Bizarre burnout

[ReynTime]

I'm not sure why people care about how "painful" crafting used to be when majority of the playerbase with maxed crafter have NO reason to max other than for bragging rights. Crafting not being for everyone made sense because a lot of people don't like to invest time in crafting in general.
The only use the average player has for their crafter is melding their own materia.

[caffe_macchiato]

The best thing about FFXIV is its relatively low system requirements so you can alt-tab to play another game while still talking to your FFXIV friends. Or you can play the Switch or Steam Deck if you can’t do that.

FFXIV isn’t really a game that you play like you do any other game. You log in, chat with some people, maybe run a duty or two, then tab out to play something else. It’s a bit of a side game like a gacha or idle game, not like ordinary video games where you have to be looking at the screen constantly.

[Azuri]

LVL 63 Carpenter Quest: The Game of Confidence. The NPCs provide you with the item "Dressing Case Materials" in order to make the "Lavish Dressing Case" item. So yes, in the expansion quests, the NPCs start to provide you with what you need already.

Settle down there, champ. This has only been done in a single expansion - Stormblood - which isn't even the most recent one. Before that, DoH job quests in Heavensward straight up required a master recipe to complete. Facet deliveries, the system that replaced DoL/DoH job quests in Shadowbringers went back to requiring actual materials. To complete those, CRP requires intermediates from WVR and LTW. BSM needs lumber and yarn from CRP and WVR. And Studium deliveries, the Endwalker iteration of the system, is largely the same.

DoH jobs are designed to be interconnected through intermediates. It makes them dependent on each other. And yes, that means that you are either accepting that this is an "all or nothing" system where you level every job, or paying the MB prices to fill the gaps in what you can do. This applies to any crafting as well. You aren't making most of the new crafts without every DoH leveled, or buying intermediates. So your initial idea to make gil with only one crafter was futile to begin with.

[XmissionsX]

I also started pre endwalker my smn main, and had an absolutely blast with it, I still improved every day a little. Until the rework which I found a total disaster, I still am in disbelief they found it ok to do such a complete extreme rework on a class.

I tried to stick with it, and give it a fair change, but I totally hate the simplistic play style. I also lost all trust in the dev team, as if u rework a class this extreme, and find it totally except-able even jokingly state they just replaced the class. They probably will do it to other classes just as easily. So just will not level an other class anymore, I just cannot handle another ‘rework’ of my just leveled up class.

I personally just limit my playtime in ffxiv and enjoy some other games.

[Anodic]

Did it at least 4 times, pre and post, from scratch , so yes I do know.

You're not a new player. You're already used to the system. And yes, crafting takes patience. No one is arguing that it isn't. This whole thing isn't about how easy or hard it is to gain crafting levels or how easy it is to obtain materials. I don't know why you keep hyperfocusing on the whole ingots thing either. It's an example about how weird the marketboard is when it comes to buying materials. You can't buy 1 of a player's 99 ingots. You can't buy 1 of a players 99 gyuki leather. You can't buy 1 of a player's 99 horn glue. That's what it's about, not 'well you can craft ingots at lvl 15 so the marketboard's functionality isnt weird'. Also, let's take a look at the 'functional system' bit. There are MMOs out there where you can enchant items, but if you do, there's a chance that the item you're trying to enchant will be destroyed. And the only way to prevent that is to buy several protection items that can go for a huge chunk of change on the player market. That system does what it says it'll do: it enchants items. It's functional. But that doesn't automatically make it fun. In fact, I know that most players that deal with those types of systems absolutely despise them because it sure feels bad to lose the item them spent a week grinding for because RNG said so. And to new players in this game, having to constantly be told that to do their next quest, they have to pick up a new, different class can get frustrating. The only way someone would be able to predict what classes they'd need for their future quests would be if they looked them up, and once again I say not every player is going to do that. There are a lot of players who take the whole 'throw things at the wall and see what sticks' approach. They peek at their crafting log and go checkmark by checkmark, because the game doesn't say "Hey player! You just picked up LVL 1 Weaver. You should look into Beast Tribes and Ishgardian Restoration and Leves and GC turn ins!". And if you want to talk about guides, let's talk about how the #1 result for ffxiv crafting guide on google is a website that's publicly advertising illicit services. That's not something that a new player should EVER have to see.

