Genuinely, What am I missing?

[Kaurhz]

Part of that is also the community though. Back in the day we didn't have tools like Teamcraft that could sim and custom build entire rotations for you to 100% your craft every time. You had to learn the interplay and push and pull between the various crafting states and maximize your resources to HQ your crafts. Yes we had more HQ mats and such, but the system overall hasn't changed much.

The community goes out of its way to simplify everything into a rote and direct way of doing things and then complains when SE takes that as feedback that we want things simplified.

Needless to say, you can't make everyone happy all the time.

OP, if you're having fun, simply keep playing and maybe consider joining an FC or one of the various XIV Discords for tips and tricks and community. The forums are where people come to yell at SE.

So whilst I agree with your conclusion that part of the issue is with the community, and that part of it they go out of their way to turn it into a rote and direct task, and that you cannot make everyone happy all the time, the rest I actually disagree with...

The fundamental principle of crafting has remained the same in that... You have a recipe, the goal is to get it to 100% on both progress and quality.. You still had tools like crafting optimizers, these always existed as far back as around 9-10 years ago, the biggest difference being that TC was the only one to get pinpoint correctness, and where it was centrally maintained, but the optimizers were largely github.io websites, and then you had Lokyst, and you had to rely on some people to fork it and make the adjustments early-patch (I am talking really early)... These were pretty actively maintained as well until Teamcraft took over. It was like a lightweight early version. But facilitated exactly the same stuff essentially as far as rotation building went. The only major difference is that as far as the solver function went, it would not generate a practical rotation.. It was only recently until things like Raphael where this was possible, which is a this expansion development.

Not only that but you had an ability suite like WWYW, which actually rewarded you for the effort you put into learning it, by being able to pull off absurd things. It was very uniquely skill-driven, on top of having abilities like Byregot's Miracle and Byregot's Brow, which if you mastered crafting would allow you to pull off a Double Byregot's.. Recipe scaling was a smidge better back then too, how well you managed your abilities, even on a macro level would allow you to do things like tea-less rotations, or being able to reuse, reclaim combo on rotations back in Stormblood. Then you had the position where even if you were low on stats, or if your favored less optimized on a step-level, but also had the highest rate of quality, or supported on the lowest stat, then you could go with rotations like Maker's Mark, and if you were willing to push the stacks to the limit then there was a lot of room for optimizing, or gaining additional quality... This was especially prominent in recipes like the original Ala Mhigan 2** DoH/L gear where you could pad out a significant number of steps to gain additional quality without necessarily having much CP loss or durability loss overall. - Small things like these, whilst they seem insignificant gave a lot more way into creating rotations, and how diverse they actually were. Things like this are utterly lost in modern crafting.. You may have never noticed these things, but people who wanted to stretch their gameplay, and push crafting as high as they could, absolutely would..Quality and Control worked differently back then too, and scaled much differently to how it does now, which facilitated such dynamic rotations and fairly long-form optimization. Like, you won't see rotations like this anymore, ever.


Due to the unique nature of crafting back then, versus now, you would actually find that many people were also finding optimized rotations even as far as several months into the patch cycle, similarly the case with meld builds. These days it is far more streamlined, partly because community, but largely because of the ability suite that actually supported crafting has been utterly gutted into oblivion.

Stormblood streamlined the recipe acquisition, but still had a lot of room for rotations, that's where things like WWYW became more practical, as that suite came with some CP nerf costs, e.g., to Trained Hand, and then you had a greater CP pool overall... Then if we look further back to the Heavensward expansion, this where it truly sealed the deal that you could be a crafter main, much like how a raider could be a raider and do only raiding, you could craft, and only craft, and still have plenty of fun without it necessarily seeming like an ordeal.

Firstly materia wasn't obtainable through scrips, you actually had to farm this, which in the case of Heavensward largely relied on player self-sufficiency. You would craft 170 Carbonweave Gear, and using this you would grind items like Camphor, since it was cheap and easily mass produced. This would get you spiritbonding, which you would use to convert to Grade IV/V materia, and you would then use these materia on your gear, or you could make a fortune from these alone, since the materia price back that ranged from 100-500K..., it wasn't until the first custom delivery client where the prices and accessibility went down. So if you really wanted to push the boundary of crafting, which was oft' necessary for items like first tier of gear, since it was not something that could be mass produced. You actually had a weekly currency back then, and then this currency was tied to what we known back then as Concealed nodes or favor nodes, where you would get items used in recipes like Astral Birch Lumber.. It was a massive investment, but it actually rewarded you for it.

Then with things like Ironworks gear for the final DoH/L set of Heavensward it used Glass Fiber, this is your equivalent to Condensed Solution for Eeverseeker gear... Except back then it was not directly tradeable with Scrips... You were either getting it from places like Void Ark, or through grinding the i180 Scrip gear at the time, e.g., Landmaster scrip, or gear like Galleykeep (Getting these was also different since you had things called counterfoils back then which required crafting very particular recipes, rather than farming Rarefied Tacos de Carne Asada ad nauseum) .. It's worth mentioning that this was with desynthesis which worked completely different back then to how it does now, since your desynthesis rate was tied directly to your desynthesis level, and this wasn't just an obscure "May increase your chances at rare items" Then we eventually had the recipes to where they were consistently using Grand Company items, this encouraged players to actually run dungeons, farm GCs, or craft items, trade those in with GCs... Needless to say how you gathered for these recipes was entirely different on a patch-by-patch basis, since the 3* and 4* items generally threw away with Concealed node items, and favored Grand Company, so this meant the feel was different, and the approach was fresh... With modern crafting I don't even need to think about these, it's just the same streamlined rote task.. Farm some scrips, farm some folklore items, craft up, job done. Due to the nature back then it also made preparation a bit more encompassing, rather than how it is now with "just farm scrips lul and Level 99 requisite recipes"... Even ARR crafting, where the gear progression was actually fun to engage with and not just repetitive.

So ye, it ain't just... "Back then we didn't have the tools" (Because we did), nor is it just "100% your craft every time back then, because there were uncertainties", nor is it "The system ain't changed that much", because it has if you're willing to look past the fundamental logic of.. Progress bar, quality bar.. Fill it with abilities... Because the abilities were different back then.. You also had Patient Touch which added a gambling element with gigantic benefits if you were willing to take the risk. Especially important if you were down on a little RNG, and thenm you even had the name/brand of the elements mechanic which was absurdly powerful on 35 durability recipes.

Sure we still have experts, but these do not hold a candle, because the gathering for them is still woefully simplified, as is the supporting ability toolkit, and this is a fundamental issue.. They are trying to make everyone happy by putting these systems on top.. Whether it's expert crafting or whatever else.. A lot of that is undone by the abilities supporting that content. This is why I said if you haven't experienced the game back then, then you can probably enjoy it, but for a lot of people, this was so much engagement, and investment. I could sit there for hours just crafting Twinsilk in level 15/20 gear (and doing this was far more exciting than modern experts, just because of the element of control over the success of the recipe -- Even on 266CP), and it would be interesting and fun.. Because WWYW was interesting.. and fun.


Again, all things lost to the game.. All things that for many people made the game feel a lot more encompassing and engaging. I do also agree though, OP should keep doing what they are doing if they are having fun, and to make the decision for themselves if it fun.