Yeah but in fairness to OP we never received an official response about it which is why he posted this topic.
ehhh i remember tanaka said the ships would be tied to grand companies, pvp and going to new areas. Im sure we could come up with dozens of uses for those things in 10 minutes, yoshida just didnt want to do those things, or was unsure if he wanted to use the resources in the same way or create similar content, so he acted like it had no purpose. Either that or some dev team beef made people not want to tell him their ideas.
Thank you for the translations and those are very good points brought up by the community rep. If there's no purpose behind making a ship or giant cake, then it's kinda stupid to let people make them.
I wonder what Yoshi would do stranded on a desert island with a giant cake and a boat.
He would probably look at them for ten months trying to figure out what they are for.
Japanese people get mad about lack of crafting contents?
I don't care, as long as we're getting the new battle system
Put the damn cake on the boat for food supply and get away from the damn island to hope for land with people and more food...
Or name the cake Wilson and make it a imaginary friend, then as time passes and the cake disappears shout WILSOOOOOOON and dance naked till you drop dead.
simple answer you make the boat to go to your companies hide out, you can get attacked on the way, you can craft all the things in your companies hideout, like a large visible cake, that company members can get, say 20 portions of consumable food from, acting like a LS bank for food, with visual in game representations. it really isnt that hard to see a use for a ship and a cake.