Ishgard Restoration: High Difficult Recipe Rewards

@Liam

I would also like to point out, that FFXIV got confirmed to be on Xbox....(probably sometime next year, and likely next gen console). Which means, thousands and thousands of more players getting into markets while in the process, over inflating things even further than they need to be. Final Fantasy XIV will officially become a casual-accessible hell hole. I say that because these “difficult” recipes only apply to Ishgard restoration. Personally, I’m glad I get some hard recipes but, I would say majority of other hardcore players just aren’t satisfied enough with that. It would have to be endgame recipes, not Ishgard.

Or, Ishgard leaderboard rewards would have to be something hardcore players would die for.

Yoshida is apparently helping direct a brand new Square Enix game. Thing is, is it a new mmo? A new single player game? Or a new IP? Personally, I hope it’s a new mmo, because Final Fantasy XIV just seems to be a game for the casual player. Maybe the next mmo will be aimed more towards players that enjoy grinding. Who knows, it’s actually really sad when you think about where we are.

It’s gotten to a point where some hardcore players have to literally beg for hard content on the forums...that’s not a good sign, lol.

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Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

It's a difficult one to answer because the damage might already be done. We're at a stage where thousands of players have been lured in with massive exp and easy high-end items and if you suddenly took it away next patch we'd have an uproar. Already you see a thread just above complaining about how time consuming it is to obtain just one leather or one glue for an item that gives an insane 4m exp and has scrips attached.
What Yoshi doesn't seem to realize is crafting just isn't for everyone. It's not because it was too tedious or too complex, it's just that different people like different things and like any other content in the game some love it and some will pass. No matter how much he simplifies it, we'll never reach a stage where everyone loves crafting itself. Right now they just love the exp or easy items that are the end result. Crafting is in the easiest state ever, 15 step master craft rotations, 1-80 leveling in a few days, raining materia, accessible materials and the non-crafters are still begging for macros and complaining that it doesn't make sense.

Ishgard has changed the game in that everything from leve's, beast tribes, rowena's, decent gear and so on are obsolete now from 20-80.

Ideally if it was me, I'd return to pre-nerf Ala-Mhigan difficulty, maybe slightly harder. It was in a nice spot for being accessible yet rewarded a little effort. I'd ask for Master Craft materials that took a little time to obtain. I'd flesh out the toolkit some more, give us room to be flexible instead of rotations that are variations of the same 6-8 abilities. I'd add a small number of extremely difficult master craft recipes. I'd leave leveling mostly as it is, but tone down the exp buff a little and definitely hit Ishgard exp hard. I'd probably hit that gathering % buff that's made DoL gear and melds almost irrelevant. I'd redo over-melding, either make materia far more rare or add a system to convert up to 20 materia into a guaranteed slot. Probably plenty more but it's not as easy to back-seat Dev and there's a lot to think over.
Right away you'll see a lot of these changes sound like nerfs, which would naturally draw a lot of hate from players addicted to a fast food diet of bargain Facet gear and massive exp. The majority will reject it even if it was better for the long-term health of crafting.

Something casual players also haven't realized is how a lot of changes to make the game casual friendly have actually killed their casual markets for 1-80 items. Craft/DoH gear needs upgrading far less often now, crashing demand. Quests and some leves reward battle gear, very little demand for that. Leve items will be in less demand. Retainers throw out most 1-70 furniture. Most 1-70 minions are cheap rewards from things like HoH or PotD. Materials are miles easier to obtain. And of course there are tens of thousands of new crafters flooding the remaining markets. So there's very little for them to sell for decent gil compared even to early SB.



Agreed.

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Casual market is fine cause unlike the hardcore market nobody is in a hurry to make Millions of gil. Biggest mistake of hardcore crafters thinking everyone is looking for FAST MONEY. I know a hardcore crafter who use to spend his time haunting the mb and crafting, he stopped doing it late SB cause the market started to plummet. He has completely stopped now as of Shadwobringers cause there is no big gil to be made anywhere, Big gil as in 10's of millions. My co-lead and some friends are all casual crafters and have manage to make millions just playing the casual market board.

Your idea of decent gil is not everyone's idea of it. 350k maybe pocket change to one player but its a fortune to another especially if they are making it steadily. Hardcore market is mostly all about gear which is why it crumbles like dry bread it has nothing else to fall back on. Casual market is gear,pets,minion,mounts,furniture, glams,materia,food,etc all the things Hardcore crafters take for granted. They also dont all crash at the same time there is always one or more making good gil.

