5.1 Crafting Feedback Thread

Want to practice rotations use a crafting sim that way only thing you waste is brain cells. Saves loads of time which is better then failing multiple times trying to figure things out wasting mats and gil.

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Originally Posted by NanaWiloh

Want to practice rotations use a crafting sim that way only thing you waste is brain cells. Saves loads of time which is better then failing multiple times trying to figure things out wasting mats and gil.

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I never attempt any high level synth without simming it first.. I'd prefer to waste a little time rather than money.

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Originally Posted by Shadygrove

Basic Synthesis L1 100% Congrats, you can make stuff

Basic Touch L 5 100% Now you can increase quality.

Hasty Touch L 9 60% Now you can fish for quality without spending CP. <== This should not be 100%. Period.

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Wrong, you're still spending CP on increasing durability.

The RNG absolutely needs to go.

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Originally Posted by Khalithar

Wrong, you're still spending CP on increasing durability.

The RNG absolutely needs to go.

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So you think that being able to raise Quality without spending CP 100% of the time is balanced?

You kidding me?

That means that I can take a 60 durability item, and with 600CP, I could just Hasty Touch away and do 3 Waste Not II's, and 3 Master's Mends for a total of what again... let's see, WNII is basically giving you 30 durability, so that's 90 durability + the 60 you started with + 90 more from the Mends... dear God, you are saying I should be able to get 240 Durability, that is, 24 Synth/Hasty Touches on one item?

lol.

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Originally Posted by Khalithar

Wrong, you're still spending CP on increasing durability.

The RNG absolutely needs to go.

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Simple solution: Just don't use Hasty Touch and Rapid Synth? Tada. Now your crafting is all about "managing CP while trying to get HQ and getting your control/craftsmanship stats up at the same time to make your abilities more effective."

Literally, they've already implemented your idea. Crafting is indeed about managing CP (kinda always was) while balancing how much HQ you can push (again, basically always was). The RNG was the old system. Now, you can more precisely assess your CP usage and durability/quality.

Or, am I missing something here? Is there mounds of RNG still bound up in end game crafting that I haven't gotten to? Cuz it all looks fairly straightforward where I'm standing.

The macros I had were never used ! I'm not a lazy crafter I did all the stuff on my own ! As for friends there aren't very many know much bout crafting! My connection speed is far too low for the macros that were provided ! I will continue to research the game ! I've almost maxxed out all my most of classes! I will figure out what works or just craft level 70 + gear!

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Originally Posted by Khalithar

Wrong, you're still spending CP on increasing durability.

The RNG absolutely needs to go.

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... What? If Hasty Touch were 100%, CP would be solely used for retaining durability and nothing else. This would trivialize crafting entirely. Zero thought.

That said, 60% is too low. The cost of a failed step is already fairly steep. 70% would be make the skill more attractive.

I enjoy the new skills and deleting obsolete. But honestly the game happens on Teamcraft. Ones you have found the macro you are just coming back to Ff14 for grinding. That's not really fun.

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Originally Posted by atek63

I enjoy the new skills and deleting obsolete. But honestly the game happens on Teamcraft. Ones you have found the macro you are just coming back to Ff14 for grinding. That's not really fun.

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Plenty of people craft without using Teamcraft and the simulators. I don't use them because I don't like that website. If it's not fun to you to look up rotations then come back to craft...don't? Crafting is so much simpler now that there is very little "need" to use a simulator or look up a rotation. (Not that you "needed" to do that before.) Crafting is still fun. Actually the great thing is that there can now be multiple ways to complete a craft that are all roughly equal in time investment.

Eventhough I'm a baby crafter/gatherer, it was certainly a little challenging before but now professions are way too easy.

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Originally Posted by DBriggs304

Eventhough I'm a baby crafter/gatherer, it was certainly a little challenging before but now professions are way too easy.

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It was always easy. It got less complicated. That's not the same thing.

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Originally Posted by Callinon

It was always easy. It got less complicated. That's not the same thing.

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I think a better term is "less tedious".

It was always easy, but there's less hassle and less tedium involved. It's more smooth and streamlined.

