MY feedback on the Crafting changes and Ishgard restoration

[Paddycakes]

Hello, (theres a TLDR at the bottom)

I just want to share my opinions on how crafting has changed since the start of shadowbringers and why I myself have had so much trouble with my desire to play the game. I know this is probably going to be an unpopular opinion and everyone probably loves how easy crafting is. But I wanted to share my feedback just based on the fact it would make me feel better.

Crafting for me has been my main gameplay since early stormblood. I know that’s not very long, but I was intimidated by crafting at first like a lot of people. I stuck to gathering through ARR and heavensward just because it was easier to understand. I did get 2-3 crafting jobs to 50 back in ARR but it’s not something I spent a lot of time doing outside of getting my supra weapons. But when stormblood released I decided it was time I would buckle down and learn how to craft.

I did a ton of research on how endgame crafting worked and how to go about finding the right macros, materia builds, and knowledge needed to make endgame crafting work for me. I loved the complexity of it, I thought it was so cool that I needed to be this in depth to learn how crafting works. I felt like I had a leg up on my competition in the market and it made me feel good.

Leveling crafting back then was dedication for me. I know it was easier than it had been with the introduction of moogle dailies but to me it still required time to see it through. I had friends help me craft levekits and slowly got myself to all 50s omnicrafter, at the same time I was doing moogle dailies every day. People who know me know that I hate dailies and I only do them when necessary which shows how dedicated I was to getting my crafting up. When time came for me to go the final stretch to 70 I did somet research how to get to 70 without having to craft grind and I found a list of levekits I would make on my own for the most part. So I got the materials together and got to work. The day I hit all 70s omnicrafter I was incredibly proud of myself, it felt like I finally achieved something that was worthwhile in the game. It was a huge marker in my ffxiv career for me and I loved it.

I have never been great at the combat mechanics in this game. I never wanted to learn the hideously long openers for the classes I played, and I didn’t want to find a group and invest the time needed to become acclimated to savage content. So for me, crafting has been where I push my limits on what I can do in ffxiv. (Continued in next post)

[Paddycakes]

After I accomplished that I settled into high end crafting for the fc I was in (savage raiding fc, but I supplied their consumables/gear). It wasn’t a big job as we were a small fc but I had found my niche as the guilds only high end crafter. Having the feeling of having a niche was a great thing, something in my fc I was never really challenged on. I spent many a night crafting high end food and potions for raid the next day. It was something I loved (atleast for a while, until the night I spent 6 hours making buff food. That’s not SEs problem though)

I think ive spent enough time on my backstory lets fast forward to now. Shadowbringers has almost completely changed the crafting scene. With the many patches for ease of use, ease of leveling, and increasing the amount of omnicrafters on each server.

In the initial release, I was enjoying the changes greatly. I loved that we had the crystalline mean to help get some of our crafters on the fast track to 80. I thought it was a nice idea to give us a way to get started on endgame crafting again. After some time playing the new content I decided I was burned out on ffxiv for a while and took a break to play wow classic as I didn’t want to miss on my trip down memory lane.

At the start of the new year I decided to poke my head into ffxiv and see how things were going, I had heard there some major crafting changes announced and I wanted to check em out. Wow were these changes major, I logged in to see what I could do with the new changes and logged into my entire crafting action bar completely greyed out, with my found macros completely useless. I was shocked and deeply disappointed in this. After doing some reading about the crafting changes I realized all the macros and knowledge I had found previously about crafting was useless. This caused me to lose my will to play until this week. Coming back this time however I just plain lack the drive or the will to relearn what I lost, atleast currently.

Im in a different part of my life that I was in my earlier ffxiv career, I have a job, im about to start going to school again (hydallyn help me), and I ,actually, for the first time have a social life. I don’t want to relearn these mechanics that I spent so much time learning initially, again.

Discussing the changes with my friends I know that they are overjoyed with how easy it is to level and get into crafting now. Friends that never touched a gatherer or crafter job are now diving into things like the fishing boat and the ishgard restoration cause they feel like it’s rewarding now and easier to understand. Seeing this I realized that the niche I had spent so much time carving for myself amongst my friend group is now gone. Everyone can craft whatever they want now that it’s so easy to get into crafting/gathering.
(continued next post)

[Paddycakes]

Im not trying to gatekeep crafting/gathering to an elite few or anything, its an eventuality that most people who want to craft will max their crafting. I just feel like the current ease of leveling through the ishgard restoration is a little much.

Knowing myself I will eventually go back and relearn how crafting works again, but I wanted to share this with SE cause I feel very passionate about this feedback. This was mostly about how it feels not necessarily how it is in reality. I will probably find it easier to craft and ever before and due to just the amount of time I spend in crafting I will again feel like im filling a niche. This is just something I wanted to say showing how big changes affect some people.

Regarding ishgard restoration, I took some time to craft now that I am playing the game again (Wrote the first part a few months ago on reddit, but posted it here for the devs to see) theres two things that are incredibly wrong with this content. 1) The leveling catch up system has completely trivialized leveling crafting as a whole. lv 80 omnicrafting is just handed to you on a silver platter and it shouldnt be like that. There should be work involved, not just sitting in one zone and going from 1-80 in every craft.

2) Now that i have arrived late the party everything is complete, i have nothing to "contribute" to. It makes me feel like what i do make and donate means nothing. Why isnt there an instanced version like in beast tribes for me to complete at my own pace? I dont get to even see my progress its just complete from the moment I step in the zone. And honestly thats pretty dishartening. After i finish getting 80 in crafting im done doing crafting as my main activity in this game. The progress means nothing now. Ill just keep them leveled and never try to endgame craft again. You guys really had a fantastic and robust crafting system until you just made achieving everything in it so easy



TLDR: Crafting was my main gameplay and I feel like they changed too much with shadowbringers that it had ruined my will to relearn it and want to play ffxiv in general.