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

[NanaWiloh]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzO43-1-EPg The tasty rng layered Hell of 2.0 or Hope you got time, gil and a lot of luck on your side.

[CookiesNCreams]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzO43-1-EPg The tasty rng layered Hell of 2.0 or Hope you got time, gil and a lot of luck on your side.

Yeah, those were the good old days of crafting. lol Back when not everyone and their mother could just spam macros and pull HQ endgame recipes out their rear every 1-2 minutes each, and things were much more rewarding. I also forgot to mention that was the time when some players (usually casual) would complain about “elitist rich players” ruining the game. :P

[NanaWiloh]

Yeah, those were the good old days of crafting. lol Back when not everyone and their mother could just spam macros and pull HQ endgame recipes out their rear every 1-2 minutes each, and things were much more rewarding. I also forgot to mention that was the time when some players (usually casual) would complain about “elitist rich players” ruining the game. :P

I have always liked Mithrie cause he explains things very well. He is someone I would say watch if you struggle with crafting or need a rotation. Online guides are good but I have found they can be confusing or lack information, He showed what you need to accomplish what he did and made it clear success is not always going to happen. Even if you know what your doing like he did in that video he still failed a couple of times prior to that attempt.

Thats the issue people have with rng, they dont want to put in the effort to get gear,melds and a rotation just to have the almighty RNG god piss all over their efforts. It should be Effort= reward and not Effort= random slaps across the face. Should HQ take some work yes but the work should not get stomped on.

[CookiesNCreams]

I have always liked Mithrie cause he explains things very well. He is someone I would say watch if you struggle with crafting or need a rotation. Online guides are good but I have found they can be confusing or lack information, He showed what you need to accomplish what he did and made it clear success is not always going to happen. Even if you know what your doing like he did in that video he still failed a couple of times prior to that attempt.

Thats the issue people have with rng, they dont want to put in the effort to get gear,melds and a rotation just to have the almighty RNG god piss all over their efforts. It should be Effort= reward and not Effort= random slaps across the face. Should HQ take some work yes but the work should not get stomped on.

I mean, I’m not disagreeing with you, at all. You’re totally right. But my point is, they absolutely cannot seem to make the crafting system seem more skill based (endgame, anyway). I’m not sure why exactly, but the general consensus is that it’s math based, and it’s not possible to make something skill based that is based on just mathematical equations.

Now here’s the big question that causes casuals and hardcores to never get along: If you were given two choices for endgame only crafting, NOT counting lower leveled crafting....choice one, implement RNG into endgame crafting. Or choice two, make endgame crafting 100% guaranteed with no difficulty to it at all.

RNG and/or Skill Based Crafting:
+ Your time/effort spent as a crafter is worth a lot of Gil.
+ The competition you face on the MB is more formidable. They are less likely to quit just because of some big bad RNG.
+ People appreciate endgame crafters more and respect them more for their willingness to sit through RNG bs.
+ When you HQ a recipe, it feels so rewarding to know you HQ’d something that tried to flip you off with RNG.
- If you fail, it’s not your fault. It’s because of a BS system.
- It makes you less likely to want to keep crafting.



Easy Endgame Crafting:
+ No RNG.
+ No stress or BS.
+ You do not have to seriously think. You just copy a rotation online and make a macro out of it. Endgame recipes are cake.

- Your time spent as an endgame crafter is meaningless.
- You’re not the only one doing it. Everyone else can do what you do effortlessly. Thus making your items worthless.
- There is no challenge at all.
- Your hardcore players end their subscription.
- There is no rewarding feeling about a HQ’ing a craft that you essentially did not put even an ounce of effort into getting.
- The marketboard is spammed with over inflated endgame recipes that everyone and their mother can produce.
- Over inflation of endgame crafters. AKA, less valuable things overall.
- You get people trying to actively make the game casual-only, without a care in the world for hardcore players. Very hateful.

[Nicodemus_Mercy]

I am not sure a "skill based" crafting system is possible in a video game. Skill implies being exceptionally proficient at something not necessarily easy to do. But there is no proficiency level in a video game. You either are capable of doing something or you aren't. And if you are capable, you then need to figure out how to do that something.

