Feedback/debrief on Ishgard Restoration from a Triple Saint crafter

[axemtitanium]

I just wanted to put my thoughts down about my perspective on Ishgard Restoration after achieving Saint on all three phases as a crafter—what worked and didn't work, what could be better, what I'd like to see in a future version of this content.

Saint is achievable by anyone without killing yourself
I started recording the amount of time I spent crafting during each ranking starting with the 2nd ranking. I ended up only needing to craft for about 2-3 hours a day for the 10-day ranking period in order to get Saint. I spent a bit more time on this round because I was considering going for #1, but I would have only needed to craft 1 hour a day if I was only going for Top 12. Except for the most competitive and populated servers (e.g. Tonberry, Balmung, etc.), this seems to hold true regardless of server. See this spreadsheet to see how your server stacks up; the vast majority have cutoffs well below the 2-3 hour/day benchmark. Obviously 2-3 hours a day will eat up a significant amount of your daily play time for most players but that's to be expected out of a competition. In short, you did not need to spend an unhealthy/unconscionable amount of time if your only goal was Top 12. DoL on the other hand is another story........

The shape of competition needs work
All that said, ranking is still a numbers game in terms of hours spent. Don't get me wrong; I think expert crafting is an interesting puzzle that I commend the devs for designing to be close to (in-game) macro-proof. Especially with the new conditions from this last phase, the crafting puzzle itself is in really good shape. It's the shape of the overarching competition which needs rethinking. As I said, time = ranking. More time = higher ranking. With a 10 day long ranking period, you see some people hurting their bodies (or resorting to bots, see below) to get an edge. As far as I can tell, the length of the period is arbitrary; it could just as easily be 5 days or any other number of days and it would be just as competitive but for a shorter length of time, which might lead to less no-lifing. But that would just be a band-aid on the system and still have the problem of time = ranking. Some people have suggested limited turn-ins. Or a hybrid system where the first X items you turn in per day are worth more. Anything that decreases the incentive to no-life and abuse your body with extreme play time would be a benefit in my opinion.

Yoshida promised "graduating out" and what we got was... something else
In an interview shortly before SHB launch, Yoshida said that in order to "avoid the same top tier players from dominating it every season, they designed it so you can graduate and be done with it after you are rewarded for being top a single time". Note that this is a fan translation of an official interview so nuances may be lost. It's not clear whether he meant that people who rank top tier will be barred from competing again or if they will be allowed to compete but with no additional rewards. Regardless, the intention seemed to be to let people who got Top 12 and Saint title "graduate" and not have to compete again in later seasons if they don't want to. This interpretation is common in this thread in the JP official forums.

Prior to 5.31, Yoshida announced in a LIVE letter that there would be brand new titles for the 2nd ranking, asking for feedback. People revolted because they were afraid they "missed" the title. Meanwhile, achievement hunters like myself buckled up to rank again after previously believing we were done and could take it easy/slow with the new season. Lots of suggestions were flying around including combining the achievements so new Saints would get the old title and achievement from ranking in the new season. Instead we got a weird hacky solution, where there are multiple achievements that award the same cosmetic title, but there are separate listings for the same title in your title list. Speaking only for myself and the other high end achievement hunters I've talked to about it, this solution did not have the intended effect of deterring us from competing again (and "occupying" spots that could have gone to new people). There's a new achievement so I went for it. I would have preferred not to have to go hard on the rankings again but that's what happens when you tie achievements to things. If they picked any one of the other solutions that kept the "graduation and don't need to do it again" idea that Yoshida first proposed, this could have been avoided.

Botting is a problem
The B word. I don't have much more to say that others haven't said better. The evidence out there is clear as day for both DoL and DoH being able to be botted. The spirit of competition is undermined when people aren't on a level playing field, whether that's account sharing, multi-boxing with mirrored inputs, or actively botting with a 3rd party program. There's still time before rewards go out to investigate and ban/suspend players who cheated in some way to achieve their ranking. I hope the Special Investigation Team is more proactive next time to stop people from even doing it in the first place.

Where to go next?
To be completely honest, I don't think we need a new Ishgard Restoration-type content in 6.0. Restoration paired well with the crafting and gathering changes that occurred over the course of 5.X. It got lots of people into crafting and gathering and gave them a speed boost to catch up with leveling if they needed it. Leveling DoL/H has never been particularly hard or time consuming but it is a bit daunting to think about leveling all 11 at once from scratch. Ishgard Restoration accomplished addressing that problem, so they're in a better position to level to 90 next time. Certainly there are places we could go restore, but I don't think there's a pressing need to have another thing fill this content "slot" in the next expansion, especially without sincerely reimagining what the competition will consist of (see my point above). A one-expansion gap between Ishgard Restoration-type content to help people "catch up" with leveling is probably the right move.

