Moon Phases, Crafting, And You.

Ok, I don't have any hard data to back up my experiences with the moon phases and crafting in XIV, but I'm looking for feedback from other crafters on how it seems to affect you. For any of you who played XI the moon phase played a large part in many aspects of the game from crafting to skillups to rare drops. I believe, along with many others i craft with, that moon phase has similar affects in XIV. If anyone has tested this please add your thoughts, but we have come up with full moon being higher chance to fail attempts, and higher chance to hq completed synths. New moon would assume to be the opposite but i've noticed difficulty in completing some synths and also much more difficulty in getting hq results. Generally i save full moon for levelling secondary jobs or just fooling around with gathering because of the increased fails in grinding my main craft. Please chime in with your thoughts.

Please post data actually showing this and then discuss the results :/ Lets not start rumors.

I think i made it clear in the opening statement that I don't have exact data and I don't care to gather it myself. That's why I'm asking for other people's input on this topic. I have made no claim as to moon phase affecting anything other than my opinion so that's where it ends and as my opinion is not being started as a rumor. Thank you for your feedback and if anyone else has any thoughts on moonphase and crafting please join in.

The bolded text earns you a big fatt F+...go test yourself or GTFO 0.o

lol my apologies for the extremely offensive nature of asking for opinions in the general discussion forums. I don't know what I was thinking. I'd prefer to craft and enjoy the game than analyze it, but since some people are more analytical about this game I'm reaching out to them with this being a possible topic for more investigation. Thanks again for your feedback.

I strongly believe moon phase effects crafting, however, I don't believe there is a 1 size fits all phase for crafting for particular results. Back when the LS was actually full and there were plenty of crafters, people of different crafts would report different results. An example would be that me and anyone else doing Leathercrafting on new moon would be breaking the synth left and right, while people doing say, Goldsmithing would report positive results, then on the same crafts, but opposite moon, the results would be the opposite.

I didn't really see moon phase effecting crafting in XI, but I definitely see it here.. However, I don't really feel like doing any testing. I did testing into DEX and STR, because if it did nothing like I suspected, then I could take a lot of the points out of DEX and put them to better use in VIT or in INT and PIE for better magic resistance/evasion or whatever it is they do there. I stand to gain nothing from proving one way or another whether my theories are correct, I know that if I try to do BSM or TAN on new moon, my ***blows up. I also know that I stand a far better chance to get HQ items on new moon. That's all I need know.

These are just observations, take them for what you will.. I'm only saying this much so that if someone decides to test, you need to factor this in, namely that different crafts will see different results.

Don't forget to keep track of whether your character was inhaling or exhaling during each craft option and what color the pixel was at point 134x,203y!

/eyeroll

Figuring out this stuff in XI was bad enough, but for XIV you'd have to keep track of individual stats (including your elemental stats!), how badly damaged your weapon and/or gear is, your race, any food, the weather, the time, the day, which tool you're using, the moon, the direction you're facing, and your location, maybe even the local windspeed, not to mention the obvious ones like ending synth quality and your relevant crafting rank(s). Good luck pulling any concrete data out of something with that many variables. With 'Touch Up' allowing you to re-roll for HQs, I don't think people are going to care as much about rumored details for HQing things. It's way way waaaay easier to HQ things in XIV than it is in XI. Plus, if things stay like they are, there's no way to even tell the difference between NQ and HQ tiers besides some vague stars, so HQs might not even be as highly sought after.

tl;dr - Don't waste your time testing.

As far as stats go for hq items the stats on the item page itself don't change, just the added stars are visible until you equip the item. Check your stats with a nq piece of gear then equip the hq piece and check stats again. There will be an increase. The increased stat bonus changes by piece but it is noticeable. Even if you are not at optimal lvl for that piece of gear there is still a remarkable increase. Exact data example O.O
Rank 37 gsm using R42 hammer +1 gives 3 more craftsmanship, control, and 2 more mag. craftsmanship as opposed to nq, being a nearly 5% increase at 5 lvls below optimal with skills, and the difference increasing as I continue to lvl.
And i definitely agree there are many more variables in XIV than XI to test for, which will make this very interesting to find out more.

On finished gear/weapons/tools HQ might not really matter all that much, but on materials and parts, a little goes a long way...

As for what was said about testing and all the information you'd need to record, that is exactly why it's not worth me testing it.

Nope haven't noticed anything special while crafting. I refuse to believe in the hocus pocus nonsense that was prevalant in 11. Sometime the RNG falls in your favor sometimes it don't. If you have a 70% to succed don't forget that other 30% can come back to bite you in the *** at times

Well there was extensive testing done for 11 over all those years but I know for a fact from reading other testing and my experiences that the full/new moon did have certain affects on crafting and fishing like skill ups. As far as drops I never noticed squat for full moon.

