How would you change Specialization?

With 3.5 coming soon and having seen the entirety of the ideology behind crafting, how would you change it's rather cut and dry concept of unique recipes to crafts?

While this does limit the amount of people who can craft said recipe, does it really add to the game when every large patch just throws it into the common pool? In this way Specialist Recipes just become this weak form of gating recipes to limit players to being able to only fully craft from 3 of the 8 DOH within the game.


You don't create a community of crafters with this concept because at the end of the day all you really have to concern yourself with is having 2 other friends who can get the other 5 craft classes to make up for the ones you can't do, so then you have to ask yourself, what good do Specialist Recipes do when it only takes 2 people to create a monopoly?

I feel like if you want Specialist to work, you have to be more ambitious with it, unique recipes are a very loose reward when they just become common after a few months. So why not have a system in which being a specialist means you learn how to do things better, more efficient, with time and practice?

This is what I mean, So let's say I'm a Carpenter Specialist and I synth a lot of Cedar Lumber. The more I synth this Lumber, the more efficient I become with it, at my first rank I learn how to produce the same Lumber but with 2 less Logs needed. As I rank up again I can now produce 2 Lumber but I go back to needing 5 logs. By Rank 3 I Master the ability of using 2 less against and make 2 Lumber per. By Rank 4 I unlock the "Double HQ" potential which not only grants me HQ Lumber but also doubles the quantity I obtain which in this case would be 4 HQ Lumber and the cost of 3 Logs.

Why can't we have a system like this which actually shows progression with a recipe we craft with? Now not every recipe needs this lving process, heck I"d even go as far to say you just create a very Standard form of skill for each recipe type, so all Lumber would share the same skill lv so as you level up your Skill you would reveal new effects when crafting said item type. Keep in mind this would be the new specialization concept, a means of being able to craft quicker, more efficient, needing less, making more, that's what specialization should be about. It should be about making your Crafting Classes of choice more efficient. Where you can have a form of progression past the gear grind that can be carried over into future expansions.

At the end of it all, what really drew me away from Crafting was just feeling nothing interesting from it, I was just getting gear to have it and sadly the specialist Recipes added are so bare bone, so for your efforts you have the opportunity to craft 3-5 of the unique recipes that only Specialist can make. The "reward" doesn't fit the time it takes to get there when you consider that for Carpenter this current patch version I have the "luxury" of crafting some gear to help players who want to catch up so this in itself does nothing for current players and then as icing on the cake I obtain 2 other unique recipes, one being Teak Lumber, a part used for others that doesn't scream "specialist" when you look at it and the Tier 4 Aquarium which is nice.

But look at it like this, a Carpenter is chasing a carrot to gear up to be able to craft those Specialist recipes and yet when they get to that point the only thing they have to look forward to is one recipe. When you consider that's what the Specialist system amounts to so far, there is definitely a flaw with the system.

I've said it numerous times.

Specialization Only should be removed as a lock on recipes preventing people from doing them. Specialist Actions should not exist either. Remove both of those, and make the Specialization Stone confer ALL of the other 21 Cross Class Actions, of the level 15, 37, and 50 variety.

Once the Specialist hits level 70, or goes over 60, the Specialist should gain access to all of the level 54 Cross Class Actions as well.

This would simultaneously remove most of the advantage an Omnicrafter has over someone with only one Crafting class, while allowing them both to actually compete with one another in the marketplace. That competition was the stated goal of the Specialist System.

Preventing people (those with different Specializations) from crafting high level recipes does not provide competition, it eliminates it, which is in diametric opposition to the stated goal of the Specialist system.

If I were to make changes to specialization, I would remove much of the rng factor that plagues the abilities. The whole point of specialization should be to make it easier for you to craft stuff from your trade compared to a non-specialist... even if they are an "omni-crafter" and you are not. For specialization to mitigate the need for omni-craft leveling, the skills it provides need to compete with cross class skills from other crafts. Its ok if the specialist skills end up making some omni-craft skills redundant because the idea is that if you're a specialist you're better at what you do with your craft than someone who isn't... even if you dont level the other crafting classes.

