Craft Skill Limitations

[Camate]

Thank you all so much for the huge amount of feedback!

In regards to our plans to raise the crafting skill limits during the next version update, we thought it’d be the perfect time to implement, alongside the auction house merge and Synergy-augmented content. We felt it would serve as a countermeasure to the low amount of active crafters and the low number of items up on the auction houses in the three nations. However, as a result of discussions based on all of your feedback we have opted to postpone this. To get a better idea of the community’s opinion and also to further our discussions we would like to explain a bit about our future plans for synthesis and synergy, and give you plenty of time to discuss and provide feedback.

For the past couple of updates we placed a heavy emphasis on level cap increases, Abyssea, and other new battle related content. For the version updates in 2011, along with the level cap increase and battle related additions and adjustments, we are planning a significant amount of adjustments to synthesis and synergy as well.

Future plans
Based on our desire to reevaluate how players obtain items, as well as adding attractive item recipes, we plan on changing our focus from shifting synthesis to synergy. We’re also planning on strengthening the specialties of each (Synthesis and Synergy) as well as creating their own special uses and objectives. Along with this we will also be looking into raising the crafting skill limitations.

Our ultimate goal is to add numerous items so that you can select what you wear depending on the situation and slot. This is similar to when the level cap was 75 and you have Relic, Salvage, Einherjar, and Limbus-related gear to utilize.

• Premise

• Expansion of new items and recipes similar to the abjuration equipment system
• Fixing of locations to obtain general purpose materials (Shop and loot expansion)
• Improvements to synergy, fishing, chocobo digging, harvesting, mining, gathering systems

• Synthesis in Perspective

• Possible to create attractive, one of a kind items
• Benefits of HQ synths are reflected largely by an increase in stats
• Possible to create base items through synthesis
• Possibility of losing materials as a result of failure

• Synergy in Perspective

• Possible to mass produce items and create EX items
• Benefits of HQ are strongly demonstrated through mass production recipes
• System to add stats via augment synergy
• No loss of materials upon failure (Fewell and cost are separate)

There were some concerns about the addition of items that can only be made by having multiple skills leveled to 100, but rest assured that we have no plans of introducing recipes of this difficulty.

The above content is not finalized and is a plan that we would like to try and apply in the future. Since this is a pretty large change to our approach, in order to create an even better direction for this, please let us know your thoughts.

We will continue to bring you updates on our plans as we receive your feedback and continue to make gradual changes as we solidify our plan.

[Vold]

Thank you all so much for the huge amount of feedback!

In regards to our plans to raise the crafting skill limits during the next version update, we thought it’d be the perfect time to implement, alongside the auction house merge and Synergy-augmented content. We felt it would serve as a countermeasure to the low amount of active crafters and the low number of items up on the auction houses in the three nations. However, as a result of discussions based on all of your feedback we have opted to postpone this. To get a better idea of the community’s opinion and also to further our discussions we would like to explain a bit about our future plans for synthesis and synergy, and give you plenty of time to discuss and provide feedback.

For the past couple of updates we placed a heavy emphasis on level cap increases, Abyssea, and other new battle related content. For the version updates in 2011, along with the level cap increase and battle related additions and adjustments, we are planning a significant amount of adjustments to synthesis and synergy as well.

Future plans
Based on our desire to reevaluate how players obtain items, as well as adding attractive item recipes, we plan on changing our focus from shifting synthesis to synergy. We’re also planning on strengthening the specialties of each (Synthesis and Synergy) as well as creating their own special uses and objectives. Along with this we will also be looking into raising the crafting skill limitations.

Our ultimate goal is to add numerous items so that you can select what you wear depending on the situation and slot. This is similar to when the level cap was 75 and you have Relic, Salvage, Einherjar, and Limbus-related gear to utilize.

