Integrating Crafting and Gathering. Ideas?

Admittedly my crafting and gathering class progression on this character are far from having an educated standpoint (only one even level capped), but I some of the annoyances and concerns I have with either system personally I have also heard from many another player in-game, namely that the two systems feel more disjointed and grindy than they ought to.

As such, I was wondering if those of you who enjoy crafting and gathering or, like me, would very much like to enjoy crafting and gathering (but can't quite), had any ideas on how crafting and/or gathering could be more closely and enjoyably integrated into the overall gaming experience?

For instance, would this mean creating some amount of experience overlap, such as when using weapons you personally made? Should there be experience gains from creating materia out of your own stuff? Should gathering nodes be spread over more zones and over more than just a couple loops per mineable/loggable zone? Should gathering gear even really be a thing, or does it make it impossible to place gathering nodes in truly dangerous areas? Could "Stealth" be better?

Through ideas as crazy or simple as you like, how would you more closely and enjoyably integrate crafting and gathering into the overall game experience?

As a fisher i enjoyed every moment from lvl 1 to 60 mainly because i like fishing irl as well so i had +1 reason to start with it.
Regarding ideas to improve it, i've been thinking the possibility that we could fish inside dungeons for example in sastasha for 1-2-3 special fish living there and also if we could fish as a group with a (crafted) boat or single boat. Fishing away from the shore in general. Weather-wise besides the normal conditions (storm-clear etc) i would like to see the intoduction of full moon weather where we could literally fish under a decent moonlight.

I would love to have my own workshop with employees to reduce annoying steps like craft 20 hq ingots for example, something similar to SwG and manufacturing system. (http://swg.wikia.com/wiki/Manufacturing)

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Originally Posted by Driavna

I would love to have my own workshop with employees to reduce annoying steps like craft 20 hq ingots for example

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Oh please, no!
When WoW introduced this type of thing I lost all interest in crafting in that game. I hated both options, either putting an order in and then having to wait until the next day (or whenever it was) or watching my character stand around in the workshop like a lemon while an NPC crafted for me.
I've no experience of SWG but nothing I read in that link really excites me or makes me feel that is what crafting in FF is missing.

I'm not entirely happy with the direction it went with in HW, but crafting in FFXIV is still fun and engaging. Making it something that happens 'offstage' or disconnected from your character feels like entirely the wrong direction to go.
There's quicksynth for the dull stuff; you can go make a cup of tea while that's going on if you don't want to sit and watch it, that's enough for me.


OP: Sorry, no real suggestions for you. I actually don't mind gathering and crafting as they are, although I agree about the grind. It felt excessive in HW, and compared to ARR, levelling both crafting and gathering was fairly painful (I started playing in HW so I didn't have the best gear or tools). I really struggled to level from 50 to 52 and it felt like there was no real catch up for crafters and gatherers who hadn't got their Lucis tools and the best ARR gear. In contrast the battleclass gear was so good, levelling my main was a breeze.
I sincerely hope that Stormblood doesn't continue with the horrendous amount of materials needed to make as single item, like an ingot or piece of lumber or continue putting levelling materials onto hidden or timed nodes. Specialisation needs a thorough overhaul too. But beyond that, I've no real issues.

TLDR I don't really feel the 'disconnect' between gathering and crafting that you are feeling.

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Originally Posted by Solarra

TLDR I don't really feel the 'disconnect' between gathering and crafting that you are feeling.

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I apologize if I was unclear; what I meant was that it felt to me like (subject) crafting and gathering (both, together) missed opportunities to better connect or integrate themselves into (object) the overall game experience.

Take gathering for instance. By requiring a completely separate class and separate gear stats their are very few places that SE was willing to develop gathering nodes, and even then it relies on the crutch of a very unimaginative "Stealth" mechanic as not to come in further conflict with battlecraft spacial needs (i.e. having monsters). Because of this, there is virtually no sense of exploration involved in gathering, as it is limited to more or less exact locations (+/- some 8 meters up or down the cliff face or around a large rock), in exact loops, and only in certain zones—all because it put its design, and therefore needs, in conflict with the needs of other disciplines. By no means is this an issue with Gathering designs alone—to me it signals design issues on an overarching level—but they are probably the discipline most obviously affected.