Here's a few changes I'd make:

* Whistle While You Work should just be a plain buff of some sort. Not this weird "buffs certain skills when quality is good or excellent and stack is at a multiple of whatever" nonsense. My head spins just reading that friggin tooltip. WWYW should be as simple as a slightly better Comfort Zone. have it cost 60CP and restore 9CP per step. Rng heaped on to rng does nothing to help someone who doesnt want to level every craft and WWYW as it is, is just a poorly thought out idea.

* Innovative Touch should have a 70% chance of success so its guaranteed to work when coupled with Steady hand II. If it worked like this it would be a better alternative to Innovation for omni-crafters and a replacement for Innovation for single-classed crafters.

* Nymeia's Wheel should simply be a super cheap version of Manipulation. It would serve as an upgrade to Manipulation for omni-crafters, and a replacement for Manipulation for single classed-crafters.

* Byregot's Miracle is decidedly inferior to Byregot's Blessing when it SHOULD be better. Byregot's Miracle should do exactly what Byregot's Blessing does but at 100% success rate, and use up no durability. Again it gives access to one of the best cross-class skills to single-classed crafters and still offers an upgrade to omni-crafters when using their specialist craft.

* Trained Hand is again inferior to another skill that is often cross-classed with a ridiculous rng component thrown in for the lawls. Trained Hand should be a better version of Careful Synthesis II. It should have Efficiency: 150% Success Rate: 100% and cost 0CP.

Those changes would make specializations actually GOOD and also give single-classed crafters good versions of some of the desirable cross-class skills.

The hardest part of it is balancing it. Do you make it so anyone can have a high chance of successfully hqing the recipe? Then there's no point for cross class skills. Do you make it so having access to the cross class skills AND the specialist stuff is not overpowered? Then the people without the cross class skills suffer for it.

My opinion is that the specialist system should give the skills, and the cross class skills would act as a small boost for it, maybe along the lines of 5-10% more for the skills. You'd still have access to the cross class skills on non-specialists, but specialists with the skills would just get the upgrade for slotting it in as a cross class skill. Specialists without the cross class skills would simply get the normal version of the skill.

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Originally Posted by Roth_Trailfinder

Preventing people (those with different Specializations) from crafting high level recipes does not provide competition, it eliminates it, which is in diametric opposition to the stated goal of the Specialist system.

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Yes and no. While it is true that the specialist system was intended to eliminate the need to level all classes to 50 and allow single class crafters to actually produce end game crafts/compete better, you have to remember what single class crafters were complaining about. IIRC, these were the prevalent complaints:

1) Having to level all classes to obtain cross class skills (particularly the level 50 ones)

2) Being unable to compete with omnicrafters due to higher production costs. Single class crafters would have to buy intermediate materials whereas an omni-crafter could make all of them and completely out-price them in the market

3) Omni-crafters ruthlessly dominating each and every market leaving no niches for single class crafters

So the developers wanted to design a system that could address these concerns. They introduced specialist abilities to take care of the leveling issue, but these were clearly a flop. While technically useable, they're far more difficult to use, less reliable, and more expensive (delineations). From my limited experience with single class 4* simulations (which admittedly probably only scratches the surface of what the system can do), you can pretty consistently build up around 9.5k quality as long as you have the level 15 cross class skills, meaning you'd want a starting quality of 3500-4000 which is quite a bit.

To address points 2) and 3), they first introduced systems to make things way harder for crafters to omni-craft:

- a massive favor grind intended to either force a crafter to go through a thousand hours of gathering to gear all classes or buy the materials at great expense (very few would be able to buy all of the materials; players that did would be helping the economy via wealth redistribution and then there was also the cost of melds at the time.....)

