o.O Overkill on the crafting Dumb down?

I'm mostly waiting until Yoshi gives us more information next week before I begin really arguing again.

But...

If you haven't been very interested in crafting before these changes, you more than likely still won't be interested in crafting after.

If you tried to craft before but were daunted by the bizarre rank discrepancy in crafting, prepare to be daunted by the boring process instead.

If you think the changes to crafting will somehow mean the wards will fill with lower ranked gear, prepare to be disappointed, because crafters are still going to craft the items that either get them skill, get them money or get them both. And their retainer bazaar slots will only be used for the ones that get them money.

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Originally Posted by Rhix

Crafting NEEDS to be simplified so it's accessible to everyone. The current system is retarded, and you know it is. Stop defending it because 10 out of 1000 people like it. That's not how a successful game works, and thank god SE isn't listening to people like you.

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With all due respect...

If the battle system of any game gets nerfed, there are complaints. On this game, crafting is a full fledged system in it's own right, with it's own classes and people who dedicate themselves solely to crafting. If it gets oversimplified like pretty much any other mmo, yes, of course there will be people unhappy about it. Obviously, there are more than 10 out of 1,000 people who like this system (and obviously, those who don't, of course), or there wouldn't be 68 pages and so much interest in this thread and topic.

For myself, the statement Yoshi-P made catches my interest, and I'm happy to see what he has to say about it. But previous to that, the only information we had was what boils down to a massive nerf. There are too many people who like crafting to only give that small information, and not explain what changes will take place to keep crafting a viable and interesting part of the game. Especially when, for many crafters out there, the only issue they are having is with the mini-game itself, and not the crafting process.

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Originally Posted by Blue79

Completely agree, for people who love crafting this is overkill!
They could've solved the problem by simply giving us bags and or a bank/mog house storage. It's not a problem having parts in the game so long as they don't take up 80% of your inventory (inc retainers). I don't even mind a dozen dyes and enamels so long as i can toss them all in a bag and only use up 1 space... but of course, SE can always be counted on to look at a simple solution and ignore it

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A perfect inv/retainer inv solution would be divided into several category tabs:
80-100 Weapon slots, 80-100 Armours/Clothes slots, 80-100 Accessories slots (or merge with Armour category), 80-100 Ammo/Throwing slots (or have them merged with Weapons category),80-100 Consumable slots and 80-100 Material/Misc Slots. Faster to find anything and make more sense for people who like to play multi-class anywhere anytime, which is the game main sales point yes?

My opinion is that having a lot of streamlining helps with inventory. Since we're not likely to get an in-game mailing system and SE isn't going to expand inventory any more than it already has (unless they are guaranteed a fair number of subscription so that upgrading expensive server components makes it worthwhile) then this change is not just addressing complexity (too much or too little) in the crafting system. Also, unless you've been living in a cave, you should've realized by now that the number of active players on each server has been on the decline since they went live and the amount of materials available in bazaars have been slowly declining. Because these servers are not centralized by locality, you get a mix of players from around the world, which means that (for some servers) this population distribution may not be even. You could have 350 players in one area of the world on and then 8 hours later, that number could decline to just 50. Among that 50, there is no real chance you will find someone with a high enough skill in a particular craft to help you and no guarantee that they will be in the same city as you are. And the list goes on and on.

Developing a game is no easy task and developing for an MMO is a monster of a task. Everything you do will affect something else. I'm sure SE didn't approach this change lightly and I'm quite sure they've put a lot of thought into this and the affect it has in other areas of the game. Unfortunately, it's too much to ask the playerbase to consider the scope of these changes and they are prone to quickly accuse SE of doing harm one way or another.

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Originally Posted by Discordia

My opinion is that having a lot of streamlining helps with inventory. Since we're not likely to get an in-game mailing system and SE isn't going to expand inventory any more than it already has (unless they are guaranteed a fair number of subscription so that upgrading expensive server components makes it worthwhile) then this change is not just addressing complexity (too much or too little) in the crafting system. Also, unless you've been living in a cave, you should've realized by now that the number of active players on each server has been on the decline since they went live and the amount of materials available in bazaars have been slowly declining. Because these servers are not centralized by locality, you get a mix of players from around the world, which means that (for some servers) this population distribution may not be even. You could have 350 players in one area of the world on and then 8 hours later, that number could decline to just 50. Among that 50, there is no real chance you will find someone with a high enough skill in a particular craft to help you and no guarantee that they will be in the same city as you are. And the list goes on and on.

Developing a game is no easy task and developing for an MMO is a monster of a task. Everything you do will affect something else. I'm sure SE didn't approach this change lightly and I'm quite sure they've put a lot of thought into this and the affect it has in other areas of the game. Unfortunately, it's too much to ask the playerbase to consider the scope of these changes and they are prone to quickly accuse SE of doing harm one way or another.

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Again, you believe that instead of fixing a problem, abolishing it altogether is the right way to do? If you surely believe so, FFXIV would have already closed down and there is no Yoshi-P here.

Similar arguments and generalizations were made against Auto-Attack and the abolishment of the Stamina Bar. Statements like "overkill", "game-breaking", "gutting", "nerfing", "easy-button" as well as arguments like "it doesn't solve the problem" and "it will still be boring" were made.

I think the Development Team demonstrated in that instance that they could implement Auto-Attack and remove what was a principal feature of the combat system without ruining the game.

