Does the firmament make you enjoy crafting a lot more?

Let me preface this by saying I like that this game has content that isn't for everyone, like Blue Mage. But as someone who has started crafting starting in shadowbringers, I can't help but feel like Square is trying to make crafting too mainstream (with all the nerfs), at the end of the day, crafting is a complex and fun minigame with a leveling and gear progression system included. But as a crafter-focused player does the influx of new content for crafters increase your enjoyment of the game enough that you believe it's worth the development cost? I see strange choices, like the Ishgard Fetes, these are kind of novel at first, but at the end of the day story-wise you're doing more of the same, and mechanically you're doing some of the most boring actions possible. Who is this for? Is it meant to be an arbitrary effort to reward system or do people actually enjoy it? I also just feel like they can't make crafting mainstream, the leveling process comes down to gil spent on materials or time spent on diadem/overworld farming. And if you farm then you have to have gatherers leveled, to me, it feels like they're trying to make crafting something it's not. Thoughts? Objections?

to me they just looked at the numbers of crafters and gatherers, and previous comments in the past. numbers were low and comments were of the sort that crafting and gathering was tedious and hard to get into. so they decided to revamp things to get more people into it and raise those numbers. that's pretty much all there is to it imo.

Ah dangit I accidentally made my post about crafters being easier instead of should we actually be spending development time on the firmament, I mentioned ease of leveling because they wouldn't bother making the firmament if there wasn't a bunch of DoHs, but my point is should the crafting system be made to sustain all this mainstream story and asset content

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Originally Posted by Bacon4Makin

Ah dangit I accidentally made my post about crafters being easier instead of should we actually be spending development time on the firmament, I mentioned ease of leveling because they wouldn't bother making the firmament if there wasn't a bunch of DoHs, but my point is should the crafting system be made to sustain all this mainstream story and asset content

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The Firmament itself is fine as a use of development resources. You don't have to have a crafting or gathering class to do any of the Firmament quests (except the ones that unlock the custom delivery clients).

If you want to be earning scrip, you can unlock a single crafting/gathering job then do the Fetes that don't require any actual crafting/gathering and don't require any gear other than a primary tool you get when you unlock the class. Scrip reward from the fetes is the same regardless of your class level so how fast you level makes no difference.

The assets are not a waste. Diadem is being reused from the original HW Diadem. The Firmament is sharing assets with the housing district scheduled to be released in 6.1.

It's been well used by players even if you see the complaints about Firmament being dead outside of ranking periods. Lacking a marketboard, it makes more sense to do your crafting where you have easy access to one then just enter Firmament when your bags are full and you need to turn the items in.

The Firmament is far more niche content than mainstream. If you want mainstream crafting/gathering, you're better off switching to House of Splendors at 50 so you can earn yellow scrip that is actually useful to crafting/gathering (XP rewards by collectable recipe level as the same whether Splendors or Firmament).

I'm honestly a bit confused about why you think the Firmament is problem content. The ranking seasons seemed to be a failure to most players but everything else has worked well.

I rather like the Fêtes actually. It’s a fun series of mini-games, and you can get good items if you’re lucky. The sea of giant stuffed moogle is probably worthy to be featured on promo videos. :D

By the time I’d gotten to Ishgardian Restoration my server’s already done, so I don’t know what it was like during the restoration phases. But rather than it being purely for ease of leveling crafting (there’s already custom deliveries, supplies & provisions, and leves for that), I felt it’s more as a gathering place for DoH/DOL, in addition to for lore purposes.

The Fêtes also allowed a continuous flow of what players used to get through skybuilder scrips and kupo tickets. With the restoration grind done, the supplies were probably dwindling and could have caused prices of those items to spike up in the marketplace.

And the firmament layout apparently is a blueprint of the upcoming Ishgardian housing, so they would have needed to put in some resources anyway.

Well I'm more here to ask then to argue, I want to say that I'm aware that diadem already existed, and as for "the firmament not being mainstream" I disagree, why else would they make it contain one of the best ways to level, I honestly really doubt that all the UI, destruction, and time to figure out the rewards structure didn't take time out of say, expert roulette dungeons, something pretty much every player does.

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Originally Posted by Bacon4Makin

Well I'm more here to ask then to argue, I want to say that I'm aware that diadem already existed, and as for "the firmament not being mainstream" I disagree, why else would they make it contain one of the best ways to level, I honestly really doubt that all the UI, destruction, and time to figure out the rewards structure didn't take time out of say, expert roulette dungeons, something pretty much every player does.