• Premise

• Expansion of new items and recipes similar to the abjuration equipment system
• Fixing of locations to obtain general purpose materials (Shop and loot expansion)
• Improvements to synergy, fishing, chocobo digging, harvesting, mining, gathering systems

• Synthesis in Perspective

• Possible to create attractive, one of a kind items
• Benefits of HQ synths are reflected largely by an increase in stats
• Possible to create base items through synthesis
• Possibility of losing materials as a result of failure

• Synergy in Perspective

• Possible to mass produce items and create EX items
• Benefits of HQ are strongly demonstrated through mass production recipes
• System to add stats via augment synergy
• No loss of materials upon failure (Fewell and cost are separate)

There were some concerns about the addition of items that can only be made by having multiple skills leveled to 100, but rest assured that we have no plans of introducing recipes of this difficulty.

The above content is not finalized and is a plan that we would like to try and apply in the future. Since this is a pretty large change to our approach, in order to create an even better direction for this, please let us know your thoughts.

We will continue to bring you updates on our plans as we receive your feedback and continue to make gradual changes as we solidify our plan.

Glad to hear you are postponing this. I thought you were kind of rushing it. Anyway, the above details all appear very sound to me. I will take this time and drop a little idea on you guys, however... it's something I enjoyed from a different game that I feel would greatly benefit this game, though I'm sure it would require a lot of work to achieve. Basically you expand on the idea of augments. I would like to see augments created by crafters that can be sold. How you apply that augment to gear can be done by whatever means you see fit, but the important part here is creating a new market for crafters. For example:

A goldsmith can craft goldsmithing augments. There are multiple augments to choose from. An augment for each of the stats. An augment for HP. An augment for MP. An augment for resist. So on. An augment HP can look like this: Neck, Ear, Ring, Waist slot - HP + 10. An STR aug would look like this: Neck, Ear, Ring, Waist - STR + 1.

A good way to spread the augment love around is for each craft to have it's own augments for it's own synthesis items. So, for example, you would require woodworking augments to augment a Jupiter's staff. Taking that to the next step of augmenting end game gear, you use clothcraft augment to augment a Morri Robe as it would logically be a clothcraft synthesis item. If you want to keep augments really simple, just go with one or two crafts to synthesis them, whatever makes sense. Unfortunately that would probably mean goldsmithing or smithing. You could limit the work output by going with just a few slots that can be augmented, or go all out and go for most slots. Another idea is for there to be HQ augments. I'll stop there but you get the general idea. I think it is something worth exploring and possibly worth the effort at some point. As for the means of augmenting gear with these augments, you could use Synergy as the method of augmenting the gear since you are already down that road.

Basically, it's your idea of augmenting end game gear but with the crafters in control. The lone downside to this idea though, is that because FFXI isn't the typical MMORPG with tiers of end game content where gear is constantly outdated, an augment system may not be very realistic. But a good way to counter that is for augments to actually be more rare than not. Perhaps requiring rare materials. Goldsmithing can use a new ore that can only be mined... woodworking would require a new log to log for, so on. Anyways, something to think on for the future.

[GlobalVariable]

• Synthesis in Perspective

• Possible to create attractive, one of a kind items
• Benefits of HQ synths are reflected largely by an increase in stats
• Possible to create base items through synthesis
• Possibility of losing materials as a result of failure

I'm sorry but nothing angers a crafter more than being level 100 and failing a lv 20 synth and losing all materials involved or losing that pain in the rear to acquire material that is never on the AH. Its been repeated over and over and over and a major lure of synergy was the lack of material loss. Sure we spend gil to replace fewell. Fewell, a generic easy to acquire item that doesn't take a multi hour camping or farming session to find. Should have never been a separate skill for synergy; should have just let it be an alternate system for the normal crafts. To late now.

The minimum break/item loss chances on crafting need removed. My skill level should not give me tiers of chances of breaks but directly point for point reduce my chances of breaking and losing materials. By the time I'm capped on a skill and HQing a recipe it should not ever be breaking and losing 100% of materials. Hell make each recipe like a quest; did you clear it? HQ = cleared. Not saying add to quest log, using as a comparison there.

