A suggestion for Specializations

Despite all the agonizing going around with the new crafting scene, I am happy that SE has given me long term goals to work towards when it comes to crafting. Although I desperately want to get all the new AF gears (Glamour is the true end game), I have will have progress each week and will be proud to say that I'm one of the Gatherer's/Crafters that stuck with the red scrip progression from the very beginning.

However, there is one thing that irks me with the release of patch 3.05. First, there is absolutely no Specialization specific recipes (i.e. anyone can craft anything; the only benefit from specializations is that you get some shiny new skills). While I'm happy to try out the new skills, and have found them quite helpful from time to time, i find it frustrating that I can have a specialization in the craft, yet any non-specialist can also make anything I can make. It just doesn't seem so... special.

While I'm 100% certain that SE will release specialized crafts down the road, I don't see why some of the current crafting mats could already be a Specialist only craft. Astral Oil, Astral Silk, Adamantite Ingots, etc. These 2 star high level crafts seem like the caliber of crafts that need to be made only by people that are committed solely to that craft; however, since they have already released this content as it is, I feel it would be a huge misstep if the did revoke the omni-crafting ability of the crafts. The made their decision and I believe they should stick to it. I'm just suggesting that it could've been done slightly differently in a way that would make specialists happy, and also begin a division in the market.

Also, SE released the ability to get specialties 4 weeks prior to 3.05 dropping (the patch that contained the new Crafting End-game recipes). While I don't see this as a huge issue, the gateway to choosing a new specialty is 480 red scrips (just over a weeks worth of red scrips). The reason I bring this up is that there are several people that chose a culinarian specialty, and quite frankly is does hardly any good. They received zero new recipes in the 3.05 patch and the ability to omni-craft all their recipes practically invalidates the choice of having a culinarian specialty. Had I chosen this as one of my own specialties, I would be livid.

A little side note rant. Goddamnit Square, if I'm gonna have to spend 200 of these red scrips to make an i180 armor (which is ALREADY outdated due to Eso gear/Alex normal), give me a new goddamn glamour! WTF?

However, I did choose an Alchemy specialty, which to be honest, isn't much better. What do us mad scientists get?

Dissolvents. Awesome. :(
(Nothing like spending a weeks worth of mats on gear that was outdated out of the gate!).

Nothing like brewing up a nice mixture of Orange GLO just to clean off the minute amounts detrimental aether on the armor/weapons that the other DoH classes get to make. Am I jealous? Yes. I'm a SMN main and I was excited to be able to make a new weapon/potions that will really aid my progression during endgame. However, not unlike the Culinarian consumables, the Potions require Aerial Reducted sands and Mats that are hidden at ephemeral nodes just to make AND you only get one potion per craft (I know the direction they went with the new crafting system but this amount of mats for one potion that is good for 15s? come on).

/end rant

My solution?

Allow the people that have chosen Culinarian and Alchemist specialties the ability to craft at a 1:3 ratio for any consumable item (Food/Medicine).

While I don't think that this is a perfect balancing of the specializations, I do believe it's a start in making the specializations worthwhile. To be honest, I'm making more money off of x-potions on my server due to the following reasons: 1:3 ratio of mats to potions, Dragonskin maps have a high drop rate of potions which means that crafters are constantly being undercut by people that didn't have to acquire mats, and the mats themselves for Draconian Potions are more time then it's worth for a 15s buff.

Again, there are a lot of things I like about the new crafting system. It's not for everyone, and you have to commit a lot of thought, time and energy to make a progression into being a well-geared crafter. The concerns that I do have is that there are people out there that picked out their specialties banking that the upcoming content would have something for them, and that wasn't the case for some people.

Am I gonna stop playing because of it? Hell no. Don't be silly. I just believe that this is an area of the game that could have been executed better.

TL : DR

Red scrips are good. It forces the market to move and prevents the poop-sockers from monopolizing in the first few weeks.
CUL/ALC specialists should get a 1:3 ratio for crafting any consumable item, since they received no recipes in 3.05 outside of grade 2 dissolvents.

I feel like they need to take another look at the CUL/ALC consumables, or make speicalization more appealing in general (whether it's exclusive recipes or increassed yields). The amount of material costs for most of the 1 star foods and pots are worth more than the materials itself (the hot cocoa being a whooping 50 blue scrips per cup, I'll just wait for Haucerfaunt to give me another, then you have the fishing and furymint aspect, as well as the duskbornes) when we're looking at a 1:1 yield.

