Will 5.0 ShadowBringers make crafting hard again?

[CraftOs]

Now before I begin, I want to start off by saying that the addition of Prudent Touch, a very over powered move, is both good and bad. Bad outweighing the good, but let’s speak about the good first.

Good - Less RNG involved. Use the right melds, gear, and food, your rotation will basically 100% HQ every time. Makes you less likely to rage quit from crafting.

Bad - Exactly the same reason as the Good.

Why: Well, I’ve been a crafter since 2.x, and I miss the days of Crafting being so RNG heavy, so difficult, and so risky to the point where it made people scared to craft. In turn, they learn how to adapt. They practice actual rotations, they learn buffs and how they work, basically turning them into good crafters. Now, in 4.x crafting is basically dumbed down, so much to the point where crafters that actually took the time to learn the crafting moves aren’t appreciated. Just google a rotation, have good melds and gear, boom, you can now 100% HQ gear and as a result, making crafting way too accessible than it needs to be.

I’ve had dozens of members ask me questions about crafting buffs while at level 70. Back then, there was no such thing as an endgame crafter asking you basic questions like that.

What needs to be done: Nerf Prudent Touch, it makes RNG basically non existent, which was what forced people to think outside the box and avoid mistakes. Either that, or re introduce Hasty Touch, like adding a Hasty Touch III for example.

At this point, both hardcore and casual crafters are rewarded the same. It never used to be like that. I miss people studying Caimie Tsukino’s crafting guides like exams were tomorrow, I miss the RNG, I miss the pressure, and I miss the reward. Now, crafters aren’t anything special. Raiders are rewarded, dungeon runners are rewarded, pvp players are heavily rewarded, but not crafters? Why do crafters have to be the ones to be less rewarded? Gatherers on a server with bots are screwed, so that’s 50/50.

That needs to change. If you agree or disagree, please do so in a civil manner. I won’t respond to negativity.

[MrThinker]

I half agree and half disagree on this. With the addition of an actual endgame content in the form of Ishgard restoration, I believe there SHOULD be more of a challenge to whatever crafting/gathering is needed for it, as endgame things should be somewhat difficult, and different classes SHOULD need to use their unique skills to get the craft done. At the same time, after experiencing the QoL the 60-70 abilities gave to crafters, I'm kinda reluctant to let them go.

And if Housing of all things is the final reward for the Restoration, well.... they might want to make that as accessible as possible or have the community actually riot with pitchforks.

[CraftOs]

I half agree and half disagree on this. With the addition of an actual endgame content in the form of Ishgard restoration, I believe there SHOULD be more of a challenge to whatever crafting/gathering is needed for it, as endgame things should be somewhat difficult, and different classes SHOULD need to use their unique skills to get the craft done. At the same time, after experiencing the QoL the 60-70 abilities gave to crafters, I'm kinda reluctant to let them go.

And if Housing of all things is the final reward for the Restoration, well.... they might want to make that as accessible as possible or have the community actually riot with pitchforks.

Thing is, crafters are such a small minority of the player base, since so many people are concerned with things like Primals, raids, and even just regular dungeons. And with the whole riot over Vieras being female only? It shows me that SE is not too worried about a riot, so it confuses me. As for the Ishgard endgame content, I would hope it’s difficult to have access to.

[MistakeNot]

Reducing RNG dependence is a good thing as far as I am concerned.
Top-level crafting is still not trivial. Just getting the gear needed for making 4-star crafts requires either spending a few million gil on the MB, or crafting them yourself from expensive materials.

No, having crafting be made actually hard is not a desirable thing - except maybe for those few crafters who like feeling special.

[Vidu]

RNG back in ARR didnt meant crafting was depending on skill, it meant it was depending on luck.
RNG doesnt make crafting (or anything) difficult, it makes it luck based - which is the very opposite of difficult or "requires skill".