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Originally Posted by Elamys

Plenty of people craft without using Teamcraft and the simulators. I don't use them because I don't like that website. If it's not fun to you to look up rotations then come back to craft...don't? Crafting is so much simpler now that there is very little "need" to use a simulator or look up a rotation. (Not that you "needed" to do that before.) Crafting is still fun. Actually the great thing is that there can now be multiple ways to complete a craft that are all roughly equal in time investment.

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^^
I'm one of these kinds of players too.

I just wanna log onto the game, and figure crap out for myself, and do my own stuff, DIY style. But the old crafting system was just too tedious, too many buttons involved, and looking up a rotation was near-required because I didn't really feel like sitting down and running all kinds of theorycrafting. I wanna do actual crafting, not theorycrafting. Now, after 5.1, the buttons make sense in what they do, we don't have 5 buttons that all do the same thing, yadda yadda. It has really gotten me to enjoy crafting.

All throughout Stormblood, I never crafted much of anything until the Namazu tribe was added. Then I got everything to Lv70 and.... didn't craft anything.

ShB got released, and I again set it on the back burner with a "... someday" type mentality.

Then 5.1 hit and today I just got the last two on Lv80 and I'm on my way to making Lv80 tools, already got BSM, CRP, and MIN done. I have done... way, WAY more crafting Post-5.1 then I did in the entirety of Heavensward and Stormblood, not counting Beast Tribe quests.

I would say that's a big success, considering Yoshi-P's goal was to get more casual players enjoying the crafting game.

EDIT: Heck, the day 5.1 came out? I did more crafting in that one single day than I did during the entirety of HW and SB, again not counting the beast tribes.

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Originally Posted by Elamys

Plenty of people craft without using Teamcraft and the simulators. I don't use them because I don't like that website. If it's not fun to you to look up rotations then come back to craft...don't? Crafting is so much simpler now that there is very little "need" to use a simulator or look up a rotation. (Not that you "needed" to do that before.) Crafting is still fun. Actually the great thing is that there can now be multiple ways to complete a craft that are all roughly equal in time investment.

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Very little need for you not everyone else.

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Originally Posted by NanaWiloh

Very little need for you not everyone else.

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And that's fine. What I'm saying is that if you don't find it fun to go to Teamcraft and look up a rotation then you don't have to.

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Originally Posted by Elamys

And that's fine. What I'm saying is that if you don't find it fun to go to Teamcraft and look up a rotation then you don't have to.

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Maybe people didn't want to have to go look up a rotation?

It was just over-complicated before. Not hard per se, just a ridiculous amount of number crunching and calculations and all of that. I don't really think that's what average crafting needed to be. I could understand Star-crafting needing that sort of thing, but normal crafting shouldn't need freaking macros. You should be able to just learn a basic rotation and click the buttons yourself without having to go through 30-step processes, worrying about having your numbers just right, etc.

It's like... adding Extreme Primal difficulty to a 4-man MSQ dungeon. It doesn't belong there.

I'm glad they changed it from what it was before so I can just log on and click buttons to craft instead of clicking a macro and go make a sandwich.

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Originally Posted by Maeka

Maybe people didn't want to have to go look up a rotation?

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I agree with you completely but the person I responded to initially was complaining that crafting "happens on Teamcraft" and that's not the case and has never been the case. You don't need to use Teamcraft if you don't want to. You have never, at any point of crafting in this game, needed to use Teamcraft to be a crafter if you didn't want to.

You have never "needed" to sit down and do calculations or whatever if you didn't want to, you could still figure out a rotation through experimentation and learning how the abilities interacted. I have never used macros and I'm terrible at math but I learned a rotation in Heavensward and then Stormblood through experimentation. It was not the easy route but it was fun for me because I didn't want to just copy someone else's rotation or use a simulator. I hated Rath's rotation and refused to use it, so I made it work. Was it "as good" as Rath's? Maybe not, but I made tons of HQ starred items by the time the expansion ended.

But now, crafting is so simplified that I think very few people should be at a point where they can't make heads or tails of it without the help of a simulator.

If you prefer to use the simulator or use someone else's rotations that is perfectly fine. But if you just don't like the idea of doing that, well, then great! You don't have to, and it's foolish to pretend like crafting is so broken that you "need" an outside website after the changes. It may not be as easy, you'll probably have to invest some gil, but if you just really don't want to use a website or outside tool, then put in the effort and figure out a rotation.

