Why is crafting/gathering so difficult/grindy?

[Maeka]

I remember when I first started Final Fantasy XIV, I remember enjoying gathering, and I remember enjoying the crafting mini-game.



I started not too long after the game went into ARR, but due to various RL things happening, I had to take a couple breaks. I came back during the later end of Heavensward and I wanted to get myself "Stormblood-Ready", so I found myself making a mad dash through the MSQ, while trying to levelup my crafting jobs at the same time.

I wound up getting my crafters all on 50 through a combination of leves (buying items to turn in on some of the harder to do DoH classes, using the Ixals, etc) a little bit after I got to Ishgard, probably about the same time I was able to begin Moogle Beast Tribe quests.

Immediately upon arriving to Ishgard, I noted that everything is tuned so ridiculously high. Gathering was almost impossible, as I saw 40% success rates on the easiest materials in Heavensward, and I saw that it was almost impossible to NQ (not HQ!) basic materials like Mythrite Nuggets.

Apparently, SE thinks that returning/new players who are arriving at Ishgard for the first time want to stop and grind Scrips to get Endgame 2.0 gear just to start Heavensward content, and sadly they did the same thing with Stormblood -- wouldn't you know it, I go outside to get Beech Logs that my GC wants and wow, ~59% success. Nice.

And I can't even try to do Stormblood DoH yet, because I'm still stick at ~57 because Moogle Dailies are really slowing down, it takes 2 and a half days to get 1 levelup.

But yet, I can't do the leves, because crafting the actual items while wearing NQ gear you can buy from the Moogles, is way too difficult. That, and the sheer grind.... Dear Lord, the grind.

Why did you guys at SE think that it should take 5, 6, 8+ synths to make 1 end product? Okay, a Leve wants you to deliver 2, for example, Swords. Or Spears. Or what-not. Each one takes all of these materials, some 30-40 crystals, per item. And of course, with NQs gear, don't even think about HQ, it is literally impossible. And when you turn in these two spears that take over an hour to make, you get about 200k experience points. Wow, that's...... great. I need 2.5 million. I only have to do that again some 12 times.

Is there a reasonable way to actually gain XP in Heavensword/Stormblood for DoH classes at all? Something that doesn't involve hours of work for, maybe, 10% of your TNL?

And why are there no catchups for returning players/newbies? You surely don't expect said players to stop and grind up scrips for the previous expansion's endgame gear? You don't do that with Battlecraft gear, why do you do it with Trade/Gathercraft? Why are the first SB tools 62 instead of 60?

The crafting system had so much promise... but sadly you turned it into this horrible sloggy grind that's just plain not fun when I need 20+ materials to make 1 thing, especially in the beginning of a new expansion. Why would anyone want to take that long gathering materials, when they will probably out-level the piece of gear made from said materials faster than it took to actually gather and make?

What happened to the *reasonable* recipes we had back in 2.0? What happened to do the days when you had 75-80% starting success rate on new gathering nodes? Why did you guys feel that this needed to become a terrible grind that takes hours?

[MN_14]

What kind of stats do you have? You should be able to comfortably handle crafts up to around level 57 or 58 even using the artisan's gear from ARR (~450-480 craft and 407-425 control).

For the level 60 non-star master crafts, a level 55 DOH set is fine as long as it's melded with some CP.

I never bought a single piece of DOH scrip gear in HW. You shouldn't need them.

Edit: Just checked your lodestone profile and your stats should definitely be good enough. Your left side is already the level 58 set.

For catch-up, I'd recommend reading Caimie's guide: http://ffxivrealm.com/guides/ff14-advanced-crafting-guide-part-3-heavensward-by-caimie-tsukino.156/

I'm not sure if you attempted the 3* and 4* master crafts back in ARR but there's a bit of a learning curve to crafting beyond ARR's level 1-50 non master crafts. The HW level 51-59 crafts are leveling recipes, but they require the same kind of techniques as ARR master crafts to HQ effectively. Using some CP food might help a bit.

[Maeka]

Meh. It still doesn't solve the fact it takes hours to gather the materials needed to craft one single item, and the fact I don't have that kind of time very often, nor do I want to spend the ridiculous amount of time running all over Ishgard trying to gather up 30 some materials to put into a single item that yields jack all for rewards when turned in for a levequest.

I suppose, however I could see if I could at least get this stupid carpenter's quest off me that wants the HQ bow..

UPDATE: Got a couple ideas from that guide, but they mention having far higher CP than I do... though I did manage to HQ that bow and can HQ Lv50 stuff comfortably, and Lv51 stuff sometimes if I have HQ materials. Still seems far harder than it should be, though. Needing food, lots of melds, and junk like that just to do stuff like the basic crafting quests...

I suppose I could do some blue scrips, got nothing else to do while I wait for Moogles to level me to 60. Might have half of my tools by then lol. At least they are slightly better than Lv62 tools.