In this age of information at the touch of your fingertips, once one person figures something out and shares that knowledge, the rest of the world basically has access to it too. It would be one thing if you could hoard your discoveries and tricks to yourself, but in a video game system, barring RNG, once a formula is solved and shared... that's it, it's solved for everyone. Tools like the optimizer websites remove the risk of trial and error to figure out those formulas. There is no "skill" to base the system around. It's basically math. And once solved and shared, that math is available to anyone who takes the time to look for it.

When people say skill in crafting I think of real world things like hand/eye coordination, exceptionally steady hands, exceptional agility or flexibility of the limbs, refined instincts. I'm not sure how such innately physical attributes could be required for video game crafting, outside of turning crafting into a first person shooter minigame which I would find abhorrent.

As far as I can see there is no such thing as "skill based" crafting in FFXIV and there never was. There is only:

"RnG/Persistence based crafting" where rng always holds sway and you can never guarantee your results, leading to only those willing to risk multiple failures for a few successes as the top of the food chain. This sort of system leads to potentially only a few big fish running the economy and likely higher prices for buyers.

and

"Gear/Information based" crafting which is what I think we have now where as long as you have the right gear and take the time to learn the ins and outs of how the system works, use the tools at hand, and keep up to date with various forum resources, you're going to excel at crafting, leading to anyone who takes the time being able to take part in the system at the highest levels. This leads to far more competition in the crafting market with many suppliers and thus lower prices for buyers.

"Skill" doesn't really play a part in either. And I personally prefer more competition among sellers than only a few big wigs (who often collude with each other to keep prices high) running the market.

[CookiesNCreams]

@Nico

I think both casuals and hardcores deserve content and compassion. Not one over the other. So I’m glad they are at least making an effort in 5.2. My problem and many other hardcore player’s problem, is how casual players seem to think they are more important, and deserve nonstop content and care. But even after 2+ Years of hardcore players being ignored, they still believe these players deserve no content. Not even Ishgard restoration recipes being hard.

It’s like, how do they not realize that not everything in a video game is going to be easy for them to obtain?

Also, btw, the only game that has a unique crafting system would be Atelier Ayesha and Atelier Ryza.

[Aurida]

That's basically the entire crux of the argument, yeah. "This thing should be pointlessly and frustratingly difficult to gate people who aren't as dedicated and as hardcore as I am out of it; this way, when people like me do throw themselves at it for long enough, then it's impressive when we complete it, and then I and people like me can hold its related subsystems hostage."

So of course it's frustrating to them when there are so many well-documented avenues of how to learn how to do it, because now there's no frustrating endgame, no barriers to access, just, if you want to craft, then craft. If you want to gather, then gather. It's the same for anything in this game- there's no lack of available guides or resources for learning ANYTHING in FF14 right now (with the possible exception of desynth, which I'm sure we have a litany of memes of dubious credibility about market barons scrubbing wiki resources free of the relevant information on) and that's in itself a point of contention to the 'hardcore.'

It's not even as if those barriers would conceivably vanish with harder, more difficult recipes, because people will still be sharing and theorycrafting ever superior rotations, and so crafting, which has no execution-based skill barrier gating it other than the requisite motor skills required to type 'ffxiv crafting macro 5.2' into Google? It will continue to be easy, leaving the 'hardcore' crafters to engage in the only meaningful pastime remaining- market board PvP.

[NanaWiloh]

I mean, I’m not disagreeing with you, at all. You’re totally right. But my point is, they absolutely cannot seem to make the crafting system seem more skill based (endgame, anyway). I’m not sure why exactly, but the general consensus is that it’s math based, and it’s not possible to make something skill based that is based on just mathematical equations.

Now here’s the big question that causes casuals and hardcores to never get along: If you were given two choices for endgame only crafting, NOT counting lower leveled crafting....choice one, implement RNG into endgame crafting. Or choice two, make endgame crafting 100% guaranteed with no difficulty to it at all.