I feel like they really dropped the ball for 2-star crafting toward non-crafters. Everything we can make for combat classes is practically worthless even for glamour. Even if you wanted to try to push content via penta melds, the craft materials itself are time gated just as much as eso gears. And well...the glamour thing... (arachne shirt for MCH, kthx)

Please don't restrict recipes to specialists. Keep crafting open to all crafters.

Then what makes makes a specialist worth it? A few new abilities to play with (which are in my opinion supremely overcoats and highly reliant on RNG).

Having specialist restricted recipes limits the amount of players able to access different markets. This will do two things: force people playing an MMO to work together and ensure certain items will have a higher demand.

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Originally Posted by tgoodner

Then what makes makes a specialist worth it? A few new abilities to play with (which are in my opinion supremely overcoats and highly reliant on RNG).

Having specialist restricted recipes limits the amount of players able to access different markets. This will do two things: force people playing an MMO to work together and ensure certain items will have a higher demand.

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People won't work together or share profit, limit recipe will only force hard core crafters to lv up an Alt.

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Originally Posted by ImDingDing

People won't work together or share profit, limit recipe will only force hard core crafters to lv up an Alt.

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That's what a FC is for. If people are that intent on controlling the market by being able to craft everything, that's on them to go the extra mile. And it's what I hated about 2.0 crafting since I was literally able to make everything. Still the case now because whistles is more often than not a liability to waste CP, even with heart of <class>.

Specializations, which was one of their major points for crafting in 3.0, is utterly pointless at this moment.

I'd rather deal with 50 individual omnicrafters then 1 FC of crafters.

50 omnicrafters there would at least be a chance of no price fixing.

No. If you want to fix specializations, you make it so that you have USEFUL abilities (not brutal RNG ones for limited benefit), and reduce the available cross class skills. Right now? Specialists don't have useful abilities (at least, not in my experience), and serve simply to clutter up my bars. Especially the whistle mechanic. It turns the entire thing into one giant roll of the dice. It's already bad enough with the RNG dependent quality -- throwing in RNG impacts on the progress too?

I agree that specialization is not very useful at the moment. It's way too gimmicky in execution and really without a lot of benefit. The solution, though, is not to improve specialists by taking away from other crafters. The solution is to look at specialization in general and give it an overhaul. Until then, many if not most crafters (myself included) will just not bother. One less thing to worry about.

Rice, your sig totally got me. Spent the last minute trying to get the bug off my iPad :p

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Originally Posted by RiceisNice

Specializations, which was one of their major points for crafting in 3.0, is utterly pointless at this moment.

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I agree 100% with this statement. Specialization should be removing RNG dependence, not add more to it.

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Originally Posted by Sibyll

I agree 100% with this statement. Specialization should be removing RNG dependence, not add more to it.

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Unless there are benefits to specializing in each craft outside of just abilities.

For Example: ALC/CUL get 1:3 ratios on consumable crafts. Maybe BSM/ARM have lowered mat requirements. LTW/CRP crafts get 10 extra durability. WVR/GSM Start with 1/5 of progress completed. There's a lot of area for creative development that would allow specializations a sense of uniqueness.

Also on the issue of specializations, we are playing an MMO. Just because the standard that has been in place for FFXIV is that anyone can craft anything doesn't mean that it is the best system. Without the ability to identify each craft with either inherent benefits or specialized-only crafts, there is no reason to specialize. Even if the crafts are simply glamour/housing/etc. at least there is something that will motivate me to use my last Soul of the Crafter.

The way I want specializations to work is unique recipes to specialists not available to non-specialists. I want them to release and expand those specialist recipes on offer to players through content updates over time. I want people to require helping each other whom specialize in different classes even if to the detriment of omni-crafting. The specialist skills should be adequate but also not cross classed in my opinion.

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Originally Posted by Snugglebutt

The way I want specializations to work is unique recipes to specialists not available to non-specialists. .

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I dont think this is good idea.

They should instead increase the difficulty of future recipes and make the specialization skills effective and valuable to craft HQ of these recipe. That would give specialized crafters only an ADVANTAGE over those without but doesn't prohibit non-specialized crafters to achieve HQ with help of a good RNG and end-game gear (which should not be difficult to get across all class).

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Originally Posted by kenventa

I dont think this is good idea.

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Essentially making specializations nothing more then slight advantage. If you think of it from a lore standpoint, If i were a goldsmith that took the time to specialize in my craft, I should not only know how to make items better then any non-specialist, but also be able to craft items that non-specialists woudn't be accustomed to. Does this threaten the well-being of the omni-crafter? Yes. And i believe it's a necessity. It will prevent the constantly downward motion of the markets after each patch, and will allow certain people on each server to make a name for themselves as the go-to "Armorerer" or "Carpenter". Specializations should have specialized crafts.