The game itself doesn't tell a new player that they're going to have to need multiple crafting classes to complete these quests until they look at the crafting log to craft the quest items. In fact, the official ffxiv crafting guide website says: "Becoming proficient in one of these disciplines will help you acquire or create new items to aid you on your journeys." It doesn't say that you'll need a level 43 fisher to obtain coral for free to craft a level 50 longbow. And why would a new player even expect that they'd need FSH for Carpenter? This is my problem with low level crafting. More often than not a person new to the system isn't going to know what exact classes they need for their quests, so once they hit the point where the game says, "I know you're level 45 in X profession, but for this quest, I need an item only x class can make that hasn't been introduced in your questline yet", they will be far more likely to go "ugh I don't feel like leveling that right now, I'm going to buy the materials instead" instead of "darn, well, time to go pick up this class and level it". And that introduces them to the marketboard problem being forced to buy in bulk because of the way listings work, which in itself can be another point of frustration. And sometimes, there might not even be the material they need on the marketboard. Looking up Red Coral on Mateus right now, there are only 4 listed on it being sold by one person. If someone bought those 4 up? Someone who looks at the marketboard at that unfortunate time might think they're going to HAVE to pick up FSH and level it 43 times to finish that quest. A new person might not know that they can visit other worlds to use their marketboards. The Active Help window doesn't tell them that. F2P players probably have it even worse. They can't use the marketboards. So when they hit that crafting wall of needing a new class? They will 100% have to go and pick up another one. And that new class's quests will tell them to pick up another one. And again and again. And having to craft it all HQ is a whole another monster to tackle.

There are many many online guides and many many mentors but once again I say that not every new player is going to be looking for guides and reaching out to people. The vast majority of new players to MMOs dive into systems headfirst for a trial by fire, and constantly being told that you have to backtrack and do something else to finish what you were already doing can and will get frustrating. You can find many posts online where people have expressed frustration about it before. You know what would be nice? If when you pick up your crafting job for the first time, there was a dedicated tab in the crafting log that told you what exact items you'd need to craft for that job's questline and what other jobs you'd need to obtain them. Because right now, if you don't have a crafting class unlocked, it doesn't even tell you what class crafts the material or show you what the recipe for said material even is. My alt character cannot see the recipe for Bronze Rivets on a level 1 carpenter in game despite needing it for a level 5 shield because she does not have a class unlocked that can make it.

[Anodic]

Settle down there, champ.

The difference is, in HW you can buy so many of the needed materials straight from the Scrap Salvager in Idyllshire, which meant you didn't need extra classes a lot of the time. In Shadowbringers, you don't need BSM to make any CUL/ALC deliveries. In Endwalker, you don't need CUL to make ARM deliveries, etc. And there are still quests in the questlines that provide you with the materials you need to craft the item in those expansions too (See the To Struggle Nu Mou/Iron Bellows/Wayback Machine quests, for example). Usually at the end of the line, which feels like a little bit of a breath of fresh air since you won't have to go out and gather anything for them. It's just your ability to craft HQ for those quests. ARR crafting is the one that's so wildly different.

I'm not concerned with making the new items that come out with patches or providing HQ gear on the marketboard. That's not the way I make gil and was never going to be the way I personally make gil. From the start, I wanted to level ALC so I could just sell potions and make gil casually. Mostly to afford a small house, so that's what I did. But to do it, I had to level other crafters for the sake of getting ALC's class quests done, since my macros require Manipulation. From there, I leveled all of my other classes via beast tribes and daily turn ins just because I wanted to. Right now, I have only unlocked Manipulation on ALC, CUL, and BSM, because the one downside of leveling all of the other classes w/o doing the job quests inbetween was that now I have 65 levels of quests to do piled up 5 times over, and having to do that made me realize that having to swap classes just to make one item, then swap back does get pretty tedious unless do you prepare every material ahead of time by class (especially since you can't swap classes while in the crafting kneeling pose, so you have to keep closing and re-opening the crafting menu unless there's a way to stand up again without closing it that I don't know about). Again, it's my fault for letting those quests pile up but I was the one that decided that I'd get full up-to-date scrip gear before I went back to tackle those quests since I wanted to be able to craft HQ reliably across multiple level brackets.

