Even in 2004 when WoW was new and shiny, I always thought their crafting system was too simplistic. It's entirely non-interactive.
It's simple enough that any idiot can do it. And that's a problem, because the Auction House is perpetually being ruined by people that have no business being involved in economy and the market. Someone is always crashing the market. Daily. Multiple times daily. And if crafting took a bit more skill, or a bit more attention, or a bit more effort, or a bit more of something, that would reduce the number of idiots who are ruining the AH for the rest of us.
The barrier of entry is too low.
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3cl1ps3I will build a labyrinth to house the cheeseRegistered Userregular
Even in 2004 when WoW was new and shiny, I always thought their crafting system was too simplistic. It's entirely non-interactive.
It's simple enough that any idiot can do it. And that's a problem, because the Auction House is perpetually being ruined by people that have no business being involved in economy and the market. Someone is always crashing the market. Daily. Multiple times daily. And if crafting took a bit more skill, or a bit more attention, or a bit more effort, or a bit more of something, that would reduce the number of idiots who are ruining the AH for the rest of us.
The barrier of entry is too low.
what is this gatekeeping horseshit
it's a fake auction house in a video game, mate
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Warlock82Never pet a burning dogRegistered Userregular
Even in 2004 when WoW was new and shiny, I always thought their crafting system was too simplistic. It's entirely non-interactive.
It's simple enough that any idiot can do it. And that's a problem, because the Auction House is perpetually being ruined by people that have no business being involved in economy and the market. Someone is always crashing the market. Daily. Multiple times daily. And if crafting took a bit more skill, or a bit more attention, or a bit more effort, or a bit more of something, that would reduce the number of idiots who are ruining the AH for the rest of us.
The barrier of entry is too low.
Yeah I've thought about the issue for a long time and honestly the only real way to fix crafting is to completely throw it away and start over. Which I don't think they'd do. They've tried to sort of take half steps at times, like specializations and rare materials and shit, but they are too afraid to go much beyond that so they half steps largely fail. Dragonscale Leatherworking is a lot less impactful when there are like 10 unique recipes and like a 1/3 of all Leatherworkers also took it and have these recipes :P This stuff worked well in vanilla because gear was way harder to get but now it's just way too easy to pop into a queue and get better stuff than anyone can craft.
Even in 2004 when WoW was new and shiny, I always thought their crafting system was too simplistic. It's entirely non-interactive.
It's simple enough that any idiot can do it. And that's a problem, because the Auction House is perpetually being ruined by people that have no business being involved in economy and the market. Someone is always crashing the market. Daily. Multiple times daily. And if crafting took a bit more skill, or a bit more attention, or a bit more effort, or a bit more of something, that would reduce the number of idiots who are ruining the AH for the rest of us.
The barrier of entry is too low.
lmao what
if someone is crashing the market in modern WoW it's almost certainly a bot network
when WoW came out the simple crafting system was a relief because you could actually just fuckin make stuff instead of engaging with some labyrinthian nightmare. You could still be rewarded for investing in it if you got rare recipes, but you didn't have to no-life blacksmithing just to be a valuable blacksmith. FFXIV's crafting is an evolution of WoW's to make the actual system a bit more engaging, but it's core functionality is arguably about the same. The difference between the two has a lot more to do with the systems surrounding them the the crafting systems themselves.
Even in 2004 when WoW was new and shiny, I always thought their crafting system was too simplistic. It's entirely non-interactive.
It's simple enough that any idiot can do it. And that's a problem, because the Auction House is perpetually being ruined by people that have no business being involved in economy and the market. Someone is always crashing the market. Daily. Multiple times daily. And if crafting took a bit more skill, or a bit more attention, or a bit more effort, or a bit more of something, that would reduce the number of idiots who are ruining the AH for the rest of us.
The barrier of entry is too low.
what is this gatekeeping horseshit
it's a fake auction house in a video game, mate
Sure. It's all fake. It's just a game.
But also.
There are tons of idiots out there without the common sense to even list goods at cost. People are more concerned with instant gratification. So they make major undercuts to get instant sales, and very often, entire markets are completely trashed for days/weeks at a time because of unintelligent undercutting.
I think gatekeeping when it comes to market boards, auction houses, and things having to do with math, money, economics, and common sense, is necessary -- even if it's all just fake video game money.
