Crafting: This is it for me.

Hi all! I just needed to open myself a bit about the current state of crafting. First of all, I have always enjoyed crafting in FFXIV. I didn't have all classes at 3-4 star in ARR but I did have my all classes to 50, I could help my friends with low level crafts, I could repair my own gear and meld it. I had 1 class that could craft 3* but that was it, since I was a bit late to the crafting game. I figured that when Heavensward arrives, I will have 2-3 jobs at max crafting capability and was excited for the weekly scrip system and for the chance to start at same point with everyone else.

Now, red scrip system was released yesterday. I logged in, opened Rowena's Splendors and just stared at the screen for a minute. 12 red scrips for 1 mastercraft item that requires several expensive crafting materials from other crafts? This has to be a mistake. Now let's break this down, I currently have only Leatherworker at 60 and the item of the day is: Serpentskin Bootlets Of Casting

What I need to craft this is:

Amphiptere Leather x 2 (Leatherworker stuff cool, I got this and I can even HQ em from nq mats, cool. MB: 10k a piece)

Chimerical Felt x 1 (Weaver item, costs about 30k a pice in MB, NQ. Now my weaver is lvl53 and can't craft this yet. Requires Chimera Mane, there's 6 mobs in Azys Lla that drop this with and extremely low drop rate)

Crawler Silk x 1 (Another 1* weaver item, can't craft it yet. Even if I could, requires a shitload of farming to craft. MB: 50k a piece)

Grade 1 Intelligence Dissolvent x 1 (Alchemist item, cool I can craft this. Requires still a bit of farming. But hey, it's 50k a piece on market as well)

So to summarize it, to get 12 scrips, I need 200k worth of materials or try to look for people that can craft em and farm stuff myself, which most likely will take some time. 12 scrips you say? So basically I only need to craft this about 35 times to cap myself. For the ***** week. Cool, thats only 7 million worth of mats. A week. And let's not forget the gil loss that occurs on the time I have been doing this to get 450 scrips.

Let's say that everything that is OK and I can now gear myself properly to craft GODLY items. Wait, there is none. The highest level crafted items are ilvl180 and require a shit ton of red scrip material from gatherer's that are rare as heck (and most likely will be if there isn't any change on this). i180 is OK, but by the time anyone can HQ them properly we most likely will have ilvl230-250 going around from tomes and raids.

Who the hell did come up with this ridiculous farm to craft vanity items and subpar battle gear? I don't have time or will to do this, this game isn't work for me. I will most likely still be getting all my crafts to 60, I will meld the white 60 gear to craft to basic 1-2 star but that will most likely be it. Thank you Square Enix for ruining the aspect I have loved so much in this game.

Also posted in Reddit.

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Originally Posted by Adera

I will most likely still be getting all my crafts to 60, I will meld the white 60 gear to craft to basic 1-2 star but that will most likely be it.

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Um... so the only real issue is that you don't have the necessary crafts to make the item you want? Yet, you also argue that it's your intention to level them to 60 anyway? You're one very conflicted player.

If you're levelling those crafts anyway, then you'll be able to use them to make chimerical felt, crawler silks and dissolvents. That will quite literally kill off your entire argument and solve the issue you're having. This game has ALWAYS been about relying on other crafts for various items, so why did you suddenly think it would change now?

Now, the drop rates for many of those items I totally agree with, and I even posted my own thread on the subject. But the crafts themselves are not really an issue.

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Originally Posted by Adera

Let's say that everything that is OK and I can now gear myself properly to craft GODLY items. Wait, there is none. The highest level crafted items are ilvl180

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Honestly, this is the way it should be. People shouldn't need huge amounts of gil if they want to raid and do primals. Having it come from battle content is the way to do it.

To whoever made this design decision at SE, thank you.

Sorry that they made the crafting system so cumbersome, though.

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Originally Posted by Risvertasashi

Honestly, this is the way it should be. People shouldn't need huge amounts of gil if they want to raid and do primals. Having it come from battle content is the way to do it.

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No one is asking for it to be superior, we've been asking for it to be on-par. One way FFXI got around some of these issues is to have crafted items that required tokens, called abjurations to unlock their potential. They were endgame in their strength, but still required the owner to do some fighting to obtain those tokens.

Crafters go through a lot of trouble to make what is essentially vanity-wear at the end of the day. It's really disappointing that people see us as money-hoarding villains to the extent they need to deny us any truly useful crafts.

yeah well atleast culinarian (food) and alchemist (pots) are still usefull but i dont see any point in other crafts (except vanity maybe) never have and prolly never will wich is the reason my crafters are at the lvl they are ^^

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Originally Posted by Lemuria

Um... so the only real issue is that you don't have the necessary crafts to make the item you want? Yet, you also argue that it's your intention to level them to 60 anyway? You're one very conflicted player.

