in the past was "new moon for HQ" and "full moon for skillups." The other idea that was generally accepted was if you were trying for HQ to synth on the day that was strong against the crystal you were using, or the day the crystal is weak to, however you want to phrase it (example: going for earth crystal HQ on windsday since wind erodes earth).

On top of that you had people that swore up and down that there is an elemental compass, and you face a certain direction on the compass to "load the dice" in your favor when it comes to success, skillup or HQ. I'm not so sure I'd put a lot of belief into this idea, all though I did for a while. Personally I am a 100+3 leathercrafter, 60+1 clothcraft and the rest of my subs are 60 other than 30 fishing and 45ish bone, since the other leather synth that uses bone is the bison jacket which is not in exceptionally high demand.

Getting back to my point though, it occurred to me that maybe there wasn't a universal set of rules to apply to the different crafting skills. What if the conditions that were most beneficial to producing HQ products in leather using an earth crystal were not the same as the most beneficial conditions to producing HQ products in clothcraft, or alchemy, or any of the other crafts? An anecdotal bit of evidence I have is that I have produced my best (HQ) results on icedays, and the guild furnishing in leather, the golden fleece, is ice element. It could be a coincidence. I can't be sure since I have not taken the time to test out my theory. I thought I'd throw it out there though if someone wanted to test it, or maybe I will later.

[Sonomaa]

cleaned up the thread, do not derail again, illegal use of kuno cards as well
thanks for attempting to keep it on topic maxx, Ill take it from here.

[Skyylya]

I'm at 90.2 goldsmithing now, and I believe what most people say that it's just a matter of %. However, I also strongly feel that you can modify that % based on certain things like day/moon.

I'm not saying that it's a huge difference, but there has to be one. With all the results i've gotten over the hundreds/thousands of synths i've done, there is enough personal evidence to suggest that crystal and day have some effect on the % chance to hq, nq, skill up, or break.

something along the lines of, ok for tier 31 you have a 25% chance to skill up under neutral conditions, but if you are in an unfavorable day it might drop to 10-20% and if you're in a favorable one maybe 30-40%.

There is nothing concrete, and maybe it's all just superstitions. But i know that i have shitty luck with wind crystal on earth day, and incredible luck on ice day. I know that fire crystals are awesome on watersday for me, and shitty on ice day. Lightsday always sucks and darksday is usually always good. It's all hypothetical, and i agree with most people that it's nothing more than a %. But i do think that you can modify what the % is to some small degree.

Edit: One thing i've always thought of on the side is if there's something different to it altogether. I think i saw someone mention something along these lines. Like every character has it's own 'good' and it's own 'bad' times. Which is why everyone experiences different results at the same time. One person can do fantastic on watersday with fire crystal and another person shitty. Why some people have good results on full moon and some on new moon, and some in between.

In the game FFT, you're player had a 'birthday' and your stats were dependant on that birthday. Well, everyone in ffxi sort of has a birthday too. Perhaps whatever day/moon w/e it was when you're character was born, is your 'lucky' day, and day's that go along with it. So if you were born on say firesday, you're character might have a light afinity, and so light element day's are favorable to you, and dark not and visa versa. And if you're born closer to fulll moon you have more of an afinity for that time, and not new moon.

I don't now, it is hard to believe it's so simple as nothing matters and you have such and such % chance to hq, maybe i just don't want it to. I enjoy crafting, the up's and the downs. If it is so simple and there's nothing we can do then so be it, nobody really knows and anyone that say's they know for sure is full of shit.

[Raineer]

I used the fortune-telling Taru in Jeuno and when she said my economic outlook was good, I would go for HQ.


(no shit, i really did)

[vegetaa]

To me, crafting has several parameters you can tweak. Moghencement, day, moon, weather, direction, elemental gear, and even the zone you craft in, have been reported to have an influence on your results. I really doubt some of them have any influence (directions, zone you craft in...), but some crafters will take them into account on every synth.

