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.

[Kimahri]

Thank you, Origami Kitsune. You've made your two cents into $3.75 plus tax. This system of crafting is far more engaging compared to Final Fantasy XI in my own opinion. There are just a few things that are needed to give it that extra zing in the stew. I also have a problem with the crafting levels.

For Example: Why does the weapon head require a skill of 42 while the weapon itself only 35? Doesn't that seem a tad odd? That's like trying to hammer a nail in the coffin with a rubber mallet. It just don't add up. Now one thing I don't understand is the slow experience at the start. I know there are 50 levels rather than 100, but you know it's going to go up sooner or later.

What I don't right now seem too thrilled over right now is that since the start it's been a slow, tedious effort with low experience per synth. I'm not saying, "Hey! Let's make this so easy a cave-man could do it!" (Geico. Haha!) but at least let's put some percentage growth of difficulty from the lower levels all the way up to the higher. That's maybe one thing I did like about Final Fantasy XI's crafting was the base difficulty. From start to finish it became progressivly difficult. All I see now though is just the same, boring experience no matter the level from the same level gap. I would be in favor to keep the experience part if they would just base the levels in an order from Very Easy, Easy, Normal, Hard, Very Hard. (Oooh boy. I whipped out the difficulty section of the start of the game! ~.^)

Now I'm not perfect, I just feel what I feel. I hope my two cents turn a head or two. Thanks for the push, Origami Kitsune.

[Girlie]

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!

Just about the lost paragraphs, as long as you catch it before you continue typing the rest of the sentence, you can hit the up arrow on your keyboard to retrieve everything you'd already typed.

Of course, the fact that we even have to worry about this is idiotic...

[origamikitsune]

@ MariyaShidou, you are right, it would disrupt the way things are currently done. I hadn't thought about that. Having some time to nosh on the idea however, I stand by my statement. If it takes a rank 35 to make the final product, it should not take a rank 45 to make the components. I would point out that IF it were the other way round, we would have the option skilling up on the components, and then either selling them so others can skillup on final items, OR we could just skill up on them ourselves. Either way, I think it would be worth the adjustment because no one is selling the components as is. The worst that would happen is a few days while we uncomfortably look for new recipes to skill up on, and things go back to the way they were.

Also, having gone on both a grinding binge and a leve binge (24 leves back to back to back, if you time it right), there are few more things, more minor, that I think need to be adjusted to make DoL/DoH more enjoyable without requiring massive overhauls.

First: Guild Marks. I don't play craps because I don't like it. I don't to roll the dice trying to get guild marks, either. Being able to see the guild marks would help me choose my leves. It would be a lot less painful taking lower rank leves for less SP if I knew that I was getting something worthwhile from it. As it stands now, I am finding it difficult to grind because I simply don't have the skills to make it effective, and the leves don't help because I don't know what I am getting.

Second: DoL leve linking. Its nice that I can link a leve. It totally sucks that both people can't hit the harvesting spot at the same time. Even without sharing SP, changing this little thing would make linking more worthwhile, because then at least we weren't essentially doubling the amount of time it takes to do the level (which is ALL that you get from linking DoL leves that I can tell). Of course, ultimately, making it so that we have some actual benefit to linking leves would be nice. Running around twice as many harvesting points might actually be worth it if, you know, the SP was doubled for each person.

Third: I like the idea of rank 1 levels offering better rewards and thus being listed in higher categories. For example, I did a rank 1 leve listed as rank 20, just to get some much needed toadskins. Even so, it would be nice if there was actually a noticeable increase in reward for higher quality output. Its nice to be able to get 400 quality on every synth, but in terms of gil, I still do better just scraping by on a higher level leve, and I still only get 2 skins.

Four: However, these rewards are frequently as random and worthless as the moko grass I got off my other rank 20 leve/ SO many of the mat rewards are completely useless. I hate to say it, but it is something that has to paid attention to with the knowledge that the economy changes. I'm not saying update the leves every month, but some attention needs to be paid to the viability of the rewards. We want something more useful. The rewards are often completely worthless in general. Did I mention yet, knowing what guild marks are on the rewards would be nice?

[MariyaShidou]

FYI if you get better evaluation marks in leves (100, 200, 300 etc.) you do get more reward. For Carpenter you usually get extra Lumber (not Log) and for Goldsmith you get Antelope Horn, Ram Horn and White Coral, don't know about other job.