And I'm not even talking about requiring a degree in business or anything like that. Just make crafting take a bit more effort. Emphasis on a bit. Make it so that it's more than just clicking a "Start" button and then suddenly you have 25 things to sell. Make the process more interactive. Maybe more like a mini-game.
I was originally replying to PAC's comment, and they are right. FFXIV has a vastly superior crafting system to WoW. And because of that, the Market Boards in XIV are also much less volatile than they are in WoW. I'm not saying they're perfect. There are still idiots in XIV too. And creating a more involved system won't weed out all of the idiots. But it might help reduce their number a bit. That's all I want. Not a complete elimination of idiots. Not a system so advanced you need a degree to interface with it. Just something.
The funniest part about FF14 crafting is that, for 99% of people who do it at max level, it's even more brainless than WoW. Because that 99% is not putting ANY active thought into crafting at all. They're taking macros and gearsets/materia melds that the 1% of people develop and post, then pressing the 'craft thing' button and watching their character for a minute until they press the button again.
It's a very deep system, that like 1-2 dozen people actually interact with.
Even in 2004 when WoW was new and shiny, I always thought their crafting system was too simplistic. It's entirely non-interactive.
It's simple enough that any idiot can do it. And that's a problem, because the Auction House is perpetually being ruined by people that have no business being involved in economy and the market. Someone is always crashing the market. Daily. Multiple times daily. And if crafting took a bit more skill, or a bit more attention, or a bit more effort, or a bit more of something, that would reduce the number of idiots who are ruining the AH for the rest of us.
The barrier of entry is too low.
what is this gatekeeping horseshit
it's a fake auction house in a video game, mate
Sure. It's all fake. It's just a game.
But also.
There are tons of idiots out there without the common sense to even list goods at cost. People are more concerned with instant gratification. So they make major undercuts to get instant sales, and very often, entire markets are completely trashed for days/weeks at a time because of unintelligent undercutting.
I think gatekeeping when it comes to market boards, auction houses, and things having to do with math, money, economics, and common sense, is necessary -- even if it's all just fake video game money.
And I'm not even talking about requiring a degree in business or anything like that. Just make crafting take a bit more effort. Emphasis on a bit. Make it so that it's more than just clicking a "Start" button and then suddenly you have 25 things to sell. Make the process more interactive. Maybe more like a mini-game.
I was originally replying to PAC's comment, and they are right. FFXIV has a vastly superior crafting system to WoW. And because of that, the Market Boards in XIV are also much less volatile than they are in WoW. I'm not saying they're perfect. There are still idiots in XIV too. And creating a more involved system won't weed out all of the idiots. But it might help reduce their number a bit. That's all I want. Not a complete elimination of idiots. Not a system so advanced you need a degree to interface with it. Just something.
Unless you're one of the people theorycrafting before each patch, that's how it works in FF14 too.
XIV's crafting has moves you have to use. Press this button to raise the quality. Press that button to wait a turn. Press another button to get a boost. Etc. It's way more than just pressing a start button.
Shadowlands made crafting relevant to end game progression via the Legendary system. Which means that people that take advantage of the market each patch get to put high prices when the patch starts for the newest upgrades, and then as the patch goes on the upgrades get cheaper since they are more accesible. Which implies a barrier of entry.
Cratfing itself may not be engaging, but is very much relevant. Response has been a very vocal minority whining about how is a plot to sell Tokens even though they can perfectly wait until prices are more accesible since they are not playing on a level when they need the highest upgrade when is available.
At least there's a pushback of "we made the effort and spent the mats to level the professions to have the newest upgrades as soon as possible, so fuck off?".
When Torghast timegating goes away on 9.1.5, can't wait for all the complaints from people that think that they need all Rank 6 legendaries of their class to clear the raid on Normal.
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3cl1ps3I will build a labyrinth to house the cheeseRegistered Userregular
Even in 2004 when WoW was new and shiny, I always thought their crafting system was too simplistic. It's entirely non-interactive.
It's simple enough that any idiot can do it. And that's a problem, because the Auction House is perpetually being ruined by people that have no business being involved in economy and the market. Someone is always crashing the market. Daily. Multiple times daily. And if crafting took a bit more skill, or a bit more attention, or a bit more effort, or a bit more of something, that would reduce the number of idiots who are ruining the AH for the rest of us.
The barrier of entry is too low.
what is this gatekeeping horseshit
it's a fake auction house in a video game, mate
Sure. It's all fake. It's just a game.
