Seperate the Grind from Item creation

[Felis]

erm while offline leveling is a valid idea,

why doesnt SE just add more leve's instead of 1, 10, 20, 40 wheres the 30 catagory? why'd it get left out and misex in with the 20's?

Ehm, there is no level 10 category?
There is 1, 20 and 40
Level 10 crafting leves are in category 1 and level 30 in category 20

[Bethor]

I would like something which includes bigger synths for EXPing crafter classes.
I'm a CRP35 (only god knows how I got there xD ) and I'm dieing with the Standard-Spamming EXPing.

SE already mentioned that they implement crafting boats with like more than 1 crafter. So you can work together to build that up. Why not just make "parts" of the boat on your own. Like log in, work on the "part" for about 15mins, get 25% EXP from your level and you'll have to wait 24hours to work on that boat part again.

Since crafting partly means a gil sink as well, you can make that "boat part" use like 3x99 Stacks of some Lumber to compensate the "easyness" of the craft.
There can still be the option to spam standard synth for exping incase the "DoH onry" people can do their thing.

In terms of "casual" play it's totally the opposite from what we have with leves. You can log in, do 4 leves, get exp and log off. Everything's done in 30mins-1hour.
If I'm logging in and want to XP my crafting class it's like... I'm doing 10 crafts got like 5% of my EXP Bar and log off. Inclusive some insanity granted in 30mins of spamming standard synthesis =D

The number are just guessed. Long story short, exping a craft is pure numbness and not fun! Of course there's people which find that fun, I'm not the one though.

[Arumat]

(I tried my best to make it short, too bad I'm lazy :/ )
I honestly never really cared for "how I made the item when crafting", its just a mini game that takes up time, I would much rather just wait during that time and have the item randomly come together. I say this only because there is no real way to make a mini game that you have to do SO many times fun forever. Sooner or later you will hate it because it can't be changed or adapted as that would be to complicated of a system for crafting(grinding). What they are doing now by splitting it, sounds good. I liked the crafting game at first but after awhile (like I said before) it just sucks to do for grinding.

The reasons I enjoyed crafting (in FFXI) was for the ability to make things for myself/friends and sign my name, plus the fun of being your own business and trying to max out your profit. I don't know where people got the idea that crafting should be this active mini game in order to be fun. Its a good idea for HQ items to make it more skill(info they know)/gear, less luck, but again, not for the leveling part. I'm going to end myself here, I have a bad habit of going overboard with my post at first and shortening them after I realized I wrote a mid-sized essay.

Last little bit though (I can't help myself, plus I lied about the little part...), crafting can't be an "easy" thing to level, a time sink can't be the only factor people face as it can't be measured like money can, a normal person will most likely not level something if they are loosing something in return that is measurable, even if they will get more later, they just can't see past the loss of money unless they have a lot. If a craft is going to be used for money, there has to be a limit to the people willing to level it. The more people that are doing the same craft as you, the less valuable the job becomes.

Then again, who cares about money right now, its no where as hard to get as it was in FFXI and these are two different games, if they want it to be a normal thing for a player to do then that is fine is with me, I'll miss the "business" part of it but I guess its not really needed. There could be some worth somewhere for a crafter to profit well off of but its too soon to tell how easy HQing will be and if its worth a huge amount (cooking should be fine though, most hate the class and if food is ever more commonly used than there is sure to be a market for it). As far as making leveling fun or less-grind filled, that is going to be close to impossible, the way DoW and DoM get past it (kinda) is the introduction of a new element to the fight, or a new move that they can max out to get to most out of their job at that level. That is all action stuff though and changes per job, crafting is the same for all the crafts and there is no way to gauge your ability vs others. The best gear/skill does not equal a better experience (the feeling, not the number. Better gear/skill does mean you can grind harder synthesis) and a crafter can't show off. Put frankly there is no mental reward for being a good crafter while leveling other than the one where we are getting closer to the end a little faster, and that is really the only thing that will make crafting any better than it is now. The problem with that though is that its only from our prospective, the next group of new crafters will hate the new faster system just as much as we do this one, and we will laugh at them for hating it so and we will say how much better it was than now, but they will rage and say it still sucks to grind, and we will agree and continue playing. I can't think of anything that isn't crazy that will take someones mind off the fact they are grinding a craft.

[ObeiKinstar]

I like the craft system as it is now. No, I'm not a masochist. I just value reward for hard work and effort. I know you can bot to 50 which makes it no work and no effort, but I don't play that way. I will be happy with whatever system they implement because I have faith that it will be good based on their adjustments so far. I haven't been 100% happy with everything but I'm having tons of fun.

I been crafting since beta. My first 50 (I only have 2 right now) is ALC. It took me forever to achieve this, one year really. Now that I've gotten there crafting more levels in other classes is much easier.

If you're having trouble crafting try getting alc abilities Preserve, L10 and Hand of the Gods L36

[Firon]

Getting max craft should take time if they make it faster even i would craft, cause i hate crafting and its not even the grind that gets me its that white orb i hate looking @ it lol. Honestly iy just seems like to me people want to get craft to 50 easy as possible so they can make easy gil.

[Sypherblade]

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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.

Some great ideas here.....id love to see these in game

[Coglin]

The simplist fix is to:

-Raise XP gained per synth. ( I would suggest by double, but thats just me )

-Have earned crafting abilities effect the synth with a greater posotive reaction. (we earn thos abilities, and put them on are abilities bar so we can use them in the crafting process, now give then true usefullness and value)

-Raise the effect of various colors of stability. (giving the "wait" action more value, and alow certain earned abilities to sooth the reaction of the synth, thus givingus more control over reigning in instability,)

These few seimple chages would involve the player more per synth, and if they just give them a healthy XP boost so you can atually se your XP bar move after all that effort, you feel like your getting somewhere.

[TheVedis]

sorry, but the problem with ideas like this, is it is a way for people to level everything without even playing

we are not looking or botlike features or things that reward people for not actualy being there.


also, there is a difference between grind recipes and those which are used to make gear, the "best" grind recipes are those that dont require any real material sets(usualy taking 1-2 materials at most, easy to farm ones at that


if this is an isue of time sinks, well, games are time sinks in general so as always i find it a moot point

[grandm]

Getting max craft should take time if they make it faster even i would craft, cause i hate crafting and its not even the grind that gets me its that white orb i hate looking @ it lol. Honestly iy just seems like to me people want to get craft to 50 easy as possible so they can make easy gil.

yes this. crafting is long and boring. but pays well. got to take the bad with the good

[Vawn]

Whenever someone starts a thread with "listen to my ideas if you care about fixing such and such..." I'm always hooked! And to follow it up with constantly changing the font and font size for emphasis, and I'm totally on board! Way to go!