Specialist System in 3.0

[Sibyll]

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Couldn't you argue part of the reason why a hand full of people can control the market so easily is because of less market activity overall than in other MMOs, especially in terms of high-end gear?

I say this because nearly every other MMO I've played (WoW, Rift and the like) has prevents people from having all crafters on one toon and I am certain that people devoted to crafting had alts for the other crafts. Trading between your own characters was trivial. However, I recall in those games nearly every craft had some form of consumable that was desired by raiders. WoW had different armor buffs that had to be reapplied every time a piece of gear was upgrade, potions, gem socketing and food. Rift had similar stuff and runes you could apply to weapons for different effects as well as armor crafted from dungeon drops that were on par with raid loot.

Here the only consumables are made by Culinarian and Alchemist, and potions aren't used by most because of how expensive it can get. Gear isn't on par with raid gear, with the exception of accessories. My point is that when you have a more active economy via consumables it becomes more difficult for a single person to control every aspect of it due to the large demand, opening the market for others. Arguably the only aspect of FFXIVs market that fits this is Materia and that's heavily RNG based and not even crafting really.

[Aeyis]

I say this because nearly every other MMO I've played(WoW, Rift and the like) has prevents people from having all crafters on one toon and I am certain that people devoted to crafting had alts for the other crafts. Trading between your own characters was trivial.

In WoW everyone I knew had all professions leveled and maxed, because alts were considered the norm in that game. (and professions were incredibly easy to level)

However, I recall in those games nearly every craft had some form of consumable that was desired by raiders. WoW had different armor buffs that had to be reapplied every time a piece of gear was upgrade, potions, gem socketing and food. Rift had similar stuff and runes you could apply to weapons for different effects as well as armor crafted from dungeon drops that were on par with raid loot.

Here the only consumables are made by Culinarian and Alchemist, and potions aren't used by most because of how expensive it can get. Gear isn't on par with raid gear, with the exception of accessories. My point is that when you have a more active economy via consumables it becomes more difficult for a single person to control every aspect of it due to the large demand, opening the market for others. Arguably the only aspect of FFXIVs market that fits this is Materia and that's heavily RNG based and not even crafting really.

Well WoW crafted equipment hasn't been on par with the best available raid equipment in a good many years.
I certainly agree that I feel that (the highest level of) crafted items should be comparable to raid drops.

Certainly markets being more exclusive does change the flow of gil in that market, and make it harder to enter it.
However markets being available to all from the start also brings with it problems as seen with for example WoWs AH.
Items being massively devalued because a random player decides they want a quick buck happens a lot more often there.

Buying/reselling (of higher value items) happens a heck of a lot more often there as well, as it's far easier to ''fool'' those that aren't heavily into markets. I've seen people make hundreds of thousands (equavalent of dozens of millions in FFXIV) simply by buying and reselling.
Because a lot of the people that use WoWs AH just arent very knowledgable about the items they try to sell/buy.

That is the disadvantage of a more open market.


While certainly individual markets can be controlled to a greater degree here, and in WoW the entire marketboard can be controlled by the more invested tradebaron. And they were.


That all aside, I think it's good to remember that crafting in this game is not the same as in other games. Crafters are their own classes here, not a side profession that everyone takes. It takes a lot of time an dedication to actually level them here.
And on the flip side it's more enjoyable as such. (the only other game in which I enjoyed crafting was LOTRO)

[Gillionaire]

No, I believe the lack of market activity in this game is simply the consequence of a huge design flaw on SE's part to create a consistent, consumable gil sink.

Reason WoW's AH is so active was because most people needed to buy whatever they needed on a weekly basis and it was the accepted norm to do so. How many people do you see in this game that brings potions/elixirs/whatever else into dungeons or raids?

Also, WoW had a way of keeping the general prices down with a simplified crafting system, so people had to account less for the actual crafting service and tack on a slight fee above material costs. IN ff14, I see 300-400% profit as the norm and I understand why, it takes so much time and is somewhat skill based (i.e. people who researched 3-4 star rotations properly will hit 95-100% hq with it, vs. people who don't will have trouble to get above 70%).