Crafting, specially endgame crafting, is still not enjoyed by the majority of people. And even as a hardcore-mastercrafter since ARR I never understood why people are pushing for crafting to be more exclusive - well, its probably due to those people wanting to make a bigger profit by driving all those filthy casuals out of the markets, I guess. But thats not a good reason to load crafting with more RNG.
Its also not as accessible as you might think - endgame-crafting still requires that you overmeld the most current crafting-gear, which can be quite an investment of either time or money - neither of which most casual players have a lot to invest.

I remember using macros in ARR as much as I did today, because even then, even without Prudent Touch you could come up with rotations that allowed you to macro the 1-star-stuff easly and relaybly enough.
And when I think about how many potions and food-stuff I crafted for my static over the years, I really, really dont want the macros to go anywhere.

The only thing I could see being reasonably added (or make a comeback) is the "old" way you got mastercrafter-books with them not being locked behind cheap and easy yellow scrips but behind a limited amount of "difficult" crafts that you couldnt really use a macro for - proof your skill as a crafter, get the book, continue to use "easy" crafting methods for all normal crafts.

I would like to see more "difficult" crafting with the premise that its meant as a challenge for crafters who seek a challenge - but not as means to keep people locked out from crafting. The only reason to want to see this is the pure selfish wish to have less competition on the market or some weird idea of people having to meet your own standards of what a crafter should be.
Most people dont enjoy crafting as is, lets not make it even less enjoyable for everyone again by bringing back more RNG. Crafting should be truely based on skill and a solid rotation, not on dumb luck.

[Mansion]

The only thing I could see being reasonably added (or make a comeback) is the "old" way you got mastercrafter-books with them not being locked behind cheap and easy yellow scrips but behind a limited amount of "difficult" crafts that you couldnt really use a macro for - proof your skill as a crafter, get the book, continue to use "easy" crafting methods for all normal crafts.

I would like to see more "difficult" crafting with the premise that its meant as a challenge for crafters who seek a challenge - but not as means to keep people locked out from crafting. The only reason to want to see this is the pure selfish wish to have less competition on the market or some weird idea of people having to meet your own standards of what a crafter should be.
Most people dont enjoy crafting as is, lets not make it even less enjoyable for everyone again by bringing back more RNG. Crafting should be truely based on skill and a solid rotation, not on dumb luck.

Exactly my position on this.

I don't mind having "harder" crafting as long as it is fair and not just lazy RNG. I'd also second the "identity" of each crafter or crafter clusters. Having the same rotation for each crafters sure is handy but it is kinda boring. If Blacksmith Armourer had a rotation, Weaver and Leatersmith another rotation etc. maybe it could be less braindead...

[CraftOs]

snip

Yeah you make good points, really. Only disagreement I have is about accessibility. You are aware of how many players actually buy Gil, I’m sure. Many, by the way. If a player’s issue is Gil, they can easily buy 50-100 million off of a Gil selling website in turn, making crafting just a breeze to go through when it comes to both leveling and gearing up. Back then, it wasn’t that simple.

I’m sorry, but the accessibility of today’s crafting makes it to where crafters are under appreciated. That’s my main issue really. Raiders are highly appreciated for their knowledge, dungeon runners, and pvpers. However, crafting is seen as “meh, I have like 20 crafter friends that can make that for me.” Back then, it was more like “omg an Omni crafter that actually crafts! that’s great!” If you’re going to dumb down crafting, do it for raiding, etc as well. Otherwise its just being irrational, and basically saying “we don’t like how 2.X-3.X crafters get rewarded for actually taking the time to understand crafting. they are elitist! nerf crafting!” is really just spiteful.

I’m making a strange analogy here, but do you honestly expect Square Enix employees to dumb down their recruitment requirements because it’s “not fair and they are elitist?” Come on. If you want the job, learn C++, learn video game development, learn it. Don’t call them elitist for working hard.

