Thread: Consolidated thread of DoH suggestions - post 2.4

Originally Posted by Sibyll

I don't see why it's so difficult to grasp that Alchemy recipes would be balanced around the skills they have available to them...

You seem content with crafting being a secondary thought just like most MMOs treat it, I'd like to see it be something more. I'll agree to disagree and leave it at that.

The thing is, the way it is now it's hard to do so without redoing the class abilities themselves instead of the recipes. How does alchemy work on getting that CP? CZ works on prolonging the craft with TotT and durability restoration, which requires RNGjeesus to be merciful with good conditions. CRP works off IQ stacks, but they can't spare the CP to build it up because they are limited by durability and CP since they can't hasty touch. Weaver has nothing going for it except guaranteed synthesis, which can be done with SH+basic synthesis by other classes, the list goes on.

The biggest gate to this is CP for most classes in order to use their skills effectively yet maintain the concept of crafting (unless we do away with HQ and quality, something I'd also be against) because the majority of it will be spent on durability restoration and quality increase.

Yeah, quite frankly that's how I'd see crafting and gathering in a typical mmo game. It exists to make equipment and consumables for other aspects of the game, and I like how they handled the crafting aspect of it instead of being a straight up stare-at-progress-bar that most games do. Though I can agree that I don't like how they handled 4* star crafting, in regards to gating the recipe books themselves by RNG and the materials by beast tribe and more RNG.

Originally Posted by RiceisNice

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They most certainly would need to revisit skills. Some of the crafting skills are just down right useless. Flawless synthesis, Rumination, Careful Synthesis I (after you've gotten II), Basic Touch (once you get Careful Synthesis II) etc. Other skills are just too good: Byregot's is required to do anything, Comfort Zone is literally free CP, Steady Hand II/Hasty Touch are also required. The following point extends to combat classes as well: Cross Class skills cease to offer diversity and choice when they are required to do anything end-game related. If you are going to design it this way then you might as well just give the class the skills in the first place.

Also, Basic Synthesis+Steady Hand I costs 22 CP, Careful Synthesis I/II are both free (in the case of II it's also better than a Basic touch which is quite idiotic balance).

I don't want them to do away with HQing, but I'd like to see this expanded upon. I'm glad that recent progress in the crafting system has made HQ base materials much more valuable now that 100% HQ from NQ mats isn't really possible.

It was obvious that's how you view crafting; most MMOs treat it like that and that's fine. I, and I'm sure many people who enjoy crafting, would like to see it be treated as a more integral part of the game. SWG is an example of a game that did exactly that.

Originally Posted by RiceisNice

The thing is, this is possible because you've maxed out your stats at that point from tools, melds and getting everyything to 50. You should be able to easily get HQ with little to no HQ mats. However, a lot of the 4* crafting recipes (specifically the artisan/forager series) have it that even if you use HQ when possible, you're up to RNG to make have a higher than 70% HQ chance at the end, even with optimum melds and equips.

I should've clarified. I was referring to 2.0 when you could HQ the 80 durability 2* recipes with NQ mats. The joke was that the 2* 40 durability mats (Darksteel Ingots) were far more difficult to HQ consistently, even with HQ mats because of 9 cokes involved. However, this didn't matter because the additional durability and the ridiculousness of Hasty Touch spam + Byregot's made the 80 durability 2*s are real joke to HQ.

Originally Posted by Sibyll

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Isn't that pretty much falling into the whole RNG business; trying to HQ a 80 durability item without any NQ materials via HT + BB, even with SHII. I'm assuming that 2.0, the best you could get was the crafted set in HQ + militia offhand. You're practically in relevant gear for 2* crafting at that point. You're also looking at star alignment if you're getting 7+ successful HTs in a single craft. Not to mention the gear set up at the time, they'd still have access to the crafted set and milltia offhand, no? I'm missing a bit of context on whether or not they were geared at that point when you gave that example.

