Stormblood Crafting System

[Alien_Gamer]

I think my preferred solution would be for the specialist stone to grant the ability to cross class skills from 2-3 other classes that they don't have leveled yet. It gives a single class crafter the ability to compete with omni crafters without making omnicrafters useless. The stat bonuses should be removed, it makes a specialist stone "almost" required even for omni crafters instead of something that enables a different style of play.

[Caimie_Tsukino]

FFXIV it's an MMO's and interdependencies should be a thing, players are supposed to interact with one another.

Not all interdependencies stimulate player interactions. It really comes down to "what kind" of interdependencies. If we're just talking about LTW needing an ingot from BSM. The LTW buys it off the MB, and it ends there. There's no interaction between the two people. If you're talking about how a group of people needs to cooperate and raid together in order to beat Sophia or get a hunt done. That's a very different kind of interdependency. Heck, completely independent players can interact too! I am interacting with you right now, ain't I? But we're not interdependent on one another! But interdependencies among crafters/gatherers/raiders are actually very important to the economy. I shall explain below.

In fact, the whole system is built around this idea but fail when is allowing a single character (or account) to be everything. Since this trend become a thing, plus market boards instead of player shops, MMO's economies were dumbed down to oblivion. Being fully independent is not a good thing but it's what players demand: single player games with the ability to "show off" how awesome you are.

Firstly, I do not believe most omni-crafters/omni-gatherers are truly independent. Even people like Silverbane who has like 3 characters or something does not mean he does not buy things from others. The moment he spends gil on the MB, he becomes "dependent". Why? You only have 24 hours a day. You can't do EVERYTHING. For instance, if you go gathering and crafting, chances are that you won't have time to grind dungeons/trials. Thus, dungeon/trial drops are the things that you cannot acquire by yourself. I am pretty sure Silverbane must have purchased a minion or two in the past (Tell me if I'm right, Silverbane)!

Secondly, economy is dead when gil flows in a uni-direction or completely stops flowing. As long as a rich omni-crafter constantly spends his/her money on something on the MB, gil is flowing in and out of him/her. Thus, it won't kill the economy. Do you remember the beginning of HW? THAT was a dying economy! Gatherer's tools and gear were NOT made by crafters. But crafter's 2 star class-specific gear require a huge amount of Favor Mats from gatherers. Crafting required no dungeon drops from raiders. And the 2 star i180 gear were way too inferior to tome-purchased gear. The only income for crafters were to sell lower level crafting gear to lower level crafters. Thus, crafters' gil were constantly flowing to gatherers, but not the other way around. Where as raiders and crafters were completely independent of each other. This caused a uni-directional gil flow, which drove crafters poorer and poorer, while gatherers become richer and richer... Meanwhile, the gil flow between crafters and raiders were completely stagnant... and THAT was killing the economy. Single players "showing off" how awesome they are does not kill the economy.

With this in mind, SE best bet is let it go and make all DOH like CUL, 100% fully independent, and follow Roth's idea but as a baseline (FFXIV crafting never was a hardcore system anyway).

Well, CUL is fully independent from other crafters, but they're still very dependent on gatherers though.

Interdependence fosters an economy. And the advent of specialist had several functions not just uplifting the solo crafter.

Interdependence doesn't foster an economy. Gil flow does. As long as people don't just sell things, but buy things as well. Then gil flow is ensured, and the economy is fostered. Roth explained it very well above.

And someone on this forum or one like it already threw a monkey wrench in that analogy of being able to level all the fighting jobs. Switch between all the jobs at will all You want...you still not beating Sophia (hard) with your omni jobs.....You need a team.....this is an MMO....that also goes for crafting in a mmo interdependence breeds teamwork and bolsters the game's economy. A bunch of self sufficient mini entities that gather and crafter all their stuff do no lend as well toward teamwork MMO... especially not in comparison to this system coming up.

Yup, you need a team to beat Sophia! But you don't need a team to make a leather jacket! You just need a leatherworker, and some metal buttons that perhaps come from a blacksmith! There are many things in this world that can be done better by a team, but there are also many things that are easier to be done by just one person. Wouldn't it be silly to require an alliance of 24 crafters just to make a frying pan?

I think my preferred solution would be for the specialist stone to grant the ability to cross class skills from 2-3 other classes that they don't have leveled yet. It gives a single class crafter the ability to compete with omni crafters without making omnicrafters useless. The stat bonuses should be removed, it makes a specialist stone "almost" required even for omni crafters instead of something that enables a different style of play.

I like this idea. If the Soul Crystal allows the specialist to equip perhaps 3 level 50 cross class skills from classes which they don't have, then it'll be a very powerful boost to the Specialist, but won't be overpowered since it's not on equal ground to being omni-crafter.

[javid]

Dammit caimie you wrote a lot. When I leave the office I'm coming for you....������

[Driavna]

As I said, the game is already built with interdependencies in mind, but some of those interdependencies are an annoyance. FFXIV have a wannabe sandbox crafting system "too complex" for a theme park and to simple for a sandbox (no decay and all items are the same outside NQ/HQ).

