Ishgard Restoration: High Difficult Recipe Rewards

[KageTokage]

There was one time in this game when Gatherers held some modicum of influence in the game, and let me tell you, that wasn't a well liked period if you weren't the gatherer in question.

Favors sucked, and they never not sucked (Nobody likes being 'forced' to gather), but damn, gathering was so damn profitable during that time.

I don't think there'd be anything wrong with having a few desirable items that require a strictly personal effort to create.

As things currently stand almost nothing feels satisfying to craft when you can just marketboard literally every material you need and slap it together in a matter of seconds with a macro.

[Liam_Harper]

Couldn’t have said it any better myself. Good response. If you were Yoshida, what would you do to rectify this situation? I mean, I know what I would do, but I would like to hear what you would suggest. Because I’m sure someone on the community or dev team reads these threads. Might make a difference.

It's a difficult one to answer because the damage might already be done. We're at a stage where thousands of players have been lured in with massive exp and easy high-end items and if you suddenly took it away next patch we'd have an uproar. Already you see a thread just above complaining about how time consuming it is to obtain just one leather or one glue for an item that gives an insane 4m exp and has scrips attached.
What Yoshi doesn't seem to realize is crafting just isn't for everyone. It's not because it was too tedious or too complex, it's just that different people like different things and like any other content in the game some love it and some will pass. No matter how much he simplifies it, we'll never reach a stage where everyone loves crafting itself. Right now they just love the exp or easy items that are the end result. Crafting is in the easiest state ever, 15 step master craft rotations, 1-80 leveling in a few days, raining materia, accessible materials and the non-crafters are still begging for macros and complaining that it doesn't make sense.

Ishgard has changed the game in that everything from leve's, beast tribes, rowena's, decent gear and so on are obsolete now from 20-80.

Ideally if it was me, I'd return to pre-nerf Ala-Mhigan difficulty, maybe slightly harder. It was in a nice spot for being accessible yet rewarded a little effort. I'd ask for Master Craft materials that took a little time to obtain. I'd flesh out the toolkit some more, give us room to be flexible instead of rotations that are variations of the same 6-8 abilities. I'd add a small number of extremely difficult master craft recipes. I'd leave leveling mostly as it is, but tone down the exp buff a little and definitely hit Ishgard exp hard. I'd probably hit that gathering % buff that's made DoL gear and melds almost irrelevant. I'd redo over-melding, either make materia far more rare or add a system to convert up to 20 materia into a guaranteed slot. Probably plenty more but it's not as easy to back-seat Dev and there's a lot to think over.
Right away you'll see a lot of these changes sound like nerfs, which would naturally draw a lot of hate from players addicted to a fast food diet of bargain Facet gear and massive exp. The majority will reject it even if it was better for the long-term health of crafting.

Something casual players also haven't realized is how a lot of changes to make the game casual friendly have actually killed their casual markets for 1-80 items. Craft/DoH gear needs upgrading far less often now, crashing demand. Quests and some leves reward battle gear, very little demand for that. Leve items will be in less demand. Retainers throw out most 1-70 furniture. Most 1-70 minions are cheap rewards from things like HoH or PotD. Materials are miles easier to obtain. And of course there are tens of thousands of new crafters flooding the remaining markets. So there's very little for them to sell for decent gil compared even to early SB.

I don't think there'd be anything wrong with having a few desirable items that require a strictly personal effort to create.

As things currently stand almost nothing feels satisfying to craft when you can just marketboard literally every material you need and slap it together in a matter of seconds with a macro.

Agreed.

[NanaWiloh]

It's a difficult one to answer because the damage might already be done. We're at a stage where thousands of players have been lured in with massive exp and easy high-end items and if you suddenly took it away next patch we'd have an uproar. Already you see a thread just above complaining about how time consuming it is to obtain just one leather or one glue for an item that gives an insane 4m exp and has scrips attached.
What Yoshi doesn't seem to realize is crafting just isn't for everyone. It's not because it was too tedious or too complex, it's just that different people like different things and like any other content in the game some love it and some will pass. No matter how much he simplifies it, we'll never reach a stage where everyone loves crafting itself. Right now they just love the exp or easy items that are the end result. Crafting is in the easiest state ever, 15 step master craft rotations, 1-80 leveling in a few days, raining materia, accessible materials and the non-crafters are still begging for macros and complaining that it doesn't make sense.

