Post by xaeris on Mar 25, 2014 0:37:07 GMT
.... you might want to check out Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn.
I saw a lot of similarities, but yet differences as well, as I'll outline below for those who have never played it.
Leveling up
Just like Istaria, you gain XP for every item you make provided you're not too over leveled for your recipe. The game provides a clear progression path through the levels. Unlike Istaria, though, you won't find yourself doing the same recipe for 10+ levels at a time (a good thing, IMO). You also get experience from quests, and "Levequests" which are basically repeatable quests that you can do as long as you have allowances (which you accrue 6 of per day). Levequests give a *lot* of XP from what I saw, so I can see why they limited it to 6/day.
Multiclass Crafting
Like Istaria, you can freely swap between the crafting classes/schools. Unlike Istaria, you can switch anytime without having to go back to an NPC. You need only switch the tool in your main hand, or use the game's convenient Gear Set system and select the Gear Set of the crafting class you wish to switch to. *swoosh!* You've changed your current craft class. Easy as that. Abilities from crafts can be cross-classed (unlike Istaria, which doesn't really have any abilities at all, let alone ones you can cross-class. The only thing XIV is missing, is the ability to have overpowered skills from fully leveled crafts (Example: Blacksmithing 100 giving you the ability to make Lv70+ weapons as a Lv15 Weaponsmith). In the end run, this is a good thing: You don't cheese levels by grinding Mithril Bars from 1-100.
Gather All of Your Own Ingredients
This was one of the biggest selling points behind Istarian crafting -- this is something nobody else did until World of Warcraft came along. It was entirely infeasible to gather all of your own materials and make all of your own gear in many games, until Istaria came along. Once you got Blacksmith done, and started into other classes by grinding T4-5 Materials, you could make all of your own stuff. Good news: You can do this in XIV too! Every material in the game can be gathered reasonably by the player, and there is absolutely no competition for nodes in the field; nodes are instanced to you yourself and nobody else can take your nodes.
Make all of your own gear!
There does not appear to be any limitations as to what/how many crafting classes you are permitted to have how high. Just like in Istaria, you can make all of your own gear for yourself as you go (the quests every 5 levels also give you gear to help you out during your first 20 or so levels. By then you're probably using your own equipment and don't need the quest rewards).
Crafting Complexity
Istaria had a complex crafting system that involved Techniques, where you got drops from monsters to add stats onto your crafting gear. As a result, being a pure crafter in Istaria is not very feasible unless you have someone else supplying all of your technique needs. Rather than have techniques, XIV has an HQ/Minigame system that is easy to learn, but harder to master. Everything you do, from gathering, to processing, to manufacturing end products has a quality meter. Push this meter higher and you increase the chances of an HQ (High Quality) result. High Quality gear has much superior stats and is much more effective. For example, if you wanted to make a High-Quality Blacksmithing Hammer, you'd become skilled as a Miner first. You'd go out and mine the ore until you had some High-Quality Ore. Then, you'd take your Botanist out, and whack some trees to get logs, until you had some high-quality logs (each whack gives you a % chance of HQ which goes up as you get more skilled/get better gear). Then you'd turn the logs into lumber, and if you were skilled enough, HQ Lumber (having HQ logs makes it easier to HQ the lumber). Then, finally, swap to your Blacksmith, and try to HQ the bars (again, HQ ore makes it easier). With HQ Ore, and HQ Lumber in hand, you've a much higher chance of HQing your Blacksmith Hammer (15% to start with before you even begin crafting if all of the materials are HQ). It is a very logical and sensible system that has some randomness in it, but this randomness can be influenced by your actions directly.
Things XIV has that Istaria doesn't:
1). No Machines are required! Instead, you use crystals which can be gathered, gotten from mobs, or rewarded by quests. You can craft anywhere you want.
2). XIV does not use a bulk craft system, where you need hundreds, or thousands of a material to make anything or earn any measurable XP. Higher Skill = better chances of HQ rather than High Skill = Less Materials per craft.
3). XIV gives Gathering classes a Stealth ability which gets better as you level. This Stealth ability allows you to gather without being harassed by mobs, though it severely hampers your movement speed. That way, you can be a pure crafter if you are not interested in combat (with the exception of needing to do a few easy early-level dungeons for a Retainer to sell your goods on the Marketplace).
Things Istaria has that XIV does not:
1). Batch Crafting. There's Quick Synthesis, but it still makes one-by-one. Thankfully, there's not very many times you need to make a lot of something (the highest I've done, is 24 bronze ingots -> 12 bronze plates). You can AFK while Quick Synthesis does its work; it is automatic and bypasses the crafting minigame for the cost of quality (HQ chances are much lower using Quick Synthesis).
2). Housing. XIV recently added Free Company (think: Guild) housing, though. I don't think you build the house itself from the ground-up, but I do know you can build furniture to place within it, and decorations to place around it. You don't actually build houses from the ground-up, though, nor are there dragon lairs (but then, no playable dragons either).
A few more things:
Combat in XIV is also very enjoyable and is seemingly complex enough to make it viable in the modern day MMO, but yet doesn't seem so hard that older folks would have a rough time learning it. Solo is very viable (except for dungeons/group quests that you can queue up for if you wish), and the interface is very well done and is very polished.
Players familiar with WoW will recognize the inspirations the game borrowed from WoW, but it is by far not a WoW Clone. The UI looks similar but the game plays quite different, especially the crafting system and somewhat the battle system as well.
So, if you like Crafting in Istaria, might want to give XIV:ARR a try! Don't let the botched 1.0 release scare you off; the game is far, far better this time around.
