[suggestion] Changes to synthesis
Well, I don't know about you but I'm not particularly fond of synthesis. As such, I thought up a little bit of a suggestion in order to make it quicker, more involved and more enjoyable while doing some mining and botany.
First of all, keep synthesis the way it is, progress, durability, quality, standard synthesis, rapid and careful. That stuff is all good and fine.
Second, scrap wait and the glowing colours on the synthesis orb. Wait can stay gone as it only slows things down but the colour system incorporates into my suggestion.
So, my suggestion is, instead of the synthesis just happening when you pick your synthesis method, turn it into a Disciple of Land-esque mini-game.
Much like the current DoL mini-game, with its indicator moving over an area, have a bar come up, upon which an indicator will move back and forth which the player will choose to stop at a particular time.
The colours are now incorporated by appearing as sections within the bar which the indicator needs to be stopped within. This could either be somewhat 'random' zones (eg. [||||||||||||||||||||||||] ) or a simple 'blue in the middle' style (eg. [||||||||||||||||||||||||] ). Stopping on the indicated colour works the same as if synthesising while the orb was on that colour in the current system.
From here, a characters level in relation to the craft (as well as some abilities, stats and synthesis method) effect the size of the zones. Examples using the 'random' zone bar mention:
10 levels below using standard synthesis:
[ |||||||||||||||||||| ]
10 levels above using standard synthesis:
[ |||||||||||||||||||| ]
For synthesising methods selected I suggest it changes a bit according to the method. The colour zone layout will be the same but the colour zone sizes will differ as will the indicators movement speed. Examples:
Standard synthesis:
Blue size - Normal
Yellow size - Normal
Red size - Normal
Indicator speed - Normal
Rapid synthesis:
Blue size - Normal / Smaller
Yellow size - Normal / Smaller
Red size - Normal / Larger
Indicator speed - Drastically faster
Careful synthesis:
Blue size - Drastically smaller
Yellow size - Normal / Smaller
Red size - Drastically larger
Indicator speed - Normal / Slower
Abilities I have not really thought through too much just yet (probably because I haven't really used them much myself so don't have a lot of experience with them) but most of them seem to translate pretty well to this system as the underlying algorithms remains essentially unchanged.
As for the so far unmentioned elemental instability and 'rainbow' colour synthesis orb, I'm not entirely sure. Elemental instability could still be shown around the now 'neutral' coloured synthesis orb and rainbow could perhaps be displayed as it is currently.
Elemental instability could possibly cause zones to expand and contract and, instead of using the wait command until it disappears, synthesising on blue could improve it, yellow maintain it and red worsen it by effecting the speed at which the zones expand and contract.
The 'rainbow' colour synthesis orb could simply be represented by the colour zones scrolling across the bar whilst the indicator moves as it normally would and, much like elemental instability, blue improves it, yellow maintains it and red worsens it by effecting the speed at which the zones scroll across.
That pretty much covers everything I can think of with the crafting system, if you can think of any problems feel free to point them out so I can try think of solutions or also include solutions yourself.