Hello all fellow crafters and crafteresses :)

I never have posted in ff, but I consider myself a crafter at day and healer at night for the last 25 in any number of mmorps and have played just about all games which had the more involved crafting experience over this time. Its my hobby.

I kind of got carried away as a short text evolved into a more massive wall of text than envisioned.

Introduction
I consider myself - when I had the time and leisure - to belong to the hardcore - maybe better dubbed 'focused' - faction of crafters / gatherers out there. I love complex and more involved approaches which require real commitment, whether it is complexity or time based.

My credentials as a crafter - and this is not meant as being special because at the end I'm just talking about pixels which have no meaning in the real world and could also be considered as a complete waste of time by naysayers - go from uo bsm stratics guide writer, eq 1250's club, 3 of 8 castles on vanguard built together with a friend on a server, just to name a few. All that only underlines:
- I'm probably slightly crazy and haven't realized it yet
- I spent way too much time gaming during various stages of my life
- I just enjoy the relaxation of it more than bingeing or watching movie 727

I do however enjoy hanging out with friends and family more than gaming and am more tied up than 10 years ago and thus would probably be more in the semi-core tier of crafters in the meantime.

In FF14 i started in 1.0 and was among the first 50 botanists and 40+ weavers and then took a hiatus until shortly before Heavensward when they had announced they would be cancelling and rebuilding the game. I spent 90% of my time either gathering or crafting and it was a definately among the tougher challenges over all the years. Whole nights spent for half a level for months.

I do not belong to the rich players with barely 20 mio in my name over all the last 5 years, and tbh. I don't plan on becoming rich or the like. Money is just a bonus and has been there in the past, but its not as if its needed if one doesn't find the more expensive things important (glams, special gear, etc.).
I just want to enjoy my hobby (=crafting) - the more complex the better.

Feedback
Now I'm aware that there were lots of issues in the past in regards to accessibility and this kind of 'crazy' commitment is not the expectation and approach in the last 10 years of the vast majority of people out there. I also don't have the time anymore to commit so much time either, however I would go out and say 'tough luck'.
If I don't have the time, well i wouldn't have the chance to be competitive, but so be it, thats to be expected then.

One of the reasons I liked pre 4.0 and probably even something between 1.0 and 3.0 more was that to get the better tools took time and commitment and it gave me an unnatural sense of satisfaction when it was achieved.

There is no game out there I can recall where 'hard' crafting was not directly tied to one of following two factors:
1. Time investment - by far the most relevant
2. Extreme interdepency - no one can do everything themselves but must rely on other friends and players building networks of crafting good exchanges.
The first usually survived a fair bit, the 2nd was usually gone after some time due to the majority clamoring for change (hello EQ2, i mean you).

I'm extremely happy about the removal of the bloat and I'm genuinely happy that the system has become much for accessible for the vast majority of players. Simplification is good, mindlessly dumbing it down is not.

I do however agree with Liam and others and would even go further and say crafting is completely out of line with any other aspect of the game as of right now in regards to time / effort.

Nothing comes close in terms of levelling and if I put it even more extremely they almost could have given us all a daily button click which say 'Press to receive 5 levels in any crafting class of your choice' button, thats how easy I found it.
Just for proving the simplicity tomyself i created an alt, provided him some goods and pre-fashioned normal gear for every 10 levels (my cost 0 resp. 200k if MB bought) and after 1 hour was at 20, after 3 hours I hit 40 and after 5 I was at 53.
One intensive weekend and presto you have 1 gatherer and crafter at 80.

There is no challenge at all. With base non-facet gear but hq 80 gear 'non-macroed' and just barely capable of making the facet pre-combines (2k, 1980, no overmelds, just fixed slots with 6's), i can hit 35k quality in 92-95% of the times with about 75-80% of the time.
It has as Liam put it, invalidated everything else in regards to crafting levelling, the sole exception being * supply items once per day which remain competitive. Have to love those 2*8.3mio turnins. :)

With 70 crafts I was able to get 10 combines done in 30 minutes = 38 - 43 mio exp. Thats 1.5 levels in 30 minutes, disregarding any other avenues. Doing it with 74 or 77 gear would slow everything down slightly as its still possible to get around 27 - 32k on average, lowering exp to around 30mio or 1 level per 30minutes.

With macros in crafting I probably could even shave off some minutes.

Adventuring can take anywhere from 1-2 hours to even get in that vicinity doing all the heavy xp duties like MSQ, Alliance raid and to a lesser extent Trial.

