How would you change Specialization?

[Airget]

With 3.5 coming soon and having seen the entirety of the ideology behind crafting, how would you change it's rather cut and dry concept of unique recipes to crafts?

While this does limit the amount of people who can craft said recipe, does it really add to the game when every large patch just throws it into the common pool? In this way Specialist Recipes just become this weak form of gating recipes to limit players to being able to only fully craft from 3 of the 8 DOH within the game.


You don't create a community of crafters with this concept because at the end of the day all you really have to concern yourself with is having 2 other friends who can get the other 5 craft classes to make up for the ones you can't do, so then you have to ask yourself, what good do Specialist Recipes do when it only takes 2 people to create a monopoly?

I feel like if you want Specialist to work, you have to be more ambitious with it, unique recipes are a very loose reward when they just become common after a few months. So why not have a system in which being a specialist means you learn how to do things better, more efficient, with time and practice?

This is what I mean, So let's say I'm a Carpenter Specialist and I synth a lot of Cedar Lumber. The more I synth this Lumber, the more efficient I become with it, at my first rank I learn how to produce the same Lumber but with 2 less Logs needed. As I rank up again I can now produce 2 Lumber but I go back to needing 5 logs. By Rank 3 I Master the ability of using 2 less against and make 2 Lumber per. By Rank 4 I unlock the "Double HQ" potential which not only grants me HQ Lumber but also doubles the quantity I obtain which in this case would be 4 HQ Lumber and the cost of 3 Logs.

Why can't we have a system like this which actually shows progression with a recipe we craft with? Now not every recipe needs this lving process, heck I"d even go as far to say you just create a very Standard form of skill for each recipe type, so all Lumber would share the same skill lv so as you level up your Skill you would reveal new effects when crafting said item type. Keep in mind this would be the new specialization concept, a means of being able to craft quicker, more efficient, needing less, making more, that's what specialization should be about. It should be about making your Crafting Classes of choice more efficient. Where you can have a form of progression past the gear grind that can be carried over into future expansions.

At the end of it all, what really drew me away from Crafting was just feeling nothing interesting from it, I was just getting gear to have it and sadly the specialist Recipes added are so bare bone, so for your efforts you have the opportunity to craft 3-5 of the unique recipes that only Specialist can make. The "reward" doesn't fit the time it takes to get there when you consider that for Carpenter this current patch version I have the "luxury" of crafting some gear to help players who want to catch up so this in itself does nothing for current players and then as icing on the cake I obtain 2 other unique recipes, one being Teak Lumber, a part used for others that doesn't scream "specialist" when you look at it and the Tier 4 Aquarium which is nice.

But look at it like this, a Carpenter is chasing a carrot to gear up to be able to craft those Specialist recipes and yet when they get to that point the only thing they have to look forward to is one recipe. When you consider that's what the Specialist system amounts to so far, there is definitely a flaw with the system.

[Roth_Trailfinder]

I've said it numerous times.

Specialization Only should be removed as a lock on recipes preventing people from doing them. Specialist Actions should not exist either. Remove both of those, and make the Specialization Stone confer ALL of the other 21 Cross Class Actions, of the level 15, 37, and 50 variety.

Once the Specialist hits level 70, or goes over 60, the Specialist should gain access to all of the level 54 Cross Class Actions as well.

This would simultaneously remove most of the advantage an Omnicrafter has over someone with only one Crafting class, while allowing them both to actually compete with one another in the marketplace. That competition was the stated goal of the Specialist System.

Preventing people (those with different Specializations) from crafting high level recipes does not provide competition, it eliminates it, which is in diametric opposition to the stated goal of the Specialist system.

[MN_14]

Preventing people (those with different Specializations) from crafting high level recipes does not provide competition, it eliminates it, which is in diametric opposition to the stated goal of the Specialist system.

Yes and no. While it is true that the specialist system was intended to eliminate the need to level all classes to 50 and allow single class crafters to actually produce end game crafts/compete better, you have to remember what single class crafters were complaining about. IIRC, these were the prevalent complaints:

1) Having to level all classes to obtain cross class skills (particularly the level 50 ones)

2) Being unable to compete with omnicrafters due to higher production costs. Single class crafters would have to buy intermediate materials whereas an omni-crafter could make all of them and completely out-price them in the market

3) Omni-crafters ruthlessly dominating each and every market leaving no niches for single class crafters

So the developers wanted to design a system that could address these concerns. They introduced specialist abilities to take care of the leveling issue, but these were clearly a flop. While technically useable, they're far more difficult to use, less reliable, and more expensive (delineations). From my limited experience with single class 4* simulations (which admittedly probably only scratches the surface of what the system can do), you can pretty consistently build up around 9.5k quality as long as you have the level 15 cross class skills, meaning you'd want a starting quality of 3500-4000 which is quite a bit.

