crafting is gone

[CookiesNCreams]

Honestly this. SB and ShB both saw significant ability pruning on combat classes, but there's never been any on crafting classes (unless you want to count the elemental abilities in ShB.. ok) and it's way WAY past time. If the different abilities actually mattered maybe it'd be ok to have 40 of them like we do right now, but most of the time one ability just obseletes another. But that's a thing we've been solving with combat classes for quite some time now.



You must not have played any other MMORPG... like ever. Because this is quite common in all of them.

Fun fact though: successful games are built on their casual audience, not the hardcores. Hardcore players are good to have around, don't get me wrong... it's good for the game that those players exist. But there aren't anywhere NEAR enough of them to sustain a product long term. Given that reality, skewing a game toward appealing to the casual player makes perfect sense.

Yeah, that’s true. I’ve heard WildStar went that route, and it did pretty poorly. Thing is, that applies for games that only cater to hardcore players, without caring much for their casual players. Either that or at least 40% of the game is too hardcore. That’s a bit too harsh, even for me lol.

But, driving out your hardcore players isn’t optimal for maximizing sales. Also, there hasn’t been any statistical chart of FFXIV declining in 2.0 - 3.0 when crafting was super difficult, like, at all. And that’s likely because most of the game wasn’t hardcore, just the crafting.

For optimizing profits, no, driving out 100% of your hardcore players isn’t ideal, like, at all. Ideally, you’d want both players to be playing your game on a monthly basis.

[Maeka]

But, driving out your hardcore players isn’t optimal for maximizing sales. Also, there hasn’t been any statistical chart of FFXIV declining in 2.0 - 3.0 when crafting was super difficult, like, at all. And that’s likely because most of the game wasn’t hardcore, just the crafting.

Ideally, you want all game systems to be accessible to all players, and have tiers.

Battlecraft content is accessible to all players; Duty Finder content is do-able by.... most people, most of the time. But yet you have Savage and Extreme modes available for those looking for harder challenge.

Crafting has been kinda missing that ever since 3.0.

They decided that they would ramp up the number of materials needed to make anything, and you go from having an 80-90% chance on Level 50 materials to having a 60% chance to gather basic Lv51 materials in Heavensward, and there's a huge jump in crafting requirements, etc.

See, in Battlecraft, you had Poetics and you could buy Ironworks gear. But on the crafter side of things, they got scrips, but it seems like it takes a lot more work and effort to get yourself geared up that way in prep for the next expansion's content.

Anywho, my point is... crafting should have casual and hardcore content. I think anything that's not Star recipes should be made a bit more accessible and easier, but Star recipes should be difficult. 1-Star is like Extreme Primals, 3-Star is like Savage Raid, and 4-Star is Ultimate, IMO.

As much as I campaign for easier crafting, I am perfectly fine with not being able to do Star recipes. I don't, however, like seeing normal recipes being so bloody difficult to do while leveling. I just don't think that should be a thing.

[Brill_]

Anywho, my point is... crafting should have casual and hardcore content. I think anything that's not Star recipes should be made a bit more accessible and easier, but Star recipes should be difficult. 1-Star is like Extreme Primals, 3-Star is like Savage Raid, and 4-Star is Ultimate, IMO.

As much as I campaign for easier crafting, I am perfectly fine with not being able to do Star recipes. I don't, however, like seeing normal recipes being so bloody difficult to do while leveling. I just don't think that should be a thing.

Thats fine. But it sounds like the star crafts will be dependent on RNG, which is not skill or difficulty, it's just luck. Can you imagine if clearing savage was dependent on a certain mechanic to proc during the fight?

[Maeka]

Thats fine. But it sounds like the star crafts will be dependent on RNG, which is not skill or difficulty, it's just luck. Can you imagine if clearing savage was dependent on a certain mechanic to proc during the fight?

No, but how else would you make crafting challenging, and difficult to macro?

Yoshi-P wants to get away from one-button macros that anybody could do given enough time gearing up.

He wants expert level crafting to actually interact with the game and know what they should do when. The only way I can think of to accomplish that is with the proc system. How RNG will it be, exactly? Maybe in 20 steps you are guaranteed 1 excellent and 3 good and it's just random exactly when they happen so you have to plan ahead and be ready for them?

[CookiesNCreams]

Thats fine. But it sounds like the star crafts will be dependent on RNG, which is not skill or difficulty, it's just luck. Can you imagine if clearing savage was dependent on a certain mechanic to proc during the fight?

Don’t get me wrong, I would love a skill based crafting system...but...it seems like a skill based system can’t be done for some reason, otherwise they’d have done it by now. So, in order to please the hardcore players that want endgame harder, they’re only left with RNG as a choice. (At the moment)

I mean, choose. Would you prefer a endgame crafting system where even a 12 year old that screams “i F’d ur mom” on call of duty can HQ top endgame recipes? Or a system where there’s RNG, but when you complete a recipe, it feels rewarding.