[Aquilla]

I apologize in advance if this has been said before in this thread... I don't have the time to read through all of it atm, so I'm just replying to Camate's post.

I am glad that improvements are being looked into in the gathering, and in crafting as a whole. In my opinion, the problem with crafting is two fold: base materials, and reward.

1. base materials for crafting: especially at higher levels, it becomes nigh impossible to gather with any sort of efficacy materials to level up. In every craft, it's easier to simply make the gil elsewhere, and then possibly blow it at the AH to get a few skill ups. Skill-ups are few and far between, but that wouldn't be an issue if I had a real chance to farm/gather ingredients. I used to be a prolific miner (i funded my blm's staffs that way back in the ye olde days), but if I went back to leveling goldsmithing seriously, I certainly wouldn't be trying to mine up gold/platinum ingots for skillups. This is not to say that it is impossible to get gold/platinum ingots through mining, but I will say this: If I went to, say, Sea-Serpent's Grotto as monk/thf and killed sahagin for nothing but gil drops, I would get more ingots by spending a few hours there and then buying them off AH, than I would mining any given area.
Crafting is a bit about the journey. It is cool to put the drops/gathered items to use by making something out of them. Buying stacks and stacks of stuff off the AH doesn't quite have that same allure... and simply isn't fun. If I'm looking at crafting as a simply monetary venue, and not anything that has any other value except for how much money I can make ...that brings me to point number 2.

2. reward.
No craft is worth much at 100 anymore.
Yeah, some HQs still sell very decently, and I am sure that people who are more committed than I can spend the time investing a lot of gil into a certain % of return based on HQ percentage. Okay. I am not hard core crafter, or player, of any sort. However.. It's a lot easier to make money in any number of ways.
Well, I'd venture to say that most people don't play for imaginary riches, so what other reward does crafting offer? What unique ability/aspect of game do I get as a lv 100 crafter?
None. Outside of a few furnishings, there is no reward for me hitting 100 in any craft. I've had friends who've put the time to level a craft, taking years to hit 100, only to see that there is very little they can do with it. Most good armor now is no longer crafted...and there is no real way to produce 'unique' armor in the game. I thought that the idea of coloring certain furnishings, or the evoliths idea, was gonna lead to a way for us to produce truly unique things, but that isn't going to happen.
Why not give us more control over the output of our crafting? Why not really let us decide what stats are going to go into it, what color it will be, what it will do? Why not give crafters -- especially those who hit 100 -- a bit of a boost or ability of some sort, something that's going to improve their gameplay overall -- a stat bonus, maybe? Would it really break the game at this point? What if cooks could make unique r/e aoe foods, that stacked with regular foods, that could buff their parties? What if goldsmiths had a gem-O-finder ability, a mining widescan of sorts?

If we choose to be crafters, why not let us be unique for that aspect? It's okay to have crafting be a difficult journey, but give us something to look forward to... something other than a furnishing and an apron, and a knowledge that 99% of the recipes of our given craft are useless, and the remaining 1% just don't add up to much more than a side-grade.

Having a ton of side-grades at 75 was much derided on the internets for a good reason, and it's not something I'd like to see at 99.... instead of giving us gear where we need to change pants every time we cast a different spell, why not allow us to combine some of that gear...but that's a separate rant, I suppose.

In short, crafting and gathering in XI have always been a less-fun part of the game, something that seemed tailormade for bots due to the high time-cost, and sheer un-funness of hitting 'craft' button millions of times to get to 100. Let's hope that changes!

[Avina]

First of all I want to say that even though I definitely disagree with the decision to postpone raising the crafting skill I do appreciate the effort being made on the community team and the devs to address this issue... but there are some points that I think really deserve to be addressed.

