4.0 specialization

After reviewing an unofficial translation of the latest letter by gamerescape question and answer 15 addressed specialist and they said it will get enhanced. I've heard from other ppl saying it will enhance the functions of the regular/cross class skills..... so I'm here to speculate on what enhancements and philosophy I'd like to see implemented. And discuss among us our issues with the current system.

First off for those that completely hate the concept itself and want it abolished while i feel where You maybe coming from....we know it's not going away (anytime soon) so let's leave those comments out of the thread please. But for those that thinks current system sucks...tell us why and how you hope it going to be addressed.

RNG has it's place in crafting and that absolutely will never go away!! However to marginalize it's impact we get stats and I hope specialization!!

Currently you need 2 favorable conditions to even START to unlock specialist potential
(note: innovative touch is immediately accessible but if you only have use of one then it's most potent to get a proc right before BB.)
However even with delineation favorable conditions are not guaranteed.....now if delineation was a free ability then that gamble would be niche!! You spend CP hoping to get CP bk and/or stronger progression/touches... but delineation is not free and while it's cheap it can't be traded so each person has to sink time to gain scrolls.... which doesn't at all lend well to mass crafting.

I would like to see delineation be made a free skill that guarantee 2 procs and can only be used once. So it would be a CP lost of 6 if you ToT both procs. Also reduce it from 8 steps to 4 and keep it RNG on if it procs on step 1 or step 2 first.

OR keep it a purchased skill but guarantee all 4 procs. We need some clear reward for taking the extra time to craft collectibles for each scroll. At least guarantee 3 procs!!

However if they do not make delineation free something else needs to be done so specialist stands on its own two feet!!

My suggestions is whistle while you work be made to start at 9 stacks and cost 20 CP (elsewhere I suggested it be automatic at startup and cost no cp...but that's too OP esp if it starts at 9 stacks....)

This way RNG will be your friend or your enemy. The question will always be "how many steps can I afford before I'm satisfied??" This is a friendly mini game that has great upside-if you predict correctly- but won't completely destroy the syn if you guess wrongly.

Second it gives you greater access to nym wheel trained and hand procs.

Nym wheel is already best cp/durability in game so no changes need there esp if you reduce the cost of Whistle from 36 to 20.

Trained hand however I'd like to see it gain an additional buff or reduction in CP (from 32 to 28).

The specialist BB version is missing something..... it's not cheap enough to where there could be a case where you'd wanna chance using it then building IQ to use a regular BB . Also if used with rumination 6 IQs isn't really any CP worth anything.

I suggest making it potent than Regular BB. Regular BB max out at 300% they should make specialist BB max out at 400% still be 70% success but cost 26 cp and require a favorable proc. And of course use up all IQs.

My thinking is it's not meant to displace regular BB but be a functional save from not getting 11 IQs. Also it would make a better macro savior for getting an excellent proc prior to regular BB.

I feel that any changes that they make should be to better realize the original intention of the specialist system: to allow single class end game crafters to HQ master crafts reliably. IIRC, one of the goals was to bring crafting back to its 2.0 state where end game crafts could be done using one class at 50 and low level cross class abilities only.

These changes might work for omni-crafters, but single class crafters would be rather adversely affected if their specialist Byregot’s ability was reliant on the availability of a good/excellent proc. Single class specialist crafting is also contingent on using satisfaction and the heart ability for CP restores (no CZ, no maker’s mark/FS phase, etc.) so you wouldn’t want to limit the use of whistle or the heart ability unless you make other significant changes to offset this.

It’s difficult to boost the current spec abilities in such a way to greatly help single class crafters without breaking the balance for omni-crafters. I believe that they have to either replace all spec abilities with skills that are roughly equivalent to cross class (clearly confirmed that this won’t be happening) or have the specialist soul lock out high level cross class abilities. This would allow any crafter to access specialist recipes while being forced to use the new powered up (and hopefully fixed) single class specialist crafting design.

As it currently stands, major improvements are needed for the specialist system to cater to single class crafters. But the same isn’t true for omni-crafters (who can simply not use the spec abilities) unless the difficulty of recipes is increased significantly. At the current balance, anyone with a full set of cross class abilities, a robust strategy, and enough CP can generally face-roll anything from all NQ mats. RNG can also be mitigated using only a handful of HQ components.

NQs will invariably happen due to bad RNG if you’re always crafting final products from 0 starting quality but the one or two NQ products that you get out of 20-30 synths is worth the time saved. If a crafter has a bit of extra time, simply HQing the easy level 50 mats on 4* crafts will eliminate most of the NQ risk.

You're right that the original original intent of specializations was to lessen the impact of not having access to all the crafters skills. Elsewhere I have agreed with the idea of specializations (like jobs) lock certain cross class abilities out!!

However SE never intended for specialists to displace omni crafters but to compare to omni crafters.

