Direction Matters In Synthing?

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Direction matters in synthing?
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 Seraph.Zoey
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By Seraph.Zoey 2008-02-29 12:47:35
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I want to hear from players thoughts on synthesis vs. the elemental compass.

When I first started synthing I heard alot of the (rumors?) about the benefit of synthing on offdays and on days per crystals, for either lvling up or HQing and along with that similiar (rumors?) on the direction you face as per the elemental compass. After probably hundreds of thousunds of synths I don't feel too convinced in the elemental compass has any real affect on synthesis at all. Sure much of the time I have spent synthing in the past I was using the compass trying to get any benefit possible for help in my success, but I can't convince myself that any real luck I have encounted while synthing by the compass was anything but mere coincidence. Many of my rare synths have happened in off directions. My only lvl 100 hq happened on an offday and facing an off direction(Pro Ether+1) although every lvl 98 HQ Ive had (5 or 6)was on the optimal day (light on light)

It is worth noting that I have noticed a huge difference in the change of HQ percentage while synthing right on the 31 lvls over line (GS 54+1/silver bullets)where on offdays I would get litteraly no HQ at all, then when the on day or +accuracy day happens the HQs pick right back up and happen as much as they should throughout the whole elemental "on" day. Throughout the whole "off" day I tried facing different "on" directions and it was fruitless in salvaging my seeminlgy offset 31st lvl. On the on days I tried offsetting the tier by facing "off" directions and HQs still happened. So day mattered and direction did not according to the affect on actuall synthing lvl value according to my trials.

In a sense I have proved to myself that the the day can add or subtract from what lvl you are synthing at range of .5 to 1 lvl in potency, unless those trials were all a fluke, but I havent seen anything convincing like that in any of my trials of direction.

Besides the factor of day, the old rumor on direction goes like this. N=dark NE=light E=ice SE=wind S=Earth SW=lightning W=water NW=fire The rules for the directions would be the same as the rules for day where simialar direction to crystal adds accuracy to synth where the direction strong vs. crystal add HQ and breaks. Also that the Light and Dark day could be used simialarly where dark would embody the dark based elements and light the light based elements given the circumstance of crystal vs. current day vs. desired affect.

Does anyone have any stories, experiences, or any real proof that the directions affect crafting at all?! Also any ideas, arguments, stories, or really anything anyone playing ffxi has to share or say about crafting vs. direction, day, weather, characters status affect or anything I want to hear/read it.
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By Bismarck.Moosehp 2008-03-03 06:32:03
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I take the whole synthing direction with a grain of salt, however, from all the crafting theories that may or may not be true, the synthing direction is free and requires very little effort, in my experience the most desisive factor for skillups/sucess rate/hq rate seems to be the day of the ingame week, but direction *seems* to help *sometimes*, I feel is more like a placebo effect, a free placebo effect, but placebo at the end.

At the end of the day, like everything in FFXI, its random.
 Lakshmi.Jaerik
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By Lakshmi.Jaerik 2008-03-04 19:07:37
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I'll chime in as a 8+ year developer of MMO's, and why professional experience makes me extremely skeptical of crafting rumors.

In every MMO to date that I've worked on directly (3 of them), the players have managed to come up with guides, equations, and explanations for world behavior that is infinitely more complex than the actual algorithm. We've had enormous dev meetings and whole industry summits trying to explain this inevitable behavior. The root of this phenomenon lies in a few different areas.

The problem lies in the fact that MMO development is hard. There are no other kinds of games out there that have as many asynchronously interacting systems. Features are exponentially harder to implement in an MMO than in a single-player game. The teams are generally many times larger, and the implementation of proposed features is run through a much more strict filter about money investment to value-add tradeoffs. Otherwise, it's very easy to keep implementing features and additional complexity in the interests of game "depth," and then later realizing you've coded something so complex that you can't even get to release. I've seen dozens of MMO's get canceled after falling into this trap.