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Raid and dungeon level designers probably aren’t same ones designing crafting processes/recipes. UI/gear designers may be shared, however.

And different contents catering to different players. I for one aren’t interested in grinding dungeons, so I’m happy that there are things to do in-game that doesn’t involve fighting.

And I just realized I never answered the question in the thread title. My answer to that is “no”, Firmament does not affect what I feel about crafting. Crafting is a big part of why I play this game to begin with, so it has no effect. If anything, the turn-ins feels a bit like cheating, but so is supply and provisions and custom deliveries. And one can opt out and do recipes the old way anyways. So personally it neither increase nor diminish the value of crafting to me. (How others want to play this game, so long as it doesn’t break the rules set by SE, is their business, not mine. Shrug)

Firmament as a lore/quest/activity zone, however, have been very enjoyable for me. Coming directly off dragonsong, it was moving to see Ishgardians recovering from their thousand-year war and shifting toward a more peaceful, “normal” life.

And what exactly is your definition of crafting, if you feel that it should involve more than gathering materials and crafting the items? FFXIV’s crafting process is already more involved than some of the other RPGs/MMOs.

For me, no. Crafting died for me with Shadowbringers.

As a use of developer resources, I'm fine with the Firmament. It's not really for me, it's for new players leveling crafters and a way to earn nice rewards. The fete's are sort of fun, the rewards are actually great with some decent glamour, new dyes, lots of mounts and minions. The Diadem rework is fine too, it serves a purpose now. The development of a new housing zone was done well and overall they did a great job with it.

It's the new structure of crafting and high end crafting that I have issues with. It feels like they wanted to hand crafting over to casual players because it has so much reward, but they didn't really know what to do with the veteran crafters and have been trying to shove them into a corner and keep them quiet with nonsense grinds ever since. The relic (in my personal opinion) was absolutely a waste of resources, a bland grind with no real storyline for a mediocre tool. I obtained them gradually and couldn't care less about them.

The ranked season was poorly done, promoted unhealthy gameplay and burn out and spoiled what is actually a brilliant idea (Expert recipes). No one really cares about the title, players were just hungry for something challenging to put that pentamelded gear and leveling to use.
It got worse with the Pteranodon and worse again with the Blessed Tools being scrapped for Resplendent because it involves doing Expert recipes countless thousands of times. No matter how good Expert is as a system, you'll get sick of anything after repeating it that much. The whole design is to keep veterans quiet for months. They can say they gave us "hardcore" content, without caring if it's fun or the rewards aren't worth the time investment.

Crafting itself has been pruned to be mindlessly simple. Macros are always going to be a variation of Veneration -> a few Groundwork -> x amount of Prep touch -> work your way to 11 IQ and Brygots finisher. The leveling process might as well not exist now you can turbo to 80 in a day or two. Then when you reach 80 and strap on your pentamelded Aesthete you might as well not even bother because your options are hundreds of hours grind or try to make gil on a bot infested market for tiny profit margins. It's a shame, because it used to be so much better and worthwhile.

But that's just my opinion and I respect that others might feel very differently. The Firmament itself is fine.

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Originally Posted by Bacon4Makin

why else would they make it contain one of the best ways to level,

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Except it's not. That's bad advice that's been getting circulated by ignorant players repeating what other ignorant players have told them. it might be better than leveling was prior to Shadowbringers. It is not better than other options for leveling in Shadowbringers. Detail about why it's bad is better left for a different thread (I might write that up later today).

We'll just have to disagree about whether Firmament is mainstreaming crafting/gathering in any way.

When it comes to how I view crafting/gathering, it hasn't changed anything for me. It's the other changes that SE has implemented this expansion that has changed how I view crafting/gathering.

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Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

For me, no. Crafting died for me with Shadowbringers.

As a use of developer resources, I'm fine with the Firmament. It's not really for me, it's for new players leveling crafters and a way to earn nice rewards. The fete's are sort of fun, the rewards are actually great with some decent glamour, new dyes, lots of mounts and minions. The Diadem rework is fine too, it serves a purpose now. The development of a new housing zone was done well and overall they did a great job with it.

It's the new structure of crafting and high end crafting that I have issues with. It feels like they wanted to hand crafting over to casual players because it has so much reward, but they didn't really know what to do with the veteran crafters and have been trying to shove them into a corner and keep them quiet with nonsense grinds ever since. The relic (in my personal opinion) was absolutely a waste of resources, a bland grind with no real storyline for a mediocre tool. I obtained them gradually and couldn't care less about them.