Still SE found out the ppl complaining the most are the omni crafters (which a huge chunk of the crafting community have 3+ max crafting classes). And the omni are demanding that specialist not only prop up those with 1 or 2 classes but also be EVEN more rewarding to those that sink the time to unlock them all.

If specialist locks out certain cross classes I'd like them to return to each class having a perk (bsm made things overall easier; ltw reduce it durability loss; alc control it's CP; gsm stronger touch effects; wvr safe progress; arm strong progress; cul risky yet cheap touches and second chances....etc) this would give each path to HQ a different feel and destroy our macro system lol!!

Currently this system if you want fast and reliable HQs you are mandated to cross class HT, CZ, CS2, BB (often crossed are ing2, maker's, muscle, innovations RS and PbP )

Personally, I want to see the decision to Omnicraft be one of desire, not necessity. Currently, players level every craft to 50 or more because they NEED those cross-class skills - and that's not good.

An obvious and easy solution that fits right in with the cross-class changes they're making to the battle classes would simply to remove these skills from their associated classes, and make them available across the board. In other words, crafting classes no longer learn ANY skill at levels 15, 37, and 50 and make the skills that would have been learned at those levels cross-classable from the get-go. Or, perhaps this as an alternative: at level 15, every class gets a class trait called "Novice", which unlocks all of the formerly level 15 cross-class skills for use. At 37, they get a trait called "Journeyman" that unlocks the level 37 skills. At 50, they get "Artisan", which unlocks the level 50 skills, and at 54, "Veteran" for those skills. The class trait method would allow the cross-class skills to be introduced a few at a time, so as not to overwhelm the fledgling crafter.

The necessity of these cross-class skills is the main bar preventing players from focusing on just one craft. Heavensward offered new skills to try to help solo-crafters - but, sadly, these skills were CLEARLY INFERIOR to the cross-class equivalents. It was clearly an attempt to avoid offending players who had leveled every class. That was a mistake. Omnicrafters are not owed anything for the extra work they put in. They adapted to a flawed system, and profited by it, all while players who would like to craft but couldn't or wouldn't invest the serious amount of time required fell away. Omnicrafters don't need any special benefits - they already naturally benefit simply because they can participate in ANY crafting market, and they can craft their own off-class materials. They don't need the benefits of superior crafting abilities on top of all that - but currently, that's the system we live in.

I don't know what SE has planned for the future, but whatever it is I hope that they don't take whiny players complaining about all the "hard work they did that doesn't mean anything anymore" into consideration. Omnicrafters have been king of the hill long enough, and I say that AS an Omnicrafter. I would be happy to see my friends who dabbled in crafting but gave it up once they saw the kind of hurdles they'd have to overcome possibly one day come back to crafting.

I agree omni has been king long enough! But we know already (unless they remove being able to purchase soul of the crafter crystals) that onmi will remain king for the near future bc you can swap between Spc without waiting 2 weeks!!! So even if they make it viable for a solo crafter to sufficiently HQ, the advantage will remain with the omni crafters that simply swap crystals (which while i like being able to swap spc at whim...it defeats the exclusivity that SPC is supposed to offer in the first place....).

But this isn't to go against your point. The meaning of omni king just changed from sufficiency into.... master of all crafts lol

I don't think they should punish omnicrafters either, though, which the specialist system does. It limits us in ways that we're not limited on our adventuring or our gathering side, only our crafting side. If they want to keep the system, get rid of the idea of limiting us to 3, get rid of specialist recipes, and concentrate on making it a system so that a single crafter can be just as viable a choice as an omni, without punishing either side.

Perhaps I'm not the norm, but once recipes weren't locked behind specialization, the only thing I found useful about it was the bonuses the soul-stone gave me. On the other hand, getting those soul stones was essentially free.

Perhaps Specialization should be more like Jobs in the DoW classes: you need some but not much of another (crafting) class to become the "craft Job", it changes what skills you can cross-class, and it provides powerful abilities not available in any other job or class. Might be more interesting. And since you could always change to, say, regular LWR Class instead of Specialist Leatherworker Job (just as WHM can always run as CNJ is they want) there'd by no downside. And there'd be no need to a limit on the number of Crafter Jobs you could have.

And it might be fun. Skills and therefore rotations might be different for each crafting "Job," and inevitably some jobs would find it easier to do high-level crafts than some others. That's not a bad thing: it means good sproduced by those Specialists might sell at a premium, rewarding those who master the more difficult Craft Jobs.

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Originally Posted by Silverbane

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Spc system already offer more stats and abilities not available to regular classes. So it's already like a job (DOW or DOM).

However SE has this dilemma where they don't want to get rid of Omni crafters, nor do they want omni to be the norm. The original idea of limiting each player to 3 Spc lended well to rewarding the crafter with 1-3 classes maxed and it encouraged players to work together-- interdependence.