To address points 2) and 3), they first introduced systems to make things way harder for crafters to omni-craft:

- a massive favor grind intended to either force a crafter to go through a thousand hours of gathering to gear all classes or buy the materials at great expense (very few would be able to buy all of the materials; players that did would be helping the economy via wealth redistribution and then there was also the cost of melds at the time.....)

- alternatively weekly gear lockouts in the form of red scrip gear

These systems were massive failures as well, so mid-expansion they chose to turn things around. Gearing would now be easy while specialist recipe lockouts would take care of points 2) and 3).

The effectiveness of specialist abilities can be fixed, but I don't really see an easy solution for the competition aspect. Even if specializations have abilities that mirror cross class (quick and easy fix that is better than messing around with and balancing 2 different sets of abilities that can be used simultanously), there would still be complaints of omni-crafters dominating every market though more competitve pricing.

[Alistaire]

I've said it numerous times.

Specialization Only should be removed as a lock on recipes preventing people from doing them. Specialist Actions should not exist either. Remove both of those, and make the Specialization Stone confer ALL of the other 21 Cross Class Actions, of the level 15, 37, and 50 variety.

Oh hell no. Just because most people haven't figured out the benefits of the specialist actions doesn't mean they're bad. They're great. Also reminds me when I taught a guy having trouble HQ'ing things, taught him how to use them and he later said it was like night and day.

Specialist actions are good, and removing them wouldn't help you at all. If you choose to ignore them, fine, but leave them as is.

(Though I certainly wouldn't complain if they also added all the cross-class secondaries for specialists, but let's be realistic; that'd be so broken.)

[Roth_Trailfinder]

Oh hell no. Just because most people haven't figured out the benefits of the specialist actions doesn't mean they're bad. They're great. Also reminds me when I taught a guy having trouble HQ'ing things, taught him how to use them and he later said it was like night and day.

Specialist actions are good, and removing them wouldn't help you at all. If you choose to ignore them, fine, but leave them as is.

(Though I certainly wouldn't complain if they also added all the cross-class secondaries for specialists, but let's be realistic; that'd be so broken.)

Not gonna go back and dig up a thread from that long ago, but I distinctly remember getting into an argument with someone on these boards about the value of the Specialist Only actions. The long and short of it was, they add an extra layer of RNG and require higher stats to achieve results that might, charitably, be within the same ballpark compared to (yet not as good as) what an omnicrafter can achieve using the cross class moves.

As an above poster said, if they were as good or better than the cross class moves, that would be one thing. They do not come as close as they should, so removing them in favor of getting all of the cross class moves can only help people.

Are the Specialist-only actions bad? On their own, no - though there is a lot more RNG with them, which may be considered bad. Compared to the cross class moves? Higher stats needed and more RNG for lesser results means that, contrary to your opinion, they ARE bad, compared to the cross class moves.

[MN_14]

Specialist abilities are largely useful only if you’re lacking somewhere:

1) Are missing a lot of the useful level 50+ cross class skills
2) Have low base cp

The reason for this is probably because they decided to introduce a system that could be combined with cross class skills so they also had to put in a limiter (much heavier rng) to not completely bust the balance. Anyone who has experience with ARR level 50 end game crafting knows that the effectiveness of a crafter is determined by their HQ yield (% of crafts that HQ overall). AFAIK, it wasn’t possible to guarantee 100% on a 4* craft even with 50% starting quality, never mind the ones that forced you to start from 10-30%.

The specialist abilities achieve the following:
1) Greatly boost your HQ yield if you have no level 50 cross class
2) Greatly boost your HQ yield if you have the cross-class abilities but also have really low starting cp
3) Do little to improve your HQ yield if you have enough cp and cross class abilities to reliably craft without specialist abilities. In fact, they probably lower your potential HQ yield.

Seems like check list design to me….

From my experience (assuming that you care to farm delineations), they will help you 75% of the time and hinder you 25% of the time. I’ve crafted probably close to 1000 4* synths from all NQ mats and can state with confidence that you can HQ them 95% of the time with usually 70-80% of your synths ending at 100%. With those numbers, you don’t want to be hindered 25% of the time.

I haven’t tested 4* from low starting cp, but I did test 3* back in 3.2 while equipped with my usual cross class. I started my synths from all NQ materials and 370 cp which was over 100 cp less than what I normally started with. Just by using the heart ability, whistle while you work, satisfaction, and nymaea’s wheel, it was possible to HQ around 75% of the synths. If you ever wondered why the devs bothered releasing red scrip gear (especially the accessories) that is rather weak in terms of the cp they provide, there’s your answer .

