Crafter and Gatherer Identity

Easiest way to make Crafting better. Limit Omnicrafting and make it so having 'Soul of the Crafter' is required to craft Master Recipes and make gear from master recipes expert recipes.

That way it takes more than a single individual to make gear, make it harder for bots to churning out sets after sets of gear a few hours after the patch drops, flooding the market. It will also take a modicum of knowledge at the crafting jobs with expert recipes to make gear instead of relying on the Balance discord to post a macro.

Remove Dark Matter, give repair kits to crafting jobs. WVR can make sewing kits for Casting/Healing gear, LTW can make leather patches for Aiming/Scouting/Striking gear, and ARM can make steel plates for Maiming/Fending gear. Of course the kits would also require materials from CRP, ARM, and GSM to make as well.

ALC and CUL isn't allowed to have freebie, gil making pots and food either. Have them require materials from other crafting jobs from the master recipe list (so ALC and CUL can't just craft their own mats unless those jobs are one of their specialists) as well, such as glass bottles from GSM, leather sleeves and cloth filters to make ALC pots. Tinder from CRP, flint from ARM, and plates from BSM for CUL food.

I think in the past the specialisation made more sense since it took also longer to level the classes so that different people leveled different classes first and could help out each other with materials. But nowadays you can level all classes in a new expansion in a matter of hours so there is no need to work together with other people.

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Originally Posted by GraceHorizon

I wouldn’t mind a single “craft it” button. Ordinary crafting isn’t bad, but master crafting is pretty annoying to me, and crafting a large number of items is boring af. I became a crafter because I wanted an unlimited supply of food and combat gear (and I hate paying people for it — market board prices are a ripoff), but the actual act of endgame crafting just isn’t fun to me, either manually going through the steps of the minigame or using macros.

Gatherers are fine to me, but I would be open to a rework as long as it doesn’t make the process too onerous.

I wonder, for crafting, if a model like fishing would be a good idea? I’m not a fan of the RNG of fishing, but the thing I do like is you can choose how deeply you want to engage with it. If you just want fish for crafting ingredients, they’re not hard to get, but if you want fish for bragging rights, there is (I hear) a lot more depth and skill expression. How about something similar for crafting, where your basic combat gear is quick and easy (and tbf combat food is already not too awful), but high end glamours and maybe also some higher tier combat gear are harder and require greater mastery?

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To be fair, there already is a "craft-it" button with quick synthesis to mass-craft items
High Quality items should still require you to interact with the minigame to craft
But I agree that basic crafting should be easier while still finding a way to appeal to casual crafters
Maybe Square could keep the crafting classes while adding identity for them and add a new "Freelancer" crafter with the old abilities for more casual crafters?

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Originally Posted by MisterNublet

Easiest way to make Crafting better. Limit Omnicrafting and make it so having 'Soul of the Crafter' is required to craft Master Recipes and make gear from master recipes expert recipes.

That way it takes more than a single individual to make gear, make it harder for bots to churning out sets after sets of gear a few hours after the patch drops, flooding the market. It will also take a modicum of knowledge at the crafting jobs with expert recipes to make gear instead of relying on the Balance discord to post a macro.

Remove Dark Matter, give repair kits to crafting jobs. WVR can make sewing kits for Casting/Healing gear, LTW can make leather patches for Aiming/Scouting/Striking gear, and ARM can make steel plates for Maiming/Fending gear. Of course the kits would also require materials from CRP, ARM, and GSM to make as well.

ALC and CUL isn't allowed to have freebie, gil making pots and food either. Have them require materials from other crafting jobs from the master recipe list (so ALC and CUL can't just craft their own mats unless those jobs are one of their specialists) as well, such as glass bottles from GSM, leather sleeves and cloth filters to make ALC pots. Tinder from CRP, flint from ARM, and plates from BSM for CUL food.

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I think adding on to the current specialty system and limiting omnicrafting wouldn't be fun and removes the entire point of the jobs system in the first place
Specialties need to be reworked into proper crafting jobs without any timegates so you can have a job crystal for every crafter and gatherer
I think the main way to make crafting more fun is to give the different crafters more differences and mechanics instead of just restricting the whole system and making it more tedious

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Originally Posted by Alicie

Anyone really cares about crafting much?
If anything, most of the players would be in favor of removing these crafting rotations and replacing them with single "just craft it" button.

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Many people enjoy the crafting system and how it tries to be unique instead of just being 1 button like every other game
Also, a craft-it button already exists, it's called quick synthesis
Quick synthesis could use some tweaks to appeal to casual crafters more but high quality items and endgame crafting should be left with mechanical depth, I don't want to make endgame crafting boring

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Originally Posted by Kaurhz

Let's not dilute even more of the game for people that can't be bothered, shall we? Imagine how far this game would fall if we started to deviate to this mentality.



I think this is a somewhat fair point... But beyond the whole cross-class..., I've never found them all too distinctive to begin with, as they all follow the same progression blueprint, both for levelling and both for end-game, even dating as far back as ARR to be honest.

