Crafting in General - OMG Fix It

[Lionix]

It takes 10,000 iron nuggets a level on blacksmithing towards the middle of the home stretch.

Holy freakin' CRAP, is this true?! 10,000 nuggets for a level?! Please tell me it's just that it's because it was a horrible grinding option or something!

Even with my whole "Eh, I don't grind to get to the end, I just enjoy the ride and "live it" until the end just shows up all of a sudden" playstyle, that 10,000 synths (assuming they are all successes, right?) is just... outstanding...

[Radaghast]

I think he meant it takes that much to get through those levels, not one single level. 2,500 synths of iron ornamental heads would be well over 500k sp.

Still I guess those that rode the doblyn era got lucky. I pretty much got fed silver/brass to the point I barely had to mine them. Got miner to 32ish just mining iron for asm and bsm exclusively.

[Peregrine]

Argh 1000 iron nuggets a level. Up to like 1600. Not 10,000. Sorry lol.

[Shikaree]

I seem to be having an odd unlucky streak lately where I get to my last synth before the level up and somehow the game figures I should fail it in every possible method.

Considering I did a bunch of previous synths before it just fine, I find this weird.

[zzapp]

I started this thread in March, with periodic rants and raves. Well... I'm back again. Why? Because I can't help it lol. It's like after crafting x amount of time, a certain rage builds up and I just have to vent.

While I am well aware the develpment team is primarily focused on delivering the new battle system, I do hope they haven't lost sight of the fact that some very major changes are warranted and needed here, and I hope the change is forthcoming sooner than later. With this game being so crafting-concentric it's impossible to not be impacted by the overall issues with the synthesis system.

For those not familiar with my prime bitch, allow me to summarize here, to preclude having to go through 21 pages of posts. Simply put, I'm of the silly belief that the higer rank, the simpler the synth, and the likelihood of HQ increases. I.E. - you put in the work, you should be rewarded accordingly. Having grinded my carpenter to R50 I became increasing annoyed when walnut mask fail attempts were greater @ R48 than @ R43. That's right, my fail % was actually greater @ R48 than when I first started grinding on them @ R43. This is just plain wrong, and while I do understand the need for some degree of RNG in the coding, or crafting would be even more boring than it already is, the system fails to adequately reward skills and rank, accordingly. Furthermore, there is zero doubt in my mind that there is some periodic (I call it) rage mode in the coding. How many times have you been synthing right along, with reasonable success/fails only to, all of a sudden, experience 7-8 failed attempts in a row? No one is going to convince me that this is pure RNG. It happens way to often. This is cop-out coding, and is just plain unacceptable for a game of this intended stature.

While I still continue to experience the issues cited above in some of the local leves I've been doing now for 8 ranks, and my recent grinds in leather and alchemy (><), nothing is more evident of the system inadequacies as in my most recent endeavor to craft myself an HQ crab bow.

I spent approximately 3 full days farming aldgoat horns and HQ +3 hippo sinews, as well as HQ +3 red coral. I've yet to farm the HQ megalocrab shells. Anyhow, I had enough materials for 14 oak composite bows with reasonable HQ materials. I waited for new moon (call me superstitious lol), went to Gridania and got T3 support, used food. (Note: I have very good crafting gear, including a +1 MH, and I have Perfection - working my way toward HoTG.) Oak Composite Bow is a R35 synth, and I'm R50.

1st synth - I fail the first 6 attempts. No bold attempts, no hitting pulsating orb, just plain working my butt off to even make the bow ><

2nd synth - the synth goes unstable on the very first attempt and I can't get it to stabilize with wait or other actions.

3rd synth - the synth goes unstable twice.

Getting the picture? To make a long story short, I ended up HQ +1 3/14 bows. Interestingly enough, my 2 highest quality synths did not HQ, as the HQ's were rather random, as they tend to be. Nothing better portrays the issues with the current synthing system better than this session, and, as you might guess, is the major reason for this latest rant.

Incidently, for whatever reason, I seem to be failing alot of repairs this week, for whatever reason. While this is more an annoyance than anything else, I did want to point out I set a new, personal record on a failed attempt rank discrepancy. My R43 weaver failed to repair an R14 cotton doublet vest, which means that an R4 weaver could succeed on a repair that my R43 weaver failed on. Please ><

[Colt47]

The problem with the crafting system is that it's issues are so vast that it's difficult to even list them all. I've already stated my thoughts on the current system over in the thread involving the whole auto-leveler idea, but yeah the system is also exceptionally random with results, which from observation seems to be pretty much frustrating people who managed to get past the rough start and entered the deeper end of the whole crafting pool.

[zzapp]

Today I decided I need to start collecting buffalo skins to make the final stretch on leathercraft. So for the time being, the focus of all local leves, for me, has shifted from SP to reward.

To further demonstrate just how broken this system is, I took an R1 leve from Ul Dah, sheepskin workboots - only doing the 4 requred items, and I failed the first 3 attempts on the first synth, going (progress/durability hit) 3/15 4/15 5/15. I failed the first attempts on all 4, and one the first two attempts, with multiple fails on every synth.

