I can understand that Botanist, Fisher and Miner are inflicted with fatigue, just like all the other classes. It has to be balanced and fair, so I don't grumble about suffering the SP penalty whilst gathering, I usually work through it. However, the more time I have been spending at Camp Dragon Head and Camp Iron Lake lately, the more I have been growing increasingly frustrated with this apparent 'item fatigue'.
I am referring to the radical descent from near perfection to drastic failure in no more than 10-15 minutes. The change is not even gradual, either. It literally is as drastic as that. At first you are gathering normally and watching both the materials and SP flooding in, when all of a sudden everything you attempt fails. I have failed Iron Chestnuts four times in a row as a Rank 36 with only one swing of the Hatchet; something that, outside of this breakdown of ability, would never happen. For the third day in a row of levelling I have had to stop, feeling rather disgruntled, because my SP / hour has halved and because the overwhelming urge to severely harm something or somebody in my vicinity has drastically risen.
Considering we are already having to deal with a 10%/20%/30%/etc cut to our hourly SP rate because of fatigue (like every other job, which is fair) it seems ludicrous and unbalanced that we now have to combat with a fatigue that essentially stops us from playing our job. And for what purpose? To limit the amount of items we can obtain? That is the only reason I can think of that may be behind this decision, which is a flawed one anyway. No other job has it's item creation hindered in this way; just gathering. Disciples of War and Magic levelling or killing low level monsters can still obtain items, even if they're getting 0 SP from fatigue. Disciples of the Hand can still synthesise to their hearts content even if they're getting 0 SP from fatigue, or it being a low level synth.
Why, then, do gatherers get hindered at the one thing they can do, which is gather things?
Were it a gradual process whereby my character descended into a slightly less success rate, it might be tolerable. But the fact that in the space of 10-15 minutes I can literally gather nothing whatsoever, at this particular location or anywhere, is drastic and unfair. I have to, quite simply, stop playing the job. The only thing my Botanist is good for in this state is throwing rocks at Star Marmots outside Ul'dah. We already succumb to fatigue, so why inflict this level of alteration on gathering jobs? You don't stop Disciples of War attacking if they've been doing it too long, or Magic from casting spells if they've been doing it too long. Why, then, does gathering get it so hard?
If I'm missing something pretty simple, please, somebody point it out. I have read around on all the community sites and have found nothing to explain what this is or how to get rid of it. I appreciate the development team is very busy turning this game around and, believe me, I greatly appreciate the changes that have been and are being brought in. However, this seemingly pointless and unbalanced aspect of the job is really killing it and making it a potential heart attack catalyst to level. Fatigue is frustrating enough, with this as well it's almost enough to give up on Botanist altogether.
Would it be possible to change this aspect to gathering jobs? As outlined above, it is horrifically frustrating and I am confident, given the scale of the difficulty change my character suddenly suffers, that this has got a lot of other gatherer's goats up too! If I'm missing something, polite pointers would be appreciated, or even tips people have found to work around this.
Levelling Botanist is hard enough. Levelling a fatigued Botanist is even harder. Levelling a Botanist that fails every attempt at gathering is just absurd.