Ishgard has changed the game in that everything from leve's, beast tribes, rowena's, decent gear and so on are obsolete now from 20-80.

Ideally if it was me, I'd return to pre-nerf Ala-Mhigan difficulty, maybe slightly harder. It was in a nice spot for being accessible yet rewarded a little effort. I'd ask for Master Craft materials that took a little time to obtain. I'd flesh out the toolkit some more, give us room to be flexible instead of rotations that are variations of the same 6-8 abilities. I'd add a small number of extremely difficult master craft recipes. I'd leave leveling mostly as it is, but tone down the exp buff a little and definitely hit Ishgard exp hard. I'd probably hit that gathering % buff that's made DoL gear and melds almost irrelevant. I'd redo over-melding, either make materia far more rare or add a system to convert up to 20 materia into a guaranteed slot. Probably plenty more but it's not as easy to back-seat Dev and there's a lot to think over.
Right away you'll see a lot of these changes sound like nerfs, which would naturally draw a lot of hate from players addicted to a fast food diet of bargain Facet gear and massive exp. The majority will reject it even if it was better for the long-term health of crafting.

Something casual players also haven't realized is how a lot of changes to make the game casual friendly have actually killed their casual markets for 1-80 items. Craft/DoH gear needs upgrading far less often now, crashing demand. Quests and some leves reward battle gear, very little demand for that. Leve items will be in less demand. Retainers throw out most 1-70 furniture. Most 1-70 minions are cheap rewards from things like HoH or PotD. Materials are miles easier to obtain. And of course there are tens of thousands of new crafters flooding the remaining markets. So there's very little for them to sell for decent gil compared even to early SB.



Agreed.

Casual market is fine cause unlike the hardcore market nobody is in a hurry to make Millions of gil. Biggest mistake of hardcore crafters thinking everyone is looking for FAST MONEY. I know a hardcore crafter who use to spend his time haunting the mb and crafting, he stopped doing it late SB cause the market started to plummet. He has completely stopped now as of Shadwobringers cause there is no big gil to be made anywhere, Big gil as in 10's of millions. My co-lead and some friends are all casual crafters and have manage to make millions just playing the casual market board.

Your idea of decent gil is not everyone's idea of it. 350k maybe pocket change to one player but its a fortune to another especially if they are making it steadily. Hardcore market is mostly all about gear which is why it crumbles like dry bread it has nothing else to fall back on. Casual market is gear,pets,minion,mounts,furniture, glams,materia,food,etc all the things Hardcore crafters take for granted. They also dont all crash at the same time there is always one or more making good gil.

[Ethelwind]

Hello all fellow crafters and crafteresses

I never have posted in ff, but I consider myself a crafter at day and healer at night for the last 25 in any number of mmorps and have played just about all games which had the more involved crafting experience over this time. Its my hobby.

I kind of got carried away as a short text evolved into a more massive wall of text than envisioned.

Introduction
I consider myself - when I had the time and leisure - to belong to the hardcore - maybe better dubbed 'focused' - faction of crafters / gatherers out there. I love complex and more involved approaches which require real commitment, whether it is complexity or time based.

My credentials as a crafter - and this is not meant as being special because at the end I'm just talking about pixels which have no meaning in the real world and could also be considered as a complete waste of time by naysayers - go from uo bsm stratics guide writer, eq 1250's club, 3 of 8 castles on vanguard built together with a friend on a server, just to name a few. All that only underlines:
- I'm probably slightly crazy and haven't realized it yet
- I spent way too much time gaming during various stages of my life
- I just enjoy the relaxation of it more than bingeing or watching movie 727

I do however enjoy hanging out with friends and family more than gaming and am more tied up than 10 years ago and thus would probably be more in the semi-core tier of crafters in the meantime.

In FF14 i started in 1.0 and was among the first 50 botanists and 40+ weavers and then took a hiatus until shortly before Heavensward when they had announced they would be cancelling and rebuilding the game. I spent 90% of my time either gathering or crafting and it was a definately among the tougher challenges over all the years. Whole nights spent for half a level for months.

I do not belong to the rich players with barely 20 mio in my name over all the last 5 years, and tbh. I don't plan on becoming rich or the like. Money is just a bonus and has been there in the past, but its not as if its needed if one doesn't find the more expensive things important (glams, special gear, etc.).
I just want to enjoy my hobby (=crafting) - the more complex the better.