This is a fancy way of saying that there is no reason for FF to have any of these layers of complexity on its crafting system. In fact, it would have made horrific business sense for them to even consider it. The amount of players who gain value from the complexity is nowhere near the costs to implement in terms of design, coding, and QA manpower. Not to mention that once such an overly complex system is in place, the simple act of even adding a single item to the game (and testing all possible combinations of factors to make sure you're not introducing an exploit or economic problem) takes weeks of QA time, and SE has shown nothing to indicate that they're working under this amount of delay.

However, players in MMO's tend to become very possessive of their accomplishments and perceived knowledge about the game they play. Players are more inclined, by human nature, to believe that their actions and accomplishments in-game require substantially more knowledge, skill, and tenacity than they really do. Players don't like to believe in randomness, and they will, by nature attempt to minimize the perceived effect of randomness on their accomplishments as much as possible. Randomness, to some extent, trivializes their perceived influence on the game, reduces their perceived ownership/investment, and minimizes many of their perceived accomplishments. So they will instinctively look for patterns and explanations for events that do not rely on randomness.

Confirmation bias also plays a role. Humans beings of all sorts are more inclined to make mental note of, and remember, statistical trials that validated their hypothesis than those that went against it. For example, let's say someone sets up the right moon phase, direction, crystal type, and everything correctly. They get 8 HQ's in a row. Then they try again another day where the moon phase and direction are wrong. They get 8 HQ's in a row. Human nature tends to see the first scenario as "Ah hah, I knew it!" and the second one as "Wow, I musta just gotten really lucky." A week later while posting on a board, they will remember the first scenario and post about it, but the second scenario will slip their mind as unimportant, or a fluke of chance.

No MMO to date has implemented a crafting system nearly as complex as the players claim FF's is. By several orders of magnitude. And in my experience and professional opinion, such a system would never be approved by the game's Producers. There is no business reason to do so.

However, all MMO's to date have had player theories about game systems equally as complex as this one. In most cases, players actually do develop theories and equations that seem to pan out with example data. But always, always, these theories are exaggerating the number of variables and failing to realize that the same statistical results can be achieved with only 1-2 variables and a good random number generator instead.
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 Quetzalcoatl.Neolink
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By Quetzalcoatl.Neolink 2008-03-05 11:50:15
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Greatest post of all time. I was once an avid believer in the direction theory, but the past year has led me to believe it is utter nonsense.

I went to great lengths to set up my moghancements, mog house element strength, and dropped everything to synth on new moon/full moon. I now believe that...in Seraph's words...it's all random.

Look at it this way:

Let's assume it all actually is true and you have the perfect setup on the perfect day in the perfect direction. The time spent waiting and/or gil spent buying furniture and what-have-you is all done to save/make gil, right? Well the time and effort spent on getting the right elements in place could have been spent crafting something that made you that money. Hell, you could've farmed it by then probably.

Also, to the believers of the crafting compass...do you find it ironic that while many people claim to have statistics as to why the compass gives you better HQ/success/skill up rate, but NONE in the history have ever given you a concrete proven list of how much gil they earned/saved. Yes, I realize the servers have different prices and inflation/deflation occur, yet an actual number that they saved/earned at the time is never given.
 Phoenix.Ladyjazz
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By Phoenix.Ladyjazz 2008-03-05 18:05:24
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Well since there are in game npcs explaining strength and weaknesses and star charts with directions it seems more reasonable that it MAY help along with other factors. ( I also believe SE developers made an affirmative reference to direction in 2006 fan fest. )

I personally used to not believe when I first started playing but after I started crafting my own stats showed a small gain of as much as 2-5% +/-1.5% over a 4 month run. That sample set is about 25,000 synths where I recorded a lot of info. ( I have a BA in management science and statistics so I was just having Nerdy Fun!)

As you guys can see from my main/mules profiles I mainly craft rather than level.

Ive been playing over 2 1/2 years and crafting for over 2 years now. I have some rare sells used to price mark my accomplishements like dragon meat stack and Wootz ingot Stack on Phoenix (like 15M+) all only from crafting and flipping.

As far as direction only goes... its free to try and use, so hey why not.

At the very least it seems when newbs to my LS start crafting and break lots I point them in a different direction and it seems to help, so I say why not!

