Ishgard Restoration: High Difficult Recipe Rewards

[KageTokage]

I'm honestly hoping they opt for a tiered reward system that gives the best items to players who simply meet a certain minimum point contribution by the end of the "season" and the leaderboards are mostly are just fluff rewards like additional scrips (This is how a lot of mobile games with rankings handle things for the sake of not making the good stuff exclusive to the P2W players).

My main concern is just being potentially locked out of the rewards by cheaters. They're already stated that they intend to not allow the same players to take a top spot repeatedly but depending on how many top spots there are it could still take months to get something as a legitimate player.

[Miminming]

good luck with it since this game dev dont like giving the best equipment in the highest difficulty mission, i mean look at ultimate reward title and glamour is the safest choice and if people are not motivated enough? Believe me only small amount of people not motivated by cool glamour

[CookiesNCreams]

good luck with it since this game dev dont like giving the best equipment in the highest difficulty mission, i mean look at ultimate reward title and glamour is the safest choice and if people are not motivated enough? Believe me only small amount of people not motivated by cool glamour

I literally said I’m personally okay with it. My issue is the journey to Top 5. It’s going to be a cake walk and far too easy if the rewards do not motivate enough hardcore players for it to be challenging enough to be Top 5.

The battle to top 5 should be intense, ya know? Who knows, maybe this will awaken the “hardcore” in people, and it will be challenging, even though existing hardcore players aren’t motivated enough to do it.

[Liam_Harper]

I have zero interest in "lewd" glamour tbh. I would like to see those coveted Primal craft tools, with a glow even when sheathed and complete with off-hand. High stat tools are ok but there would be nothing but Ishgard collectibles to use them on. Mounts and minions are just the same-old.

I think the biggest issue is that everything except the Ishgard leaderboard is super casual now, so the incentive to craft at a high level is gone. Being a high-end crafter used to mean something, you'd have access to decent combat gear, you'd be in demand with your friends and FC and helpful to them, you'd have access to the better markets, your gear would cost tens of millions but you'd be rewarded for the investment. It was something new crafters could aspire to.

As a new crafter, you can no longer think "I want to be the best crafter ever" because there's no such thing. The ultimate height of fully melded Facet lv80 is something you attain in a week or two and you're just one of thousands of others spamming your 1 button macro and everything you can make is near-worthless.

It's difficult for one leaderboard to be enough incentive when crafting itself has far less incentive. It's just a cheap item dispenser rather than content now.

[CookiesNCreams]

I have zero interest in "lewd" glamour tbh. I would like to see those coveted Primal craft tools, with a glow even when sheathed and complete with off-hand. High stat tools are ok but there would be nothing but Ishgard collectibles to use them on. Mounts and minions are just the same-old.

I think the biggest issue is that everything except the Ishgard leaderboard is super casual now, so the incentive to craft at a high level is gone. Being a high-end crafter used to mean something, you'd have access to decent combat gear, you'd be in demand with your friends and FC and helpful to them, you'd have access to the better markets, your gear would cost tens of millions but you'd be rewarded for the investment. It was something new crafters could aspire to.

As a new crafter, you can no longer think "I want to be the best crafter ever" because there's no such thing. The ultimate height of fully melded Facet lv80 is something you attain in a week or two and you're just one of thousands of others spamming your 1 button macro and everything you can make is near-worthless.

It's difficult for one leaderboard to be enough incentive when crafting itself has far less incentive. It's just a cheap item dispenser rather than content now.

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.

[KageTokage]

I feel like part of the reason why crafting is so stale in XIV is partly because of the sheer accessibility of materials. Market flooding/monopolies are common because crafts are generally being made much faster then they actually sell.

Other MMOs like WoW have untradable materials galore involved in a lot of the "harder" crafts, meaning people need to personally go out and get the mats themselves through whatever means necessary instead of largely being able to just buy it off the MB which alleviates this to a good degree.

They also seem to be largely shooting for a style where DoH/L are their own separate game largely detached from DoW/M activities (Outside of leather drops and primal/trial mats) but I don't think that should be the case. Having crafts with materials exclusive to certain activities like hunts, PvP, savage raids (Or maybe even ultimate if you wanted to get really exclusive) would make it easier for players to carve out a niche for themselves in the economy.

[Kabooa]

I feel like part of the reason why crafting is so stale in XIV is partly because of the sheer accessibility of materials. Market flooding/monopolies are common because crafts are generally being made much faster then they actually sell.

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.

[Miminming]

They should make mats gathered not just gatherer... savage should drop unique crafting mats, wolf mark should be able to tra to unique mats maybe some mat obly obtainable by doing level quest/beast tribe quest etc etc just make sure all is tradeable so people who dont do certain contensmts still able to get it, that way people will appreciate crafting more than now

[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.