- alternatively weekly gear lockouts in the form of red scrip gear

These systems were massive failures as well, so mid-expansion they chose to turn things around. Gearing would now be easy while specialist recipe lockouts would take care of points 2) and 3).

The effectiveness of specialist abilities can be fixed, but I don't really see an easy solution for the competition aspect. Even if specializations have abilities that mirror cross class (quick and easy fix that is better than messing around with and balancing 2 different sets of abilities that can be used simultanously), there would still be complaints of omni-crafters dominating every market though more competitve pricing.

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Originally Posted by OoglieBooglie

Then there's no point for cross class skills.

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They are removing cross class skills from battle classes and revamping the system, no reason why they shouldn't do it with crafters.

I've never used the Specialist Abilities at all. They're not even on my hotbars. If I am able to craft everything using the abilities that come with levelling crafter up to lvl60 then I don't need to complicate my life further!

Of course, there's some excellent theorycrafters in this game who help everyone with the more complex parts of crafting. I always try to find my own rotations before using, say, Rath's 437CP wonderful creation. That's all part of the fun to me.

I started the game in HW and for me, the option to specialise came far too late in the game to be attractive.
I started out only intending to level 2 or 3 crafting classes, quickly realised it wouldn't work due to needing the cross-class skills and went down the omni-crafter route. By the time I'd levelled everything to 50, the option to concentrate on just 3 classes for the last 10 levels seemed pointless. Specialisation always felt like it was taking something away from me rather than offering something extra.

How would I change it?
-I'd offer specialisation much earlier, say around level 15. Put the quest in with the Guildmasters and let the Soulstone give the same boost to craftsmanship and control as you get now.
-I'd scrap the specialist abilities (I've never used them and I don't know anyone who does). Instead I'd do as Roth suggests above, let your specialist classes get access to all the cross-class skills as you level them. This would eliminate the need to level everything to 50.
-Annoying as the recipe locks can be at times, I'd keep them as it really does encourage you to make friends and cooperate.

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Originally Posted by Solarra

-Annoying as the recipe locks can be at times, I'd keep them as it really does encourage you to make friends and cooperate.

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To be perfectly honest, all it has encouraged me to do is get and keep a small stack (10-ish) of the blank Soul of the Crafter, and then plan out what I want to craft so I do not need to return to a Specialist once I've left it. Plenty of time later on to rebuild that small stack. Right now, in anticipation of T4 materia needs for crafting, I've got 136 RCT. That would have been 14 more Souls of the Crafter had I wanted them. It is not hard to change specializations, merely somewhat time consuming to get the RCS.

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Originally Posted by MN_14

The effectiveness of specialist abilities can be fixed, but I don't really see an easy solution for the competition aspect. Even if specializations have abilities that mirror cross class (quick and easy fix that is better than messing around with and balancing 2 different sets of abilities that can be used simultanously), there would still be complaints of omni-crafters dominating every market though more competitve pricing.

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You can never fix that competition aspect, not with the current recipe design; with the exception of CUL, which has no materials refined by other classes, anyway. The simple reason is that an omnicrafter will always be able to make those refined materials more cheaply than someone who does not have the right class leveled to produce it, Specialist or no.

Locking recipes behind Specializations does two things. First, it stifles competition. Rather than having everyone able to produce it, you have less than 50% of people able to produce it (depending on exact Specialist breakdown). Second, it increases the cost of the goods to the board buyer. When you have fifteen people producing something and trying to get it to sell, you get into an undercut war. When you only have two people with the right Specialization trying to produce somehting and sell, your undercut war is far less likely to happen, meaning simultaneously a greater profit margin for the crafter, and a deeper gouge into the buyer's wallet.

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Originally Posted by Roth_Trailfinder

You can never fix that competition aspect, not with the current recipe design; with the exception of CUL, which has no materials refined by other classes, anyway. The simple reason is that an omnicrafter will always be able to make those refined materials more cheaply than someone who does not have the right class leveled to produce it, Specialist or no.

