Bring back the complex recipes.

[Lucifer]

Complexity is a GOOD thing. Many of us enjoyed the gathering of different materials to create one item. It gave us a sense of accomplishment and encouraged the crafting community to work together.
What you have now is completely detrimental to the strengthening of the games community, the games economy and of course, the sense of accomplishment is completely gone.

[REDace0]

I, and I believe many others, prefer the new recipe system. It's not without downsides, to be sure, but it's worth it. I created a new character just to test out how starting fresh was in 1.19 and was pleased to find myself able to make my own gear without relying on other players or taking my crafting classes ahead of my battle class.

[ZDamned]

Needless complexity is why the game was failing, I do not agree with the OP.

[Rentahamster]

Dear god, no.

Complexity != depth

The old system was a horrific labyrinth of confusion and tedium.

[Lucifer]

It could have used some changing but by no means was it bad. The only thing they needed to do was make ingredients in your level range be available at your level range. Waiting for an alchemist to reach level 20 so you can craft some level 10 stuff on leatherworker, was very stupid. However, relying on others to provide materials, brought the community together in a way I found very appealing. It's unfortunate you guys don't see it as such. I almost guarantee you guys do not even bother with crafting and have no valid argument against the previous system that invoked a sense of accomplishment and perseverance that made people actually pick crafting up.

What we have now is a simple crafting system that anyone can dish out without too much hassle. People will become self-reliant and crafting will become a big joke. The ifrit drops don't help this cause either.

This is supposed to be an mmorpg. Why are you people drawn to this casual, instant gratification crap? Are you not seeing a pattern here or are you people not familiar with the mmo industry?

[Estellios]

Relying on the community to provide materials did not bring anybody together at all. It made people become more self reliant and level more crafts themselves because it was a gigantic pain in the ass to track down someone to take 20 minutes to go through a 5 step synth process (if you were lucky enough to have/find materials) in order to get one part that you needed for a piece of gear. No one sold intermediate parts except for leather vamps or whatever other random parts only took 1 item to make.

Standardizing the materials made gatherers able to actually sell their wares and crafters able to sell materials if they did not/could not make finished items and both can make a profit. Most pieces of gear actually gets made now unlike before where you had to settle on random junk because it was the only thing that was sold because it was the least idiotic recipe to perform.

You know how I feel accomplished? A low level friend returns and needs gear. I make them a set of gear in 10 minutes, they are off and on their way. I figure I have some extra mats so I make a few more pieces that sell overnight.

Having a simpler system attracts more people and the more people partaking in crafting, the better for the economy and the better for the players because more items get supplied to the masses.

[REDace0]

It could have used some changing but by no means was it bad. The only thing they needed to do was make ingredients in your level range be available at your level range. Waiting for an alchemist to reach level 20 so you can craft some level 10 stuff on leatherworker, was very stupid. However, relying on others to provide materials, brought the community together in a way I found very appealing. It's unfortunate you guys don't see it as such.

I do agree with you. It's great that many recipes require that players obtain materials from others. I had to rely on the markets or LS members for many materials outside my specialty to make the new gear for 1.19.

I almost guarantee you guys do not even bother with crafting and have no valid argument against the previous system that invoked a sense of accomplishment and perseverance that made people actually pick crafting up.

50WVR, 41LTW, 30ARM, 30GSM, 22ALC, 22BSM, 21CRP, 21CUL - No, I do not bother with crafting at all.
Sarcasm aside, I started weaving and conjury as my main classes right away and have kept up crafting, and even a good amount of grinding, straight since release. I haven't been as dedicated as other players, for sure, but I've experienced the difficulties and benefits of the crafting system through the patches.

Under the old recipe system, it took me nearly thirty minutes to craft a suit of plate mail from raw materials (sabatons, gauntlets, cuirass, celata). I don't think this was practical.

What we have now is a simple crafting system that anyone can dish out without too much hassle. People will become self-reliant and crafting will become a big joke. The ifrit drops don't help this cause either.

It still takes a long time to get to 50. People mostly rely on others for gear even now. I don't see the majority of players becoming completely self-sufficient gear-wise for a long long time. Some players dislike crafting entirely and never will take it very far. Also keep in mind that, while the recipe revamp reduced the complexity, the addition of materia added some back.

[tymora]

I liked the old recipes and the complexity. With the exceptions of a select few, almost all made good sense.
Inventory issues was a big problem though. We just didn't have enough space to cover all the random parts we generate and we tend to have leftover parts.

It didn't make sense to sell the parts either because of space issues either - in both bazaar and inventory.

If we're given...say...100 slots on retainers for every craft we level over 20, then I'll say "go ahead and bring back the old system".

I don't mind the new reduced system either though I do feel it was dumbed down.

[Lucifer]

The inventory was definitely an issue and the amount of screens you had to open just to begin crafting was ridiculous but that's all in the past now. It's just unfortunate that the recipes were done away with.

[Frein]

It was impossible to even get the parts you needed to make stuff. Nobody sold cotton tabard fronts, etc. The market was too diluted and the wards too inefficient for that to ever work. It was also a gigantic pain in the ass to actually make anything as it took forever (and actually still does) to track down the materials and put it together.