Alternatively, look at crafting, which is dependant on far more cross-class skills than the Battle/Magic (or obviously Land) Disciplines. Despite an Armorer requiring barely refined pieces from Leatherworker, Weaver, Alchemist, or more, just to make a pair of plated boots, and despite that those pieces would still likely require skill in their respective class to even affix to the larger whole, all leveling is absolutely separate; for stitching together the actual boot out of leather, hardening it thereafter, firmly adhering the sole, stamping in the designs, and adding the trim, the Armorer receives only "a higher nominal offset/input on strange RNG calculations" for Armorer alone.

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<Workshops> "Please not like WoW's"

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Let me throw out an alternative to the "workshop" idea, since I too have a staunch dislike of any take on "offscreen" crafting that would seem like WoW's garrison crafting. Guilds. Making crafting guilds matter. While to really pull this off, one might actually need a living NPC economy, let's just look at the side-effects that such could produce for now, if guilds were involved in this, namely the hierarchical allotment of tasks (assigned at labor + guild values). At a glance, this would simply be an alternative to crafting leves, but in practice, this also allows more advanced crafters to delegate tasks, be that to NPCs or players, letting them borrow materials, or quoting a price over to a gathering guild for x amount of material to be later used, to be turned into refined ingredients reserved for your later use. The guild, in turn, by specific mechanic or through living economy AI, would be buying additional materials to be used by their own crafters, the excess (if only a mechanic, the whole) of which can be purchased at guild price or for guild currency (alike to favor exchange) to replace wasted ingredients, etc., the deposit for which can be required before accepting another's materials.

The connection I really want to see is in the crafting and gathering logs..

Lets say for example I look up a Teak necklace of slaying recipe.

what you can currently do is search the crafting log for ingrediants. so I seach the log for teak lumber. it then tells me I need teak logs for example.

what i'd love is to be able to search for those in the gathering log from in that window.. thus opening the gathering log and telling me where I can obtain those logs the same way as I was able to search for the lumber recipe from the necklace...

presently its a bit of a chore having to constantly chop and change logs when working out what you need to make something

that would be an amazing integration. and also some forward and back buttons...

so if I gone to the necklace and then searched the lumber recipe I can quickly tap back and go back to the necklace without having to mess around

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Originally Posted by Driavna

I would love to have my own workshop with employees to reduce annoying steps like craft 20 hq ingots for example, something similar to SwG and manufacturing system. (http://swg.wikia.com/wiki/Manufacturing)

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Do you use crafting macros?

They tired to integrate crafting and gathering better in 1.x by letting you start as any class at all. I took an alt to 20+ as CRP. It didn't really integrate them better, but gave more variety.

Regarding the auto craft stuff remember that we alrdy got macros an retainers, anything else an I just feel is gonna kill man labor an effect the economy, it's like having RTM destroying the market value.

I'm with you, but every attempt they've made in the past resulted in an overwhelming majority of non crafters/gatherers raising hell. The crafted ingredients for anima, materials melding for pve gear, gathering in diadem etc. Lots of salt and butt hurt went around. At the end of the day, if crafting has any crossover with the rest of the game, the forums will explode in whining.

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Originally Posted by Shadygrove

Do you use crafting macros?

They tired to integrate crafting and gathering better in 1.x by letting you start as any class at all. I took an alt to 20+ as CRP. It didn't really integrate them better, but gave more variety.

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For me, probably the easiest help to "integration" 1.x gave was that I didn't need to make a new gear set every few levels; instead I could use the higher level piece I was already using for my main crafter which was "optimal" for the higher level, but still usable at a synced, slightly below optimal, stat value for levels beneath the "optimal". Given that each piece took about three times as many steps to make back then (though thereby drawing far more exp from a single set of raw materials), that was quite a life-saver. I can understand ARR's removal of "optimal" level requirements (downward-syncing gear) in place of "hard" level requirements (non-syncing gear) to a degree, but the amount of inventory space it's cost us amid a non glamour-heavy game is rather painful. And that's to say nothing of when there were only stats and armor classes, rather than strictly required classes to equip a piece of armor (as with late 50+ armor).

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

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Thank you for taking the time to explain, I understand what you mean now and I completely agree with you, but in the case of integrating say, gathering and battle I'm not sure what can be done.
It would be broken to let us switch from gather to battle class with all cooldowns reset, or from battle to a gathering class with full GP. So, if they put gathering nodes in dungeons for example, we'd have to go back once it was cleared because nobody is going to want to wait around for that. If they designed a dungeon so a gatherer or crafter was necessary to progress, it would mean longer queues and a lot of work on the present system, so I can't see that happening.

