Red Scrip Equipment Crafting and 90King

[Ghishlain]

Preface: I was not the player in question that was affected by this issue, but it affected a very close friend of mine in an extremely negative way and should be rectified ASAP.

For those unfamiliar with Red Scrips and the gate it holds, I suggest you read this thread. Also, yes, I know at this time, S-E has stated the following about this issue, back on September 22nd, 2014:

The process of materials being lost upon disconnection is, as players have mentioned, in order to guard against cheating.

There are also technical difficulties surrounding the preservation of the progress for when a player would log back in, so we do not have any plans to change this system at the moment.

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Dear Square-Enix Dev Team,

If you're planning to gate the ability to create one piece of new gear for a crafter behind twenty-seven hours of grinding per week, I implore you, please, from the deepest depths of my heart.

FIX THE LOSS OF MATERIALS IF YOU DISCONNECT WHILE CRAFTING.

I understand there is an implication of cheating and there is no real way to prove if the person in question who disconnected from the game disconnected intentionally or an act of God forced them off (weather issue, ISP hiccup, emergency server implosion, etc). With that being said. If you're planning to give such an insane gate for crafting, there has to be some sort of counter measure to prevent the loss of your materials from these circumstances that is acceptable to both S-E and the players who enjoy your incredible crafting engine.

Today at 4:44PM EST, a friend of mine 90k'd in the middle of their Weaver craft involving Red Scrip items. I think any serious crafter can appreciate how disheartening and painful it is for you to have spent 27 hours worth of time in a single week to make an attempt to craft one piece of gear and then have that all taken because of an issue outside of your control. This didn't even affect me directly and I still feel a deep amount of pain and loss for my friend who was basically hurt because of your preventative measure against cheating.

If we break the craft? Fine, I can accept that because that would mean us as a crafter fudged up the process. If we NQ it? Also acceptable, this is the risk we accept to take by choosing to craft the piece in the first place.

But not even giving us the chance to craft that one piece of elusive gear because of an issue outside of the player control? That is extremely frustrating and disheartening.

This is only an issue now because your development team has decided to give the most grossly extravagant gate in existence to stem the flow of Crafter progression and as such, I feel this issue should be rectified as soon as possible.

Thank you for listening and please like this post if you agree with this position.

Sincerely
-A seriously concerned player who is a midcore crafter

Suggestions

Ideally they'd make it possible to continue the craft where you left off when you log back in, I'd assume it's possible but don't know for sure.

Whenever you have crafting in progress, the server needs to remember your active recipe, step, durability, condition, progress, and quality. It already maintains that now while you're logged in. The difference is that it needs to remember those six things until you either complete or cancel the craft, regardless of whether you log out or disconnect in the meantime. (Basically, this means that crafting status needs to be maintained in the persistent database that stores the status of your character while you're logged out, things like where you're at and what gear you're wearing, etc.)

They really need to let you continue where you left off

I imlplore S-E to reconsider the development of this now that the hardest level of crafting is gated behind a serious grind that is also time gated.

Maybe create an instance crafting facility where you can go to start red scrip crafting and that's the only type of item you can do there, and which backs up your progress. I think most people crafting with red scrips would choose to use it vs. risk everything to a server issue, someone driving their car into a nearby telephone pole and bringing internet down, etc.

I like this idea

.... or at least make it so a quick GM call restores your lost items quickly and without issues instead of making it look like you are asking them for a million gil.

While I know this can be extremely taxing on GM resources, I do feel this has to happen as a temporary stop-gap measure.

They could go for an "Auto-Reclaim" system.

IF
- You have reclaim set as an active ability
AND
- You have 55+ CP remaining
THEN
- The game automatically uses Reclaim upon disconnect.

Reclaim: 90% chance to get your materials back. 10% chance you lose it all. If you don't have the 55+ CP or the ability on your hot bar you lose everything like normal. It'd be no different than casting Reclaim yourself when a synthesis is going bad. No way to cheat the system.