But then Omni crafters like yourself...said I don't wanna work with anybody else I want to be self-sustaining.... Well SE came up with a GREAT solution that keeps the majority of 1-3 crafter players interdependent while allowing the more dedicated self-sufficient omni crafters "contentment"; they made RED SCRIPTS uncapped!!! Now you can swap between spc at will BUT it will cost you a grind (not a terribly long grind; you can macro 480 RED'S in 15min??).

Again the issue with giving omni crafters complete access is it will marginalize the crafters that can only make 1 to 2 items needed in a several part end-product synthesis. And that is not the same as crafters that have access to gatherer classes; the difference is crafters with gatherers still have to spend a decent amount of TIME gathering the mats needed for each synthesis they want to make; while omni crafter merely spend an extra 30sec to 2min crafting an additional step. The time spent on maxing the classes on crafters (currently) rewards exponentially as compared to the reward for maxing all you gatherers.

let me give a tangible example of the difference.

Let's consider what it takes to make an ilv 190 crafting necklace: Ironworks Necklace of Crafting.

Now I have all the gathering classes so I can save the gil and farm all the mats. HOWEVER my only saving is GIL not at all time! I actually have to invest a HUGE amount of time for the gil I plan on saving. Let's start with luminous fibers. the glass for luminous can be retrieved 1 per day? by moogle quest or you can farm ilv180 gear to desyn; however both methods are extremely time consuming (i.e. gil saved= significant time spent). Moving onto the light-kiss sand needed we have another gil saved=significant time spent (unless you're lucky). Also now consider the timed unspoiled nodes (wattle bark, meteorite,.....more gil saved equaling significant time spent.)

So far all the "benefits" of having my own gathering classes still cost me something significant to take "advantage" of my gathering classes--TIME. Now lets move into the crafting portion.

Remember I want to make an ilv 190 crafting necklace and I have all raw mats that took me significant time to gather. I need to make camphor, lum. fiber, eikon leather, and treated cam. lumber. That's a total of 4 different syn needed BEFORE I can attempt my necklace (so 5 syn. if you include the necklace itself). Let's be funny and say each step takes 3min...lulz; so when its all said and done i sent 15min crafting this one necklace.

Let's now compare. When it came to obtaining raw mats the gil I saved resulted in significant time investment in gathering the mats myself. HOwever when it came to omni crafting not only did I save gil in crafting it myself, but the cost of crafting it myself was 3min per additional step!!! BEING FUNNY I SAID IT TAKES 3min per step. But it doesn't take 3min to hq any of these steps and most decent crafters can NQ these intermediate mats in 30 sec and still get the HQ necklace; so in reality more like a total time of 5-6min everything!!!. There is no comparison that Omni crafting rewards FAAAARRRR more in time and gil saved than having gatherers & a few crafters leveled.

Hence why specialist system wanted to level the playing field, reducing each player to a trio-crafter (AND yesss this punished omni crafters!!!) However moving forward omni crafters will no longer be severely punished BUT INSTEAD will be required more TIME in order to take "advantage" of having access to all the crafting class by being required to spend an additional 15min making RED SCRIPTS to swap crafting crystals. Under this new system Omni crafters will still have the perk of self-sufficiency; it just wont be as crippling to the rest of the non-omni crafting community.

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Originally Posted by javid

But then Omni crafters like yourself...said I don't wanna work with anybody else I want to be self-sustaining.... Well SE came up with a GREAT solution

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Not really. I have two characters who are Omnicrafters, and my wife has two as well. And we each have one more character that is L60 crafting on at least 2 crafts.

We each cover all the Specialists.
And each of our two omni-crafter characters is also an omni-gatherer.
We are each self-sustaining. And together, even more so.

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Originally Posted by javid

Hence why specialist system wanted to level the playing field, reducing each player to a trio-crafter (AND yesss this punished omni crafters!!!)

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We don't feel punished. We just felt like we'd been giving a reason to level two more characters each up to L60 DoW (me WHM main, she Bard) and omnicrafters

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Originally Posted by Silverbane

Not really. I have two characters who are Omnicrafters, and my wife has two as well. And we each have one more character that is L60 crafting on at least 2 crafts.

We each cover all the Specialists.
And each of our two omni-crafter characters is also an omni-gatherer.
We are each self-sustaining. And together, even more so.


We don't feel punished. We just felt like we'd been giving a reason to level two more characters each up to L60 DoW (me WHM main, she Bard) and omnicrafters

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uuugh you do realize the steps you're taking to bypass one character having access to all spc recipes is the very mechanics of interdependence? The only draw back is your system is a bit slower since it's just you and the "boo" manning the 8 man fort.
Nevertheless functionally (even though the several characters are under your operation) you'll depend on multi characters to cover all the areas needed.

You don't feel the punishment b/c you have several characters, an omni crafter with only 1 character (under the current system) wouldn't be able to enjoy your work around.