If a gatherer or crafter gave a bonus, like unlocking an extra area, it might work. Eg. a miner could chip through a wall in a dungeon to open a new area or an alchemist could make a potion that lets you sneak past an invulnerable mob, but the rewards have to be worth the effort and I think DF groups who find themselves without the necessary gatherers/crafters would probably complain.
Because of the class system and the need to switch gear, integrating gather and crafting objectives alongside battle would require communication and cooperation, two things FFXIV players aren't used to or good at (remember Diadem?).

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Making crafting guilds matter...

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I like these ideas. The one thing every new player in my FC comments on if they get into crafting, is the crafting questlines and the guild masters, and so far everyone has loved them.
I was so disappointed Ishgard didn't have a Guild Hall or it's own master crafters, despite people wearing clothes/gear that was markedly different from most of the gear in ARR.
Expanding on the guilds and making them more relevant would be something I'd like to see.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

For me, probably the easiest help to "integration" 1.x gave was that I didn't need to make a new gear set every few levels

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As a crafter, I like having better gear to make every few levels. That's what I took up crafting for in the first place. I want a steady stream of stuff that I can make which is actually useful in my own gameplay. It's boring to make stuff just to sell it, or to make stuff to turn in (or worse yet, make stuff just to destroy it again if you're leveling desynth as well). I hate leveling just for the sake of leveling alone. I'm leveling it in order to make my own gear and supplies, so I want plenty of chances to do so along the way.

And for crafting and combat classes alike, when I level up, my biggest reward is seeing what new pieces of gear that unlocks for me. (Well, it usually is, anyway, except in a few cases, where an important new skill is unlocked.) It's rather disappointing when I level up and realize there's nothing new at that level. It hardly seems like leveling at all in those cases.

I will agree it's hard on inventory space, though.

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Originally Posted by Niwashi

'm leveling it in order to make my own gear and supplies, so I want plenty of chances to do so along the way.

And for crafting and combat classes alike, when I level up, my biggest reward is seeing what new pieces of gear that unlocks for me.

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Originally Posted by Niwashi

'm leveling it in order to make my own gear and supplies, so I want plenty of chances to do so along the way.

And for crafting and combat classes alike, when I level up, my biggest reward is seeing what new pieces of gear that unlocks for me.

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I'm somewhat 'new' having returned to the game again, and this looks to be the biggest problem with gathering/crafting for me at the moment. Your battle class will generally outpace the crafting rather easily, I mean by the time I finished the MSQ to get to other areas in order to start gathering I was already pushing level 15+.

Having done all the crafting from 1-15 immediately in one go (and that was a bit silly, I burnt myself out there) I found I had, well, nothing to make except maybe a sword and more gathering/crafting gear. The Novice Hall stuff is superior to anything I could make in the 15-20 range (and earlier), so I'm chomping at the bit to catch up with the crafting levels in order to make something I can use that isn't given for free. (Oh and dungeon drops supplemented the Novice gear quite nicely too!)

The other thing is that because all the crafting classes seem to be inter-dependent on materials, I can't really focus on one or two alone and sort of run away with it. Like, initially I was looking at Armourer and blacksmithing, but I need wood (Carpenter) and leather (Leatherworker) and then I'm dealing with brass (Goldsmith) and so I'm constantly switching and... well, ok I've had fun, I've got myself a shiny new sword, which I'll outlevel in two seconds, but it seems a ton of work and time to supplement your battle/magic levelling.

Maybe I'm approaching it the wrong way though, I don't know. It feels like Crafting is almost brilliant for getting your alts up rather than the main class? At least in terms of effort and whatnot, but that tells me (rightly or wrongly) that it isn't really newbie-friendly and accessible in the way some people might want to approach the classes, which is to say they'd like to be self-sufficient while keeping pace with the story/battling classes. -Again, it may be my own playstyle hindering me here, I don't rush leves or anything, but even so. :P

As for ideas, I have none. I just wanted to put forth my limited experience on the matter, if it would help any. >_>

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Originally Posted by RVallant

Having done all the crafting from 1-15 immediately in one go (and that was a bit silly, I burnt myself out there) I found I had, well, nothing to make except maybe a sword and more gathering/crafting gear. The Novice Hall stuff is superior to anything I could make in the 15-20 range (and earlier), so I'm chomping at the bit to catch up with the crafting levels in order to make something I can use that isn't given for free. (Oh and dungeon drops supplemented the Novice gear quite nicely too!)

