Finding Some Free Time! ... cont

I mentioned in my last post that you require Dark Matter to repair items, however apart from the local NPC I was unable to source any. I have just managed to gather some Dark Matter from mining and harvesting. I have sadly had no joy in getting any from fishing, but that does not mean that it is not possible. The drop rate appeared low compared to the other items you get when gathering. But then again how often do you need to repair your equipment. I was able to gather one piece of Dark Matter for approx 2-3 harvesting spots. So I would imagine if you were harvesting for a few hours you could get enough to repair a full set of tools and armour.

Finding Some Free Time!

Its been almost 8 months since I last ventured into Eorzea, so whats new or more likely what have I missed. While listening to some soothing background music provided by the auto-updater, I thought it might be wise to read up on some of the recent changes.

I find things such as: visible quest characters and the odd reference to something called Dark Matter. The music fades, the screen widens... I instantly notice an updated user interface, a bit more colour / depth. I also notice some of my skills have been replaced with others. Eager to test then out I head towards the town gate only to find another character beckoning me over. After a short exchange, I am asked to head south and seek out some local wildlife for research. I agree, for a small sum naturally.

The forest is teaming with animals, but no signs of any adventurers perhaps there are all tucked up in the local tavern. With a few swishes of my sword my wildlife research is complete, and I have bagged a few teeth for my would-be researcher. I return to town hand in my quest and the much needed reward, as I notice that my gloves are wearing a little thin. I prepare my tanners workbench only to find that I am missing a new ingredient, something called Dark Matter. I make some inquiries around town, where I am pointed to the local market row. A tall man stands before me offering his wears, which also include the Black Matter I am after. After concluding my business to start repairing my gloves, in a quite literary a flash my gloves are good as new, and ready for my next fishing trip.

I wonder if I can find some of this Black Matter out in the forest...

Patch Review (November 2010)

After downloading the patch (250~MB) I was some what apprehensive, how much can change in such a small patch.

Macros

First off, if you use macros to change equipment you now need to include the HQ suffix. Naturally this makes perfect sense, and is what I tried to do after creating my first HQ items back at first launch.

/equip main "Bronze Dagger +1"

You also get a nice friendly warning that your equipment is damaged, if indeed it is. Although this message does trigger when your durability is around 70%, maybe even higher.

Disciples of the Land: Fishing

There have been some tweaks to fishing, in that once you have caught or lost your first fish (on cast). You are presented with a message "Your senses tell you that there are [fish name] above/below your position". Although I only tested this for about two hours, it does come true most of the time, and ignoring the suggested position may allow you to catch another type of fish.

Disciples of the Land: Mining / Logging

As you might expect the other Disciples of the Land action follow a similar flow, informing the player that if they change their depth or angle they might harvest that particular item.

UI Improvements

If you are playing Final Fantasy XIV like me, on what is called the bare minimum specification you will now find that the over all user interface is much more responsive. The game no longer freezes (between 5-10 seconds) when trying to: run into and new area, perform any crafting, view inventory, transfer items to your retainer, buy/sell items from shops, browse other players bazaars, view the world map, attempt to repair your items and change your equipment by the character page. Good Job :)

Synthesis

If you have not already checked out the Lodestone web site, I suggest you do. There are a flurry of changes to recipes which in my opinion should have been there are the start. Lesser rank items now require lower level materials, making them easier to make and source. As far as I am aware there have been no changes to how synthesis is performed. You still have a choice of Normal, Fast and Quality, whilst trying to keep the elements in harmony.

Retainers

Your retainer will still appear in the Market Ward, unless there is some server maintenance; where they seem to disappear. Unless I have missed it, there is no global search for items, although viewing items for sale on other retainers has improved in speed, as mentioned above in the general UI update.

Disciples of the War

Pretty much all classes that like to go out, and help keep the local aggressive monster population down, will now notice that you actually receive skill points / experience based on your class rank not your physical level. This certainly helps out when you have spent most of your time playing Disciples of the Land classes, and your physical is far higher than your chosen rank two class job. You also seem to get the skill points / experience after defeating the monster not during. You also seem to get shield skill points even if you do not actually use your shield in battle. So my tip, equip that shield or buy a very cheap one, if your job allows it.

Comprehensive Version Update Details (11/25/2010)

Some exciting changes to the synthesis recipes, you no longer need items found on high rank monsters or sourced by high rank synthesis items for low rank or starter items. I especially like that you are able to make smithing nuggets with shards, and not crystals.

Comprehensive Version Update Details: Check out the full list

Not quite understanding high quality items when crafting

After some playing around with tailoring I created the following normal/+1/+2 items but the quality score seemed rather random.

Complete Hempen Yarn (248 Quality)

Complete Hempen Yarn +1 (182 Quality)

Completed Hempen Turban +2 (Quality 196)

Hempen Turban +2 Stats

Disco Disco - Follow Up

Oh those shiny lights,

Following up from MelodyKitn article about different lights, sparks and strange sounds when crafting, I have come to the following conclusion from my personal crafting experiences.


Firstly, sparks are a bad sign; especially when you get them just after starting your synthesis. I have found that using the "Rapid Synthesis" option often makes things a lot worse, and proceed to use the "Standard Synthesis" option in the hope to complete the synthesis.


More often than not, when using a "Rapid Synthesis" when the gem is glowing a solid red it has met with bad results, and even more so with sparks. So "Red is Bad" in my book.


Should you be very unlucky, or badly under leveled (in crafting terms) you may lose control of your synthesis. This is show as a bubble around your glowing gem, and resembles the colour of the element that is failing. Sometimes one or two "Wait" options will gain control again, but using a rapid or bold will normally result in losing between 30-80 durability.