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Originally Posted by javid

uuugh you do realize the steps you're taking to bypass one character having access to all spc recipes is the very mechanics of interdependence?

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We're just having fun.

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Originally Posted by javid

You don't feel the punishment b/c you have several characters, an omni crafter with only 1 character (under the current system) wouldn't be able to enjoy your work around.

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It's their choice to only have one character. :P

I don't think anybody against your lvling multiple characters. Nor am I convince the form of onmi crafting you and yours have embarked on is gonna detrimentally effect the Marketplace.

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Originally Posted by Silverbane

We don't feel punished. We just felt like we'd been giving a reason to level two more characters each up to L60 DoW (me WHM main, she Bard) and omnicrafters

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Since you don't seem to feel the punishment, I'm going to assume that neither you, nor your wife has actually done any high level crafting during the 2.x patches.

It's a punishment to 2.x omnicrafters, because everything a player could do on just one character, now requires three characters. The crafting system in 2.x perfectly fit the "You can do everything on one character" thing, just like you can level every single job DoW/M job on a single character, without any requirement to actually specialize into any of the DoW/M jobs.

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Originally Posted by Nezerius

Since you don't seem to feel the punishment, I'm going to assume that neither you, nor your wife has actually done any high level crafting during the 2.x patches.

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Why would you assume that? That something was different in the past doesn't make the present "punishment."
Well, unless one is spoiled, I guess.

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Originally Posted by Silverbane

Why would you assume that? That something was different in the past doesn't make the present "punishment."
Well, unless one is spoiled, I guess.

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Because if you had, you obviously would've found it a punishment to need another two characters to be able to do the same thing that you could do on just one character, during 2.x. It's obviously a punishment to deter 2.x omnicrafters from continueing to be omnicrafters post-2.x. Especially considering how much of a pain it is to move materials between characters.
There's nothing about being "spoiled", more about a knee-jerk reaction to a crafting system that worked fine, turning it into something that took multiple bandaid fixes to get into a somewhat better state.

Forcing limitations onto omnicrafters, just to allow players with 1-3 crafting jobs leveled to be competitive, isn't the way to go, as it's more of a negative thing (ie: if you pick these three jobs you can't craft those other recipes). It'd have been better if the specialist system was introduced with a more positive effect to it. Like if a specialist were able to craft things with less materials (y'know, since they specialise in crafting specific things). It'd encourage players to pick a specialist without feeling limited.

How would you feel if in 5.0, the devs would suddenly decide that you can only pick 3 DoW/M jobs and 1 DoL job to specialise in, with content that can only be accessed on said specialised jobs. Would you still find it great that it'd "encourage" having multiple characters? If you don't see that as a punishment, then I don't know what to tell you.

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Originally Posted by Nezerius

How would you feel if in 5.0, the devs would suddenly decide that you can only pick 3 DoW/M jobs and 1 DoL job to specialise in, with content that can only be accessed on said specialised jobs. Would you still find it great that it'd "encourage" having multiple characters? If you don't see that as a punishment, then I don't know what to tell you.

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Is that how far you have to go to "make" your point? An absurd hypothetical?
It's a game. We play by their rules, and they change them for reasons that are not your reasons.
Me, I'll adapt and have fun or I'll leave.

Any "punishment" you might think you are suffering is self-inflicted.

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Originally Posted by Silverbane

Is that how far you have to go to "make" your point? An absurd hypothetical?
It's a game. We play by their rules, and they change them for reasons that are not your reasons.
Me, I'll adapt and have fun or I'll leave.

Any "punishment" you might think you are suffering is self-inflicted.

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I agree its subjective on how one can view the crafting meta change from 2.x to 3 and now moving into 4! So instead of referring to "punishment" lets say disadvantage?! We were able to do something in the past that we can no longer do...the rules changed. And whether or not the rules changed for the better depends on who you ask.


FACTS:
SE doesn't want OMNI crafting to be mandatory for all crafters that want to participate in the SE crafting economy.
FACTS:
Originally (probably still the case) SE wanted omni crafters to remain supreme even though they didn't want it mandatory.

Opinion (mine :) )
I would like which ever system will stabilize the crafting marketing environment. Fair competition where time invested matters but time invested ALONE doesn't overwhelm the contribution/participation of others that are at least fairly invested in respect to the heavy time investor. I.E. A guy that can play the game 5-6 hrs a day everyday IMO SHOULD be compensated in proportions to his efforts (and the luck of the free market system) comparable to another guy that only spends 1-3 hrs a day everyday accomplishing the similar task. However the system should not make the 1-3 hrs guy obsolete when in competition with the 5-6 guy. It is my OPINION the 4.0 rumored changes will accomplish this.

The more dedicated players (whether it be several character creation/managements or a single character constantly SPC swapping) will reap what they sow without completely displacing the one to three crafting class(es) player.