[Vidu]

Yeah you make good points, really. Only disagreement I have is about accessibility. You are aware of how many players actually buy Gil, I’m sure. Many, by the way. If a player’s issue is Gil, they can easily buy 50-100 million off of a Gil selling website in turn, making crafting just a breeze to go through when it comes to both leveling and gearing up. Back then, it wasn’t that simple.

I’m sorry, but the accessibility of today’s crafting makes it to where crafters are under appreciated. That’s my main issue really. Raiders are highly appreciated for their knowledge, dungeon runners, and pvpers. However, crafting is seen as “meh, I have like 20 crafter friends that can make that for me.” Back then, it was more like “omg an Omni crafter that actually crafts! that’s great!” If you’re going to dumb down crafting, do it for raiding, etc as well. Otherwise its just being irrational, and basically saying “we don’t like how 2.X-3.X crafters get rewarded for actually taking the time to understand crafting. they are elitist! nerf crafting!” is really just spiteful.

I’m making a strange analogy here, but do you honestly expect Square Enix employees to dumb down their recruitment requirements because it’s “not fair and they are elitist?” Come on. If you want the job, learn C++, learn video game development, learn it. Don’t call them elitist for working hard.

To me its not the analogy thats strange, its the idea behind it - sorry, maybe its just because I never shared this mindset but I dont miss this "omg an omnicrafter"-fame. Quite frankly, I'm happy its gone - I've seen quite a few crafter friends burn out over it and leave the game because they were known as "the omni-crafter who can do everything and who everyone comes to". One got to the point where he put himself on busy for weeks because he wanted to actually play the game and not be bothered the whole time "Make this for me!"

And even without considering this burn-out-thing, which one can argue is a personal problem, I dont see the need for any "crafter fame". You remind me of a person who was upset that their ARR-ponies werent special in SB anymore and who wanted unsyched gone because he wanted that "fame" to stay forever.

And I honestly dont see the majority of PvE-people be apperciated for their knowledge either. As I see it crafting and raiding arent so different in this regard:
The real difficult part is figuring the stuff out in the first place. For a battle those are the mechanics and how to deal with them. For crafting those are the rotations, specially in macro-form that we use.
For raiding this is done by a few people - world first, then the usual suspects when it comes to guides etc. And most other people consult those guides - they dont figure stuff out for themself, they follow a guide, maybe they even have automatic discord-callouts!
For crafting its very much the same - most people dont figure out their own rotations and macros, they just copy the stuff people like Camie post here.
Both is fine, obviously - but both is very similar. The actual difficult, challenging part is done by a minority of people and copied by the rest - wether its crafting, raids or even gathering!
Personally, I take pride in figuring everything out myself - but I also dont need anyone else to acknowledge this, which seems to be what you're after...

Nothing needs to be dumb down here - and nothing was dumb down. They shifted their focus with crafting-classes to make solo-crafting more viable (a good thing) and crafting in total more accessible (a good thing, in my book - there is no reason to lock this behind pure RNG, basically what you are proposing). Same was done for raids, actually - seeing how they added the Storymode to raids in HW and SB - basically a dumb down version of the actual raid.

And yes, your analogy is strange - and if only for the fact that this is a game, not a job. While I agree that people need to learn how classes etc. work that pretty much only applies when it effects the enjoyment of the game for other people directly, aka: a tank needs to learn their job and cant just do whatever they want. But a crafter? Thats a solo-aspect of the game and I dont see the need to treat it as a job - or rather a gambling addicition.

[DrWho2010]

i don't want more rng added back into crafting. i would really love if i never have to use hasty touch ever again, prudent touch for life!

but i will agree with the point about master craft books. i would rather you have to turn in a difficult craft to get them rather than just grinding scrip for them, and it would have to be something you cannot craft for someone else.

[Kabooa]

The crafting system isn't multi-dimensional enough to be hard without being an absurd numbers game or an RNG fest.

If it's "hard", you just don't have enough numbers.
If you don't have enough numbers, you can use RNG methods to inflate it at a greater risk of faliure.

I don't see this changing in Shadowbringers.