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Oh I agree. In the idealized case, the locked recipes are supposed to force "omni-crafters" to buy materials/final products from single class crafters and vice versa. However, in practice, players can get around it through alts (uncommon) or by swapping specializations and then mass producing materials or even final crafts. Also, due to the unpopularity of endgame crafting in general, certain markets will invariably be controlled by one or two players (could in theory be a single class crafter which does solve the omni-crafter competition problem at the expense of all buyers). I don't think the developers considered the buyer angle or they only used the largest servers as some kind of benchmark in estimating market activity.

It's more or less impossible to design recipe locks in such a way without severely affecting one party (buyer) as they're intentionally designed to help a single-class crafter by removing their omni-crafter rivals from the equation. At most, you could solve the single crafter complaints about omni-crafter competition but you'd open the door to a flood of monopoly complaints.

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Originally Posted by Culfinrandir

I've never used the Specialist Abilities at all. They're not even on my hotbars. If I am able to craft everything using the abilities that come with levelling crafter up to lvl60 then I don't need to complicate my life further!

Of course, there's some excellent theorycrafters in this game who help everyone with the more complex parts of crafting. I always try to find my own rotations before using, say, Rath's 437CP wonderful creation. That's all part of the fun to me.

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Pretty much. I don't normally use specialist abilities either other than when experimenting with a way for single class crafters to HQ the latest items. With cross class skills, you can can craft from 0-100% on all items released so far the majority of the time, with most other results falling to around 90-94%. Getting a mere 80% is a disaster that doesn't happen too often as it normally requires 5-6 misses.

Rotations are useful for beginners who haven't fully mastered the use of all of the crafting abilities. But they'll ultimately hold you back. You should actually be crafting with the mindset of doing whatever it takes to get that 11 stacks of IQ while building up ~7300 quality (or 6100 quality if you're able to add innovation into the mix). If it takes 8 touches, great. If it takes 16, that's fine too.

Ironically, in the absence of level 50 cross class skills, specialist abilities force you to take the harder non-rotation based approach. Free form crafting in the truest sense as even your timing/method for completing progress is unpredictable (for 3* and 4* anyhow).

Specialist abilities add an extra layer of RNG on top of things. This (as evidenced by a discussion some time back about the moves) makes for higher stat requirements to achieve the same results as an omnicrafter.

Having read through what you've said, Roth and Minerva, I've changed my views on locking recipes. I'd like to see it go.

So far I've been lucky; I've been able to get friends to make things I can't and I've had something to offer them in return. I guess that rosy situation was part of what the devs had in mind.
However, I've only been able to craft 4* for a couple of weeks. When my friends are busy or there is nothing they want from me in return, I'm going to have use the MB and I've already noticed that the goods from the less popular specialisations are priced considerably higher than the goods that I can produce (since I chose three of the most popular ones).
Clearly, increased competition does drive prices down, so not locking recipes would benefit everyone. Omni-crafters could go back to being self sufficient and prices would be more favourable for buyers, both the single-crafters looking for materials and non-crafters looking for crafted goods.

Other than scrapping specialization entirely (which they should), I'd be ok with them forbidding the sale or trade of anything made outside of your specialization that required specialization. Huh? What?

Prior to this patch, let's say I'm not a GSM specialist. But I want to make a scintillant ingot. Let me make it. Let it be bound to my character (not sellable). And anything I make with it... bound to my character. So if I want to make a scintillant staff for my BLM but I'm not a GSM specialist, I can make it for myself. I can't trade it.

However, that's just an idea. Honestly, I keep multiple souls of the crafter handy and I just swap whenever I feel like it.

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Originally Posted by dspguy

Other than scrapping specialization entirely (which they should), I'd be ok with them forbidding the sale or trade of anything made outside of your specialization that required specialization. Huh? What?

Prior to this patch, let's say I'm not a GSM specialist. But I want to make a scintillant ingot. Let me make it. Let it be bound to my character (not sellable). And anything I make with it... bound to my character. So if I want to make a scintillant staff for my BLM but I'm not a GSM specialist, I can make it for myself. I can't trade it.