Crafting Guild Leve's (Local Leve's)

Repeating the daily guild leve's are a great way to get experience and boost you crafting or farming skills. When attempting a crafting guild leve at your local camp, hunt down the NPC that will offer you the camps crafting facilities. For the cost of 200 gil or there abouts, you will find your crafting results improve dramatically; and we all know that more successful synthesis produce more skill points and lots of experience.

On another point, each city has there own guilds, no one city (that I have explored) has all the guilds in one place. So heading down to your closest camp can prove very beneficial, if you need that little extra boost when making that awesome new piece of armour or cooking up some tasty treats.

On another note, you can also get synthesis support from any NPC that offer repairs. You will find them in the market areas, and most likely surrounded by lots of other players.

Final Fantasy XIV: Lodestone

If you have not already seen it check out Square Enix mini site called Final Fantasy: Lodestone. If you have logged in to SE account area with to able to view your characters details out of game. Not only that you can access the Synthesis recipe library there too.

Disco Disco

Yep.. still not sure what those lights mean.

Crafting + 1 Too!

I did my first +1 craft

....Unfortunately, I forgot to screenshot the magnanimous event. Ah well, I have a nice, shiny hard-boiled egg +1 in my inventory as we speak.

It had about 189 quality to it, whereas the previous egg I had crafted was at 133-ish and wasn't a +1.

I saw my miqo'te raise her frying pan in the air, triumphant on the finish, a super shine appear, and I was left with this edible non-delicacy. Hmm.. wonder how hard +2s will be...

Crafting +1

We've all seen the +1 / +2 / +3 items floating around our inventories and loot list.  Crafting with them though seems to be a whole different story.

I've been levelling goldsmithing on a simple recipe of 1x Bone Chip and 2 Wind Shards, and am now at a point where its about 95% success.  If I throw a Bone Chip +1 in to the mix, it's completely different, from starting on a recipe I would seem to be a few levels under, I am not a few levels below.

We have also seen an increase in starter quality and durability when using the + items.  In fact I crafted with some Sea Sand +1/2/3 which needed 6 items, and used 3 normal with 3 + items.  I started off with a quality of over 200.

I can see how using +1/2/3 item could create some really nice +1/2 items.  I for one will be on the looked out for +2 or even 3 items come release!

Final Fantasy Crafting: Shim Brings Balance to the Force

So, i have finally got my clothcraft high enough to make me a Hempen Cowl, oh the Jedi Clothcraft Masters will be proud.

The Force is Strong with this one...

Final Fantasy Crafting: Bloopers

Making two +1 in a row, amazing

Not realizing you have no inventory space left, priceless.

Added: Eorzeapedia Resource

I have added Eorzeapedia to the "Link Resources" (sidebar), thanks to MelodyKitn for finding this one. Lots of information plus, crafting tips/recipes that are actually valid.

I Made That!

So, I finally managed to make something wearable with clothcrafting. I would've tried for more, but lightning shards aren't easy to come by for me.

Hmm... the about-to-rob-a-bank just isn't me...

The recipe calls for: 1x - Hempen Yarn + 1x - Undyed Hempen Cloth

This is a rank 3 recipe that's possible from out of four other choices using the same materials, but I was able to make it at weaving rank 2.

Happy sewing!

Crafting 101 + 1

All right, so I've been dabbling in the ole crafteroo game, and I've sorta kinda made sense of it, though there's still a lot of guesswork I've had to do.

I've been cooking and weaving on and off here and there, so here's a few tips on how to figure it out.

When you see white, it can go either way no matter what choice you pick. You might succeed, you might fail, it's a toss up (the harder the recipe from your rank, the more likely you'll fail regardless).

But... if you start seeing yellow, you've got a pretty good chance of succeeding. I usually head towards the rapid stuff to quickly finish up what I'm making if it's not a wearable or edible piece.


Red means you're bound to fail, however, so try to wait and see if it changes color.

I still haven't figured out the deal with the orb pulsating and the sparks, but when I get those, it usually means my crafting is going downhill fast.

So...

• white = 50/50
• yellow = you've a good chance at succeeding no matter what you pick
  
• red = wait

Repairing Items 101

Repairing items requires materials, cloth armour naturally requires threads or strips of cloth to patch up your item. Weapons also can be repaired, but this normally requires wood or metal.

Harvesting: Straw / Cotton / Hemp

Select the item you wish to repair by browsing your Inventory. Selecting the item will show you a brief summary of the stats and durability left.

Hempen Tights: 0/12510 Durability (Not Good!)

The summary shows you that this particular item requires one piece of Hempen Fent to repair it. If you have that item within your invertory you can select the "Repair". Note: You must switch to your Disciple of the Hand class before attempting a repair. For this example I choose Clothcraft as my craft.

Repairing Gloves with a piece of Hempen Fent

Item successful repaired, plus crafting points :)

Clothcraft 101

Update:You can also repair certain items with your Clothcraft skills. For example I have tested this on a nice Straw Hat that I started with. I failed my first attempt by you do not loss the item you are repairing just the materials. The second attempt worked, to repair a straw hat it costs one piece of straw.

For some reason I have amounted lots of Moko Grass and a few crystals; so on with the testing. After purchasing a "Rusty Needle" a began to craft.

I selected the synthesis from the menu (when you have your crafting item equipped), after a brief pause I knelt down; selecting two clumps of grass and clicked main hand. If you combination is correct you will be shown one or more recipes.

2x Moko Grass = Hempen Yarn x ?

x3 Hempen Yarn = Undyed Hempen Cloth x ?

Depending on your overall synthesis quality at the end you will get one or more items. I remember getting x12 Yarns and x1 Cloth (from 3 yarns).