combat-like crafting idea
So, I think this could make crafting more entertaining and could be used to make it go faster as well I think.
Basically for combat you start with a mob at 100% HP and you use basic attacks to build TP in order to use WS to reduce the mob to 0% HP. Along the way you can use a number of special abilities to do extra damage to the mob, debuff it, buff yourself, cure yourself, et cetera.
I wonder if setting up a crafting analog to that would make things more interesting. All the formulas are already in the game. As rank 49 if I go smack a marmot I do 1600 damage (so if I'm vastly over leveled I should be able to complete a synth in seconds w/o a chance to fail).
I guess what I envision is something like this:
The synth starts at 100% durability (HP) and it has a DoT on it. It has 0 Completeness and 0 quality (or whatever). Basically the same as now.
Rapid, Bold, and Standard are all basic attacks that have different accuracy amounts and do different amounts to completeness, quality, and maybe they could hurt durability a little (although this needs to be balanced against the DoT... I would be inclined to have them not do damage if you include a DoT against durability or maybe rapid and bold could do like ~5 durability damage or something). The basic attacks also build a TP equivalent.
Instead of things like fulfillment and such they turn into abilities that can do extra do quality, completeness, or manipulate durability (or maybe some become buffs like Raging Strike but only for Bold or something, or +10% effect on other actions for some duration).
As far as winning goes it could be the same as now (whenever completeness goes over 100%).
So, basically, create analogs to the combat systems that could work for crafting. Add in more abilities to use. I could see it being pretty fun. Also, right now unless I use hasty hands even really low rank synths take a long time. With the level vs. level scaling that is already built into the combat system you could complete them in a tiny fraction of the time and still target HQ if you wanted to (this seems reasonable to me).
Another bonus would be that it could allow party-based crafting more easily I think. Everyone in the party could be using their abilities together to "take down" the synthesis NM :p.
Hopefully I explained it well. It's a pretty rough idea still I guess. I think it could be a lot more engaging than the current system and I think there could be some bonuses to it. I think it would make crafting a lot better than it is now but I'm not 100% sure. Thoughts?