Crafting is dead

[JoolzS]

I actually expecting each specialist class to have unique skills and traits. I forget that it even exists most of the time. It's kind of sad that the skills you get prior to unlocking specializations have had more impact on end game crafting than the actual specialist actions.

I kinda lost faith in the specialisation thing back with desynthing. Everything was on a fairly even keel (from what i was reading in my craft and gathering LS) and then they added the wedding stuff that could be desynthed. If you had made the right choice and picked LTW for desynth, then great for you; but if you'd picked WVR, then pay twice as much gil for the same chance.

I loved fishing so CUL desynth was a no-brainer for me. I made a load of gil when they added the swimsuits and kinda loved and hated it. When I finally caught a few of the fish, and none of them desynthed into a swimsuit, it was such a down, but when they did desynth into a swimsuit piece it was a huge high and I then got a second high from it when one of those rare pieces sold. I also totally understood when Yoshi said that they had made a mistake* and made those glamour pieces too difficult to get because so many players wanted them. I was happy to keep fishing for the fish and hoping on the RNG if it was made slightly better. Unfortunately, what they did was go from a (guessing) 1 in 10 chance of a successful desynth to a 9 in 10 chance so the price did, literally, drop by 90% almost over night.

*and after typing that, I thought of what they are doing with the current most wanted glamour! They have done a complete 180 on the previous change. The Thavnarian gear currently costs (on my server) three times the price of a Sea Breeze Pareo before it was nerfed. Now the RMT spam is going to annoy me again, because they seem to be encouraging it by making things ridiculously rare, which makes them hugely expensive.

(edited to get past the char limit)

[Sibyll]

I kinda lost faith in the specialisation thing back with desynthing. Everything was on a fairly even keel (from what i was reading in my craft and gathering LS) and then they added the wedding stuff that could be desynthed. If you had made the right choice and picked LTW for desynth, then great for you; but if you'd picked WVR, then pay twice as much gil for the same chance.

I get what you are saying but I think desynth killed it for me the day that GSM was the only reliable source of mastercraft demimateria. When it comes to leveling desynths the balance is horribly off. ALC and BSM are two of my desynths (ARM is the third) and comparing the cost of leveling those compared to GSM is a joke.

Aetherial Reduction is what desynth should've been from the beginning. The leveling, the gil sink, and the lack of balance killed it for me. It doesn't end at desynth either. It took them until the expansion to realize that the recipe balance between classes was trash.

-Where are the 1* recipes? Why did they practically skip an entire tier?
I've not read anyone else on the forums mention this, but we essentially have an entire tier of gear progression skipped. Most of the crafting classes do not even have any 1* recipes at 60.
-Why are normal recipes gated behind a master recipe book
-Why are master book recipes required for leveling leve quests
-Why do all crafting materials require several times as much raw materials to make
-Why did all the scrips recipes reward scrips based on total amount of materials rather then whether those materials are locked behind node, hunted, or easily gathered.
-Why do nearly all recipes require materials from up to 5( 5!) different crafting classes.
-Why force material requirements from other specific crafting classes (IE: push alch disolvents on all dow/dom items)
-Why lock crafting classes behind (higher level) gathering classes, and why lock those behind the MSQ
-Where are the 1* recipes from blacksmithing, carpenter and the remaining 1* recipes for the rest of the classes?
-They made a feature of ''new type of nodes'' that wouldnt be timed and we could gather them more easily, rather then unspoiled nodes that were time based. Then they gave us unspoiled nodes anyway. Except they spawn twice as often, and give half the resources.
-Why are most of the 2 dozen orso unspoiled nodes sharing one two (3 if you spam cordials) timers? Would it have been too obvious to just place the items on the same node?
-Speaking of obvious: why are there several scrips turn in items on the same node, ensuring that one is completely pointless.
-Why do all HW quests give 2 full (apart from 3 accesories, that drop plenty in dungeons) sets of HQ crafter made equipment.
And why did they bother to add the recipe lists to the log anyway?
-Why add many new refined materials when they are only use for 2 levels.
-Why are there no 51-55 gathering nodes in the lower half of the sea of clouds.
-Why is anything above the first collectible unobtainable with leveling perception, untill you reach 58/59+ or are decked out in lucis+ food
I mean these are ment for leveling. So what is the point of these stats requirements if the people still leveling cant obtain them.
-Why were only a handful of furnishing recipes added. And why were they added to the master books (apart from the GSM recipe for some reason)
-Why are many of the important raw materials HIDDEN, meaning they only have 1/3th the harvest rates. As if requiring 5 of these to make one item isnt bad enough, thats equivalent of needing 15 (15!) materials for one item.

You bring up a lot of good points.

1) The dependence on unspoiled nodes, hidden/rare materials and increased raw materials per synth I think is their push to add longevity to a full time gatherer. Unspoiled mats were really the only gathered mats worth selling in ARR, especially after beast tribes provided many refined materials below level 40-50. You could argue this is to encourage people to specialize as pure gatherers or pure crafters rather than both.

2) Master recipes being required for quests and leves I really just think is the devs way of including Master book progression into the leveling process.

3) The lack of 1* recipes is baffling. I don't understand why they even had them there for the 2-3 week period before 2* got released, which was the real first tier of * recipes.

4) It's apparent from a design stand point that they wanted people to level DoW to 60 and finish MSQ before even touching DoH/DoL due to the gate on many of the required materials (I'm looking at you Wyvern Skin), hence why they hand out HQ gear in quests. However, I really wonder why crafting exists at all if it's niche is going to be gearing secondary DoW/DoM and making BiS DoH/DoL. Crafting in other MMOs may not be as in-depth, but at least the end products are desired in those games.

5) The shared/reduced timers on nodes is to prevent people from hitting every single unspoiled node like in ARR. Nodes also spawn twice a day (except folklore). I actually liked this design.

I just don't understand their end game for crafting. If they wanted to eliminate omnicrafting, there were better ways to do it. If they wanted to stimulate the economy, there were better ways to do it. The expansion feels like more time was spent on improving DoL gameplay, and I think for the most part they did improve them in making their materials more desired. However, they seem like they just phoned it in on the DoH aspect. The specialist system promised much, but delivered very little in terms of any attempt changing the meta up or giving purpose to many of the base skills.

[Alahra]

It took them until the expansion to realize that the recipe balance between classes was trash.

Honestly, I'd say by and large that it still is, though it's a little better than it used to be.