B-)
 Leviathan.Cymmina
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By Leviathan.Cymmina 2008-03-06 05:33:02
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I was skeptical of directional impact at first (because of the reasons Jaerik describes), until I saw for myself. However, I feel that facing the "right" direction only impacts synthesis success/failure rates when you are below the synth's cap. The day *definitely* matters as well, but again, it really only see a significant difference if you're below or right around the cap.

Facing the "wrong" direction has absolutely nothing to do with skillup, that I'm positive on. I'd rather have results I can sell than risk extra breakage if it is true anyway.

As far as failures and HQ rates go, I haven't done enough testing to decide either way. Like in every other game, random number generators are just too streaky and must be tested with a significant sample size (you know, at least 1000, maybe as much as 10,000) to know for sure.

Either way, facing the right/wrong direction doesn't really hurt anyone if they choose to believe it. If I stop to think about it, I usually turn myself northeast (light) just in case.
 Ifrit.Ravahan
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By Ifrit.Ravahan 2008-03-10 09:59:54
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As far as direction, I believe that, having done a lot of HQ synthing, it does in fact matter. I've noticed a definate difference, I mean a huge one, on desynthesis.. but not as much on normal stuff like mithkabobs or what have you. For desynths, it seems like you can designate whether you want NQ or HQ based on the direction faced, but then desythesis seems to be a completely different beast.

Someone above was asking for someone showing proof of any kind of non-randomness. Well, I have some. http://www.spielmansmog.com/guides/hqsynth.php

This guy did hundreds of synths with woodworking, and while his work certainly isn't the end-all-be-all of HQ testing, it does prove that HQ tiers exist and that moon phase and day of the week influence crafting for HQ, but that they influence each tier differently.

As for directionality... It takes all of 2 seconds to turn the right way (if you don't have to look it up), and so I say why not?

Also, Jaerik that's some wonderful insight into MMO developement. That's really awesome of you to share it! I played Ultima Online for about 5 years, which is kind of an oddity in MMO's in that the developers actually post on the official forums and interact with the players, exchanging ideas and whatnot. Also, they share the specific formulae for all the stuff like spell damage and what have you. I was very frustrated when I started FFXI because there really wasn't any info available like that, and the developers were this mysterious force that was all but unreachable. Another thing that I noticed, after playing a while, is that they really went above and beyond in an effort to complicate this game. This is, by far, the most complex MMO I've played. Think about stuff like sneak attack damage, which is configured differently based on whether its your main or sub job, the hidden skill of chocobo digging, the complex balance between boosting stats or effects directly (like STR vs Attack), and how that efficiency balance changes between regular hits and weapon skills... and even from weapon skill to weapon skill! Hard caps on some stats, soft caps on others, no caps on still others... Food with hidden effects that they players have to discover themselves.

I'd say, when you consider all that and more, that its not too rediculous to have the idea that they included an extra check or two to crafting (which wouldn't necessarily have to be done on an item-to-item bassis unless each item has different HQ characteristics that aren't based on the crystal, which even I think is going too far) to give crafting a little depth and make it a viable fun play style, alternative to whackin' monsters for EXP.

Just my thoughts.
 Lakshmi.Jaerik
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By Lakshmi.Jaerik 2008-03-10 13:30:30
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Ravahan: I actually worked on UO. =) I still work closely with the former lead designer for UO at my current company. He's sitting three feet from me. We're glad you enjoyed the game.

But yes. Unfortunately, after UO, most larger companies decided that direct interaction between the players and the developers resulted in too little public relations oversight. Nowadays, MMO companies have PR and "Community Managers" for that sort of thing. Mostly because it was determined that in most cases, no matter how patient or informative a developer was, many players were inclined to be hostile by default. (Usually "end-game" players are the worst.) Players who assume the worst of developers and GM's going into the conversation can rarely, if ever, be convinced to have a more favorable view. Meanwhile, they're continuing to suck up hours of developer man-hours trying to placate individual customers, and these negative board theads increase the negative exposure of the company in general, even if the dev or GM is just trying to help.

