Lessons from red scrips for 3.3

**Nutz** · 04-01-2016 02:59 PM

MIN is one of the 2 jobs I actually play regularly and I haven't even bothered with doing favors (though I do have something like 60 tokens right now and all red scrip gear for MIN). I'm not exactly sure why, but the system just doesn't appeal to me. Really the collectibles system in general doesn't appeal to me greatly. They essentially created a leveling/ progression track for crafting and gathering that removes LOTS of materials from the market. I feel like I do a healthy amount of gathering, but I almost never gather anything that's usable (for crafting) anymore.

Legendary/ unspoiled nodes and the like are/ were ok... but I think I'd almost prefer that any of those items just be fairly rare hidden items on normal nodes. It feels very strange that gathering while leveling (ignoring collectibles) or for specific materials is very relaxed and casual, but gathering endgame is all about keeping a tight schedule and teleporting all over the world at the right times. Well, I suppose the schedule isn't that tight. A lot of hurry up and wait going on while we recover GP and wait for the 2:45 window to open.

As far as the way they handle scrips going forward, I'm not expecting things to change much, let alone change to how I'd like them, but I do hope that they just remove favors, or at least provide crafted gathering gear so that gatherers don't have to choose quite so strictly between gearing up or using favors. And really, just put the actual item needed for crafting on the node. Why bother with this silly 10:1 trade system for already heavily restricted items?

In ARR (2.0 - 2.....3?) the best crafting and gathering gear required really rather insignificant amounts of unspoiled node items and some pieces didn't require any. Maybe that was too easy, but how did we make the jump from that to this!? I guess it was too easy to be self sufficient before and they wanted to enliven the market, but I think it mostly just made people work harder at being self sufficient and get pissed off.

**SaitoHikari** · 04-01-2016 03:46 PM

I haven't tried favors yet, but all I want to say is that I seriously hope the devs at least double the amount of red and blue scrips that you can get per turn-in soon. Especially for gathering red scrips. Sticking those into timed nodes is a serious annoyance. While combat classes and crafters can work on their weekly tomes/scrips at any point, forcing gatherers to find 4-5 hours out of a week to camp nodes, 80% of the time not even doing anything but waiting during those hours (or you can do other stuff during node downtime, but there's a risk of missing the next set of node pops), is a bit silly. That's not even considering how RNG screwed you can get while gathering (oh, impulsive proc'd twice? Get ready for that 95% gather chance to suddenly decide it wants to act like it's 20% instead).

Combat classes have also gotten more and more ways to cap lore tomes in recent times, to the point where just running roulettes now lets you cap within the first 3-4 days. Red and blue scrips haven't gotten any additional methods of obtaining them, and I'm gonna chuck my monitor out the window if it turns out there's going to be a Master V book that requires 1k blue scrips.

**Nutz** · 04-01-2016 04:02 PM

Originally Posted by SaitoHikari

...Red and blue scrips haven't gotten any additional methods of obtaining them...

I'd like to agree with you, but really they did add periwinkle, eventide jade, and I forget what exactly for FSH. These can be gathered at any time, relatively easily in groups of 2 for a total of 10 red scrips (for MIN, and BOT -- again I'm unsure of FSH). Sure it's not much, but I make sure to get a few while I'm looking for a treasure map.

**Welsper59** · 04-01-2016 04:27 PM

Originally Posted by Nutz

snip

What the devs haven't grasped is the notion that the changes are acceptable, but not implemented correctly or timely. Contrary to popular belief, a red scrip system IS fine, but it needed to be in conjunction with a "simpler" means of obtaining crafting/gathering gear. In no way am I saying that this means handing out the gear, not at all. They just needed to take a step back on a couple design choices.