However, that's just an idea. Honestly, I keep multiple souls of the crafter handy and I just swap whenever I feel like it.

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This^

I don't really like the locks at all, but it seemed odd that the ironworks gear was gated for a patch. A crafter not being able to make all their own crafting gear? Really?

They already have the system in place. Just make it collectables so that we can wear our own stuff.

The specialist system needs to be scraped and the person that thought it was a good idea should be fired. When I craft something which I really use to enjoy doing in the game before this garbage system came out. I liked having my name on the gear. Now, I have the name of my main char, an alt, a main char from a second account and and alt there also leading to 4 different names when I craft any thing from any of the 8 crafts day one of patch to get around the system. It is stupid and with a touch of grind, it is useless at slowing me down. They need to go back to the way crafts were done in 2.0 when getting the crafting book was a challenge and you actually had to think for yourself. The specialist system and the scrips system that go with it are the dumbest thing I have ever seen to make content that is a lot of fun, not fun anymore. Slow clap SE.

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Originally Posted by dspguy

Other than scrapping specialization entirely (which they should), I'd be ok with them forbidding the sale or trade of anything made outside of your specialization that required specialization. Huh? What?

Prior to this patch, let's say I'm not a GSM specialist. But I want to make a scintillant ingot. Let me make it. Let it be bound to my character (not sellable). And anything I make with it... bound to my character. So if I want to make a scintillant staff for my BLM but I'm not a GSM specialist, I can make it for myself. I can't trade it.

However, that's just an idea. Honestly, I keep multiple souls of the crafter handy and I just swap whenever I feel like it.

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If they did implement it i'd hope it only applied to items made with specialist recipes that you weren't specialised in.

Using your example If i was a weaver specialist and i made that scillant ingot then sure lock it to my character so i can't sell or trade it. because i'm not a goldsmith specialist.

However if i use that to make a robe. then that robe should be tradable as that's where my specialist would be.

The specialist system should be scrapped entirely though. or implemented in a fashion like roth suggested earlier that allows ppl to only use one craft. but not punish those who use 8.

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Originally Posted by MN_14

Also, due to the unpopularity of endgame crafting in general, certain markets will invariably be controlled by one or two players .

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Personally the problem here is a lack of relevant gear to craft, patch 3.4 added the 250 crafted gear. the problem with it is that's it's ridiculously expensive for it's life time. at the minute star velvet robes of healing are 2 million gil on my servers market boards. most people won't even consider buying it. because chances are they'll replace it in 2-3 weeks. this is what destroys a big part of the crafted market. which in turn makes it look even less appealing to crafters which results in endgame craftings apparannt unpopularity.

I'm a solid 3star crafter in 5 crafts.

I'm still sitting on the 3 blank ... whatever the things are you trade in for specalist stones.

My change? Scrap it.

Crafting is victim of his Theme Park nature, it's not like SwG crafting where quaility of two items vary based on crafter skill/decisions and quaility of materials used, and a system that allow everyone to be everything. IMO at this point what they should do is make every profession fully independant outside final products, scrap specialization and allow players to setup their own workshops.

This workshop should act as a more fun way of specialization based on player decisions like:

- Hiring crafters to help you by taking orders.

- Furnishing the workshop.

So for example if I decided to fully commit my workshop to Culinarian I will gain certain bonus: massive culinarian crafting buff, more goods with less materials and having all my workes manufactoring components so I only have to use my time with final products. Something like this will put my in a position while a non specialized Culinarian can't compete with me dropping prices but also increasing potential buyers numbers so final income should be similar, while a regular culinarian still have acces to all recipes but probably It will be better for him to just buy my products too.

Ultimately I think it's fruitless to suggest things like "scrap specializations" or "overhaul the entire system". SE already made specializations so its highly unlikely for them to go away entirely or be changed dramatically. It's why my suggestions earlier in the thread were simple changes to skills provided by specialization. That's the most likely place SE will make changes if they change anything at all.

