Ishgard Restoration phase 3 feedback thread

[DoH]

I see your point now. I don’t think that most folks really care about Restoration Points or the progress of their server as you don’t have much control over that, but I somewhat agree that it is unfortunate that Expert Recipes are not the most efficient way to farm Skybuilder Scrips or Kupo of Fortune attempts. This doesn’t bother me too much, though, because I already had more Skybuilder Scrips and Kupo of Fortune tickets than I knew what to do with by doing Expert Recipes between 5.21 and 5.31. After getting all the items for myself, I ended up buying random dyes, mounts, etc. and made probably around $100 million gil from selling such rewards and items gathered from Diadem before 5.31. By the end of the most recent ranking season, it was more of a bother to have to spend Skybuilder Scrips and Kupo of Fortune tickets than anything and I only did it because it was equally annoying to click the “yes I’m sure” confirmation button that pops up when you’re maxed out.

As for hoarding, it is honestly dumb not to do it if you’re serious about placing into the top 12. I turned in over 1.3 million Skybuilder Points on the last day that I had accumulated over the 10-day period (I went from 696,969 points to 2,000,001 points), but I tried to keep it “fair” for those who wanted a shot at top 12 by at least being middle of the top 12 on my class for several days before the last day (so that me suddenly jumping places wouldn’t displace someone who would otherwise be in the top 12). I have 10 retainers and spent a lot of time before the competition giving non-market-prohibited items to alts so that I would have enough room to stockpile on 8 of my 10 retainers. I don’t feel bad for the folks that I beat because they could’ve been crafting/turning in or stockpiling just as much stuff themselves. Some did stockpile and turned in a lot on the last day on my class/server, but I had just stockpiled more.

[DoH]

Outside of the competition, increase scrip rewards and Ishgard Restoration contribution points for Expert so the amount earned per hour is at least comparable to if not better than what you'd get from turning in level 70 or 80 recipe collectables. The difference is so noticeable right now that if you're trying to earn scrip or help your world's progress, Expert is the worst option to pick.

Expert - can reliably craft 25-30 an hour dependent on RNG. At max rating, that's 2,400 scrip and 10,860 Restoration points.

Level 80 - can macro craft 100 an hour. At max rating, that's 6300 scrip and 12,400 Restoration points.

Level 70 - can 2 step (Trained Eye-Groundwork) 360 an hour. At max rating, that's 7920 scrip and 30,960 Restoration points.

That's a good example of why many crafters consider Experts dead. Unless the player wants the Pteranodon mount, the reward for the time investment is less than lower level crafting.

I agree on the having an unattainably high quality/collectability cap (that's was I also promoted on the previous page), but I think the part about crafters considering Expert Recipes dead is unfounded. I don't think that anyone thinks that. A max quality level 80 craft gives only 30 Skyward Points. You can craft these in 10 steps with ilvl 490 gear, but that's still 30 seconds per craft. Assuming 0 seconds going in and out of crafts, that's 2 level 80 crafts per minute, max. That would be 60 points per minute. Even if you did this for 24 hours a day during all 10 days of the competition (which would obviously not be possible unless someone was botting, but for the sake of an example I'm using these extreme numbers), that would still amount to only 864,000 points. That would not be enough to get even 13th place on Tonberry CUL or ALC. It may be enough points to rank on many of the servers, but it is not a difficult score to beat if you try with Expert Recipes, which give 1262 points if max quality; folks were getting upwards of 30,000 Skyward Points per hour with Expert Recipes this season. Also, as Kamome-chan mentioned, the level 70 crafts do not even give any Skyward Points, so it's either level 80 crafts or Expert Recipes. I was able to achieve the highest score on any class on my server (Gilgamesh) this time around and did so with Expert Recipes, and I'm positive that the folks who got higher scores on the other servers were also doing Expert Recipes instead of level 80 crafts (although we may craft a few level 80 crafts to fine-tune our scores to a nice, even number at the end of a day).

Edit: I think I misunderstood what you meant by Restoration Points (I'm not even sure where it tells you what those are). I guess if you really care about your server's progress then yeah, that may be the case, but I think most folks care more about their own achievements and are thus going for the 500k achievement for the "Hand of the Creator" title and, eventually, the 500k DoH+DoL mount. I knocked out most of my 500k DoH achievements between 5.21 and 5.31 and did so with Expert Recipes as it's much faster that way.

[Ashemmi]

1 - Eliminate the class categories. There are no longer actions unique to any crafting classes so keeping them separate makes no sense. Change rewards to top 100 for Saint and top 1000 for Beatus among all crafters.