I think people are misunderstanding what I am saying. The changes were very good, but don't complain that you need to use a website to enjoy crafting, because you don't, and never needed to.

Also, even if you do use the simulator, you should know how your abilities interact and what does what anyways even if you use a macro, if you intend on being a very serious crafter.

The teamcraft simulator just to be clear can be used to develope your own rotations. You dont need to use the Rotation solver its completely optional. I see it this way you cannot use it and develope your own rotation while wasting, time,gil and mats. Or use it and develope your own rotation wasting only time while saving gil and mats.

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Originally Posted by NanaWiloh

The teamcraft simulator just to be clear can be used to develope your own rotations. You dont need to use the Rotation solver its completely optional. I see it this way you cannot use it and develope your own rotation while wasting, time,gil and mats. Or use it and develope your own rotation wasting only time while saving gil and mats.

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I don't think I've ever actually used the rotation solver there. But yeah for sure... I definitely prefer to work out my steps ahead of time so I'm not just sitting here wasting money.

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Originally Posted by Elamys

-snip-

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To each their own.

I found HW and even SB to be way too confusing, way too much button bloat to really make sense of how exactly to push the numbers to the ridiculous numbers the game expected you to do without getting lucky with Good/Excellent procs. The few things I did make and actually got HQs, I was only able to do so with lucky procs.

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Originally Posted by Maeka

I don't really think that's what average crafting needed to be. I could understand Star-crafting needing that sort of thing, but normal crafting shouldn't need freaking macros. You should be able to just learn a basic rotation and click the buttons yourself without having to go through 30-step processes, worrying about having your numbers just right, etc.

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Wasn't it exactly like that in Stormblood though? Normal crafting never needed a macro. It was Inner Quiet, Steady Hand, 4-5 Prudent, Manip II, Steady II, a few more Prudent, a Brygots finisher, Brand/Name Of and you're done. The new system hasn't simplified that much, it simply pruned off the other skills you rarely use (which is a good thing).

30+ step processes were for the high end Starred crafts which you admit you understand needing that.

The Normal crafting is fine. The issue is the requirements for the Starred crafting are massively reduced. That's what we're complaining is too easy. Not crafting as an entirety. I'm glad you're enjoying regular crafts and hope that stays for you.

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Originally Posted by Maeka

I'm glad they changed it from what it was before so I can just log on and click buttons to craft instead of clicking a macro and go make a sandwich.

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That's exactly what crafting is now. 1 macro can last from 70-80. There's no incentive not to use one.

I think what saddens me most is the community interaction and discussion has dropped significantly. The DoH forums used to be full of posts, threads and discussion, even a month or two into a patch. The 2 star items in Stormblood had countless pages of theorycraft with all the big crafters sharing ideas, guides, rotations and melds.

Now it's like it just died after a week from Ishgard and we mainly just argue over what the difficulty should be. Only 6 threads down from the top on this board and the last posts are from last month.
For Starred crafts, there are no rotations to discuss, we cracked it day one. No melds matter, just bung in cheap materia. Food, tea? Just buy vendor NQ. Mats? All accessible. So we don't interact anymore. That's not a sign of healthy, successful content.

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Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

I think what saddens me most is the community interaction and discussion has dropped significantly.

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I noticed that too and it is sad and a little worrying.

I posted this in another thread but I think it's relevant to this discussion:
If I need a book or a second monitor to relieve the tedium then I start questioning why I'm bothering to play at all and that's the point I'm at with crafting right now.

I appreciate the recent changes have got people crafting who never enjoyed it in the past, but I do wonder how many will stick with it long-term. It's much easier now but essentially, it's pretty much the same. If you found crafting tedious before, I think you're still going to find it tedious, once the excitement of levelling and getting to endgame wears off.
The discussions on this board that Liam mentioned were all part of the fun. Now endgame crafting has been made so easy, there really isn't anything to discuss; people rarely ask for help in-game, either. So, while there might be a lot more people crafting since 5.2 it actually feels less social.

Crafting is niche in most games, and FFXIV used to offer a more in-depth experience than any other. I do understand the desire to broaden its appeal but I feel they've gone so far with the simplification that they're in danger of losing that depth and alienating those of us who enjoyed crafting as it was.

