Asking Yoshida to address crafting’s absurd easy difficulty...Live Letter?

[CookiesNCreams]

We were told they are "Titles" and some sort of glamour weapons. Both of which are useless to a raider's arsenal. Rewards should be high stat, exclusive, rewarding gear/weapons. It's a good way to reward players who actually spent the time researching and optimizing to handle all the mechanics in the fight. By giving us titles and glamour weapons, you aren't giving people a very good incentive to do Ultimate.

You’re comparing apples with oranges. Raiding has *never* been dumbed down to be more “accessible” at all, ever. It’s always been hardcore. Crafting?....yeah, the hardcore aspect died when a Prudent Touch was revealed in 4.0. Don’t even go there.

its all gonna be glamor at some point anyway

True, but we can make a change if we keep bringing this issue up on every single live letter until it’s answered by Yoshida. I’m stubborn. And it’s frustrating that something me and many other hardcore people love so much, is being changed far too much...to cater to only one audience, instead of both audiences. That is not how things should be, period.

Well, from a design perspective you cannot have it both ways.

I’m not so sure. Square Enix is smart, I’m 100% positive they can come up with a solution to make crafting very thought intuitive and intelligence based. Rather than just spamming Prudent or Preparatory Touch under manipulation 1 or 2, or waste not 1 or 2 until a craft is at IQ stack 9-11.

I do agree that crafting should be more intelligence oriented though. Because as I said, we are adults with a decent education (I assume), and not 13 year old children that play fortnite all day. We can figure mechanics out. No need to baby us and make crafting a joke.

[SaberMaxwell]

You’re comparing apples with oranges. Raiding has *never* been dumbed down to be more “accessible” at all, ever. It’s always been hardcore. Crafting?....yeah, the hardcore aspect died when a Prudent Touch was revealed in 4.0. Don’t even go there.

Never?

Raiding Story Mode was made into a thing to allow people to access the story of the raids, previously exclusive for raiders. After Gordias Savage, Savage mode has been made easier and easier over time. Everything has been more or less Creator difficulty, which itself is hardly a step up from Extreme (which itself has become a shadow of its former self).

The most challenging content we've gotten in the past four years has been Ultimate. It rewards titles and glamours. There's no progression tied to it, just prestige--the way it should be.

[CookiesNCreams]

Never?

Raiding Story Mode was made into a thing to allow people to access the story of the raids, previously exclusive for raiders. After Gordias Savage, Savage mode has been made easier and easier over time. Everything has been more or less Creator difficulty, which itself is hardly a step up from Extreme (which itself has become a shadow of its former self).

The most challenging content we've gotten in the past four years has been Ultimate. It rewards titles and glamours. There's no progression tied to it, just prestige--the way it should be.

Good point lol. But my argument is, it has never reached a point of accessibility where literally anybody can just hop in and fly through it like it’s nothing. We can at least agree on that.

With crafting, any random individual can craft end game pieces of gear...HQ it too, by simply pressing one macro. I’m not even kidding. One macro. One. And you HQ just about any end game lvl80 gear piece. There is no skill barrier, no intelligence barrier, nothing.

[CorbinDallas]

Pray tell the difference between a "hardcore crafter" and a casual crafter, I very much doubt they don't use macros, so what makes them so "hardcore".

[Nixxe]

Pray tell the difference between a "hardcore crafter" and a casual crafter, I very much doubt they don't use macros, so what makes them so "hardcore".

Crafting is fundamentally a casual activity, so it's really about those who focus on crafting (hardcore) and those who barely interact with the system (casual). There's nothing wrong with being a casual of course, but the problem arises when they're no longer OK with not getting all of the rewards that come with focusing on the content. In order to facilitate what they want, it's necessary to remove all of the investment, primarily of time, that is necessary to reap those rewards, and in the process it robs more dedicated crafters of their endgame.

[SaberMaxwell]

Good point lol. But my argument is, it has never reached a point of accessibility where literally anybody can just hop in and fly through it like it’s nothing. We can at least agree on that.

With crafting, any random individual can craft end game pieces of gear...HQ it too, by simply pressing one macro. I’m not even kidding. One macro. One. And you HQ just about any end game lvl80 gear piece. There is no skill barrier, no intelligence barrier, nothing.

I don't think we really can agree on that, I've seen some very bad players kill final floor Savage fights. The advent of X-World PF has allowed some very poor players to get carried, because most of these fights (even savage) can be done basically 7-man. There's also a depressing level of people who have been sockpuppeted through Ultimate, and some even started buying parses so that the Site that Shall Not be Named has a recorded ranking of their character clearing it, which makes it harder to see if the kill was legitimate (ie, not sockpuppeted).