[Ethelwind]

Feedback
Now I'm aware that there were lots of issues in the past in regards to accessibility and this kind of 'crazy' commitment is not the expectation and approach in the last 10 years of the vast majority of people out there. I also don't have the time anymore to commit so much time either, however I would go out and say 'tough luck'.
If I don't have the time, well i wouldn't have the chance to be competitive, but so be it, thats to be expected then.

One of the reasons I liked pre 4.0 and probably even something between 1.0 and 3.0 more was that to get the better tools took time and commitment and it gave me an unnatural sense of satisfaction when it was achieved.

There is no game out there I can recall where 'hard' crafting was not directly tied to one of following two factors:
1. Time investment - by far the most relevant
2. Extreme interdepency - no one can do everything themselves but must rely on other friends and players building networks of crafting good exchanges.
The first usually survived a fair bit, the 2nd was usually gone after some time due to the majority clamoring for change (hello EQ2, i mean you).

I'm extremely happy about the removal of the bloat and I'm genuinely happy that the system has become much for accessible for the vast majority of players. Simplification is good, mindlessly dumbing it down is not.

I do however agree with Liam and others and would even go further and say crafting is completely out of line with any other aspect of the game as of right now in regards to time / effort.

Nothing comes close in terms of levelling and if I put it even more extremely they almost could have given us all a daily button click which say 'Press to receive 5 levels in any crafting class of your choice' button, thats how easy I found it.
Just for proving the simplicity tomyself i created an alt, provided him some goods and pre-fashioned normal gear for every 10 levels (my cost 0 resp. 200k if MB bought) and after 1 hour was at 20, after 3 hours I hit 40 and after 5 I was at 53.
One intensive weekend and presto you have 1 gatherer and crafter at 80.

There is no challenge at all. With base non-facet gear but hq 80 gear 'non-macroed' and just barely capable of making the facet pre-combines (2k, 1980, no overmelds, just fixed slots with 6's), i can hit 35k quality in 92-95% of the times with about 75-80% of the time.
It has as Liam put it, invalidated everything else in regards to crafting levelling, the sole exception being * supply items once per day which remain competitive. Have to love those 2*8.3mio turnins.

[Ethelwind]

With 70 crafts I was able to get 10 combines done in 30 minutes = 38 - 43 mio exp. Thats 1.5 levels in 30 minutes, disregarding any other avenues. Doing it with 74 or 77 gear would slow everything down slightly as its still possible to get around 27 - 32k on average, lowering exp to around 30mio or 1 level per 30minutes.

With macros in crafting I probably could even shave off some minutes.

Adventuring can take anywhere from 1-2 hours to even get in that vicinity doing all the heavy xp duties like MSQ, Alliance raid and to a lesser extent Trial.

Conclusion - my wishes
I would like to play and have a reason to do nothing but crafting and/or gathering when I log on.

I would enjoy any number of goodies that are crafting related - as glams are just not my cup of tea. Things like glowing crafting gear, etc. with small bonus like increase reclaim chance by 5%, improve chance for HQ by 3%, reduce action time by 20%, etc.

Maybe I just have wishes which FF will never bring back, like from 1-3, because the world has evolved - to the better in most regards - and the majority of players just want more instant gratification than I have ever needed. For me its pure relaxation with some good music in the background.

In all cases they need to severely up the ante to keep the more 'focused' crafters interested long term, considering that the sweet spot for FF as of right now, will potentially start to dwindle in the coming years as the next generation will then come.

If i had the choice I'd make facet gear genuinely hard, as in 65 - 70k quality for end-combines and 55-60k for preliminary steps = not all HQ mats involved your chance to get hq facet gear = <5%.

As thats not going to happen right now, i do however hope the next round of changes will make it that without hq mats, manually crafting and potentially all HQ mats there is only a real small chance of getting a HQ result. No more Macro which jumps over excellent and good states but where executing the right choice will have benefits.

My 2cents and in hope that Square Enix takes up some of the ideas of this community.

I'm definately not trying to get into any argument and I'm aware my feelings in regards to crafting are shared by an extremely small and most likely usually silent minority.

Whether you agree or not your thoughts are more than welcome, but after getting my 'diatribe' off my chest I feel alot better and the bitter taste that has been building has dissipated. For me that's a relief *chuckles*, for you maybe less *grins*
The sky is definately not falling, regardless of what my text alleviates to.