Interdependencies are nice when are well done but that it's not the case, the market spin around materials (like ores, crystals) or complex final products, the rest has no value. Why bother selling Aurum Regis Nuggets when is more profitable to sold those materials? This problem is common to any MMO's that allow players to have all the crafting professions in some way, you either sold rare materials or final products from rare recipes. (Yeah, I know there is a market for HQ Leve quest items).

Back in games like Ultima Online or Star Wars Galaxies this never existed, everyone needs something from others but crafting skills were fully independent (not like CRP, for a lot of his recipes the least material used is wood ).

BTW, I did not mention that the economy is dead but NA/EU server are in bad shape due to gil sellers, this is especially noticeable in "small" servers where anything is unaffordable from no crafter/gatherers, even raid consumables or basic tools (my main reason to level DOH/DOL).

So I don't see the point to force a player to level all crafting in order to be of use (560 Levels just for DoH'S after SB release), the perk of an omnicrafter is been available to craft anything but should not be better to an individual craft. In fact, if our system were deeper each profession should have their unique crafting process with a lot of little things to learn if you wanted to be a master of everything. Anything else should stay the same, it's very enjoyable and satisfactory.

Note: it's a giving that anyone depends on gathers.

[Solarra]

I think Specialisation was introduced far too late in the game to be attractive. It is lot of work levelling all the crafting classes to 50, but there are clear advantages to doing so. Once you've put in the effort and done that, being asked to choose 3 and dump the other 5 seems unkind to say the least. Especially in HW when you only had 10 levels to go and the specialist skills were so poor hardly any crafters were using them.

The point about specialists forcing people to use the MB and 'interact' with each other is one I've changed my opinion on. I used to assume it was good for the economy, but after an earlier discussion on these boards, I came round to seeing that it's the lack of competition that keeps prices high. If there are only a few people crafting (especially on a small server), then the limited supply is going to mean higher prices. Since some specialisations far less popular than others (ALC for example), you also get huge discrepancies in the cost of materials, so a GSM might have to sell 5 nuggets to afford a single dissolvent.
New players don't have the reserves of gil that older players have, so they are particularly hard-hit by high material costs, especially early in an expansion. So, while specialisation might have been introduced with them in mind, in HW the high prices that resulted from specialist-only recipes, ironically encouraged them to continue omnicrafting beyond level 50 as a way of keeping costs down.

I'm hoping SB will see a move away from trying to discourage omnicrafting and will instead introduce measures to make single-class crafting more viable.
I don't like the specialist system and feel it is out of place in a game that claims you can have every class on one character. However, considering how much development time must have gone into it already, I wasn't expecting it to go away.

[Silverbane]

[RE:] Specialisation ... It is lot of work levelling all the crafting classes to 50, but there are clear advantages to doing so. Once you've put in the effort and done that, being asked to choose 3 and dump the other 5 seems unkind to say the least.

Canard. No one was ever asked to "choose 3 and dump the other 5." The Specialist system didn't require (or even provide a benefit for) not leveling your non-Specialist classes to 60.

Since some specialisations far less popular than others ... you also get huge discrepancies in the cost of materials [but] New players don't have the reserves of gil that older players have ...

Another canard. Specialization only affected bleeding-edge crafting for a patch cycle or two. New players weren't affected unless they leveled aggressively enough to catch up with the older players. Those who did that faced greater hurdles than the high cost of specialist materials.

[javid]

Well moving forward we know there is no weekly caps so omni is bk!!! Not in full force bc there is a time sink aspect of swapping specialist crystals. For hardcore crafter (most all of us nerds) we'll have a retainer stack of crystals ready for constant swapping.

Note: I highly discourse WASTING current red scripts weekly's on crystals. It's more profitable to get the materia Vs and sell those now while materia are still worth 150-300k.

What's yet to be seen is how new specialist will assist the solo crafter and if specialist will reward the already omni (as an omni I'm not satisfied with just being omni. I desire OPness mode!!)

Last note crystal swapping is what will make red scripts relevant in the long run. Yes at first it will be endless Vs but for that very reason the endless supply will drive materia prices down and at some price point players will stop spending 15min for just X gil..... personally if i spend 15min I want at least 100k......

[Driavna]

Don't assume the lack of scrip cap as the lack of any time gate, custom deliveries are capped to 6 ATM. Imagine if we need to raise our satisfaction with some kind of "trainer" for our DoL/DoH first in order to buy important stuff from him or something (like the new master books).

[javid]

Don't assume the lack of scrip cap as the lack of any time gate, custom deliveries are capped to 6 ATM. Imagine if we need to raise our satisfaction with some kind of "trainer" for our DoL/DoH first in order to buy important stuff from him or something (like the new master books).

I didn't quite understand your point? But i think you meant what if they have other important uses for red scripts that take priority? That's not a problem and i hope they actually do have other uses for reds and yellow that take priority to using reds on cyrstals. But all that can't possibly be the case forever. That is why I referenced IN THE LONG RUN.

[Driavna]

Oh no, what I wanted to mean is just that. There will be a time gate somewhere, because if not people will be fully geared in a week or two and they don't want that. I'm just assuming that this time gate will be deliveries. I also think that a better soul crystal will be added at some point and change it around won't be that easy, but that's going to depend is SE mind people changing their spec that often or don't, because if they do another time gate will be around (a weekly quest for example).