Because most MMO's are now released by very large companies, (500+ on a production team as opposed to UO's dozen or so, and the estimated quarter-billion dollar overhead for WoW as opposed to UO's $8M), with very stringent marketing and PR regulations, this can't be allowed to happen anymore. Once again, the cost/benefit analysis determined that it was better for developers not to directly interact with players in any way. SE has taken it one step further by outsourcing the front-line customer service GM's entirely, and preventing them from communicating with the actual developers as well, for an additional layer of obfuscation.

The point of my post wasn't to say the crafting complexity couldn't be. Rather, I was simply saying why as a developer of MMO's myself, I would be extremely skeptical if there were that many independent variables. And that also, trying to demonstrate why "I tried X trials and there appears to be a pattern" does not, in any way, determine what precisely the algorithm is. It means very little. Players simply can't know how the system works internally with 100% accuracy -- they can only interpolate the data backwards in an attempt to find a formula that appears to work.

In most MMO's, such a level of perceived complexity can be, and usually is, achieved through far less variables than players believe are involved in FF's crafting system. But that regardless, players are inclined to believe in greater complexity anyway, due to issues of confirmation bias and perceived investment in their characters and the product in general.
 Ifrit.Ravahan
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By Ifrit.Ravahan 2008-03-10 14:39:35
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On the UO dig, awesome man! Still my favorite game, even if I really can't play it anymore (I tried again since there was maintenence, but no dice). The new client is just not running so hot on my PC despite several attempts on my end for optimization and several updates (I think its an NVIDIA thing)--but its getting better! I tried to do a treasure map today that really shouldn't have given me any issues and died 5x (not as big a deal in UO, to those who haven't played). I... really can't play 2d. I really gave it a chance, but... *sighs*

Anywho, I catch your drift man. On the same token, the direction of my ramblin' wasn't to say definatively that it /is/ that complex, but rather that it /could/ be based on how rediculously complicated other parts of the game are. So we're both saying the same thing from a different side of ye ol'e grey line. There's no way to really prove one way or another definatively without investing a /lot/ of time and gil, which... well, I don't know about you guys, but I'm not about to pony up! hehe

Very cool insight on the whole Dev thing, Jaerik. Also, I'm curious, were you ever part of the on-forum dev team? If so, would you be at liberty to disclose your Dev-identity? It'd just be kinda cool to have crossed paths with the same dev on a different game's forums if I knew you from stratics =D
 Lakshmi.Jaerik
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By Lakshmi.Jaerik 2008-03-10 18:02:49
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Nah, I was doing the UO thing quite early in its history. I was gone by the time Trammel came around. At that time the new 3d client was a trainwreck, and I didn't have much to do with the client stuff. Even once it was released, I stayed in the sprite client.

You wouldn't have known me on the boards -- I tended to stay away -- but I did a lot of content/interest stuff as Seer Polonius on a few shards, plus was big on the 3rd party tools scene like UOA and UOX, a lot of which had official EA/Origin support behind the scenes. (Notice a trend? >.>) Although my current boss went by DesignerDragon on the UO boards.
 Quetzalcoatl.Souledge
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By Quetzalcoatl.Souledge 2008-03-26 14:19:22
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Direction does matter, but what it does isn't necessary make u HQ, what it does is increase or decrease the points to cap making u more prone to either skilling up or HQing based on weakness or strength of the crystal/day formula. This I know cause I have almost all crafts over 80 on mules and alchemy 100 and have tested it over and over and its never failed me.
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By Carbuncle.Moomba 2008-04-07 02:50:05
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I gotta agree with Jaerik in that players tend to almost hyper-rationalize situations. People look for patterns in everything... everywhere. It is infinitely more probable that the actual formula is simpler than what some claim it to be.

That said, my personal experience is that day most definitely has an effect on success/failure rates which in turn relates to skill rates. However, the direction issue is tricky. After 5 years of synthing I can't say with any conviction that direction has any substantial effect of the results.

I firmly believe there is a very large percentage of success/failure/NQ/HQ rates are controlled by a Random Number Generator. Sure I'll buy there are small things you can do to influence the outcome, but in the end it's up to the RNG.

