Redo the beginning

[InuraBera]

Sadly it does affect us, how you seen how easy the main storyline quests are? I have nothing against crafters being their own full class, but having a crafters take part in battle is ridiculous. Have them do separate quests like someone suggested earlier.

Did you realise that Gatherers and Crafters do 'Parley' in any circumstance that would involve Combat rather than fighting? I hope you did before you posted that - because otherwise you'd realise that the difficulty of Combat in the Story-Quests has no reflection on Crafters or Gatherers being involved at all. I haven't had to throw stones at anything, ever, nor have I had to bring in Combat classes to help - I played the Parley mini-game, won, and progressed.

Tough as it may be to realise, not all of us want to be involved in Combat. I've battled things in basically every game I played. What if, for once, I - Gods forbid - want to do something else, yet still get to enjoy the main Storyline of the game? As to new players getting confused, if the fact that picking a Class that is clearly non-combat confuses them, then I fear for their future.

I picked Botanist at the beginning (after looking forward to choosing it for *months* beforehand) and would never, ever want to have started as a Combat class. If it wasn't for the Gathering classes (particularly Botanist) I wouldn't even bother with the game, as I have more than enough games to get on with killing monsters.

Combat classes have the bulk of content as it is, I only have two GuildLeves per level Range per area to choose from, and a massively limited number of areas to gather from, but hey, if you want to kick those of us in the gut who enjoy playing something different, feel free. My highest Combat class is Lancer at 27 - I'm currently sitting at Botanist 40, which took a lot more time to Rank up each Rank, trust me.

*EDIT* As I see further folks echoing the 'dumbed down for gatherers and crafters' - we use Parley. No combat, no NPC fighting, nothing - just Parley. The fight could stretch miles into a dank cavern, but we would deal with it differently. Everything is instanced during Quests anyway isn't it.

*EDIT 2* A cut and paste from my 'blog' about the Rank 38 Gridania Quest: "To the story, you'll find out yourself, however at one point I had to win three Parleys, without failure and within a really, really strict time limit, or I would be stabbed to death by the Beastmen." Doesn't sound like my Botanist Combat Skill came into play much eh?

*EDIT 3* As Shiyo below says - the Combat only missions are too easy also. I'm not saying the missions are not too easy for Combat, trust me - I had more excitement with the 3 Parley in 10 minutes or tribe of beastmen spawn and stab you to death, than with the Lancer or Archer missions. Hopefully they put the difficulty up enough to be entertaining.

[AlexiaKidd]

Did you realise that Gatherers and Crafters do 'Parley' in any circumstance that would involve Combat rather than fighting? I hope you did before you posted that - because otherwise you'd realise that the difficulty of Combat in the Story-Quests has no reflection on Crafters or Gatherers being involved at all. I haven't had to throw stones at anything, ever, nor have I had to bring in Combat classes to help - I played the Parley mini-game, won, and progressed.

Tough as it may be to realise, not all of us want to be involved in Combat. I've battled things in basically every game I played. What if, for once, I - Gods forbid - want to do something else, yet still get to enjoy the main Storyline of the game? As to new players getting confused, if the fact that picking a Class that is clearly non-combat confuses them, then I fear for their future.

I picked Botanist at the beginning (after looking forward to choosing it for *months* beforehand) and would never, ever want to have started as a Combat class. If it wasn't for the Gathering classes (particularly Botanist) I wouldn't even bother with the game, as I have more than enough games to get on with killing monsters.

Combat classes have the bulk of content as it is, I only have two GuildLeves per level Range per area to choose from, and a massively limited number of areas to gather from, but hey, if you want to kick those of us in the gut who enjoy playing something different, feel free. My highest Combat class is Lancer at 27 - I'm currently sitting at Botanist 40, which took a lot more time to Rank up each Rank, trust me.

*EDIT* As I see further folks echoing the 'dumbed down for gatherers and crafters' - we use Parley. No combat, no NPC fighting, nothing - just Parley. The fight could stretch miles into a dank cavern, but we would deal with it differently. Everything is instanced during Quests anyway isn't it.

When you started as a Botanist did you not have to stone throw the mobs to death at the beginning as I am positive I did not get the Parley option there when I started with Fishing in Ul'dah on an alt, I could be wrong though. I always thought the point of it was a battle tutorial which DoL/DoH have no use for currently.

Also as for DoL/DoH taking part in the main story while I don't have a huge problem with it, I really can't see how a Botanist will overthrow the Garlean Empire and put a halt to the 6th Umbral Era beginning with a round of Parley.

Maybe they could give DoL/DoH a different objective like crafting the secret trinket of Eorzea or gathering the holy branch of burnt wood that will save us all.

[Frisque]

When you started as a Botanist did you not have to stone throw the mobs to death at the beginning as I am positive I did not get the Parley option there when I started with Fishing in Ul'dah on an alt, I could be wrong though.

you're not wrong. My alt/mule started as an alchemist (you know, for the glasses ) and I had to chuck stones at gobbue too.

He didn't seem to like it much....

*EDIT: Unless, of course, Square ninja'ed in a later adjustment so that DoH/DoL uses Parley in the opening sequence. That's possible, I guess..

[Rydin]

you're not wrong. My alt/mule started as an alchemist (you know, for the glasses ) and I had to chuck stones at gobbue too.

He didn't seem to like it much....

*EDIT: Unless, of course, Square ninja'ed in a later adjustment so that DoH/DoL uses Parley in the opening sequence. That's possible, I guess..

Goobbue raises the topic "Chew your ass to threads" one time

[Rydin]

Did you realise that Gatherers and Crafters do 'Parley' in any circumstance that would involve Combat rather than fighting? I hope you did before you posted that - because otherwise you'd realise that the difficulty of Combat in the Story-Quests has no reflection on Crafters or Gatherers being involved at all. I haven't had to throw stones at anything, ever, nor have I had to bring in Combat classes to help - I played the Parley mini-game, won, and progressed.

Not all the main story quest require parley... some of them actually require crafters to run and hide while NPC's do all the fighting...
The point is, if there is a quest that can be done by a botanist and an NPC... then its not gonna be any fun for people who actually want to battle...
I personally feel it should be separate but equally awesome story lines

[Sonic_the_Hedgehog]

Tough as it may be to realise, not all of us want to be involved in Combat. I've battled things in basically every game I played. What if, for once, I - Gods forbid - want to do something else, yet still get to enjoy the main Storyline of the game? As to new players getting confused, if the fact that picking a Class that is clearly non-combat confuses them, then I fear for their future.

I'm not saying that crafters shouldn't be their own class or not have anything to do with the main story, I just agree with someone else suggestion which is crafters should have their own main storyline quest. Since you don't want to battle, I think we would be in agreement here. Have it where the some "mysterious" force is trying to control the markets in Eoreza, so it's easier for the Garlean Empire to invade and it's up to your character to figure out the mystery along the way.

[Rydin]

I'm not saying that crafters shouldn't be their own class or not have anything to do with the main story, I just agree with someone else suggestion which is crafters should have their own main storyline quest. Since you don't want to battle, I think we would be in agreement here. Have it where the some "mysterious" force is trying to control the markets in Eoreza, so it's easier for the Garlean Empire to invade and it's up to your character to figure out the mystery along the way.

That would be really cool....
and with 2 different stories... it encourages battle only people to do crafting...
I've not really done any crafting but I'm more than halfway done getting all battle to 50.... and once I do, I plan to craft, but it really just feels like it will be a long and tedious thing... a separate storyline would make it so much more enjoyable