Of course, we can't compare the two fairly, WoW does have much bigger servers and it encourages everyone to have at least 2 crafting classes so everyone's involved in the market. Where as, in ff14, the player base is smaller and most don't participate in the MB.

I think what the devs are trying to do, is draw in more people to crafting by "casualizing" it, but the crafting system in ff14 is inherently hard core. (gathering, crafting, gearing for the two, every bit of it)


P.S. I do agree that we need more crafters in this game to create a healthy market board.. I just don't believe specialization will actually do that.
I think what we need is to show the incentives to have money in this game.. Some people are simply clueless as to how to make gil and carry below 1 million gil throughout their entire gaming experience here.. Some are simply uninterested because there's not much to spend the money on.. In either case, if we introduced more gil sinks that rewarded hoarding gil, I think we'll see an influx of new crafters.

I believe that's also the reason some of the high-end crafters can amass so much damn wealth.. Not because they're being stingy with it, but because there's just nothing to spend the money on.. In the past week, I've given away 2 artisan's aprons, 1 ice barding, and 2 artisan off hands (to friends of course, I'm not THAT generous) AND bought enough mats to make 2 inferno weapons (about 5m total) yet, I still somehow made it all back and more in the week since then..

It's actually starting to annoy me that gil in this game feels a lot like the how gold was in Diablo 2.. Repair bill, use for a little bit of gambling.. then nothing else, you just stockpile and let it sit.. I didn't get into crafting just so I could make gil and sit on it

[Sibyll]

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Don't get me wrong, I'm not looking to argue with you for the sake of arguing. I think that specialization will have the opposite effect that you think. Yes, people will be hard core and level alts, it's inevitable, unavoidable, and already being done. However, I think pulling back to a WoWish style where most people have a couple crafters capped (assuming specialization circumvents the necessity to ding 50 on all 8 crafters) I think you will see more people crafting and as a result making money they can spend.

The other problem is a recipe patch gets released, you have the handful of crafters that have pools of money that can afford to dump everything into getting the recipes unlocked ASAP and then within the first few weeks most of the demand for the gear has been met because of how irrelevant the combat gear is. The only gear that really sells consistently after a patch is artisan/forager gear which makes crafting sound more like a pyramid scheme than anything else.

[Gillionaire]

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Oh I understand that, we're just speculating different things to happen once expansion hits.. and I've not felt any hostility in the forums for the most part.
and I completely agree with your latter point, I've said it on the forums before.. on the MB money just flows from one crafter to another in circles and that's something I would like to see changed.. But if a recipe patch gets rolled out and I have the means to capitalize on it, I probably will without hesitation KNOWING that I'm contributing to the problem.. It's a catch 22.. that's why I think we need new ways to spend money in this game

[Aeyis]

It's actually starting to annoy me that gil in this game feels a lot like the how gold was in Diablo 2.. Repair bill, use for a little bit of gambling.. then nothing else, you just stockpile and let it sit.. I didn't get into crafting just so I could make gil and sit on it

I disagree with that. There's a certain something to looking at your gil count and seeing an 8 number figure.

However, I think pulling back to a WoWish style where most people have a couple crafters capped (assuming specialization circumvents the necessity to ding 50 on all 8 crafters) I think you will see more people crafting and as a result making money they can spend.

Hmmm, personally I would dislike that. Not the thought of having more people craft; but the thought that everyone takes a one or two crafting classes because it's easy to level and to do. It would trivialise crafting as a class, I feel.
In WoW nearly everyone had maxed professions, and many had all of them maxed. There was no effort involved in doing so.
I don't think WoWs system can really compare to FFXIV with or without specialisation because of that lack of effort.

That said, I don't see how crafting can take that direction with specialization, as people would still have to level the classes (perhaps all of them) to 60. How is that any different from what it is like now?

If crafting equipment becomes specific to classes again, as well as abilities that would make it a lot easier for someone new to it to jump in. But that would have the side effect of making crafting a lot less interesting to those already into it, as a large part of the fun in crafting is using all those different abilities.

[giantslayer]

Yeah... for some reason I have a hard time believing they would refer to that kind of system as a "specialization" system..

