While I'm a fan of statistics, it seems pretty clear to anyone that crafting here is pretty far off retail. It's in dire need of a number tuning. Claiming that a sensible and constructive dialogue about crafting rates here can't be had without statistics is just plain silly, considering the number of forums posts and in-game conversations people have about crafting being off. Nab, I recall even you complaining in WindyWins about Sole Sushi not being worth it because you never HQ when you should. It's a problem, and simply saying "changes can't be made unless we have raw data from era retail" is wrong. Simply inch the HQ rate up, skillup rates up, and critical fail rates down. No one here is asking for perfect percentages; just for a better feeling system.

Because everyone here but you is convinced it's pretty far off. You're neglecting what's probably closer to fifty players giving substantial anecdotal evidence.

I'll also add, I'm not sure why you even need convincing (assuming you meant you're the player that I can't convince without numbers). You've said yourself you didn't craft much, if at all, in retail. Why have you decided on a whim that crafting rates aren't off? You yourself have no evidence to base your own opinions.

I personally think it more logical that Nasomi would sooner hear the complaints of fifty hardcore crafters' anecdotal evidence.

Here's the data from FFXIDB. It collected data on crafting for over a year, from 2006 into 2007. Here is the math done on the DB:

https://www.bluegartr.com/threads/120352-CraftyMath


Easy Read:

Anyway, we're going to have to nuke the 7M synth database that we've built up in the last year. Before we do that, if I very tightly constrain my queries then I can get some very basic information out of it:

Tier -1 HQ rate: 0.06% ( 16 / 24127 )
Tier 0 HQ rate: 1.8% +/- 0.3% ( 144 / 8073 ) -- 95% confidence interval is likely underestimated because it's too close to a bound.
Tier 1 HQ rate: 6.6% +/- 0.5% ( 660 / 9951 )
Tier 2 HQ rate: 28.5% +/- 0.8% ( 3659 / 12865 )
Tier 3 HQ rate: 50.6% +/- 0.7% ( 8835 / 17462 )


Data:

Format is:
Conservative Tier : NQ, HQ1, HQ2, HQ3
The Tier estimation is "conservative" because I'm always assuming that any synthesis support buff present is Advanced and that any Furniture in the MH is giving its crafting moghancement. Thus I should be overestimating skill level rather than underestimating, which should bias the HQ rate estimates downwards. .... or I'd like to pretend that it matters, but in practice I ran the numbers with the opposite assumptions (furniture not active and NQ support) and it made almost no difference. Still, those are the qualifiers.

Code:

Silent Oil (Slime Oil recipe)
Tier -1: 4827, 3, 0, 0, 0
Tier 0: 436, 3, 0, 0, 0
Tier 1: 563, 32, 8, 0, 0
Tier 2: 2429, 603, 146, 53
Tier 3: 5338, 4074, 1022, 363

Holy Water (no Trit recipe)
Tier -1: 19279, 12, 0, 1
Tier 0: 7473, 138, 3, 0
Tier 1: 7889, 396, 151, 0
Tier 2: 5068, 1634, 419, 152
Tier 3: 2728, 2144, 519, 189

Holy Water (Trit recipe)
Tier -1: 5, 0, 0, 0
Tier 0: 20, 0, 0, 0
Tier 1: 839, 57, 15, 1
Tier 2: 1709, 493, 120, 49
Tier 3: 561, 395, 90, 39




As if this wasn't long enough of a post, here is what was reported by a friend who was T3 crafting:
Tier 3: 90/339 = ~26.5%, nearly half of what 2006-2007 reflected.

Please feel free to add more data below this line, but I think the point has been proven.

...TopShelf told Nas to roll back all your ZNM gear, do the gilpocalypse and nerf Fishing/RNG into the ground.