The Compass Conundrum

[BerenTebogo]

Directions / day / crystal / staves / etc etc etc all to hell.

I've tried everything for my leather and my subs for leather (95 60 60 60) and when I say everything, I mean everything.

4-5 Directional maps (all of which contradict each other, obviously)

Using my NQ / HQ staves that I have lying around (ele of crystal / oppostie, tried both)

The day is pretty straight forward, dont try to HQ / skill up on day of crystal, ok good.

But no matter what I try, my skill ups / desynth rate / HQing is all sub par compared to my friends. (RNG in my LS started her relic bow not too long before I started my katana. She is now stage 4 and I'm middle 3ish. 94 CC + 100 LC characters)

I'd like to know from all of you (especially leathercrafters, but I'm sure its all the same) which directions do you use for skill / hq / desynth.

I had been using the compass on kool-aid forums mainpage http://www.koolaid-ffxi.org/linkshell/space/start for the past few weeks and it wasn't too bad, until today after about 20 synths with .1 skill up facing their directions, I did a 180 and got 1.1 skill in about the same amount of synths.

I'm frustrated and tanking money, would love any input you could give.

[zhan]

Ok ready, for HQ put on the 8m subligar, run around in circles and while running use synth materials. Make sure there is a taru there to do the HQ dance, and you're set. For skillups, full moon facing direction of crystal on day crystal is strong against ... +.5s 90+ if you do it right.

[Sonomaa]

direction means nothing, cliff the windower dev guy watched the mem locks during crafting, direction has no correlation for crafting in any regard whatsoever

[Septimus]

direction means nothing, cliff the windower dev guy watched the mem locks during crafting, direction has no correlation for crafting in any regard whatsoever

Did he find anything else that correlates/does not correlate?

[Kyreth]

direction means nothing, cliff the windower dev guy watched the mem locks during crafting, direction has no correlation for crafting in any regard whatsoever

I'd be curious to know exactly what data/info IS being sent when a synth is performed. Does elemental resistance matter? Is the time checked? Moonphase? Weather?

[Slott]

I synth my scorp harnesses on earth day (earth crystal) and generally have great luck hqing. I'm not willing to risk the synth on a wind day.

[BerenTebogo]

I'd love to know what data is being sent, as I'm typing this there is a guy downstairs in the LC guild who just went 1/5 Sniper +1 and 1/4 Penance robe, like completely random.

Ice + Thunderday + like...random moon

[LiquidoHades]

when u synth, it sends info of how many gils u have to the server. and if u have lotsa gil, your HQ rate goes up, and if you're a poor bum your HQ rate goes down and fail rate goes up.
coz what i see is the richs get richer and the poors get poorer =(

[Foustian]

I had been using the compass on kool-aid forums mainpage http://www.koolaid-ffxi.org/linkshell/space/start for the past few weeks and it wasn't too bad, until today after about 20 synths with .1 skill up facing their directions, I did a 180 and got 1.1 skill in about the same amount of synths.

I've gotten this twice. First time I went 0/17 on darksteel cap skillups over a period of about a week. Then proceeded to go 7/7. Second time I was around 0/15 on adaman sheets, then popped out 5/6. Its like people that say the d.ring drop rate changed cuz they went 3/3, but fail to account for the complete lack of them for the past year or 2. When I average out my bursts with my dry spells, I usually end up at around a 25%-33% skill-up rate.

[GavinBandura]

My advice to you, is to stop relying on directions, moon phases and days. Just synth when you have the materials, simple. from crafting for a long time, I notice no difference in my HQ rate synthing whenever. There is one thing that is most important, luck.

[Vish]

I'm a Leathercrafter myself and imo its all jus /random luck. Although i've had all my luck on windsday random time/moon phase. Since i've had the most luck on that day i always do them on windsday. Jus cuz i feel luckier on that day. One windsday though i went 0/6 blessed pumps and 0/12 sha'ir gages then right after HQ'd a Penance Robe. But if your a JP named Mochira on Bahamut you HQ everything you always make. And if your NA they jus /random for your hq chances. I guess what i'm tryin to say is its all Random Random Random like a spin of the wheel.

[GSDragoon]

when u synth, it sends info of how many gils u have to the server. and if u have lotsa gil, your HQ rate goes up, and if you're a poor bum your HQ rate goes down and fail rate goes up.
coz what i see is the richs get richer and the poors get poorer =(

Are you talking about FFXI or the US?