Crafting was too overwhelming and frightening for newer players back in ARR and HW, I can understand that. However, for those people who preferred a challenge (in this case, It should be master recipes) they are denied that challenge and cannot ever get that back. This happened once SB arrived/4.0. Rotations could much more easily be fitted into macros than ever before, as all it consisted of mostly, were Prudent Touches. Guaranteed touches that have no consequence to the craft.

And again, this would be fine for regular crafting, but master recipes shouldn’t have to go through this. When you nuke an entire system’s difficulty, (can we please not go into the RNG =/= difficultly thing for just this once and just bear with me...) you effectively get rid of what made it so unique in the first place. Yes, I know high end crafters could set prices high on the market. Yes, I know you wanted to be apart of it. Yes, it was time consuming. Yes, it was unfair. But most games have an RNG system set in place to keep items/content very rare and flashy. That’s the only way it can work. If you remove RNG and make everything guaranteed to work with no thought, the content and items set in place become very meaningless and not as fun to work towards.

Not everyone likes not having a special endgame goal. Most people enjoy challenges and the rewards that come along with it. Final Fantasy XIV once had a unique crafting system, but the developers had to remove what made it so unique, in order to reel in more subscribers. It’s really sad they chose that route, but so be it. I assume the “Casual and Hardcore” thread influenced them to make hard Ishgard recipes in 5.2, but nothing will make them bring crafting to the way it once was, or similar to it. It’ll always be a copy/paste macro thing, It’ll always be far too easy, and it’ll always be minimal in terms of reward. FFXIV currently rules this mmo generation, but once the next mmo generation begins in the next few years, I guarantee something else will be on top. And whatever that is, I’m sure it’s crafting system will not be tailored towards minimalistic effort like how this game is.

This game’s crafting community consists of people arguing over RNG =/= Difficultly, and casual players that often request for QoL updates that really affect its overall difficulty. It’s just bad compared to how it used to be. Fighting, arguing, laziness, it’s crazy and really sad.

Sorry for being long winded.

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Originally Posted by Nandrolone

Crafting was too overwhelming and frightening for newer players back in ARR and HW, I can understand that. However, for those people who preferred a challenge (in this case, It should be master recipes) they are denied that challenge and cannot ever get that back. This happened once SB arrived/4.0. Rotations could much more easily be fitted into macros than ever before, as all it consisted of mostly, were Prudent Touches. Guaranteed touches that have no consequence to the craft.

And again, this would be fine for regular crafting, but master recipes shouldn’t have to go through this. When you nuke an entire system’s difficulty, (can we please not go into the RNG =/= difficultly thing for just this once and just bear with me...) you effectively get rid of what made it so unique in the first place. Yes, I know high end crafters could set prices high on the market. Yes, I know you wanted to be apart of it. Yes, it was time consuming. Yes, it was unfair. But most games have an RNG system set in place to keep items/content very rare and flashy. That’s the only way it can work. If you remove RNG and make everything guaranteed to work with no thought, the content and items set in place become very meaningless and not as fun to work towards.

Not everyone likes not having a special endgame goal. Most people enjoy challenges and the rewards that come along with it. Final Fantasy XIV once had a unique crafting system, but the developers had to remove what made it so unique, in order to reel in more subscribers. It’s really sad they chose that route, but so be it. I assume the “Casual and Hardcore” thread influenced them to make hard Ishgard recipes in 5.2, but nothing will make them bring crafting to the way it once was, or similar to it. It’ll always be a copy/paste macro thing, It’ll always be far too easy, and it’ll always be minimal in terms of reward. FFXIV currently rules this mmo generation, but once the next mmo generation begins in the next few years, I guarantee something else will be on top. And whatever that is, I’m sure it’s crafting system will not be tailored towards minimalistic effort like how this game is.

This game’s crafting community consists of people arguing over RNG =/= Difficultly, and casual players that often request for QoL updates that really affect its overall difficulty. It’s just bad compared to how it used to be. Fighting, arguing, laziness, it’s crazy and really sad.

Sorry for being long winded.