In my opinion, specialization should equalize omni-crafters and single class crafters in terms of available skills. A slight boost to craftsmanship and control like it gives atm is fine as well. This will give a specialist a slight edge when it comes to crafting without breaking the balance.

One of the major issues with crafting is that there is no sense of achievement since everything is so easy and there is no benefit to learning the system properly other than crafting speed. In HW, you can HQ anything while essentially ignoring half of the crafting mechanics. This isn't much different than raiding while ignoring all mechanics other than your own class' battle rotation.

So I would completely drop the HQ and NQ system and introduce a system that is more similar to the collectible system. Everyone starts at 0 quality and you can have varying results based on what quality threshold you reach. The average semi-static rotation (with some on the fly modifications) user should have a decent shot at the threshold that gives full primary stats. Beyond that, there could be different thresholds with increasingly better secondary stats/other bonuses and finally an extra meld slot at the highest threshold. To add in a bit of challenge, they would have to greatly increase the quality requirements for the higher thresholds while increasing the inner quiet cap to 13 or 14 as those theoretical IQ stacks are routinely achievable now due to the new HW mechanics. This will allow casual crafters to craft powerful gear while more experienced crafters can benefit from acquired skill.

In addition, the developers could play around with lower threshold requirements for specialists while still making it as challenging to reach the highest ones.

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Originally Posted by dspguy

Other than scrapping specialization entirely (which they should), I'd be ok with them forbidding the sale or trade of anything made outside of your specialization that required specialization. Huh? What?

Prior to this patch, let's say I'm not a GSM specialist. But I want to make a scintillant ingot. Let me make it. Let it be bound to my character (not sellable). And anything I make with it... bound to my character. So if I want to make a scintillant staff for my BLM but I'm not a GSM specialist, I can make it for myself. I can't trade it.

However, that's just an idea. Honestly, I keep multiple souls of the crafter handy and I just swap whenever I feel like it.

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This would only encourage alts. In your scenario, I simply would have my alt Goldsmith specialist make those Scintillant Rings and sell them on her.

Honestly, you cannot combat omni-crafters because by its very definition: they are hardcore. Whatever obstacle or grind you put in their way, most will push through. This has been the devs' mistake throughout Heavensward. What you do instead is make it easier for people unwilling to level multiple jobs/characters or give them a straight advantage. You would think the RNG aspect would be for non-Specialists yet they have it reversed.

Pretty sure Roth has the best plan in this thread. Cross-class skills are THE biggest impediment to players who would like to focus on a single class or only a few classes. I've had several friends who have dabbled in crafting, but pretty much dropped it like a hot potato once they realized that to be effective at their chosen class they'd need to level all the others as well. If the specialist skills had been equal to - or even superior than - the cross-class skills, SE might have achieved this goal, but as we are all bitterly aware, they are not. Specialty-locked recipes were a Band-Aid fix once they realized that their original plan was wholly ineffective; Omni-crafters ignored the new skills completely and simply found ways to overcome the brutal recipe requirements with existing skills, leaving single-craft players as lost as they ever were.

SE is revamping the cross-class system. It's possible they could still turn the situation around, if they address crafting cross-class skills as well. We'll see.

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Originally Posted by Roth_Trailfinder

I've said it numerous times.

Specialization Only should be removed as a lock on recipes preventing people from doing them. Specialist Actions should not exist either. Remove both of those, and make the Specialization Stone confer ALL of the other 21 Cross Class Actions, of the level 15, 37, and 50 variety.

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Oh hell no. Just because most people haven't figured out the benefits of the specialist actions doesn't mean they're bad. They're great. Also reminds me when I taught a guy having trouble HQ'ing things, taught him how to use them and he later said it was like night and day.

Specialist actions are good, and removing them wouldn't help you at all. If you choose to ignore them, fine, but leave them as is.