But also.
There are tons of idiots out there without the common sense to even list goods at cost. People are more concerned with instant gratification. So they make major undercuts to get instant sales, and very often, entire markets are completely trashed for days/weeks at a time because of unintelligent undercutting.
I think gatekeeping when it comes to market boards, auction houses, and things having to do with math, money, economics, and common sense, is necessary -- even if it's all just fake video game money.
And I'm not even talking about requiring a degree in business or anything like that. Just make crafting take a bit more effort. Emphasis on a bit. Make it so that it's more than just clicking a "Start" button and then suddenly you have 25 things to sell. Make the process more interactive. Maybe more like a mini-game.
I was originally replying to PAC's comment, and they are right. FFXIV has a vastly superior crafting system to WoW. And because of that, the Market Boards in XIV are also much less volatile than they are in WoW. I'm not saying they're perfect. There are still idiots in XIV too. And creating a more involved system won't weed out all of the idiots. But it might help reduce their number a bit. That's all I want. Not a complete elimination of idiots. Not a system so advanced you need a degree to interface with it. Just something.
You really need to stop describing people who don't adhere to your view of what the AH market should be as "idiots."
This is just the same energy as hedge fund managers whinging that the shorts on GME didn't work out because it took off as a meme stock.
edit: Or, to include a Blizzard analogy, the desperate energy of someone dying to a 6pool and writing thousand word long screeds about how cheesing is for "idiots" and they should "learn how to play properly" and Blizzard should add anti-rush mechanics that prevent all early game aggression to stop cheese strategies.
They are playing properly. You just don't like that what you consider to be the ideal strategy isn't working.
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3cl1ps3I will build a labyrinth to house the cheeseRegistered Userregular
just a general life tip, if you ever find yourself typing the sentence "gatekeeping is necessary," immediately stop, delete the draft, and go think very hard about whether or not your attitude might be the actual problem in that situation.
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admanbunionize your workplaceSeattle, WARegistered Userregular
XIV's crafting has moves you have to use. Press this button to raise the quality. Press that button to wait a turn. Press another button to get a boost. Etc. It's way more than just pressing a start button.
Anyone doing top-end crafting in XIV just looks up what stat breakpoints they need to hit to use a particular macro, copy-paste that macro into a button, and then click start.
just a general life tip, if you ever find yourself typing the sentence "gatekeeping is necessary," immediately stop, delete the draft, and go think very hard about whether or not your attitude might be the actual problem in that situation.
Ehhh.... not even a little bit? This is like super duper wrong.
Especially when you equate it to "a general life tip".
Literally every job posting ever has gatekeeping. X years of experience required. Y education required. And so forth.
Some things need gatekeeping even more than others. Medical professions. Law enforcement professions. Lawyers.
You wouldn't hire someone to be a teller at a bank if they can't perform certain competencies like being able to operate a computer and capability to do simple math, they are not a good fit for the job.
To bring this back around to video games, I think success at games should be based on skill. Skill is a form of gatekeeping. And specific to this topic at hand, I think crafting should require a bit of skill. Not even a lot. Just more than what is there now.
XIV's crafting has moves you have to use. Press this button to raise the quality. Press that button to wait a turn. Press another button to get a boost. Etc. It's way more than just pressing a start button.
Anyone doing top-end crafting in XIV just looks up what stat breakpoints they need to hit to use a particular macro, copy-paste that macro into a button, and then click start.
You could forbid macros (doesn't WoW largely already do this?), and add some elements that are partially randomized so that the player can't approach every craft the exact same.
Saying that FFXIV's stuff is better doesn't mean you have to copy the bad elements when you port it over. Iterate and improve.
just a general life tip, if you ever find yourself typing the sentence "gatekeeping is necessary," immediately stop, delete the draft, and go think very hard about whether or not your attitude might be the actual problem in that situation.
Ehhh.... not even a little bit? This is like super duper wrong.
Especially when you equate it to "a general life tip".
Literally every job posting ever has gatekeeping. X years of experience required. Y education required. And so forth.
Some things need gatekeeping even more than others. Medical professions. Law enforcement professions. Lawyers.
You wouldn't hire someone to be a teller at a bank if they can't perform certain competencies like being able to operate a computer and capability to do simple math, they are not a good fit for the job.