Here is how I see the current problem with crafting (aside from consumable crafts such as WW and Cooking, although those have taken a hit as well):

As said in my earlier post a huge problem with crafting jobs that specifically craft gear (armor, accessories, etc) now have enormous amounts of what basically amounts to as trash when you look at how the game is run. There use to be a time when being well geared at level 40 was actually important, people camped NMs for gear and bought high quality low level gear. Since so much of the player population has taken to trading keys to chests or even simply just idling in Abyssea, to the average player there really isn't a point to investing in lower level gear. If you can find one, tell me... and I don't Abyssea burn my jobs either and actually try to gear myself as best as I can at these lower levels but being honest to myself; I'm just making it hard for myself because I liked the old way. And it really fails to feel rewarding.

I know other crafters will turn to me and say that all the money from crafting came when you got to level 100 and were HQing... and its true, that's where the big money was at for sure. But crafters were still able to turn a profit or at least break even with staples such as the Eisen set for smithing or Seer's for clothcraft, etc, both which were low level synths that people used to buy. The point being there was still money to be made at these lower levels of crafting... but the way SE has set up the game now, very nearly all of the recipes for gear we can craft won't be bought and won't be used.

This is the biggest problem I see for crafters... its easy for SE to make new recipes for new gear that can be used at the 75+ level that have awesome stats... but now you can really make the case that the great majority of crafting recipes is garbage. Crafters might argue that this has always been the case (lots of statless gear that no one would buy) but it is much more pronounced when no one is playing a job at a level that they'd use the gear that you can make. Crafting and the Auction House will always have problems if this issue is never addressed by SE... merging the auction house won't fix it, raising the crafting caps won't fix it, nothing will unless SE makes some serious change that would give players a reason to really *want* to level their lower jobs outside of Abyssea. We need a new perk for doing so.

Taking this all in, there are some things that Camate said that I have questions and concerns about specifically:

In regards to our plans to raise the crafting skill limits during the next version update, ... However, as a result of discussions based on all of your feedback we have opted to postpone this.

Although I definitely believe that raising the crafting cap won't solve the problem we have, I don't see any reason to avoid doing so. It's a lot of work as it stands now, you really have to earn it, and it would revitalize it a bit. It would not bring lower level gear into the AH again... that's going to take a bigger fix that doesn't have anything to do with the crafting system. My biggest question is how is raising the crafting cap bad? What was the reason that they decided to postpone it specifically?

Our ultimate goal is to add numerous items so that you can select what you wear depending on the situation and slot.

Possible to create attractive, one of a kind items

System to add stats via augment synergy

I have some hesitation on these things based on how they are worded. But the basic gist is that people just don't like the randomness that has been thrown into so much of the newest gear that has been introduced into the game, as well as with the augment system. Fields of Valor gave us random stats that could possibly even result in the item becoming worse than it was before, and would always render it 100% unsellable with no way to remove augments (I still don't know why SE hasn't retroactively corrected this to allow FoV augments to be removed through synergy...). Synergy gave us reliable results with evoliths, but the evolith stats themselves were too specific to have many of them hold much merit. No one really wants to carry around on them a weapon that has WS Acc +5 against birds, especially since synergy favored augmenting weapons that were already statless. If we were augmenting pieces that were already good with WS Acc +5 against birds as an additional stat on top of that, it could've been much more worthwhile. But what the statless weapons needed were solid, reliable augments such as attack +5, accuracy bonuses, attributes, etc...

There are also some items that have been thrown in like those series of earrings that gives bonuses depending on if the part has a certain job present. We really need items and gear that don't require correct alignment of the planets in order to make use of them.

So yeah, I hope you are taking efforts to avoid that kind of 'situational' gear, since that sort of stuff was way too situational and has never really been used because of it, or the benefits from using it weren't good enough. I think if it isn't a piece that you don't think a player would want to keep in their inventory most of the time when they are playing, it probably isn't worth putting into the game. It's clear that you guys know what kinds of things we want... Abyssea is full of such treasures, let the crafters make some compareable stuff. Hopefully this is meant when you wrote "Possible to create attractive, one of a kind items" ... I'm just responding to the things we've seen in the past.

