Square Enix, please think about both Casual AND Hardcore crafters..

[CookiesNCreams]

I have no intention to insult anyone and for a Theme Park MMO FFXIV crafting system is good and I don't think needs to change, still, I going to be blunt: even during ARR and HW the whole system was casual. Why?

- You can be everything in one character. No need to interact with others outside the marketplace.

- No need to compete for resources.

- This game uses a centralized marketplace, removing the importance of many other factors like location or marketing.

- All 8 DoLs are the same class.

- Materials only come in NQ/HQ.

- You can't modify the stats of any items.

- No decay.

So no, I don't think to make the final craft harder will make it more hardcore. IMO sound like just an excuse to gatekeep people out to amass more GIL. Isghard idea is a good approach for everyone, crafting is always going to be a side activity and as the own nature of everything else in FFXIV the value of the time invested will decrease over time. Farming extreme mounts when they are current is much harder than wait for a few patches or even expansion.

1. I don’t quite understand this one. We can be everything in one character? Of course we are, why wouldn’t it be? How would you suggest that be changed?

2. The competing lies in the end game market, really.

3. As I said in point 1, how would you suggest this be changed?

4. You know, they used to be their own separate class. Until patch 3.3 arrived, and introduced Ironworks gear. I assume they did that because casual players were complaining about inventory space being too limited, and the gear being too “hard” to get.

5. As I said...how would you change something like that. lol

6. Explain what you mean here, you’ve been a bit vague on nearly half of your points.

7. Explain, please?

As I’ve said for the 6th time. The point of this is so both players get compensation and compassion from developers, rather than one type of player getting special treatment. Also, how can you justify crafting being easy as it is? Because it’s a “side activity”? Oh, please. How exactly could an mmo function if crafters were “main activities” then? Probably not so much. Let’s not.

Ishgard restoration is a good approach..that is, if the rewards and compensation are adequate fo the players who go at it hardcore. Sorry, but me and other hardcore crafters I know will absolutely not waste hours “restoring Ishgard” just for a title that says “Restorer” and a shiny tool glam. Um, no. Gear with actual useful stats, or tools with useful stats. Or better yet, both. Otherwise, it’s just a pointless activity.

Every activity has a reward in every video game. The harder the activity, the greater the reward. FFXIV seems to have this backwards. You do more, you get less? Give me a break. And that’s the result of FFXIV developers favoring casual crafters over hardcore ones. Instead of favoring BOTH.

The answer is simple. Stop catering to one audience.

[Joven]

Well obviously not to the other gal, see above.

I'm only addressing the OP's points as they chase their tail with their own logic. Crafting exists as a way for players to be relatively self sufficient in terms of gear upgrades and as a means of making money. If making money isn't their concern then making crafting difficult for the sake of making it difficult is pointless even with exclusive awards because, as I said previously, the 'pro' crafters would just release their optimum rotations for those crafts so everyone interested would still get the prize.

Making crafting difficult serves only to limit how much of certain items are posted to the marketboard. They can do as many 'challenging' crafts they want, but what are they gonna do with it once it's done? The only options are to use it or sell it and I don't see the point of wasting mats or inventory space on a craft you aren't going to use or sell just for the 'challenge' of it.

[Nixxe]

Being able to craft and be self sufficient is fun.
Stop trying to take a way my fun by reintroducing dumb and boring grinds. That's very selfish of you.

It works both ways.

No, it really doesn't. There was only ever a modest barrier to being self-sufficient previously and the new abilities have little to nothing to do with how grindy it is. Please get a clue.

[Joven]

No, it really doesn't. There was only ever a modest barrier to being self-sufficient previously and the new abilities have little to nothing to do with how grindy it is. Please get a clue.

And OP calls me condescending, lol.

[Nixxe]

And OP calls me condescending, lol.

Pretending we're all equally informed and competent is a disservice to everyone.

[Joven]

Pretending we're all equally informed and competent is a disservice to everyone.

Assuming you know better than everyone else is also a disservice. That's why we have discussions, so you 'informed' people can enlighten the rest of us instead of dismissing everyone.

[Kabooa]

1. I don’t quite understand this one. We can be everything in one character? Of course we are, why wouldn’t it be? How would you suggest that be changed?

2. The competing lies in the end game market, really.

3. As I said in point 1, how would you suggest this be changed?

4. You know, they used to be their own separate class. Until patch 3.3 arrived, and introduced Ironworks gear. I assume they did that because casual players were complaining about inventory space being too limited, and the gear being too “hard” to get.

5. As I said...how would you change something like that. lol

6. Explain what you mean here, you’ve been a bit vague on nearly half of your points.

7. Explain, please?

The answer is simple. Stop catering to one audience.

I can help with this.