Not a bad idea, except for class-based titles, which to some are significant. I use mine, for example, to give firm backing to my roleplay.

2 - Create a single recipe (available in all classes) separate from the other Expert recipes with a very high maximum Collectable rating that should be unattainable (my suggestion would be 50,000 compared to the current 8,240) and using a single unique material similar to the materials we purchase to make collectables for Custom Deliveries.

This turns in to a who has the most control, and in a perfect world averages out so that there are ties. Given a sample of 100, sadly it's a who was luckiest with the most control.

Would it surprise you to know that these crafts were much easier and consistent with higher than "The Balance" suggested craftsmanship? That type of understanding and resource usage wouldn't be an option if we're shooting for the highest possible quality.

Score is the sum of the Collectability rating on the items turned in instead of some random score assignment based on that rating. That encourages crafters to push their CP usage and Durability to maximum effect instead of finishing the craft with CP and Durability to spare. It also discourages abandoning attempts where RNG was bad at the start because even a low rating will add to total score. The number of attempts should offset any very high RNG outliers.

100 simply isn't enough to even out RNG. The rate of getting the top level prize in "Kupo of Fortune", for example is 8%. I have a lifetime score of ~1,000,000 resulting in over 200 attempts at the game. Always picking the option giving the chance at the top tier prize, I've only won 12 times. I should have 16 or more if RNG leveled out. 25% is a pretty big delta.

[Jojoya]

Not a bad idea, except for class-based titles, which to some are significant. I use mine, for example, to give firm backing to my roleplay.

The Saint and Beatus titles aren't class specific. This change wouldn't impact the class specific achievements and titles.

This turns in to a who has the most control, and in a perfect world averages out so that there are ties. Given a sample of 100, sadly it's a who was luckiest with the most control.

SE stated that prior to the Restoration's release that Expert recipes and the leaderboards would be designed to favor those who chose to use BIS melds on the crafted gear. Ties would only be likely if players could hit max rating consistently. Increasing max rating from 8,240 to 50,000 should prevent that. It could always be increased to 100,000 instead to make it even less likely.

Would it surprise you to know that these crafts were much easier and consistent with higher than "The Balance" suggested craftsmanship? That type of understanding and resource usage wouldn't be an option if we're shooting for the highest possible quality.

I have no idea what The Balance recommended because I don't belong to their Discord. I played around in Teamcraft to see what progress results I would get as my Craftsmanship increased or decreased then adjusted my melds based on that.

Anything that would make it harder to rely on outside sources to tell a player what to do seems like a good thing in this case. It's supposed to be about personal skill, not following a publicly posted template.

100 simply isn't enough to even out RNG. The rate of getting the top level prize in "Kupo of Fortune", for example is 8%. I have a lifetime score of ~1,000,000 resulting in over 200 attempts at the game. Always picking the option giving the chance at the top tier prize, I've only won 12 times. I should have 16 or more if RNG leveled out. 25% is a pretty big delta.

A perfect system that completely eliminates the impact of RNG will never be possible no matter how many attempts are allowed.

I would say using Kupo of Fortune as a comparison point doesn't work that well because the prize result is intended to have a great variance. As far as I can tell, the conditions for Expert all have an equal chance to proc. I might have a bad string of luck on one attempt but I'll get an extremely good string of luck on another.

The goal is to come up with ideas to improve the ranking competition. There's always room for improvement in any ideas. What would you suggest to improve how the ranking competition works or do you like it as is because time investment ends up being the deciding factor?

[Ashemmi]

The goal is to come up with ideas to improve the ranking competition. There's always room for improvement in any ideas. What would you suggest to improve how the ranking competition works or do you like it as is because time investment ends up being the deciding factor?

I do think that time invested should be a factor, but not the sole determination. I don't see limiting the number of crafts as a valid solution, or at least entirely limiting them. Count the first 100 at full, perhaps, then reduce in tiered steps after that. The motivation to grind goes way down based off the diminished return, it also helps someone who may have had a bad RNG day.

What is the intended involvement? How many crafts are required to push Ishgard along, and what pace does SE want to set? That's where the real math is done, because the competition drives that effort.

Rewarding someone for hard work is equal to the assertion of skill. What you'll see with a hard limit is crafters going all day, stacking up as many as they can get, then going through and picking the best ones. Ishgard won't move through the day, and that's not the objective...is it? Even in the case above of counting the first 100 at full, hundreds will be crafted before any get turned in by the serious players.

For context, I did place in the top 12, and don't consider myself to be one of the ones who gave it an unreasonable amount of time. My personal investment was 3 to 3.5 hours over the course of each day. Spread in 40 minute blocks. That amount of effort, in fairness, seems right to me for "endgame". Folks attempting the Ultimate raids often give it much more time than that.