[tymora]

Speaking of bots...looks like Chaos/Ragnarok/Weaver just got whaled.
https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...=Chaos#ranking

My feedback (reiteration from last round):
1. Please use the new Rowena turn-in interface.

2. Split achievements and titles. Titles from top 12. Achievements from score. That way, people who already won the title once don't have to fight again.

3. Ban the bots please.

4. Perhaps give daily rewards for being in the top 12, instead of a one-time reward at the end.

5. Per-data center rankings. It is unfair to players on crowded servers.

6. Implement anti-bot measures.
a) Limit turn-ins per day to a reasonable amount. If by points, perhaps 100k. If by number of items, equivalent would be around 250 (at everage of 400 per piece) and roughly 5 hours of non-stop crafting. Lower (~50k) if want to consider keeping players healthy. This may also force people to do only expert recipe turn ins and not the easier-to-bot recipes.

b) Expert only recipe during duration of competition. Or maybe have 2 sets of points to allow people not taking part to accumulate players and merge the points after competition.

c) Vary the crafting UI at least daily during duration of competition. Change the layout/notification and/or colors.

[LalafellDown]

I don’t like the design behind the restoration. Its bare bones. The gathering isn’t fun. The competition isn’t fun. The team work isn’t fun.

I see why people use bots to gather. You collect 10 of the items needed the same way and nothing changes. Why 10? You repeat the gathering over and over again. It’s not fun it’s a chore.

Stop with these simple mini games that get stretched out as far as an ocean, but are as deep as a puddle. It’s too simple and doesn’t hold well in the long run.

I wish there was more to the gathering. It’s so boring. After you gather the first node, that’s it. The game has shown you what you will be doing for hours. Why is this acceptable. Bare minimum shouldn’t be milked for cash.

[Caimie_Tsukino]

First of all, I'd like to commend on this thread set up by axemtitanium. Feedback/debrief/reflective exercise like this is paramount to game improvements, and will serve to benefit both the developers and the players.

Saint is achievable by anyone without killing yourself

I think this depends on which server/world you're on and which class you picked by luck... Some places like Zalera was really easy-going, while others may require somewhere closer to "killing yourself". On the other hand, DoL is really ridiculous. One can spend like an hour in Diadem, and yet you can get only about 800 skyward points. WHY? Why torture DoL?! Why 10 pieces of ores can only be converted to 1 approved ore? It makes absolutely no sense! 1 piece of ore should be converted to 1 piece of approved ore. The skyward points earned by DoL needs to be... NOT doubled, NOT tripled... but 10 folds more!!!!

The shape of competition needs work

Yoshida promised "graduating out" and what we got was... something else

Yes, there are certain a number of problems with the mode they chose to run this. I hope they really fix this ranking system. Currently, it's a little messed up.

Botting is a problem

Unfortunately, I don't think there will be any good solution to it. It's quite difficult for them to collect evidence, and to actually ban someone. As far as I've known, they have banned tons of accounts involved with RMT (which the RMT people just re-created a million account to replace them), but they are not really actively banning people who are botting unless the specific people publicly admit themselves botting.

Where to go next?
It got lots of people into crafting and gathering and gave them a speed boost to catch up with leveling if they needed it. Leveling DoL/H has never been particularly hard or time consuming but it is a bit daunting to think about leveling all 11 at once from scratch. Ishgard Restoration accomplished addressing that problem, so they're in a better position to level to 90 next time.

I actually disagree. Yeah, it got thousands of people to max out their DoH classes, but only a handful of them actually understands how to craft... Most of them don't think twice what the buttons do, and how to combo buttons at all. All they care is that, after reaching lvl 80, they got titles, benefits, can use macros, and can use Trained Eye to one-shot-HQ any low level items etc.

I think the way they made it SOOO easy to go from lvl 1 to 80 was just WRONG. What they should have done, was to make lvl 1 to 60 or perhaps 70 easy, but leave at least 10 to 20 levels tough before reaching level 80. Imagine if SE made it so that it's super easy to level ALL DoW/DoM to 80. People won't learn how to actually play those jobs while leveling, and it's not even FUN leveling them. And the end result, is half the world population being 'tanks' who don't pop tank stance, use defensive CDs or even hold aggros.

You could say Ishgard got lots of people into the crafting game, but 8/10 don't even know what they're doing... And people were thinking about team crafting? Oh boy, imagine the DF pairing you with 3 other "crafters" who don't pop Inner Quiet...

I see why people use bots to gather. You collect 10 of the items needed the same way and nothing changes. Why 10? You repeat the gathering over and over again. It’s not fun it’s a chore.

Stop with these simple mini games that get stretched out as far as an ocean, but are as deep as a puddle. It’s too simple and doesn’t hold well in the long run.