In the crunchyroll interview, he said,
"That said, we do want to add another tier to the crafting jobs. Something like a 'Specialist' or 'Grand Maester' of that profession. We are still working on the exact title, but this will be introduced at the release of Heavensward."

I wouldn't place too much weight on the word "specialist" because that is not the official/final title. The other term he used, "meister," does not carry the same connotations of exclusivity. What they described elsewhere sounds more like an Apprentice system to me.

Come to think of it, specialization probably won't be the primary driving force behind alts. The tomestone weekly caps will be.

In one of the interviews, they said the tomes could be exchanged for items or equipment. They explained the equipment will be an alternative way of gearing up without hardcore forbidden melds. I expect this to be similar to the Artisan turn-in gear, but probably class specific.

If crafting materials are available for tomes, I don't see any reason to assume they will be untradeable. I expect the tomes will be primarily for gear and any materials you can purchase will be an alternative use for the tomes (kind of like with past tomes) rather than a restriction on how many items you can make. I doubt that the mats will be valuable enough to justify the expense and time to level alts.

If my predictions are accurate, then the specialist system is a time-gate to acquire the highest level recipes and skills. You can eventually do it for all classes. The benefit to using 7 alts would be that you could do all of them simultaneously right away instead of developing them one at a time. I'm not that hardcore.

[Gillionaire]

I disagree with that. There's a certain something to looking at your gil count and seeing an 8 number figure.

I've been sitting on 9 digits for a while now.. you get desensitized after a while..


Which is why I'm looking forward to the fc airships so much.. I want something to spend money on that I actually want..

[Sibyll]

Hmmm, personally I would dislike that. Not the thought of having more people craft; but the thought that everyone takes a one or two crafting classes because it's easy to level and to do. It would trivialise crafting as a class, I feel.
In WoW nearly everyone had maxed professions, and many had all of them maxed. There was no effort involved in doing so.
I don't think WoWs system can really compare to FFXIV with or without specialisation because of that lack of effort.

I don't want them to trivialize crafting. I want them to make it so a person that wants to be just an Alchemist or Culinarian for raiding need only level those. Considering a hard core raider only needs to level their main class to 50 and maybe one or two others classes to 30ish I don't see why this is such a stretch. I'm sure there are plenty of crafters out there that haven't gotten into it because they don't want to level 8 classes just to play the one or two that they actually want to max out.

That said, I don't see how crafting can take that direction with specialization, as people would still have to level the classes (perhaps all of them) to 60. How is that any different from what it is like now?

If crafting equipment becomes specific to classes again, as well as abilities that would make it a lot easier for someone new to it to jump in. But that would have the side effect of making crafting a lot less interesting to those already into it, as a large part of the fun in crafting is using all those different abilities.

Specializations could be analogous to Jobs where you can cross class with 2 of the other DoH classes. Given how the system works now this wouldn't work but if the Specialization skills are designed around this concept it could very much be workable. The advantages to this is that each Specialization could play different similar to how Scholar and White Mage play differently and Warrior and Paladin play different even though they are the same role. This would mean that being a Carpenter and being a Goldsmith requires a different approach to raising the quality bar and handling Excellent/Good procs instead of the 8 DoH classes being homogenized to doing the exactly same strategy with the exact same skill set.

Looking at how many useless skills the crafting classes have, I think there is a lot of room for improvement. I mean, how often do you actually use Standard and Advanced Touch in end-game crafting?

[Nyalia]

Looking at how many useless skills the crafting classes have, I think there is a lot of room for improvement. I mean, how often do you actually use Standard and Advanced Touch in end-game crafting?

All the time, especially for my last touch before BB if I have the CP to blow but not enough for a Manipulation. GS + ST can be really nice right before GS + BB, if you have 64 more CP than you need. My 15 step 100% (even on poor BB) rotation for 1-2*s also uses AT to great effect, but I don't think that's what you mean.

EDIT: I've even used Observe to great effect (14-17 CP more than needed for BB, GS with 2 turns left, Normal condition - Observed, condition changed to Good). There really aren't that many completely useless skills, just Flawless Synthesis, though some people swear by it for low level elemental synths. There are, however, some skills so situational they're really not good, like Flawless and the Brands.