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

[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.

[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.

[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.

[Driavna]

Just for the lul (I don't really want anything of this implemented). Let me make a really hardcore crafting system!

- There is no longer a shared crafting or gathering gear, each profession need unique gear adapted for the job at hand (like real life!)

- NQ/HQ system is changed: instead of increasing the starting quality the number of HQ materials used will determine the max HQ % you can reach. All you used is NQ materials? You can't rise the HQ % pass 1%.

- Like in the good spirit of Korean MMO if you fail an overmeld any materia already melded in that piece is also destroyed.

- Players can only be one specialist (same rules as housing apply. So the only way to have all specialist in one server is having 8 accounts) and can't be changed. Having to hire people for stuff you are not that good or don't know how to do it is realistic!

- Specialist recipes are back and are never going to be removed.

- Market place is no longer centralized and each city is independent.

- Hardest recipes require fully melded gear with the best materia possible.

[CookiesNCreams]

Just for the lul (I don't really want anything of this implemented). Let me make a really hardcore crafting system!

- There is no longer a shared crafting or gathering gear, each profession need unique gear adapted for the job at hand (like real life!)

- NQ/HQ system is changed: instead of increasing the starting quality the number of HQ materials used will determine the max HQ % you can reach. All you used is NQ materials? You can't rise the HQ % pass 1%.

- Like in the good spirit of Korean MMO if you fail an overmeld any materia already melded in that piece is also destroyed.

- Players can only be one specialist (same rules as housing apply. So the only way to have all specialist in one server is having 8 accounts) and can't be changed. Having to hire people for stuff you are not that good or don't know how to do it is realistic!

- Specialist recipes are back and are never going to be removed.

- Market place is no longer centralized and each city is independent.

- Hardest recipes require fully melded gear with the best materia possible.

Haha that sounds fun for players like me, but that would inconvenience too many casual players. To make things fair, they really only need to do something simple. Such as keeping in Prudent Touch, but making end game recipes only allows 5 Touch actions and 3 progress moves. Something like that. End game recipes only. Other recipes shouldn’t have a limit on actions.

Sounds fair for both players. Or, just make a Faction/Scrip system where hardcore crafters craft insanely difficult recipes per week. Let’s call them “black scrips.” You can earn 300 black scrips per week. To earn the best of the best type of gear, which is locked behind black scrip turn ins, you need the best melds, best rotations, and you need to be smart.

And let’s say these black scrip gear pieces cost about 700 scrips each. Tools and off hand tools cost 1000 each. So not only do you have to grind, but you need to be very smart about your crafting rotations.

[Miminming]

In the end its just 1 macro

[Zyneste]

When it comes to difficulty, I'm not sure what they could do, beside limiting certain skill uses during crafts of certain items, like the ixal. If it ever got to the point where we couldnt 100% HQ 100% with our standard tools, we'd just be forced to use the powerful/risky RNG skills. That's it. About to seriously fail your craft? Reclaim. Just more RNG. No more difficult really.

TBH this time around, Im all aboard the macro crafting limitations. Thinking of a full proof macro using your favorite tools,is pretty fun. Its solving puzzles. Like these two macros I tried to do the same thing for about the same CP and they do. 479 base CP with NQ Tempura vs 480 base CP with NQ tempura. Both can use reuse if the craft finishes early, by putting it before great strides. I think its allot of fun, but ultimately its about flavor.

Delicate synthesis is incredibly strong, but stuff like prudent/focused touch are still viable so I like the balance we have. The hardest part going forward will be trying to keep crafts in the one button range, which would be incredibly cp intensive. x. x I like not having to overgear to come up with a working solution.

I like that we are at a place where we can have a flavor to our crafts. Crafters who prefer Waste Note Vs Manipulation II. Muscle Memory vs Makers Mark. Stuff like that.

[Granyala]

Just for the lul (I don't really want anything of this implemented). Let me make a really hardcore crafting system!
- There is no longer a shared crafting or gathering gear, each profession need unique gear adapted for the job at hand (like real life!)
- NQ/HQ system is changed: instead of increasing the starting quality the number of HQ materials used will determine the max HQ % you can reach. All you used is NQ materials? You can't rise the HQ % pass 1%.
- Like in the good spirit of Korean MMO if you fail an overmeld any materia already melded in that piece is also destroyed.
- Players can only be one specialist (same rules as housing apply. So the only way to have all specialist in one server is having 8 accounts) and can't be changed. Having to hire people for stuff you are not that good or don't know how to do it is realistic!
- Specialist recipes are back and are never going to be removed.
- Market place is no longer centralized and each city is independent.
- Hardest recipes require fully melded gear with the best materia possible.

1st of all: your system isn't hardcore, your system is ony a dumb grind. With these changes, a trained monkey could still craft HQ it merely had to gather the HQ mats and the gear.
Again: TIME > everything else.

This is BORING. My brain would fall asleep with your "hardcore" crafting system and my blood would boil at the dumb and unnecessary RNG overmeld grind (17% chance of success on anything higher than IVs is bad enough as it is).

2nd:
- we already have specific gear for scripts, so that would be nothing new.
- being forced to buy materials from others would only end up in a gil grind. Again, no skill involved here.
- Overmeld system: see above. Gil/script grind w/o skill involved.
- specialists: again, the only thing you achieve would be yet another gil grind.
- divided markets: inconvenience for the sake of inconvenience you merely triple the time needed by having to check 3 markets every time. Again: no player skill needed.
- And more grind.

I actually like the idea of the HQ revamp. Even though it is just another layer of grind, I like the idea that you can't craft a HQ item from crap materials.
Just feels right.

Seriously people is that what you consider "hardcore"? Dumb and skilless grinds you need a movie on a second screen in order to not fall asleep?



I believe in order to have a fruitful discussion we need to differentiate two things:
1) The crafting process
2) The acquisition and impact of gear/stats on said process

Let me start with 2):
I believe leveling/gear acquisition is in a very good place right now. Decent effort required, a bit of grind to affix all the materia but not overcooked like "you have to spiritbind yourself if you don't want to dump XX millions in the AH". Upping the ante here has nothing to do with player skill and only increases the [time wasted] variable.

1) IMHO the actual crafting process needs some work. We will see how it turns out when they release the master books but to be frank: I should not be able to macro 100% collectibles with unmelded lv 80 gear. Macroing should only be feasible for stuff that is [current Tier -1] while I wear decently melded [current tier] gear. Everything else should require manual input for guaranteed success/HQ.

Also, I'd like for the crafting process to be more interactive but w/o RNG being the determining factor.
I'd like to be forced to make smart decisions in order to get what I want.
Maybe have sth. similar to dancer's dances as a random occurrence, basically demanding random actions (that cost no HP in said window) but with a severe punishment, to the point of a failed synthesis if you exceed a certain number of missteps and with a stricter time limit enforcing quick thinking. Not sure if such a system would work out.

TLDR: more brain in the crafting process, leave gear acquisition and leveling as is.

[kidalutz]

plz address crafting it has been neglected is has become far to easy in shadowbringers as of now

See I read this as Yeah screw all the new players that might want to learn how to craft make it difficult so it can be the JUST US league.

Which is turn makes me more likely to ignore any and all complaints about crafting or actual issues crafting may have I'm fairly certain I'm not the only one that interprets this in such a way So I dont know maybe think about how you post something rather than burn bridges before they can get built.