Best Regards and thanks for the patience in getting through it.
Yours,
Ethelwind aka SlyFox

[CookiesNCreams]

@EthelWind

Your opinion is shared amongst I would say, at least 95% of hardcore crafters. We just get so frustrated to the point where nothing we want is being brought back into the game. Nothing hardcore related, at all.

3.3 they introduced Universal crafting gear and nerfed job specific gear. That’s fine I guess.
4.0 They nerfed crafting entirely with Prudent Touch, making endgame crafting far too easy. Now you have hardcore players worried.
4.5 they add World Visit, which, adds more competition, good...but, the value of materials goes down even further. Hardcore players are very scared now.
5.0 They add Delicate Synthesis and Preparatory Touch. That’s basically the last straw.
5.1 You do not nerf Prudent Touch or Delicate Synthesis, and make every move 100% guaranteed. What’s next? An HQ button?

5.5 Will likely have Cross Data Center Visit. You’re basically nerfing your entire game.

2+ Years of no hardcore content, nerfs, neglect, and clear bias towards casual players. Why? All in an attempt to get them to play the game a little longer and add more people to the game. Cool. Now, let’s think long term. That strategy is great for reeling in new players, but for your existing players that have stayed with you thick and thin since 1.0 or 2.0 or even 3.0....you’re screwing them big time. Also, your new casual players will just quit their subs long term. They were never interested in crafting to begin with. If people wanted crafting to change back then, they were never interested in it or liked it from the start. Why are you helping these people.

For me personally, it is very heartbreaking to see some I love get destroyed every expansion, and even more so to see hardcore players not voice their opinions on the forums. They just assume it’s a useless effort to try because usually the only vocal ones are the casuals. And the vocal majority will slaughter the silent majority. That’s why I’m here, and that’s why I made that controversial thread.

I know it makes people salty when I say I speak for a lot of hardcore players when it comes to what needs to be done to crafting, but I mean, I kind of do. I’m basically a messenger just trying to get the word across to Square.

[CookiesNCreams]

Casual market is gear,pets,minion,mounts,furniture, glams,materia,food,etc all the things Hardcore crafters take for granted. They also dont all crash at the same time there is always one or more making good gil.

Gonna have to disagree with you on that. 1.0 - 3.5, gear was considered pretty hardcore to do consistently. Why? Because only the hardcore or serious crafters had the will power to sit through RNG’s bull crap. Casual players in general don’t have that drive to do that.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad Square Enix (supposedly) looked at my controversial casual and hardcore thread and decided to add harder recipes for Ishgard, but as Liam stated, the damage has already been done. Things just will not be the same anymore like they once used to.

However, they have the opportunity to turn Ishgard Restoration leaderboards into a hardcore only thing, kind of like savage raids. There’s just too many hardcore crafters that either quit FFXIV or just stopped crafting as a whole because of how laughably easy and accessible endgame recipes have become.

Solution: Make a new mmo. For example, FF14 is mostly geared towards casual players. Make FF16 mostly geared towards ALL demographics, not just casuals. Yoshida has been confirmed to be working on a new Square Enix title. We just don’t know if it’s an mmo, a single player, or a new IP. Gonna hope it’s a mmo...

[Kabooa]

Gonna have to disagree with you on that. 1.0 - 3.5, gear was considered pretty hardcore to do consistently. Why? Because only the hardcore or serious crafters had the will power to sit through RNG’s bull crap. Casual players in general don’t have that drive to do that.

...Eh?

I was crafting in Heavensward, and got crafters to make things for me in Heavensward.

There was no RNG in the macros they were using when they crafted for me, and there was no RNG in the crafts I was making, but I had to use the longer variants.

[CookiesNCreams]

...Eh?

I was crafting in Heavensward, and got crafters to make things for me in Heavensward.

There was no RNG in the macros they were using when they crafted for me, and there was no RNG in the crafts I was making, but I had to use the longer variants.

Should have been more clear. I mean consistently listing the gear on the market each and every hour and day. Also, there was RNG in HW crafting back then, though. o.o Unless you were using a makers mark rotation where you used tricks at the beginning to gain extra CP. Could you paste the rotation here? A RNG-free macro in Heavensward...hm....