Possibly Largest Problem Facing The Game (Crafting)

[Vuen]

Just some thoughts.

I play a crafter. That is all I do. I found very early on that I did not enjoy combat in this game as much as in 11 (though that is changing with each patch), but that I really digged the crafting mechanics.

As a crafter/gatherer, I really enjoy the fact that I have an actual job class. I really like that I have abilities and the like to use, just like the combat characters. I think it is awesome that the crafting system is so layered. It's especially cool that I can do leves for my jobs instead of combat stuff if I want to.

Unfortunately, there isn't much to do. My combat oriented friends can go out every hour and do behest. How come I can't? A hybrid craft/combat behest would be nice; build X number of item Y within the time limit... oh yeah, and have some attacking mobs, too.

A crafter only behest would be nice as well. 15 people scurrying to gather all the mats and craft the given item (chocobo carriage, war-machine, even a wooden crate would be worth it just for something to do)

Leves that were a little more interesting than go-here, make this. I'm not saying I want to chase a yarzon halfway across the zone only to have it ambush me with three more, but at least the combat classes have a little variety.

I understand that in real life, sewing the various individual components of an item may be harder than actually assembling the pre-made components into a final form, but it is really frustrating to try and craft a "simple" item just to find out that the sub-components require skills ten levels higher than the actual item. IMO, it really limits the flexibility of crafters, especially since those items are very frequently never for sale.

Kudos, btw, on limiting the number of "multi-skill" recipes. It is one thing to craft an item that requires several individual skills, however 11's recipes that required two, or sometimes three skills to make a single item was over used and annoying.

The base materials are easy to come by (I am fighting a constant battle to free inventory space, which is much more preferable to never having the right mats) but some times it is hard to get rid of them. Having only 10 sale slots is frustrating at best. Could we see a solution like 10 slots on character, 20 on retainers? 30 if you rent a booth?

I certainly don't want crafters to become combat oriented; but some interaction with the world beyond run, gather, run. Or teleport, craft, turn in would be welcome. The ability to gather from non-aggressive mobs, for example. Or sneak/invis abilities so that we can navigate those trickier spots. Personally, I would rather have to use skills/abilities to deal with mobs passively than watch mob distribution change, or leves be made higher level because something might agro you.

Biggest "small" fix to crafting: please, for the love of god, make it stop erasing the chat text I am typing when the windows change, and let me talk in each linkshell channel without changing pearls!. So much boredom can be alleviated by simply talking to LS mates... which is very hard to do when entire paragraphs get aggro'd by a new window appearing, or you have to keep entering a menu to change pearls!

So yeah. My 2cents, as it were.

I agree with absolutely everything you said sir.

The crafting behest type events especially sound fun, where you work with a group to build a large project. /thumbs up

Edit: Forgot to mention that I am also a crafter, I have no War/Magic classes, nor do I plan on ever ranking any.