Ishgard Restoration phase 3 feedback thread

[Ashemmi]

The goal is to come up with ideas to improve the ranking competition. There's always room for improvement in any ideas. What would you suggest to improve how the ranking competition works or do you like it as is because time investment ends up being the deciding factor?

I do think that time invested should be a factor, but not the sole determination. I don't see limiting the number of crafts as a valid solution, or at least entirely limiting them. Count the first 100 at full, perhaps, then reduce in tiered steps after that. The motivation to grind goes way down based off the diminished return, it also helps someone who may have had a bad RNG day.

What is the intended involvement? How many crafts are required to push Ishgard along, and what pace does SE want to set? That's where the real math is done, because the competition drives that effort.

Rewarding someone for hard work is equal to the assertion of skill. What you'll see with a hard limit is crafters going all day, stacking up as many as they can get, then going through and picking the best ones. Ishgard won't move through the day, and that's not the objective...is it? Even in the case above of counting the first 100 at full, hundreds will be crafted before any get turned in by the serious players.

For context, I did place in the top 12, and don't consider myself to be one of the ones who gave it an unreasonable amount of time. My personal investment was 3 to 3.5 hours over the course of each day. Spread in 40 minute blocks. That amount of effort, in fairness, seems right to me for "endgame". Folks attempting the Ultimate raids often give it much more time than that.

[Zenn]

I'm going to split it up into 4 sections, crafting, gathering, diadem and other.

Crafting:
Let's start with the section I didn't directly interact with this ranking period.

Leatherworker, whatever you did to Ltw crafts I don't think you should ever do it that awkward again, this is without a doubt most servers weakest crafter in terms of output, some servers you could be top 100 after a single craft, that is just bad. There will always be the hardest crafter to gets mats for but it seems Ltw ones were just so bad people avoided even trying right the way to the end.

Expert crafts are from my second-hand knowledge were high tuned but once got in the groove relatively easy to do, as I haven't actively tried if other people who are more dedicated crafters could enlighten me it would be much appreciated.

[

As far as expert mats they all come from the diadem and they're all just as easy to gather as the rest. The umbral mats being the most limiting factor but there are only 4 umbral mats and 8 crafting classes so 2 classes share mats. LTW shared their umbral mat with ARM. LTW didn't have it harder in terms of mats so not sure why there were lower outputs for LTW vs other classes.

I do think that time invested should be a factor, but not the sole determination. I don't see limiting the number of crafts as a valid solution, or at least entirely limiting them. Count the first 100 at full, perhaps, then reduce in tiered steps after that. The motivation to grind goes way down based off the diminished return, it also helps someone who may have had a bad RNG day.

This seems to have the opposite effect in my mind. If only the first 100 turn ins count for full credit you're going to spend a ton more time getting the full 8240 collectability for the first 100 turn ins and then turn in the rest. RNG hurts you more with this suggestion since you need 100 perfect crafts to be competitive in a day.

[Ashemmi]

This seems to have the opposite effect in my mind. If only the first 100 turn ins count for full credit you're going to spend a ton more time getting the full 8240 collectability for the first 100 turn ins and then turn in the rest. RNG hurts you more with this suggestion since you need 100 perfect crafts to be competitive in a day.

That's the irony of it, isn't it? You're right, and I tilt my hat to it in the paragraph below. In reality, it's kind of moot. Only 500(ish) people in each class even turned in 100 over the course of the event. Myself, on the last day I turned in over 100, an event which happened no other day. I felt the need for extra work given how close the standing were in the middle. I think that size cap limits those who spam low quality work, but that limit, honestly, wouldn't have affected me. Maybe that's a better game there. Sure, count the raw score, but also publish how many were turned in. Perhaps have a quality component, ie. average quality over the event. A second way to win, with minimum turn-in requirements, such as hitting 100 over the event. How many at the top do you think would qualify for both?

I earned my "Weavers of a Feather", 100 expert turn-ins, on 9/13. My closing score on day 5 (the same day) was 117102. All subsequent days were 55K ish points, the last day was double. I likely turned in 110-120 that day. My "Skyward Needle III" came on 9/11, 500K points, 3 days into the event. I ended season 2 with a score of 459K, and was late to the game, not starting until late day 2 this time around.