1. The ability to be everything artificially inflates how many Crafters of each type there are. What this means is that it removes a potential time gate from being an 'omnicrafter'. I doubt many of us would have bothered to be omnicrafters if we had to do the MSQ -8 different times-, and I for certain wouldn't invest in 7 MSQ / Job Skips. This has all sorts of design ramifications but for the basic point, it's one of two major reasons that beyond first-week of patches dropping that materials and most standard items tank. No one is going to spend a high mark up on something they can make themselves. I was selling Dwarven Cotton for 90k per HQ the first week of official release. And only because people hadn't leveled Weaver yet and didn't feel like waiting for whatever project they were working in.

now that -everyone- has weaver maxed again, the price reflects raw materials and a small premium for the time save. However if you cut down the amount of weavers by 87%, odds are Dwarven Cloth, and all other relevant wares, would be more profitable to make -for the weaver-, balanced out by the weaver now having to go elsewhere for their materials. Or spend 60 hours / dollars per profession they also want maxed out.

2. This is the second reason. Raw materials are theoretically limited only by the people going out to gather them, where as in some games, there is a finite amount that can be gathered at any time, period. If two people are farming Copper in Elwynn Forest, there's no copper for you. If a million players in FF14 are farming copper, then there's now more copper than anyone will ever need.

Bot gatherers in turn may not inconvenience the individual in this way but they certainly hit the end price of raw materials. How is this relevant to crafters? It greatly lowers the time investment since materials are so plentiful that literally every tier of material has about the same price, fluctuating only by what's in demand at any given time. Level 30 materials have the same market value as level 70 materials. The vast availability of resources, that in turn lead to the profit margins a crafter can enjoy, also leads to the large amount of people who leveled crafters so they don't have to deal with the market.

3. I don't have anything to say here. Server wide markets are for the player and I am a player. If you don't have a server wide market, you have an unofficial hub that people visit the most, and you effectively have a server wide market anyways. The Ole Undercity / Ironforge if you will.

4. Uh, actually, if memory serves, the forums were filled with people with pentamelded gear complaining that their 30mil+ pentamelds were wasted. Wasn't no casual complaining about that, let me tell you.

5. Materials influence substats on the final gear piece. This way you can remove the HQ tag and remove the need to add -more- materials. Who needs 18 types of iron.

6. The inability to customize the items you create ultimately means your items are only worthwhile if they match up with people want. If you're crafting for a Summoner but every piece has spell speed, guess there's nothing of value for them.

7. Items don't permanently break or disappear unless we're talking materia conversion, which is largely obsolete for combat classes. This means there is a hard limit to how many items go out. The healthiest crafting systems include permanent durability decreases so that an item, even well cared for, must be replaced. These type of systems rarely are in themepark MMOs like FF14 and WoW, however. You need only look at Breath of the Wild for how frustrating watching your Omega Weapon break can be.

[Granyala]

the new abilities have little to nothing to do with how grindy it is.

I never stated otherwise, if you had actually bothered to read my posts and not be triggered by the first line or seeing my avatar, you would have read (multiple times by now) that I agree with you on the fact that the current crafting process is too uninvolved.

I'm merely arguing that more grind through harsher gear requirement is not a valid way to fix that because once you get your gear grinded you would, yet again, end up in a braindead macro-able and boring crafting system. It would merely take more time to get there and that [more time] would lead to the exclusivity you apparently seem to want.

BTW: I didn't ask SE to make crafting easier. I didn't ask SE to lessen the grind. Back in ARR I accepted that this aspect of the game was not my cup of tea.
But they did it anyway and now I am enjoying being self sufficent.
YOU want to take that away from me. YOU are the selfish one here. Not me. I merely take what SE offers me and tell them "I like this one better than the old one!".

[Niyuka]

I think even more people would craft if you make it a bit easier to get geared up. Right now the buy-in is harsh for people starting out for gear. A new player who has their combat class at a low level because they enjoy the crafting and housing is completely stuck without access to the crafter beastmen, most materials, money-making, cant access housing.
And since combat content is constantly being called too hard and is made easier so everyone can finish it, I think crafting is still FAR too elitist and veteran-centric. The most important player, following the discussions about lacking endgame content, is the supercasual gamehopper with no time or interest in the game, as there are apparently gazillions of them waiting to give SE their money if they just make the game easy enough.

/sarcasm

Seriously, I dont do much crafting, but 1-macro guaranteed HQ crafting for self-sufficient crafters is basically SE throwing in the towel on a meaningful economy in favor of the Farmville/Hayday squad.

[IntrovertAnt]

Have you ever stopped to consider that maybe there are crafters out there that actually enjoyed 2.0 - 3.5’s RNG? Because, it helps us become better crafters, and it feels incredibly rewarding to know that you HQ’d a craft that tries to flip you off with RNG. It’s SO rewarding. Not only that, but it raises the value of your time spent per craft. Back then, crafts took 2 minutes per rotation. (makers mark and hasty touch)

Umm, please no. I love how relaxing crafting is right now and I do NOT find RNG crafting rewarding.

I do not feel good when I lose like a million Gil worth mats to RNG when there is nothing I could have done skill or knowledge wise to prevent it.

It actually would make me really frustrated.

You aren't a better crafter when you get HQ craft from RNG. All you're doing is gambling.