I still feel that crafters and gatherers are missing out on a lot and that Yoshi doesn't respect them as much as the combat classes. Until DoH and/or DoL based FATE's and/or quests (outside of the run errands quest that any discipline can do and outside the the one every 5 levels guild quests) get implemented, I really won't be able to consider us to have fully fledged classes.
There are so many things we as crafters and gatherers can do to help the world around us (actually helping as crafters and gatherers, not as runners), yet we're only called upon incidentally or every 5 levels to fetch something we probably already have? I don't think that's quite right when the other classes get called upon for their speciality (combat based quests and FATE's) for almost the entirety of their levelling progression. Crafters and gatherers have to grind hard to get anywhere, whereas combatants get interesting storylines the whole way and Yoshi's already indicated he thinks the traditional repetitive grind is inferior to the quest grind.
Even if we only get one or two quests/FATE's per level with storylines where we have to make/gather things (and not just hand in second hand goods or things bought off the market), that would be a huge improvement. I love the stories and characters that the FF world is famous for and do not appreciate the fact that we're excluded from 99% of them because we don't want to pick up a weapon and pursue battle, when we can help in other ways.
I'm not saying let us save the world. I'm not saying to even give us as many quests as the combat classes get. I'm saying let us repair a boiler or roof at that outpost, let us help an NPC restock their wears, let us clear a massive fallen tree in the road, let us excavate a collapsed mine to rescue the NPC's within, and possibly open up new areas or services or other benefits for our troubles. Little things that only we can do but that have a positive impact on the NPC's and greater world around us.
Final Fantasy XIV: Crafting and Gathering
With all of the systems getting rebuilt in A Realm Reborn, what do crafters and gatherers have to look forward to?
Craftsmanship, Control, and CP - Why Should Other Classes Get All the Stat Fun?
Before I get into what makes the current crafting system great, let's take another look back at the dark days of v1.0. If you wanted to craft back then, you were in for a long, very unexplained process of trial and error. Once you opened up your crafting window, you'd be greeted with a box for materials; there were no saved recipes unless you'd successfully made something before.
Assuming you're like most MMO players, you would take the easy route and pull up a list of recipes in a browser tab and get to work. Once you fought through the old interface to get all of your materials in the box and told it to craft, that's when things got even more complicated. The game would present you with a rapidly depleting timer bar and a list of options with no explanations. Clicking one option would make your Progress and Quality bars move up and the Durability go down. Another would give more Quality, but less Progress. The third would be more Progress, but almost no Quality and a huge chunk out of Durability. The fourth would be a small amount of Progress and Quality, but with almost no Durability loss.
There were elements to a good crafting system here, but between the UI issues in v1.0 and the almost nonexistent explanations of why you wanted Quality or how you avoided losing Durability and running out of time, it was hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Luckily for me though, when they took everything back to the drawing board for v2.0, crafting got some major improvements.
The first major change with ARR's crafting comes when you open the window; like combat classes with their Hunting Log and the Disciples of the Land's Gathering Log, crafters have a Crafting Log to let them keep track of items they've made, recipes available to them, what materials each takes, how many you have, and even how many of those are high quality. While the other logs are primarily for reference (or a list of free XP in the case of the HL), the Crafting Log is how you'll actually choose your recipes, assign your normal and high quality materials, etc. before you actually begin crafting.
Once you've selected your recipe, it's time to start crafting. To begin with, the game actually tells you what those Durability/Progress/Quality bars are for, which was a marked improvement over v1.0. There's no timer now, so you can take as much time as you want - the only thing between you and crafted glory is the Durability gauge. This gauge is a set value for each recipe, so no more using HQ materials to bump that up.
When you start out crafting, you'll just have the one move that will give you some amount of Progress for ten Durability. If you manage to fill the Progress bar by the time the Durability hits zero, you get your item and some crafting XP. If not, you might lose a material or two and go back to the Crafting Log to try again.
Early on, the system's fairly simple and even with the 80% or so success rate on your first Progress move, you should have plenty of Durability to make all of the low-level items you want. It's once you start unlocking more abilities and recipes that things get more interesting.
The next move you unlock as a crafter is something that adds to your Quality meter for ten Durability. It doesn't help your Progress, you still have to use that first move to fill the bar and complete the item, so you might wonder why you have this button.
You'll notice an HQ percentage on the crafting window along with all of those other bars, similar to the HQ percentages you'd see on the gathering windows. The same principle applies here, but it's even more important with crafted items. High quality items give bonus crafting XP and high quality crafted gear has better stats than normal pieces. Since we all love bonus experience and higher stats on our gear, the question is how do I get these high quality pieces? Sure there's the base 1% chance, but the real trick is using your good materials and your crafter abilities. The higher you can get your Quality bar, the greater the chance of seeing an HQ result. Using HQ materials will boost your base Quality and give you a head start, but if you really want to boost your odds, you'll need to boost Quality through your abilities. Of course you have only so much Durability to go around and you still need to fill that Progress bar to actually succeed, so that's where things get more complicated.
Abilities you pick up later help you out somewhat, like a power that restores three hits worth of Durability, another that increases your base success rate with each Progress/Durability move for five moves, one that gives you a scaling success boost based on your Quality, etc. Of course to use any of these abilities requires Crafting Points, so that makes matters more difficult.
Every move besides your first Progress ability requires some amount of CP to use. Depending on the item you're making, you might be able to splurge on Quality moves and try for an HQ result or you might need all of the Durability refills and success boosts you can get if you're trying to get a higher level item. Eventually you will reach a point though where you just don't have enough to make an item; there’re only so many CP to go around and your Progress move only does so much. That means it's time for some new gear.
Just like gatherers get their own special gear to boost their gather and HQ rates, crafters have equipment with stats just for them. You've got Craftsmanship which boosts how much you get out of a successful Progress/Quality hit, Control which should increase your chance to actually hit with those moves, and +CP to give you more points to work with for your abilities. As a gatherer I don't have much need for multiple gear sets: pretty much slap on the best stuff and get to work. For crafting though, I can definitely see reasons for having at least jewelry to swap between. Maybe have some Craftsmanship/Control pieces for when I'm trying to push for recipes that should be beyond my reach, with some CP pieces to swap in when I'm trying to crank out HQ items and need as many hits as I can get.