Conclusion - my wishes
I would like to play and have a reason to do nothing but crafting and/or gathering when I log on.

I would enjoy any number of goodies that are crafting related - as glams are just not my cup of tea. Things like glowing crafting gear, etc. with small bonus like increase reclaim chance by 5%, improve chance for HQ by 3%, reduce action time by 20%, etc.

Maybe I just have wishes which FF will never bring back, like from 1-3, because the world has evolved - to the better in most regards - and the majority of players just want more instant gratification than I have ever needed. For me its pure relaxation with some good music in the background.

In all cases they need to severely up the ante to keep the more 'focused' crafters interested long term, considering that the sweet spot for FF as of right now, will potentially start to dwindle in the coming years as the next generation will then come.

If i had the choice I'd make facet gear genuinely hard, as in 65 - 70k quality for end-combines and 55-60k for preliminary steps = not all HQ mats involved your chance to get hq facet gear = <5%.

As thats not going to happen right now, i do however hope the next round of changes will make it that without hq mats, manually crafting and potentially all HQ mats there is only a real small chance of getting a HQ result. No more Macro which jumps over excellent and good states but where executing the right choice will have benefits.

My 2cents and in hope that Square Enix takes up some of the ideas of this community.

I'm definately not trying to get into any argument and I'm aware my feelings in regards to crafting are shared by an extremely small and most likely usually silent minority.

Whether you agree or not your thoughts are more than welcome, but after getting my 'diatribe' off my chest I feel alot better and the bitter taste that has been building has dissipated. For me that's a relief *chuckles*, for you maybe less *grins*
The sky is definately not falling, regardless of what my text alleviates to.


Best Regards and thanks for the patience in getting through it.
Yours,
Ethelwind aka SlyFox

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Originally Posted by NanaWiloh

Casual market is gear,pets,minion,mounts,furniture, glams,materia,food,etc all the things Hardcore crafters take for granted. They also dont all crash at the same time there is always one or more making good gil.

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Gonna have to disagree with you on that. 1.0 - 3.5, gear was considered pretty hardcore to do consistently. Why? Because only the hardcore or serious crafters had the will power to sit through RNG’s bull crap. Casual players in general don’t have that drive to do that.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad Square Enix (supposedly) looked at my controversial casual and hardcore thread and decided to add harder recipes for Ishgard, but as Liam stated, the damage has already been done. Things just will not be the same anymore like they once used to.

However, they have the opportunity to turn Ishgard Restoration leaderboards into a hardcore only thing, kind of like savage raids. There’s just too many hardcore crafters that either quit FFXIV or just stopped crafting as a whole because of how laughably easy and accessible endgame recipes have become.

Solution: Make a new mmo. For example, FF14 is mostly geared towards casual players. Make FF16 mostly geared towards ALL demographics, not just casuals. Yoshida has been confirmed to be working on a new Square Enix title. We just don’t know if it’s an mmo, a single player, or a new IP. Gonna hope it’s a mmo...

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Originally Posted by CookiesNCreams

Gonna have to disagree with you on that. 1.0 - 3.5, gear was considered pretty hardcore to do consistently. Why? Because only the hardcore or serious crafters had the will power to sit through RNG’s bull crap. Casual players in general don’t have that drive to do that.

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...Eh?

I was crafting in Heavensward, and got crafters to make things for me in Heavensward.

There was no RNG in the macros they were using when they crafted for me, and there was no RNG in the crafts I was making, but I had to use the longer variants.

@EthelWind

Your opinion is shared amongst I would say, at least 95% of hardcore crafters. We just get so frustrated to the point where nothing we want is being brought back into the game. Nothing hardcore related, at all.

3.3 they introduced Universal crafting gear and nerfed job specific gear. That’s fine I guess.
4.0 They nerfed crafting entirely with Prudent Touch, making endgame crafting far too easy. Now you have hardcore players worried.
4.5 they add World Visit, which, adds more competition, good...but, the value of materials goes down even further. Hardcore players are very scared now.
5.0 They add Delicate Synthesis and Preparatory Touch. That’s basically the last straw.
5.1 You do not nerf Prudent Touch or Delicate Synthesis, and make every move 100% guaranteed. What’s next? An HQ button?