If we ever can breathe life back into lower level exp party like I described in the first half of this post, I think its possible to salvage some of the systems already in place... as any crafter knows who crafts armor we have lots of statless armor that are perfect blank slates for augmenting... but the current system has been too unforgiving. Potential fixes could include:

Fields of Valor Elite Training: Remove the negative stats. We are, after all, putting down our time in the form of tabs for this... it would make sense for the system to not butcher our piece and make it worse in the process. Make it so that weaker (but all positive) augments are more common with a small chance of a significant stat increase or a rare augment type (Haste, for example). Let us remove augments we don't like with synergy so that taking a chance at these doesn't ruin our chance to ever sell the item!

Synergy Evoliths: Improve the quality of the evoliths that fit on weapons that are naked and statless... no more of this "vs. beasts, only with dark magic" kind of boosts. Like I said, have evoliths drop varying levels of attributes like STR and straight stat mods (accuracy up).

I really am getting to the end, I'm sorry for the length lol

Possible to create base items through synthesis

I'm guessing that this is referring to stuff like the ebon ebur etc line of gear... I don't think the relationship between Synthesis and synergy really should follow the direction of Synthesis > Synergy. Synthesis crafters should be able to materials that can be used in synergy, base armor/weapon/accesories pieces to be augmented, but there should be an equal amount of gear that only those high level crafters can make on their own, which can rival even augmented gear (but with very difficult to obtain materials). Likewise, synergy should also be producing unique materials that could be used to help make those fancy gear items.

There should be an interplay between the two types but a crafter should be able to make solid, viable gear on their own. Especially since crafters run the added risk of losing their mats... you can fail synergy all day long if you have the fewell and you won't lose anything. But in Synthesis the crafter runs the risk of losing sometimes millions of gil not from lack of skill but because of the internal dice roll the game does for synthesis... such great risk needs a great reward.

[Godofgods]

Future plans
Based on our desire to reevaluate how players obtain items, as well as adding attractive item recipes, we plan on changing our focus from shifting synthesis to synergy.

what do u mean plan on shifting from synthasis to syngery? Its all SE has done since its introduction. Its realy a bad system start to finish. Its better off being removed much less imbelished. Youve heard plenty of ppl here that would like the skill cap raised to start crafting more, dispite the fact that theirs no profite in it. Theyde do it jsut for the enjoyment of it. Somehting you wont find much of for synergy. The only ppl defending that are genrealy those few making some gills. Noones doing syngery because its actuly enjoyable. Even with 532 combined crafting skill levels so far, i want to do synergy about as much as i want to electrocute myself.

[Cljader1]

what do u mean plan on shifting from synthasis to syngery? Its all SE has done since its introduction. Its realy a bad system start to finish. Its better off being removed much less imbelished. Youve heard plenty of ppl here that would like the skill cap raised to start crafting more, dispite the fact that theirs no profite in it. Theyde do it jsut for the enjoyment of it. Somehting you wont find much of for synergy. The only ppl defending that are genrealy those few making some gills. Noones doing syngery because its actuly enjoyable. Even with 532 combined crafting skill levels so far, i want to do synergy about as much as i want to electrocute myself.

God the Synergy cry babies are back, give it a break...SE is not going to remove a crafting system just too please you...there many of us who like synergy and mastered it, synergy it suppose to be more complex than tradition crafting...If you dont like it or UNDERSTAND it dont do it, that your problem, leave the synergy to the talented crafters...

[Avina]

God the Synergy cry babies are back, give it a break...SE is not going to remove a crafting system just too please you...there many of us who like synergy and mastered it, synergy it suppose to be more complex than tradition crafting...If you dont like it or UNDERSTAND it dont do it, that your problem, leave the synergy to the talented crafters...