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Yeah, some of the stuff that SE has added to make it easier for new players to "catch up" quickly has put a real damper on low-level crafting. The gear from the Novice Hall from patch 3.2 has outclassed a couple tiers of crafted armor (except for the hat and belt), and then the weathered accessories from patch 3.3 outclassed the first couple tiers of crafted jewelry.

Though I'm well past that point on my main, I've lately been spending more of my attention on a recent alt who is currently at that stage (highest combat class level 18 LNC, and DoH levels in the 13-23 range except for CUL which is lagging behind since it's not linked to the others by inter-dependent materials or gear to make for them). And yeah, it seems like at that point, the majority of the crafting is for the crafting and gathering classes themselves.

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Originally Posted by Niwashi

As a crafter, I like having better gear to make every few levels. That's what I took up crafting for in the first place. I want a steady stream of stuff that I can make which is actually useful in my own gameplay. It's boring to make stuff just to sell it, or to make stuff to turn in (or worse yet, make stuff just to destroy it again if you're leveling desynth as well). I hate leveling just for the sake of leveling alone. I'm leveling it in order to make my own gear and supplies, so I want plenty of chances to do so along the way.

And for crafting and combat classes alike, when I level up, my biggest reward is seeing what new pieces of gear that unlocks for me. (Well, it usually is, anyway, except in a few cases, where an important new skill is unlocked.) It's rather disappointing when I level up and realize there's nothing new at that level. It hardly seems like leveling at all in those cases.

I will agree it's hard on inventory space, though.

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I guess to put this in perspective, just as my experience as a gamer, I'd prefer to be have a larger range of both opportunity and leniency, as much as that might sound paradoxical. In other words, I like having new gear to make (or, as below, upgrade) every few levels; I just find it unituitive that just because a piece of gear is better, say wool over linen, every player develops a wool allergy until precisely the required level that allows them to equip it. They shouldn't receive it's full benefit beneath that, sure (or to put it another way, the gear shouldn't hold them back when their skills match its quality, but neither will they fill it out beneath that, nor will it fulfill them above it), but it shouldn't somehow not be clothing.

For instance, let's take an old 1.x forum idea of composite items, in which the near finished components (removed later in 1.x) retained a portion of their added quality, rather than solely adding to the chance of the final product being upgraded to HQ state (in other words, each item could "HQ" in a variety of ways, by part in addition to gestalt). But, let's take that further. You can now attempt to replace pieces of already completed gear, or add atop it. You have a leather jerkin that you want to turn into scale mail? Add scales atop it. There may be restrictions, or certain parts may need to be removed (very successfully, in order not to damage the whole) to make space for the new parts, but you can upgrade most items.

The issue with this would be a return to the 1.x crafter item bloat, especially in the hands of poor crafters (who might make the wrong sub-item, such as a body for a shoe when intending to make a boot, and now needing to wait until they have the ingredients for the rest of the shoe in order not to waste the sub-item made in error), and additional steps (which make crafting more involved, and more exp-efficient per raw material, but far less immediate). That first bit can be mitigated through intuitive UI, but the second is a point of preference (though it too may be mitigated through something alike to "quick-crafting", in this case "whole crafting").

At the same time though, by returning to "optimal level" requirements in place of hard requirements, you're not stripped naked when you continue leveling a level 12 crafter and only have your 18+ gear left after spring cleaning. (And, *evil villain hand kneading* the added inventory requirements for making the intermediate components gives me an excuse to introduce crafting tables, on which you can temporarily store and easily share materials, which I might later integrate into camp/tent functionality).

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Originally Posted by RVallant

As for ideas, I have none. I just wanted to put forth my limited experience on the matter, if it would help any. >_>

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It's always helpful to be reminded of the pre-endgame stages of the game (especially by someone who's actually taken interest in crafting in a timely, DoW/M-matched fashion), and to see how they've changed.

One idea I'd seen from other games is the idea that crafting should play a more vital part in gear acquisition, not just by crafting your own items from scratch, but by being able to make alterations, and more meaningful repairs. In turn, all these auxiliary uses should also give reasonable crafting experience, making it all the easier to keep up with your combat uses.

Other, even more common solutions include by-material crafting proficiency or long-spanned materials, allowing a given item or resource or hunting ground to last a longer number of levels because material groups overlap, so long as proficiency is sufficient. More importantly, a crafter can go dormant for some amount of time, skipping a material in the time that his crafting has fallen behind his combat class progression, but easily return to work during a later material. If he has kept up, the transition into the new material goes quicker, but even if he has not, he quickly reaches nearly the output within the given material.