The 1st Forge: Before the Journey

"This is the first of (hopefully) a series of guest posts! Introducing Ark with a topic that I have no clue about... crafting! -Ascy" 

 

Preface: I did not craft very much in FFXI, nor have I played FFXIV 1.0. Please don't ask me how this compares to other MMO crafting, as I really don't know. This is also just my thoughts and inferred information on crafting in 2.0 and as such, shouldn't be taken as 100% accurate. All images shown are copyright of Square Enix Co, Ltd even if they aren't watermarked as such, as I have edited some images for simplicity. 

Wheee! Let's Get Started!

The Bismarck! Limsa Lominsa's finest restaurant and home of the Culinarian Guild!

What is Crafting?

The desire to immerse ourselves in the world of Hydaelyn can be engaged in a number of ways: we alter the appearance of our character into something meaningful that we connect with, we learn of the world's lore and take part in their unfolding stories, and we fight with foes in grandiose battles. Another way we interact with Hydaelyn is crafting: Not only could I wear a brilliant set of armor, but I could have made it too!

The lovely Ascy showing us some fancy needlework.

In terms of gameplay, it attempts to give us options other than fighting, and provides a relaxing alternative where we can gather resources and convert them into items we can use. Whether we use those items for ourselves, give to our friends or sell to other players in our community, the items we make will always bear our name!

The next prodigy of apparel perhaps? Victoriascy's Secrets?

Which Discipline of Hand is Right For Me?

The current list of crafters is as follows:

Carpenter – Bows, Staffs
     +The Black Shroud, New Gridania, Corgg

Blacksmith – Weapons, Crafting Tools
     -Tools La Noscea, Limsa Lominsa Upper Decks, Randwulf

Armorer – Heavy Armor
     +La Noscea, Limsa Lominsa Upper Decks, G'wahnako

Goldsmith – Accessories
     -Thanalan, Ul'dah – Steps of Thal, Jemime

Leatherworker – Light Armor
     +The Black Shroud, Old Gridania. Randall

Weaver – Caster Clothing
     -Thanalan, Ul'dah – Steps of Thal, Maronne

Alchemist – Potions
     +Thanalan, Ul'dah – Steps of Thal, Deitrich

Culinarian – Food...
     -La Noscea, Limsa Lominsa Upper Decks, Charlys

It's really jumping here in Ul'dah! Always welcome at the Weaver Guild!

Which Discipline of Land is Right For Me?

The current list of gatherers is as follows:

Miner – Ore
     +Thanalan, Ul'dah – Steps of Thal, Linette

Botanist – Wood, Cotton, Spices
     -The Black Shroud, Old Gridania, Leonceault 

Fisher – Fish?
     +La Noscea, Limsa Lominsa Lower Decks, unnamed

Pick up armor and blacksmithing at the same time here in Limsa's Upper Decks!

These are just the primary functions I have noticed from the disciplines and they probably not some other things they can craft that I'm unaware of at the moment. Disciplines are really easy to find as none are hidden; just pull up the map and you'll see where all the guilds are in town, but I decided to include links to them just in case.

When Can I start?!

Can't wait to start mining! There's gold in dem der hills!

 Although you can access crafting once you reach level 10 with your starting class and complete its respective quest, currently the ferry has been unavailable as of Phase 3 in the beta. Whether you will be able to freely move to the other starter cities at a very low level is yet to be seen. There is a land path between Gridania and Ul'dah, but Limsa Lominsa requires the ferry or an airship pass to access; the latter of which becomes available after completing the level ~15 main storyline quest. Remember that you can pick up all the disciplines and aren't limited to picking one!

Understanding the UI

Here we see the crystal tab of the inventory box.

What a High Quality craft looks like when in your items.

 As with the other battle classes, crafting is also locked to something you wield, so remember to keep a spot in your gear list if you plan to switch to your craft often! Your important (default) keys are as follows:

"C" – Character sheet and Gear Set List

"N" – Brings up your profession log

"I" – Brings up inventory and displays your crystal count

What Does Clothing Even Do?

Initially clothing isn't necessary... and nobody mourned over that.

 Though crafting and gathering clothes can be shared, most of them are more suited to one or the other, so it is a good idea to have separate sets for each role. The bonuses provided by gear is:

Control – Lowers the chance of failing an action

Craftsmanship – Raises the value of successful actions

Typically, your main hand item seems to give larger bonuses to your profession.

Gathering – Lows the chance of failing a gather

Perception – Raises the chance of procuring high quality materials

Sporting some Miner apparel. Your character sheet also displays total bonuses.