To bring this back around to video games, I think success at games should be based on skill. Skill is a form of gatekeeping. And specific to this topic at hand, I think crafting should require a bit of skill. Not even a lot. Just more than what is there now.
So no. You are 100% maximum wrong on this point.
games should work like job applications everyone, you heard it here first
Yes. You can twist my words to say that. I didn't say that. But you can twist my words to say that.
What I actually said, is that success at games should require skill, and skill is a form of gatekeeping. Beat a skill check, win the game. Simple as that.
But please. By all means. Go right ahead and completely twist my words and misrepresent what I said.
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3cl1ps3I will build a labyrinth to house the cheeseRegistered Userregular
anyway people make millions and millions of gold just playing the AH market (3 people alone do it just in my guild), so if you're struggling to turn a profit you've got a demonstrable lack of skill there
I think what you want is just for Blizzard to cater to you, personally, to make your life easier.
Anyone that currently wants to craft in FF14 does a google search for 'FF14 5.5 crafting macros' and copy/pastes the result into the game, then watches as their character does all the moves
XIV's crafting has moves you have to use. Press this button to raise the quality. Press that button to wait a turn. Press another button to get a boost. Etc. It's way more than just pressing a start button.
Anyone doing top-end crafting in XIV just looks up what stat breakpoints they need to hit to use a particular macro, copy-paste that macro into a button, and then click start.
You could forbid macros (doesn't WoW largely already do this?), and add some elements that are partially randomized so that the player can't approach every craft the exact same.
Saying that FFXIV's stuff is better doesn't mean you have to copy the bad elements when you port it over. Iterate and improve.
Why would they do that though, if even the game they would be copying from doesn’t do it that way, and the community that’s playing the game they would be copying from doesn’t WANT it to work that way?
I have written and rewritten this post like five times trying to see if I can make it less dismissive but, like
If you think that people crashing the market on the AH is an issue, you are not good at playing the AH. And like hey, I totally respect it if you're like, "The system of the AH and the skills involved in succeeding at it are not what I want to engage with", most of the time that's me! I very rarely want to actually go particularly goblin at it.
But also, the AH has nothing to do with crafting, like at all. Crafting is completely irrelevant to the market.
in fact it's often a mistake to craft items instead of just selling the raw materials
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3cl1ps3I will build a labyrinth to house the cheeseRegistered Userregular
Well, 99% of crafted gear is worthless. Legendary precursors most people are getting from guild crafters who had mats funneled to them. If you're buying them, the price crashes not because of "idiots" but because mats become cheap and ubiquitous and people are no longer willing to pay high prices (the WoW AH is a Dutch Auction, not eBay).
The 230 blues are worth buying, but also so cheap to produce that the market floods and can't support high prices (again, Dutch Auction).
Consumables are a whole other market but most people aren't flipping herbs into flasks, they're getting herbs on their own.
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3cl1ps3I will build a labyrinth to house the cheeseRegistered Userregular
What you're actually mad at here is gathering bots making crafting mats plentiful and cheap. Which is a different problem entirely.
You are talking about something different than I am. Both of you.
My premise is that crafting should have an element of skill. And I think that if there's a skill check, even a small one, it might weed out a few poor decision makers who make unintelligent listings.
What you're talking about is something different from crafting. You're talking about playing the AH, watching trends, and maximizing profits. I'm not talking about that.
I am talking about the act of creation. Creating an object from raw materials.
Sure. It might be smarter to just sell the raw materials. But that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about crafting. And how I think crafting should be more than just pressing 1 button to convert raw materials into a finished product. I think skill should be involved. Some sort of mini-game.
All those potions, glyphs, and legendary base items don't appear out of thin air. Someone is crafting them and listing them.
What you're actually mad at here is gathering bots making crafting mats plentiful and cheap. Which is a different problem entirely.
That might actually be the case.
But even if it is the case, I still want crafting to be more than 1 button.
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3cl1ps3I will build a labyrinth to house the cheeseRegistered Userregular
They aren't separate conversations at all. Adding "skill" to crafting will do nothing because prices of mats and crafted items on almost all servers are largely driven by a small group of econ focused players, who are all way more invested in the AH than you are.
You know the Kungaloosh mini-game that they did in Wrath out in Sholazar, and they have mimicked it a few times more, like the wine making in Suramar and such? That would be great as a crafting interface.