It is possible in this game but until someone tests it out it's all rubbish. Stuff like which direction you face was a bunch of bs in 11 and random luck can happen anytime in any game. Some of my best hq's were done on the most fcked up days/times in ffxi.

Yeah here is what the extensive testing amounted to in 11. Diddly. I took every single craft to 60 or better. Crafting at all differernt days and moon phases, and pointing differnt directions, and so forth. I checked the day and time for each HQ I got, and for all the normal synths, and for skill ups(Actually the skill up thing did seem to help doing it on certain days). Again what did I find in it all. squat. It was random as to getting HQ's it was random to getting your ***blowed up. With just your skill vs item skill level and a max % of chance to succeed their was just to omuch room for RNG to play with.

In 11 fishing was effected by moon phase (which mirrors real life), but crafting was not. People that thought it was could never prove it.

It's easier to prove or disprove the fishing theory than the crafting one. There's too many variables in the crafting theory.

Yep totally agree on the fishing.
As many places that would clame to have good data on the other** crafting being affected by all that. There were almost as many who had done the "testing" as well that showed it was random. When I started 11, and got into crafting I was dismayed, no I was pissed off at how random it seemed, and couldn't believe that it anyone would ever make crafting that random. Which is what ended up leading me to do alot of the testing out of things I read about on the net. I had charts and all kinds of stuff printed off that I followed to the T, and in the end it all amounted to nothing(on the crafting side that is). Crafting was really just that random in 11.

I question fishing and moon phase in XI. There were many times I would get 3 to 4 .1 skill ups without rings at 45% phase, and many times at full moon I would get nothing for hours. I never tested it, so can't say for sure.

Regarding XI crafting, I had cooking to 91 and woodworking to ~30. I tracked all cooking synths on crystal,day,time,moon,direction ... Guess what, there was no link to any variables. I lost all my data when my PC bit the dust, but my crafting history there suggested it was mostly random and your level versus the level of synth mattered most.

On FFXIV I haven't noted a trend, but I am not tracking synths anymore.

It wasn't really the skill points for fishing per say. It was more the catching of fishing that was being looked at vs moon phase

Exactly.
For YEARS, people tried to create reasonable-sounding theories about crafting in FFXI ... because it helped them "feel better" by having a false sense of perceived control over the outcome of their crafting.
To my knowledge, and I've looked into in thoroughly over the years, there is NO verifiable data that confirms Moon Phase having ANY effect on crafting success or HQ percentage.
I'm not a FFXIV player, but I highly encourage anyone playing 14 to NOT start posting confabulation about theoretical influential factors on crafting UNTIL YOU HAVE SOME HARD DATA to back up what you're suggesting. Anything else is speculation, which is fine ... until it becomes rampant mythology.

I never understood this.. If you don't agree with someone who swears up and down that it's a fact (I believe Jaerik called it complicated mechanics) then just ignore it and move on? I didn't really believe in anything effecting crafting in XI, yet I still stood a certain direction, avoided darksday when crafting and waited for new moon when I was trying to HQ something. Why? Because even if it's not real, it doesn't hurt to do it..

Then again why do I expect this to be any different really..
/looks over at the religion section
Yeah never mind people love to argue over beliefs apparently.

Ever played telephone?

Player 1: Post on a forum "Does moon phase affect crafting?"
Player 2: Reads forum and mentions this post to Player 3 in game.
Player 3: A week later mentions what Player 2 said incorrectly to Player 4.
Player 4: Now thinks that moon phase without a doubt affects crafting.
...
Player 15: Facing NW during 12%WXC at 3:00 while wearing elemental resistance produces a high rate of HQ!

Yes this is not realistic and not what will happen, but its what everyone doesn't want to happen either. It is how rumors can start, though.

Still, that doesn't change the fact that if you don't accept the belief of complicated mechanics that you can just ignore it and let them go on believing whatever they want.. The only time their belief in it should really ever come to conflict with your own non-belief is when you're crafting something for them and they want you to do it a certain way.. Aside from that, everything else is mostly just an e-peen war about who is right and who is wrong.

I know alot of people got down right hatefull if you didn't do all the garbage, and craft their item on the right day. IF you didn't get their +1 or IF it blew up. It was always the crafters fault for not doing these foolsih things. Then even IF you did do these things and you didn't get their +1 they would say oh man you weren't facing SE quite right. Your angle was off like 5 degrees and and.... stupid... thats all it is.
I knew guys who would set their alarms, call out from work, or give out their account info so a friend could log them in to have something crafted if that special time was when they were doing other things. So yeah that garbage can be bad, and needs to be smashed asap

Conversely, if people believe in "complicated mechanics" they can ignore people who do not and go on believing whatever they want.