Showing some of the early hybrid bonus gear. Fair enough for early levels.

These are the initial bonuses given by equipment, but perhaps later down the road there will be even more specialized bonuses given to respective disciplines? I'm fairly certain these are what the values do, but I'm sure with time we'll fully explore their properties!

Creating Our First Item!

The game does a fair enough job of easing the player into crafting and the first quest is usually a matter of equipping your newly given tool, buying the materials from a vendor inside the guild, and making an item. While it tells you to access the crafting menu through the personal logs section, I found it easier to learn the hotkey for it and use it often because if you intend to craft, you're going to be seeing that menu -- all the time.

One of the very first Carpenter quests. Measure twice, cut once!

There's Only One Button?

If there was a word to describe crafting in this game it would be 'accessible'. All the disciplines start off with an extraordinarily simple quest and explicit dialogue on how to finish it, and you only start with a single action: make. Still, let's tackle this as though everything was skipped and we've become lost.

Learn to love it. Going to see this menu in your dreams (Hotkey: N)

Bring up our profession log (Hotkey: N) will show our current class' list of items that can be made; clicking on each item reveals the difficulty, durability, crystals required and components required. What is important to note on the first craft is the components required: these will be purchased at the respective guild's supplier NPC – who tends to stand inside the guild, often next to the receptionist.

The very first action that all crafts share.

Once the materials are acquired, it is time to make the item! Bring up the log, select the item, and choose 'synthesis' in the bottom corner. This brings up the actual creation process: in this case it will be an item with 40 durability, which means that there will be four chances to complete the item – each action will take 10 durability off the item and when it reaches zero durability the item fails. For the first craft, our basic synthesis has an incredibly high success rate, so failure is unlikely.

Here we see 10 points on a 9 point item; instant success on our first item!

Now that the item is complete we can turn it in to our guildmaster and finish the quest!

While finishing a crafting log isn't necessary, it does give that warm, fuzzy feeling inside.

Attacking Nature!!

If crafting is accessible, then gathering is even more so! I found that it took longer to level but it was likely designed to be more recreational – even though we know we're just going to blitz the profession and try leveling it as quickly as possible. I found that gathering became interesting only in the later levels when there were more aggressive monsters in the field that would prevent you from trying to harvest, but that is for a different post. For now, let's start from the very beginning in a distant land called Eorzea.

While Ascy loves nature, today nature fears Ascy! Make like a tree and scram!

Our first quest is to deliver a small quantity of items and like the crafting professions, the dialogue will explain where they can be gathered from – as a side note, I believe the gathering log in the menus will also tell you where you have previously gathered, or where you can find, an item once harvested. So let's head on out to our first area!

The gold icons show gathering points on the mini-map, but not on the regular map.

You will notice that, once again, there is only one action we can perform: an ability that shows us harvest locations. The mini-map shows these gathering locations and usually if you harvest a group of 2~3, you'll find that they will have refreshed around the time you get the last one; so if you so desired, you could perform this loop to level – however boring that might be. If you are in the right area, you should find the item you need once you have interacted with the harvest point and all you have to do is click the item you want harvested.

Chaining might not seem like very much EXP, but it adds up over time.

Later on we acquire abilities that raise our gathering rate, making it easier to chain our gather and get more EXP, which is useful if you plan on grinding. They work exceptionally well on unknown gather points -- these appear starting at level 10 harvests, but once you successfully harvest them, they become like any other item in your list and have a higher chance of being gathered.

Quite frustrating the first time when you miss an unknown gather 8 times in a row.

Our buff is applied and one gather has become 100% !

Closing Thoughts

 

What I really wanted to see was how fishing would work! Such a disappointing thing to start in Limsa with no Arcanist or Fishing ready! I really wanted to know how it was going to fit in on crafting; whether it would provide fish for culinarian, crystals for any craft in general, maybe find some rusted boots to synthesize into new items – who knows?!

Won't you tell me your name at least, Miss Mi'qote?

I will say that the initial start of crafting is fairly boring because of how simplistic it is – which, don't get me wrong, is probably a good thing for many people who are afraid to jump into crafting, and it is probably the desire of the Square team to make it so friendly in the beginning. Later on, however, I noticed that there were a lot more options and it became more fun and interesting; especially gathering since level 15 and below rarely ran into aggressive monsters.

It should be a lot of fun picking which professions to use my leves on, what crafts to start first, and which I should finish later, but for now I'm pleasantly surprised with XIV's crafting – since XI seemed like a nightmare in my memories.

Let's get fired up for crafting!! YARgghghghGHGHGH!

I hope you all check out the crafting! Thanks for reading!