Regarding the removal of HQ items from gathering...

[DrWho2010]

This is also future proofing the game (along with removing belts). Every item that can be HQ has two entries for the same item basically. At some point this is going to balloon into a massive amount of items. They're already doing a stat squish because values are reaching amounts so high it's in danger of triggering overflow errors. By getting rid of HQ items that you can gather now, this is ensuring that game (under its current system now) can survive just that much longer (before a complete and utter overhaul of the base code - which would basically kill their update schedule).

[Jojoya]

I have so many questions regarding this. The first one being why?

That was mentioned in the Live Letter. The primary reason was concerns about inventory space. Having HQ and NQ meant items were taking up 2 slots instead of one, with the HQ version of many gathered items useless (see Granite, etc.).

There's also little need for HQ raw materials when crafting now. As long as gear is up to date, it's not difficult to get HQ from all NQ materials. You may not be getting to 100% quality every time once HQ starts to matter with the level 25 quests but you can reasonably get to 80% and that is still sufficient to produce a HQ item more often than not.

With no HQ fish, Mooch 2 is now redundant and Mooch 1 needs to be completely reworked.

On the contrary. Mooch II becomes the go-to for mooching since that is the skill that allows you to mooch with a NQ fish.

SE merely needs to rename Mooch II to Mooch and remove the cooldown while keeping the GP cost. Mooching ends up little different from what it is now.

What needs to be reworked is Patience/Patience II.

Perception is a gathering stat which exists purely for the purpose of increasing HQ.

Perception already increases yield on Pick Clean.

It could be that it will increase chance for hidden items to appear since Luck of the Mountaineer/Pioneer would no longer work.

Perception also influences some node bonuses. It could start playing a more important role in those bonuses.

We already have skills to increase yield, so what happens to those? Do they stay? Are they replaced?

Why would they be removed when yield is still meaningful?

I can see them following the current patterns for Pick Clean and Bountiful Yield/Harvest III. Perception would impact yields on actions that work for all node gathering attempts. Gathering skill would impact yields per gathering attempt. Which skill you use would be influenced by node bonuses - +gathering attempt nodes would be better with Perception influenced yields, +yield nodes by Gathering skill influenced yields.

New crafters may also have a harder time getting HQ goods for their quest hand-ins, or simply for their own jobs, and that goes double with the removal of belts and the materia slots they provide to customise your stats.

To be honest, HQ materials are a crutch for new players. They're going to learn how to craft better if they need to use their actions to increase quality instead of leaning on HQ materials to provide most of the quality.

Most HQ quest turn-ins involve intermediate crafts, which can still be HQ. Only ALC and CUL should need much adjustment because of the heavy reliance on raw materials.

As for belts, it's a small stat loss compared to the stat budget on other slots. I doubt anyone is overmelding their belts while leveling short of some already rich players that don't mind blowing through stacks of materia III and IV.

[ICountFrom0]

I wondering what is going to happen to the HQ gathering achievements and related titles. I've been working on that along with the crafting ones for a while. Maybe I need to devote my life to gathering for the next couple months.

**** -ING **** ....

*logs in and starts the grind himself*

THANK YOU.

I hate you for this, but thank you.

Lets see.

2,729 into "an eye for quality: miner" 3 (10k) and 4 (20k)

2,392 into "an eye for quality: Botanist" 3 (10k) and 4 (20k)


I don't know if I have to rush this one...

"the one that didn't get away 4" 4,542 of 10k


.... hrm...

Should I try to do these in diadem to also get sky credit, or should I double dip with the "A botanist's life for me" and "a mine's life for me"

[Alpheus]

I'm confused where you think FCs come into this.

The currency you use to buy Actions are generated by doing tasks, like completing Quests or gathering/crafting HQ items or spamming FATEs. These aren't the best ways to generate that currency (i imagine) but they do accrue that currency if these actions are done and removing HQ items in the manner in which they proposed will affect that.

[Shadygrove]

I'm confused where you think FCs come into this.

Every time you gather a HQ item your FC gets a few more FC credits. (I think its 3 but not sure.)

[Jojoya]

The currency you use to buy Actions are generated by doing tasks, like completing Quests or gathering/crafting HQ items or spamming FATEs. These aren't the best ways to generate that currency (i imagine) but they do accrue that currency if these actions are done and removing HQ items in the manner in which they proposed will affect that.

The amount of company credits generated by gathering HQ items is small compared compared to the other activities that generate credits (especially Expert Delivery, which has been generating an insane number of credits for my new FC). Unless all FC members ever do is gather, it's not going to be a noticeable difference.

[Aurida]

Should I try to do these in diadem to also get sky credit, or should I double dip with the "A botanist's life for me" and "a mine's life for me"

They mentioned in the live letter that they're reworking those achievements, not removing them, so they'll likely be changed to key off of something that you'll actually do over the course of normal miner/botanist gameplay, like 'gather while under the effects of yield-increasing actions X times.' There's no need to rush them, especially since you actually currently can't 'double dip' the achievement progress, being that you can't gather HQ materials in diadem for skybuilders' points anyway. If they rework it to be based off yield, you'll be able to in Endwalker, though.

[ICountFrom0]

"rework" has always been code for "put existing in legacy, and make new ones" So this looks like a chance to double dip.

[Aurida]

Well, no, because in previous non-1.x examples of them removing the content related to a reward they said explicitly that it was being removed (Diadem achievements, the quest to unlock chocobo flight) but in other cases they've always simply reworked them. The old achievements for participation in the Fold were combined into joint Fold/Feast achievements, and in the rework of Diadem to the second revised version they changed the Head/Hands/Feet in the clouds achievement lines from 'complete easy/medium/hard missions' to simply garnering certain levels of exploratory rating.

They DID later outright remove those, but there was a bulletin saying they were outright removing them- this time they did explicitly have a line on the gathering slides that they are going to be changing how the achievement works rather than just scrubbing it.

[Vlenna]

Why ruin gathering and crafting like this? I spent alot of time hunting hq materials so I could craft quality hq items. SE is now taking that away and for what? Inventory management? Seriously???? This could easily have been solved by just creating material storage such as used in many other games ( guild wars 2 for example). By creating material storage you can actually reduce inventory clog since you dont need 7 retainers to store your materials, everything would be in one organized place, and its someting many crafters and gatherers have been begging for. Talk about taking the long way around a short pier. Seriously SE, please rethink this. Think of how much LESS coding it would be to create a material storage system as opposed to removing hq mateirals +changing how the gathering and crafting system works+changing achievements. You could avoid so much unnecessary coding AND make your crafters and gatherers happy by just making a material storage system.