Does the firmament make you enjoy crafting a lot more?

[DrWho2010]

to me they just looked at the numbers of crafters and gatherers, and previous comments in the past. numbers were low and comments were of the sort that crafting and gathering was tedious and hard to get into. so they decided to revamp things to get more people into it and raise those numbers. that's pretty much all there is to it imo.

[Bacon4Makin]

Ah dangit I accidentally made my post about crafters being easier instead of should we actually be spending development time on the firmament, I mentioned ease of leveling because they wouldn't bother making the firmament if there wasn't a bunch of DoHs, but my point is should the crafting system be made to sustain all this mainstream story and asset content

[Jojoya]

Ah dangit I accidentally made my post about crafters being easier instead of should we actually be spending development time on the firmament, I mentioned ease of leveling because they wouldn't bother making the firmament if there wasn't a bunch of DoHs, but my point is should the crafting system be made to sustain all this mainstream story and asset content

The Firmament itself is fine as a use of development resources. You don't have to have a crafting or gathering class to do any of the Firmament quests (except the ones that unlock the custom delivery clients).

If you want to be earning scrip, you can unlock a single crafting/gathering job then do the Fetes that don't require any actual crafting/gathering and don't require any gear other than a primary tool you get when you unlock the class. Scrip reward from the fetes is the same regardless of your class level so how fast you level makes no difference.

The assets are not a waste. Diadem is being reused from the original HW Diadem. The Firmament is sharing assets with the housing district scheduled to be released in 6.1.

It's been well used by players even if you see the complaints about Firmament being dead outside of ranking periods. Lacking a marketboard, it makes more sense to do your crafting where you have easy access to one then just enter Firmament when your bags are full and you need to turn the items in.

The Firmament is far more niche content than mainstream. If you want mainstream crafting/gathering, you're better off switching to House of Splendors at 50 so you can earn yellow scrip that is actually useful to crafting/gathering (XP rewards by collectable recipe level as the same whether Splendors or Firmament).

I'm honestly a bit confused about why you think the Firmament is problem content. The ranking seasons seemed to be a failure to most players but everything else has worked well.

[Bacon4Makin]

Well I'm more here to ask then to argue, I want to say that I'm aware that diadem already existed, and as for "the firmament not being mainstream" I disagree, why else would they make it contain one of the best ways to level, I honestly really doubt that all the UI, destruction, and time to figure out the rewards structure didn't take time out of say, expert roulette dungeons, something pretty much every player does.

[Jojoya]

why else would they make it contain one of the best ways to level,

Except it's not. That's bad advice that's been getting circulated by ignorant players repeating what other ignorant players have told them. it might be better than leveling was prior to Shadowbringers. It is not better than other options for leveling in Shadowbringers. Detail about why it's bad is better left for a different thread (I might write that up later today).

We'll just have to disagree about whether Firmament is mainstreaming crafting/gathering in any way.

When it comes to how I view crafting/gathering, it hasn't changed anything for me. It's the other changes that SE has implemented this expansion that has changed how I view crafting/gathering.

[Seleni]

I rather like the Fêtes actually. It’s a fun series of mini-games, and you can get good items if you’re lucky. The sea of giant stuffed moogle is probably worthy to be featured on promo videos.

By the time I’d gotten to Ishgardian Restoration my server’s already done, so I don’t know what it was like during the restoration phases. But rather than it being purely for ease of leveling crafting (there’s already custom deliveries, supplies & provisions, and leves for that), I felt it’s more as a gathering place for DoH/DOL, in addition to for lore purposes.

The Fêtes also allowed a continuous flow of what players used to get through skybuilder scrips and kupo tickets. With the restoration grind done, the supplies were probably dwindling and could have caused prices of those items to spike up in the marketplace.

And the firmament layout apparently is a blueprint of the upcoming Ishgardian housing, so they would have needed to put in some resources anyway.