Possibly Largest Problem Facing The Game (Crafting)

[Gimmecat]

The whole point of crafting being the way it is in this game is because you can actually play the entire game without fighting! No other MMO, to my knowledge does this. In other MMOs you need to level up your main battle class to find the higher lvl nodes or what have you, or else you will die from high lvl monsters.
This game allows people who love to craft do exactly that. I agree that when you are crafting it does get a bit boring if it is not a difficult synth, but I think this system is much more interactive than any I've seen. And what crafting doesn't get a bit boring. One thing I would like to see, however, is being able to bring the DoH classes into battle to increase drop rates of some sort. Another example would be a Leatherworker procuring hides from a defeated enemy.

[kenkesey8]

Well, I don't think that crafting is that boring, but yes, a few upgrades for the recipes system would be nice, because it is very complicated to memorise them, even if the game can store some. A possible solution would be to methodize the items more obviously, to make default recipes for types of items, and make difference only in the difficulty level (level 1: Willow, Level 5: Maple, etc.) of them. It would be a great idea to implement a system that makes warnings, for instance, warns the player that the attempted sythesis is too hard, or to list items when he meets the optimal rank to make them.
These are, of course just long term ideas.
Thanks to SE for listening to their players, and sorry for my miserable english.

[Amrita]

I like to craft.
It's relaxing and my nature doesn't feed on running around senselessly slaying mobs (aka grinding) during my time in-game. @_@
That's probably my least favorite thing to do so far.

I really would hate to see the animations for DoH/DoL go away, BUT as someone mentioned, when you are crafting materials, it really could stand to be shorter animations for that!^^;

At least with this way of crafting, I feel like my actions make a difference on the outcome. I like that. A lot.
I don't ever want it to be like how ffxi was... crystal+materials+return (cross your fingers and hope it works). That was horrible. The same goes for gathering. Click and get was a snore, at least now you roam around, spy something swirling and shining in the distance~ Go harvest, get some goodies and head home. Or even whip out your anvil (or whatever DoH tool) and create something from what you've just gotten, then harvest some more. That really breaks up the tedious or sleepy feeling you might get from crafting.

I will admit to getting sleepy while crafting, but that's when I either log off and go outside for a walk, go do yoga, go read a book, go do some household chores.... or Go Do Something Else in the game for a while & then come back to it later. ^^

[Mioko]

I have to disagree the crafting system to me is done perfectly people craft to make money and influence the economy it shouldn't be easy or everyone would be a crafter and there would be no importance in it. The fact you like to bang on mobs and get sp quickly doesn't mean crafting should be easier because you don't enjoy it. i personally enjoy crafting the only reason im playing the game now as i wait for the revamp of the battle and class system.

[ieatsocks]

I think a large problem of crafting right now is actually the levequests.

It encourages the grind of logging on, grabbing your 8 crafting leves, and just sitting there for some bonus of sorts.

For 1-2 hours. You'll grab the reward in various random places, too.

You'll gain exp, probably some profit, but it's too tedious. It's finally a bit better with inventory sort and gear breaking less often - that just made it even more of a pisser.

That's not fun in the least. It's more like a job. FFXI had crafting done pretty well - you had to find materials yourself, utilize the AH, and some quests IIRC gave you some materials. This method right now just encourages a two hour grind, and I'm pretty sure everyone & their dog has a craft levelled now (which is fine! but with this current broken system it gives me no incentive to try my own anymore, someone else already grinded for 100 hours - taking no effort at all).

I don't even wanna begin on the inane amounts of random items needed for a piece of equipment.

[Nephera]

I think crafting as it is can be made more fun, but believe me it needs to get real fun real fast.



edit: As it is now it feels like EQ2's crafting but less fun and dangerous.

[Swev]

SE should get a clue from blizzard. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIob8wXaQkU

SE states that crafting shouldn't be about banging on an anvil for hours at a time. Players should be out killing monsters, having fun.

Problem with this is you gotta craft to keep up with the gear to go out and kill monsters. Everything is player made and lots of gear is not just dropped randomly in game while you got fight something. no rewards really for killing stuff or rare drops from mobs.

[origamikitsune]

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.

[MariyaShidou]

I suggest you better be careful in asking for a balance of recipe level, the consequence can be much worse than you think it is. Goldsmith already has their career nerfed into oblivion in November patch until Silver Francisca was discovered. What happened is that before the Nov patch, Goldsmith can level well into r50 on an affordable recipe (Silver Needle), but people like you (no offence) claim it is unreasonable for a r32 tool to be r44 recipe, so it became r34 recipe and stripped high level Goldsmith of a cheap mean to level up. The alternative for that time was something that almost nobody can afford (Electrum Ring) unless they also have a high rank MIN.

Same thing happened for Alchemist, their Lanolin become low level synth and they were stuck for quite sometimes with no reasonably affordable alternative (even as of now you will find that it's very hard to grind Alchemist to r50 because the r44+ recipe require a lot more components and fish/frogs synth is only r40 max). You may not realise it yet, but that supposedly unreasonableness actually is more beneficial to you, as you can grind off that higher rank parts later.

[Apricoth]

The whole point of crafting being the way it is in this game is because you can actually play the entire game without fighting! No other MMO, to my knowledge does this. In other MMOs you need to level up your main battle class to find the higher lvl nodes or what have you, or else you will die from high lvl monsters.
This game allows people who love to craft do exactly that. I agree that when you are crafting it does get a bit boring if it is not a difficult synth, but I think this system is much more interactive than any I've seen. And what crafting doesn't get a bit boring. One thing I would like to see, however, is being able to bring the DoH classes into battle to increase drop rates of some sort. Another example would be a Leatherworker procuring hides from a defeated enemy.

Vanguard is the first mmorpg where I saw be treated as a class in and of itself. That system is truly ideal - you didn't need to have gathered items to level up. You used the Work Orders (which were unlimited) and if you wanted to make something you either asked your guildmates for the materials, you bought them from other players or you went out and got them yourself (requiring you to have some adventuring levels). I had hoped SE's crafting would be more similar to Vanguards - in it is really 50/50 in the end. If you have a wonderful linkshell like I do you can rank up in crafting without stepping outside the doors of a city. This just be intentional has SE is all about community and communities working together.