PROBLEMS WITH GATHERING.

After reading the gathering Q&A im feeling rather disapointed, with most of my concerns beings "There are no plans for this" or "We are looking into this".

Gathering is one of the absolute worst aspects in FFXIV, while this is only my personal opinion, many would agree. Gathering in most mmorpgs was easy, it didn't take 5 mins standing at a tree.. then moving onto the same tree 50meters northeast. It was somewhat fun to go around gathering different herbs and substences to create new items with your crafting skill. Then the crafted items would be applied to battle. So other mmos use a system where Gathering>Crafting>Battle. They all co-exist and level around about the same pace, this way the player is not forced into only picking the battle or crafting classes. The entire idea that SE forces the player to ether do A) battle leves or B) Gathering leves....is just insane. I can't turn up to a leve grind with my linkshell and say well....today i dont have any links for you guys because i decided to do some gathering....

Gathering should feel like gathering, botanists should go out there and find different herbs and trees to harvest. The trees and herbs(plants/bushes) should have different models according to what they contain. Some materials should be harder to get to, others easy. Different areas and zones should contain different herbs and trees.The system where this is node 1-6...isn't interesting..i swing at a tree and get 3 beehive chips and 2 feathers.....

The mini-game is not fun, why they are deciding not to change is..is beyond my understanding.

I apologise if this comes off as a rant, trolling or QQing. I do not by all means want this to be a copy of WoW, Aion gathering. And I do understand the development team is very busy at work on the new battle content. But these are some of my concerns about the recent Q&A, What do you think about the recent answers and suggestions to the gathering system? :o

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Originally Posted by ViciousValentine

After reading the gathering Q&A im feeling rather disapointed, with most of my concerns beings "There are no plans for this" or "We are looking into this".

Gathering is one of the absolute worst aspects in FFXIV, while this is only my personal opinion, many would agree. Gathering in most mmorpgs was easy, it didn't take 5 mins standing at a tree.. then moving onto the same tree 50meters northeast. It was somewhat fun to go around gathering different herbs and substences to create new items with your crafting skill. Then the crafted items would be applied to battle. So other mmos use a system where Gathering>Crafting>Battle. They all co-exist and level around about the same pace, this way the player is not forced into only picking the battle or crafting classes. The entire idea that SE forces the player to ether do A) battle leves or B) Gathering leves....is just insane. I can't turn up to a leve grind with my linkshell and say well....today i dont have any links for you guys because i decided to do some gathering....

Gathering should feel like gathering, botanists should go out there and find different herbs and trees to harvest. The trees and herbs(plants/bushes) should have different models according to what they contain. Some materials should be harder to get to, others easy. Different areas and zones should contain different herbs and trees.The system where this is node 1-6...isn't interesting..i swing at a tree and get 3 beehive chips and 2 feathers.....

The mini-game is not fun, why they are deciding not to change is..is beyond my understanding.

I apologise if this comes off as a rant, trolling or QQing. I do not by all means want this to be a copy of WoW, Aion gathering. And I do understand the development team is very busy at work on the new battle content. But these are some of my concerns about the recent Q&A, What do you think about the recent answers and suggestions to the gathering system? :o

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Yeah dude.. we got trolled by the devs hardcore today.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ViciousValentine

After reading the gathering Q&A im feeling rather disapointed, with most of my concerns beings "There are no plans for this" or "We are looking into this".

Gathering is one of the absolute worst aspects in FFXIV, while this is only my personal opinion, many would agree. Gathering in most mmorpgs was easy, it didn't take 5 mins standing at a tree.. then moving onto the same tree 50meters northeast. It was somewhat fun to go around gathering different herbs and substences to create new items with your crafting skill. Then the crafted items would be applied to battle. So other mmos use a system where Gathering>Crafting>Battle. They all co-exist and level around about the same pace, this way the player is not forced into only picking the battle or crafting classes. The entire idea that SE forces the player to ether do A) battle leves or B) Gathering leves....is just insane. I can't turn up to a leve grind with my linkshell and say well....today i dont have any links for you guys because i decided to do some gathering....