But in FFXI, nothing gives huge bonus. There is no killer item, giving an incredible advantage, simply because the game has to remain balanced. So the parameters involved in crafting fail/success/hq have a very little influence. Very little on tier3, awfully little on tier2, ridiculously little on tier1, and probably unnoticeable on tier0.

Now the hardest thing is to be able to set up efficient test methods, to emphasize these parameters, and evaluate the strength of their bonus. And this is very hard, since :

- the game environment is changing a lot, meaning you will have to wait many RL days before you can meet the same in-game day, hour, moon, weather.

- there are many parameters, and it's gonna be very hard to build a list of all the parameters that can have any good or bad influence on a synth.

- some of the parameters may overlap, and it's gonna make the tests even harder.

Setting up a test method that can prove the effect of these parameters will most likely be impossible, or will take way too much time. It's basically like trying to solve an equation with a number of parameters you don't exactly know ><

Some of the parameters seem pretty obvious, especially when doing a big batch of tier3 synths. You'll often notice a variation in NQ/HQ rate, from one day to another. But even there, it's very hard to say the exact percentage of bonus you get from a specific day. So when it comes to tier1 or tier0 synths, it's just close to impossible.

May as well listen to the fortune-teller (I did this a few times too, Raineer ^^)...knowing S-E, they made it so it would be the most reliable source to predict the results of a crafting batch

[Poundkake]

/excitement ^^ Thank you guys for cleaning up this thread. You are right this is an issue i have a true interest in and I am ecstatic to see that others are contributing.

Getting back to my point though, it occurred to me that maybe there wasn't a universal set of rules to apply to the different crafting skills. What if the conditions that were most beneficial to producing HQ products in leather using an earth crystal were not the same as the most beneficial conditions to producing HQ products in clothcraft, or alchemy, or any of the other crafts? An anecdotal bit of evidence I have is that I have produced my best (HQ) results on icedays, and the guild furnishing in leather, the golden fleece, is ice element. It could be a coincidence. I can't be sure since I have not taken the time to test out my theory. I thought I'd throw it out there though if someone wanted to test it, or maybe I will later.

Wow, a concept that i have not once ever considered in the least. And what a fantastic idea as well. After a minute of reflecting on that statement.. I can totally see where this concept is coming from. Shit, I recognize it to! I do seem to get much better HQs on one particular day than all the others.
Oh and here's a thought. It might be correlation with the day that your guild closes.

Ok im going to read more responces ^^good shit.

[Poundkake]

Edit: One thing i've always thought of on the side is if there's something different to it altogether. I think i saw someone mention something along these lines. Like every character has it's own 'good' and it's own 'bad' times. Which is why everyone experiences different results at the same time. One person can do fantastic on watersday with fire crystal and another person shitty. Why some people have good results on full moon and some on new moon, and some in between.

In the game FFT, you're player had a 'birthday' and your stats were dependant on that birthday. Well, everyone in ffxi sort of has a birthday too. Perhaps whatever day/moon w/e it was when you're character was born, is your 'lucky' day, and day's that go along with it. So if you were born on say firesday, you're character might have a light afinity, and so light element day's are favorable to you, and dark not and visa versa. And if you're born closer to fulll moon you have more of an afinity for that time, and not new moon.

I don't now, it is hard to believe it's so simple as nothing matters and you have such and such % chance to hq, maybe i just don't want it to. I enjoy crafting, the up's and the downs. If it is so simple and there's nothing we can do then so be it, nobody really knows and anyone that say's they know for sure is full of shit.

Yes! More and more amazing speculation. This is why i made this discussion. Wow, its almost uncanny. I have always told people in game, because really a lot of personal friends and crafters that i know come to me to talk about my theories on Bismarck, And i always conclude with "But really its what works for you, explore!" I have always thought that part of the reason feelings and results were so mixed is because we actually all get different results. Oh man that Birthday idea is an incredible thought. If we do in fact all have a day which is better for HQs, perhaps it is based on something, or some event. Maybe it something as crazy as, the day you completed your last crafting skill lvl up. And that would explain why everything seems to vary so damn much. Good shit good shit!