EVEN STILL..... this thread was a suppose to be about what you're hoping to find with the SPECIALIST SYSTEM WE KNOW WE'LL GET !! :) So lets get bk to what do you want to see?????

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Originally Posted by javid

It is my OPINION the 4.0 rumored changes will ...

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You formed an opinion based on rumors ... ? Well, I shouldn't be surprised.
But it is my OPINION you could find a better use for your time.

Stormblood crafting will be what it will be, which we don't know.
Whatever it is, it's not going to change in the next 6 weeks.
When we do know, we can have intelligent discussions of how to adapt, or
we can post our final bitter and pathetic sayonaras.

But arguments based on opinions based on speculation based on rumors? I'll pass.

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Originally Posted by Silverbane

Is that how far you have to go to "make" your point? An absurd hypothetical?

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It's not absurd, since it's exactly what happened with DoH jobs.

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Originally Posted by Silverbane

It's a game. We play by their rules, and they change them for reasons that are not your reasons.
Me, I'll adapt and have fun or I'll leave.

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Just because it's a game, doesn't mean its players can't complain about a change that they don't like. It isn't always the players that have to adapt to a change. The fact that players complained is why we're no longer in the same situation as the one in 3.0-3.1, with suboptimal crafted DoW/M gear, and the awful Favors system.

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Originally Posted by javid

EVEN STILL..... this thread was a suppose to be about what you're hoping to find with the SPECIALIST SYSTEM WE KNOW WE'LL GET !! :) So lets get bk to what do you want to see?????

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What I'm wanting to see is a system that favours time investment on one character, without forcing that time requirement on crafters that are only able/interested to put in a limited amount of time. If I want to spend more time to be able to craft everything on one character, then I should be able to do so. The fact that both crafting and gathering will no longer have weekly caps in 4.0 suggests that the system is moving into this direction.

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Originally Posted by Nezerius

Forcing limitations onto omnicrafters, just to allow players with 1-3 crafting jobs leveled to be competitive, isn't the way to go, as it's more of a negative thing (ie: if you pick these three jobs you can't craft those other recipes). It'd have been better if the specialist system was introduced with a more positive effect to it. Like if a specialist were able to craft things with less materials (y'know, since they specialise in crafting specific things). It'd encourage players to pick a specialist without feeling limited.

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Did everybody just miss this? Finally, a constructive idea to positively empower the discussion here! Not sure if this idea will work, but I like it! :)

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Originally Posted by Caimie_Tsukino

Did everybody just miss this? Finally, a constructive idea to positively empower the discussion here! Not sure if this idea will work, but I like it! :)

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This would be hard to implement, which recipes would require less mats? all of them? Just the top tier? And how would that address the original cause for specialist in the first place (giving non-omni crafters better utilities for success and preventing a handful of top tier crafters from cornering the market [more interdependence])??

We know the system isn't changing overall b/c they said it isn't changing overall, but we know spc will get a few new perks, red's will become uncapped, and omni crafters will return to being king of the market without being the ONLY ones on the market.

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Originally Posted by Nezerius

Just because it's a game, doesn't mean its players can't complain about a change that they don't like.

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But that's not what's happening here. Here, I see that some people are complaining about changes they don't even know will happen, based on flimsy rumors.

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Originally Posted by Silverbane

But that's not what's happening here. Here, I see that some people are complaining about changes they don't even know will happen, based on flimsy rumors.

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But we know that they'll be keeping the specialist system, that they'll be adding new specialist abilities. We know that they'll be scrapping blue scrips, removing the weekly cap on red scrips, and adding yellow scrips. We also know that yellow scrips won't have a weekly cap. Nothing crafting or gathering related will be tied to a weekly cap. These aren't just flimsy rumours, they've all been confirmed in the most recent live letter.

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Originally Posted by Nezerius

The crafting system in 2.x perfectly fit the "You can do everything on one character" thing, just like you can level every single job DoW/M job on a single character, without any requirement to actually specialize into any of the DoW/M jobs.

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While I agree with most of your discussion points, this particular point is one that pets my peeve a bit. No, you CAN'T do everything on just one character in this game. You can't down Zurvan on just one character. You can't win Alexander Savage with just one character. You can fill any ROLE with just one character, but you still need the cooperation of other teammates to actually get anything done. The do-anything crafter is a SUBVERSION of the ideals of this game, not a shining example. SE would like to see crafters working together and cooperating to get things done, and the evidence for this is in the Specialization system. They tried to enforce this kind of cooperation. The results were terrible, to be sure, I'm not denying that, but it shows the kind of system they'd LIKE crafters to have.

It would not surprise me if SE introduces some kind of group crafting system in the future, where crafters have to team up to complete a craft. Hopefully, if they do, it won't be a ridiculously awful as the Synergy system in FFXI.