If you want to believe in direction then what is to stop there and not believe time of day effects it as well (as has been suggested in the past as well.) It's all a matter of where do you draw the line? If, like myself, you subscribe to largely being influenced by randomness then there is a very clear point of diminishing returns. For myself, that point is day of week synthing.

Direction may play a factor (primarily if you are below the skill cap) in terms of giving a small +/- skill at most, but I don't think it is anything substantial.

All that said, I DO tend to synth in the direction typically. Not because I believe in it but I know many people and customers believe in it. I would rather take 2sec to ensure I'm facing a direction the customer is happy with than to face another one, have it break, and deal with an angry customer. So for me it's really about customer service than anything else.

I am sure that items have a value attached that helps to influence the HQ% rate. Being that there are some items that despite being well above the skill cap are more difficult to HQ than others of comparable skill ranking. I don't think it's so far fetched for a recipe to have a skill cap & a max hq% value attached to it. It would make sense because if an item is worth a lot/little gil they could adjust this rate behind the scenes to indirectly effect the economy....

But I digress... I illustrate just how easy it is to start to look at various scenarios and start trying to apply reason and patterns to it. While I'm sure the formula is semi-complex I still believe it is less than most take it to be & largely influenced by a random number.

Still... a placebo can be a powerful thing. >^_^<
 Garuda.Rungo
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By Garuda.Rungo 2008-04-11 04:56:52
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I didnt know the direction for lightning when I first started d-synthing.. so I picked north.. I was only lvl 25 goldsmithing at the time, and scored an occasional gold ingot off moblin gear.. then got my goldsmithing up to 42 and heard the "right way" was to face SW... No noticable difference was noticed at all.. in fact, I still face north just because I started out that way. But I do however notice a LARGE difference on lightning day. More success, more HQ.
 Bismarck.Kristal
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By Bismarck.Kristal 2008-04-11 05:29:19
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Nice post Jaerik.

Ladyjazz said:
( I also believe SE developers made an affirmative reference to direction in 2006 fan fest. )


They had a grin from ear to ear when saying something along the lines of 'maybe.. maybe not..' . That's not an affirmative.

The only conclusive evidence ever supplied by Direction Theory, was that it doesn't hurt to use it.
 Lakshmi.Jaerik
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By Lakshmi.Jaerik 2008-04-11 12:59:21
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Kristal said:
Nice post Jaerik.
They had a grin from ear to ear when saying something along the lines of 'maybe.. maybe not..' . That's not an affirmative.


It's actually more of the opposite. From my experience, whenever I'd been put in that situation to answer a similar question about my own game, it's better to grin and give a maybe. Because it makes your product sound a whole lot more brilliant and potentially complicated than it actually is, it makes the players who believe in it happy, and it's not a blatant lie that you can get called on later.
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By Asura.Gennss 2008-04-15 10:55:56
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It's a luck thing, doesn't hurt to use it may not actually do anything. Me personally I hop on one foot for 17 seconds before each synth.
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By Fenrir.Valous 2008-04-18 13:34:25
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one way to prove it to yourself, synth something x number of times that you can actually HQ and wait it out for new moon on darksday and face the elemental direction your synth crystal is weak too and see if your HQ rate is increased any. It works for me and yes it could be luck but what works for you, works for you lol.

For a positive result wait till new moon darksday before you synth. try a tier 2 synth to try it out. 31 levels above synth for a 30% base HQ rate. Moon and direction can infact increase and decrease your base HQ rate, I had a source but would have to fish it up but anyway try it for yourself.
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By Garuda.Chanti 2008-04-18 19:35:23
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My confirming experience, and yes it is an inadequate statistical sample.

There I was, less than a level away from capping on Spiderwebs > rainbow thread. I ran 12 synths facing Lightning with no skillups. Turned to face Earth and the skillups started coming, better than 50% of the synths. I forget the day and moon phase.

Facing is not the only, or the strangest theory out there.

Time of day theory assigns elements to the hours of the day in search of the 100% HQ rate. A friend swears by the belts you can get from Prime Avatar battles. I have the ones for Wind - 20 and Wind +20, so I HAVE to test them. Someday.