[Poundkake]

I used the fortune-telling Taru in Jeuno and when she said my economic outlook was good, I would go for HQ.


(no shit, i really did)

LoL gtfo what if thats a huge ass joke on us by SE. lolol i have to give that a spin one day lolol.

[Poundkake]

Vegeeta. Yes i agree 100%. I think it is very difficult to get clear readings because of so many unknowns. But the best i can come up with, is to continue the research. That's what makes crafting fun to me. I have always done my best to try and alter variables on each base variable which i is out of my cont role. Kind of like if u wanted to discover a phone number with no clue, you would go: "111-1111", "111-1112", "111-1113" ect...
So as the moon phase changes for me, i try a lot of different variables on each day. And judge them all, while staying in the same zone, with no weather.

Also i have always thought that other things i didn't talk about before effect your results. Like your nations Ranking, Or the nations ranking you are crafting in. I know for a personal fact that this effects gardening. And that has always been what i used to justify why my mog house results seemed to demand the same crystal as my aura in the house for HQs. Because when gardening, overwhelming element = ore, lol so to speak.

Also, for those who are saying "hey PK, what is you'r craft?" Well i currently have alchemy to 94+3 woodworking to 60 and smithing/gold/cooking/ all going up but at mid 40s. But the thing is, i have been raising alchemy for 2+ years now. And haven't spent a dime on it. lol, its helped me appreciate the craft itself and the game so much more, having to discover the items for myself. Ask anyone on Bismarck who happened to pt with me on my monk in kazaam at lvl 25-27, 2 years ago, i made my exp pt pass mandy buds (EX) to me so i could lvl up on them during pulls lol. ~ orz, to be new again.

[tyraravenlocke]

Back when I used to still believe in outnside influences affecting crafting..

I did a relatively decent set of Desynth tests, using maxed Lighning: Desynthesis Moghancement.

With well over 1000 datapoints, I was able to prove .. that at least for Desynthing, one specific item. the moghancement caused the critical break/NQ Break rate to drop about 5%.

I did it in such a way that I ignored all other variables, and crafted enough sets of items on different days, that other outside factors should have leveled out.

It was at least something concrete to look at, and it gave me hope.

The problem however was that this was ONE variable, it took me a freaking long long time to simply isolate this one variable with enough tests to be statistically significant, I'm not saying that crafting will never be cracked, but I AM saying that due to its possible complexity, every single variable you try to maximize, you might be in turn minimizing another variable that cancels out any appreciable effect.

I mean, if the crafting system is as complex as some people really think it is (and it very well might be), then in order to maximize a single instance of a craft you will need to synth with the proper Crystal/Day, on the proper hour of the proper moon, with the proper Moghancement, facing the proper direction, wearing the proper elemental gear, during odd numbered clock ticks while doing the taru taru panic motion, for ONE SPECIFIC SYNTH.

Anyhow, I'll most certianly keep track of this thread, and help out where I can.

[solsovly]

I think at one point or another most veteran crafters "believed" in the variables. I laughed my ass off on some of the crafting "skill up calculators" as the original author basically arbitrarily assigned points to whatever he felt like. However the day/moon/directions was something I looked into.

Early I used to talk to a lot of crafters, comparing results on different moons etc etc. It "felt" like it helped. But here is where the main "influence" theories fail. When you HQ due to these factors, it "proves" that it works. But when you don't manage to HQ "it's bad luck". I've experimented with a bunch of different moghouse combinations but when I recorded results, they always ended up the same over a longer average, not just a couple days worth of synths.

Tiny text for a boring story:
For a while I was the only person making sniper rings as the other NA leathercrafter was gone and the 2 of the other 100 JP leather crafters quit the market/worldshifted. Any others didn't buy in the amounts I did. I would always synth on the same day/moon, usually atleast 24 rings at a time. Somedays I would get incredible luck, 3 HQ's out of the first 7. But I've also had streaks of 0/80+ on a T1. I started to just synth other synths on different conditions, finding I had the same HQ rate across the board. So like many other crafters before me and after me that synthed hundreds and thousands of stuff. I found no noticable difference on mogelements, days, or directions.