The ranked season was poorly done, promoted unhealthy gameplay and burn out and spoiled what is actually a brilliant idea (Expert recipes). No one really cares about the title, players were just hungry for something challenging to put that pentamelded gear and leveling to use.
It got worse with the Pteranodon and worse again with the Blessed Tools being scrapped for Resplendent because it involves doing Expert recipes countless thousands of times. No matter how good Expert is as a system, you'll get sick of anything after repeating it that much. The whole design is to keep veterans quiet for months. They can say they gave us "hardcore" content, without caring if it's fun or the rewards aren't worth the time investment.

Crafting itself has been pruned to be mindlessly simple. Macros are always going to be a variation of Veneration -> a few Groundwork -> x amount of Prep touch -> work your way to 11 IQ and Brygots finisher. The leveling process might as well not exist now you can turbo to 80 in a day or two. Then when you reach 80 and strap on your pentamelded Aesthete you might as well not even bother because your options are hundreds of hours grind or try to make gil on a bot infested market for tiny profit margins. It's a shame, because it used to be so much better and worthwhile.

But that's just my opinion and I respect that others might feel very differently. The Firmament itself is fine.

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THIS.

There's a reason why I didn't write a crafting guide for ShB... Why bother to look up information or learn how to craft when you can level all DoH by randomly mashing buttons, and still get lvl 80 for everything within 3 to 4 days? LOL!

Expert Recipes were fun for quite a bit. They were a good addition to the game. But the rewards that came with them were CRAP for over a year. We are already suffering from Expert Recipe FATIGUE from doing ranking, titles and the Pteranodon. Yes, you heard me, we did thousands of those "used-to-be-fun" Expert Recipes for a bunch of CRAPPY rewards, including the titles and Pteranodon. I did it anyway because I did love the Expert Recipes. They were fun. Now? Expert Recipe can still be kind of fun for me if I just need to do a few more, but I have done so much that I can PUKE Expert Recipes right now, so I have no intention of doing any kind of big grind involving these recipes.

I am actually OK with the Skybuilders' tools. Sure, if they had been slightly stronger than pentamelded i490 Aesthete, it would have been better. But even just for the glamor, I'd still do all that work just to look pretty. Adding ~20 Expert Recipes to the final step of each Skybuilders' tools was also a fine decision, as it makes the process slightly more challenging.

However, implementing another steep Expert Recipe grind for the Resplendent Tools, which give no advantage in stats, was just WRONG. This is especially bad when you risk losing your progress in the process of acquiring these tools. Whoever designed the acquisition method for these crafting tools should really slap himself/herself. Bad decision!

Back to about Firmament. I have no problem with the overall design of having the Firmament as a new center of crafting and gathering at all. It has its perks despite its flaws. I believe the biggest problem comes from the wrong timing and wrong decisions of the rewards of Expert Recipe-related activities... which totally wasted those nicely-designed recipes.

No. It trivializes leveling making it even easier to get to 80 without the need for leve kits without knowing anything, and on top of that 80 crafts outside of 4* not being 0-100able are all too simple, which continues to mean there's no real "end game" for crafting, and MB shenanigans are much less fun because either means to make gil get nerfed by SE explicitly or they just flood the game with maxed crafters who can just throw on gear and cheap melds and make everything; what was its own thing is now a thing everyone can just do without investment, and without ever learning how to craft. When are savages going to be made so easy PFs 1-shot everything on day 1? Feels like that would be about the same effect.

Experts are interesting, but they aren't implemented properly. Their introduction was a massive grind for achievements and useless rankings, which was a very poor reward for an enormous amount of time investment. They were then added to the relic tools which is fine, you don't need to do too many and they aren't hard, but the relic tools aren't better than aesthete's, it's just glam. The resplendent grind is absurd. Basically all this new stuff is just a massive grind with virtually no reward.

I'd much rather there be a progression of expert-exclusive market prohibited gear that's well above any market sellable crafting gear. Even if they're just a few stats better but are significantly stronger in expert recipes so there's less RNG, that's at least providing value. Combat gear etc can remain regular crafts, but putting some cosmetics and other interesting things in expert crafts that are heavily RNG dependent without expert gear but quite a bit easier with it gives you a reason to work towards it, but doesn't make them completely exclusive. There's absolutely no reason for there to be 90 expert crafts minimum to create a single item that's not any better than a trivial 3.5* craft.