"Overhaul" please stop.

[Daniolaut]

FFXIV is no longer failing, so there is no need to constantly overhaul everything every few patches and expansions.

Crafting and Gathering, and its systems are the only reason I play this game instead of FFXI, aside from the price, FFXIV being 9.99/month for me as I am legacy, and the updated graphics.

If Crafting and Gathering becomes dumbed down to point and click like FFXI and every other MMO, I will no longer have any desire to play this game.

Everything being easy and accessible, also turns everything meaningless, unfulfilling, and absolutely un-engaging.

There is no journey, there is no experience, there is just you pressing buttons and getting meaningless things. Some people can be artificially sated by such nonsense, most people in fact, but I dont play Final Fantasy for that kind of satisfaction, I play it because normally it has depth, thought, quality, and richness. FFXIV is beginning to seriously lack those qualities in exchange for instant meaningless gratification.

While the story is still good, the fact that everything is so trivial, and the playerbase has become nigh unbearable at either spectrum, the story cannot float this boat for me.
FFXIV is effectively becoming the worst Final Fantasy game in the series. And sorry popularity does not mean quality. In fact, popularity normally means the exact opposite.


See:
Justin Bieber, Nikki MInaj, Kim Kardashian.

Good day.

[Gemina]

And sorry popularity does not mean quality. In fact, popularity normally means the exact opposite.

This line here really struck me. I started thinking about all kinds of things I've known to be popular (girls and boys in school, tv shows, music, etc.) But it wasn't the quality of these nouns that I noticed was lacking; it was that the quality consequentially deteriorated the more popular they got. I quickly noticed that many things that have fallen out of favor with me, were once held with high esteem, and likely still would had it not catered to the lowest common denominator. Final Fantasy VII, Star Wars and Game of Thrones are other of many examples off the top of my head I could come up with that have been obliterated by their own popularity.

Of course, if either you or I were to go to a board meeting and tell them that quality is greater than quantity, they would show us a bunch of numbers that points to all evidence being in the contrary. We would also likely get told that FFXIV is an mmorpg, and that dialing in on any individual's tastes isn't in anyone's best interest except for that individual. That would be the end of it, because you can't argue against numbers unless they are incorrect.

Crafting and gathering is something I still greatly enjoy above everything else. However, I also don't craft and gather like everyone else; or rather, not for the same reasons most do. When I notice 90% of the crafters in over-melded facet gear don't have their own signature on their gear, it makes me wonder how many players actually enjoy crafting and gathering. I have found that the lowest common denominator seeks instant gratification, takes the easy and fast road, and don't care at all about the journey and aim straight for the destination.

What this basically all means is that for me to enjoy an mmo experience, I have to accept that I am playing an mmo. I have to go out there and find things I enjoy instead of focusing on what I don't, because there is going to be a good amount of both in a thriving mmo. If the day comes that I can no longer find enough things I enjoy, then my FFXIV days will have come to an end. I guess you just have to ask yourself if the boat has already sunk or not.

[SamSmoot]

When I notice 90% of the crafters in over-melded facet gear don't have their own signature on their gear, it makes me wonder how many players actually enjoy crafting and gathering.

I leveled my gathering and crafting simply because I refuse to pay MB prices for crafted stuff. I made all my HQ facet gear, and have only sold the few items I made from excess gathered materials after I completed my piece.

Crafting itself is a chore to me, Hours gathering all the materials, looking up the rotations, testing them on a simulator, then hoping it comes up HQ.. The only thing I've crafted in month is a pair of neo-ishgardian gloves and the supporting materials.

[Raven2014]

Crafting and gathering is something I still greatly enjoy above everything else. However, I also don't craft and gather like everyone else; or rather, not for the same reasons most do. When I notice 90% of the crafters in over-melded facet gear don't have their own signature on their gear, it makes me wonder how many players actually enjoy crafting and gathering.

Uhm, it depend on what you define as enjoyment? It could be someone who goes all in "gathering is so fun and OMG I love crafting so much!!", and that someone ... is not me. I still craft thing, and my enjoyment is defined at the point "that I make a lot of saving making my own gears". I don't really sale stuff, and I tend not to be very active during the "catch up" patch cycle where the new gathering/crafting set are released. For example, in this patch cycle I only got back to crafting when 6.4 was close to release. I didn't feel like to farm my own mat and made my own set of crafting/gathering gears. I play on multiple chars, and I want to gear up each char with at least 2 jobs, sometime three, that means it would cost me A LOT if I buy all those gears of MB. So ... my enjoyment here comes from the fact I don't have to spend 20-30mil on gears. I don't "enjoy" gathering/crafting in the "yippie yippie" sense, but that's not a bad thing, it's just a mean to an end. From level, gather, to crafting and selling, to saving and making gil, that's just a process. And people can enjoy different part of that process.

I have found that the lowest common denominator seeks instant gratification, takes the easy and fast road, and don't care at all about the journey and aim straight for the destination.

The whole "it's about the journey not the destination" mindset is merely one option, and I don't find that option is any more superior than to the others, i.e the people who prefer to focus at the destination. As long as they don't complain about it themselves later. Say, your destination is a beach in another country. You may try to take a road trip there, enjoy the scenery and all that before reaching the beach, that's fine. But if other people prefer to just board a plane and fly straight there so they can spend more time enjoying the beach, I don't see anythign wrong or bad with that.