Originally Posted by RiceisNice

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Accessories overmelded and base melds for other gear (i55), which I would say is the reasonable entry level requirement for end-game crafting at the time. It was pretty easy to HQ 2* crafts because of Hasty Touch and BB, even with less than 7 Inner Quiet stacks. The game relies heavily on the player maxing all the other crafting classes to be at all relevant, and in that regard I think it's significantly worse than any other MMO crafting system. If they are going to treat crafting like secondary content then just do the WoW crafting style where you only need to level the two crafts you want. They are throwing so much pointless grinding in front of the players that they are driving away the player base that plays for the crafting.

Mastercraft Demimateria, Master Books, Sealants, Desynthesis. These grinds are atrocious compared to any coil raid.

Originally Posted by Sibyll

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Having a full accessory being overmelded, on top of gear being melded, is border-line geared for the current end game crafting imo, the key is that you mentioned melding. With the stat requirements of 2*, you're only shy 4 craftsmanship (or one II meld) of meeting the stat requirements. Going well and beyond that (especially overmelding) would be stepping into overgearing for that level. But I think maxing each craft is the key though that they were going for though, in the similair sense that they wanted us to have a class at level 15 for job advancement. We're just talking semantics now though, so eh.

Still agree that they handled 4* crafting pretty atrociously, though. 3 weeks after patch day and I have only ever made one forager gear (and i'm not even the one using it...)

Originally Posted by RiceisNice

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I know what you mean by semantics, but I think it's key to distinguish between the time needed to level 3 classes to 50 (1 to 50 and 2 to 34 to be really technical) and 8 classes to 50. Honestly I'd really love to see a Job type system for the crafting progression. I mean the crafting system feels like what the battle system would feel like if Job didn't exist, everyone taking the same cross class skills.

Placing restrictions on what people can take forces decision making, theory crafting and depth. Even if they cut down the number of cross class skills from 10 to 5 (or something) it'd keep the essence of crafting the same while adding some amount of challenge and strategy because there would be different approaches to synths.

Another good start would be to remove some of the redundant skills. For example, CSII complete replaces CSI (and Basic Synthesis); Ingenuity II kind of makes Ingenuity useless. Many of the class skills are pointless. Standard and Advanced Touch only get used when I'm HQing stuff I out gear and don't feel like doing really rotations. They basically have a lot of interesting class skills that get out classed until they produce recipes or restrictions to make them desirable. They kind of did this with Piece by Piece when the Progression bar and recipes levels got high enough that it became required. Rapid Synthesis seems like it's going through a similar phase with the new recipes.

I'm still on Supra myself. I have my NQ Artisan off hand, but I didn't level GSM for desynthesis and MCDs are about 1.2 million on my server. The grind is real.

Originally Posted by Sibyll

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With leves and ixali tribes, leveling a craft is second thought to me at this point.

I don't have a supra, though you can meet the stat requirements for 4* provided you use a food and FC buff (which I have the benefit off being the grand mistress of it). Even then, I have GSM at 93 and I still botch desynthesis at 83%, if not only get a rose gold out the thing. In the end I'd wish they'd step out out of the RNG requirements for end game crafting (in the end you even mentioned rapid synthesis which is just as bad as relying on HT spamming). Another thing to note that ingeunity is pretty worthles for 3* and 4* crafting now, that the CP cost doesn't justify the minuscule boost because the level different is just so high.

Originally Posted by RiceisNice

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The RNG is awful, especially when you get no stat raise for a botched desynth and progression depends on this. For people that can't rely on FC buffs, Supra is basically require.

I've heard that the stats are meaningless at 4* beyond meeting the minimum requirements. And yea Ingenuity I and II are more or less pointless. It's painfully obvious that they are trying to make Reclaim more usable as many of these crafts require you to get a Good or Excellent on your BB and good Hasty Touch RNG. I realize crafting isn't necessary, but why make the crafting so tedious and unenjoyable (because of RNG) that people don't want to get involved in it. Could you imagine the uproar if FCoB was as RNG reliant as the crafting is?