whats the point of crafting...

[Irenae]

Crafted gear is better than NPC gear any day of the week, as well as being able to attach your own materia is very handy. 2star crafted gear with materia or NPC gear lol which do you think will perform better? Again crafted hands down. Also don't forget making your own dyes for gear as well as other special recipes. Buying gear at the board like Obelisk for Dragoon is very expensive, but with 50 mining and blacksmithing it's a gather and craft then meld affair which saves a lot of gil.

[Miya_Carbuncle]

It's fun and a great way to make gil, that's why I like it. When I hit 50 on GSM, rather than focus on getting new gear just to get replaced later, I'm gonna focus on crafting for profit as well as leveling the other crafts to 50 as well. I think it'll be fun watching my profits grow higher and higher and I love making HQs as it is. c:

Not that I wont raid on and off, as well as other things, crafting is just going to be the main focus.

[GuardianX]

I get into crafting after I hit the weekly cap of 300 tomes. Cash Flow is better when u have a crafting class. Since I have botany and mining at 50, I am self sufficient in gathering materials for everything I need.

[Gurpsmeister]

As it stands it would seem crafting is profitable as long as other crafters keep buying the stuff you craft. The DOM and DOW classes are a tiny market at the end with HQ Item lvl 70 stuff that only some will buy. The real money is in selling to your fellow crafters as they continue to level up other crafts. Therein lies the rub I suppose as a vast chunk of the player populace has no interest or need in the product you can make. Housing will come about and act as a salve for a time being I suspect, but that market will get DESTROYED and early thanks to everyone believing they're getting a jump on it when the fact is they're just a voice in the crowd competing for the new toy, which will drive prices down. Considering that Yoshi P stated that the bulk of housing stuff will be made with low level materials that nearly puts a decided cap on the housing is going to save crafting topic, in my opinon.

Until crafters can actually compete with, that is to say, be equal to or in some cases superior to the otherwise easy to get rewards and drops, the answer to the question originally asked is (again in my opinion), the point of crafting is currently to be in a holding pattern in the hopes that the situation improves? Otherwise, above all I'd say if you enjoy it by all means continue to do it.

[Gurpsmeister]

even iLevel 70 materia melded gear will be trumped by iLevel 80 gear from Crystal Tower

furthermore as the weeks accumulate and players start outfitting in AF2 or iLevel 90 gear the value of crafting is just going to continue to nosedive.

45k for a peacock ore? sure! I'll make money off crafters as much as possible while they don't realize these facts.

And this, most decidedly this. Please above all else continue to buy these materials. 2.1 will effectively decimate the Item level 70 trade anyhow so need to cash in as much as y'can on this one.

[Gurpsmeister]

Who told you once Crystal Tower is out, they wont add new recipes (ilvl80) for crafters to match Coil drops ?
Are you an idiot or something ?

You're assuming that they are adding new recipes? Who here is the more idiotic? They've all but announced the big additions in 2.1 and new recipes aside from housing stuff, did not seem to make the list.

[Chauve]

You're assuming that they are adding new recipes? Who here is the more idiotic? They've all but announced the big additions in 2.1 and new recipes aside from housing stuff, did not seem to make the list.

It's really not all that idiotic. Adding recipes seems like a pretty common-sense thing to do, right?

But realistically, adding recipes in probably isn't at the top of their list at the moment. And might not be for a while. I doubt they'll have this implemented at release, but I would HOPE they would put something in fairly soon after. Then again, I may be giving them too much credit. Things have been a liiiittle rocky :x

On a side note, not entirely sure new recipes would fit in with "big additions". There's a number of things that may be implemented in 2.1, but no confirmation.

[Chauve]

On topic, crafting is pretty viable. HQ crafted items aside, you have things like goldsmithing that are still profitable. Make high-level accessories, spiritbond, break down for materia, rinse and repeat. If this hasn't already been mentioned.

[Tzain]

I'm a non-crafter DOM/DOW. So consider me the consumer.

I know that on lower level stuff, I'm much more willing to drop coin on a pre-melded item than a non-melded one all things being equal.

Not sure if that helps you. But I wouldn't mind seeing more of that stuff for sale.

[Laryndra]

45k for a peacock ore? sure! I'll make money off crafters as much as possible while they don't realize these facts.

^Lol if you think you're the one making gil off of this you've got no idea.. On my server these go for 30k a piece. It takes 9 of them to make a mage earring which i sell for ~600k gil. You have fun farmin those tomes for me =)