5.5 Will likely have Cross Data Center Visit. You’re basically nerfing your entire game.

2+ Years of no hardcore content, nerfs, neglect, and clear bias towards casual players. Why? All in an attempt to get them to play the game a little longer and add more people to the game. Cool. Now, let’s think long term. That strategy is great for reeling in new players, but for your existing players that have stayed with you thick and thin since 1.0 or 2.0 or even 3.0....you’re screwing them big time. Also, your new casual players will just quit their subs long term. They were never interested in crafting to begin with. If people wanted crafting to change back then, they were never interested in it or liked it from the start. Why are you helping these people.

For me personally, it is very heartbreaking to see some I love get destroyed every expansion, and even more so to see hardcore players not voice their opinions on the forums. They just assume it’s a useless effort to try because usually the only vocal ones are the casuals. And the vocal majority will slaughter the silent majority. That’s why I’m here, and that’s why I made that controversial thread.

I know it makes people salty when I say I speak for a lot of hardcore players when it comes to what needs to be done to crafting, but I mean, I kind of do. I’m basically a messenger just trying to get the word across to Square.

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Originally Posted by Kabooa

...Eh?

I was crafting in Heavensward, and got crafters to make things for me in Heavensward.

There was no RNG in the macros they were using when they crafted for me, and there was no RNG in the crafts I was making, but I had to use the longer variants.

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Should have been more clear. I mean consistently listing the gear on the market each and every hour and day. Also, there was RNG in HW crafting back then, though. o.o Unless you were using a makers mark rotation where you used tricks at the beginning to gain extra CP. Could you paste the rotation here? A RNG-free macro in Heavensward...hm....

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Originally Posted by CookiesNCreams

Should have been more clear. I mean consistently listing the gear on the market each and every hour and day. Also, there was RNG in HW crafting back then, though. o.o Unless you were using a makers mark rotation where you used tricks at the beginning to gain extra CP. Could you paste the rotation here? A RNG-free macro in Heavensward...hm....

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I don't know their macros.

I've personally kept none of mine, though I wasn't clear. I didn't macro craft high end gear as I didn't have the stats for it. However, I did have people craft things for me that I didn't feel like risking, and they definitely used a macro.

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Originally Posted by CookiesNCreams

5.1 You do not nerf Prudent Touch or Delicate Synthesis, and make every move 100% guaranteed. What’s next? An HQ button?

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*looks at Trained Eye and sweats silently*

@CookiesNCreams
Thanks for your kind and constructive feedback.
I agree with the long term subscriber vs short term subscriber view and your summation is quite spot on.

I'm on the same page on the majority of issues which committed crafters like you and others on these forums post - not all - but most.
I agree in its too easy, but don't agree with some of the suggestions which reduce accessibility for all types of players out there. I want it to be accessible for everyone, but committed crafts should have some advantage somewhere and thats just not there - at all - right now. I do not consider melding a real advantage, although one could viably argue against it.

I also like FF a lot and crafting was one of the highlights for a long time - compared to all the competitors out there. I'm just seeing it diluted more and more and 5.1 just kind of was a straw that broke the camels back for me to remain silent, especially after testing and seeing that its just overboard now.

I'm hopeful though that Yoshi will follow through as the backlash seemed much larger this time around than in the past.

I'm usually happy if there is at least some minor form of bonus / 'shiny' which separates players who do crafting out of practicality and change of pace and those that genuinely enjoy it and spend their majority of time on it I can live with it.

I also don't think I recall any game with the exception of EQ1 and UO in the last 25 years that was ever succesful long-term catering to crafting player types like us. All more or less bombed, but some survived ok-ish after catering to less committed players - hence the trend we've been seeing the last 10+ years.

Good night for the day :)

Some ideas i would love
The following are just some ideas, are partially contradictory, probably have popped up many times and so might not be feasible or perfect.

1. Make normal gear the norm and balance around it. Not that simple with 1000's of items in the aftermath though.

2. Give more negative and positive effects which can be counteracted.
- Harder to macro <--> less accessibility = definately a dilemma

3. Make HQ the exception and harder to make with the best crafting equipment (more mats, only HQ mats, etc.) with a chance for success and failure always
- = more expensive & less affordable and potential for frustration, but sweet if successful
- = net money gain similar as lower demand but also lower supply.
--> Income of crafters should not / cannot outstrip other avenues of income massively. There has to be a balance here.

4. Crafters name only on item if you activate 'increase difficulty' and only on HQ items --> we might deny it, but crafting with 'brand recognition' factor is sexy to many crafters

5. Give us back epic crafting tool quests a with small bonuses (+3% hq, + 1% crafting, +10% reclaim) --> personally I'd favor that over the 'for me' mind-numbing overmelding, i'd rather craft tons of items (ala a whole house) than hit some rocks at specific times to gather some random currency to turn into xyz.