Specialists should have an easier time making items. They should not have unique items. The whole concept of a specialist isn't that they can do something that no-one else can. It's that they have an easier time doing it. They have an advantage, but it's not an exclusive thing. Any goldsmith of level should have a shot at making every goldsmith recipe. If it's insanely difficult with specialization, that's fine -- it's insanely difficult, but it should be possible.

Right now? Specialization is pointless. I mean, I took off the skills because they were wasting toolbar space (and making crafting harder)! It's that bad. Adding specialist only recipes? Then it becomes pointless and insulting. How is that an improvement?

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Originally Posted by Joronas

They should not have unique items. The whole concept of a specialist isn't that they can do something that no-one else can.

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Completely disagree. A specialist is someone who can do what others do but better plus can do what others cannot, they are not only better at doing the simple things but they can also do more complex things which others can't and that is how I want it to evolve as a system. I stick with my initial comment on what I would like to see specialization become over time and not what you describe.

The player should be forced to make the choice between specializations because of a large impact on going above and beyond what a non-specialist can do, the choice should have gravitas...not merely a higher chance for example at making HQ versions. Unique specialist recipes are the best way to add such gravitas to picking which specializations to go with plus also helps specialists stand out from the crowd of generic non-specialists.

It would make most players think long and hard which to pick and should be a difficult choice for most players to make due to being a substantial and highly consequential impact of any specialization choice. Unique specialist recipes would have that impact for most players, it is that impact you don't want because want to remain omni-crafting but if your an uber hardcore omni-crafter you can always make alts to cover all specializations still...however most players would not do so even if they were previously omni-crafters and by proxy such would help tackle the omni-crafting issue that SE has mentioned in the past.

Completely disagree.

Someone who has made the investment to level and gear everything should not be punished for it. They should be able to get the full return on the playtime investment. Specialists should have full access and the ability to craft everything their class has to offer quickly and efficiently.

Someone who does everything should be able to craft everything. They have to work for it, they should get the benefit. Specialists don't have to work for it. They spend WAY less effort. Even factoring in how much easier the 2nd class is, it's still around 4x the effort to max all classes. Becoming a specialist takes no effort at all -- giving them any advantages at all is being generous. If people want to take the harder route, then that should be just as viable.

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Originally Posted by Joronas

Snip.

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I have to disagree. As someone that has all crafters/gatherers leveled, there is no point to specializations. I have crafted lvl 60 2* recipes with zero specialization skills. There is currently no benefit from having a specialty.

I'm not asking for "better" recipes, I just want access to something new. As it stands, there is no point in having a specialty. There is no benefit except over priced RNG abilities. Specialists could have glamour, housing, side-grade equipment that isn't down-right better then what omni-crafters can make.

Tgoodner: If as an omnicrafter I can't omnicraft, then my time is being valued less and it's treating me worse. Specialization should make it so that you don't need to omnicraft to be able to high quality everything. Making it so that someone who has leveled everything to 60 can't craft everything just pushing the game further towards irrelevant and deletion.

It's simple. You put in the time to level the class to 60, to gear the class up, you can use the class for everything. Anything else is punishing people for enjoying the game too much and wanting to try everything out.

Specialization is SE deciding to make it easier to get into endgame crafting. They said that repeatedly -- they didn't like that people felt they had to level every crafting class to be able to do endgame crafting. If specialization let you do that without the hideous RNG punishment, then specialization is fine. Currently it doesn't, which needs fixed, but that's powers, not recipes.

@Joronas: you make valid points with the design of specialization being flawed and needing attention. SE has put in a ridiculous amount of RNG into the crater/gatherer endgame and the specialization system is no different.

But we'll just have to agree to disagree. I am an Omani-crafter with all DoH and DoL classes at 60 and I will still advocate for specialization recipes. I put in the time and the Gil to get to this point and I would be happy if they create new content specifically for specialized crafters. Crafters in this have have been spoiled with the ability to create anything given enough time/Gil. This devalues crafts across the board especially as time passes between content. Recipes don't have to be the only way to adjust specializations like I've mentioned before. Upping yields, starting progress/quality, lowering needed mats are all possible solutions to giving benefits to specialties.

Oh, tgoodner, I completely agree on upping yields, starting progress/quality, mat reductions .. those I think are excellent ways to make specializations worthwhile.

I just don't want omnicrafting to be *devalued* by being locked out of it. Make specializations worth something, but don't make non-specialists worth *less*.

Face it, omni-crafting isnt going to die. This is inconsistent with how SE is offering the game's experience to players which is freedom to do all content without permanent lockouts.