Thread: 4.0 specialization

Originally Posted by Nezerius

Forcing limitations onto omnicrafters, just to allow players with 1-3 crafting jobs leveled to be competitive, isn't the way to go, as it's more of a negative thing (ie: if you pick these three jobs you can't craft those other recipes). It'd have been better if the specialist system was introduced with a more positive effect to it. Like if a specialist were able to craft things with less materials (y'know, since they specialise in crafting specific things). It'd encourage players to pick a specialist without feeling limited.

Did everybody just miss this? Finally, a constructive idea to positively empower the discussion here! Not sure if this idea will work, but I like it!

Originally Posted by Caimie_Tsukino

Did everybody just miss this? Finally, a constructive idea to positively empower the discussion here! Not sure if this idea will work, but I like it!

This would be hard to implement, which recipes would require less mats? all of them? Just the top tier? And how would that address the original cause for specialist in the first place (giving non-omni crafters better utilities for success and preventing a handful of top tier crafters from cornering the market [more interdependence])??

We know the system isn't changing overall b/c they said it isn't changing overall, but we know spc will get a few new perks, red's will become uncapped, and omni crafters will return to being king of the market without being the ONLY ones on the market.

Originally Posted by Nezerius

Just because it's a game, doesn't mean its players can't complain about a change that they don't like.

But that's not what's happening here. Here, I see that some people are complaining about changes they don't even know will happen, based on flimsy rumors.

Originally Posted by Silverbane

But that's not what's happening here. Here, I see that some people are complaining about changes they don't even know will happen, based on flimsy rumors.

But we know that they'll be keeping the specialist system, that they'll be adding new specialist abilities. We know that they'll be scrapping blue scrips, removing the weekly cap on red scrips, and adding yellow scrips. We also know that yellow scrips won't have a weekly cap. Nothing crafting or gathering related will be tied to a weekly cap. These aren't just flimsy rumours, they've all been confirmed in the most recent live letter.

Originally Posted by Nezerius

The crafting system in 2.x perfectly fit the "You can do everything on one character" thing, just like you can level every single job DoW/M job on a single character, without any requirement to actually specialize into any of the DoW/M jobs.

While I agree with most of your discussion points, this particular point is one that pets my peeve a bit. No, you CAN'T do everything on just one character in this game. You can't down Zurvan on just one character. You can't win Alexander Savage with just one character. You can fill any ROLE with just one character, but you still need the cooperation of other teammates to actually get anything done. The do-anything crafter is a SUBVERSION of the ideals of this game, not a shining example. SE would like to see crafters working together and cooperating to get things done, and the evidence for this is in the Specialization system. They tried to enforce this kind of cooperation. The results were terrible, to be sure, I'm not denying that, but it shows the kind of system they'd LIKE crafters to have.

It would not surprise me if SE introduces some kind of group crafting system in the future, where crafters have to team up to complete a craft. Hopefully, if they do, it won't be a ridiculously awful as the Synergy system in FFXI.

Originally Posted by LineageRazor

snip

This is mostly just arguing semantics.

Of course you can't go around and solo group content, but the only limiting factor when it comes to doing anything as DoW/M is the gear you can obtain. Nothing else is stopping the player from playing all DoW/M jobs to their fullest extent, as it's all available to them.

Unlike the crafting system, where it excludes recipes from even being attempted, if it happens to be tied to one of the specializations that the player hasn't chosen. Essentially, it's limited by gear and the crafter soul chosen by the player, instead of just gear.

There are better ways to encourage interaction between crafters, just like DoW/M in a party aren't limited to the amount of job crystals they have. Can you imagine how players would react if they could only pick a set amount of job crystals?

Originally Posted by Nezerius

This is mostly just arguing semantics.

Of course you can't go around and solo group content, but the only limiting factor when it comes to doing anything as DoW/M is the gear you can obtain. Nothing else is stopping the player from playing all DoW/M jobs to their fullest extent, as it's all available to them.

Unlike the crafting system, where it excludes recipes from even being attempted, if it happens to be tied to one of the specializations that the player hasn't chosen. Essentially, it's limited by gear and the crafter soul chosen by the player, instead of just gear.

There are better ways to encourage interaction between crafters, just like DoW/M in a party aren't limited to the amount of job crystals they have. Can you imagine how players would react if they could only pick a set amount of job crystals?