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Most games dont spit in your face and crap all over your efforts either like the old crafting system. Excalibur II in FF9 is difficult to get and there is no rng involved with getting it. Its you and your knowledge of the game vs a 12 hr time limit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8h5b_vF_VA time index 5:47-9:07

Watch it through that time index and you will see why RNG is despised in crafting. Rng has its place but when it comes to crafting it should not be what determines if you are successful or not. Crafting already requires a good deal of time and effort making that effort feel worthless with stupid amounts of rng is not fun.

@NanaWiloh

I’m not saying I like RNG. In fact, we can all agree it gets us really annoyed and angry often. However, just the very fact that the developer team of FFXIV doesn’t even bother to try and make master recipes or even ishgard 5.2 recipes more skill based, just goes to show you the future of the game.

As for effort, no, it really does not require that much effort. I can get a brand new account right now. (Yes, I’ve done this) Give me 20 million gil and give me 1.5 weeks - 2 weeks, I’ll get all crafters to 80 in no time. Back then, 2 weeks was not enough time for that, also, the exp gain wasn’t so over powered as it is now. You really can’t argue that the time and effort spent is much less compared to how it used to be. Haha, “argue”. Not to mention buying Gil is much easier now.

That brings me to my previous point. All this game’s crafter community does nowadays is just argue about RNG, difficulty, time/effort, and whether or not things should be hardcore or not. It’s honestly really sad it’s gotten to this point. Never ending conversations over the same thing with no resolution. Fighting, arguing, silly hardcore/casual roast sessions, and “I need a macro” threads.

That is why I hope the next generation’s MMO is something that is not made by square Enix. And if it is, I would hope it is not anything directed by Yoshida for these very reasons. Preferably by people that have similar mindsets as the people who made FFXI.

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Originally Posted by Nandrolone

@NanaWiloh

I’m not saying I like RNG. In fact, we can all agree it gets us really annoyed and angry often. However, just the very fact that the developer team of FFXIV doesn’t even bother to try and make master recipes or even ishgard 5.2 recipes more skill based, just goes to show you the future of the game.

As for effort, no, it really does not require that much effort. I can get a brand new account right now. (Yes, I’ve done this) Give me 20 million gil and give me 1.5 weeks - 2 weeks, I’ll get all crafters to 80 in no time. Back then, 2 weeks was not enough time for that, also, the exp gain wasn’t so over powered as it is now. You really can’t argue that the time and effort spent is much less compared to how it used to be. Haha, “argue”. Not to mention buying Gil is much easier now.

That brings me to my previous point. All this game’s crafter community does nowadays is just argue about RNG, difficulty, time/effort, and whether or not things should be hardcore or not. It’s honestly really sad it’s gotten to this point. Never ending conversations over the same thing with no resolution. Fighting, arguing, silly hardcore/casual roast sessions, and “I need a macro” threads.

That is why I hope the next generation’s MMO is something that is not made by square Enix. And if it is, I would hope it is not anything directed by Yoshida for these very reasons. Preferably by people that have similar mindsets as the people who made FFXI.

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Do it without the 20 million no having people farm for you or offer help. No quick and easy road use only what you earn yourself you want the old days then do it like the old days. When I leveled up crafting I farmed my mats as often as I could rarely if ever asked for help rarely spent gil, too this day I have put less then 4 million into leveling crafting. So when I put forth time and effort to get the mats for high end gear I want to be rewarded not slapped across by the game and told try again.

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Originally Posted by Nandrolone

And again, this would be fine for regular crafting, but master recipes shouldn’t have to go through this. When you nuke an entire system’s difficulty, (can we please not go into the RNG =/= difficultly thing for just this once and just bear with me...) you effectively get rid of what made it so unique in the first place. Yes, I know high end crafters could set prices high on the market. Yes, I know you wanted to be apart of it. Yes, it was time consuming. Yes, it was unfair. But most games have an RNG system set in place to keep items/content very rare and flashy. That’s the only way it can work. If you remove RNG and make everything guaranteed to work with no thought, the content and items set in place become very meaningless and not as fun to work towards.

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I'd like to note that there are multiple ways RNG can be used. The approach where you effectively have to flip a coin several times and get heads every time is unfair and tedious as you just have to repeat until you succeed. I much prefer an approach where you have to correctly react to some random events in order to succeed.