My god, this is an R1 leve and my leathercraft is R45. This is just so broken. ><

[Nuinn]

My issue with crafting is a bit different. I'm not so much bothered by inadequate recipe ranks or durability loss/elemental instability, it's something different. I apologise about the long post, but here goes....

I agree that it's not an afk-fest like in most MMOs out there, different yes, but I wouldn't call it 'best ever' or even good for that matter.

Here's why; I can't say I've encountered a single person since release that genuinely enjoys focused crafting as their primary class. When I say focused I mean people who chose crafting professions as their primary, dominant, ones. People that they're actually engaged with crafting in XIV, rather than watching a film on TV while pressing enter/confirm.

That's the issue I have with crafting. I can't say I hate it as it is, but I'm certain I don't really like it either. I like that you actually need a certain degree of skill and gear setup to craft successfully, especially if going after HQ results. It's better than just leaving your PC on afk mode, but I cannot stand in its defense when the majority of people who are primarily crafters go on autopilot and spam confirm all the time. Why is that so much different, or 'better' than having afk crafts like some other games? However, I do think that the system, as it is, does function well for the casual crafters. The thing is though, in XIV, unlike in other MMOs, crafting professions are not just a side job. They're (supposedly) equals with DoW/DoM/DoL.

For casual crafters, if you do a couple of local leves and grind-craft for an hour every other day it's not as bad, but reaching the cap is a whole different issue (incomparably slower to ranking battle classes), and I think the same applies to Disciples of the Land, while we're at it. And sure, grinding up battle classes with leves or grind groups isn't the most fun thing to do either, but I don't want to stray from the topic too much.

I just feel ridiculous when I hear people say that they love crafting but then go around saying 'Oh god I have 500 fish to turn into crystals. Going into robot mode for an hour talk to you later' or they keep saying how they're falling asleep when they craft :/

I can't really think of a smart way to 'fix' it, don't think the devs can either. The two things on top of my head would be; Allow automated/afk-crafts for recipes 10 or 15 ranks below yours, or improve the reward factor by making progress faster (by increasing sp gain).

Then there's the issue with lenghy crafting animations and too many clicks involved per single craft, and Hasty Hand will only get you so far, which I think still persists, even though they somewhat reduced the clicking through menus.

I loved crafting in mostly any other MMO I've played. I loved leveling it just so I could be able to wear different clothes than the majority of players. It's a silly reason but I got fun out of it, but XIV just makes my brain go numb, many times over, before I get to that point.

With all this in mind, I can't say I blame people for botting really. I reckon they're reasoning is 'I could sit for 2-3 hours in one spot just pressing confirm, or I could go do something else that's more fun with my time while the bot does the work'. And you shouldn't need to read a book or watch TV while you're 'playing' a game in the first place SE makes new and bit more elaborate systems, to make them more fun and to prevent RMT from easily operating, but I don't think they fully explored all the aspects of them. Or their perception of what fun is might be quite different o_O Need to find a better balance between time spent versus reward factor I'd say.

Anyhow, if you've read through all this congrats, your patience ranked up to R40, at least!

[Icopico]

I just feel ridiculous when I hear people say that they love crafting but then go around saying 'Oh god I have 500 fish to turn into crystals. Going into robot mode for an hour talk to you later' or they keep saying how they're falling asleep when they craft :/

I can't really think of a smart way to 'fix' it, don't think the devs can either. The two things on top of my head would be; Allow automated/afk-crafts for recipes 10 or 15 ranks below yours, or improve the reward factor by making progress faster (by increasing sp gain).

Then there's the issue with lenghy crafting animations and too many clicks involved per single craft, and Hasty Hand will only get you so far, which I think still persists, even though they somewhat reduced the clicking through menus.

Yeah, i totally agree with this post, you just painted the exact situation in all the server.

Let's make some examples: I really Like mining, i really do!!!

But how come i couldn't go past lvl 14? Because i realized these 2 things.

1st leve ever (comparing thaumaturge to miner) =

THM = end up at lvl 8-9 with brand new spells to try out!
MIN = you mine 3 nodes, end up at lvl 3 with nothing new (oh right...that skill that says where the nodes are. how exciting )

exping =

THM = you can share your leves, link them, set the stars difficulty. and the monsters (so the strategy) changes at every different leve.
MIN = mine nodes alone if you want to do leves ( obviously can't link them or share them, because you're getting way TOO many exp to be allowed to do ALSO THAT... /sarcastic off ) OR if you want to do grinding .....always mining nodes alone.

So not only the exp'ing process is 10x slower, but is also the same exact process from lvl 1 to 50.
And same applies for Disciples of the Hand, with the addition of spending money to lvl up.

[zzapp]

Might as well add this to the list of 'brokens'.

Today I had to make up some chips for my leathercraft - chestnut (R9), walnut (R3), and pine (R1) with my R50 carpenter. I could have equipped Hasty Hand and buzzed thru them, but with the walnut logs @ 5K each and always the chance of out and out failure, I went the long route. I figured I'll still buzz thru these using rapid synthesis - wrong!!!
Every single attempt using rapid failed, and I mean EVERY one. I tried maye a total of 10 times and I finally said screw it, and went the long route of standard synthesis.

The more I examine the various aspects of the current synthesis system, the more disgusted I become.