4.0 specialization

[Caimie_Tsukino]

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

[javid]

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!!)

[MN_14]

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.

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...

[javid]

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"!!

[Driavna]

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.

[ChameleonMS]

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

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.

[javid]

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!!

[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.

[javid]

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.

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

[Caimie_Tsukino]

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.