Why is it ok for them to post suggesting something, but when someone refutes their general ideas, they become a target and told they should just ignore it and not post? This I don't understand.

I'd give them the same advice.. It's a lot more common for someone to criticize someone else for believing than the opposite though, so.. That's why I chose to word it that way.

If you don't believe it, then why do it? It becomes a silly superstition at that point.. And yes, it does hurt. The naive take it as fact and it causes absurdity and weird habits to spread ever worse and worse over time.. What we need are real facts, cold, hard, concrete facts. We don't live in the dark ages anymore where superstition rules our behaviors, and we shouldn't support those whom try to spread fallacy as fact.

It's not about what I (or others) don't believe, it's about what is true and what isn't. It's about what is sensible, and what is merely a stupid superstition.

And for reference I don't argue about religion, that's an incredibly extreme analogy for you to make in relation to this.. This is a video game and the subject is fact finding and data collection. Religion is a whole other ballpark, and how people choose to anchor their faith is their decision.. This isn't a question of faith, there are no allusions here and nothing up for debate.. Either something is or is not in this game, it's not that profound a concept.

This is the truth.
Sorry, Slipi. To YOU, hearsay and mythology may be harmless.
But for the general FFXI/FFXIV community, hearsay and mythology are BAD for the game and community.

Actually... for the point I was trying to make, the two are very similar.. People love to, and will dispute and argue over anything that doesn't have concrete proof, until they're blue in the face..

And why did I do it? Because I never saw concrete proof that it didn't (I've heard from plenty of people that other's had run testing into the ground, but none of them could supply this data) from my own observations it didn't, but it takes all of a few seconds to turn a certain direction, if there is even a 1% chance that there is anything at all to it, then it's worth doing IMO.

Also, you're naive if you think you're going to stop this before it starts, just saying. Whether you like it or not, this is always going to be around for the entirety of the game, and I can guarantee you that. This notion still isn't gone from XI, yet plenty of people have claimed that extremely extensive testing had been done to disprove it.


Doesn't matter what I believe, it's going to stick around either way. Most who choose to believe in it, are going to whether you tell them it's foolishness or not, so the community isn't going to be any worse off for the time being.. I imagine a great number will change their mind if some testing is done into it, but until then... It's here to stay.

It's not about stopping it outright, it's about minimizing the damage it does. If everyone in the world just let people believe in whatever complex silly crap they wanted, and no one enforced fact-finding and concrete research.. we'd never have left the Dark Ages.

You do realize if this absurd crap in XI were proven, I'd support it 110%, right? I don't argue about it to argue, and I don't expect the world to stop and change because I insist people research things before spreading crap around.. If just one person bothers to do the work, none of this would even be a discussion! And that's the point.. And that's really all that matters.

It can also be said that if people weren't allowed to theorize, then we would also still be in the Dark Ages. For me personally, anytime I get involved in something like this, speculating, I always make sure to say that none of what I say is fact, and it shouldn't be taken that way.. But not everyone takes the time to add that in when they post their opinions/ideas.

Unless I'm reading it wrong, the way you word things, makes it seem as if you want everyone hush mouth about the whole subject until testing is done. It's better to discuss possibilities before testing is started, just testing DEX and STR took me hours upon hours of work, and that wasn't even an extensive test. If it hadn't of been discussed before hand I would've missed things that I ended up doing, and had to retest all over again.

You are indeed reading me wrong. I do not have any problem with theorizing and speculation. And I certainly have no problem with intelligent discussion therein.. I DO have a problem when someone simply guesses randomly and spreads it around as if it were fact when it is not.

Theories are HEALTHY and I agree we should speculate on this. And as I said, if something is proven or some evidence toward it can be brought forth, I support it completely. But we must separate theory from fact. And people shouldn't rely on data that is based purely on speculation without following up with some kind of research.

The entire XI crafting crap all started as an overly convoluted theory that just grew and grew.. and people started believing it, not based on fact or research, but on pure superstition alone.

It's like what xaero said above.. People can become downright rude based on pure speculation or superstition, because they are treating it as FACT in an excuse to explain something that's probably purely bad luck. It is THOSE people I would prefer stifle, not the able minds that ponder the possibilities.

Furthermore it is what YOU did with the STR and DEX research that I find admirable. You took a discussion and went somewhere with it.. It is EXACTLY what I'd like to see more of.