They had a crafting party like the one you envision bk in 1.x......it was horrible in my opinion....
But you're right.. SE wants teamwork to make the [fantasy] dream work.

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Originally Posted by LineageRazor

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This is mostly just arguing semantics.

Of course you can't go around and solo group content, but the only limiting factor when it comes to doing anything as DoW/M is the gear you can obtain. Nothing else is stopping the player from playing all DoW/M jobs to their fullest extent, as it's all available to them.

Unlike the crafting system, where it excludes recipes from even being attempted, if it happens to be tied to one of the specializations that the player hasn't chosen. Essentially, it's limited by gear and the crafter soul chosen by the player, instead of just gear.

There are better ways to encourage interaction between crafters, just like DoW/M in a party aren't limited to the amount of job crystals they have. Can you imagine how players would react if they could only pick a set amount of job crystals?

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Originally Posted by Nezerius

This is mostly just arguing semantics.

Of course you can't go around and solo group content, but the only limiting factor when it comes to doing anything as DoW/M is the gear you can obtain. Nothing else is stopping the player from playing all DoW/M jobs to their fullest extent, as it's all available to them.

Unlike the crafting system, where it excludes recipes from even being attempted, if it happens to be tied to one of the specializations that the player hasn't chosen. Essentially, it's limited by gear and the crafter soul chosen by the player, instead of just gear.

There are better ways to encourage interaction between crafters, just like DoW/M in a party aren't limited to the amount of job crystals they have. Can you imagine how players would react if they could only pick a set amount of job crystals?

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I already stated that the Specialization system was a terrible way to go about this system, but let's follow this line of discussion a moment. The teamwork of it all is that, while you can't create certain items outside of your specialization, you CAN contribute to those recipes. You can provide the specialist materials to the crafter who eventually ends up doing the actual crafting - and that crafter, in turn, is unable to craft the thing without the ingredients you and other provide. Crafters working together as a team to craft the item, just as DoM/DoW work together to down difficult instances. The assumption you (and many, many others) are standing by is that "I can't make this myself" is equivalent to "I can't make this at all" - that is not the viewpoint SE was hoping to engender.

Your "pick a set amount of job crystals" comparison is not a good metaphor for the situation. There's nothing stopping you from crafting the vast majority of items available to your non-specialist crafting classes - it's only the top-of-the-line stuff that's out of your reach, and there's PLENTY of need for yesterday's crafts. A better comparison would be if you could only get the best equipment for a couple of your DoM/DoW jobs. The jobs you can't gear to max? Well, they can still fulfill their role and be useful, but they'll never be top-of-the-line. Which, as it happens, IS the system we have for DoM/DoW.

While it's not a perfect comparison (undergeared players CAN complete difficult content if they are skillful enough, whereas non-specialists can't even attempt the specialist recipes), but this, I'm sure, is what SE was aiming for, to make crafting a more cooperative endeavor, just as battle classes are. (And it's worth noting that, just as you did with crafting, some battle class players "cheat" this limitation by using alt characters to bypass the gearing restrictions.)

Again, I want to emphasize that I am not defending the Specialist system. I am merely trying to explain why SE did what they did - and why they may do similar things in the future. I hope, instead, that they bolster the abilities of solo-class crafters to bring them up to or near the capabilities of omnicrafters, rather than to stymie the abilities of omnicrafters to try to force dependencies on other crafters.

The base idea of specialist was if you wanted a cul at level 60 and no other crafter so you could make raid food that was what it was for. But then you had to buy the skills and they were not better that omni crafting skills. So they failed twice there. Then they doubled down with locking certain things behind specialist so only some could make it ok fine but they still didn't fix the original intent of one crafter with special skills to craft with. What ever they do they should find their way back to if you only want one crafter, give them skills that omni crafters have and don't make them pay for it. Sadly i think they may just make it more complex but we will see in time.

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Originally Posted by LineageRazor

While it's not a perfect comparison (undergeared players CAN complete difficult content if they are skillful enough, whereas non-specialists can't even attempt the specialist recipes), but this, I'm sure, is what SE was aiming for, to make crafting a more cooperative endeavor, just as battle classes are. (And it's worth noting that, just as you did with crafting, some battle class players "cheat" this limitation by using alt characters to bypass the gearing restrictions.)

Again, I want to emphasize that I am not defending the Specialist system. I am merely trying to explain why SE did what they did - and why they may do similar things in the future. I hope, instead, that they bolster the abilities of solo-class crafters to bring them up to or near the capabilities of omnicrafters, rather than to stymie the abilities of omnicrafters to try to force dependencies on other crafters.

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It's not what SE was initially aiming for. The point of the specialist system, and its abilities, was to make it easier for players with just a few DoH leveled to max level to be able to HQ things without requiring all other DoH jobs at max level. Something which was the case for 2.x, where you needed most of the cross-class abilities to HQ 3/4-star recipes. This is especially shown in how crafting was handled in 3.0, as there were absolutely no specialist recipes at the release of the expansion. The Soul of the Crafter didn't have the extra stats, and it only gave access to specialist abilities.