[Talis]

direction means nothing, cliff the windower dev guy watched the mem locks during crafting, direction has no correlation for crafting in any regard whatsoever

I'd be curious to know exactly what data/info IS being sent when a synth is performed. Does elemental resistance matter? Is the time checked? Moonphase? Weather?

I woudn't matter; facing, moonphase, time, weather etc are all stored server side and therefore can still be part of the HQ equation. All that happens localy is initiate a synth request to the server, that returns the result. It would in fact be silly for the server to ask the client for this information, as it would allow someone to construct a crafting bot that could reproduce any given conditions.

[Everlasting]

direction means nothing, cliff the windower dev guy watched the mem locks during crafting, direction has no correlation for crafting in any regard whatsoever

Never heard that before, when did he mention this?

[Kyreth]

direction means nothing, cliff the windower dev guy watched the mem locks during crafting, direction has no correlation for crafting in any regard whatsoever

I'd be curious to know exactly what data/info IS being sent when a synth is performed. Does elemental resistance matter? Is the time checked? Moonphase? Weather?

I woudn't matter; facing, moonphase, time, weather etc are all stored server side and therefore can still be part of the HQ equation. All that happens localy is initiate a synth request to the server, that returns the result. It would in fact be silly for the server to ask the client for this information, as it would allow someone to construct a crafting bot that could reproduce any given conditions.

So in other words, we have no idea if the server checks directions or anything else for bonuses/penalties to success. Gotcha.

[Deimos]

I woudn't matter; facing, moonphase, time, weather etc are all stored server side and therefore can still be part of the HQ equation. All that happens localy is initiate a synth request to the server, that returns the result. It would in fact be silly for the server to ask the client for this information, as it would allow someone to construct a crafting bot that could reproduce any given conditions.

This is the correct answer. I'd actually be extremely surprised if Cliff had ever said anything even remotely like this, because he's definitely smarter than that.

[Okuza]

direction means nothing, cliff the windower dev guy watched the mem locks during crafting, direction has no correlation for crafting in any regard whatsoever

While this is interesting, it's unfortunately inconclusive. The server already knows the direction you're facing, it doesn't need the client to tell it. Same thing with all the other (probably) meaningless factors reputed to influence crafting. The server could factor those things in if the Devs decided to code it that way.

Did they? Hellifino. Would they? They're surely perverse enough to do it -- just to mess with the players if for no other reason. IMHO, Moon, weather, and day matter and direction doesn't. Day is the only factor that really influences my decision on whether to craft now or wait, though.

[Evelyn]

I thought position/facing is kept client side, thus the reason why pos/speed hacks and processor clock speed problems exist? I'd imagine it would be hard to pos hack if you had to get into the server banks each time.

[Okuza]

You can test it yourself. Zone out to Rolanberry and take a look at the AFK mules. Zone into Jeuno then back to the field. Notice how the mules facing/direction is still the same way it was? If the server didn't know the facing, it couldn't have passed that data on to your client. If you think your client remembered it all through the zoning, log all the way out and close the program, then come back.

That part there isn't fully conclusive. The server could have polled every client and asked each it's facing then sent that data to you, but if it did that, everyone's Snnn figure would leap up when lots of people zone in and that doens't happen.

The reason speed and warp hacks work is that the server doesn't have any assertions for movement. It trusts the client. The clock issues are due to very poor programming in the client. It uses a calibrated frame-rate for it's internal clock rather than the real-time-clock. That kind of thing makes sense for an embeded system (like ps2) where the HW is precisely controlled by the developer, but it fails miserably as soon as you port it outside of an embedded environment.

[Zigma]

direction means nothing, cliff the windower dev guy watched the mem locks during crafting, direction has no correlation for crafting in any regard whatsoever

/slap

mem locks (locs) are just memory location. Im curious on how it has anything to do with the results from crafting aside from the basic stuff that is already known.

I don't think cliff would say such a thing because it really makes no sense but something like "I was crafing the other day and checked to see if there was anything that changed client side to see if it had an effect on crafting and I have to say it doesn't." or something along those lines is more legit.

Since there is no way to actually see what the server processes and only see what it spits back out at you, there is still a lot of things we don't know about it.