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3cl1ps3I will build a labyrinth to house the cheeseRegistered Userregular
You know the Kungaloosh mini-game that they did in Wrath out in Sholazar, and they have mimicked it a few times more, like the wine making in Suramar and such? That would be great as a crafting interface.
As someone who makes all the alchemy raiding consumables for my guild and who regularly has to spend >30 minutes occasionall clicking "craft," no, this would be fucking awful.
WoW does not need more unnecessary, tedious shit.
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admanbunionize your workplaceSeattle, WARegistered Userregular
The only reason people haven't revolted against the FFXIV system is because you can macro your crafts so no one has to play the Oblivion lockpicking minigame every time they want to make a food or potion.
You are talking about something different than I am. Both of you.
My premise is that crafting should have an element of skill. And I think that if there's a skill check, even a small one, it might weed out a few poor decision makers who make unintelligent listings.
What you're talking about is something different from crafting. You're talking about playing the AH, watching trends, and maximizing profits. I'm not talking about that.
I am talking about the act of creation. Creating an object from raw materials.
Sure. It might be smarter to just sell the raw materials. But that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about crafting. And how I think crafting should be more than just pressing 1 button to convert raw materials into a finished product. I think skill should be involved. Some sort of mini-game.
All those potions, glyphs, and legendary base items don't appear out of thin air. Someone is crafting them and listing them.
It's fine that's what you're looking for, but FF14 is the wrong place to look for it.
Anyone that currently wants to craft in FF14 does a google search for 'FF14 5.5 crafting macros' and copy/pastes the result into the game, then watches as their character does all the moves
XIV's crafting has moves you have to use. Press this button to raise the quality. Press that button to wait a turn. Press another button to get a boost. Etc. It's way more than just pressing a start button.
Anyone doing top-end crafting in XIV just looks up what stat breakpoints they need to hit to use a particular macro, copy-paste that macro into a button, and then click start.
You could forbid macros (doesn't WoW largely already do this?), and add some elements that are partially randomized so that the player can't approach every craft the exact same.
Saying that FFXIV's stuff is better doesn't mean you have to copy the bad elements when you port it over. Iterate and improve.
Why would they do that though, if even the game they would be copying from doesn’t do it that way, and the community that’s playing the game they would be copying from doesn’t WANT it to work that way?
Because it's ... better than just having people copy/paste macros in? Because it would be somewhat addressing what could be seen as an issue that undermines the knowledge-based mechanics?
I can't speak to what the crafting community of FFXIV feels at large. I only got started on it because I'm a new player and wanted to craft my own glamour prisms, and my interactions with the gathering and crafting while leveling up hit me with how much better things could be in WoW if it took some inspiration from its rival.
Warlock82Never pet a burning dogRegistered Userregular
edited September 2021
I can't speak for FFXIV because I am still woefully behind on that (I started the trial but I'm not even high enough level that they would let me take a crafting skill). I think personally though, having a little game involved is interesting if it's an activity you do sometimes, but less so if it's something you need to repeat over and over and over for a bulk craft (like potions or whatever). I assume it's the later if people are macro'ing that shit which is a shame. But I definitely think having some more personal investment into the crafting of an item could be a good thing.
admanbunionize your workplaceSeattle, WARegistered Userregular
edited September 2021
I do believe FFXIV 100% has better crafting/gathering systems than WoW because it has systems that actually appeal to the kinds of people who want to engage with crafting systems. Now, it's a worse system for me, who just wants to max out alchemy and engineering so I can make my own flasks and battle rez on VDH, but I can work around that in FFXIV.
However, it's not a better system because it makes people work harder so they can't fuck up the AH.
To be clear, FFXIV 100% has better crafting/gathering systems than WoW because it has systems that actually appeal to the kinds of people who want to engage with crafting systems. Now, it's a worse system for me, who just wants to max out alchemy and engineering so I can make my own flasks and battle rez on VDH, but I can work around that in FFXIV.
However, it's not a better system because it makes people work harder so they can't fuck up the AH.
You know, reading this, it occurs to me that maybe that's kind of a solution? You get the people who really *want* to engage with the system a somewhat complex thing and everyone else can just purchase their goods and not need to bother with doing shit they don't want to do. Kinda more like real life where the skilled crafters make the stuff and everyone else just buys it :P
Though I'm sure there would be a lot of issues with something like that too. I think people have just been mentally trained to not necessarily go for a system like that. (i.e. "I don't feel like I should have to pay for this shit if I can make it myself..." then cut to "Oh it's such a pain in the ass to make I'm not having fun this crafting system sucks!")