Gathering should feel like gathering, botanists should go out there and find different herbs and trees to harvest. The trees and herbs(plants/bushes) should have different models according to what they contain. Some materials should be harder to get to, others easy. Different areas and zones should contain different herbs and trees.The system where this is node 1-6...isn't interesting..i swing at a tree and get 3 beehive chips and 2 feathers.....

The mini-game is not fun, why they are deciding not to change is..is beyond my understanding.

I apologise if this comes off as a rant, trolling or QQing. I do not by all means want this to be a copy of WoW, Aion gathering. And I do understand the development team is very busy at work on the new battle content. But these are some of my concerns about the recent Q&A, What do you think about the recent answers and suggestions to the gathering system? :o

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IMO gathering would be much better if they had 6-8 seperate leves for it. I also agree that it should have some indication of the type of material you will gather. It is WAY too random even with the so called "hot spots" for gathering on the notches. I still get a bunch of random stuff before I find the 1 mat I am looking for.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Neptune

Yeah dude.. we got trolled by the devs hardcore today.

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Read it closely, sometimes they say "There are currently no plans for this" and sometimes its "There are no plans for this." I think when they say currently, they mean that it is not planned to be implemented till the end of summer and they like the idea but they haven't decided on how they want to implement it.

We can only hope gathering will be changed in the future, at least to make it easier and quicker. Im not saying they might not fix it later down the track, just sucks they dont really wana the fix quick and easy stuff like putting gathering on seperate leves.

I actually enjoy gathering more than most of the other classes in this game. If you find a good node triangle, it's easy to stock up on crafting mats. If you have some technique and know-how, and aim for what you're looking for through the notches, it's a simple and somewhat fun mini-game. It's fun because you have to learn which items have what hotspot in the minigame, and knowledge of the notches where items are found makes you even more efficient.

At the end of the day, I enjoy ending up with lots of items I gathered to sell or to use for my crafting. It's a sense of accomplishment to have a few stacks of this or whatever, and you know that it will be bringing in some good money. Accumulating gil and leveling up classes is about all there is to do for me, so this is one of the few things I actually enjoy.

I like the gathering mini game, what i don't like is the "go 34 yams north east". Please let us see on the map which point is refered to? This is especially annoying in maps with many elevations.

I focus for now on mining class more than any other. I like the leves. Here is what I would like to change:

1) anima cost reduced so when I gather leves in all towns and teleport to complete them, it doesn`t cost as much OR chocobos at all camps. I don`t want to walk to save animas, please? My time is precious.
2) eliminate the need to check a website to know the hotspot. Give me a manual of mining I can acquire each 10ish levels through guild-points and then ease my life - I have no memory at all. This is good for any class in fact, I hate going to websites it breaks the game immersion. Make it an in-game wiki, why not?
3) I agree with Veasna, we need a better system than the current text to pinpoint where to go (as an option if desired). I would personally prefer an onscreen compass combined with flashing dots on the map with different colors depending if it is on the same level, lower or upper level (or level 1, 2, 3).
4) To make gathering more interesting, you can either improve the mini-game, or improve the environment (immersion). Currently, I would prefer the improvement of the latter. How about specific zones (dreamlands) for gatherers? Thinking of the game Flower on PS3 here for mood/environment, just as a rough idea. Crafters could even contribute in building these environments in synergy with gatherers with exclusive rewards.

The primary problem with gathering is that the rewards are given too commonly, too early. Crafters **** all over gatherers because the system keeps gatherers powerless and crafters in control of gathering's fate.

They need to increase the economic weight of gatherers. In this game, artisans should be paupers if they can't produce.

It needs to be polished just like every other facet since launch.

Node finder needs to display on the map. Dots and/or arrow
Sweat of Brow needs to be a whole node or none ... or lowered and made passive.
Take Aim should be a passive, would fix/toggle the randomness of the "notch" loot.
The quality skills should be passive too, and have gathering and/or output ones to match.
Perhaps the +stat ones as well. Most/all of these are useless currently.