If you're levelling those crafts anyway, then you'll be able to use them to make chimerical felt, crawler silks and dissolvents.

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Sorry If I expressed myself badly. Yes, leveling crafts will make this problem go away. However, the effective cost of capping scrips every week is still multi million and will stay for a long time because of this system. Given the base materials and all crafts at 60 the time gating isn't that bad.

I haven't been able to play as much lately, but this seems like a ridiculous system. Several million gil worth of items (whether you gather/ make them yourself or not) to create items for weekly turn ins seems like very bad design. Upon hearing about this (months ago) I assumed it would be akin to GC turn ins or just running dungeons like the other turn ins, which are all pretty simple and generally cost nothing but a bit of time. Currently as a self sufficient crafter it sounds like 10-20 red scrips cost about the same amount of time as 100-200 esoteric tomes. Sounds like a terrible deal really, especially since self sufficiency in crafting requires all classes, while all combat classes are self sufficient natively (give or take a few minutes on queue times).

FFXIV is the first game where i see "endgame" grinding.
Most other games you can grind for endgame and not begin grinding when reaching endgame...
RNG is still one big issue and not only on droprate!

I don't mind the need to have all crafts on 60, actually I kinda like it. Atleast I have some goals to reach.
But the gatherers scrips are problem, yup.

This crafting/gathering update pretty much went tits-up.

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Originally Posted by Lemuria

It's really disappointing that people see us as money-hoarding villains to the extent they need to deny us any truly useful crafts.

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Nowhere did I say anything like this.

But it's simple economics, supply and demand. If we had top tier gear that was crafted, it would be expensive because of those principles. We've seen it in other MMOs.

SE did it differently, and I'm glad for it. Anyone that does the work in battle content gets their gear. Having i180 crafted already means a monied individual that hits 60 can gear out a class much more quickly than someone that grinds law and hunts. But higher gear you have to work for. The way it should be, at least IMO.

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Originally Posted by Risvertasashi

Honestly, this is the way it should be. People shouldn't need huge amounts of gil if they want to raid and do primals. Having it come from battle content is the way to do it.

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No, there are two ways they could have handled this;

Firstly, lock powerful crafted gear on the crafter. I take Blacksmith to 60, I pour a lot of effort into gear it up. My reward? Screw you Gerolt. I'll craft my own ultimate weapon thank you very much. Nobody has to have millions of gils to do this, it would just be something crafters can do for themselves to make it feel like they're actually crafting gear, rather than glamour prisms. I'd be able to walk around with my own self made ultimate weapon and feel proud as a Blacksmith as a result. No real reason they couldn't adapt the Collectables system to implement something like this really...

Secondly, copy Final Fantasy XI. That game had an Abjurations system; You would do endgame content, and it had a chance of dropping specific Abjurations (which couldn't be sold/traded). These Abjurations were used along with certain crafted items to produce endgame tier gear. Could very easily adapts that in Final Fantasy XIV; Right now we can craft i180 stuff right? Well, how about letting us take that gear, taking the items used to upgrade AF2, and do the same thing with it? Upgrade that i180 to i210. Would still require you to do the raids to get the best gear, it just gives crafting some validity at endgame.

Either of those works for me. As a crafted, I can make awesome gear, rather than glamours. That's all I want. If it's locked to me, at worse it "forces" people to level crafts to make their own, but if the recipe ends up being worse of a grind than Zenith to Zeta? No problem there. If we continue making the same gear as we currently do, but people are able to upgrade it with raid drops, nobody has to buy the gear to enter raids, it's just something people can do. Both cases end up being cock waving "look how much Gil I have" items that are actually used, rather than glamoured, which is what crafting should be about.

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Originally Posted by Adera

Sorry If I expressed myself badly. Yes, leveling crafts will make this problem go away. However, the effective cost of capping scrips every week is still multi million and will stay for a long time because of this system. Given the base materials and all crafts at 60 the time gating isn't that bad.

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Now we're on the same page, and I agree. The scrip system is awful. You just don't earn enough scrips for the amount of materials and effort that goes into crafting them. Worse is that even when you max out a particular collectable, it's barely worth more than the base amount of scrips.

The whole scrip system needs to be looked at in thorough detail before it becomes workable. As it stands, it's a terrible, horrible system.

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Originally Posted by Risvertasashi

Nowhere did I say anything like this.

