This red scrip system doesn't seem very casual-friendly..

[PirateCat]

There are a couple of points that a lot of people seem to be missing here.

1. The existence of a weekly cap is casual friendly by definition. Its purpose is to balance things out between the people who have about enough time to collect that many scrips and people who would be able to get 5x that many if the cap weren't there. It does have the side effect of creating a sense of urgency to hit the cap, but that doesn't really change things for people on the low end of the scale for how much time they have. Someone who can only find the time to get 300 scrips a week is going to do that regardless of whether everyone else is capped at 450.

2. People are talking about the 11 hours of grinding favors as though it's the only thing you can do with the scrips and thus a required part of the weekly effort to keep current. For some players it will be, but the game does have the slower but less grindy option for those who want to go that route (though it's not perfect, since there are some items that can only be crafted.) I see this as equivalent to raids - a player who caps on the weekly timegated tomestone du jour and also raids is going to gear up faster than a player who just does the tomestones.

The system as a concept isn't terrible, the real issue is in the details. Just capping the scrips takes longer for a DOL than it does for combat jobs. A casual player can do a 30 minute dungeon via expert roulette 6 times over the course of the week and cap (not counting time spent in queue) as long as they have one DOW/DOM job at the level cap. A casual gatherer can hit the 9:00 and 11:00 nodes twice over the course of slightly more than half an hour (not counting any time lost by not logging in at exactly the right time) and cap after doing that roughly 7 times, provided that they have both MIN and BTN at the level cap - if they only have one, it takes twice as long. The DOL scrip grind is similar to what it would take to cap by running Fractal/Neverreap repeatedly without the roulette bonus. There really should have been something similar to the roulette bonus where doing something specific got you more scrips the first time per day.

The biggest problem with the favor system is the mechanic where you're using your limited resources to buy limited time durations of being able to collect the items. I would have been much happier with this if the favor items were considerably more expensive but unlocked the respective favor effect permanently, like the folklore nodes. It would still be a grind and a half to collect them all yourself, but eventually we'd get them trickling into the market because people happen to get a few while gathering birch logs or hardsilver ore or what have you.

[RiceisNice]

The Favor items are like the Faust of gathering/crafting. The RNG element of it can be absolutely frustrating when you get no items from a favor.

Actually I think I'd rather fight faust for every boss than do this sheet... At least I can mitigate that by gittin gud.

[Aeyis]

There are a couple of points that a lot of people seem to be missing here.

1. The existence of a weekly cap is casual friendly by definition.

Not by its defination. This was originally introduced into MMOs as claim that it would help casuals, yes. However the resulting system puts pressure to meet that cap each week, which requires a steady time investment. The reason why this is the case is because the cap has to be low enough that you can't buy much each week.
However because you can't buy much, it also means you need to save up each week, and for casual players such a long term commitment can be frustrating.
''log in and do your dailies, that is all you have time for as a casual player'' was the ongoing sentiment for a lot of players of WoW, a game littered with daily and weekly caps.

2. People are talking about the 11 hours of grinding favors as though it's the only thing you can do with the scrips and thus a required part of the weekly effort to keep current.

But that is the problem, it is. A crafter has no choice to do the favors if she wants to be able to make items. And making items is what crafting is all about.
You cant be suggesting that crafters gear themselves for the purpose of buying items from vendors?

For some players it will be, but the game does have the slower but less grindy option for those who want to go that

This is by no means less grindy on the longer term. The materials for the Crafting Red Scrips have to come from somewhere after all.

The biggest problem with the favor system is the mechanic where you're using your limited resources to buy limited time durations of being able to collect the items.

This is only the biggest issue on the long term. On the short term it really is the amount of time you have to spend grinding that is the issue. 11 hours per week. So you can make 1 items, maybe 2.

It is an hour and a half grinding just for a single material.


While yes limited resources are the big issue, right now however the bigger issue is that there are no materials because noone wants to grind for hours for a handful of turn in items, that are highly RNG in their drop rate.

[PirateCat]

But that is the problem, it is. A crafter has no choice to do the favors if she wants to be able to make items. And making items is what crafting is all about.
You cant be suggesting that crafters gear themselves for the purpose of buying items from vendors?

This is by no means less grindy on the longer term. The materials for the Crafting Red Scrips have to come from somewhere after all.

I'll give you the point on the fact that the mats for every two-star craft, crafting gear or no, require red scrips and the favor grind to get. That part sucks and shouldn't have been done that way; I think we can all agree on that. My point, though, was that while everyone is primarily focusing on gearing themselves up, there is a path to doing some of that which doesn't involve doing the favor grind. Therefore, the notion that the only available option for casuals is to sink every last gathering token into favors and use them all is false.

Implementing favors as a permanent unlock absolutely would increase the availability of the items and it would do so quickly. Maybe not flood the market, but they'd be out there. You personally might need to spend 11 hours collecting the items on week 1, but pretty soon you would get people who:
- Are more into gathering than crafting and see the new trade-in items as a cool new thing to do (who might be discouraged to go for them now because of the stress of needing to maximize their return on a limited time window)
- See gathering the items as a moneymaking opportunity (likely we'll see some people doing this eventually, but the fact that there's a limit is making it really hard to justify selling them right now)
- Passively happen to get some of the items while their focus is on gathering something else, or spend five minutes gathering in a favor-enabled area while in the DF queue, and so on.
All of those people would sell the items, giving crafters more ways to get their items. And buying some of the mats has always been an aspect of crafting. Don't tell me you only ever made kirimu gear after personally farming Coil for leathers.

[ChasteDaily]

1. The existence of a weekly cap is casual friendly by definition.

This would be true except for one thing. While the scrips and the resulting tokens are non-tradeable, the materials you buy with those tokens is tradeable.

Now you have created a haven for gold farmers who have multiple characters to be the primary source for materials. The system, as implemented, is actually catered to the ultra hardcore.

I can wait 6 weeks behind the gate to get the materials to make the offhand items for my crafters. If I level another character to 60 and power level culinarian, I can cut that time in half. I power level that same character to 60 botanist and I'm on easy street.

This system is the antithesis of casual friendly.