Can we make crafting more USEFUL....?

[Kaurhz]

Not a massive fan of this, at least with how it comes across.

Crafting could definitely be more interesting, but if we talk about interest with respect to just inflating our crafting logs with a metric tonne of recipes then doesn't work very well. For a while I've been a fan of the idea that both crafting and gathering could be added to dungeons in some element or another. Hidden key somewhere? Go fish it. Key is rusty and old? Repair it, or something similar.

But above all, I hope they stop adding artificial difficulty with these recipes. Off topic but increase CP cost for Manipulation II, and more importantly Prudent plzz, that ability should cost at least 40 CP

[Risvertasashi]

...The devs went out of their way to make crafted gear useful in bleeding edge progression with 4.0. But I guess some people won't be happy unless everyone's paying them millions upon millions of gil for BiS gear...

[Zojha]

[...] we're basically just crafting crafter gear so that we have better gear to craft more crafter gear...it's kinda redundant.

Battle content at endgame revolves entirely around getting better battle gear to tackle content with higher iLvL restrictions to get better battle gear out of it so you can then do the battle content you got the gear from more easily until the next even patch where you get to do more battle content for even better battle gear. That and farming gear with inferior stats for glamour.

If that works fine for battle content and not for crafting content, maybe the deeper issue lies in the design of crafting content and not the redundancy of the system.

[Ksenia]

*snip* maybe the deeper issue lies in the design of crafting content and not the redundancy of the system.

The deeper issue might be that it's all a gear grind, treadmill and that's an issue with all MMO's and it's the core to burn out and apathy issues that all MMO's face. Both battle and crafting has seen most players skip intervals of the gear grind treadmill because they have done it 15 times. (How many people CBA to meld for the last phase knowing they would get this new 2 star?) I'm still just going to wait and see what augmented blue looks like. "Been there, done that". It's true for most aspects of the game.

[ChloeGrace]

Also, better healing/mp pots for christs sake.

This. The best ether we have is i150 from 3.1? 1700 MP just doesn't cut it any more. It was barely useful halfway through the HW xpac.
I wish meds affected more things (defensively and offensively) other than trash mobs and open world faceroll stuff.
They could add stuff like reraise pots (with a long cooldown, say 15 minutes?), refresh/regain meds, things that give mobs vulnerabilities, but no. SE doesn't want to bother testing all that for balances, and certainly doesn't want players cheesing mechanics.
So instead, they make alchemy a prerequisite bridge synth for every new DoL and DoH main. I hope ALC like the smell of snail oil.

[Zetsumei_Tsunarashi]

I think something that would be nice would be to have crafting materials drop in 24man raid that you can use to craft any piece of loot from the raid. So if you're a crafter you can choose what loot you get each week instead of hoping for the drop. The piece you craft would be unique/untradable and can't be HQ. so it's the same item from the dungeon and you have to make it yourself and can't sell it in the MB.

Would just be a nice incentive to have crafting leveled that lets you bypass a little of tediousness of farming 24man raid for glamour/alt class.

[Sylvain]

I have to say using the raid thingy to upgrade our gear would actually be very nice.

[Lyraele]

But above all, I hope they stop adding artificial difficulty with these recipes. Off topic but increase CP cost for Manipulation II, and more importantly Prudent plzz, that ability should cost at least 40 CP

Why would you want these abilities to be more expensive? Manipulation II is already only barely more CP efficient than Manipulation, and less flexible. Prudent Touch at 40 CP wouldn't be worth using. What does making these more CP intensive help?

[DarkDedede]

They should just remove glamour restrictions from crafted gear that is actually crafted by an actual crafter (has a signature). If the same gear is obtained from npcs, quests or quick ventures should maintain current glamour restrictions.

That would give a boost to demand for crafted gear, and give crafters more of a reason to make things, without crafters having to compete with "freebie" gear.

[Avenger]

Most of the crafters are COMPLETELY useless when it comes to the PVE content...! Ok maybe EXCEPT for the FIRST MONTH of release where you can craft some DECENT gear but other than that the ONLY crafter i EVER use now is CUL and ALC....

Even in 4.1, I still see people with pentamelded crafted DoW/DoM accs - those seem to have some legs possibly. And of course you can craft crafting gear that you can use to craft more crafts, or gathering gear that you can use to gather materials for said crafts*.

Besides glamours you might consider minions, 500K gil for a cheap apartment, furniture for said apartment, an orchestrion for that apartment, and orchestrion rolls for that orchestrion! ;-)

*Sometimes though I do wonder if it's all a bit of a pyramid scheme though...