The crafting condition mechanic is a good start. They appear in certain patterns and there are several actions which can only be used in good or excellent condition, so to make the most use of them you have to plan your actions accordingly. Unfortunately this too was simplified by removing some buffs and heavily nerfing others. Also good conditions for master recipes are very rare, to the point that in Stormblood endgame crafts that could take 50+ steps it was common to only see good two or three times. Consequently whistle was not worth using, even though it was otherwise an interesting mechanic that expanded the strategic possibilities.

Make crafting use a complex set of actions, make it require correct decisions at correct times, but don't make it rely on RNG that can't be mitigated with good planning.

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Originally Posted by Nandrolone

But most games have an RNG system set in place to keep items/content very rare and flashy. That’s the only way it can work. If you remove RNG and make everything guaranteed to work with no thought, the content and items set in place become very meaningless and not as fun to work towards.

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This is an illusion brought about by an industry standard.

No, RNG is *not* the only way to "keep something flashy".

There are other ways, such as requiring a lot of time and effort (grind), or requiring something exceedingly difficult (passing an Ultimate boss fight, for example). Neither of these things require RNG.

So their answer to crafting difficulty to just add more conditions past poor/good/excellent on the "expert" recipes which I assume are going to influence control/quality gains in ways that are not as straight-forward as the previous conditions.

That is liable to break macros depending on how often they trigger, but lamentably isn't going to faze bots when they can already react to condition changes.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

So their answer to crafting difficulty to just add more conditions past poor/good/excellent on the "expert" recipes which I assume are going to influence control/quality gains in ways that are not as straight-forward as the previous conditions.

That is liable to break macros depending on how often they trigger, but lamentably isn't going to faze bots when they can already react to condition changes.

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Almost nothing is going to break well-coded bots. Bots are just something you have to accept, sadly. It's getting harder and harder to detect them.

I'd prefer if we didn't break the game by trying to kill bots; much like FFXI did for the longest time, they made the game less and less fun because of "THINK OF THE BOTS WE HAVE TO KILL THE BOTS!".

Might I remind you of the plethora of changes made to Fishing in FFXI that killed the fun of that, because of the bots? Where you had to move every few minutes or where you could only fish in an area for so long, and/or you could only fish so many times a day until your character got tired, or how about when they included that painful minigame that was hell on your hands?

If bots are something we can't do anything about, then they shouldn't be adding competitive, limited content that bots can completely dominate and push everyone else out of. Because that is exactly what is going to happen, on every server, on every data center come 5.2.

On the other hand the rewards are not tradeable, so there probably isn't a whole lot of incentive for botters to obtain them. Or are you suggesting they'd enact some sort of ransom scheme where the bots will dominate the leaderboard unless you pay their owners to make them go away?

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Originally Posted by Espritduo

If bots are something we can't do anything about, then they shouldn't be adding competitive, limited content that bots can completely dominate and push everyone else out of. Because that is exactly what is going to happen, on every server, on every data center come 5.2.

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It's not that they can't do ANYTHING about bots. It's just that gameplay changes won't do anything about them.

Anything a human can do, a bot can do.

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Originally Posted by Callinon

It's not that they can't do ANYTHING about bots. It's just that gameplay changes won't do anything about them.

Anything a human can do, a bot can do.

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Yep, pretty much this.

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Originally Posted by tdb

Make crafting use a complex set of actions, make it require correct decisions at correct times, but don't make it rely on RNG that can't be mitigated with good planning.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

That is liable to break macros depending on how often they trigger, but lamentably isn't going to faze bots when they can already react to condition changes.

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This is kinda what I see, from an outsider standpoint, in this whole argument. Crafters want difficulty. But they also want macros. If you're going to macro something, aren't you already removing what little difficulty there is? And by doing so, are you not demonstrating that you indeed want less difficulty?

Make crafting as difficult as you want, the meta will continue to be "What's the rotation macro so I don't have to put so much effort into this?"

I've only just started poking into the new changes, and only know the 65-70 experience. I'd agree that Prudent Touch certainly makes everything simple. Maybe it's not absolutely necessary. Maybe you could make it artificially difficult if you opted for a different rotation. It may be some time and many changes yet before they can get some sort of Condition system in place that can really give some scaling difficulty or something.

But. More than the RNG/difficulty argument maybe, what might need considering is how difficulty can successfully be implemented alongside macros. I think maybe it can be done, if it's made enough to require some level of reaction. But, at the same time, it'll still be a system that players want to make easier and simpler and just ignore those reaction points and barrel through anyway.