RNG and/or Skill Based Crafting:
+ Your time/effort spent as a crafter is worth a lot of Gil.
+ The competition you face on the MB is more formidable. They are less likely to quit just because of some big bad RNG.
+ People appreciate endgame crafters more and respect them more for their willingness to sit through RNG bs.
+ When you HQ a recipe, it feels so rewarding to know you HQ’d something that tried to flip you off with RNG.
- If you fail, it’s not your fault. It’s because of a BS system.
- It makes you less likely to want to keep crafting.



Easy Endgame Crafting:
+ No RNG.
+ No stress or BS.
+ You do not have to seriously think. You just copy a rotation online and make a macro out of it. Endgame recipes are cake.

- Your time spent as an endgame crafter is meaningless.
- You’re not the only one doing it. Everyone else can do what you do effortlessly. Thus making your items worthless.
- There is no challenge at all.
- Your hardcore players end their subscription.
- There is no rewarding feeling about a HQ’ing a craft that you essentially did not put even an ounce of effort into getting.
- The marketboard is spammed with over inflated endgame recipes that everyone and their mother can produce.
- Over inflation of endgame crafters. AKA, less valuable things overall.
- You get people trying to actively make the game casual-only, without a care in the world for hardcore players. Very hateful.

Just want to address the markboard part of this. The market board can be divided into two sub markets, Windfall market and perennial market. HQ endgame crafted gear falls into the windfall market which is short term Big profit while the gear is relevant. But this market has one fatal weakness its easily crashed if its key supporting pillar: Difficulty is hit hard enough. As for the Perennial market its the heart of the MB covering bards,mounts,pets, furnishings,etc. I will never craft HQ endgame gear like 460 just to sell it the market is too fragile and best left to those who want instant millions.

[CookiesNCreams]

That's basically the entire crux of the argument, yeah. "This thing should be pointlessly and frustratingly difficult to gate people who aren't as dedicated and as hardcore as I am out of it; this way, when people like me do throw themselves at it for long enough, then it's impressive when we complete it, and then I and people like me can hold its related subsystems hostage."

So of course it's frustrating to them when there are so many well-documented avenues of how to learn how to do it, because now there's no frustrating endgame, no barriers to access, just, if you want to craft, then craft. If you want to gather, then gather. It's the same for anything in this game- there's no lack of available guides or resources for learning ANYTHING in FF14 right now (with the possible exception of desynth, which I'm sure we have a litany of memes of dubious credibility about market barons scrubbing wiki resources free of the relevant information on) and that's in itself a point of contention to the 'hardcore.'

It's not even as if those barriers would conceivably vanish with harder, more difficult recipes, because people will still be sharing and theorycrafting ever superior rotations, and so crafting, which has no execution-based skill barrier gating it other than the requisite motor skills required to type 'ffxiv crafting macro 5.2' into Google? It will continue to be easy, leaving the 'hardcore' crafters to engage in the only meaningful pastime remaining- market board PvP.

This mindset is exactly what hardcore players have an issue with. The market board isn’t very enjoyable anymore. So, 5.2 should give us what we want. (I can link you the interview if you want. It’ll happen, whether you like it or not.)

Sorry, but you’re not any more important than we are. This thread is basically a protest against that selfish mindset, and I’m sure they’ve read it by now. I’m also willing to bet this thread had at least 30% impact on their decision to implement procs into endgame recipes (or Ishgard) in 5.2. Both of us deserve some juicy content. Not just you.

Also. You. Can. Not. Macro. A. Proc.

It’s random, RNG. I can’t get any more clearer than that...

[Aurida]

Sorry, it's the 'selfish mindset' that everyone should be able to participate equally in the content rather than just a dedicated few? That's the 'selfish mindset' we're discussing here?

The one that *didn't* result in a handful of players per server running the entire server economy so that they can occasionally feel good about themselves when they see their name on equipment whilst inspecting randos in Limsa that haven't replaced it with tomestone gear for some reason?

Also you absolutely can macro a proc if it's necessary for some reason, and even if you couldn't, people would just use flowcharts of the sort that they already use for collectable gathering and aetherial reduction. The mathematically perfect, flawless crafting rotation will probably already be posted in an infographic on Reddit before the servers go live on 5.2, so I'm terribly excited to see what the reconstruction leaderboards look like on week 1.