[EaMett]

This is a normal trend in MMOs. Once you've established yourself as a game for enthusiasts you need to dumb things down over and over to cater to a wider and wider public. Eventually the game loses all substance and everything goes downhill from there.
I'm hopeful that one day, someone will get it right. And to some extent FF14 devs are aware of this and that's why we have content like ultimates that only cater to a tiny player base. They said they would make some really hard crafts in the upcoming patches, lets see how that goes.
But I wonder sometimes if it's enough, the current state of healers is a perfect example of how harmful the process can be.

[Nandrolone]

This is a normal trend in MMOs. Once you've established yourself as a game for enthusiasts you need to dumb things down over and over to cater to a wider and wider public. Eventually the game loses all substance and everything goes downhill from there.
I'm hopeful that one day, someone will get it right. And to some extent FF14 devs are aware of this and that's why we have content like ultimates that only cater to a tiny player base. They said they would make some really hard crafts in the upcoming patches, lets see how that goes.
But I wonder sometimes if it's enough, the current state of healers is a perfect example of how harmful the process can be.

I absolutely agree with OP on every point he has made. Trust me, I know all companies want is money/numbers. That’s all that matters to them. However, maximizing those numbers should also be a priority. You cannot maximize numbers if you’re only catering to one audience. (Casual oriented stuff) Because if you cater to both types of audiences (casual players and serious players) you get the most out of those numbers.

As for crafting. I’ve been a hardcore crafter since ARR, currently have several billion gil, and I can say with certainty, that crafting is not fun anymore to me. I used to enjoy how complex the crafting system was. I actually didn’t use macros, I manually made my gear, it was fun and engaging. Now, that HQ Touches are all 100% guaranteed and there is no variety or skill involved (literally you just spam 1-2 macros) ....I just essentially stopped competitively crafting. And like OP said, dumbing things down to a point, makes it to where things are not rewarding or valuable at all. I don’t even craft anymore because of the unnecessary simplicity, and am waiting until my sub runs out. I’ll try the Expert Recipes in 5.2, but I doubt it’ll be the same at all.

The whole “Expert Recipe” Ranking thing just seems like a “Hey! Like hard crafts? Well guess what! You can do those endlessly.....without any meaningful rewards! No gil! No exclusive rewards! Nothing worth of value! All you get are mounts, and minions....and titles! Isn’t that great!”

It’s like....I understand you don’t want people feeling left out, but at least be reasonable when implementing such features.

[Brightamethyst]

No exclusive rewards! Nothing worth of value! All you get are mounts, and minions....and titles!

Um... what? Aren't mounts, minions, and titles the very definition of exclusive rewards in an MMO?

[Nandrolone]

Um... what? Aren't mounts, minions, and titles the very definition of exclusive rewards in an MMO?

Items that can be sold/traded on the marketboard, etc, are not exclusive. Locking them would be. Also, mounts + minions + titles are the 3 most useless things in the game for a crafter. Something useful for crafters would be: exclusive gear, tools, or just a way to earn gil.

[Vidu]

Items that can be sold/traded on the marketboard, etc, are not exclusive. Locking them would be. Also, mounts + minions + titles are the 3 most useless things in the game for a crafter. Something useful for crafters would be: exclusive gear, tools, or just a way to earn gil.

Titles are exclusive - they very much cant be sold on the marketboard.

Same goes for most mounts, the exception being the ones from PotD and HoH, aswell as certain Eureka-ones. All other mounts have to be earned through achievments or actually clearing the content they're tied to - often some of the more (or most) difficult content, aka raids and Ex-primals (and while both get easier over time, you'd still get quite a while of "prestige" out of those mounts if you earn them at the time they're current).

Minions are a bit more accessible, true - but even there you have some that cant be traded and are locked behind achievments or similar things. I'm not really sure why they stopped doing that tbh.

In regards to rewards for crafters I dont quite agree with your propsals here - especially with "or just a way to earn gil". At least not until they add stuff that actually costs tones of gil. I've been crafting since ARR, I own a mansion, I gave several friends money to buy their houses and by now I've pretty much stopped to make money - I've got several hundred million gil lying around and nothing to spend them on. Why should I bother with a "way to earn gil" if theres nothing I can do with those gil afterwards? I know that some people have this goal to reach the maximum amount of gil possible, but thats something that seems utterly use- and meaningless to me and doesnt feel like a reward for anything.
Gear and tools... well, those to me are only means to an end tbh - getting a better tool would only mean that crafting gets easier so I could craft more so I could earn more useless gil... doesnt seem great to me...
Mounts, minions and titles - or other form of "glamour"-items (maybe some exclusive glamour-gear instead of stuff that actually has stats?) - seem way more rewarding to me than just something that would make crafting easier or add more money, that has no use, to my pocket.

[EaMett]

The whole “Expert Recipe” Ranking thing just seems like a “Hey! Like hard crafts? Well guess what! You can do those endlessly.....without any meaningful rewards! No gil! No exclusive rewards! Nothing worth of value! All you get are mounts, and minions....and titles! Isn’t that great!”

I will admit to worrying that expert recipes would just be gated behind stupid stuff like either gear or low hq rates regardless of rotations. I can't see how they could push people into getting original with rotations for these recipes without at least reworking the specialty skills.
I used to get original with rotations and really pull some consistent specialty rotations out of nowhere that meant I could 100% HQ stuff with bad gear and I loved it. When the initial rework hit I lost the ability to do that and had to upgrade my gear to even get me back to where I was. I'm afraid we'll never see that aspect of crafting again.