To be clear, FFXIV 100% has better crafting/gathering systems than WoW because it has systems that actually appeal to the kinds of people who want to engage with crafting systems. Now, it's a worse system for me, who just wants to max out alchemy and engineering so I can make my own flasks and battle rez on VDH, but I can work around that in FFXIV.
However, it's not a better system because it makes people work harder so they can't fuck up the AH.
You know, reading this, it occurs to me that maybe that's kind of a solution? You get the people who really *want* to engage with the system a somewhat complex thing and everyone else can just purchase their goods and not need to bother with doing shit they don't want to do. Kinda more like real life where the skilled crafters make the stuff and everyone else just buys it :P
Though I'm sure there would be a lot of issues with something like that too. I think people have just been mentally trained to not necessarily go for a system like that. (i.e. "I don't feel like I should have to pay for this shit if I can make it myself..." then cut to "Oh it's such a pain in the ass to make I'm not having fun this crafting system sucks!")
Thing is though, there's no anti-trust protection in WoW.
The decision to make crafting an 'anyone can do it' proposal in WoW is explicitly deliberate because they don't want a relatively small number of players to have too much control over anything in the market. It was much more difficult to craft things in Vanilla, and the result on a large number of servers was that if you wanted flasks for your raid, you had to talk to person X, and they were never very nice.
It's funny that this conversation is happening at this point in FF14, because they just recently blew the doors WAY off how easy it is to craft things. Specifically in Shadowbringers they went full-on 'yeah, crafting should be fucking simple. We're going to make it ridiculously easy to level everything and let you buy awesome gear right away for super cheap so its basically a formality, and also remove half of the older abilities so everything is hugely and immediately streamlined'. Changes that were universally met with raucous praise and applause
To be clear, FFXIV 100% has better crafting/gathering systems than WoW because it has systems that actually appeal to the kinds of people who want to engage with crafting systems. Now, it's a worse system for me, who just wants to max out alchemy and engineering so I can make my own flasks and battle rez on VDH, but I can work around that in FFXIV.
However, it's not a better system because it makes people work harder so they can't fuck up the AH.
You know, reading this, it occurs to me that maybe that's kind of a solution? You get the people who really *want* to engage with the system a somewhat complex thing and everyone else can just purchase their goods and not need to bother with doing shit they don't want to do. Kinda more like real life where the skilled crafters make the stuff and everyone else just buys it :P
Though I'm sure there would be a lot of issues with something like that too. I think people have just been mentally trained to not necessarily go for a system like that. (i.e. "I don't feel like I should have to pay for this shit if I can make it myself..." then cut to "Oh it's such a pain in the ass to make I'm not having fun this crafting system sucks!")
Thing is though, there's no anti-trust protection in WoW.
The decision to make crafting an 'anyone can do it' proposal in WoW is explicitly deliberate because they don't want a relatively small number of players to have too much control over anything in the market. It was much more difficult to craft things in Vanilla, and the result on a large number of servers was that if you wanted flasks for your raid, you had to talk to person X, and they were never very nice.
It's funny that this conversation is happening at this point in FF14, because they just recently blew the doors WAY off how easy it is to craft things. Specifically in Shadowbringers they went full-on 'yeah, crafting should be fucking simple. We're going to make it ridiculously easy to level everything and let you buy awesome gear right away for super cheap so its basically a formality, and also remove half of the older abilities so everything is hugely and immediately streamlined'. Changes that were universally met with raucous praise and applause
admanbunionize your workplaceSeattle, WARegistered Userregular
Well, it kind of goes to show that things that sound cool to someone who hasn't really played the game aren't nearly as cool when you've been living in them for years. The eternal challenge of MMOs is keeping both groups engaged.
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It's simple enough that any idiot can do it. And that's a problem, because the Auction House is perpetually being ruined by people that have no business being involved in economy and the market. Someone is always crashing the market. Daily. Multiple times daily. And if crafting took a bit more skill, or a bit more attention, or a bit more effort, or a bit more of something, that would reduce the number of idiots who are ruining the AH for the rest of us.
