Retainer Level?

[Deli]

Oh... yay... SE really hates gathering don't they? From the videos they've shown, it's pretty clear the new gathering system wasn't designed for gatherers. Now gathering is "a chore" that you can get an NPC to do for you?

Way to keep telling us to do something us. Here's a shocker, some of us actually enjoy gathering. I'm really afraid of what you guys did to fishing...

wait... what video... why is it not for gatherers?
if it's from alpha test...and the point is about sharing location with others...
from someone's magazine translation, the new gathering point will be only for you only. you will not share your point with other person.

it's too early to say about this in-game-bot gathering thing... maybe when you send it to gather whole day, it only return 20 pieces...that you can get these in 10 mins.

[LlenCoram]

wait... what video... why is it not for gatherers?
if it's from alpha test...and the point is about sharing location with others...
from someone's magazine translation, the new gathering point will be only for you only. you will not share your point with other person.

it's too early to say about this in-game-bot gathering thing... maybe when you send it to gather whole day, it only return 20 pieces...that you can get these in 10 mins.

The videos they've been showing, the early views. I realise it's alpha and things are meant to change, but it's a pretty telling direction they're taking it in. What I'm talking about is the overall design. Run to tree, click tree, pick item, roll dice, rinse and repeat. In the old (1.0) system, gathering required, if not skill, at least the semblance of skill. It needed you to know where things were and how to get them (nodes, notches, whatever). In the new system it looks like it's all laid out for you. It's weird, sure, but that's fine. My biggest problem is that they've turned the entire profession into a random number generator. In the old system, if you were good, you were guaranteed _something_ every single chop/swing/jig. With this new system, it looks like you're subject to the whims of a dice roll.

From what the videos show, it's really clear what idea they want for gathering. That idea is speed. They don't care about skill, or know-how, or anything. All the new system cares about is how fast you can get what you want. It's a gathering system built entirely for crafters.

I'm sure it'll change at higher levels, and that all they've shown us is really low-level stuff, but still. It's scary, and any gatherer who truly enjoyed doing it in 1.0 should be scared.

A chore? I think crafting is a chore SE, why not let my retainer do that for me?

[Deli]

I'm sure it'll change at higher levels, and that all they've shown us is really low-level stuff, but still. It's scary, and any gatherer who truly enjoyed doing it in 1.0 should be scared.

A chore? I think crafting is a chore SE, why not let my retainer do that for me?

oh. I actually sort of enjoy the new gathering more with the abilities involving in the later stage.
Skills can be used only when you continuously hit on stuffs. So, a lot of time, I strategically hit the low lv items first to ensure I can pop the skill. Then, I switch to higher lv item that has much lower %, but now the % doubled. if I failed any one of the low lv item, then I straight go hit the higher lv items... later the debate for skill uses will start to become do I want more quantity or do I want to more gathering chance...? for lving, it is do I want to hit low%/high exp item or high%/low exp item...

to me, I think the mini-game changed from precise action game to strategic game. I guess that's where some ppl <3 some ppl </3

[LlenCoram]

oh. I actually sort of enjoy the new gathering more with the abilities involving in the later stage.
Skills can be used only when you continuously hit on stuffs. So, a lot of time, I strategically hit the low lv items first to ensure I can pop the skill. Then, I switch to higher lv item that has much lower %, but now the % doubled. if I failed any one of the low lv item, then I straight go hit the higher lv items... later the debate for skill uses will start to become do I want more quantity or do I want to more gathering chance...? for lving, it is do I want to hit low%/high exp item or high%/low exp item...

to me, I think the mini-game changed from precise action game to strategic game. I guess that's where some ppl <3 some ppl </3

I can absolutely see the appeal, don't get me wrong, but I don't like that it's all RNG now. Honestly, I hope I'm so wrong about my assumptions that everyone in the community laughs at me until the end of time. I'll gladly take that if I can set myself up on the cliffs of La Noscea and fish for 10, 12, 15 hours straight like I used to in 1.0. All I want is my fishing back. If the new minigame is absolute loads of fun higher levels, then that's fine.

I just hope I'm wrong.

[Rylock]

oh. I actually sort of enjoy the new gathering more with the abilities involving in the later stage.
Skills can be used only when you continuously hit on stuffs. So, a lot of time, I strategically hit the low lv items first to ensure I can pop the skill. Then, I switch to higher lv item that has much lower %, but now the % doubled. if I failed any one of the low lv item, then I straight go hit the higher lv items... later the debate for skill uses will start to become do I want more quantity or do I want to more gathering chance...? for lving, it is do I want to hit low%/high exp item or high%/low exp item...

to me, I think the mini-game changed from precise action game to strategic game. I guess that's where some ppl <3 some ppl </3

In 1.0 I could gather items higher level than me through strategy and skill. I worked out a method to optimally identify where a new item was in the "strike" minigame, and to figure out its "depth". After encountering it a couple of times, I would begin to recognize it by its remainder bar length, and be able to strike it correct on the first try. In cases where 2 items shared a remainder bar in a zone, I would strike the more common one, or the higher level one first depending on whether I would get 2 more strikes and neccessity. When maxed on that class, I would tune my gear so that in areas where I felt confident I would sacrifice gathering for perception and deal with the occasional 2-strike, in higher-risk areas or when I was distracted I would stack gathering and just 1-strike everything. In Iron lake, where the item levels were low and none shared a remainder length, I could tear through nodes with one strike 100% of the time and hit the NEW AND IMPROVED gathering cap in about 90 minutes.

