I actually brought up FFXIV to a friend (F'Nolla Wiloh on Mateus, hi how are you) while trying to explain some of the issues with Lusternia's economy, and I feel like the numbers difference really does matter a lot here. Crafters having an NPC out to hand items to certainly helps keep things rolling, but ultimately they're making gil off of people who don't have the time to devote to grinding out their crafting classes, gathering the materials, or crafting the items. Whether that's the occasional sale from levelling gear for a pittance, or chasing the burst of gil from catch-up gear when a new raid tier launches, or from catering to the true endgame, Eorzea's Next Top Glamour, they can only get away with it because even as low as the bar is set to get into crafting, there's always someone who doesn't think it's worth clearing.
Even if 99% of players were omnicrafters, that would still leave a few orders of magnitude more players than Lusternia HAS who are pure consumers. Or even if not pure consumers, the amount of crafting any one player can contribute is drops in the ocean unless they're aiming for a specific under-served niche ("I'm going to produce level 35 HQ weapons!", "Well I'M going to refine raw materials in the level 60-63 bracket.", "Ha! I'm making BANK just making roofing tiles!"), and part of the reason even that works is that the entire game is structured around equipment being largely disposable. You aren't really going to hang on to anything once your character progresses past its point of usefulness, and you CAN'T just use the same gear for large stretches because the gear does become irrelevant eventually. Even the "end-game" gear from the previous expansion will only carry you through to about halfway up the next expansion's tree in most cases before it's nothing but glam-fodder, and that represents maybe 8-10 hours of dedicated gameplay (maybe a little longer if you're levelling up multiple classes together).
Meanwhile I have an alt who I haven't touched in about 5 years who still has her first katana out of the portal because I bought a rune for it or won one out of a present or something. It's not going to become out-dated statistically, and thanks to the rune it won't decay. The only reason she wouldn't have that when IRE pulls the plug on Lusternia and shuts the servers down for good is if I decide I don't like the design anymore. And, even if I hadn't done that, I'd realistically only replace that sword once or twice a real-life year.
Ship profs are super, super grindy, and getting even just 1% in pilot seems to require some sort of special witchcraft.
Chair is easy enough to grind by just mindlessly launching/docking until you hit the cap. Generally anything with by-use proficiencies will be similarly lame, so I expect this trade proficiency will just replace the afk refining with a horse of a different color.
Crumkane, Lord of Epicurean Delights says, "WAS IT INDEED ON FIRE, ERITHEYL."
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With a deep reverb, Contemptible Sutekh says, "CEASE YOUR INFERNAL ENERGY, ERITHEYL."
Ship profs are super, super grindy, and getting even just 1% in pilot seems to require some sort of special witchcraft.
Chair is easy enough to grind by just mindlessly launching/docking until you hit the cap. Generally anything with by-use proficiencies will be similarly lame, so I expect this trade proficiency will just replace the afk refining with a horse of a different color.
There's also a nifty artifact to stop you losing proficiency, whether you take a break or switch from pilot to guns!
I actually brought up FFXIV to a friend (F'Nolla Wiloh on Mateus, hi how are you) while trying to explain some of the issues with Lusternia's economy, and I feel like the numbers difference really does matter a lot here. Crafters having an NPC out to hand items to certainly helps keep things rolling, but ultimately they're making gil off of people who don't have the time to devote to grinding out their crafting classes, gathering the materials, or crafting the items. Whether that's the occasional sale from levelling gear for a pittance, or chasing the burst of gil from catch-up gear when a new raid tier launches, or from catering to the true endgame, Eorzea's Next Top Glamour, they can only get away with it because even as low as the bar is set to get into crafting, there's always someone who doesn't think it's worth clearing.
Even if 99% of players were omnicrafters, that would still leave a few orders of magnitude more players than Lusternia HAS who are pure consumers. Or even if not pure consumers, the amount of crafting any one player can contribute is drops in the ocean unless they're aiming for a specific under-served niche ("I'm going to produce level 35 HQ weapons!", "Well I'M going to refine raw materials in the level 60-63 bracket.", "Ha! I'm making BANK just making roofing tiles!"), and part of the reason even that works is that the entire game is structured around equipment being largely disposable. You aren't really going to hang on to anything once your character progresses past its point of usefulness, and you CAN'T just use the same gear for large stretches because the gear does become irrelevant eventually. Even the "end-game" gear from the previous expansion will only carry you through to about halfway up the next expansion's tree in most cases before it's nothing but glam-fodder, and that represents maybe 8-10 hours of dedicated gameplay (maybe a little longer if you're levelling up multiple classes together).
Meanwhile I have an alt who I haven't touched in about 5 years who still has her first katana out of the portal because I bought a rune for it or won one out of a present or something. It's not going to become out-dated statistically, and thanks to the rune it won't decay. The only reason she wouldn't have that when IRE pulls the plug on Lusternia and shuts the servers down for good is if I decide I don't like the design anymore. And, even if I hadn't done that, I'd realistically only replace that sword once or twice a real-life year.
To me the lesson is that XIV doesn't necessarily do anything truly new with the core stuff. It's more just a spin on existing tried and true concepts, while they experiment with more novel things in side content that is sometimes abandoned or reworked later. A direct copy wouldn't be functional sure, but given so much of what works there is implemented across a broad spectrum of games it's shown that these concepts work quite well when adapted to the specific game and its arguably why they're so common.
Comms coming from one activity rather than across a range that players engage in seems to isolate the trade economy, for example, where it's far more common for it to be more integrated into everything. Adapting XIV/more common models might include having a flatter diversity of comms and balancing things more in favour of loot drop generation.
Player shops are a novel approach compared to the more conventional marketboard/auction house/etc systems but the conventional method covers issues we have with shops creating a barrier for entry other games just don't have. Sure orgs can buy more to make them available without credits and players can share them, but that's just improving the availability of that functionality to get closer to just how other games work.
Also, yeah other games have subsequent expansions that make older equipment irrelevant or add new things you want. Lusternia does do this in a way, the issue is that it's almost exclusively with artifacts which doesn't really help trades. Lusternia's progression seems more goop, credits, and essence with trades being kinda in there but not really depending on your gameplay.
Comments
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To me the lesson is that XIV doesn't necessarily do anything truly new with the core stuff. It's more just a spin on existing tried and true concepts, while they experiment with more novel things in side content that is sometimes abandoned or reworked later. A direct copy wouldn't be functional sure, but given so much of what works there is implemented across a broad spectrum of games it's shown that these concepts work quite well when adapted to the specific game and its arguably why they're so common.
Comms coming from one activity rather than across a range that players engage in seems to isolate the trade economy, for example, where it's far more common for it to be more integrated into everything. Adapting XIV/more common models might include having a flatter diversity of comms and balancing things more in favour of loot drop generation.
Player shops are a novel approach compared to the more conventional marketboard/auction house/etc systems but the conventional method covers issues we have with shops creating a barrier for entry other games just don't have. Sure orgs can buy more to make them available without credits and players can share them, but that's just improving the availability of that functionality to get closer to just how other games work.
Also, yeah other games have subsequent expansions that make older equipment irrelevant or add new things you want. Lusternia does do this in a way, the issue is that it's almost exclusively with artifacts which doesn't really help trades. Lusternia's progression seems more goop, credits, and essence with trades being kinda in there but not really depending on your gameplay.