"But always, always, these theories are exaggerating the number of variables and failing to realize that the same statistical results can be achieved with only 1-2 variables and a good random number generator instead." - Jaerik

I see only one variable, Elemental resistance. And Elements are programed into almost everything as far as I can tell.
 Valefor.Forgotten
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By Valefor.Forgotten 2008-04-23 10:49:31
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If direction has any effect at all, its so small as to be unimportant. Part of what keeps the belief going is that in game star chart and a colored star in each direction in the night sky.

Awhile back I started a project to once and for all disprove/prove all the synthing myths. Anyone who'd like to help out can submit data here.

Batch results can be posted here (but please be as detailed as the form).

Sample size presently contains more than 6000 synths and 3000 desynths.

P.S.
Elemental resistance in any form has been shown to have no positive effects. Elemental potency bonus from weather looks like it might, need more data.
 Leviathan.Natsuchii
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By Leviathan.Natsuchii 2008-04-29 07:41:45
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Quote:
Square Enix has never come out and directly addressed how synthesis works behind the scenes, opting instead to let players try to scientifically work it out - the purpose of the game, after all, is to simulate a real world in which the laws of nature are not yet fully understood.

At the FFXI Fan Festival on March 14 2006 in Santa Monica, California, the question “Does the direction you’re facing have anything to do with crafting results?” was asked of a panel of developers during an open Q&A. The developer who replied laughed openly, thought for a moment, then answered cryptically with a smirk: “Face whichever way your heart tells you and believe.” This has generally been accepted as an admission that direction has no impact on synthesis, but without a direct answer, the comment still fails to close the discussion.


Ah. I chuckle everytime I read the dev teams' reply.
Quote taken from wiki.
http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Crafting_Skill_Ups
 Titan.Djqwakqwak
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By Titan.Djqwakqwak 2008-05-27 01:44:05
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it does seem a bit random, but i tend to notice a diffrence while trying to hq, for me, a full moon and facing the "right" direction for hq usually yields good results, but on the flip side, one of my friends has great hq rate on new moon and the "wrong" direction, so this makes me think that maybe there is some hidden factor in each persons character, which would explain the lack of solid evidence since it would be diffrent by account or character. and the only reason i dont believe its completly random is ive seen the best hq'r possibly ever bust out 3/7 t0 hq, on several occasions (dakota, titan server)leading me to believe that there is a way to "crack" hq, or at very least, greatly tip the scales in your favor, just my experience and opinions, like it has been said, its free to try, so wheres the harm?
 Garuda.Aurilius
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By Garuda.Aurilius 2008-05-28 16:09:09
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If you want to have some real fun try tackling desynthesis. I've done probably 10,000 desynths so far, and I have seen no strong correlation on moon phase or direction at all. The only factor I have seen a noticeable difference in would be the day of the week. Watersday gives me the best results and windsday, well lets just say windsday sucks horrendously. (If you want to break a ton, go ahead and try windsday)
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By Quetzalcoatl.Souledge 2008-05-28 20:59:45
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Desynth and synth work differently and direction does impact it even what chanti says proves it does , he was 1 away from cap , did lightning crystal lighting direction so making it +1 so he was over cap , but when he changed to lighting weakness earth direction he got skillups cause it became -1 so he was -2 from cap and beast skillups are 2-4 from cap. I said it up top and I'll say it again i've done so much crafting and this never fails me.
Desynth however i find works on the opposite of synth, doing it closer to full moon for success and facing the direction of lighting seems to give better results.
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By Lakshmi.Jaerik 2008-05-29 12:30:23
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So just out of curiosity, if the FF developers came out and laughingly admitted that direction doesn't matter in synthing, how many of you would continue to believe it does, and assume they must be somehow mistaken or didn't really mean it?
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 Siren.Sinneloa
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By Siren.Sinneloa 2008-07-31 23:13:37
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Now the one thing I can agree on is if the crystal is used on its named day you will get more NQ synths and more breaks for instance: Fire Crystal on Fireday is very bad. Fire Crystal on one of the following:
Iceday Half NQ Half HQ
Watersday 2 or 3 HQ and the rest NQ
Lightningday. Mostly NQ and occasional HQ but hardly any breaks ever. Just joined the forum so hi yall.