I already stated that the Specialization system was a terrible way to go about this system, but let's follow this line of discussion a moment. The teamwork of it all is that, while you can't create certain items outside of your specialization, you CAN contribute to those recipes. You can provide the specialist materials to the crafter who eventually ends up doing the actual crafting - and that crafter, in turn, is unable to craft the thing without the ingredients you and other provide. Crafters working together as a team to craft the item, just as DoM/DoW work together to down difficult instances. The assumption you (and many, many others) are standing by is that "I can't make this myself" is equivalent to "I can't make this at all" - that is not the viewpoint SE was hoping to engender.

Your "pick a set amount of job crystals" comparison is not a good metaphor for the situation. There's nothing stopping you from crafting the vast majority of items available to your non-specialist crafting classes - it's only the top-of-the-line stuff that's out of your reach, and there's PLENTY of need for yesterday's crafts. A better comparison would be if you could only get the best equipment for a couple of your DoM/DoW jobs. The jobs you can't gear to max? Well, they can still fulfill their role and be useful, but they'll never be top-of-the-line. Which, as it happens, IS the system we have for DoM/DoW.

While it's not a perfect comparison (undergeared players CAN complete difficult content if they are skillful enough, whereas non-specialists can't even attempt the specialist recipes), but this, I'm sure, is what SE was aiming for, to make crafting a more cooperative endeavor, just as battle classes are. (And it's worth noting that, just as you did with crafting, some battle class players "cheat" this limitation by using alt characters to bypass the gearing restrictions.)

Again, I want to emphasize that I am not defending the Specialist system. I am merely trying to explain why SE did what they did - and why they may do similar things in the future. I hope, instead, that they bolster the abilities of solo-class crafters to bring them up to or near the capabilities of omnicrafters, rather than to stymie the abilities of omnicrafters to try to force dependencies on other crafters.

The base idea of specialist was if you wanted a cul at level 60 and no other crafter so you could make raid food that was what it was for. But then you had to buy the skills and they were not better that omni crafting skills. So they failed twice there. Then they doubled down with locking certain things behind specialist so only some could make it ok fine but they still didn't fix the original intent of one crafter with special skills to craft with. What ever they do they should find their way back to if you only want one crafter, give them skills that omni crafters have and don't make them pay for it. Sadly i think they may just make it more complex but we will see in time.

Originally Posted by LineageRazor

While it's not a perfect comparison (undergeared players CAN complete difficult content if they are skillful enough, whereas non-specialists can't even attempt the specialist recipes), but this, I'm sure, is what SE was aiming for, to make crafting a more cooperative endeavor, just as battle classes are. (And it's worth noting that, just as you did with crafting, some battle class players "cheat" this limitation by using alt characters to bypass the gearing restrictions.)

Again, I want to emphasize that I am not defending the Specialist system. I am merely trying to explain why SE did what they did - and why they may do similar things in the future. I hope, instead, that they bolster the abilities of solo-class crafters to bring them up to or near the capabilities of omnicrafters, rather than to stymie the abilities of omnicrafters to try to force dependencies on other crafters.

It's not what SE was initially aiming for. The point of the specialist system, and its abilities, was to make it easier for players with just a few DoH leveled to max level to be able to HQ things without requiring all other DoH jobs at max level. Something which was the case for 2.x, where you needed most of the cross-class abilities to HQ 3/4-star recipes. This is especially shown in how crafting was handled in 3.0, as there were absolutely no specialist recipes at the release of the expansion. The Soul of the Crafter didn't have the extra stats, and it only gave access to specialist abilities.

They messed up with those abilities, as players looked at the RNG involved in most of the abilities, decided that it wasn't worth the hassle, and kept on making rotations with most of the 2.x abilities (and the few 51+ cross-class abilities that were introduced in 3.0). The whole "forced cooperation" thing didn't come into place until 3.1, when they added specialist recipes. It was really just a bandaid fix to get people to use the specialist system.

I don't think forced cooperation among crafters has a place in XIV, especially since it wasn't around at the very start of the game. When I started crafting in 2.0, I liked the fact that I could just relaxingly work on everything, and given enough time and effort, be able to craft anything, without relying on someone else. It was something to progress on whenever I wasn't doing group content. Encouraged cooperation, on the other hand, is just fine. Something along the lines of what I suggested earlier, with specialists requiring less mats to craft (specialist) recipes. Players will be encouraged to find a specialist, so they don't have to gather as many materials, while crafters who want to be self-sufficient will still be able to do so.