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

[CookiesNCreams]

1. Yes. Because leveling crafters sucks once the novelty of the shallow craft system wears off.

2. The only generalization that can be made is 'people ask for harder crafting'. People have certainly asked for it with exclusion being the motivation.

3. He literally just used HQ materials, guys. This isn't difficult. It wasn't a restriction.

In your opinion, why do you believe easy crafting should stay?

[DPZ2]

In your opinion, why do you believe easy crafting should stay?

So, you are not really looking for harder content, just a way to make more difficult for everyone else?

That is the implication of your question.

[Kabooa]

In your opinion, why do you believe easy crafting should stay?

In my opinion, it was never difficult to begin with. Much of the difficulty before is better described as tedium or gate keeping.

The novelty of the craft system wore out quite quickly for me, suffice to say I've played other games with far more engaging craft systems and economies. FF14 will forever just be WoW with extra steps.

As for why it should stay - I got to be there at 2.0 as a battleclass only. The strangehold crafting had on the market at the time was something that took them until the second half of Heavensward to really tune, between better system gil generation, and more equitable Combat <-> Crafter interaction.

I'm not even sure if right now we aren't in a stable situation due to the mass availability of raw materials. If there's an abundance of crafter bots as Kage says, there has to be at least as many if not more gatherer bots fueling the game right now. Take them out of the equation and I wonder how things would shake out.

[Maneesha]

Make specialists important, people can choose only 1 profession(crafter or gatherer) to be specialized in, 30% of the every tier of recipes are only craft-able by specialists (tier = 1*2*3*4*) reliably with a discount on the "difficulty" of quality (less hq mats needed to hq),5* recipes only craftable by specialist, no matter the level, also for 5* recipes the skills cost scales, so "out-leveling" them is not an option. "op" skills should be on a "limited" use per each craft, equipment requirements should get a bit higher thanks to accessibility of materia nowadays, make hq materials important for 100% hq. Since gatherers will also have specialization, only specialists can gather "folklore" nodes for their field of expertise.


PS: master books and new recipes which get released should always have a mix of 0-5 stars. This way "casual" crafters also always have new things they are able to craft whenever a new recipe gets introduced.

All this may be somewhat excluding people of the highest tier (5 stars) of crafts, but only if they choose not to invest resources/time into becoming a 5* crafter themselves.

Raiders are rewarded with challanging content and the highest tier of gear available for every currently highest tier of gear. PvP'ers have their own exclusive rewards for those reaching the required ratings and the mode it self has its own challenging aspects and fun to it. Gatherers would have their own special mats to gather (if they choose to specialize in this field) and will be able to sell it lucratively. Crafters their own stuff only they can craft and sell with its own difficulty.

Similar to RL, you can have many skills, but only a very few in which you can excel. In video games, excellency is often tied or shown in a time investment and/or resource investment (gear/melds etc).

So yes, people not prioritizing something, not having the time to invest for it, should not excel.

[DPZ2]

Make specialists important, people can choose only 1 profession
...
Similar to RL, you can have many skills, but only a very few in which you can excel. In video games, excellency is often tied or shown in a time investment and/or resource investment (gear/melds etc).

So yes, people not prioritizing something, not having the time to invest for it, should not excel.

As long as you can't sell the results for millions of gil, I'd agree to this.

However, I'm afraid you used the word 'lucratively' once too often in your descriptions. Raider and PvP player rewards are not 'lucrative', they're personal. Why should crafting and gathering be any different?

[Maneesha]

For PvP i agree with you, there isn't anything "lucrative" and only a "posing" thing, idk, does selling/pushing someone for rating exist in this game, i never heard of it, but i know of other games where this is a thing, maybe its not a thing here because in general the pvp isn't very popular among the community of this game. Raiding can be lucrative, lots of ppl try to sell kills for people,idk how well this is going and how the market there is, but still its an option, another thing are also the Orchestrion Scrolls, sure they are rare and rng based, but usually cost a few million, other then that, yes the gear cant be sold and its personal, but that is its own reward (and an important one for a lot of raiders).

I would welcome more rare materials from raid bosses, similar to extreme. Which can be used to craft gear/weapons/furniture and glamour, even if they restrict them to only being available from savage/ultimate modes. Then people who only raid can have another source of income and the player-base as a whole more options for glamour or maybe some "BiS" options in regards to equipment.

And yes i don't have an issue in buying this stuff of the MB.

I think it will enrich the games depth and economy if more stuff was to drop from raids, which can be sold to crafters and people who have no access to the content or can't complete it, also if pvp players did receive some form of materials they can earn through wolf marks or other means tied to pvp, but i am not the one who decided things should be this way, but since you ask i give you my opinion.

Besides, crafting and gathering was always tied up to the economy and is one of the primary means to earn ingame currency in most if not every game. The devs always increase means through which people who don't craft or gather can earn ingame currency and i welcome that because it offers everyone a possibility that doesn't force them to do something they don't like.
The only thing i dislike is things being made easier for the sake of accessibility to try and entice players to do something, which they might not be interested in in the first place and in the process disregard the people who are already interested,invested and like the existing "difficulty" of said activity or the activity it self. If you like crafting, you will craft, if you like raiding, you will raid.

[CookiesNCreams]

So, you are not really looking for harder content, just a way to make more difficult for everyone else?