They messed up with those abilities, as players looked at the RNG involved in most of the abilities, decided that it wasn't worth the hassle, and kept on making rotations with most of the 2.x abilities (and the few 51+ cross-class abilities that were introduced in 3.0). The whole "forced cooperation" thing didn't come into place until 3.1, when they added specialist recipes. It was really just a bandaid fix to get people to use the specialist system.

I don't think forced cooperation among crafters has a place in XIV, especially since it wasn't around at the very start of the game. When I started crafting in 2.0, I liked the fact that I could just relaxingly work on everything, and given enough time and effort, be able to craft anything, without relying on someone else. It was something to progress on whenever I wasn't doing group content. Encouraged cooperation, on the other hand, is just fine. Something along the lines of what I suggested earlier, with specialists requiring less mats to craft (specialist) recipes. Players will be encouraged to find a specialist, so they don't have to gather as many materials, while crafters who want to be self-sufficient will still be able to do so.

Lately, I heard a lot of voices concerning about how SE thinks how we should play (I'm not targeting you, Nezerius). But in contrast, I think WE should think about how we should play, and SE should listen to us if our requests are reasonable.

After all, like some of you mentioned earlier, in 2.X single omni crafter was the way to go. The design of the crafting game highly favored omni crafters tremendously. Why? Because the game itself was designed to encourage us leveling multiple classes on a single character... This was a feature of FFXIV! The design of needing at least 2 DoW/DoM classes to get into jobs was consistent with this idea too.

Nevertheless, in Heavensward, SE added more to it - in addition to encouraging leveling multiple classes, the introduction of specialist system, and even the way how FC workshop works, both were designed to encourage crafters to work together. I remember I read the letter from the developers of HW saying "Since a lot of people asked for this, we now introduce the Specialist System." I can only assume at that time, some crafter suggested this before 3.X, and they took the idea. The results, as we all know it, didn't achieve what it intended, but only stirred much criticism. Afterwards, the Specialist System stuck around. SE made some changes to it, but never removed it.

My point: Even though SE doesn't have a tendency to remove contents that have been implemented, I believe they do make changes to accommodate what players want, sometimes. So we should NOT bother how SE thinks we should play. We should lead them to improve the game... by providing new ideas (and sufficient reasons to support these ideas) to improve the game.

You may think, at this point perhaps it's a bit late... since Stormblood is already coming out soon. But let's not forget that they still can make amendments in patches. So it's never too late.

Personally, I find nothing wrong with the omni crafter approach. Sorry to be selfish, but I have great fun being all 8 crafter classes and being self-sufficient. Specialists limitations? Well, since specialist recipes are now only limited by harsher stats, I just overmeld until my non-specialist classes reach the stats requirements. So technically, there's nothing to stop me from making anything. I have ignored the specialist limitations! Does this make me an omni crafter who dominate the market? Nope, it's not me. I never sell more than 4 to 6 items of the highest difficulty at one time, and my gil never got pass 100 mil in total. I just enjoy being able to craft everything, that's all. You all know how much I love to craft things :)

Omni crafters will remain supreme.....why we beating the dead horse.... moving forward you can craft everything in game on a single character.......except now you'll have to spend extra time to make that possible, but there is no weekly restrictions!

All that is left to see is if the new Specialist abilities will be viable for uplifting the bottom tier crafters into the middle fold (and it would be nice if the new skills facilitates the omni crafters too!!)

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Originally Posted by Nezerius

They messed up with those abilities, as players looked at the RNG involved in most of the abilities, decided that it wasn't worth the hassle, and kept on making rotations with most of the 2.x abilities (and the few 51+ cross-class abilities that were introduced in 3.0). The whole "forced cooperation" thing didn't come into place until 3.1, when they added specialist recipes. It was really just a bandaid fix to get people to use the specialist system.

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To be fair, they were already discussing the possibility of specialist recipes back before HW launched.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...ast_interview/

However, they weren't implemented immediately probably because they already had another mechanism in place: the favor system and gated red scrip gear. Both were designed to differentiate crafters by limiting their gear progression and they likely wanted to see how those went first. I don't think the specialist recipes added in 3.1 were so much to force you to use specialization, but rather they were introduced to achieve what the favor system failed to do (it simply killed crafting). At the same time, they began to nerf the favor grind and eventually phased it out more or less by 3.3.

Feedback is extremely important as FF14 2.0 and post launch FF14 seem to have been designed differently. Back before the launch of FF14, the developers designed the game based on what they felt the players would want. Post launch, however, most systems seem to have been introduced and balanced based on player feedback (crafting changes, savage raid difficulty, etc). Players asked for a method for single class crafters to HQ master crafts and got it (it wasn't good and failed). They asked for a way to eliminate or minimize an omni-crafters ability to dominate all markets and got that too, first in the form of a favor grind/gear lockout and then in the form of specialist recipes. Players asked for specialization to be more useful and then got the added stat boosts in 3.3.