[ChameleonMS]

In Heavenwards SE took a policy of increasing the time sink needed for DoL / DoH, in order to "slow down" crafter progression, keeping casual and elite closer together. This was an awful attempt to lessen the gap between the Elite and the casual crafter and it failed miserably, to point of increasing the divide. The Favour system (and the mats acquired from them) became something only the most hardcore players even bothered doing. I am a dedicated casual (getting 2-3 hr of game time each day); the favour system was so time onerous, I gave up on it almost immediately; as did many others. Thankfully, SE disposed of it by 3.3, instead they brought in crafting difficulty that was so high, we needed 50+ step rotations (curse you Maker's Mark) to HQ the items.

The system appears to have been improved in Stormblood, as most end game rotations currently appear to be in 30 step range. There are decent number of 1 or 2 mat recipes for levelling. The biggest hill will be stats needed to make the crafts. My best advice, stick with the lv58 set you currently have, until 61 then purchase a set from the vendors in Rhalgar's Reach or Kugane. Getting from 60 to 61 is pretty easy with GC turnins. Moogles are useless once you get to 60. As for melding, CP is king after hit stat minimums.

[MN_14]

Thankfully, SE disposed of it by 3.3, instead they brought in crafting difficulty that was so high, we needed 50+ step rotations (curse you Maker's Mark) to HQ the items.

The system appears to have been improved in Stormblood, as most end game rotations currently appear to be in 30 step range. There are decent number of 1 or 2 mat recipes for levelling. The biggest hill will be stats needed to make the crafts. My best advice, stick with the lv58 set you currently have, until 61 then purchase a set from the vendors in Rhalgar's Reach or Kugane. Getting from 60 to 61 is pretty easy with GC turnins. Moogles are useless once you get to 60. As for melding, CP is king after hit stat minimums.

I found that final crafts were actually much quicker in HW compared to ARR. Each individual synth in HW was longer, but you didn't have to HQ as many items. Also, back in ARR, an effective strategy meant you would be using an average of 40 or so steps anyways because you actually had to spend more CP per craft compared to how much you used in HW (while starting with a much lower base CP). So instead of flawless synths taking up steps, you used tricks of the trade a whole ton, like up to 8-10 times per craft and therefore had to refresh SH2 more. It was harder to reliably craft from 0-100% so for ARR 4* gear pieces, you really did want to start with at least 1000/5600 quality or so in case you couldn't build 11 stacks of IQ.

By HW, you could reliably craft anything from 0-100% so you could save a ton of time by NQing all intermediate materials. Overall, it was much faster to mass produce HQ weapons, gear, and tools.

[MN_14]

UPDATE: Got a couple ideas from that guide, but they mention having far higher CP than I do... though I did manage to HQ that bow and can HQ Lv50 stuff comfortably, and Lv51 stuff sometimes if I have HQ materials. Still seems far harder than it should be, though. Needing food, lots of melds, and junk like that just to do stuff like the basic crafting quests...

How are you crafting? You shouldn't be needing to meld unless you have too little CP. If you can get around 380-390 CP with food, you'll be fine.

The basic idea is that you want to complete your progress with as few steps as possible while not overspending on CP. Quickly, filling up the progress bar until only one final CS2 is required is an effective strategy.

Then the rest of the remaining durability is used to build IQ stacks up to a maximum of 11 before you finish by using great strides and byregots blessing to fill the quality bar to as high as possible. Use tricks of the trade when good procs show up and use excess CP for durability restores and/or precise touch. If your level is below the recipe level, you'll want to use ingenuity 1 or 2 prior to byregots.

Unless you're way over-leveled and over-geared, you should also be using rng based, but CP free skills like hasty touch and rapid synthesis as your main skills for quality and progress.

[DruakH]

I would love a way to do batches at a time. Taking a minute to craft a single HQ lumber gets very taxing after a while. I know there is quick synth, but unless you are overly geared it just ends up failing or NQ most of the time. Just something to speed up the process because sitting down to craft feels like a full time job at times.

[Maku]

If these kind of "annoyances" where not part of the system everyone and their mother would have all crafts and gatherings levels and there would be no market.

[Niwashi]

I would love a way to do batches at a time. Taking a minute to craft a single HQ lumber gets very taxing after a while. I know there is quick synth, but unless you are overly geared it just ends up failing or NQ most of the time. Just something to speed up the process because sitting down to craft feels like a full time job at times.

I wouldn't mind a way to adjust quick synth so that it could get raised success chance at the cost of lowered HQ chance. I definitely don't think you should be able to batch HQ materials, but that could at least improve your chances at batching NQ ones, leaving HQ as an accomplishment for those willing to do them individually.

[Vidu]

I would love a way to do batches at a time. Taking a minute to craft a single HQ lumber gets very taxing after a while. I know there is quick synth, but unless you are overly geared it just ends up failing or NQ most of the time. Just something to speed up the process because sitting down to craft feels like a full time job at times.

My semi-solution for that is a macro that I click while watching a movie and doing some rl-crafting while waiting for my character to finish hers...