Am I wrong here, tho? Doesn't the idea of making macros defeat difficulty to begin with?

The method you use to input a crafting rotation does not change the recipes difficulty. How many times does this have to be explained!!!!

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Originally Posted by Maeka

Almost nothing is going to break well-coded bots. Bots are just something you have to accept, sadly. It's getting harder and harder to detect them.

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They're only difficult to detect through whatever methods SE uses, because their repetitive movement patterns and abnormal amounts of activity would be readily exposing them to any half-way competent enforcement team.

The rankings are only going to make this even more egregious once people with ridiculous point disparities start dominating the leaderboards. You can already see this in the Lodestone FC rankings from nonsense like tiny FCs with single digit member counts maintaining top spots over massive FCs with hundreds of members via 24/7 DoL/H spam (And yes, I did actually check to verify that the suspect FCs on my DC were involved in foul play because boredom).

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Originally Posted by tdb

On the other hand the rewards are not tradeable, so there probably isn't a whole lot of incentive for botters to obtain them. Or are you suggesting they'd enact some sort of ransom scheme where the bots will dominate the leaderboard unless you pay their owners to make them go away?

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From what I've heard, they aren't going to allow the same people to keep monopolizing the top spot for the special title rewards after they win it once, but there's still liable to be a waiting queue before legitimate players can actually get said title depending on whether or not only the top player has access to it or if it's something broader like top 10 or some such. I honestly think it would be better to just let everyone who contributes *insert ridiculous number of collectibles* within a 10 day "season" have access to the best rewards and to leave the leaderboards strictly as a bragging rights thing, especially if it's going to be publicized on the Lodestone.

There's also a somewhat common misconception that all bots are related to RMT/gil farming when there's a non-negligible amount of actual players who rely almost entirely on bots to do their DoL/H work and just leave them running overnight on a regular basis.

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Originally Posted by Callinon

It's not that they can't do ANYTHING about bots. It's just that gameplay changes won't do anything about them.

Anything a human can do, a bot can do.

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One of few things they seem incapable of doing is distinguishing tugs because every FSH bot I've seen just reels in literally everything they hook instead of gauging tug time/strength to increase the odds of hooking something desirable.

That said, I think I'm going to shoot for the FSH rankings first if anything as the amount of time/GP they waste hooking/mooching useless fish might actually offset their activity advantage enough to make competing with them feasible.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

One of few things they seem incapable of doing is distinguishing tugs because every FSH bot I've seen just reels in literally everything they hook instead of gauging tug time/strength to increase the odds of hooking something desirable.

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What would be the benefit of not reeling it in? I mean, won't you lose your bait anyway and have to cast again if you don't respond to the tug? I guess you might save a few seconds of catching animation.

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Originally Posted by tdb

What would be the benefit of not reeling it in? I mean, won't you lose your bait anyway and have to cast again if you don't respond to the tug? I guess you might save a few seconds of catching animation.

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The benefit is not wasting GP on hookset abilities on the wrong catch. If you're just doing cast/hook/cast/hook/cast/hook then yeah, it doesn't matter.. go nuts. But if you're going for something specific, you're using patience and you're using hooksets and that costs GP.

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Originally Posted by Callinon

The benefit is not wasting GP on hookset abilities on the wrong catch. If you're just doing cast/hook/cast/hook/cast/hook then yeah, it doesn't matter.. go nuts. But if you're going for something specific, you're using patience and you're using hooksets and that costs GP.

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Right, yes, those. But if a fishing bot is using patience, wouldn't it be doubly bad to not recognize the tug since the wrong hookset just wastes GP without providing any benefit? I've always used patience just for the HQ boost, but I guess the "increases the likelihood of catching larger fish" on patience II counts for something. I don't even remember when I last needed to use mooching to catch something outside of quests, so catching HQ fishes hasn't been hugely important to me.

They can use the correct hookset but they're not selective about what they use it on even if they're after a single specific fish that's huge/medium/small tug only so they waste both time and GP as a consequence.

Predators are probably the best example of how laughably inefficient they are because said fish is both medium tug only and bites quickly so you can know after just a few seconds whether or not you might have one hooked.