[Bourne_Endeavor]

Specialist abilities are largely useful only if you’re lacking somewhere

Actually, they are not. There is literally no reason to rely on them over simply leveling your remaining crafts to 50 due to the ridiculously RNG restrictions. Innovative Touch is the one exception. Everything else depends so heavily on RNG, you'll lose far more mats then it'll be worth. Specialist abilities were intended to help people who don't want to level additional jobs. They don't. It'll cost you less to buy a levekit compared to all the materials you'll lose or fail to HQ.

[Alistaire]

Not gonna go back and dig up a thread from that long ago, but I distinctly remember getting into an argument with someone on these boards about the value of the Specialist Only actions. The long and short of it was, they add an extra layer of RNG and require higher stats to achieve results that might, charitably, be within the same ballpark compared to (yet not as good as) what an omnicrafter can achieve using the cross class moves.

As an above poster said, if they were as good or better than the cross class moves, that would be one thing. They do not come as close as they should, so removing them in favor of getting all of the cross class moves can only help people.

Are the Specialist-only actions bad? On their own, no - though there is a lot more RNG with them, which may be considered bad. Compared to the cross class moves? Higher stats needed and more RNG for lesser results means that, contrary to your opinion, they ARE bad, compared to the cross class moves.

Oh I'm very aware of how few people realise how good they are. One other person saying they don't make a difference doesn't do a thing to change my experience with it. And that's having all specialists, and crafting gear for scrips for quite a while on the same gear with characters that had the specialisation, and the ones that don't. It's actually kind of baffling how underestimated they are.

[Solarra]

Oh I'm very aware of how few people realise how good they are. One other person saying they don't make a difference doesn't do a thing to change my experience with it. And that's having all specialists, and crafting gear for scrips for quite a while on the same gear with characters that had the specialisation, and the ones that don't. It's actually kind of baffling how underestimated they are.

It's not quite clear from your post but I have to say, if you have all the Cross Class skills available but you prefer the specialist Skills, then I'm baffled. I don't see anything better about them at all.
I do appreciate they are useful for people who have only levelled 2 or 3 crafting Classes, but I still think the present system leaves those players at a considerable disadvantage compared to an omni-crafter. Given the choice between my Specialists getting access to all the cross class skills or getting the present specialist skills (even tweaked slightly), I'd definitely take the former.
It's a simple, elegant solution to the problem of people not wanting to level every crafting class but still wanting to do endgame crafting.

[Nicodemus_Mercy]

If I were to make changes to specialization, I would remove much of the rng factor that plagues the abilities. The whole point of specialization should be to make it easier for you to craft stuff from your trade compared to a non-specialist... even if they are an "omni-crafter" and you are not. For specialization to mitigate the need for omni-craft leveling, the skills it provides need to compete with cross class skills from other crafts. Its ok if the specialist skills end up making some omni-craft skills redundant because the idea is that if you're a specialist you're better at what you do with your craft than someone who isn't... even if you dont level the other crafting classes.

Here's a few changes I'd make:

* Whistle While You Work should just be a plain buff of some sort. Not this weird "buffs certain skills when quality is good or excellent and stack is at a multiple of whatever" nonsense. My head spins just reading that friggin tooltip. WWYW should be as simple as a slightly better Comfort Zone. have it cost 60CP and restore 9CP per step. Rng heaped on to rng does nothing to help someone who doesnt want to level every craft and WWYW as it is, is just a poorly thought out idea.

* Innovative Touch should have a 70% chance of success so its guaranteed to work when coupled with Steady hand II. If it worked like this it would be a better alternative to Innovation for omni-crafters and a replacement for Innovation for single-classed crafters.

* Nymeia's Wheel should simply be a super cheap version of Manipulation. It would serve as an upgrade to Manipulation for omni-crafters, and a replacement for Manipulation for single classed-crafters.

* Byregot's Miracle is decidedly inferior to Byregot's Blessing when it SHOULD be better. Byregot's Miracle should do exactly what Byregot's Blessing does but at 100% success rate, and use up no durability. Again it gives access to one of the best cross-class skills to single-classed crafters and still offers an upgrade to omni-crafters when using their specialist craft.

* Trained Hand is again inferior to another skill that is often cross-classed with a ridiculous rng component thrown in for the lawls. Trained Hand should be a better version of Careful Synthesis II. It should have Efficiency: 150% Success Rate: 100% and cost 0CP.

Those changes would make specializations actually GOOD and also give single-classed crafters good versions of some of the desirable cross-class skills.