Request for better challenges and better rewards (Formal Letter/Megathread)

[Aurida]

Look, this thread is supposed to just start healthy discussions

Yes, and the original post did a brilliant job of exactly that, going into the history of 'hardcore' crafting and how it's changed for the better. The casualization of the game is its own, intertwined topic- it's not just crafting or gathering, but also the raids, which bowed to the will of 'casual' players moving on from ARR into HW with the introduction of a story mode, and further in HW moving from the brutally punishing Gordias/Midas to Creator, a tier so easy it was literally fully cleared with 8 tanks.

This is a level of mechanical difficulty the devs have explicitly stated they're aiming for both in multiple interviews, live letters, and in the design of all of the tiers since.

Ultimate stands above and beyond the Savage tiers both in terms of the gear rewards, which are practically non-existent in that they have a full one materia slot above the Savage weapons.

I bring all this up and explain it to you because it is exactly what a healthy endgame for crafting content should look like- you have a clear progression through the tiers of making your own items to using those crafted sets to go about not only doing the content you've already done with a greater degree of leeway but ALSO to attempt the hardest content in the game- Expert recipes, which are literally only for glamour rewards and a minor, borderline non-existent stat bump, if that.

Now that we've established these similarities and parallels, let's re-contextualize some of the suggestions that have been brought up. How about a weekly lockout on attempting fights? You get five attempts at a fight per week and then that's it. How about if you needed to spend some of your weekly tomestones to become eligible for chests at the end of a successful run of a Savage floor? What if you needed to clear a floor's normal mode eight times per one time you queued into the savage version? Or if you couldn't ignore item level requirements when queuing?

These things sound ridiculous but their crafting/gathering equivalents have literally been brought up in topics on this board, with the purpose of making it more inaccessible to 'casual' crafters who don't have access to the time or resource sinks necessary to participate meaningfully in 'hardcore' crafting, and then the extra establishment of gil as a primary motivator and putting 'grandmaster' recipes in a special place where they're the only things worth spending said gil on, ensuring that only those dedicated enough to it are the ones profiting from it.

In conclusion, if there's any 'hatred' to be projected, it's over the idea that endgame should return in any respect to being something with so many barriers to entry that it becomes intrinsically inaccessible to all but the most chosen few. I have no problem with 'savage' crafting. What I have a problem with is that the only crafting worth doing should not start at 'ultimate'.

[Liam_Harper]

I agree with pretty much everything suggested here. The only thing I'm unsure on is returning weekly Scrip caps. Certainly make scrips (especially the high tier) harder to get, it's a joke right now, but I dislike having a weekly cap since it limits your activities if you finish early. If I love crafting/gathering and want to go nuts all week, let me. Time limited mats that have an alternative but harder method to farm extra, like desynthing high end stuff, is fine with me.
I'm open to discussion on that though.

HW was indeed a love-hate thing and I know a lot of crafters who actually burnt out on it and quit entirely. I feel there's a middle ground there, where they can make it far more challenging but not painfully punishing. If we start saying "bring back HW" and they have data of a huge decline in crafters around that time, they won't take us seriously.

I have no problem with 'savage' crafting. What I have a problem with is that the only crafting worth doing should not start at 'ultimate'.

It does depend on your definition of "worth doing". Currently the only things you can really craft with Master Recipes are food, pots, the best crafted gear and the handful of Primal items and Map glam. Casuals crafters have everything else in the game. If crafting was a bit harder, the leveling sets would all be profitable. A large amount of furniture and glam is good profit, useful and accessible to the casual crafter too and there are plenty of craftable minions. Lots of mats are good profit.
A casual in ARR, HW or early SB could make tens of millions without too much time investment and buy anything, they just couldn't make as much as someone who dedicated countless hours to crafting. I don't see that as a bad thing.

There are arguments for moving food and pots down a tier. It's also debatable whether the next best gear in the game after Savage should be so accessible, since that invalidates a lot of raid/dungeon content. There are overmelded 480 sets everywhere. I think having the rare Primal items and Map glam hard to get for the tier is fine.