DoH revamp, please.

[Ashthra]

So I'm trying to level my Weaver. I've gotten more sleep in the past three days after fifteen minutes each of crafting than I've gotten in the entire week previous when I wasn't playing FFXIV at all. I like the concept of the game's crafting, but in reality, attempting to level any DoH is about as pleasant as gouging my eyes out with a rusty metal spork. Particularly, the fact that it can take up to two minutes or more per craft to get your experience -- modified by a larger exp intake than your battle/field classes, certainly -- coupled with the pseudo-thoughtlessness of it, really makes DoH the weakest class archetype.

I know I'm gonna get flamed to hell for this, but I figured I'd offer some sort of suggestion besides saying, "Hey, this part of the game really blows," so here's what I propose. Scrap the current system completely. Instead of a craft taking two minutes, it should take 15-30 seconds at most, with choices being made in real time to determine whether or not the craft will succeed, and whether or not it will be a HQ or not. Make the choice system closer to the Mining minigame, with careful crafting is closest to the center, standard being about middle, and rapid being at the fringe. The color display of the craft, unlike the current version, should actually fluctuate in real time (at a flat 5 second interval), and if they don't already, the colors should denote which 'type' of craft would be most beneficial:

White - high chance of standard craft success/low for careful/very low for rapid,
Yellow - high chance of rapid craft success/low for standard/very low for careful,
Red - high chance for careful craft success/low for rapid/very low for standard,
Purple - equal chance of success for all three (but rare to see),
Flashing - RNG (ribbed for your pleasure).

Yes, it's Rock Paper Scissors with an added element of Hot and Cold. Simple games, but easy to pick up, intuitive, and if done right, addictive as hell. Anyway. Instead of 'durability', you have a timer of 30 seconds, and your goal is to meet a quality threshold before that time is up -- the more 'crafts' with the bauble you can make in that 30 seconds, the higher the quality will be, of which a certain will be required before it's considered complete. To prevent someone with a turbo controller spamming their way to HQs, every time you successfully 'craft', it forces a color change, keeping it lively and forcing you to pay attention. (Also, color, while denoting what it's 'best' for, does not mean other crafts aren't possible; just like now, high level DoHs will have a decisive advantage with success/HQ dependent on their level vs. the level of the craft.)

Now, I can imagine the problems already; namely, latency would cause huge issues for the non-JP players out there, but then, non-JP players have to deal with the wonderful latency in battle/field classes*, too -- because you actually have to pay attention. Numbers and ideas could be fudged around to make it more lenient to others, or to make it less adrenaline pumping and more of a fun minigame to play while passing the time. But the fun part is kinda required, and is very much missing right now.

For the sake of any trolling, I'll answer them here and now:

1) No, I don't want the game to get loleasymode. I want the game to not be terrible and boring. Crafting is terrible and boring. (And no, it's not that it's "not for me" -- I crafted in FFXI, happily, which was unequivocally an even more terrible and boring system. But at least it was a fast terrible and boring system.)
2) If Hasty Hand is required to not want to commit suicide while playing a core part of the game, that core part of the game needs to be looked at.
3) No, I don't want to invalidate the work of those who had the insanity/fortitude to actually level one or multiple DoH classes to max. I want to make sure that they enjoy what they do.
- a) If you actually enjoy what you do now, more than you would with a system like this, I'm pretty sure our views may be incompatible. (As a compromise, it may be possible to recreate 'Wait' as a kind of pause button for the craft, but using the command will halve your next craft's quality increase to prevent gaming the system.)

/equip body "Flame Suit (Blue)"

* - ...Well. Maybe not field classes. They could do for some loving, too.