I wish there was more to the gathering. It’s so boring. After you gather the first node, that’s it. The game has shown you what you will be doing for hours. Why is this acceptable. Bare minimum shouldn’t be milked for cash.

That's exactly it. Why 10? There are even times I get only like 600-700 skyward points in an hour for my Miner/Botanist from Diadem. It's boring! It's a chore! It's sickening! And this is indirectly promoting botting.

[Espritduo]

I think this depends on which server/world you're on and which class you picked by luck... Some places like Zalera was really easy-going, while others may require somewhere closer to "killing yourself". On the other hand, DoL is really ridiculous. One can spend like an hour in Diadem, and yet you can get only about 800 skyward points. WHY? Why torture DoL?! Why 10 pieces of ores can only be converted to 1 approved ore? It makes absolutely no sense! 1 piece of ore should be converted to 1 piece of approved ore. The skyward points earned by DoL needs to be... NOT doubled, NOT tripled... but 10 folds more!!!!

Not sure if you understand how DoL points work. The turnin is 1:1, but you can only turn in sets of 5, which isn't a big deal since you gather from nodes in sets of 5 as well. Each set of 5 artisanal mats gives you 3 scrips and 13 points, with weather node mats give a slightly higher payout. Overall the payout is fine, the only thing I would change is make weather node mats worth much more since as it stands they are worth almost the same and that makes them not even worth breaking away from your route to get them.

Typically, even a mostly afk youtube watching gatherer can bang out 1200-1500 mats per hour, with optimal gathering strats maybe getting as much as 2000 per hour. Just to make sure nothing has changed since the last time I gathered before 5.41 (was fishing this time), I just spent an hour gathering while I typed this and watched a youtube video ranking One Piece openings. I got 1690 artisanal mats and about 600 regular level 80 mats for a total of 6147 points in one hour. So not sure how you're getting only 800, that is almost criminally inefficient and a sure sign something is being done very wrong.

As far as the rankings go, if you're only goal is to be in top 12, you only need to spend a few hours, for one day, and that will usually give you enough points to be on any of the top 12 boards for any of the crafters, assuming you know how to do expert crafts. If you're not that great, double it to two days and even a terrible crafter should still be in the top twelve. most top 12's for crafters were only around 250k points, some MUCH less. Assuming you average 1000 points per turnin, that's only 250 turnins, which can be done in a few hours of crafting. If you are not great at expert crafts and your average is only 500, that's still only 500 turnins, which spread across a couple days is no big deal, and spread across ten is super casual and achievable for anyone no matter what else they have going on.

Gathering requires a bit more time committment but the tradeoff is it is much easier to just pick up and do, and you can easily do other things while you're at it. As far as fishing goes, just doing it 5-6 hours a day for all ten days will get you around 500k points, which will put you in most top 12's. Mining and botany require more time investment since there are even more of a pure grind, but 8 hours a day for 10 days will see just about anyone into the top 12. 8 hours a day is alot, but most people who play the game in any serious sort of way probably already put those kinds of hours into the game in general anyways. It's just a matter of shifting priorities for ten days.

As far as botting goes, it exists. That's about it. It is not as common as people think, and I am willing to bet money not a single #1 on any server was a bot. There were bots in the rankings absolutely, but a dedicated player always beats out a bot. Always.

If you really wanted top 12, you could get it, no matter what excuses you may give. I got #1 and #3 Fisher on the last two rankings while working a full time job. I got #1 Fish this time AND ranked #4 in the entire world when I took time off and didn't have a job holding me back. I did not sacrifice my health or sleep to do it. I slept 3-4 hours per day ( my normal sleep is only 5-6 hours to begin with), even more on a couple days (which is what cost me #1 in the world), and I felt fine during the competition and I feel fine now. You have time to eat, drink, see your family and whatever else and still compete, even at the highest levels. People citing health concerns overblow the actual toll something like this takes on a healthy person. If you are unhealthy in general, this isn't a good thing to do, but if you are in good health and sound mind, 19-20 hours of monotony and 4 hours of sleep is not really anything the human body or mind can't handle, at least for a short time like 10 days. If people didn't eat, drink, whatever, that was totally unnecessary for whatever goal they might have shooting for in this competition and they have no one to blame but themselves for their own irresponsibility.

[Liam_Harper]

I feel the whole ranking side of the restoration should have indicated several things to Enix.

-Ranking (with a handful of exceptions) is extremely unpopular. When Yoshi considered a new title for Season 2 there was an uproar. People simply didn't want to do it again, they were glad it was done and behind them. The 10 day window promoted unhealthy behavior in what is otherwise relaxed side content.

-Expert crafts are highly popular. Season one had lots of participation on all worlds and tons of theorycraft and discussion. A considerable number of people liked challenging content rather than having it handed over on a plate.