(Though I certainly wouldn't complain if they also added all the cross-class secondaries for specialists, but let's be realistic; that'd be so broken.)

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Originally Posted by Alistaire

Oh hell no. Just because most people haven't figured out the benefits of the specialist actions doesn't mean they're bad. They're great. Also reminds me when I taught a guy having trouble HQ'ing things, taught him how to use them and he later said it was like night and day.

Specialist actions are good, and removing them wouldn't help you at all. If you choose to ignore them, fine, but leave them as is.

(Though I certainly wouldn't complain if they also added all the cross-class secondaries for specialists, but let's be realistic; that'd be so broken.)

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Not gonna go back and dig up a thread from that long ago, but I distinctly remember getting into an argument with someone on these boards about the value of the Specialist Only actions. The long and short of it was, they add an extra layer of RNG and require higher stats to achieve results that might, charitably, be within the same ballpark compared to (yet not as good as) what an omnicrafter can achieve using the cross class moves.

As an above poster said, if they were as good or better than the cross class moves, that would be one thing. They do not come as close as they should, so removing them in favor of getting all of the cross class moves can only help people.

Are the Specialist-only actions bad? On their own, no - though there is a lot more RNG with them, which may be considered bad. Compared to the cross class moves? Higher stats needed and more RNG for lesser results means that, contrary to your opinion, they ARE bad, compared to the cross class moves.

Specialist abilities are largely useful only if you’re lacking somewhere:

1) Are missing a lot of the useful level 50+ cross class skills
2) Have low base cp

The reason for this is probably because they decided to introduce a system that could be combined with cross class skills so they also had to put in a limiter (much heavier rng) to not completely bust the balance. Anyone who has experience with ARR level 50 end game crafting knows that the effectiveness of a crafter is determined by their HQ yield (% of crafts that HQ overall). AFAIK, it wasn’t possible to guarantee 100% on a 4* craft even with 50% starting quality, never mind the ones that forced you to start from 10-30%.

The specialist abilities achieve the following:
1) Greatly boost your HQ yield if you have no level 50 cross class
2) Greatly boost your HQ yield if you have the cross-class abilities but also have really low starting cp
3) Do little to improve your HQ yield if you have enough cp and cross class abilities to reliably craft without specialist abilities. In fact, they probably lower your potential HQ yield.

Seems like check list design to me….

From my experience (assuming that you care to farm delineations), they will help you 75% of the time and hinder you 25% of the time. I’ve crafted probably close to 1000 4* synths from all NQ mats and can state with confidence that you can HQ them 95% of the time with usually 70-80% of your synths ending at 100%. With those numbers, you don’t want to be hindered 25% of the time.

I haven’t tested 4* from low starting cp, but I did test 3* back in 3.2 while equipped with my usual cross class. I started my synths from all NQ materials and 370 cp which was over 100 cp less than what I normally started with. Just by using the heart ability, whistle while you work, satisfaction, and nymaea’s wheel, it was possible to HQ around 75% of the synths. If you ever wondered why the devs bothered releasing red scrip gear (especially the accessories) that is rather weak in terms of the cp they provide, there’s your answer :).

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Originally Posted by MN_14

Specialist abilities are largely useful only if you’re lacking somewhere

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Actually, they are not. There is literally no reason to rely on them over simply leveling your remaining crafts to 50 due to the ridiculously RNG restrictions. Innovative Touch is the one exception. Everything else depends so heavily on RNG, you'll lose far more mats then it'll be worth. Specialist abilities were intended to help people who don't want to level additional jobs. They don't. It'll cost you less to buy a levekit compared to all the materials you'll lose or fail to HQ.

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Originally Posted by Bourne_Endeavor

Actually, they are not. There is literally no reason to rely on them over simply leveling your remaining crafts to 50 due to the ridiculously RNG restrictions. Innovative Touch is the one exception. Everything else depends so heavily on RNG, you'll lose far more mats then it'll be worth. Specialist abilities were intended to help people who don't want to level additional jobs. They don't. It'll cost you less to buy a levekit compared to all the materials you'll lose or fail to HQ.