What I have seen of gathering in 2.0, to identify an item you hit 3 shards in a row, activate your % boost, and roll the dice on a 25% chance. If you identify it, and the item is higher level than you, you proceed to not gather it since the chance to succeed on stuff higher than you, even with the % boost, was awful.

The system in 2.0 appears to lack any real depth and didn't seem finished, I understand what we have seen til now is alpha and subject to change, but "chore" comments do not fill me with enthusiasm.

[Godking]

Oh... yay... SE really hates gathering don't they? From the videos they've shown, it's pretty clear the new gathering system wasn't designed for gatherers. Now gathering is "a chore" that you can get an NPC to do for you?

Way to keep telling us to do something else. Here's a shocker, some of us actually enjoy gathering. I'm really afraid of what you guys did to fishing...

Going to have to agree with you on this one. I LOVED 1.0's gathering system. Now it's just click on what you want and there you have it. That's lame and way too uninteresting. I understand you're trying to cater to casuals, but jesus.

[Akira_Tenshi]

Oh... yay... SE really hates gathering don't they? From the videos they've shown, it's pretty clear the new gathering system wasn't designed for gatherers. Now gathering is "a chore" that you can get an NPC to do for you?

Way to keep telling us to do something else. Here's a shocker, some of us actually enjoy gathering. I'm really afraid of what you guys did to fishing...

Quit over reacting. This doesn't stop you from gathering does it? It will just provide you a bit of extra help and you could always you know just not ask your retainer to do it. I imagine retainers will be able to do other chores as well such as crafting and repairs maybe. This is not Square Enix saying gathering sucks go do something else.

[KiraHime]

I was sure I saw mentioned in Reinhart's thread something about retainer gathering and the inference that it was more shard related, as crafting was supposed to be more shard intensive in 2.0. I can't find the post now and it may have been rampant speculation anyway. However as someone who broke literally thousands of fish for shards, I can see this as an acceptable 'bot gathering activity' for a retainer as the impact on the economy is a minimal one and as shards are in themselves now an item that can be targeted via gathering.

I may be wrong and some people may have made their gil in 1.0 by breaking the level 1 fish in LL and reselling, but from my experience shards were passed from non crafting friends onto crafters more than ward selling. Regardless, there was already in place a method of obtaining shards at a very low cost per unit (as low as 1-2gil) so I don't see this as a massive impact on the economy. Like most people have posted on here, I wouldn't be supportive of a 'gather x number of y item' system for retainers even if it was limited to NQ only.

Gathering is only one possibility for a leveled skill however and I'm sure SE are thinking of multiple other options. Shopping for example was mentioned in Triary's post on this subject.

Again I'm sure SE has their own ideas on how to implement this but as an example you use a UI similar to the buy function used to be in the player bazaar. You chose an item, specify NQ or HQ, a volume required and a max unit price. The retainer then searches the wards at preprogrammed intervals, 1 hour 4 hours or whatever SE thinks reasonable and purchases items that match your criteria in the wards at that time.

Again this would be a basic thing and I'm sure your retainer wouldn't be able to search for materia melded items as the variability would be too annoying to program (I assume with my lack of knowledge), but this is another example of a basic task that could be entrusted to your retainer.

Another option would be at certain levels you could summon your retainer to you at aetheryte nodes to exchange gear items between your inventory and theirs, which I'm sure some people on gathering binges would find useful.

As was posted previously, for balance reasons if your retainer was assigned to any of these various tasks they would not be able to hold open a bazaar for you in the market wards as they would be moving elsewhere. This would also help the overcrowding issues people experienced in 1.0 where the Ul'dah wards were almost permanently full. Again this may be addressed in other ways already, but it would help create a faster turnover.

That is just my speculation on some of the possible features anyway. Perhaps people have other ideas on what features they might like to see? I haven't included the ability to summon them in combat like FFXI's Adventure Fellows as I personally believe that role will be fulfilled more by our chocobo's in 2.0 as they have tank, DD and healer options for being summoned in battle.

[HiirNoivl]

We have not received any details on what retainers will be gathering. The shard comment was made by a user.

I think bot seaching the wards is bad but if we could use our retainers to search the wards for prices while I am in the field that eould be nice.

[LlenCoram]

Quit over reacting. This doesn't stop you from gathering does it? It will just provide you a bit of extra help and you could always you know just not ask your retainer to do it. I imagine retainers will be able to do other chores as well such as crafting and repairs maybe. This is not Square Enix saying gathering sucks go do something else.

It's not just the retainers being able to perform this "chore" of ours, it's everything we know of the new gathering mechanics. It's not a question of just choosing whether or not to use my retainer, it's that the entire system seems like it's being dumbed down and turned into an afterthought, something you don't want to do but have to do sometimes.

Again, I really hope I'm wrong, and when the beta hits and I finally get my hands on fishing, if it turns out to be the best thing ever you can be sure I'll be the first screaming from the (NDA approved) rooftops abput how good it is. For now, it really feels like they're turning gathering into an afterthought. This recent retainer thing is just another little piece of evidence for it.