-The only reward for coming top 12 is prestige yet this was enough for tens of thousands of crafters. Players like prestige. They like accomplishing things and reaching goals. The mentality we've developed of shunning the desire to accomplish things and labeling those players as filthy showoffs has to end. Players get bored easily without an end goal and a vision.

Assuming you average 1000 points per turnin, that's only 250 turnins, which can be done in a few hours of crafting.

You cannot do 125 expert crafts per hour.

You could say Ishgard got lots of people into the crafting game, but 8/10 don't even know what they're doing... And people were thinking about team crafting? Oh boy, imagine the DF pairing you with 3 other "crafters" who don't pop Inner Quiet...

Agreed.

What they did was get people into crafting who hated it, but wanted access to all the rewards and items it gave. They still hate crafting and don't know how it works or even want to learn really, but now it's low effort enough that they've been persuaded to suffer through to reach the end goal.
To Enix, this looks like a success. Participation has jumped significantly. In reality the number of players who really love crafting has significantly declined.

[hqdm]

ya, I feel it made little sense to halfway on the title but still include unique achievements; not only Saint but the green ones as well.

1st season I went all in trying to figure things out, but resulted in a bit inefficient play from being mentally exhausted with the grind, a lot of time tabbed out, etc. resulted ~1.2m point
2nd season reduced play time to ~5hr day, was more productive, but also knew what I was doing, resulted ~1.5m point
This time around it bad timing for me, quite busy, other things to attend to, was only able to play ~22hr. I missed 1st day, played 2nd-4th, and a bit of 5th, but still not much competition, ended safely with ~.5m, but Sarg not a super server or anything, medium sized I think. Still, if you compare 12th from S2 to S3, results are quite similar (and low), so as you mentioned, the bar to rank isn't terrible, particularly if you pick an off-class with little competition. My fc mate able to rank on 2-3 hrs a day, starting midway too.

I feel like for these particular events, preparation is quite important, in the sense of:
- max melds + materia prepared to remeld
- 10-20m gil set aside for materials (which will pay itself back in scrip), as it rly isn't worth the time to gather yourself
- food/syrup
optionally
- extra materia + items to sell during the ranking rush
- delineation stockpile
- fc buffs

That said, I spent a fair amount of time casually crafting scrip items during the rank period to sell/use.
Delineations sold quite well this season.

Anyways, I like the feeling of the excitement + rush during the event, and figuring out new challenges + breakpoints, but not the feeling of "must login xiv for 10 days straight because of time-limited achievements". Though, in that respect, a lot of the other activities in the game are softly time-limited, since it's quite hard to do certain pvp modes or Eureka/Bozja instances after the initial rush. Mixed feelings I guess

[Jojoya]

The competition should be redesigned if SE intends to bring back the content in some form next expansion.

Make players register for the competition. It could be as simple as having a quest that rewards the player the conditions needed to participate. That way those who don't care about rankings aren't competing against those who do. State a deadline that competitors must submit their work by and allow them to choose whether they do it all in one day or spread out over several days (as long as it's all done by the deadline)

For crafting, give the player a set number of materials to make their submissions. Make the materials irreplaceable. Allow practice through Trial Synthesis.

Set the max rating high enough so it's impossible to obtain, leaving room for crafters to push to get rating as high as they can. Make every potential submission count so competitors need to do their best to complete the craft instead of abandoning it after a string of bad RNG at the start. If they're given materials to make 200 submissions and screw up so synthesis fails on 10, then they only submit 190 instead of 200. RNG is a normal part of almost every competition but cumulative skill will generally overcome any isolated RNG outliers if the number of attempts is high enough.

Make it a single competition for all crafting classes instead of 8 separate competitions. There is no need when every class has the same actions and is affected by stats the same way. It's sad to see someone get 350k points and just miss a title while someone with less than 200k points gets it when both were doing the same thing.

As for gathering - make quality count. Gathering lacks the conditions that allow skill to show in crafting so adding meaning to actions other than +yield can at least introduce a strategy component through use of GP. Set up a "practice course" that would allow gatherers to see node bonuses (if any) along with the effects of quality versus yield so they have something similar to trial synthesis. Disable use of cordials while in the competition zone.

Set limitations on time or gathering attempts. If you want to set the limit by time, grant the player a buff that is suspended outside of the competition zone or while logged out but counts down while in the zone with the player only able to gather competition materials while the buff is active. If you want to set the limit by attempts, give players a special tool that has charges consumed by each gathering attempt at a competition node. No charges left - player can't make more gathering attempts. Either allows the player to do it all in one sitting or spread it out over days.

For both crafting and gathering, keep rankings by world for those who just like competing against other they know, but also add rankings by data center and globally for those who want to compare themselves against players around the world.