Seperate the Grind from Item creation

[Xellos2099]

Another pointless post.... look, if crafting is super easy or fun, everyone would be doing it and thus there would be zero demand in market as everyone can made everything and gil would lose its value. .

[AtryxEtair]

sat·is·fy - to fulfill the desires, expectations, needs, or demands of (a person, the mind, etc.); give full contentment to

ef·fort - exertion of physical or mental power

skill - the ability, coming from one's knowledge, practice, aptitude, etc., to do something well

re·ward - something given or received in return or recompense for service, merit, hardship, etc.

This system offers NONE of the meanings of these words that seem to be so prevalent in this forum. I am with many others on the basis of replacing the current system with another but for now the current system at least employs two of those four apparently popular words defined above. Unfortunately it seems that all four are needed to make everyone happy because they are all dependent on each other to be fully realized. And that is a difficult threshold.

[AtryxEtair]

Why not do something similar to the battle classes?

You get party buffs at 4 people and 8 people, can also give a crafting buff (and a gather buff) too. And since recipes have levels, everyone in the party on a crafter class gets the xp when a person finishes, as long as they're within 10 levels of the highest crafter. This isn't much different than battle classes, you get xp for a kill, as long as you're on a dom/dow, even if you didn't even touch a mob. It's not that far of a stretch to give xp for a party of crafters, even if others didn't touch the synth or are different crafter classes. Can even make them chain, if each crafter finishes within the chain limit. I think that would make it more fun for a group of crafters, gives them the ability to party, converse with others, and it's not so mind-numbingly boring.

And to actually contribute to this "conversation" so I'm not inevitably trolled. This is the best option I've heard yet along with the quest based progression. The problem with that taking far too long to develop content for.

[Griss]

Or you know they could just continue forward and implment the split crafting system like yoshi was talking about in one of his recent interviews. A quick easy side for general item creation/skill ups. and a more in depth harder version (probably what we have now) with a higher chance of creating high quality goods.

[Teakwood]

I don't think that 'offline leveling will never allow PS3 players to catch up' is actually a valid statement. There's vastly fewer things to put XP into in XIV than there are in EVE.

I actually really like this idea, if only because it's the first actually wide-ranging solution I've heard of to eliminate the grind from crafting while keeping it interesting.

[Lavani]

You obviously haven't been here long.

I think you meant:

[darkstarpoet1]

well let's see you want ideas you can look through the forums as there has been many suggestions the time in here. the problem yoshi didn't listen to the ideas and instead is putting in a system that more benefits the people that botted their crafts to r50, got max level, and have no clue how to use their skills or what skills are best.

if you want some suggestions i will be glad to give them to you, but the fact is they have already made changes to move away from a more rewarding crafting system with the recent changes. the changes benefit the people that botted to r50.

[HoolieWho]

The current crafting system features a white-knuckle battle between durability and progress/quality. Except that you can get away with standarding away on auto-pilot. I suggest improving the current system by making exp gain from a synth depend MUCH more heavily on quality. Furthermore, allow for exp chains as long as you gain 100+ quality on a synth your level or higher. Or alternatively, a chain bonus for making multiple HQ in a row, but probably a bigger bonus since it would be more random.

Current System

exp_gain = (250 + 50 * level_difference) * (1.0 + 0.001 * quality_gain)

Crafting EXP formula link.

Proposed Change

* Cut the base exp of 250, maybe down to 100 or so.
* Increase the quality factor by a factor of as high as 10.
* Allow exp chains for consecutive high quality synths.

These changes would make players at least play the mini-game we have to get best exp while synthing.

Crafting Guild Leves

Guild leves would be more interesting if there were some in-game reinforcement for the efforts. Something like increased NPC effectiveness in hamlet defense battles as a direct result of the armor and weapons crafted for them through leves. Or some kind of crafting reputation and reward for aiding the Ala Mhigoan refuges. As it is, Blackbrush may need an endless supply of boots and food, but there is no in-game reflection of that supply being met or not.

[Lebannen]

if this was implemented I wouldnt play nearly as much, and that is not a good thing.