Obviously the latter is going to be their choice when it comes to increasing difficulty. FFXIV isn’t a phone game, it should not be 100% easy. There should be content for both types of players. Casuals and hardcores. To argue otherwise is basically just being selfish. I wouldn’t want FFXIV to be 100% hardcore, that’s not fair to people that want some easy content.

[Callinon]

I mean, choose. Would you prefer a endgame crafting system where even a 12 year old that screams “i F’d ur mom” on call of duty can HQ top endgame recipes? Or a system where there’s RNG, but when you complete a recipe, it feels rewarding.

I'd rather crafting was deterministic. I want what I do to dictate the quality and success of my crafting. So yeah, that 12-year old COULD craft under that system. And he can shout at the crafting bar while he's doing it.. whatever gets him going.

There's nothing rewarding about luck unless you're a gambler. Let me put that another way: You go to a casino, you place a bet on the roulette table. The wheel comes up and you're a winner! Was that because of anything you did? No. No it wasn't. You had zero influence over that wheel. You just got lucky that it matched your bet.

Now do I expect this to end up THAT random? I do not. But the principle is the same. When the success or failure of a crafting session is down to luck instead of the actions I choose to take, that's actually just bad design. Frankly, that feels MORE like a phone game since you brought it up.

[SamSmoot]

Now do I expect this to end up THAT random? I do not. But the principle is the same. When the success or failure of a crafting session is down to luck instead of the actions I choose to take, that's actually just bad design. Frankly, that feels MORE like a phone game since you brought it up.

It doesn't have to be pure luck. Roulette and whack-a-mole are both random, but skill and alertness will always let you win in the second..
Just make it so you're guaranteed to get enough procs to get HQ with NQ mats at level, IF you react to all of the correctly. Miss a few, and you get NQ. Miss most of them, and it's a failed synth. Of course, HQ mats and high stats should help, but never enough to let you ignore all the procs.

[CookiesNCreams]

I'd rather crafting was deterministic. I want what I do to dictate the quality and success of my crafting. So yeah, that 12-year old COULD craft under that system. And he can shout at the crafting bar while he's doing it.. whatever gets him going.

There's nothing rewarding about luck unless you're a gambler. Let me put that another way: You go to a casino, you place a bet on the roulette table. The wheel comes up and you're a winner! Was that because of anything you did? No. No it wasn't. You had zero influence over that wheel. You just got lucky that it matched your bet.

Now do I expect this to end up THAT random? I do not. But the principle is the same. When the success or failure of a crafting session is down to luck instead of the actions I choose to take, that's actually just bad design. Frankly, that feels MORE like a phone game since you brought it up.

That does not feel like a phone game. Mobile is aimed towards audiences that have little interest in PC or console gaming, they just want to sit down when they have time, for like, 10 - 30 minutes on their phone and play a few rounds of candy crush. Win. And boom, had some fun, no big deal.

Also, RNG isn’t anything new. It’s in almost every game, you name it. Kingdom Hearts 2, dark souls, monster hunters, and even previous final fantasy titles had rng. It’s an element from games that add some form of difficulty to it. Is it also luck? Yup. But, without rng, items developers intend to make valuable or rare, will not become rare anymore. That’s ridiculous.

A gold bar shouldn’t be accessible to everyone and their mother, it should be gambled, kept hidden, locked away, etc. Anyways, like in the DoH forum, we can debate this all day, there will not be a conclusion or solution out of this.

[CazzT]

I'd rather crafting was deterministic. I want what I do to dictate the quality and success of my crafting. So yeah, that 12-year old COULD craft under that system. And he can shout at the crafting bar while he's doing it.. whatever gets him going.

There's nothing rewarding about luck unless you're a gambler. Let me put that another way: You go to a casino, you place a bet on the roulette table. The wheel comes up and you're a winner! Was that because of anything you did? No. No it wasn't. You had zero influence over that wheel. You just got lucky that it matched your bet.

Now do I expect this to end up THAT random? I do not. But the principle is the same. When the success or failure of a crafting session is down to luck instead of the actions I choose to take, that's actually just bad design. Frankly, that feels MORE like a phone game since you brought it up.

A deterministic crafting system would be outstanding. The outcome dependent on the choices you make, the materials you use, mistakes made and/or not corrected during the process, etc.
A system like that isn't very compatible with the gear in FFXIV, though. Stats are not random on gear and there's really only two qualities of items: Normal and HQ. With such a gear model in place, there's not much room for us to determine the outcome beyond Normal or HQ. That has its pros and cons.

But a deterministic crafting system would be epic.