Thread: 5.1 Crafting Feedback Thread

Originally Posted by tdb

On the other hand the rewards are not tradeable, so there probably isn't a whole lot of incentive for botters to obtain them. Or are you suggesting they'd enact some sort of ransom scheme where the bots will dominate the leaderboard unless you pay their owners to make them go away?

Not everyone who bots is a RMT trader. There are plenty of "real" players out there using some form of 3rd party automation to crank out crafted items while they're afk.

Do you honestly think those players are going to hesitate using that automation to get their leaderboard bragging rights when rankings are based on number of items contributed?

SE made a mistake basing rankings on "greatest contribution" instead of greatest quality. If the rankings were based on the greatest quality from a limited number of turn-ins, players manually crafting have a decent chance to end up at the top of the rankings over players who automate. When the rankings are based on how much you turn in, only those who automate have a chance to win. It's a futile effort to try to compete against those breaking ToS.

Originally Posted by Jojoya

Not everyone who bots is a RMT trader. There are plenty of "real" players out there using some form of 3rd party automation to crank out crafted items while they're afk.

Do you honestly think those players are going to hesitate using that automation to get their leaderboard bragging rights when rankings are based on number of items contributed?

SE made a mistake basing rankings on "greatest contribution" instead of greatest quality. If the rankings were based on the greatest quality from a limited number of turn-ins, players manually crafting have a decent chance to end up at the top of the rankings over players who automate. When the rankings are based on how much you turn in, only those who automate have a chance to win. It's a futile effort to try to compete against those breaking ToS.

Would have to agree that a competition based upon how can do the most farming in the shortest amount of time is kinda stupid, as that just invites botting.

The easiest way to mitigate botting, is to make it so botting is less productive and/or make it so that you don't really gain anything out of botting, as you make it too risky for too little gain. But the moment you slap a competition on it, and make the terms of the competition such that it is advantageous to bot, then yeah, you're basically throwing the doors wide open and inviting them in.

While I said earlier that I do not believe we should be detracting from players' enjoyment in an attempt to kill bots (IE, FFXI fishing, as per my earlier example), I don't believe that we should design new content with a total disregard of bots, either. Some of your suggestions are good ones, like jack the quality of the Lv80 items up so high that it is literally impossible to 100% and then make it so that the top players are the ones who win, because you'd never bot if you were trying for the highest quality. That's actually a rather good suggestion, and I don't know why they didn't do this already.

Other than the fact that getting the best would require absolute BiS and they probably didn't want players feeling pressured to obtain BiS ASAP in time for this event.

Originally Posted by Jojoya

Not everyone who bots is a RMT trader. There are plenty of "real" players out there using some form of 3rd party automation to crank out crafted items while they're afk.

Do you honestly think those players are going to hesitate using that automation to get their leaderboard bragging rights when rankings are based on number of items contributed?

Okay, those players might be a problem in the beginning. How long they are a problem depends on how many top entries get the rewards.

Looking at the great company rankings on Lodestone, it doesn't seem like there's too many botters engaging in that. I could probably get to my server's top 10 if I wanted. But I guess maybe GC seals have been around long enough to not be interesting anymore.

Originally Posted by Jojoya

SE made a mistake basing rankings on "greatest contribution" instead of greatest quality. If the rankings were based on the greatest quality from a limited number of turn-ins, players manually crafting have a decent chance to end up at the top of the rankings over players who automate. When the rankings are based on how much you turn in, only those who automate have a chance to win. It's a futile effort to try to compete against those breaking ToS.

Yes, single (or few) high-quality returns would have been better. It might not deter bots that are programmed cleverly enough, but at least macro crafters could not win just by spamming lots and lots of items. And obviously the items should have uncapped collectibility, or at least a ridiculously high number that no one can reach in order to avoid ties at the first place with perfect scores.

A quality over quantity system would've worked out better in general.

It's less of a grind if there's a limit to how many turn-ins you can make weekly and it gives the bots less of an advantage to boot.

Originally Posted by KageTokage

One of few things they seem incapable of doing is distinguishing tugs because every FSH bot I've seen just reels in literally everything they hook instead of gauging tug time/strength to increase the odds of hooking something desirable.

To be fair, I kind of suck at that irl too... <.<

No really, I do. Took me AGES to work out how long was too long for sweetflesh oysters. And even then I caught far more other fish than I wanted.

On a side note, is anyone else concerned with the kind of action changes they're planning to make after the last overhaul? Putting the new Ishgard stuff aside (which sounds like it won't function with macros anyway if you need to try and force a particular condition), I use macros religiously for most of my normal crafting. And I'm a little worried that they're all going to break again and force me to redo them all. Again.

Originally Posted by Kytrin

To be fair, I kind of suck at that irl too... <.<

No really, I do. Took me AGES to work out how long was too long for sweetflesh oysters. And even then I caught far more other fish than I wanted.

On a side note, is anyone else concerned with the kind of action changes they're planning to make after the last overhaul? Putting the new Ishgard stuff aside (which sounds like it won't function with macros anyway if you need to try and force a particular condition), I use macros religiously for most of my normal crafting. And I'm a little worried that they're all going to break again and force me to redo them all. Again.

I suppose that depends on what you consider "normal crafting". I don't think they'll make too many changes to the basics that any crafter is using regularly. I can see changes being made to anything that end game crafters rely on, especially the actions that rely on or are extremely powerful with the special conditions.

I don't see the problem with having to rewrite macros in a game that isn't static. Things change, we adjust to the changes. Making new macros doesn't take that long and will last a few months until the next set of changes, whether in gear or action effect.

Originally Posted by Jojoya

I suppose that depends on what you consider "normal crafting". I don't think they'll make too many changes to the basics that any crafter is using regularly. I can see changes being made to anything that end game crafters rely on, especially the actions that rely on or are extremely powerful with the special conditions.

I don't see the problem with having to rewrite macros in a game that isn't static. Things change, we adjust to the changes. Making new macros doesn't take that long and will last a few months until the next set of changes, whether in gear or action effect.

Sorry, I thought I was clear on that. I meant anything not Ishgard Restoration related. And I realize we have to update macros every time there's an update, but considering we JUST got a major overhaul... you'll need to forgive me if I'm a little concerned about having to go back and rework not just my endgame macros but every single leveling macro/rotation I've given to people after only 3-4 months.

I'm mildly bothered by the fact that they didn't bother adjusting the success rates of melding despite the other changes they brought to it.

Hopefully that's just something they forgot to mention or are saving for the more detailed 5.2 live letter.

Originally Posted by KageTokage

I'm mildly bothered by the fact that they didn't bother adjusting the success rates of melding despite the other changes they brought to it....

They did for grade IV and under.