The barrier of entry is too low.
what is this gatekeeping horseshit
it's a fake auction house in a video game, mate
Yeah I've thought about the issue for a long time and honestly the only real way to fix crafting is to completely throw it away and start over. Which I don't think they'd do. They've tried to sort of take half steps at times, like specializations and rare materials and shit, but they are too afraid to go much beyond that so they half steps largely fail. Dragonscale Leatherworking is a lot less impactful when there are like 10 unique recipes and like a 1/3 of all Leatherworkers also took it and have these recipes :P This stuff worked well in vanilla because gear was way harder to get but now it's just way too easy to pop into a queue and get better stuff than anyone can craft.
lmao what
if someone is crashing the market in modern WoW it's almost certainly a bot network
when WoW came out the simple crafting system was a relief because you could actually just fuckin make stuff instead of engaging with some labyrinthian nightmare. You could still be rewarded for investing in it if you got rare recipes, but you didn't have to no-life blacksmithing just to be a valuable blacksmith. FFXIV's crafting is an evolution of WoW's to make the actual system a bit more engaging, but it's core functionality is arguably about the same. The difference between the two has a lot more to do with the systems surrounding them the the crafting systems themselves.
(and people crash FFXIV markets all the time)
Sure. It's all fake. It's just a game.
But also.
There are tons of idiots out there without the common sense to even list goods at cost. People are more concerned with instant gratification. So they make major undercuts to get instant sales, and very often, entire markets are completely trashed for days/weeks at a time because of unintelligent undercutting.
I think gatekeeping when it comes to market boards, auction houses, and things having to do with math, money, economics, and common sense, is necessary -- even if it's all just fake video game money.
And I'm not even talking about requiring a degree in business or anything like that. Just make crafting take a bit more effort. Emphasis on a bit. Make it so that it's more than just clicking a "Start" button and then suddenly you have 25 things to sell. Make the process more interactive. Maybe more like a mini-game.
I was originally replying to PAC's comment, and they are right. FFXIV has a vastly superior crafting system to WoW. And because of that, the Market Boards in XIV are also much less volatile than they are in WoW. I'm not saying they're perfect. There are still idiots in XIV too. And creating a more involved system won't weed out all of the idiots. But it might help reduce their number a bit. That's all I want. Not a complete elimination of idiots. Not a system so advanced you need a degree to interface with it. Just something.
It's a very deep system, that like 1-2 dozen people actually interact with.
PSN: ShogunGunshow
Origin: ShogunGunshow
Unless you're one of the people theorycrafting before each patch, that's how it works in FF14 too.
Cratfing itself may not be engaging, but is very much relevant. Response has been a very vocal minority whining about how is a plot to sell Tokens even though they can perfectly wait until prices are more accesible since they are not playing on a level when they need the highest upgrade when is available.
At least there's a pushback of "we made the effort and spent the mats to level the professions to have the newest upgrades as soon as possible, so fuck off?".
When Torghast timegating goes away on 9.1.5, can't wait for all the complaints from people that think that they need all Rank 6 legendaries of their class to clear the raid on Normal.
You really need to stop describing people who don't adhere to your view of what the AH market should be as "idiots."
This is just the same energy as hedge fund managers whinging that the shorts on GME didn't work out because it took off as a meme stock.
edit: Or, to include a Blizzard analogy, the desperate energy of someone dying to a 6pool and writing thousand word long screeds about how cheesing is for "idiots" and they should "learn how to play properly" and Blizzard should add anti-rush mechanics that prevent all early game aggression to stop cheese strategies.
They are playing properly. You just don't like that what you consider to be the ideal strategy isn't working.
Anyone doing top-end crafting in XIV just looks up what stat breakpoints they need to hit to use a particular macro, copy-paste that macro into a button, and then click start.
Ehhh.... not even a little bit? This is like super duper wrong.
Especially when you equate it to "a general life tip".
Literally every job posting ever has gatekeeping. X years of experience required. Y education required. And so forth.
Some things need gatekeeping even more than others. Medical professions. Law enforcement professions. Lawyers.
You wouldn't hire someone to be a teller at a bank if they can't perform certain competencies like being able to operate a computer and capability to do simple math, they are not a good fit for the job.
To bring this back around to video games, I think success at games should be based on skill. Skill is a form of gatekeeping. And specific to this topic at hand, I think crafting should require a bit of skill. Not even a lot. Just more than what is there now.
So no. You are 100% maximum wrong on this point.
You could forbid macros (doesn't WoW largely already do this?), and add some elements that are partially randomized so that the player can't approach every craft the exact same.