I can go for this.

[DoctorPepper]

Ideally they'd make it possible to continue the craft where you left off when you log back in, I'd assume it's possible but don't know for sure.

They will never remove the loss of materials however, people will just fake dc whenever they're about to break or don't get a high hq percentage on expensive items.

[Ghishlain]

Ideally they'd make it possible to continue the craft where you left off when you log back in, I'd assume it's possible but don't know for sure.

They will never remove the loss of materials however, people will just fake dc whenever they're about to break or don't get a high hq percentage on expensive items.

I think that would be perfectly acceptable to everyone if they could do that. But apparently that may be much more complicated than they thought.

Either way, there has to be some sort of measure for this if you have the potential to lose 27 hours worth of work in a matter of a few seconds that is beyond your own control.

[DoctorPepper]

Unfortunately this has been begged for pretty much since launch and the answer has always been no because cheating. Makes me think my suggestion is not possible or would be extremely difficult.

[Ghishlain]

Unfortunately this has been begged for pretty much since launch and the answer has always been no because cheating. Makes me think my suggestion is not possible or would be extremely difficult.

Indeed, I can appreciate the difficulty of that *Points to spoiler tag in the OP*

With that being said, we need some sort of resolution now that the crafting gate has become this incredible.

[EDIT] In part, my goal is to get the issue enough attention to hopefully warrant S-E to act and perhaps take the time to fix their crafting issue. The crafting system in this game is beautiful yet it is so bitterly marred by this glaring issue that would break any player's motivation if it were to happen to them after sinking so much time to get that one opportunity to improve their gear.

[Niwashi]

With the way crafting currently stands, it's genuinely necessary in order to avoid rampant cheating, but that just means a change is needed in how the crafting works when you disconnect or log out.

Whenever you have crafting in progress, the server needs to remember your active recipe, step, durability, condition, progress, and quality. It already maintains that now while you're logged in. The difference is that it needs to remember those six things until you either complete or cancel the craft, regardless of whether you log out or disconnect in the meantime. (Basically, this means that crafting status needs to be maintained in the persistent database that stores the status of your character while you're logged out, things like where you're at and what gear you're wearing, etc.)

That way, involuntary disconnects wouldn't cause a problem and deliberate disconnects wouldn't allow cheating, because either way, when you log back in, you'd still be mid-craft and just continuing from where you left off.

[Buff_Archer]

That is terrible. Maybe a system that backs up ALL in progress crafts isn't viable, but one that backs up red scrip crafts seems necessary so someone who d/c's resumes where they left off. Maybe create an instance crafting facility where you can go to start red scrip crafting and that's the only type of item you can do there, and which backs up your progress. I think most people crafting with red scrips would choose to use it vs. risk everything to a server issue, someone driving their car into a nearby telephone pole and bringing internet down, etc.

[Alexander_Dragonfang]

Obligatory: "Server can`t handle it".

[Kyros]

This. Losing everything over a DC is incredibly disheartening. Like today for example, I gave up crafting since they are having server issues again, and have no system in place to protect you from it as a crafter.

They really need to let you continue where you left off, or at least make it so a quick GM call restores your lost items quickly and without issues instead of making it look like you are asking them for a million gil.

Also, the "We can't do it because of cheating" is the lamest excuse ever. They often use that as an excuse to avoid implementing systems that should be in place ages ago. If they cared about cheating they'd do something about the gazillion bots that are still running around from 2.0.

[Ghishlain]

They really need to let you continue where you left off, or at least make it so a quick GM call restores your lost items quickly and without issues instead of making it look like you are asking them for a million gil.

I think this is important to be said too. Even if a permanent measure takes time to develop, having a stop-gap measure to prevent more disheartened customers would be extremely important. I understand this will tax the GM forces and it would be difficult to determine a legitimate complaint from a cheater, but if you're going to gate your crafting behind such mountainous requirements, please support your players as best as you are able.