6. Give crafters an alternate 'xp' crafting advancement path they can invest in skills, e.g every x million crafting exp (2, 5, 10) you can raise a craft stat by 1 (maybe cp needs more xp).
- Reset it every major release and only carry over small amount (e.g. 5%)
- It would also completely fit in the FF mold.
- I personally think, someone who crafts 1000 items, should have it slightly easier, than someone who only crafts 100 items


7. Give us more grades of items or allocate % to HQ. (both gatherers and crafters)
--> Very tricky and from a development perspective not sure how this could be implemented without creating issues in data/inventory storage.
- I would completely love the idea of gathering a 87% wood combining it with a 53% ingot and getting lucky and creating a 65% HQ item.
- It would allow HQ to become open end, ie. item gets created at 45k quality (=50% hq), but you can push as far as is possible and if you're lucky your 100k quality that you could have gotten, becomes a 75% hq item. If you get the 6 exceptionals, yay bingo you got 97% and have had you're lucky day for the year.
- This idea is mainly stolen from SWG, one of the best crafting experiences there was until NGE.

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Originally Posted by MrThinker

*looks at Trained Eye and sweats silently*

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https://en.meming.world/images/en/th...key_Puppet.jpg

*Sweats intensely*

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Originally Posted by CookiesNCreams

Gonna have to disagree with you on that. 1.0 - 3.5, gear was considered pretty hardcore to do consistently. Why? Because only the hardcore or serious crafters had the will power to sit through RNG’s bull crap. Casual players in general don’t have that drive to do that.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad Square Enix (supposedly) looked at my controversial casual and hardcore thread and decided to add harder recipes for Ishgard, but as Liam stated, the damage has already been done. Things just will not be the same anymore like they once used to.

However, they have the opportunity to turn Ishgard Restoration leaderboards into a hardcore only thing, kind of like savage raids. There’s just too many hardcore crafters that either quit FFXIV or just stopped crafting as a whole because of how laughably easy and accessible endgame recipes have become.

Solution: Make a new mmo. For example, FF14 is mostly geared towards casual players. Make FF16 mostly geared towards ALL demographics, not just casuals. Yoshida has been confirmed to be working on a new Square Enix title. We just don’t know if it’s an mmo, a single player, or a new IP. Gonna hope it’s a mmo...

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Was not touching on difficulty with my post. Touched on that enough which is why I have mostly been reading.

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Originally Posted by NanaWiloh

Casual market is fine cause unlike the hardcore market nobody is in a hurry to make Millions of gil. Biggest mistake of hardcore crafters thinking everyone is looking for FAST MONEY. I know a hardcore crafter who use to spend his time haunting the mb and crafting, he stopped doing it late SB cause the market started to plummet. He has completely stopped now as of Shadwobringers cause there is no big gil to be made anywhere, Big gil as in 10's of millions. My co-lead and some friends are all casual crafters and have manage to make millions just playing the casual market board.

Your idea of decent gil is not everyone's idea of it. 350k maybe pocket change to one player but its a fortune to another especially if they are making it steadily. Hardcore market is mostly all about gear which is why it crumbles like dry bread it has nothing else to fall back on. Casual market is gear,pets,minion,mounts,furniture, glams,materia,food,etc all the things Hardcore crafters take for granted. They also dont all crash at the same time there is always one or more making good gil.

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I made millions crafting HQ espresso in bulk. Much more profitable than making the harder gear that became obsolete or harder food that sold for a high price, but nowhere near as quickly and took much longer to gather for. One round of 200 espressos (I'd sell in 10 packs) would net me 600k-1 million in a day. Over a week, it starts to add up.

You people asking for difficulty forget one thing.

Everything is easy once you know how. Complex perhaps, like Rath's Rotation, but not difficult.

Unfortunately, even if crafting does get a challenging leaderboard system, it's changed the entire concept of ff14 crafting forever.

The challenge and time investment in crafting used to be leveling, the Master recipes, gearing, obtaining materia, obtaining difficult materials, theory-crafting rotations and the resulting high-end DoW gear, consumables, primal items and other desirable end-game items you could make. With 5.11, all of that has been made irrelevant and it's all entirely focused on getting a high score on a leader-board by spamming collectibles, which by nature can only fit a top 100 players or whatever we get and the rest are out of luck. Savage raids are actual content, but a leaderboard is a tiny sub-content. The old craft system we knew back in ARR, HW and early SB, which for many of us was the reason we moved to ff14, is basically over.