[darkstarpoet1]

The current crafting system features a white-knuckle battle between durability and progress/quality. Except that you can get away with standarding away on auto-pilot. I suggest improving the current system by making exp gain from a synth depend MUCH more heavily on quality. Furthermore, allow for exp chains as long as you gain 100+ quality on a synth your level or higher. Or alternatively, a chain bonus for making multiple HQ in a row, but probably a bigger bonus since it would be more random.

Current System

exp_gain = (250 + 50 * level_difference) * (1.0 + 0.001 * quality_gain)

Crafting EXP formula link.

Proposed Change

* Cut the base exp of 250, maybe down to 100 or so.
* Increase the quality factor by a factor of as high as 10.
* Allow exp chains for consecutive high quality synths.

These changes would make players at least play the mini-game we have to get best exp while synthing.

Crafting Guild Leves

Guild leves would be more interesting if there were some in-game reinforcement for the efforts. Something like increased NPC effectiveness in hamlet defense battles as a direct result of the armor and weapons crafted for them through leves. Or some kind of crafting reputation and reward for aiding the Ala Mhigoan refuges. As it is, Blackbrush may need an endless supply of boots and food, but there is no in-game reflection of that supply being met or not.

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addition 1.

this i like. there was also an idea that the starting quality of the synth should not change due to hq materials being used. here's a basic example.

now:
hq materials used = @160 durability and 300quality.

changed:
hq materials used = @200 durbaility and 0 quality.

these would require you to actually play the game and use the abilities to get an item as a higher tier item. in other words, no more standard to completion then massive amounts of touch ups. they seem set on using a hq system that has a 100% hq rate so why not let the hq rate be entirely dependent on the quality of the synth.

now:
get 50 quality and touch up touch up and get a +2, but get 300 and after touch ups get nq.

after:
get less than 100 quality and get nq with a small chance at a +1, get to 100 quality and get a sure +1 with a shot at a +2, get to 150 and get a +2 with a shot at a +3, and get over 200 and get +3 gear.

this would actually require someone to make the gear using their abilities for a chance at the higher tier of hq items. this would work well in my eyes with the additional ideas you had for crafting chains and basing the sp off synths off the final quality. these should be level based, of course, and not a r49 weaver mass producing r1 yarn for 300 sp. they would have to be like battle as in within 10 ranks or the sp gained is 0.

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addition 2.

add a spot in the crafting guilds in which people that are looking for a certain item and cannot be found in the wards order it from the npc there. the crafters could come in and pick up orders placed by other players through the guild and create the item for the price the npc sells the item for. they could get guild marks, exp, and gil from supplying those requested items. it would be a nice way for crafters and other players to relay what is needed in the wards as well and keep the other classes from waiting weeks looking for that one piece of gear.

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addition 3.

make materia come in only base stats. there is no reason to have 20 different pieces of Strength IV with different stats that make up their own unique stack. have all materia come with only base stats for each tier of materia. the attaching process would be turned into a synth and not the rehash of the original repair system we have now. the quality would be based exactly like the hq process is, but instead of +1 +2 it would be the different stats they have as a higher level hq. this would allow materia to be stacked and save a tremendous amount of space.

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addition 4.

change the process to dye gear. the way to dye clothes should have been put in place of the way materia is attached.
first, select the piece of gear you want.
second, the color you want to dye the item to.
third add whatever water or whatever they want to add to make it work like a catalyst and hit start.
fourth, the item comes out exactly like it is as far as stats and hq is concerned, but just with a new color.

there's no reason for you to lose your hq status of gear just because you put a color on it nor is there a reason for a horribly made piece of gear to become high quality because you put some paint on it. you should not forget how to put on a pair of gloves just because it went from undyed to red.

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addition 5.

go to around halfway in between the amount of materials you made previously to what they have been changed to. there's no reason materials such as yarn was reduced from 12 to 1. a reduction i can understand, but these just added to the grind people are complaining about. you now have to gather anywhere from 4 to 12 times the same amount of mats and make 20+ more synths just to get the same amount of materials. this is just extra time and effort put in with no sp rewards for your effort.

ok i know this is long and i will get alot of tl:dr, but this post was about giving ideas about how to make the system better and there are some. these don't touch the actual grind itself nor the mini game itself, but it would make the crafting seem more involved and less tedious in the meantime.