Are you happy with the current state of crafting?

[Gemina]

I do enjoy crafting otherwise I wouldn't do it. There are some things about it that are frustrating and tedious. Mostly with the RNG and inventory bloat. Things like Reclaim costing so much CP only to fail at 90% after you spent hours acquiring the mats. Scrip farming causing burnout. The shear number of crystals needed for crafts, which is only going to get worse in ShB. The seemingly increased failure rates with difficult crafts and how much it sets you back, just to name a few.

Another thing that ruffles the feathers a bit is that after all the leveling and gearing up we do, we can't really contribute to restoration of Doma. I suppose you can craft mats and items and donate those, but due to shard and crystal costs it makes it a bit counter productive to your own crafting needs. It would enjoy it more if we had a more hands-on effect to these efforts, and feel it would be another great way to be rewarded scrips.

The benefits though, are well worth the struggles and steep uphill climbs to get there. Being able to self support new combat jobs I level, decorating my home, helping new players with gear upgrades, and I absolutely love cooking in this game. One of my favorite past times is gathering the ingredients I need to make food. I don't mass gather/craft food items for this very reason. Though I do wish there were more tabletop meals, and I actually get kind of jealous of how easy it is the craft such yummy food.

[Shurrikhan]

I was just thinking...

What if crafting became about our skills forcing conditions rather than RNG hoping we happen to get Good/Excellent proc?

Like if we had stuff like "Condition becomes Good/Excellent after X steps" with X being a value that scales down with our crafting skills (Rather than up to ridiculous levels as with Makers Mark) potentially with caveats (Such as the Excellent variant having reduced action success while working towards it) as well as skills that can take additional steps off the value (Sort of like the reverse of how we buff the stacks of Inner Quiet)?

So as to reduce RNG but still keep gearing up as a way to improve crafting capabilities (Also, make us not end up having to Makers Mark for 200+ steps in future content >.>)

Probably going to sound like a stupid question, but... why have RNG at all? Are there decisions that truly can only be triggered through RNG, no matter what design changes were made to the crafting skill arsenal itself?

As for the final craft, make it such that it quality must reach X to HQ; otherwise, it NQs -- that's it. Each component before that final product (i.e. initial and intermediate steps) retains its exact quality and durability going into forward, using dedicated crafting storage for that express purpose (and, ofc, the big of inventory QoL), and you're free to remake those parts as many times as you like (to a maximum of X in the dedicated storage before the worst is simplified into merely NQ or HQ). Allow for more crafting of components on the way up, with more control and a more vivid sense of difficulty.

[Kalise]

Probably going to sound like a stupid question, but... why have RNG at all? Are there decisions that truly can only be triggered through RNG, no matter what design changes were made to the crafting skill arsenal itself?

*Shrugs*

I have no idea honestly.

Hence why I like the fact that they finally added a 100% chance Quality increase (Albeit, annoying to use because you have to set up with a step of waiting... Which, on a side note, why does it cost CP to DO NOTHING?)

As well as suggesting ways to remove the RNG from the conditions of crafts.

I mean, the only notable thing from RNG is gating powerful skills behind RNG so as to not just outperform other more consistent skills.

That and, with currently available CP and Durability regeneration skills, a lack of RNG can quite easily lead into a situation where it's possible to infinitely sustain crafts, allowing anyone to easily HQ any item irregardless of their stats, with stat increases merely affecting the time it takes to complete said task.

[Shurrikhan]

Hence why I like the fact that they finally added a 100% chance Quality increase (Albeit, annoying to use because you have to set up with a step of waiting... Which, on a side note, why does it cost CP to DO NOTHING?)

You're not doing nothing, though. You're buying a reroll. Since... RNG is a thing and resets each action.

That and, with currently available CP and Durability regeneration skills, a lack of RNG can quite easily lead into a situation where it's possible to infinitely sustain crafts, allowing anyone to easily HQ any item irregardless of their stats, with stat increases merely affecting the time it takes to complete said task.

Mutatis mutandis, though. RNG is present in the current version, so in imagining any system where RNG wouldn't be necessary, we can't assume all else would be the same. I'm just wondering what gameplay would be necessarily lost from losing RNG and could not be replaced without RNG in the replacing system.

[Kalise]

You're not doing nothing, though. You're buying a reroll. Since... RNG is a thing and resets each action.

Technically, yeah. But literally the action is you just stopping and looking at your work.

Let me try doing that at my job and telling my boss "Hey, I AM working, I'm observing!"

Mutatis mutandis, though. RNG is present in the current version, so in imagining any system where RNG wouldn't be necessary, we can't assume all else would be the same. I'm just wondering what gameplay would be necessarily lost from losing RNG and could not be replaced without RNG in the replacing system.

Yeah, it's just easier to gate these kinds of things behind RNG. Since you can then reward people for using riskier strategies, without the risk of accidentally making it completely free to craft something.

Without RNG, there's just a lot less design space to work with that wouldn't end up in a situation where it was just slapping stat breakpoints as "You must be this tall to make this item" beyond well, the actual minimum stats to actually start crafting said item. Thus then leading into more macro crafting because without the RNG literally every craft would boil down to a set rotation.

It's the general issue with the concept of active crafting (As opposed to passive crafting such as like WoW where you just press craft and the item is guaranteed and the only RNG comes in the form of certain materials being produced in random quantities such as 1-3 handfuls of bolts). In order to make it actually justifiable, you need to have some RNG element that causes you to need to react to what is happening, so you don't just blindly follow a set rotation and essentially just macro your way into simulating passive crafting set ups.

The main thing is just to balance out how much RNG there is and the effects that they provide. For example, 90% chance to not lose potentially hours of grinding materials serves no purpose other than being frustrating.