FF XI -> XIV - Crafting!?

[hagun]

I want a "gift crystal" that any one can use, regardless of skill, to sign any non-ex item.

On an unrelated note, I want the concept of re/ex gear to die a swift yet painful death. I am all for rare items though. Thanks.

[510Meeze]

I think part of the problem Phraust is talking about had to do with where you could the crafting items from.

Once the tactics for beatings KS30, KS99, ENM, etc became well known, they got spammed by every gimp who met the requirements. This heavily skewed supply and demand allowing crafters to spam these crafts at a lower cost, and lets face it, a lot of crafters aren't very bright, so they started undercutting their own.

Keeping things to "raids" and HNM seems unfair to the casual gamer, but as one of my favorite sayings goes "Not everyone was meant to have everything"

[Weeks]

If FFXIV has a crafting minigame, it better also have PVP so I can take it out on you assholes for suggesting it. Minigames are retarded even before you factor in all of the problems that result from trying to put them in an online game.

[Pendas]

One of the reasons I believe crafting is completely flawed is the lack of ways to collect your own resources. In the lower levels, its pretty easy to level a craft because many of the items can be bought off vendors, but once you reach the higher levels, you need items that require you to farm mid - high level monsters. It's easy, but considering the Horrible drop rates of the game, it becomes very very time consuming. Finally, once you reach the final 20 levels of a craft, the items needed become impossible to get solo (except cooking and fishing) that you get cockblocked and are forced to spend money or gather a group for a BCNM / HNM for "One" ingredient that probably won't even yield a skillup.

If FFXIV wants to have a successful crafting system they need a way for players to collect their own resources without having a ridiculous requirement or drop rate (Khroma Ore).

[Zerv]

I believe that SE did well by introducing several ways to get Khroma ores (Mining, then the ISNM, now ANNM... in the future the Union thing?), yet, that was in my opinion to "help" people to get their salvage bodies.
In the short run, 11 system was good, but in the long run, with the lack of innovation, better items than the existent ones (for example Haub+1) make it go into a down spiral.
There's of course exceptions, like Cerb mantles, but still, nothing "new".


And, how about fishing? That by itself is a minigame into some extention

[Pendas]

^ Fishing is fun, but if you ever tried to level it you would literally want to shoot yourself in the face. It's so ridiculously time consuming I can't even begin to explain it. (I have Lu Shang and 68 Fishing, I couldn't handle it anymore.) If fishing doesn't see a dramatic increase in skillups in FFXIV, I'm going to be very disappointed.

The little Mini-Game does make it interesting, but only for the first hour or so, after that its just a nuisance considering you will be spending hours upon days doing it over and over. I would much rather have kept the old system (Hi2u RMT fixes) because at least I could read a book or watch TV as I fish.

[Correction]

Imagine all these crafts to their real-life counterparts. Shit takes time, blood, sweat, tears, and MONEY. They're trades.... and I think the system was perfect, to be quite honest. Now I can pop out three tier 1 cursed items like pigs in shit, I can say all the work getting to 100 in my craft was worth it.

The counterpart is that once you 'perfect' your craft you still get crippling losses in XI when your shit explodes in a huge mess. When I become a master craftsman in real life the house I'm building doesn't explode based on a die roll while I'm constructing it.

Crit breaks in XIV = not even going to bother with crafting. If that comes at the cost of HQ synths I'll live without them.

[Lonewind]

It sounds wierd, but in my opinion, the only thing that actually hurt crafting was the HQ system.

This is the absolute truth regarding the downfall of the FFXI crafting system. It is the ONLY reason that crafters are willing to undercut the required cost of synthesis. Without it, mat farmers gets their cut for the material, crafters get an extra fee for synthing the item, however that fee is, is still decided by the market, but will never be under the cost of mats. Want HQ items? make it a different recipe with more or extra, rarer materials in addition to the NQ item, that extra material will be worth farming, and the profits for the crafter is still decided by supply and demand, while the crafter never really lose gil on any synths but breaks, which is still acceptable compared to the amount lost due to the random die rolling, the overall profits should definitely cover any loss to breaks.


As for the mini-game idea, it's looks very good on paper, but if it's actually implemented, I bet there will be a bot for it within 2 weeks...

[tymora]

Randomize location of UI controls, randomize colors of UI, randomize memory locations, add verification code like online forums. Idea here is to increase the cost of development until no one can afford to make a bot for free, which will limit down the users. But they might jolly well make the game unplayable.

Or simply go the WoW way and scan the system for forbidden applications. For those worried about privacy, there are plenty of tools out there to see if the scan is doing things more than it should. As long as it is declared clearly, I don't think this is an issue actually.

[Correction]

They don't even have to build their own Warden-type scanner if they just make the 'mandatory consumables' market fairer in XIV than in XI. Shit like shihei, oil/powder just need to go away, or be vendor-bought. Revamp the food system so you don't need an unplayable, boring minigame (fishing) to keep costs of high-demand food (sushi) within reach. Changes like this will force chinese crafting bots to behave more like actual crafters rather than cheap disposable labor flooding out competition with their infinite volume.