Sin
 Ifrit.Ravahan
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By Ifrit.Ravahan 2008-08-13 15:08:46
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I have to say, if a Dev actually made a statement totally discounting direction mattering, I would still end up facing the same directions for the same synths.... More out of habit than anything--I've crafted since day 1, and played over two years--But also because... Well, its kind of like how baseball players have their lucky items and routines. You have to know that they realize that wearing women's underwear doesn't improve their batting average, but they do it anyway. Why? Because its fun to feel like you have some control over the random things in the universe.

In the end, superstition makes the game a bit more fun and sometimes it ends up being true. Look at the Odin fight-- Who first discovered that if you did /kneel that AoE death-on-wheels attack would miss you? And like Chanti said, the elemental wheel seems to be the whole deal. We know its in almost every portion of the game, and we know that to one degree or another its in crafting; The question is how much? And why would they tie directions to elements and have that be totally irrelevant? Is there any other portion of the game which utilizes the elemental compass?

If not, then the question that comes to mind is whether or not they would add the elemental compass purely for flavor. When you look at it that way, the elemental compass being tied to crafting isn't so far fetched.
 Fenrir.Reece
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By Fenrir.Reece 2008-08-17 17:45:30
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Personally from my own opinion and point of view and from what I have done by crafting so far (62 Cooking) direction you face with whatever crystal you are using does matter. The rumors about the moon etc, I don't believe that would help in any way shape or form since it is only a game time not meant for complex crafting uses.

Just my bit of info and opinion
 Caitsith.Plastik
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By Caitsith.Plastik 2008-08-18 07:49:56
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Doesn't matter.
[+]
 Seraph.Kyaaadaa
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By Seraph.Kyaaadaa 2008-08-31 22:46:28
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As a crafter with multiple Craftman + ranked characters, and also studying computer programming, I agree whole-heartedly with Jaerik, even if I do have to toss out some of those "well it worked now" incidents.

Many of the synthesis that I have done, even under perfect conditions, seem to be unbelievably off-base. I use a crafting timer for almost every synthesis I do, even if I think I have everything right, and still I get those times where its like "Is this thing broken? How can it say I'm right on the money yet still get five breaks in a row without a single skill up?" or better yet, "I'm over 50 levels above the cap and I STILL haven't gotten a High Quality <item>!"

Players do indeed try to see themselves as "professional" when they have multiple years of play experience under their belt, yet it seems like even the most knowledgeable veteran of FFXI finds him/herself in situations where they just shrug.
 Valefor.Forgotten
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By Valefor.Forgotten 2008-09-03 16:50:55
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Aurilius said:
If you want to have some real fun try tackling desynthesis. I've done probably 10,000 desynths so far, and I have seen no strong correlation on moon phase or direction at all. The only factor I have seen a noticeable difference in would be the day of the week. Watersday gives me the best results and windsday, well lets just say windsday sucks horrendously. (If you want to break a ton, go ahead and try windsday)
See my post above. I actually am tracking desynths to. The only thing so statistically off that it can't be coincidence is elemental day.

Ravahan said:
In the end, superstition makes the game a bit more fun and sometimes it ends up being true. Look at the Odin fight-- Who first discovered that if you did /kneel that AoE death-on-wheels attack would miss you? And like Chanti said, the elemental wheel seems to be the whole deal. We know its in almost every portion of the game, and we know that to one degree or another its in crafting; The question is how much? And why would they tie directions to elements and have that be totally irrelevant? Is there any other portion of the game which utilizes the elemental compass?

If not, then the question that comes to mind is whether or not they would add the elemental compass purely for flavor. When you look at it that way, the elemental compass being tied to crafting isn't so far fetched.
I would not be surprised in the slightest if they put the NPC with the star charts, and the colored stars in the night sky, just so we would come up with this stuff.

I was somewhat surprised when they came out and said that the "lucky" items had no hidden effect instead of giving the sly maybe for years to come.
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