I understand everyone's concern. But please remember that the crafting system ... like the combat system ... doesn't have just one problem. It has a set of problems. The removal of parts addresses one of those problems. The simplification of the dyeing process addresses another of those problems. The addition of the Materia System addresses a third.

One of the issues that has been mentioned frequently by members of the community is the Standard-spamming-boredom problem. Hopefully on Tuesday, Naoki Yoshida will tell us what the Development Team has come up with to deal with that.

In the meantime, I would politely suggest that we don't go too far around the bend with the apocalyptic generalizations just because we were given a 512-word outline of the changes coming to recipes, instead of a 2000-word one encompassing every change being made to the entire crafting system.

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Originally Posted by darkstarpoet1

you realize that is an incorrect statement. yes it makes the buckle, but it makes so much more than 1 buckle. you can also buy most buckles in the wards for quite less than it would cost you to synth to make just 1. the reason is anything is cheaper when mass produced.

4 ores makes 12 nuggets.
3 nuggets makes 12 squares
you make an extra synth and you have 24

now you have 6 nuggets and 24 squares.

you take 1 nugget and 2 squares to make 12 buckles.

you have plenty of mats to do that 6 times and you would actually have 72 buckles and 12 squares at the end of that synth. you do not use that to make 1 because if you only want 1 it's cheaper to buy one buckle. you need 1 buckle so you have now created 71 buckles and 12 squares to make profit off into the wards system so you not only make the piece you need, but wound up with extra gil afterwards.

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yes i know this is incorrect but i think u missed my point, i probably wasn't very clear.

i'm against the changes but i can see some streamlining needs to be done, the point i was trying to make is if the buckle was replaced with a plate it is more universal the plate can also replace another item like a spear clasp. doing this will remove i lot of little fiddley items simplfying the current parts system alot w/o doing too much damage to the things ppl like about the current recpies. this is called streamlining.

removing the parts system and need for sub classes is a step to far, it's not going to make crafting any easier or any more enjoyable process to the ppl who currently don't like to craft, but it will take somthing away from the ppl that do like to craft.

Edit: will add another example that someone else against the changes came up with 400+ posts ago, a hammer handle is a hammer handle, there is no need for a bunch of diffrent ones for each hammer, 1 uninversal hammer handle for each grade would suffice.

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Originally Posted by Sorel

Similar arguments and generalizations were made against Auto-Attack and the abolishment of the Stamina Bar. Statements like "overkill", "game-breaking", "gutting", "nerfing", "easy-button" as well as arguments like "it doesn't solve the problem" and "it will still be boring" were made.

In the meantime, I would politely suggest that we don't go too far around the bend with the apocalyptic generalizations just because we were given a 512-word outline of the changes coming to recipes, instead of a 2000-word one encompassing every change being made to the entire crafting system.

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I agree completely that there has been a lot of overreaction. However, the dev team did post up these proposed changes (with a dev tag) specifically in order to elicit feedback. Some of us have been attempting to provide feedback, actual feedback, expressing how we think these changes would affect ourselves, and the game, along with our reasoning/thoughts.

However, I do wish the the severe divisions and name-calling would slow down a bit. It's understandable that people have strong opinions on the matter, and I think that it's a good thing that people are attached enough to the game to express some passion. It would just be nice to see that passion turned to the creative use of providing solid feedback, rather then trying to abuse other players. Ah, well.

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Originally Posted by Sorel

One of the issues that has been mentioned frequently by members of the community is the Standard-spamming-boredom problem. Hopefully on Tuesday, Naoki Yoshida will tell us what the Development Team has come up with to deal with that.

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Regarding this, it's my belief that the current mini-game is perfectly adequate for the purpose of making items that are intended for player use. In that case there is actual involvement, attempting to maximize quality (for materials) or balance higher quality with remaining durability for touch-ups (for items). Further, the number of items typically produced in a day is small enough (because of the limits of economic demand) that the crafting mini-game needn't get boring. Even now, after spamming my fair share of synths for rank-up purposes, attempting to create an HQ item can still get me involved in the mini-game.

I believe that the issue is in using the same mechanic as a rank-up mechanism. As a method of ranking up, the crafting mini-game is wholly inadequate. The only goal is to complete the synthesis, since the SP generated does NOT depend on finish quality/durability. This (in part) is what makes it into a mindless exercise.

As I recall the original design goals from Tanaka, crafting classes were to have (small) parts to play in battle, and I believe that THIS was intended to be one of the primary forms of ranking up a crafting class. However, those plans fell through (for whatever reason), and we were left with only the crafting mini-game as a ranking up mechanic.

I would suggest that we don't "throw the baby out with the bathwater", and simply toss the crafting mini-game because it is poorly suited for ranking up. Instead, new mechanics for ranking up should be added. Perhaps something along the lines of what DoctorMog posted here, with crafters operating and repairing artillery during a large-scale boss fight.

You know why I have been making reference to NGE? Because, when Sony broked SWG, no matter how many adjustment attempts they made after that or goodwill gesture they did (Trial of Obi Wan refunds), they were doomed. Players didn't exactly stick around and wait for adjustment patches, they were gone, forever. So General Wait-and-see tactic will not likely do here, when the Wait-and-see population would be already too low.

The one plus to all this is that the dev team have shown they are more than willing to make changes again if they feel they "went too far" or it didn't turn out the way they hoped. So crafters, just make sure you guys are giving your feedback when the changes come.