Craft grinding gets tedious.. Needs more automation.

[Kytrin]

If they are gonna split the nodes up like that, the least they could do is give us a FSH-style node map like they do for fishing holes, where we can bring up a map and any node we discovered appears on the map with little shaded areas like some wikis on the Internet do.

Oh my god yes please! I waste SO MUCH TIME flying around in circles trying to remember where the damned node triangle is! The descriptors in the gathering guide are entirely too broad. Don't just tell me to check around Scree for Dwarven Cotton... maybe specify "Oh yeah... check the area over there by rock pillars and the cliff just outside of Tomra!"

I have... had some experiences with this... <.<;

[Maeka]

Oh my god yes please! I waste SO MUCH TIME flying around in circles trying to remember where the damned node triangle is! The descriptors in the gathering guide are entirely too broad. Don't just tell me to check around Scree for Dwarven Cotton... maybe specify "Oh yeah... check the area over there by rock pillars and the cliff just outside of Tomra!"

I have... had some experiences with this... <.<;

Yeah, then when you teleport to Tomra and you do an Arbor Call or what-not, and it shows you an Ephemeral Node, or you go there and it's a Skybuilder's Node and you keep flying around using those abilities and it keeps showing you the stuff you don't want.

One thing I do not understand is why did they not stick the Skybuilder's stuff inside of other nodes that were already there instead of cluttering everything up?

[Kytrin]

Yeah, then when you teleport to Tomra and you do an Arbor Call or what-not, and it shows you an Ephemeral Node, or you go there and it's a Skybuilder's Node and you keep flying around using those abilities and it keeps showing you the stuff you don't want.

One thing I do not understand is why did they not stick the Skybuilder's stuff inside of other nodes that were already there instead of cluttering everything up?

I have a suspicion they kept it separate to avoid confusing new gatherers. It's probably also why the lower level nodes are in areas out of sync with the zone's general gathering level. So if you go hunting for it, it's on purpose and after you're higher level than the normal stuff there anyway. It IS very cluttery though I agree.

They may have also set it aside because of things being added later on in the restoration.

[ReviaInfantry]

For DoH, you got quick synthesis, that thing sacrifice constant hq for automation you seek. Also they kind of still have better chance hq based on rating?

For HQ, it is like you need to pay attention of it, you do that not like some production machine, but as an artisan pursuing perfection. Which of course garners more attention. (Still, macro eh)

As for DoL nodes, unspoiled and ephemeral is either time based hard to get or collectibles which need a lot of buffs. Forcing you to manual actually benefits much rather than blindly click and "oh shiet I wanna stop it to put my hq or yield buff but now I can't" scenario.

[Gemina]

I'm making Ishgard stuff for scrips for crafting materia.
Using macros, so it goes: Click - click - wait - click - click - wait - click- click - wait - click - click - wait - wait - click....Zzzzzzzzz

Even without macros, if you have a routine down that works every time, there's no challenge. Just click the same things over and over again, so you end up just sitting there clicking the same buttons for hours.

One advantage WoW crafting has over this is that when you have to make many of the same thing, you just set the quantity, and click ONCE. then AFK while it makes them all.. We could that option here, Perhaps with the option to loop and chain macros.

OP, do you even know what you're asking for? You are basically saying you don't want to craft. So why are you even doing it? Automating synthesis attempts takes the challenge right out. Yet, here you are using macros while simultaneously asking for crafting to be more challenging.

When looking at any particular crafting recipe that is the final product, and we evaluate the process from beginning to finish (mat acquisition, quick synth intermediary mats, crafting final product) the very last step actually consumes the least amount of time. This remains true even if manually crafting turn-ins when the goal is turning in tons of a finished goods. In short, you spend far more time acquiring the mats you need.

Even though mat acquisition is time consuming, there is no difficulty. You might have to deal with a little RNG and waiting for node windows to spawn, but nothing too bad. I can't speak for everyone, but FINALLY getting to sit down and just craft is my reward for all the time spent gathering the damn mats, and I'll burn down rain forests before I let automated synths and macros take that away from me.

The challenge with crafting comes when facing a new recipe difficulty so you can no longer use your bread n butter rotation, and forcing the player to improvise by an untimely failure during a synthesis, or both. Once you figure out a solid rotation for a new recipe difficulty, then the only thing that makes it challenging after that is having to improvise due to a failure. If you then figure out a way to come up with a rotation that compensates for any and all failures, then you're waiting for the next master books, or the next expansion at that point.

Basically, the challenge in crafting isn't perpetual. But neither is anything in the game. Once a raid group figures out how to clear the current savage/ultimate, what do you think happens next? They start farming it, with the only challenge coming when something doesn't go right. Once content is consumed, then it's a matter of choice of where you sink that time until new content is released, and it sounds like you do not like where you are putting that time, so stop.

[tdb]

OP, do you even know what you're asking for? You are basically saying you don't want to craft. So why are you even doing it?

Probably he wants the cosmetic rewards from Ishgard restoration with none of the effort.

[Tohe-Spidhire]

SW:TOR had a different take on this. Instead of crafting yourself you'd task your crew members with doing the crafting. Depending on the level of the item it might take anywhere between a few minutes to an hour, but you could do other things meanwhile. You could queue up to five items per crew member too. I forget if you could give them new tasks from anywhere or if you had to be on your ship for that. It was pretty good as far as simplistic crafting systems go, but FFXIV's is loads better.

Is it possible to level one of your Retainers as a weaver, for example, and assign them to generate the scripts for you?

[Tohe-Spidhire]

The fundamental issue is that each macro comprises several actions, using a macro creates a noticeable pause whilst you wait to use your next macro.

If you want more gameplay, and more fun, then don't use macros; just apply the action for each crafting step.

In other words, play the game. Otherwise, why are you here.

[Jimmymagic]

Macros are crap Im sorry but I refuse to use macros for any reason. They encourage laziness the same way GPS negates reading road maps.

Point is if you rely on macros for everything, then you don't learn how to do crafts manually or you just forget.

[tdb]

Is it possible to level one of your Retainers as a weaver, for example, and assign them to generate the scripts for you?

SW:TOR did not have anything quite like the scrip system. You could have your crew craft endgame items which players would pay a pretty penny for, but IIRC those required materials from raids.