Change the Dyeing Synthesis Recipes

[Sorel]

That was a good thing. Most people were just trying to do a "repeat last synthesis" anyway. Why make them navigate the whole system again and again if they just want to do the same thing? That's bad design.

Besides, the menu navigation didn't stop bots at all. They can be easily programmed to navigate menus. All it did was piss off legit players and make crafting take more time that it needed to.

My point is that I don't even need to program a bot any more. I just have to craft a Brass Ring once, then put a weight on the Enter Key.

[Rentahamster]

My point is that I don't even need to program a bot any more. I just have to craft a Brass Ring once, then put a weight on the Enter Key.

That's just for local leves. Non-leve synthesis still requires more menu navigation than that.

Still, the problem that we face in regards to botting lies in the fundamental mechanics of the synthesis "mini-game" itself, not in the menu navigation.

The main goal in any menu-driven interface is to enable the user to do what he wants to do with the least amount of clicks and menu layers as possible.

[Sorel]

Still, the problem that we face in regards to botting lies in the fundamental mechanics of the synthesis "mini-game" itself, not in the menu navigation.

So what specific modifications would you ask SE to make to both make synthesis require the least amount of clicks ... and at the same time hinder the botting of synthesis? No sarcasm. I'm asking an honest question.

[Rentahamster]

So what specific modifications would you ask SE to make to both make synthesis require the least amount of clicks ... and at the same time hinder the botting of synthesis? No sarcasm. I'm asking an honest question.

I'm not saying the synthesis itself needs the least amount of clicks. I'm saying the menu navigation needs the least amount of clicks. You would agree that all things being equal, only having to navigate through 3 menus before pressing "start synthesis" is better than having to navigate through 5 menus before pressing "start synthesis", right?



Onto your second point:

It doesn't matter how many clicks the actual synthesis itself takes, as long as the process is fun and hard to automate.


As for specific modifications, well just think for a second. You just need some kind of mini-game that can't be automated through a simple macro. You can't have a mini game that can be completed by just inputting the same button over and over again.

Think of all the mini-games you've ever played in you life - minigames that were part of other games, quick little flash games, Facebook games, whatever.

Now eliminate the ones that could have an automated bot win 90% of the time for you.

Now eliminate the ones that aren't fun.

What you have left should be a decent approximation of promising directions to go in.

[Sorel]

Think of all the mini-games you've ever played in you life - minigames that were part of other games, quick little flash games, Facebook games, whatever.

Now eliminate the ones that could have an automated bot win 90% of the time for you.

Now eliminate the ones that aren't fun.

What you have left should be a decent approximation of promising directions to go in.

I appreciate your response. So please excuse me if I sound rude in pressing the matter. But I don't play Flash games. I've never played a Facebook game. I do not share the same frame of reference as you do. It is entirely possible that no one on the Development Team has either. We are talking about men from another country that wear lipstick and guy-liner (no offense Yoshida-san). They may spend their free time very differently than we do.

So I would politely ask that you be even more specific in your examples. Not only for my benefit, but to help the Development Team understand exactly what you are talking about.

[Rentahamster]

I appreciate your response. So please excuse me if I sound rude in pressing the matter. But I don't play Flash games. I've never played a Facebook game. I do not share the same frame of reference as you do. It is entirely possible that no one on the Development Team has either. We are talking about men from another country that wear lipstick and guy-liner (no offense Yoshida-san). They may spend their free time very differently than we do.

So I would politely ask that you be even more specific in your examples. Not only for my benefit, but to help the Development Team understand exactly what you are talking about.

I find it hard to believe that a person who is devoted enough to post on a FF14 message board, of all things, has such little experience in gaming.

It would also be a huge stretch of the imagination to think that the dev team is that devoid of experience as well. That's their job - to develop games.


Anyway, the point of my thought experiment was this:

For example, take a simple game like Tetris (I am not advocating that they change the synthesis process into Tetris, this is just an example).


#1 - Can you program a third party program to play a Tetris game that is running on an entirely different computer and have it win 90% of the time?

#2 - Probably not. It would be hard to do and not worth the effort. At the very least, it would raise the bar of access.

#3 - Why not? Use the answers to this question to formulate a common list of fundamental characteristics that "unbottable" games would have.


#4 - Is Tetris fun?

#5 - Yes.

#6 - Why is it fun? Use the answers to this question to formulate a common list of fundamental characteristics that "fun" games would have.


#7 Use the answers from #3 and #6 and apply them to create a new synthesis mechanic.



EDIT: This is how hard it is - http://luckytoilet.wordpress.com/201...tic-algorithm/

And that is with the benefit of the AI being able to be run within the game itself, which is a much easier environment than what a bot has to deal with.

[Sorel]

So if they made crafting more of a separate sub-game, like the current Parley System, or like Puzzle Quest, where the player have to analyze the placement of pieces on a board, and determine what would be the best move to make ... would that be more fun? It certainly would be very hard to bot, I admit.

[KorPoni]

So if they made crafting more of a separate sub-game, like the current Parley System, or like Puzzle Quest, where the player have to analyze the placement of pieces on a board, and determine what would be the best move to make ... would that be more fun? It certainly would be very hard to bot, I admit.

Honestly an easy fix to "Reapeat last synthesis?" [yes] [no] to being a weight on your enter key is to force the default response to be [no], but making it a huge puzzle will make too much involvement altogether. Botting will continue, only thing SE can do is remove bots as they catch them.

However, I believe the subject is about the changes to color dyes in relation to crafting, not crafting UI.

[Shikaree]

I've been asked to post this from another topic. Taken from here:
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...692#post203692

So we've heard that recipe formats will be changed later. Take note also from the link that SE would need to allow quite some number of gear pieces to be allowed this. A question for SE would be could they possibly consider adding bosses that would drop unique dye coloring to be used to color a gear piece?

So we can have our blurple haubys or something.

[Rentahamster]

All good steps towards a more sensible and gameplay-oriented crafting system.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/276

Simplified Color Customization

Currently, players can customize the color of their item only by using colored intermediary materials. This process is rendered extremely complicated due to the fact that intermediary materials come in various hues, along with the existence of dedicated dyes for different types of material (lumber, cloth, metal, and leather).

The new recipes will allow players to color-customize items in a single step by using dyes. Furthermore, universal dyes will be introduced that can be used across all material types.