[Fawkes]

I earned my "Weavers of a Feather", 100 expert turn-ins, on 9/13. My closing score on day 5 (the same day) was 117102. All subsequent days were 55K ish points, the last day was double. I likely turned in 110-120 that day. My "Skyward Needle III" came on 9/11, 500K points, 3 days into the event. I ended season 2 with a score of 459K, and was late to the game, not starting until late day 2 this time around.

[Gourdian]

Didn't participate in this round, but did rank before.

I do support everyone being given maybe a buff once a day for an hour or two that enables crafting of recipes that give rank score. I'd like expert to be a system outside of just the rankings though. I think people are hesitant to admit this because of how long crafting has just been "hit macro buttons", but it does take some level of skill akin to playing puzzle games or anything about trying to control your luck, & that's fun.

Expert itself: A skill level uptune from P2 would've been nice, but P3 kind of put it into the more rng & time > skill ranges. Some suggested unlimited caps, but given the competition is also an endurance race, I feel like the current crafts are genuinely so punishing that bots gain an advantage by simply not having to deal with the mental impact of it & not having human error. People will just find it less fun and more tiring to constantly lose out to a pass/fail binary (and to lose by even trying puzzle through a shitty craft because of the time inefficiency) rather than "how far can I take this craft with my poor luck". I support absurd caps only if the competition wasn't a 10-day, no limit ordeal. I'm sure it's not too bad with some refining, but when I asked others about their methods, it was still a lot of "know when to cut your losses", which, previous point.

Sandbagging: I don't personally have an issue with the base concept, & I lost 1st to letting my guard down to sandbagging before, even as I expected it. & Even without exact scores, you can still gain info from the daily leaderboard by watching people's rates/comparing their ingame activity vs. just taking the number at face value. However, it is true enough that people with more retainers- a paid feature- have a strategic advantage here, & in the end, I support a timer on turning stuff in for that reason alone.

Botting: Another highly discouraging thing. They've shown no acknowledgement or concern about it. Maybe they think the ranking system isn't worth the time, but it does cut into the fun for a lot of people. Was wrong about this bit.

Is it fun? Expert crafting is a really interesting system, and fun. It's given crafting so much experimenting within the short time of its relevancy. Friendly competition is fun. But for people playing on an online game, who don't see each other face to face, who can barely be certain that someone isn't just a bot, a lot of the sportsmanship that makes competing fun just isn't there; coupled with how punishing and draining the whole ranking system is...?? iunno man. P2 was fun because it was new, people were excited, everyone had to come up with new ideas, and rivals approached each other and motivated each other. That isn't a universal experience though, and the system doesn't support or promote that sort of thing in any way. There's way too much suspicion and fatigue for most people. I just don't think this system is sustainable as "fun" content as time goes on.

[Zenn]

Botting: Another highly discouraging thing. They've shown no acknowledgement or concern about it. Maybe they think the ranking system isn't worth the time, but it does cut into the fun for a lot of people.

Botting is highly discouraging but not to name names or witchhunt there have been at least 2 people that I've heard about that were suspended and removed from the rankings. One was a player that responded and said they were playing and not botting and (I think) sent video proof but I don't remember the exact details.

I also agree that expert crafting could be used elsewhere (there are the 500k in each class achievements you can still get outside of rankings though). Would be cool if highest ilvl crafted gear was made with expert crafting rather than a day 1 macro.

[Gourdian]

Oh I see! Thank you for the correction, I'm honestly disconnected from the wider crafting community and was just watching a few friends go through it, & heard a lot of "we caught this person as red-handed as it gets and nothing happened". But that's good to hear.

Also-- not directed @ you Zenn-- I personally do think there are less bots than people generally think & that a lot of botting accusations fly without much ground. It's just kinda unfortunate that even a single one will cause this suspicion & the subsequent discouragement.

