Thread: 5.1 Crafting Feedback Thread

Originally Posted by Jojoya

What wasn't fun about the crafting system before that deterred you from getting into it?

What makes it fun now?

The sheer amount of grinding it took to levelup, to be honest. And/or how you had way too many buttons and it was far too confusing, that most people simply just looked up whatever macros they needed.

There's really only been 2 major changes - the removal of cross class actions (which weren't necessary in the first place, they just made it possible to get HQ reliably on more difficult recipes instead of relying on RNG) and a massive increase to XP to speed up leveling. The remaining changes are relatively minor, akin to balance adjustments that combat jobs get every expansion.

You still have to use actions to increase quality and synthesis progress. You're still limited by durability and CP. You're still going to have to level up all the classes if you want to be self-sufficient or buy from other players the materials you need that aren't made by your class. You're still going to have to keep your gear up to date and overmeld it to reliably get HQ on current level Master recipes. If you suck at the math mini-game, you're still going to be reliant on Teamcraft or waiting for other players to share their macros with you so you can make those Master recipes.

The "rotations" and/or actions are far more intuitive now, and yes, the XP change makes a large difference, and it feels smoother to actually HQ items now than it did in the past, and removing the button bloat was a huge change in the right direction.

If you didn't enjoy crafting before the changes, chances are good you're still not going to enjoy it after. At its core, the system hasn't really changed. It's just quicker for you to reach level cap.

Wrong, I make stuff on a regular basis now. I only touched crafting a little before 5.1 and within a few weeks, I set out to get all the crafts on 80, do all the craft/gatherer class quests, etc, which I did in maybe two weeks. It was fun, and I enjoyed it. I still make things now and then, and had juggled the idea of getting into making facet stuff, but I don't really have the time for that just yet.

You had the option to become one of the rich players by putting in the same effort they did. You chose not to.

Or maybe I was not able to, because of IRL obligations? And besides, there's a point where established crafters were always going to "win" no matter what, and regardless of what work a new player entering the ring puts in, they are never going to catch up without some sort of re-balancing (which is what 5.1 was). You could put all the work possible in, and still never catch up to those people who had 9-digit figure bank accounts who already ruled the MB.

Originally Posted by Nandrolone

well, I first started crafting when ARR artisans gear was a big deal, right? there were only like maybe...5-6 top crafters with loads of Gil? ruling the market and pushing out anyone who entered the marketboard. back then, I was working a 9 - 5 job, and took my classes online. I gathered my butt off, to earn enough gil so I could level my crafters and gatherers, and even calculated effort spent VS time spent on certain things, and made prices through spreadsheets. I had to work really hard to compete with those top crafters, ya know. it took months to get there, but I got there. you just have to want it badly, trust me on this.

to have all that hard work and dedication removed, and yoshida/the dev team giving you the middle finger, really gets to you and makes you just lose hope for the future of the game. I know choosing the player base that nets the largest income is best, but the players you choose to ignore (the competitive hardcore peeps) will just get super depressed and not enjoy your game anymore.

and I understand not many people are willing to go through so much trouble just for some video game prestige, but for some people, myself included, it was a way to escape reality and show off how good you really are if you put your mind to it. i mean, that’s why most of us play right? to escape reality and have fun. end result was, billions of Gil, and the knowledge of making my own rotations. (I lost my passion for crafting in this game due to the unnecessary easy difficulty in everything. but when I did have passion, I went at it hard!) like I said, I’m glad you and others enjoy crafting now, but what I think JoJoya is trying to say is that for most people, not including you it seems, is that....if you didn’t enjoy crafting then, you won’t stick with it for long now.

Maybe doing all of that work was never the intention in the first place?

Maybe that was going way beyond what Yoshi-P wanted for the game?

Think about it: Most of FFXIV is more casual except for some niche content that was added because people begged for it, and such content is purely optional and set aside for them: Savage. Ultimate. Special clubhouse content set aside purely for the hardcores and only because they kept begging for its inclusion.

But then you look at Pre-5.1 crafting, esp back during HW and you saw that the entire section of crafting was way too difficult. It took 10x more work to level one crafting class than it did multiple adventurer classes. The barrier to entry was sky-high, and took all kinds of mindless farming. It was rather disproportionate, and worst of all, crafting was required for repairs and melding unless you had to pay someone else to do it (they later added an NPC to meld for you but there are limitations to that from what I understand). And of course, players charged out the wazoo from what I remember seeing in adverts for melding "services", wanting tens of K just to push a button and wait 5 seconds.

And again as I said earlier in the thread, having special expert recipes being difficult is fine with me, but making the entirety of crafting a slog grind is not.

As for the expert recipes, well. The point is to stop people from macroing them. You still have to think about the rotation, you still have to think about what you're doing. Yes, people will have rotations all figured out, and scripts for what to do when what pops, but you know what? That's basically what we have when it comes to playing adventurer classes anyhow. DPS rotations, memorizing a boss's attacks and how to react to each one, etc etc.

Seems about right.