Last I checked this was a discussion topic where SE was gathering the opinions of crafters to see the direction that crafting wanted to go. And that's what he did, and huh, he didn't insult synergists like you did to him. You call him a cry baby, insinuate that he's dumb and not a talented crafter, kind of more than enough to qualify for a flame post.

Write something constructive next time.

[Kari]

@Camate, I'm sorry, but we're never going to see an increase in things being sold on the Auction House unless MAJOR changes are made.
As-is, nobody will sell anything on the AH that doesn't make a good amount of money, mostly due to the 7 item limit.

As much as I'd love to put up all the random things I obtain that are worth ~1k on the AH, I'm not going to waste that space for the many things I have easy access to that are worth 20k.
You'll almost never see low level gear, spells, etc on the AH because there isn't a market for them. However, plenty of people do get these scrolls from monsters and such, but they usually go straight to the NPC because the amount of time it takes to sell such an item isn't worth wasting 1 of their 7 AH slots. Not to mention, even if it did sell, you wouldn't make a whole lot of money.
However, if it was possible to put many items on the AH and also not have them get sent back in a few days, you'd likely see people putting these things they find on the AH, and eventually some noob who needs it will buy it. The noob gets their hands on a spell that otherwise could have been annoying for them to obtain, and the person selling the scroll got a random small amount of Gil.

Adding new synthesis recipes is cool and all, in fact I'm quite excited, however you can't really even mention such a change having any effect on the AHs.
All it will be doing is creating a new market on new items, which is nothing new.
I'd really like to see an update to the AH, to allow us to put a LARGE amount of items on it at once like other MMOs, but I don't think it would be doable because of PS2 limitations. =/
Every other MMO I've played with similar AH-type systems allowed you to put up AT LEAST 50 items, if not infinite. This allowed said games to have an extremely large economy, and a huge variety of items for anyone shopping around.
I can only dream of FFXI getting such an update, it seems.

[Vold]

@Camate, I'm sorry, but we're never going to see an increase in things being sold on the Auction House unless MAJOR changes are made.
As-is, nobody will sell anything on the AH that doesn't make a good amount of money, mostly due to the 7 item limit.

As much as I'd love to put up all the random things I obtain that are worth ~1k on the AH, I'm not going to waste that space for the many things I have easy access to that are worth 20k.
You'll almost never see low level gear, spells, etc on the AH because there isn't a market for them. However, plenty of people do get these scrolls from monsters and such, but they usually go straight to the NPC because the amount of time it takes to sell such an item isn't worth wasting 1 of their 7 AH slots. Not to mention, even if it did sell, you wouldn't make a whole lot of money.
However, if it was possible to put many items on the AH and also not have them get sent back in a few days, you'd likely see people putting these things they find on the AH, and eventually some noob who needs it will buy it. The noob gets their hands on a spell that otherwise could have been annoying for them to obtain, and the person selling the scroll got a random small amount of Gil.

Adding new synthesis recipes is cool and all, in fact I'm quite excited, however you can't really even mention such a change having any effect on the AHs.
All it will be doing is creating a new market on new items, which is nothing new.
I'd really like to see an update to the AH, to allow us to put a LARGE amount of items on it at once like other MMOs, but I don't think it would be doable because of PS2 limitations. =/
Every other MMO I've played with similar AH-type systems allowed you to put up AT LEAST 50 items, if not infinite. This allowed said games to have an extremely large economy, and a huge variety of items for anyone shopping around.
I can only dream of FFXI getting such an update, it seems.

Personally I'd like to see a MH addition called bank or whatever where you can put items to be sold, choose the price, items are updated to the AH system. Tax is taken out once items are sold. I guess just like bazaar except it goes through the AH. But I bet that's an idea that is surely is impossible to come true for some reason or another. Just seems like a simple way to bypass the AH problems. Key word seems.

I also really wouldn't mind tax having an overhaul. I'm all for the bazaar system but it would be extremely helpful if people could just put high end items on AH to sell them without some silly tax taking out unreasonable amounts of gil from the sale...