I saw a lot of similarities, but yet differences as well, as I'll outline below for those who have never played it.
Leveling up
Just like Istaria, you gain XP for every item you make provided you're not too over leveled for your recipe. The game provides a clear progression path through the levels. Unlike Istaria, though, you won't find yourself doing the same recipe for 10+ levels at a time (a good thing, IMO). You also get experience from quests, and "Levequests" which are basically repeatable quests that you can do as long as you have allowances (which you accrue 6 of per day). Levequests give a *lot* of XP from what I saw, so I can see why they limited it to 6/day.
Multiclass Crafting
Like Istaria, you can freely swap between the crafting classes/schools. Unlike Istaria, you can switch anytime without having to go back to an NPC. You need only switch the tool in your main hand, or use the game's convenient Gear Set system and select the Gear Set of the crafting class you wish to switch to. *swoosh!* You've changed your current craft class. Easy as that. Abilities from crafts can be cross-classed (unlike Istaria, which doesn't really have any abilities at all, let alone ones you can cross-class. The only thing XIV is missing, is the ability to have overpowered skills from fully leveled crafts (Example: Blacksmithing 100 giving you the ability to make Lv70+ weapons as a Lv15 Weaponsmith). In the end run, this is a good thing: You don't cheese levels by grinding Mithril Bars from 1-100.
Gather All of Your Own Ingredients
This was one of the biggest selling points behind Istarian crafting -- this is something nobody else did until World of Warcraft came along. It was entirely infeasible to gather all of your own materials and make all of your own gear in many games, until Istaria came along. Once you got Blacksmith done, and started into other classes by grinding T4-5 Materials, you could make all of your own stuff. Good news: You can do this in XIV too! Every material in the game can be gathered reasonably by the player, and there is absolutely no competition for nodes in the field; nodes are instanced to you yourself and nobody else can take your nodes.
Make all of your own gear!
There does not appear to be any limitations as to what/how many crafting classes you are permitted to have how high. Just like in Istaria, you can make all of your own gear for yourself as you go (the quests every 5 levels also give you gear to help you out during your first 20 or so levels. By then you're probably using your own equipment and don't need the quest rewards).
Crafting Complexity
Istaria had a complex crafting system that involved Techniques, where you got drops from monsters to add stats onto your crafting gear. As a result, being a pure crafter in Istaria is not very feasible unless you have someone else supplying all of your technique needs. Rather than have techniques, XIV has an HQ/Minigame system that is easy to learn, but harder to master. Everything you do, from gathering, to processing, to manufacturing end products has a quality meter. Push this meter higher and you increase the chances of an HQ (High Quality) result. High Quality gear has much superior stats and is much more effective. For example, if you wanted to make a High-Quality Blacksmithing Hammer, you'd become skilled as a Miner first. You'd go out and mine the ore until you had some High-Quality Ore. Then, you'd take your Botanist out, and whack some trees to get logs, until you had some high-quality logs (each whack gives you a % chance of HQ which goes up as you get more skilled/get better gear). Then you'd turn the logs into lumber, and if you were skilled enough, HQ Lumber (having HQ logs makes it easier to HQ the lumber). Then, finally, swap to your Blacksmith, and try to HQ the bars (again, HQ ore makes it easier). With HQ Ore, and HQ Lumber in hand, you've a much higher chance of HQing your Blacksmith Hammer (15% to start with before you even begin crafting if all of the materials are HQ). It is a very logical and sensible system that has some randomness in it, but this randomness can be influenced by your actions directly.
Things XIV has that Istaria doesn't:
1). No Machines are required! Instead, you use crystals which can be gathered, gotten from mobs, or rewarded by quests. You can craft anywhere you want.
2). XIV does not use a bulk craft system, where you need hundreds, or thousands of a material to make anything or earn any measurable XP. Higher Skill = better chances of HQ rather than High Skill = Less Materials per craft.
3). XIV gives Gathering classes a Stealth ability which gets better as you level. This Stealth ability allows you to gather without being harassed by mobs, though it severely hampers your movement speed. That way, you can be a pure crafter if you are not interested in combat (with the exception of needing to do a few easy early-level dungeons for a Retainer to sell your goods on the Marketplace).
Things Istaria has that XIV does not:
1). Batch Crafting. There's Quick Synthesis, but it still makes one-by-one. Thankfully, there's not very many times you need to make a lot of something (the highest I've done, is 24 bronze ingots -> 12 bronze plates). You can AFK while Quick Synthesis does its work; it is automatic and bypasses the crafting minigame for the cost of quality (HQ chances are much lower using Quick Synthesis).
2). Housing. XIV recently added Free Company (think: Guild) housing, though. I don't think you build the house itself from the ground-up, but I do know you can build furniture to place within it, and decorations to place around it. You don't actually build houses from the ground-up, though, nor are there dragon lairs (but then, no playable dragons either).
A few more things:
Combat in XIV is also very enjoyable and is seemingly complex enough to make it viable in the modern day MMO, but yet doesn't seem so hard that older folks would have a rough time learning it. Solo is very viable (except for dungeons/group quests that you can queue up for if you wish), and the interface is very well done and is very polished.
Players familiar with WoW will recognize the inspirations the game borrowed from WoW, but it is by far not a WoW Clone. The UI looks similar but the game plays quite different, especially the crafting system and somewhat the battle system as well.
So, if you like Crafting in Istaria, might want to give XIV:ARR a try! Don't let the botched 1.0 release scare you off; the game is far, far better this time around.
