Crafting test, results and implications

[Forgotten Stranger]

Hello all, after weeks of crafting I finally have the results of my test. It's long so I apologize in advance. (The entire chart of my test is attached for those curious.)

Parameters:
Craft Chance Multiplier: 2.6 (Default for Darkstar)
Craft Amount Multiplier: 1 (Default for Darkstar)
All crafting myths: Off (Despite myths being off, all crafts were pointed south and occurred across all moonphases and days of the week. Just to be sure.)
No crafting support of any kind: The same suspicion that lead me to do this test, indicated support may not be working as intended, so it was not used on any cooking. A separate test was performed on bonecrafting to test support, the results are included at the bottom.

In addition I personally checked each recipe to ensure that it was set to the proper cap. (Red Curry is set to 100 not 101, I left it there since my test was meant to simulate before the cap was raised to 110.)

That said, the following is the results of crafting 0-100 in cooking. I didn't bother 100-110 as many old school servers wouldn't have it. Plus I think 0-100 has provided plenty of data. In total there were 6831 synths performed.

Findings:
Here are two graphs divided 0-50 and 50-100 showing the average skill up rate per level and average based on skill from cap.

For ease of explaining I also highlighted the region that results should be falling, as theorized by both BG and FFXIwiki. I have also color coded each recipe red to purple based on distance from cap. Ideally each column should show a rainbow moving top to bottom.

Based on this it should be immediately apparent that something is off. In total the average skill up rate was 22.36% for 1-50 and 7.5% for 50-100. Roughly 1/3 or worse of what it should be. However, I don't think it is a simple matter of altering the default rate by x3. There seems to be a significant difference between Cap -5 and Cap -1. For example, from 50-100 the average of Cap -5 was 30.3% while Cap -1 was a poor 4.1% I know there are rumors suggesting a small difference based on distance from cap. However, If crafting Cap -1 was x5 slower in retail like it is here I highly suspect there would not be dozens of guides suggesting crafting to cap. Therefore, if the multiplier was simply increased it would only further emphasize this difference making it even more important to only craft in the -4 to -5 range.

I also want to point out that I did at one point go from 0-91 cooking in a single day on retail. (a long nearly 24 hour day but one day) I came nowhere close to that this time, further suggesting non-retail behavior.

My final test involved "abusing" image support. For this I spawned in the Bonecrafting +1 specs and the Bonecrafting Torque. I did this to make sure I could manipulate my craft level to always be -5 from cap. In retail any player could get a torque but, the specs would not be available until later levels. I understand this but, they were required to ensure that I was always 5 from cap despite going from 0 to 24.

As the graph shows compared to my cooking test that had no support there is a significant difference in skill up rate by staying 5 from cap. Of course in retail this is impossible since support and natural skill are counted separately. Darkstar however, treats them as the same stat and therefore allows this "abuse." With the large variance in skilling speed it means any player that discovers this can skill up at a highly accelerated rate regardless of server settings. (Since the issue lies in the code all servers use.) They may not have the +1 skill option until later levels but between advanced and basic support a player could stay within 4-5 from cap very easily. I also want to note that during the test despite being 9+ levels from cap I still got skill ups from breaks and following the test I performed roughly 100 synths with max support. This resulted in 0 skill ups and 1 HQ despite being 4 below cap.

Conclusion:
So, I have 3 conclusions from all of this that I would like advice on. (Depending what the outcome is I may need help making a new formula)

#1 Default crafting speed is way to low, at least 1/3 what it should be. However, I don't think increasing the multiplier is the solution.

#2 The crafting formula is causing a very large variance between 5 from cap and 1 from cap. This should be corrected to create a smaller variance. For example, 33% rate at -5 and 25% at -1. There would still be a difference but, not enough to encourage ignoring the -2 to -1 range. (Seriously, I once went 0/258 if that happened on retail I'm sure it would be considered a bug.)

#3 Support skill is currently calculated as part of the players total skill. In retail support only effects break and HQ rate not Skill rate as it does here. Now I'm not that good at coding but I think that would require that support and skill be different "stats" with the break/HQ formula considering both and the skill rate ignoring support.

As a final note, across the tests I found that crafting over level 60 allowed skill ups over 0.1 (0.2-0.4) So, that would also need to be corrected somehow to be retail accurate. Though of all the issues I think this is the most minor.

Final Words:
Now this is were I need help, as players do not know the exact workings of retail crafting. (Though there is a lot of information.) So I would like input on the best way to handle this. (And depending on my skill level and what is required, help fixing it.)

Thank you. Any input is appreciated.

[maxtherabbit]

arcon has access for thousands of crafting results from retail, maybe he can jump in with a retail angle

my memory of retail crafting was that the skillup rate increased dramatically as you got further below the cap