FFXIV Newbie Crafting Guide

Well guys, here we come to the last guide of the series. I was going to do a philosophical post about humor and intelligence, buuuuuuuuuut halfway through it some personal problems arose and I am no-longer in the mood to write about my musings. I think I’ll be posting that tomorrow if the day ends up being more stable than today.

Today I will cover Crafting and the Market! Hold onto your fishing hats, this is going to be a highly informative final guide hub! HEEEREEE WEEE GOOO!

Crafting: Leave it to SE to put together another crazy crafting formula/game to make its players guess cry and struggle. Seriously, anyone who has played FFXI will tell you how amazingly awful(I see wut you did thar) crafting was if you didn’t figure out that it depended on the day of the week, the crystal you were using, the weather, the ingame time, ingame day of the week, the phase of the ingame moon, and some people even argue that the direction you faced during crafting increased or decreased your chances for success or skill ups… Some people have too much time on their hands and some developers make me pull my hair in impossible ways.

First step, get your crafting tools! You can’t be cooking without your trusty frying pan and you can’t be beating multicolored shiny metal orbs without your trusty hammer! In fact, get both main and substitute items(more on substitute item later). If you can, find clothing with some of the 4 crafting stats if possible. They are Craftsmanship, Magic Craftsmanship, Potency and Control. (still arguments over what does what.) you are going to NEED all the extra stats you can find. NOTE: Only the active tool during crafting grants you it's stats.

I suggest going straight into some level 1 localleves, they practically hand you –ALL- of the materials and the recipe for free and then reward you(sometimes with a different recipe) for success. Buying materials from NPCs is equal to third degree wallet rape, so these localleves are a god-send. You will be given excess materials in case you fail… Although it seems obvious at first I must remind you to use all of the materials, even if you have already completed the objective. Mr. Hungry For Pancakes isn’t going to complain if you give him 20 pancakes instead of 15. Enjoy the extra -free- EXP.

Notes: Crafting is all about the money, mostly about you not having any at first. If you are crafting for the first time(level 1-2), I HIGHLY suggest you pay to use a facility and gain the bonus/help. Some crafts are harder than others…Or stats/elemental resistance weigh more? I don’t know, nobody knows. All I know was that Leatherworking was EXCRUTIATINGLY harder than cooking and goldsmithing. Completeing localleves will net you Guild Marks which you can spend on special skills or abilities on craft. RUMOR: There seems to be a growing trend of belief in choosing the right tool (Primary or secondary) would increase your chances of success. You use a frying pan(cooking primary) for soups but a knife(cooking secondary) for meats?

There are two things I like about this about crafting at the moment. The items are crazy specific, like for a sword you have the hilt, the blade, the grip, the crossguard(you get the idea…) and other items to affect what type of sword you are crafting. Also, female players crafting in their undergarments in HD. Wooooo. Ahahahahaha. I AM HOPING CRAFTING MIGHT TURN INTO SOMETHING LIKE THIS VIDEO.

Durability: If this reaches zero. YOU FAIL. END OF STORY. GET BACK TO THE SHOWERS.

Quality: this is how good the item is, I believe over 100 and you get a chance of a High Quality item. (+1).

Progress: This needs to reach 100% Once it reaches 100% you're done, end of story.

Now we have the available actions and possible states per turn. DISCLAIMER: NOTHING IS GARENTEED, CRAFTING IS PERCENTAGE CHANCE BASED!

Standard: highest success rate. Near equal emphasis on quality and progress.

Rapid: Medium Success rate? More emphasis on progress, less so on quality. Usually the panic button when things start to get hairy beyond spamming standard.

Bold: Lowest success rate. More emphasis on quality, less so on progress. Failing on a bold will DESTROY your durability. Option only for the brave and bold(lol) of heart.

Wait: Strongly recommended on unstable states. consecutive waits stack. 1st wait = -1 durability. 2nd wait = -2 durability. 3rd wait = -3 durability...and so on and so forth.

The orb has a chance of changing states...and will do it repetitively during synthesis.

White: usually starts out this way. This is the most stable, highest success percentage.

Yellow: Second highest success percentage? Rumor has it that it favors Rapid synthesis.

Red: Third highest success percentage? Rumor has it that it favors Bold synthesis.

Multicolor: Unstable. Wait or risk standard synth to attempt to stabilize it.

CHAOTIC: You have failed big time. Wait or risk standard synth to attempt to stabilize it. If you can’t risk waiting, go balls to the wall and cross your fingers.

Sparks: Sparks increase based on how badly you’re doing. I think it exponentiates results of both loss and success… Mostly loss....

That’s really all you need to know about crafting as a newbie. The rest you can figure out on your own. Compared to beta, crafting is so much easier. In beta, even if you were a few levels ahead of your craft, there was still the chance of failing HORRIBLY. At the moment my worst loss in retail was failed bold netting me a loss of 41 durability(ridiculous…) at 97% and 122 quality to bring me to 0. *Sad face*

Market: Alright. My final word goes to the market. In FFXI we said hello to the auction house, in FFXIV we say hello to the Market Wards! I had previously mentioned that buying from NPCs is similar to donating a third kidney. So what do I do? Well… you buy from players! This is where the market/economy aspect of the game comes in. To sell items in the market, you must first rent a retainer from your town. And then somewhere in town there is a retainer bell, which you use to summon him/her/it. Retainers are like your personal bank/storage/bazaar/mule thing… Be nice. You give them items to sell and what prices you want them to sell them at. I believe each city has an instanced Market Ward that you can go to and see other people’s retainers and buy from them. This is where the important aspect of community comes in, if a player knows you usually stock up on grade 1 fish at a good price, that player will usually return to that spot to see if you restocked. You can also walk around the Market Ward you’re placed in to check on the prices/items and adjust accordingly. NOTE: Once you send your retainer to the market ward, you have to go to them personally at the market ward, you can’t summon them via the bell… Hope you remember where your located <3.

Well. This concludes my newbie guide for everything that a total FFXIV newb would need extra info on. The rest of the game, you can figure out. For my first guide series, I’m actually quite pleased about how it all turned out. If I missed anything or got anything wrong, please let me know in the comments!

EDIT: Here is some other information, gathered fresh from FFXIV Core!

EDIT2: Information fresh from the devs! Mostly about Sparks and why they occur to ruin your day. http://www.ffxivcore.com/topic/26932-ask-the-developers-synthesis/

http://www.ffxivcore.com/topic/22893-square-enix-ffxiv-qa-synthesis/