I would say that specialist recipes are easily the "lessor of the two evils" but they aren't doing what they were intended to do anyways and have largely been met with criticism. With enough feedback, some of these changes might be slowly phased out like favors. From the sounds of it, Stormblood will remove the limit on spec changes, assuming that souls are still purchased using scrips.

Unfortunately, feedback from core end game crafters make up the minority of the feed back the developers receive. Poll non-crafters and they'd probably still ask for the same things that players in ARR asked for, only implemented differently...

I'm curious to know where SE gets it's feedback when it relates to crafting. Most forum posters on the official site are from ppl well informed about crafting and likely onmi or multiple crafting class ppl....

But SE has the raw stats on how many ppl are actually omni's, who is selling what on the MB and the flow of gil ...So they have a lot of stuff to draw from to sway the directions they take to balance and appease the crafting community.

Ex. Not directly related but SE found that even though they added a new healer and a tank for heavens the number of tanks and healers didn't change to reflect the addition. So likewise they've gauge the crafting community's reactions to specialist and taken notes on how often ppl swap crystals; how many characters leveled on one acct to facilitate having multiple specialist and decided based on that (and feedback), "let's make red scripts uncapped"!!

SE is using feedback but also their own stats, we already know that Yoshi is not happy with Omni's (needing to level all DoH scare people) but he can't simply do an 180% or current players will go bananas.

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Originally Posted by Driavna

... Yoshi is not happy with Omni's (needing to level all DoH scare people)...

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I have friends which are ALC and CUL spec, entirely because they want to craft their own raid food / pots. Almost all other crafting and gathering makes them cringe.
As an OMNI, like many in this thread, I would not be the least bit upset if Specialist got the original intent; give them skills to compete with OMNIs.

My proposed solution:
Each specialisation would grant you 3 cross class skill from unlearned crafting classes. Great benefit for Specialist only, no benefit to OMNIs.
Remove good/excellent proc condition requirement from Byregot's Brow and Innovative Touch.

These changes would make 3 specialist crafters rotation equivalent to OMNIs without removing OMNIs advantage being able craft everything.
It does grant OMNIs the minor ability to not have to cross class Byrgot's Blessing and Innovation but those skills are actually stronger than the Specialist versions.
Byregot's Brow = 150% + 10%; max is 250%
Byregot's Blessing = 100% + 20%; max is 300%

Innovative Touch - 70% success (SH2 assumed)
Innovation - 100% success - reliability of a rotation is preferred.

I would keep the Specialist recipe lockout system as it currently exists. Unlocking the scrips to switch sole stones achieves the OMNIs desire to solo craft everything.

You know WHAT... I've been calculating brow wrong this whole time as 200 max.....smh. this max brow really a very strong skill compared to blessings...hmmmm

50% is huge!!! Especially if you add great stride (jumps to 100% difference) . But considering brow costs 8 cp less than blessing and you retain half your IQ (which you can rumination it for cp) it's a semi versital skill!!

You are confusing Brow (which everyone gets) with Miracle (specialist only).

Miracle is 100% + 10% but halves IQ after use. Brow is 150% + 10% only on Good/Excellent and eats IQ.

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Originally Posted by Roth_Trailfinder

You are confusing Brow (which everyone gets) with Miracle (specialist only).

Miracle is 100% + 10% but halves IQ after use. Brow is 150% + 10% only on Good/Excellent and eats IQ.

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Uuuggh Damn you right. Nevermind... I should have known.... brow is useless lol

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Originally Posted by ChameleonMS

Remove good/excellent proc condition requirement from Byregot's Brow and Innovative Touch.

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Actually, Byregot's Brow and Innovative Touch are not specialist actions. They can be used by any class without the Soul Stone.

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Originally Posted by ChameleonMS

My proposed solution:
Each specialisation would grant you 3 cross class skill from unlearned crafting classes. Great benefit for Specialist only, no benefit to OMNIs.

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Now that I think about it, the Soul Stone should grant 5 unlearned cross class skills. After all, they will need Byregot's Blessing, which already occupies 1 slot. If they put on Maker's Mark and Flawless Syn, that's 3 slots occupied already. They will likely need a little bit more, like Steady Hand II or Piece by Piece as well. With this arrangement, they won't even be able to equip Careful Syn II and Comfort Zone, giving them a slight handicap comparing to Omnis.

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Originally Posted by javid

Uuuggh Damn you right. Nevermind... I should have known.... brow is useless lol

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Brow is not useless at all! It's now commonly used to prevent a Byregot's Blessing falling onto a Poor condition during a macro.