You can now see your chances before you craft something. Opening a craft's menu (blacksmithing, tailoring, carpentry, tinkering, bowcraft, alchemy, inscription, cooking or cartography) shows two new figures, worked out for your character at that moment:
- At the top, the chance to raise the skill with each attempt, for example "Chance to raise Blacksmithy: 26.0% an attempt". It counts the same whether the piece comes out or not, and it is the same for every piece of the menu, as it depends on your level: up to 50 it rises at every attempt, and less and less after that. If the skill is locked, set to go down or at its cap, the menu says so.
- Beside each piece, the chance of making it, in the "Success" column. It depends on your skill and attributes against the piece's difficulty. If it fails, you lose some of the material.
A few pieces raise another skill than their menu's, as the smith's hammer in the tinkering menu, which raises Blacksmithy: they carry a note beside them. The monster leather kit shows the same in its window.
And a fix: the +10 tools and the mining gloves no longer raise a skill you have locked or set to go down.
More about skills, in the How to play guide.