[Zenn]

I'm going to split it up into 4 sections, crafting, gathering, diadem and other.

Crafting:
Let's start with the section I didn't directly interact with this ranking period.

Leatherworker, whatever you did to Ltw crafts I don't think you should ever do it that awkward again, this is without a doubt most servers weakest crafter in terms of output, some servers you could be top 100 after a single craft, that is just bad. There will always be the hardest crafter to gets mats for but it seems Ltw ones were just so bad people avoided even trying right the way to the end.

Expert crafts are from my second-hand knowledge were high tuned but once got in the groove relatively easy to do, as I haven't actively tried if other people who are more dedicated crafters could enlighten me it would be much appreciated.

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As far as expert mats they all come from the diadem and they're all just as easy to gather as the rest. The umbral mats being the most limiting factor but there are only 4 umbral mats and 8 crafting classes so 2 classes share mats. LTW shared their umbral mat with ARM. LTW didn't have it harder in terms of mats so not sure why there were lower outputs for LTW vs other classes.

I do think that time invested should be a factor, but not the sole determination. I don't see limiting the number of crafts as a valid solution, or at least entirely limiting them. Count the first 100 at full, perhaps, then reduce in tiered steps after that. The motivation to grind goes way down based off the diminished return, it also helps someone who may have had a bad RNG day.

This seems to have the opposite effect in my mind. If only the first 100 turn ins count for full credit you're going to spend a ton more time getting the full 8240 collectability for the first 100 turn ins and then turn in the rest. RNG hurts you more with this suggestion since you need 100 perfect crafts to be competitive in a day.

[Liam_Harper]

I really don't get the issues. It's a competition. Some people win, others lose. You don't die if you lose. And it's not the end of the world if you don't get the fancy title. O wanted to get one too, but i didnt have the time for that so... I didnt get It. Simple

It's about feedback. This is new content, the devs will be interested in hearing what we think about it. If many of us dislike it, it's good to explain why and what we feel would improve the experience for us. I have the title myself, so I "won" as you put it, but there's a lot I'd like to see changed with the system.

Jojoya's post above sums everything up perfectly. Gathering is simply a competition in surviving sleep deprivation. Crafting should indeed have been limited turn-in's of an item with an unattainable collectibility cap. The only small tweak I'd make there is giving players 105-110 of the mat for 100 turn-ins, to give a little leeway for unavoidable disconnects or extremely bad rng.

I'd like to see them do more with Expert Crafts, it's enjoyable in itself, it's just not presented in a particularly enjoyable or rewarding format so far.

[Dallis]

All these people complaining about hoarding -- it's a valid tactic. There's no legitimate reason to have turn-ins expire, this works fine just the way it is. It's your own fault for letting your guard down.

[KageTokage]

All these people complaining about hoarding -- it's a valid tactic. There's no legitimate reason to have turn-ins expire, this works fine just the way it is. It's your own fault for letting your guard down.

As people have mentioned, it defeats the purpose of even displaying the scores before the end of the ranking period.

As far as ranking competitions go, this is probably the only instance I've seen where people are allowed to "store" points for the sake of deceiving others into thinking they don't have competition.

[Jojoya]

As people have mentioned, it defeats the purpose of even displaying the scores before the end of the ranking period.

As far as ranking competitions go, this is probably the only instance I've seen where people are allowed to "store" points for the sake of deceiving others into thinking they don't have competition.

It's pretty rare to see competitions that last for 230+ consecutive hours with no limits on attempts.

Displaying the scores still serves the purpose of motivating people if they want to be on top. They know the minimum that will be required to pass the scores displayed but they'll still need to guess about what hasn't been turned in. It means people should be focused on putting in their best possible effort instead of the minimum effort they think will be needed to rank.

Sandbagging is a valid strategy in many competitions. It only becomes a problem here because of storage access. Some players only have access to 2 retainers for 350 additional storage slots. Other players have access to 10 retainers with 1750 storage slots because they pay additional real money every month. If everyone had the same access without paying more money, it wouldn't be a big deal.

Instead of adding some sort of decay system that could be difficult to program and potentially error prone, it would probably be easier to prevent players from storing collectables anywhere but in their immediate inventory (no retainers, no chocobo saddlebag, already unable to store in FC company chests). That way players are forced to turn items in before they can continue crafting. There could still be some sandbagging going on but other competitors could calculate the maximum potential, making it less valuable as a strategy especially since everyone would be able to have the same amount stored.