That is the implication of your question.

Um, are you serious right now? I literally only asked her a question, I meant nothing bad by it, and she actually makes very good points in her posts unlike your post. Please take your obvious disdain towards hardcore and/or hard working crafters somewhere else and have an actual discussion, Kay?

[IntrovertAnt]

The fact is that as long as a rotation can achieve 100% consistency, crafting will always be easy. The problem with NOT having 100% consistency is that then crafting becomes frustrating (RNG crafting).

Take my challenge for instance, that the OP refused to do or even consider. Without the use of those skills that were listed, crafting moves strongly from the 100% consistency rotation to a VERY STRONG rng crafting game where you are fighting for every last bit of quality you can squeeze out of your remaining abilities and then praying to RNJesus that you're lucky enough to get HQ. You start to utilize and lean heavily into abilities like the following:

Intensive Synthesis
Efficiency: 300%
Success Rate: 80%
Available only when material condition is Good or Excellent.

Precise Touch
Additional Effect: Increases Inner Quiet stack by one (up to 11)
Efficiency: 100%
Success Rate: 70%
Available only when material condition is Good or Excellent.

Patient Tough
Increases Inner Quiet stack by one (up to 11) when successful, halves stack upon failure
Efficiency: 100%
Success Rate: 50%

(and other skills and tricks to of course but, these I want to focus on)

This turns into crafting into a very "difficult" PROC BASED GAME. Where you are making small decisions on what to do if you get a good or excellent proc and are in fact reliant on those procs.

Now some people who responded to my challenge picked up on something else as well, like when Kaurhz stated that my challenge probably couldn't be done consistently if it could be done at all, especially without ingenuity. And he was right on the money. I can tell he knows his stuff. This challenge IS inconsistent and is completely based on rng condition procs (although, and obviously, you could adjust the "difficulty" by adding in more and more HQ mats so that rng becomes very light at max HQ mats used).

You want my rotation? I can't give it to you! It's based on condition procs! It can't be macro'd! I'll admit this is an extreme example but, isn't this one of the possible suggestions for making crafting a more brainy game than what it is now? Why didn't you see this OP? The funny thing is that my challenge (though extreme) put forth a few of the ideas that would actually make crafting difficult as suggested inside of this thread, and according to your original post, rewarding.

Though I like easy crafting, I'm actually all for this kind of system (though DEFINITELY minus the RNG from what this challenge provides) as it would be more brainy than grindy (the time grind is the only challenge crafting has right now, but that really falls in line with MMO expectations tbh). And the kind of system more specifically I would like to see are are combination of what others have already posted in this thread:

1. A proc based system where I have to make a decision about which ability to use at a certain junctures.
2. JowyAtreides suggested a system that took away a skill or two each time from your choices. I think that's great cuz it makes you think about how you can get the same result but a different way than what you normal do.

And both of these things would make crafting unmacroable.

Now I've got one more thing to say and then I've decided to not post in this thread again because I literally can't stand reading through it again or stand to hear any more hyperbolic language stemming from peoples opinions.

Wanted to shout out some people in the thread that I felt made a lot of sense and could relate to. Just wanted to give them support cuz sometimes when you are having a discussion with someone who is just totally unreasonable it can be a bit disheartening. Shout out to Kabooa, Granyala, DrWho2010, and what the heck, Liam_Harper you were making sense too. Others made sense to me as well, but my brain is dead and I need sleep and I can't shout everyone out. Goodnight.

[Liam_Harper]

An overwhelming majority of my friends who craft casually are happy over the current state of crafting strictly because it makes the end goal of being self-sufficient entirely within a reasonable and cheap grasp.

A fair point. Self sufficiency is a part of crafting I enjoy myself. However I'd still argue there's a point where endgame can become too easy. Currently Facet gear is hardly worth crafting, you're better off selling things in other markets or doing Maps, or Hunt Trains for materia to sell and buying a set. You'd profit compared to the time you sink into leveling, gearing, melding, using mats and crafting it. It also makes EX and Eden normal redundant since anyone can farm a few mil and buy a full 450 set and overmeld with a grade 6 and 5's and suddenly they have a better full set in a day or two.

If you do like crafting your own set just to have done it yourself, you're done on day one and have nothing else to do with crafting for 3 months.

In your opinion, why do you believe easy crafting should stay?

I agree, from a discussion point I'm curious on the views on this too.

As for Mogbert, an rng rotation. That makes sense. It definitely isn't possible as a 100% macro.
You know what, heck I wouldn't mind a few serious rng crafts. I don't mean everything, but for example glowing glamour crafts or a slightly stronger battle set that are only possibly by making real use of Tricks, Precise, Intensive, Patience and even all the other tools we have now. Bring it on.

[DPZ2]

Um, are you serious right now? I literally only asked her a question, I meant nothing bad by it, and she actually makes very good points in her posts unlike your post. Please take your obvious disdain towards hardcore and/or hard working crafters somewhere else and have an actual discussion, Kay?

"In your opinion, why do you believe easy crafting should stay?"

OK, turn it around then. In your opinion why do you believe easy [easier] crafting should not stay? Your original premise, and the title for this whole thread, has been "think about casual AND hardcore crafters", although your arguments have been only about how to make it more difficult for casual crafters.