Comments from the Devs

[Niiro]

I'll reiterate my idea about automated crafting vs manual.

Auto-craft: 10 sec craft animation, no chance of HQ, % chance of success indicated like it is with materia bonding, said chance is slightly lower than it would be spamming standard with no ability use
Manual: what we have now, can HQ, better overall chance of success as you can use abilities and control variables, particularly important on more difficult recipes, possibly make failed manual synths have a chance of retaining some mats

[Gokulo]

I think Yoshida actually mentioned something similar in one of the recent interviews.

[Vuitton]

Just import every one of professor layton's puzzles (not the story) and re-theme them for FFXIV and make each synth a random puzzle. No hints! Now go forth and grind puzzles to create your items.

[Manako]

Also, each craft plays exactly the same.. while taking one DoW job 1-50 is rather different than another. The fact that its so time consuming in addition to being boring really kills it. Its definitely faster to level now using a combination of quest rewards, exp scrolls and highest level crafting leves, but its by no means fun. Combined with the fact that only a small set of high level items sell at any reliable speed makes crafting not very rewarding, if you were looking at it from a money making perspective instead of a content based one.

[Spider-Dan]

Auto-craft: 10 sec craft animation, no chance of HQ, % chance of success indicated like it is with materia bonding, said chance is slightly lower than it would be spamming standard with no ability use

So basically, take Hasty Hand and:

• add an indicator of success %
• remove the (small) HQ chance
• remove partial failures (and the ability to recover from them)

Is this really an improvement?

[Tomino]

What makes crafting so terrible (besides the whole system, the time wasted, the turbo trick and so on..) is the complete lack of any visible progress for the player.
From lv1 to 50, you follow the exact same pattern : Leve counter > craft > camp. Spreading Leves all around camps only makes you spend Anima, there is nothing gained by Teleing in and out each time you have to deliver your items.

If they cant affort to develop a whole chunk of content around crafting (much like any other game, actually) then it's plain stupid to make it as long and grindy as a battle class is, when the latter has Leves, escorts, quests, missions, exp parties and even farm sessions to level up.

[Niiro]

So basically, take Hasty Hand and:

• add an indicator of success %
• remove the (small) HQ chance
• remove partial failures (and the ability to recover from them)

Is this really an improvement?

To mashing X for a solid minute?

Yes.

I'd rather have this than gamble on them coming up with something "new and intuitive" and screwing it up.

[Spider-Dan]

But you don't mash X "for a solid minute" with Hasty Hand. You select the recipe and use Hasty Hand on the first try. And it doesn't take 10 seconds.

Your solution removes the (small) HQ chance from Hasty Hand, removes the partial failure from Hasty Hand (reducing possible results to full pass or crit fail), and in exchange, tells you ahead of time what your success rate will be. How is that an improvement over just using Hasty Hand right now?

[Niiro]

Because it doesn't halve your exp?

Edit: Or require you to go through the manual synthesis motions, activate the ability, then attempt it?

[Spider-Dan]

Exp is a valid point, I suppose... but I think auto-craft would still be worse than the current system, if you are mindlessly grinding exp.

How are you proposing auto-craft would work? At a very minimum, you'd still have to select a recipe, so you aren't saving any time there. And selecting Hasty Hand as your first action would still be faster than a 10-second auto-craft.

Seems like a waste of effort, to me. When you get right down to it, you are essentially proposing adjustments to Hasty Hand (full exp, success % display, no HQ possibility, every attempt is full pass or crit fail).

[Sephiroth]

I'm sure they will "balance" EXP if they implement auto craft. You will get less EXP per synth. You can't have your cake and eat it. This is exactly why HH gives half EXP.

[Niiro]

I'm sure they will "balance" EXP if they implement auto craft. You will get less EXP per synth. You can't have your cake and eat it. This is exactly why HH gives half EXP.

You can with a turbo controller/enter spamming bot.

Which is kind of the point.

[miokomioko]

Did everyone already forget what Yoshi said about the tentative auto-craft? Once you get a certain number of levels above a recipe (10?) you can auto-craft it for no exp with zero risk.

[Sephiroth]

You can with a turbo controller/enter spamming bot.

Which is kind of the point.

That's "fine" if you want to spend a fortune on mats. But you could skill up with half the mats by going for recipes 7-10 ranks above you and using abilities like Perfection, Hand of the Gods and Assemble to complete it.

[Niiro]

Amount of materials and time spent are irrelevant if you can standard spam through a recipe, all that matters is gil/exp.

Unless a higher level recipe is significantly more efficient I'd rather bot a lower level recipe and not end my evening bored to death and wanting to delete my account.

Did everyone already forget what Yoshi said about the tentative auto-craft? Once you get a certain number of levels above a recipe (10?) you can auto-craft it for no exp with zero risk.

If that is indeed the proposition, it's worthless. You can standard spam your way through crafts above your level as it is (assuming your gear is decent) so all it will be good for making a spare mat here and there in a bit less time, nothing more.

Skilling up is still mashing enter.

[miokomioko]

You're assuming that every time people want to craft quantities of something like that, they won't mind sitting there for an hour pressing enter or want to walk away from their desk with a turbo button taped down instead of actually... playing. The significance in what was proposed is that it's instant. You'll be able to craft some shit and go on to do something a little more fun instead of setting up an extended crafting "session" just to burn through some trash materials.

[Niiro]

What I mean is, and this is generalizing a bit, you don't often sit down and craft massive amounts of low level junk. Probably not for profit (if it's so low level, it isn't worth much and even less so if it's mass produced), and certainly not for skill.

And mashing enter is in no way "playing" in any sense of the word. If a task can be completed by not only a simple bot, but a damn turbo controller and tape, it is a misnomer to call it content of any kind.

Either make crafting somehow challenging and interesting, or let it be automated/faster across the board (unless attempting to HQ something, but even then, soon +3 mats will guarantee HQ, so whatever).

[miokomioko]

I was actually implying that neither mashing enter or holding a turbo button were "playing." That's why I think the proposed auto-crafting wouldn't be entirely worthless. If I am not doing it for exp, fucking get it over with so I can move on. If I am doing it for exp, it's work, I'm going to spend some time on it.

[Niiro]

Yes, and that "work" amounts to.....drumroll.....mashing enter!

As I said before, exp-worthy crafts can still be mindlessly standard-spammed with more than adequate rates of success.

[miokomioko]

I have said it before, and so have others. If you choose to do some trash synth that yields 100 exp each success... then yeah, you can take the time/money to gather up hundreds of recipes worth of ingredients and just press enter for hours on end to crawl to 50.

However, a number of people don't feel like taking the extra long and extra boring route, and sometimes try recipes that aren't 10 levels below them? You know, ones that yield 500~600 exp each, and those are pretty much impossible to succeed with enter/turbo. Also, chances are, you'll be making money in the process.

Any recipe that you can mash to success isn't going to give much more then 150 exp a pop (if that) and is most likely going to be NPC'd or tossed afterwards. There's plenty of players who want to actually play when they have time to play.