Anyways, a side story on why I stopped posting on ZAM a while back. People accusing veteran crafters of "keeping" a hq secret while delving into a HQ "code" Eruntalon.

[vegetaa]

Back when I used to still believe in outnside influences affecting crafting..

I did a relatively decent set of Desynth tests, using maxed Lighning: Desynthesis Moghancement.

With well over 1000 datapoints, I was able to prove .. that at least for Desynthing, one specific item. the moghancement caused the critical break/NQ Break rate to drop about 5%.

I did it in such a way that I ignored all other variables, and crafted enough sets of items on different days, that other outside factors should have leveled out.

It was at least something concrete to look at, and it gave me hope.

This will remain false, as long as you won't know for sure, 100% with no doubt, the full list of parameters that affect crafting, and what must be done to maximize or annihilate their effect.

No offense, but the bolded part is exactly what make people post new crafting theories every day on 'Zam and such. One of them being Eruntalon's HQ code bullshit...that guy should work in PR, he'd make good money

[Septimus]

This is my personal feeling about crafting.

The most important factor that goes into crafting is your personal luck. I believe that luck is a variable, and is a random number. For the sake of this description I will say that it is between 0 and 99, but the span could be different. The lower your luck the less skill ups, less HQs, and more breaks; the higher your luck the more skill ups, more HQs, and less breaks. I think your luck is computed for each individual game day, but is normally somewhat close to the previous day. (I generally don't go from crap to awesome from one day to the next.)

In all of my time crafting, I have found that bad crafting days never turn into good crafting days. When I get less than stellar results I will just stop, nothing will make it better except waiting a while and trying again.

[Gatsby]

If there was a way where we could pool all of our crafts into one huge database, we might be able to extract some useful information from it but you'd need to have it automated.

I believe that there are so many factors that could be counted or discounted that we will never have a true picture unless all crafters started doing a real brute force attack with each synth cataloged.

[tyraravenlocke]

This will remain false, as long as you won't know for sure, 100% with no doubt, the full list of parameters that affect crafting, and what must be done to maximize or annihilate their effect.

No offense, but the bolded part is exactly what make people post new crafting theories every day on 'Zam and such. One of them being Eruntalon's HQ code bullshit...that guy should work in PR, he'd make good money

Oh I agree completely vegeta.. a bit further along in my post you will notice the section that totally discredits the findings listed in the first part of my post.

In fact the entire point of the post was saying that due to the abundance of variables, its nearly patently impossible to figure this out, without an overwhelming amount of collected data.

To be honest, that's probably the best thing anyone could do... keep very detailed craft logs in a mutually agreed upon format, and place them into a database, and see if we could figure something out.

Without proper result set size, its all a completely moot point.

[Quicklet]

It would be nice if more of the data was organized in a way that made it much more apparent whether or not certain variables were correlated to crafting and in what way. Anecdotal evidence can lead the way, but it in no way proves anything.

Also, it's very possible that the whole "luck" factor is just bad RNG programming by SE.

Also, don't forget that those with especially strong psychic abilities could influence the outcome of their attempts, though I imagine for the most part it wouldn't apply to a lot of people. Also, even if it were the case, it would be hard to tell if it were an actively influencing ability or merely a passively predicting sense.

The lower the percentages are that you're trying to test, though, the more data points you're going to need to make any real conclusions. If the HQ rate on something is 1%, and you can go 50 synths without a HQ, it would be extremely difficult to determine whether you can increase that percentage to 1.5% or 2%, because you would still need a lot of data points to accurately determine the effect, as opposed to say determining the difference between a 20% and 50% HQ rate in two different situations.

Ideally, the best way to track everything would probably be a 3rd party program that automatically logs as many variables as possible, and then has the capability to analyze the data for trends. Aggregating data from many people could generate large enough samples to actually make some more specific conclusions.

[tyraravenlocke]

I concur.. manually it will be just too much of a burden for people to manage... but say a .. windower/log parser plugin that recorded it for you in a mutally agreed upon format.. could prove highly useful.