Saying that FFXIV's stuff is better doesn't mean you have to copy the bad elements when you port it over. Iterate and improve.
PSN: ShogunGunshow
Origin: ShogunGunshow
games should work like job applications everyone, you heard it here first
What I actually said, is that success at games should require skill, and skill is a form of gatekeeping. Beat a skill check, win the game. Simple as that.
But please. By all means. Go right ahead and completely twist my words and misrepresent what I said.
I think what you want is just for Blizzard to cater to you, personally, to make your life easier.
Why would they do that though, if even the game they would be copying from doesn’t do it that way, and the community that’s playing the game they would be copying from doesn’t WANT it to work that way?
If you think that people crashing the market on the AH is an issue, you are not good at playing the AH. And like hey, I totally respect it if you're like, "The system of the AH and the skills involved in succeeding at it are not what I want to engage with", most of the time that's me! I very rarely want to actually go particularly goblin at it.
But also, the AH has nothing to do with crafting, like at all. Crafting is completely irrelevant to the market.
The 230 blues are worth buying, but also so cheap to produce that the market floods and can't support high prices (again, Dutch Auction).
Consumables are a whole other market but most people aren't flipping herbs into flasks, they're getting herbs on their own.
My premise is that crafting should have an element of skill. And I think that if there's a skill check, even a small one, it might weed out a few poor decision makers who make unintelligent listings.
What you're talking about is something different from crafting. You're talking about playing the AH, watching trends, and maximizing profits. I'm not talking about that.
I am talking about the act of creation. Creating an object from raw materials.
Sure. It might be smarter to just sell the raw materials. But that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about crafting. And how I think crafting should be more than just pressing 1 button to convert raw materials into a finished product. I think skill should be involved. Some sort of mini-game.
All those potions, glyphs, and legendary base items don't appear out of thin air. Someone is crafting them and listing them.
That might actually be the case.
But even if it is the case, I still want crafting to be more than 1 button.
I mean this started as "I want crafting to take skill because crafting is so easy the AH is ruined by idiots."
Changing crafting will not impact the AH meaningfully.
As someone who makes all the alchemy raiding consumables for my guild and who regularly has to spend >30 minutes occasionall clicking "craft," no, this would be fucking awful.
WoW does not need more unnecessary, tedious shit.
It's fine that's what you're looking for, but FF14 is the wrong place to look for it.
Because it's ... better than just having people copy/paste macros in? Because it would be somewhat addressing what could be seen as an issue that undermines the knowledge-based mechanics?
I can't speak to what the crafting community of FFXIV feels at large. I only got started on it because I'm a new player and wanted to craft my own glamour prisms, and my interactions with the gathering and crafting while leveling up hit me with how much better things could be in WoW if it took some inspiration from its rival.
PSN: ShogunGunshow
Origin: ShogunGunshow
However, it's not a better system because it makes people work harder so they can't fuck up the AH.
You know, reading this, it occurs to me that maybe that's kind of a solution? You get the people who really *want* to engage with the system a somewhat complex thing and everyone else can just purchase their goods and not need to bother with doing shit they don't want to do. Kinda more like real life where the skilled crafters make the stuff and everyone else just buys it :P
Though I'm sure there would be a lot of issues with something like that too. I think people have just been mentally trained to not necessarily go for a system like that. (i.e. "I don't feel like I should have to pay for this shit if I can make it myself..." then cut to "Oh it's such a pain in the ass to make I'm not having fun this crafting system sucks!")
Thing is though, there's no anti-trust protection in WoW.
The decision to make crafting an 'anyone can do it' proposal in WoW is explicitly deliberate because they don't want a relatively small number of players to have too much control over anything in the market. It was much more difficult to craft things in Vanilla, and the result on a large number of servers was that if you wanted flasks for your raid, you had to talk to person X, and they were never very nice.
It's funny that this conversation is happening at this point in FF14, because they just recently blew the doors WAY off how easy it is to craft things. Specifically in Shadowbringers they went full-on 'yeah, crafting should be fucking simple. We're going to make it ridiculously easy to level everything and let you buy awesome gear right away for super cheap so its basically a formality, and also remove half of the older abilities so everything is hugely and immediately streamlined'. Changes that were universally met with raucous praise and applause
Crafting being an easy after-thought rules
Disappointing, hearing that. Oh well.
PSN: ShogunGunshow
Origin: ShogunGunshow