I see the point you're trying to make, it's in service to my own point though. Progression gear, Square decided, cannot be too difficult to achieve because that causes arguments about non-elite gear having similar stats. It makes people who kill Gordias Savage 4 ask why people who do Diadem get i210, when Diadem doesn't ask for nearly the pound of flesh that Gordias Savage did. Prestige gear bypasses this, because you didn't kill Ultimate for the extra materia slot; you killed it for the title and the weapon glamour. That's the balance I think they're trying to strike with Ishgard--the rewards not being for progression, but rather for prestige.

I don't know what direction can be taken for crafting. I just know that the creation of Ultimate made all of the progression have an end. Savage is now a means to an end, and that end is the hardest fight series in the game. Having that direction made Savage bearable for me, because even in its dull ease, I knew I was working toward a greater goal, and a greater challenge.

[CookiesNCreams]

I don't think we really can agree on that

Fair enough. Me personally, I have not seen what you have described. Maybe I just got lucky and only played with decent players. My goal with this thread is so Yoshida responds to this question. Depending on his answer, I may or may not end my subscription. I just can’t continue to support a game where they prioritize one fan base over the other, instead of catering to both, you know? If it comes to that, I’ll probably stick with Black Desert.

Pray tell the difference between a "hardcore crafter" and a casual crafter, I very much doubt they don't use macros, so what makes them so "hardcore".

Why are you asking questions you already know the answer to? I’ve explained numerous times. You are free to read my previous posts and threads. I’m not going to reiterate.

[kidalutz]

I don't think we really can agree on that, I've seen some very bad players kill final floor Savage fights. The advent of X-World PF has allowed some very poor players to get carried, because most of these fights (even savage) can be done basically 7-man. There's also a depressing level of people who have been sockpuppeted through Ultimate, and some even started buying parses so that the Site that Shall Not be Named has a recorded ranking of their character clearing it, which makes it harder to see if the kill was legitimate (ie, not sockpuppeted).

I see the point you're trying to make, it's in service to my own point though. Progression gear, Square decided, cannot be too difficult to achieve because that causes arguments about non-elite gear having similar stats. It makes people who kill Gordias Savage 4 ask why people who do Diadem get i210, when Diadem doesn't ask for nearly the pound of flesh that Gordias Savage did. Prestige gear bypasses this, because you didn't kill Ultimate for the extra materia slot; you killed it for the title and the weapon glamour. That's the balance I think they're trying to strike with Ishgard--the rewards not being for progression, but rather for prestige.

I don't know what direction can be taken for crafting. I just know that the creation of Ultimate made all of the progression have an end. Savage is now a means to an end, and that end is the hardest fight series in the game. Having that direction made Savage bearable for me, because even in its dull ease, I knew I was working toward a greater goal, and a greater challenge.

Who cares how someone got thier clear? Just saying does it matter so long as YOU yourself achieved it how you wanted to achieve it? Just saying when you spend your time getting pissed off and depressed over how someone else spends thier time You miss out on the actual point which is for you yourself to have fun and do things your way within reason.

[SaberMaxwell]

Who cares how someone got thier clear? Just saying does it matter so long as YOU yourself achieved it how you wanted to achieve it? Just saying when you spend your time getting pissed off and depressed over how someone else spends thier time You miss out on the actual point which is for you yourself to have fun and do things your way within reason.

It's a bit annoying when you spend upwards of hundreds of hours to get a clear of something, only to find Jimmy McTonsofbucks bought his kill for irl cash. Oh I'm sorry, can't make allegations like that; but if you're in any raiding discord you know somewhere cash is changing hands. Kind of cheapens what the title represents. Also in context "depressing" is just a colorful adjective, don't think too hard about it.

Either way is off-topic for this thread. The only reason Ultimate clear-buying was even brought up was to emphasize how even the hardest combat content in the game can be done for you.

[Granyala]

I’m not so sure. Square Enix is smart, I’m 100% positive they can come up with a solution to make crafting very thought intuitive and intelligence based. Rather than just spamming Prudent or Preparatory Touch under manipulation 1 or 2, or waste not 1 or 2 until a craft is at IQ stack 9-11.

I do agree that crafting should be more intelligence oriented though.

They can but then they have to decouple it from the geargrind because with gear you can always cheese the intelligence part quite a bit. Similar to going into a raid with 30ilv too many, sure you still need to do the core mechanics right but the encounter will forgive A LOT more errors on your part.

That would end up in a problem for people that want more of a reward than a glamour and a title.