Crafting and the Anima Quest Chain

[winsock]

The RMT ppl are probably happy!

[ChameleonMS]

The fact remains that crafting is a poor design choice for the direction of the quest. You don't share that opinion? That's fine, but I personally, amongst obvious many, don't agree that it is the direction the relic should be taking.

No, it is not a poor design because crafting is part of the game play that is attainable by the average skill player in general population. Thus, SE has chosen to leverage it.
The relic is a grind lots of "easy" content for a rich reward.

If SE designed the relic to require a component from the "hardest" content in the game and on top of that make that item drop RNG with low percentage.
The from QQQing would be astounding.

As for a rehash, sure, they are re-using previous elements of the game to aid in replay of the content, otherwise the content would be dead and gone completely. Gotta help the new players with the queue times somehow.

The players complaining about crafting requirement are the players that have chosen to no play that aspect of the game play.

[Fevelle]

...

Forcing players to play a class so they can complete certain content IS bad design. It was the reason they discarded long term FF systems like monster weaknesses and elemental wheel. Why would it be ok with the relic?

[Nyghtmarerobu]

I'm not a big fan of the crafting portion of the new relic either, but it doesn't bother me that much. I think people need to be a bit more savy with their gil. If something is expensive, don't buy it. Relics are very new, its only the 2nd day. Of course the crafted items are gonna be super expensive. If you wait till you finish the grind portion, I would bet the price of those items would have gone down. Supply would be high, and demand would be low since its to much money.

. . . Unless all the crafters are working together to keep prices high, but I doubt it. right?

[Februs]

But you do, it is called a screen, the lights just flash a little more often for DoW actions.

Wrong! I do not sit in corners and watch the bright lights. I run around causing them. Totally different lol.

On a more serious note:

DoW stuff, has nearly zero consequence for failure, just do it again. Each DoW event is scripted, just learn the script and repeat it. Even in failure, you gain mastery of the script.
For crafting, failure equals loss of materials. It's all about keeping score. DoWs keep score with X clears of content. Crafters keep score with opulence and Gil. Everyone wants the high score.

This is not accurate. Firstly, there is no comparing the difficulty of crafting scripts to running end-game tier raid content. I don't think anyone considers them to be even remotely close. It's true that most if the end-game encounters are scripted, but those scripts require maximizing the potential of the job you go in with, memorizing the script of the encounter and your specific roll in it, and then actual applying that knowledge in real time (including adjustments for individual latency). You're also coordinating with 7 other people and trying to get it right. If someone else screws up, everyone else has to pick up the slack. By comparison, sitting at a nice peaceful crafting desk and hashing out some bare bones basic problem solving seems trivial.

Secondly, Raiders (especially those who do not have a static and run with PUGs) do in fact lose resources for each failed run. Besides the obvious gill they spend on constant repairs, the number one resource they lose is time. For each failed run of end-game content, there is miles of other content that Raiders did not get to complete (that includes crafting). Further, each failed raid is essentially 80 minutes of grinding with almost zero reward. You gain experience, sure, but experience can only be considered a limited reward at best.

The reason for this is because your progress is tied to a party. After you have learned the content (or a specific phase of the content) there is no more experience to be had, yet you can still fail because your success rides on the competence of seven other people. I've run Thor Ex up to meteors dozens of times. I could do it with my eyes closed, but if I set up a PUG right now the odds are good that we wouldn't even clear the knights. It only takes one new player to set the rest of the team back, and that costs everyone time. Time is the most precious resource of all, since we are all paying for it with our subscriptions.

Lastly, it's not about keeping score. I have run Raid Content all the way from First Coil to now, and I honestly could not tell you how many clears I have of any specific Raids. I couldn't tell you, because it doesn't matter. I didn't run them to keep score. I ran them because they were the next step after the regular old dungeons and extreme Trial content and they are challenging and fun. It's no different than completing a game on Normal Difficulty and then progressing into Hard Difficulty or New Game +. It's just what's next, and what's next is funner than what came before. The nice benefit is that there are some damn fine rewards if you actually win, but that's just a nice perk. Given that the fail rate for end-game content is far higher than the success rates, the only real reason to go back over and over (especially after you cleared once), is because it's the funnest "current" content in the game. When something new comes out, people who like to progress in their gameplay will move on to that. I can't say the same for crafting, because, personally, I find it boring as dishwater regardless of the recipe.

[Giantbane]

I have all crafting classes at 60, but I hate the way they've set this up.

It's just an attempt to justify their crappy specialist system. The specialist stuff is all backwards. Instead of a specialist having an easier time crafting (all the specialist actions are expensive and heavily based on RNG), it just gates some random recipes behind them. Dumb.

[ChameleonMS]

I have all crafting classes at 60, but I hate the way they've set this up.

It's just an attempt to justify their crappy specialist system. The specialist stuff is all backwards. Instead of a specialist having an easier time crafting (all the specialist actions are expensive and heavily based on RNG), it just gates some random recipes behind them. Dumb.

So very true.

[ChameleonMS]

snip

Thank you for thoughtful reply. I was not attempting to directly the difficulty of end game raid to end game crafting in terms of difficulty. Raid is clearly harder.

End game crafting is just as time and Gil consuming though.
We have to gather; waiting for unspoiled nodes to appear to get the mats, praying to RNG the whole time. And / Or we have run dungeons and win drops for mats.
Use those mats to craft collectables.
Turn in those collectables for Scripts.
Use those scripts to buy end game mats.
Then finally, we get our chance to do the final 3 minute long craft, which even with the best gear, is still subject to RNG, 2 failed Hasty Touches and the craft goes from 100% HQ to 60% real fast. Not enough Good conditions, and there will not be enough CP to execute the maximized finisher rotation. If any of this RNG badness happens, we then must pray again to RNG that Reclaim does not lose our mats.

Yes, crafters can and do take Gil short cuts and buy the mats off the MB; but so can a DoW buy a clear anyone?
With regards to the relic, requiring optional class (crafting / gathering) for optional content is fine.

[Nova_Dresden]

No, it is not a poor design because crafting is part of the game play that is attainable by the average skill player in general population. Thus, SE has chosen to leverage it.

No. SE chose to leverage it because there are players who solely play this game to craft and make money and be rich. This was their way of forcing players who otherwise wouldn't interact with the market to have to use it. I have almost zero interaction with the market on a daily basis until stuff like this happens and then I'm forced to dump millions of gil into it and try to recover that back at a later time.

[Sareal]

As for a rehash, sure, they are re-using previous elements of the game to aid in replay of the content, otherwise the content would be dead and gone completely. Gotta help the new players with the queue times somehow.

Using old content as the content of the relic is something in on itself. But do you not see that these steps of the Anima weapon are literally a copy-paste steps of the Zodiac relic?

The players complaining about crafting requirement are the players that have chosen to no play that aspect of the game play.

Um....what? I did crafting back then, and I still intend to do it. That point is moot and is only very specific to each person's perspective of the design.