Redo the Crafting system.

[Solarra]

IMO, the one size fits all crafting design isn’t working well. Gearing and leveling aside, no matter how they rebalance and simplify crafting mechanics, it’s still too complicated for most players who really don’t care about learning the system. The end result is a niche crafting scene that is far too small for the developers pay attention to.

If you don't like FFXIV crafting and your friends don't like it, it's very easy to come away with the impression that the vast majority of players dislike it.
In my experience, crafters tend to gravitate to companies where there are people who share their interest. Our FC has a high proportion of crafters and new players tend to pick crafting up automatically, probably because there is so much of it going on.
Certainly it's a niche activity, but I think the niche is much larger than non-crafters might imagine. Even on a tiny server like Zodiark, you'll see crafters in every major city and also in Idyllshire, MorDhona and the Beast-tribe centres pretty much at any time of day. The huge number of online resources also suggests that there is a lot of people crafting.

The main problem with 'Re-doing' crafting to suit the people who don't like it, is that it's going to upset a huge number of people who do, which is what happened when they introduced Specialisation in HW. Personally, I like the system we have and I'm hoping SB doesn't bring any drastic changes.

OP - If FFXIV crafting isn't for you, then it's not really going to impact your character very much if you don't do it. We are about to enter the second expansion, asking for major changes to a system that a lot of other people are engaged with and enjoying, especially at such a late point in the game's development, seems unreasonable to me.

[MN_14]

The main problem with 'Re-doing' crafting to suit the people who don't like it, is that it's going to upset a huge number of people who do, which is what happened when they introduced Specialisation in HW. Personally, I like the system we have and I'm hoping SB doesn't bring any drastic changes.

I can say for a certainty that HW caused a change on my server at least and it has nothing to do with specialization. Weak specialist skills don’t bother a crafter who has all of the cross-class skills since they simply wouldn’t use them. Considering their original intent, I doubt they were even designed particularly with omni-crafters in mind. The spec locks that were added after in 3.1 to slowly replace the 3.05 favor system and gear lockouts are an annoyance, but not a game breaker. You can still craft your own gear by changing specs and mass produce materials or items. As for new crafters, they are in no worse position than they were in by 2.3 or 2.4.

This is the composition of crafters that I noticed on my server in ARR:

- Most crafters were non-star crafters from levels 1-50. Many had all classes leveled but still did not move beyond maybe 1*. They just weren’t interested in higher level crafts or really learning the system. Prior to the 1* master crafts, you could HQ with a few buttons but once you hit 1*+, you had to start using a lot of your cross-class abilities to HQ an item. It was considered time consuming and not worthwhile, which is a complaint that I’ve heard to this day.

- There were “mid-core” crafters who worked on obtaining artisan’s/supra/lucis tools and both master recipe books because they were things to achieve or earn. They went through the content for the same reasons why someone might work toward clearing a raid or earning a difficult achievement. Many struggled with the master 2 books though (advanced difficulty by my definition), so it was probably a mistake to lock an entire tier of crafts behind them. Most “mid-core” crafters were actually still dedicated end game players and even raiders but didn’t have the time or patience or time to work on mastering the crafting system

- There were, of course, core crafters who could handle all of the content fairly reliably and made hundreds of millions off the MB

Things changed in HW, however. This was largely due to the watering down of the content and to make things worse, there was a failure to grab new crafters despite the dumbing down (millions of reasons for that so I won’t get into it; they are gearing/leveling issues that compounded the existing issues from ARR).

- Largest group of crafters early on were the glamour and housing crafters (usually with all classes leveled) but they mostly disappeared by 3.1. Some sold non-star master crafts.

- The “mid-core” disappeared. I had a lot of friends who dabbled in crafting as mid-core crafters back in 2.3-2.5. By 3.0, they didn’t bother with crafting anymore other than unlock the first set of master books. There was no sense of accomplishment or achievement so they just focused on other content like pvp or raiding. Among myself and my friends, I was the only one to stick with crafting.

- Most core crafters that I know still do keep up with crafting but we all agree that it’s really easy, boring, and dull right now. You don’t need to master the system at all and each tier is easier than the last (due to Maker’s mark). As well, the general strategy for each is virtually the same with some minor differences.

If they simply introduce different kinds of recipe types, they wouldn’t have to completely overhaul the mechanics or anything. You’d have one set for the players who’d rather HQ with only a few buttons (the Zhloe turn-ins and moogle quests are already an example of this kind of craft btw), other recipes for intermediate level (learning) crafters, and a final set (the challenges) for both the core and mid-core.