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My response was more to pre-emptively fend off the usual comments like "Crafters make millions of gil by overpricing their stuff, so it shouldn't be endgame." which inevitably come up in such discussions. To be fair though, top-tier gear SHOULD be expensive, because it will inevitably require rarer ingredients to craft. It also prevents people buying their way to endgame.

Though, I agree it shouldn't be the only method by which to obtain it, and there needs to be quested gear which is on par.

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Originally Posted by Risvertasashi

Nowhere did I say anything like this.

But it's simple economics, supply and demand. If we had top tier gear that was crafted, it would be expensive because of those principles. We've seen it in other MMOs.

SE did it differently, and I'm glad for it. Anyone that does the work in battle content gets their gear. Having i180 crafted already means a monied individual that hits 60 can gear out a class much more quickly than someone that grinds law and hunts. But higher gear you have to work for. The way it should be, at least IMO.

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Its ironic that you say that. Considering you know, getting a single piece of item requires 10 times the effort for a crafter then it does for a battle class right now.
And on top of that its also far less good then the items you get just by doing content you would be doing anyway.

SWtOR made it where there were high end items that only someone with maxed crafting could use. I don't remember if you could sell them, but you did need to have that craft maxed in order to use the item.

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Originally Posted by StrejdaTom

But the gatherers scrips are problem, yup.

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It's not too bad for me, I always loved gathering and gearing my btn and min have been fun so far. Don't mind the timed nodes and stuff.
Crafting on the other hand, RIP.

The truly ridiculous part is the cost behind it, since you're effectively denying BiS for your DoL (left side + mh uncraftable atm), and seeing 3 Ooids per favor is a generous average. 15 mats/scrip token, 11.x hours spent on actually using the favors, and you need 100 per ingot. 2-4 ingots per armor/weap piece, 1-2 ingots for accessories. Completely sacrificing your DoL progress will net you avg 135 mats/wk, I think, but like.. the sheer number required, I don't even. That's like 3 weeks? for chance at an armour piece. Then we get to play the "who doesn't get shafted by Hasty Touch + Reclaim" game.

I wouldn't mind leisurely grinding those out if they were on ephemeral nodes or hidden rares on normal nodes, but it feels like they're forcing the dumb collectible system. There is no choice here, you focus your gameplay around ingame timers to get these stupid collectibles 50 times a week AND then go grind favors, or gg you're locked out of endgame crafting. I love crafting because of the freedom of choice in how you approach it, I love gathering because it's relaxing & I can just unwind + zombie out while doing it. This system craps on both aspects of that.

In a way, this is the i70 gathering mainhands repackaged. Timed nodes limiting progression, but with a much more insidious take on it.

Crafting isn't dead, there's tons of stuff to craft still (and I'm happily doing so), but crafting progression sure is. I'm fine with not having crafted battle accessories right out of the box, though we did in 2.0, because the rest of this patch is just so terrible it seems immaterial in comparison. Sure, you can pretend this patch never happened if you want, but down the road when new stuff releases that requires AF2 to craft, you'll be behind.

Killing omnicrafting shouldn't be a thing. If anything, introducing alternative paths like the specialization system to lessen reliance on omnicrafting is much more palatable. Because at it's heart, omnicrafting is independence & self sufficiency. I thought SE's implementation of the specialist system with HW launch was fairly well done. It beefed up the toolkit of the casual crafter & it has some fairly cool toys for all crafters to play with. But it's not necessary, and acts as sort of a toolset sidegrade.

This patch is effectively nudging people towards leveling alts (which is thoroughly unenjoyable to begin with) for scrip mats while decreasing freedom through artificial time gates which is just plain terrible.

That and we don't even have anything to craft with the new gear that isn't also artificially gated by red gathering scrips. It's just "do this insufferable DoL grind and hope we don't introduce a new artisan's set just as you're finishing your AF2 set". I mean, it's a given there's going to be new gear that relies on AF2 to craft it, it's just.. too much bullshit for too many unknowns.

I agree with the poster, crafting is a bit disappointing. I have my own thread on the topic called "the future of crafting and gathering". Crafting is fine and all, but there needs to be a purpose to it. Crafters should have something to do with crafting top tier gear. If they dont, then they serve no purpose. It's a shame I can HQ this ilv 180 gear, but it is basically useless because its faster and easier to just use purchased or rewarded gear to get end game raid gear, why would a crafter ever waste time and money making top tier gear when even HQ'ed and penta melded its not top tier. I WANT to like crafting, and I want crafting to serve a purpose, but alas all you need to do is raid raid raid, and dungeon dungeon dungeon.