... Like, if you actually wanted to be a crafter, you were doing them all anyway... But I agree in principle with the 'feeling fresh' sentiment... I'm not doing anything different this expansion what what I did 3 expansions ago.

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I want them to be distinct so the different crafting classes feel like they have a point instead of the different classes existing just for the sake of grind
Right now they truly aren't distinct, every one plays the exact same

And yes I agree we shouldn't dilute the game. While I'm open to options for casual crafting to an extent, I don't want to oversimplify anything to do with endgame crafting to the point it becomes a braindead activity. Plenty of people enjoy the depth XIV's crafting system has to any other game with crafting in it, I don't want to remove it in favor of oversimplification

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Originally Posted by LanceSummers

To be fair, there already is a "craft-it" button with quick synthesis to mass-craft items
High Quality items should still require you to interact with the minigame to craft
But I agree that basic crafting should be easier while still finding a way to appeal to casual crafters
Maybe Square could keep the crafting classes while adding identity for them and add a new "Freelancer" crafter with the old abilities for more casual crafters?

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I make liberal use of quick synthesis for NQ, but no, I want easier crafting of HQ items. It’s no fun to spend an hour and a half on the crafting minigame just to get an okay-but-not-great combat gearset. I do it in order to not be beholden to the market board, but it’s always been at the edge of “is this really worth my time?” If we want crafting to be interesting and worthwhile, reduce the effort for the basic equipment (for example the il770 stuff in the current patch) and give us something fancier and a little better for people who are really into crafting for its own sake (say il775, or il780 with a time bottleneck).

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Originally Posted by GraceHorizon

I make liberal use of quick synthesis for NQ, but no, I want easier crafting of HQ items. It’s no fun to spend an hour and a half on the crafting minigame just to get an okay-but-not-great combat gearset. I do it in order to not be beholden to the market board, but it’s always been at the edge of “is this really worth my time?” If we want crafting to be interesting and worthwhile, reduce the effort for the basic equipment (for example the il770 stuff in the current patch) and give us something fancier and a little better for people who are really into crafting for its own sake (say il775, or il780 with a time bottleneck).

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The most I'd agree with reducing crafting grind is to make levelling recipes craftable as HQ with quick synthesis. Anything with master recipes should stay as it is in terms of grind. The only aspect I'd remove of master recipes is the tome mats, I really just want to be able to craft instead of having to sidetrack and get tomes for my crafted gear. Making the grind of master recipes almost nonexistent would drastically reduce their worth.
But generally: if you don't like crafting, you should really just be asking for more ways to gear. I don't want crafting to be ruined just because people who don't like it want to be able to craft without interacting with the crafting system.

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Originally Posted by LanceSummers

The most I'd agree with reducing crafting grind is to make levelling recipes craftable as HQ with quick synthesis. Anything with master recipes should stay as it is in terms of grind. The only aspect I'd remove of master recipes is the tome mats, I really just want to be able to craft instead of having to sidetrack and get tomes for my crafted gear. Making the grind of master recipes almost nonexistent would drastically reduce their worth.
But generally: if you don't like crafting, you should really just be asking for more ways to gear. I don't want crafting to be ruined just because people who don't like it want to be able to craft without interacting with the crafting system.

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I would love for there to be other ways to gear, and I was dismayed that the il770 stuff from the final tier of the Arcadion mostly just didn’t have as good substats as the crafted gear at the same ilvl. Time-limited and also not as good? Why? I got the two little pieces I wanted in the first week, and didn’t have any use for normal raid gear tokens ever again.

But also, the crafting minigame is tiresome to me. Once I’ve made a few HQ fancy aluminum ingots, what purpose does it serve to step through the process to make dozens more? It’s nothing but busywork. If you want to be able to play the role of a tippy-top crafter, the right way is to add more expert recipes for more prestigious glamour or furniture items, or even allow ultra-high-end crafted combat gear on par with tomestone stuff. Let the WoL be a master crafter like Gerolt!

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Originally Posted by Alicie

Anyone really cares about crafting much?
If anything, most players would probably prefer removing crafting rotations entirely and replacing them with a single “just craft it” button.

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Nope.

In most MMOs, crafting and gathering are important parts of the economy. They can also be genuinely fun systems to engage with. In FFXIV, crafting probably peaked during Heavensward. Since then, it has gradually become too easy and too predictable.

I understand that some players simply don’t enjoy crafting. For those players, I wouldn’t mind having a “just craft it” button for normal-quality items.

However, when it comes to HQ crafting, I really wish the system would move away from its current level of predictability. Right now, macros can guarantee a 100% HQ result, and on top of that there are bots, solvers, and plugins that can automate crafting or gathering entirely. When anyone can produce HQ items without even thinking about it, it ends up hurting the economy.

Personally, I would prefer a crafting system where players actually need to adapt to item conditions and make decisions during the process, rather than relying on fully predictable macros. If that means only a small percentage of players can reliably craft HQ items, that’s not necessarily a problem. People could choose to use normal-quality gear and food, learn the crafting system properly, or simply buy HQ items from players who enjoy crafting.

That kind of system would give real value back to crafting.