If favors, for example, weren't as gated and a bore to get to do at all, within a gated and strictly timed manner, the crafting of equips for these secondaries would not be as daunting of a repetitive goal. If scrips were allowed a more accessible means to obtain them in a decent, yet reasonably time consuming way, then that'd be a lot more enjoyable. Likewise if the 450 and 500 limit was raised a little. Unlike PvE combat, the entire point of crafting and gathering is the repetition behind obtaining your goal crafted/gathered items (i.e. the grind). Generally speaking, people aren't spending so much time getting gear in PvE combat with the express intent that they can spend exponentially more time grinding the same damn thing. That's how crafting/gathering works though, and it seems to have been overlooked.

Again, the system does work, but they took it too far with so many gated and timed restrictions. It just makes things seem... dull and unnecessarily convoluted in such a short time. It's a give and take to keep things enjoyable, they just haven't balanced it out with all the changes (yet).

HW began the era of the Held-Back Crafters and Gatherers. It does way too much in attempting to restrict, than it does to allow the enjoyment. It takes away from what people psychologically enjoyed from before. We actually see this in other ways as well, since HW released. Just look at BRD, with the introduction of WM. There was a likely intentional attempt to control and steer/direct the players playstyle with this expansion. Why? Who knows. It's just unfortunate that a rather optional secondary portion had to be hit with it more than normal.

**Mindy_Macready** · 04-01-2016 09:31 PM

They went with such a convoluted system at the start probably they didn't want people gearing up "too fast" but they took it way too far. Their answer for everything lately has been "throw a daily/weekly requirement on top of it" and it was probably affected by how ARR crafted items made raids "too easy" according to them. At some point they need to realize that another daily or weekly is not the answer to new features.

As for red scrip 180 gear, it is possible to reach the stat caps using all 180 gear, and Beet Soup HQ: http://ffxiv.ariyala.com/TLZS

The only problem with that setup is you're completely gimped on CP, so your crafting requirements become "need a lot of HQ mats".

**StouterTaru** · 04-01-2016 10:07 PM

Originally Posted by SaitoHikari

Especially for gathering red scrips. Sticking those into timed nodes is a serious annoyance. While combat classes and crafters can work on their weekly tomes/scrips at any point, forcing gatherers to find 4-5 hours out of a week to camp nodes

Get the folklore books, I spent about 90 minutes last night capping off my weekly red scrips while watching TV.

**raela** · 04-01-2016 11:08 PM

Originally Posted by Caitlinzulu

Still dont quite understand. You can either buy the favor items and turn them in for crafting materials (does use a red scrip token yes) and craft the 170 meldable gear or spend the red scrips directly and get a 180 gear that you dont have to meld. So you can already ignore the DoL items.

Currently i have a mix of both on my crafters, my alchemist is using full red scrip gear not a single DoL item used except for the materials in getting the red scrips in the first place.
My wvr, ltw and bsm use mainly crafted 170 gear.

Problem is that you have to choose between upgrading your DoH or DoL with favors - so for someone who wants to upgrade all classes (thus i180 is too slow), it's frustrating.

**Sento-Frost** · 04-01-2016 11:16 PM

Well I kinda agree with all this, scripts (red and blue) are a bad idea.

Before Heavensward, crafting and gathering were a refreshing moment out of the usual memoquartz grind. True it was for another kind of grind but without a damn frustrating limitation. You could do nothing for weeks then go crazy on it and catch up. Now we have our own memoquartz system and have to wait until Square is OK for us to continue progress. Yay ! Hurray !

I'm not saying it's difficult, it's just same old limited currency system...

**Felis** · 04-01-2016 11:18 PM

Originally Posted by Mindy_Macready

Red scrips are a boring, yet-another-weekly-grind added to a game that has more than enough weeklies and dailies.

But if you're going to continue this system with the next set of gear, can you please not require DoL items for purchasing crafting mats? For the longest time on my server, it wasn't even possible to purchase the favor items because they just weren't going on the marketboard.

No gathered items for crafting recipes? Will you turn miners and botanists into fishers?

**Sento-Frost** · 04-01-2016 11:23 PM

I think Mindy meant it's kinda unfair / painful to need red scripts gathering items, in order to be able to exchange our own red scripts for i170 crafting outfits mats.

Thread: Lessons from red scrips for 3.3

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