[KageTokage]

Botting is highly discouraging but not to name names or witchhunt there have been at least 2 people that I've heard about that were suspended and removed from the rankings. One was a player that responded and said they were playing and not botting and (I think) sent video proof but I don't remember the exact details.

That implies that they actually do resort to the simple, but effective bot checking method of "send them a tell and see if they respond/ignore you".

Though that just makes me question why bans aren't more common even moreso.

I'd like to hope they're actually making adjustments in the long term and that their increased diligence isn't strictly due to the rankings.

[Kaurhz]

Ranked last season; didn't attempt a great deal to rank this season, barring sating my own curiosity- Seeing if much changed to approach with durability, how I executed my finishers, and just overall playing around whilst I went for one of the achievements associated with finest featherfall.

That being said, as my thoughts were last season, they remain true this season. The idea of expert recipes are really good- But currently, I think they're very, very poorly designed and implemented. Let's see-

First of all the issues players seem to have with hoarding, and the general accusations people have with 'botting' just lead me to believe the whole do as many turn-ins as you like is a poor way of handling these recipes- Just have players allowed a finite # of attempts throughout the entire ranking season (Something like 20-30 per day, or 200-300 for the ranking period). Now RNG and all factors heavily into this but what I would suggest, is slightly buffing centered condition (Make it equivalent to the good ol' Steady Hand II at the least!!!)- Pliant should not be 50%, but rather I think a 30% reduction to CP cost is more than adequate, and then buff the overall probability of the 3 material conditions alongside implement more conditions- Let's say the opposite of these; something that decreases success rate; increases the CP cost, and doubles the durability cost- Make it so that strategic use of Careful Observation amounts to a lot more beyond the use of baiting for a good condition on Byregot's Blessing- And for heaven's sake make it so that it actually changes the material condition, and cannot be used consecutively on a single step. Alongside this make Normal conditions feel more like a rare blessing than anything else. - Currently, everything in these rankings contradicts the approach they've aimed for in many other areas of the game. I can at least say beyond the 'discovery' phase of actually learning these recipes back in last season I found them overall boring and nothing but a real, real chore. They weren't fun, especially so with there being no objective difference between someone who ranks 1st place, 2nd place, 3rd place, or the bare minimal 12th place.

Further, I would like the idea of stat syncing. Giving a debuff similar to that of what is found in the Ixali quests to set your stats for the recipe- That way everyone has an equal chance to rank irrespective of how hard their pockets are lined, or whether they went through the torture of grinding 100k yellow, and white scrips. - I would like to emphasize I do not do this out of feeling spoilt or lazy, but I do think players on smaller, and less competitive servers should have a lot more competition. I can probably count the number of people on my fingers that are melded sufficiently enough to reliably push out tier 3 (without requiring the blessing of pliant on Manipulation, or Patient Touch hitting on centered) on Spriggan.

[Alleo]

Well after three phases Ishgard is still as boring as it started. I honestly hoped that they would change it up at least (like they did with Eureka even if I still dont like that) but no its the same just with different items. In the end its nothing but a rowena turn in with some fates if the phases are still active and some points for the short time that rankings are done.

Give me the personal progress like they did with Doma (they can put people in different instances depending on their progress since we had that with the stormblood MSQ) and personal fates after I have given them enough turn ins so I get the feeling that I do them. You could even include some NPCs that are helping to give the feeling like its something done in a group. (While being able to see it all instead of it being so crowded that not even the items pop up..) Everything that people do could still count towards the server wide points which are then the gateways to the next round. (So if you are faster than the server you will hit a stop until the server catches up. In that time you are able to give them more items which will then help to get the goal faster)

With this everyone is able to do it in their own time and see the changes. And you could always make the new player housing zone a different one so that even if someone had not done the quests they could still at least go to the housing zone..heck you could make it so that someone that did not do it can visit it but not buy from it because technically you dont have created it at that moment. This could be another incentive to do the content and hold up some people to just buy another round of houses.

But I guess we will not get that and so this remains another disappointing content.

(Also the new weather in Diadem can go die...who thought this was good for hours to look at?)