[kaynide]

I'm not sure why people care about how "painful" crafting used to be when majority of the playerbase with maxed crafter have NO reason to max other than for bragging rights. Crafting not being for everyone made sense because a lot of people don't like to invest time in crafting in general.
The only use the average player has for their crafter is melding their own materia.

I only leveled it..and keep it leveled for the QoL of self repairing my gear. If it didn’t do that, I’d never have leveled em…hah.

[kaynide]

It's an example about how weird the marketboard is when it comes to buying materials. You can't buy 1 of a player's 99 ingots. You can't buy 1 of a players 99 gyuki leather. You can't buy 1 of a player's 99 horn glue.

The game itself doesn't tell a new player that they're going to have to need multiple crafting classes to complete these quests until they look at the crafting log to craft the quest items.

If the crafting component is expensive, you will absolutely be able to buy it in smaller quantities. If you are actually talking items like horn glue and are complaining about the money, you are not seeing that as an opportunity right in your face.

Buy 99, use what you need and resell what you don’t. If there are only stacks of 99, you are guaranteed profit by selling stacks of like 3-9 at a price higher than you bought because other people want 1 or 2 just like you. Make them buy yours.

Your other point above..what is stopping you from using the market board? Why wouldn’t you? If the components for your craft are worth less than like, 5,000g, it’s not really worth your time to go out of your way to make it from scratch. And again if 5,000 gil is an issue for you consider doing some more research on how to get easy steady cash in the game. It throws money at you constantly.

[Anodic]

If the crafting component is expensive, you will absolutely be able to buy it in smaller quantities. If you are actually talking items like horn glue and are complaining about the money, you are not seeing that as an opportunity right in your face.

The items are just things I know people sell in stacks off the top of my head. But for a more specific example, here we have Jadeite.



This is required for a lvl 45 carpenter quest. This quest is the first time Goldsmith has been needed to craft an item in the Carpenter questline. Imagine from the POV of a new player that has not picked up Goldsmith before, and instead of leveling to 40 to craft it, they want to just see if they can buy a single one from the markertboard. They can't in this situation, unless they wait and see if someone posts one up on the board.

When it comes to reselling materials though, people do sometimes end up just accidentally holding onto the things they buy from the marketboard because they forget about them, or they might not have retainers hired yet. Sometimes they even resell them to vendors. I don't think a lot of new people would know about the sell stacks of 3-9 thing tbh unless they're used to dipping into making profits via markets in MMOs. I think they'd more likely list the items on the board at the price that the game plops into the popup box by default. Also someone who is failing to craft their quest item HQ at quest level is probably going to try to buy the HQ quest item itself from the marketboard which can be pretty expensive too depending on what/how many they need for the turn in.

When it comes to new people/people who don't have much knowledge about the game/its systems yet, its very very easy to end up accidentally messing up their gil management early on whether it be because of crafting, buying glams for armors/weapons, buying minions, etc. And in the heat of the moment, someone might not be thinking about how to make their money back if they're solely focused on trying to complete the quest they're on and moving on to other things afterwards.

[TaleraRistain]

I've been an omnicrafter since ARR on multiple characters and I agree with Anodic's general point that the DoH side is rather unfriendly to someone who only wants to level one or two crafter classes. I've always felt it was a bit out of balance that with the adventuring you can partake in just one class, but for the tradeskill side you needed them all or at least most of them. Yes, it is intended to build interdependencies but as we saw when they debuted Specialists, people would just make alts for the Specialists they were missing. I do feel there are things they could do to help strengthen the position of a player who truly wants to specialize and only focus on one or two crafts, at least in regards to materials for their class quests that lock them out of necessary skills. I thought the Stormblood system was great and that would be a welcome return.