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Originally Posted by NanaWiloh

Your idea of decent gil is not everyone's idea of it. 350k maybe pocket change to one player but its a fortune to another especially if they are making it steadily. Hardcore market is mostly all about gear which is why it crumbles like dry bread it has nothing else to fall back on. Casual market is gear,pets,minion,mounts,furniture, glams,materia,food,etc all the things Hardcore crafters take for granted. They also dont all crash at the same time there is always one or more making good gil.

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The "hardcore" market was fairly steady and rarely crashed entirely. Even now Facet gear sells consistently. However there is no such thing as a hardcore crafter market anymore.

In the past both markets were decent. In Stormblood during 4.1 when the Ala Mhigan set was released I could sell the previous white lv80 Gazelle and Twinsilk pieces for 150-350k. Right now, Dwarven Cotton pieces are about 40-90k. So while the casual player can make gil, they make far less than they used to be able to in the past. They can never work towards being able to make the big gil sellers either because those don't exist. They just don't realize it.

It's not really about gil either. The allure to crafting used to be that it felt satisfying to be self-sufficient and craft all manner of desirable items if you put the work in. Now levels and gear are handed to you, you just become a gil robot and endlessly churn out cheap rubbish on macro that everyone else has. That's all you do now.

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Originally Posted by HyoMinPark

With regards to this, you may be speaking for people you know—but I’m speaking for people I know as well. If a glamour looks cool (and not necessarily lewd), they will pursue it. The insinuation that it has to be lewd doesn’t apply to everyone.

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Indeed. I don't mind if some of the glamour rewards are lewd, but all of them being lewd would be a massive turn off for me. I want something reasonably modest (some skin is okay, but chest and legs in particular need to be covered) and cool-looking, but without too many frills or attachments. I'm also conscious of how the gear looks in various poses, such as sitting or kneeling over a crafting workbench. For instance the Ala Mhigan doublet of crafting would be pretty cool if not for weird hanging part on the side.

I hope SE can manage to find a way to reward those crafters with high skill but only a limited amount of time to play, as opposed to those who have the time and tenacity to repeat the same moderately difficult recipe 12 hours a day. In terms of a leaderboard, this would mean rewarding those who can craft a few very high quality items instead of spamming lots of items for a high total collectability. I hope it won't revolve entirely around being lucky with the RNG either.

All those crafters took everything to 80 and never were seen again. Meanwhile Im still trucking slowly along because I still need to gear my crafters/gatherers along the way.

I have been levelling an alt recently and while Ishgard has made levelling unbelievably fast compared to how it used to be, I can't say it's been fun. I got through most of it by reading a book (whole novel read, yay!) or doing something else on the PC while hitting my one button macro on the PS4. Then one day last week I found myself asking,
'Why am I doing this?'
And I didn't have an answer beyond still having a little glam to get for my guy and levelling him up so I'd be ready if there was something fun to do later. That 'if' bothers me. I'm not someone who takes breaks normally and crafting and gathering have been the content I do when I'm out of story, beast tribes etc. for me, crafting just isn't as much fun as it used to be. The fast levelling meant I out-levelled both the Moogles and the Namazu way before I got to max rep. It's only a little thing but even that is giving me less incentive to play.

I admit, I don't have a lot of patience with content I find boring. 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. If the leaderboard just needs quantity, then that's just going to be more macros and another book to read, assuming I can be bothered. To be honest, I doubt I'd stick the grind.

I appreciate the recent changes have got people crafting who never enjoyed it in the past, but I do wonder how many of them are going to stick with it long-term. It's much easier now but essentially, it's pretty much the same. Was the difficulty of endgame crafting really what was putting people off? For me it was a big incentive to keep going.
Crafting is niche in most games, and FFXIV used to offer a more in-depth experience than any other. I understand the desire to broaden its appeal, but I feel they've gone so far with the simplification that they're in danger of alienating those of us who enjoyed crafting as it was.

Here's hoping for some decent rewards and some interesting challenges from 5.2


One Reward I'd like to see: Recipes for shiny off-hand gathering tools to match the 'I found that' achievements

I wouldn't mind future Ishgard phases offering up gear with all 5 materia slots open. And not just the chest pieces, but entire sets. I would work my tail to the bone to get my hands on gear that doesn't have an overmeld failure rate!