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I’m analyzing this purely from a mechanical point of view when you’re crafting. I don’t think any crafter would recommend sticking with a few crafting classes only but that’s another topic altogether. I’m assessing the usefulness of the abilities themselves, which is how they would have been designed. The first assumption is that the main intended user is not going to have all cross-class abilities or are lacking in cp.

Yes, if you only have one class at 50+, you’ll HQ far more reliably with the specialist abilities than without. Your HQ rates are actually not bad if you make liberal use of the heart ability and take the time to HQ as many intermediate materials as possible. You’re allowed up to 50% starting quality on a final 4* craft, but you’ll get by if you can get 4000/13187. The time required and difficulty is the main drawback.

Crafters who have all classes but are equipped with only red scrip gear can HQ reliably even with 370 cp or possibly less. 75% HQ yield at all NQ so you’re golden if you can start with a couple thousand quality.

Of course it is highly recommended that you level all crafters instead as you’ll do way better with cross class and I consider it a given that no one will take the single class approach if they have the time to take the alternative route.

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Originally Posted by MN_14

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Even from a mechanical perspective, there just isn't any tangible benefit. The entire point was to eliminate the requirement of leveling every crafter for cross-class abilities. This new alternative is so widely inferior, it's rendered completely pointless no matter its potential functionality. When designing a new mechanic, it should sit comfortably with what exists. Take Collectibles, for example. Specialist abilities and the system as a whole accomplished nothing. Ironically, it encouraged Omni-crafting all the more-- precisely the opposite of its intent.

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Originally Posted by Roth_Trailfinder

Not gonna go back and dig up a thread from that long ago, but I distinctly remember getting into an argument with someone on these boards about the value of the Specialist Only actions. The long and short of it was, they add an extra layer of RNG and require higher stats to achieve results that might, charitably, be within the same ballpark compared to (yet not as good as) what an omnicrafter can achieve using the cross class moves.

As an above poster said, if they were as good or better than the cross class moves, that would be one thing. They do not come as close as they should, so removing them in favor of getting all of the cross class moves can only help people.

Are the Specialist-only actions bad? On their own, no - though there is a lot more RNG with them, which may be considered bad. Compared to the cross class moves? Higher stats needed and more RNG for lesser results means that, contrary to your opinion, they ARE bad, compared to the cross class moves.

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Oh I'm very aware of how few people realise how good they are. One other person saying they don't make a difference doesn't do a thing to change my experience with it. And that's having all specialists, and crafting gear for scrips for quite a while on the same gear with characters that had the specialisation, and the ones that don't. It's actually kind of baffling how underestimated they are.

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Originally Posted by Alistaire

Oh I'm very aware of how few people realise how good they are. One other person saying they don't make a difference doesn't do a thing to change my experience with it. And that's having all specialists, and crafting gear for scrips for quite a while on the same gear with characters that had the specialisation, and the ones that don't. It's actually kind of baffling how underestimated they are.

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It's not quite clear from your post but I have to say, if you have all the Cross Class skills available but you prefer the specialist Skills, then I'm baffled. I don't see anything better about them at all.
I do appreciate they are useful for people who have only levelled 2 or 3 crafting Classes, but I still think the present system leaves those players at a considerable disadvantage compared to an omni-crafter. Given the choice between my Specialists getting access to all the cross class skills or getting the present specialist skills (even tweaked slightly), I'd definitely take the former.
It's a simple, elegant solution to the problem of people not wanting to level every crafting class but still wanting to do endgame crafting.

The changes I'd make are a lot simpler than you might think.

1. Remove specialist lockout on recipes.
2. Drastically increase the price needed to change specialties and add a significant lockout timer.

From there I'd just change it so the only advantage of being a specialist would be a drastically reduced difficulty in HQing items for that particular craft.