New Player - confused about crafting and so much fighting.

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Originally Posted by RushLynx

There's no reason that I should be forced to level a craft that I don't enjoy just to prevent people from monopolizing the AH... Especially when all that needs to be done is give those recipes to the people who enjoyed crafting...

I don't level synergy because I play this game to have fun... If it's not fun, why would I waste my time?

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Nobody is forcing you to do anything. However, if you're unwilling to level synergy, you have no right to complain about people "monopolizing" the market.

Let me give you a real life example. Say you're a dairy farmer and the laws dictate that you must ship out all your milk in glass bottles, the government then changes the legislation to require all milk being shipped out in cartons instead. On moral grounds you refuse to change to the cartons, because you simply don`t like cartons or something. You can no longer sell your milk to anyone because it doesn`t meet government regulations. You go bankrupt. Whose fault is this?

There's plenty of evidence that would suggest that there's truth to the fact that this game isn't as good as it use to be... Mainly just the fact that new players who try to start playing often find themselves quitting because no1 will help them anymore, they cant find party members to xp, and they dont understand what the point of everything is when eventually it all just gets overwritten by abyssea content...

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Mainly just the fact that new players who try to start playing often find themselves quitting because no1 will help them anymore, they cant find party members to xp, and they dont understand what the point of everything is when eventually it all just gets overwritten by abyssea content...

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Calling it evidence is a bit much, there`s certainly opinions out there that the game is worse. Conversely there are plenty of people that are enjoying the new content immensely.

You are correct in that this game can be quite tough for new players. It has always been this way though. If anything, the early stages of the game are several orders of magnitude easier than they used to be. The old game was a masochistic grind fest for a large part, I don`t know how you see that as better. Being forced to party with random people (a lot of them idiots) to grind out 75 pretty painful levels, I don`t know how that was possibly better than the current system.

However, if you are expecting to return to the game and find EXP parties like in the old days and have the crafting system the same as when you left it. Yeah, you`re in for a big shock. Please keep in mind that SE has introduced these things to keep the game healthy and active.

Ok. I will just continue with my clothcraft until it gets to 100, then focus on synergy and leathercraft - so I can make clothes still. Thanks for all your input and especially that recipe to skill the machine. It seems like there is a lot of debate about this issue but now that I have read more it is clear that you still need to be a crafter to have good synergy. I also read about the update and it seems like I am going to have to have high craft skills, so I am no longer confused. I thought that synergy *replaced* crafting, and that is why I was disturbed. That doesn't seem the case though - the bottom line seems to be that if I want to craft things I will have to learn synergy in addition to a crafting skill, which is no big deal. It just takes longer to feel rewarded.

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I thought that synergy *replaced* crafting, and that is why I was disturbed. That doesn't seem the case though - the bottom line seems to be that if I want to craft things I will have to learn synergy in addition to a crafting skill, which is no big deal. It just takes longer to feel rewarded.

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No, synergy is complementing and expanding on the current system, which had run out of room to grow.

You don't really need to take your leathercraft to 100 before you start synergy by the way. You're probably fine to start skilling it up now even, it might make a nice break from the leathercrafting.

Synergy didn't ruin crafting , Crafting become outdated with the rest of the old contents, because SE simply stopped adding new things to Crafting and shifted its focus into synergy, but as you know now, Synergy requires 1 or several Crafts leveled to be able to synergies many great items, so Crafting is not entirely useless.

Crafting cap will increase one day, and a whole new items will be added to both Crafting and Synergy, your progress now will never be wasted. I hope you like Synergy tho lol.

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There's plenty of evidence that would suggest that there's truth to the fact that this game isn't as good as it use to be

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Nah, the game is actually much better for new ppl than before, more informative, easier and forgiven with FoV and and increase EXP and the like, its still hard in a way for new ppl because not so many are playing in low levels, so no one is suffering through the content with them like its used to be, which is what made it bearable back in the day.
SE cant force ppl to play the game, so the only solution they can come up with, is to make the game more solo friendly at low levels to counter the decrease of population at these levels, and guess what SE is doing just that! SE anticipated these issues and they have been working on them and still, AH/servers merging and all these changes are merely reflecting on the state of the game, it wasn't the cause of population decline, its actually the opposite.

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run out of room to grow.

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what is that supposed to mean?
you know they could have just increased the cap of each craft by 10 or something and added these new items or even adding them anywhere between 1-100, nothing stopping them from doing that, but they didn't and made Synergy instead.
meh, I'm not complaining, whats done is done!

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Originally Posted by Bhujerba

what is that supposed to mean?
you know they could have just increased the cap of each craft by 10 or something and added these new items or even adding them anywhere between 1-100, nothing stopping them from doing that, but they didn't and made Synergy instead.
meh, I'm not complaining, whats done is done!

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I mean the synthesis system ran out of room to grow. They could have done whatever they liked to expand it, doesn't change the fact that it was top heavy and due for an update.

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Originally Posted by RushLynx

There's no reason that I should be forced to level a craft that I don't enjoy just to prevent people from monopolizing the AH... Especially when all that needs to be done is give those recipes to the people who enjoyed crafting...

I don't level synergy because I play this game to have fun... If it's not fun, why would I waste my time?

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That sounds like a personal problem... I have no problem with you asking for recipes for tradition crafting, but when you ask for recipes that are to the detriment of synergy I do have a problem with. Remember synergist are crafters and top synergist are veteran crafters. Many people enjoy synergy, and whatever innovation comes to crafting me and other veteran crafters will be all over it. I find it extremely sad that you blame all your problems on synergy but yet you refuse to better yourself.

Crafting or synergy or both (or all 3-4 if the SE change of a 2nd 100 craft happens) is a personal choice. Crafts have their highs and lows, no question. By far the most common craft is cooking, becuase most of us use consumables. a distant 2nd is Alchemy because many of us use meds. 3rd (or maybe tied for second) is probably woodworking, for ammo mostly and shehei. The other crafts have largely died due to a lack of demand for lower level crafted gear. They are primarily useful to make AF materials for the last 5 jobs added to the game as near as I can tell; they may get a boost making items for relic/equipment upgrades with the coming changes. Fishing always was treated seperately and is basically just an adjunct to cooking.

Synergy is a unique system in its own right. 1st, you can't lose your materials, a huge bonus vs. say blowing up platinum ingots. 2nd, it allows you to craft items from other crafts even if your skill is non-existent just by partying with a friend. It is arguably cheaper than crafting. It allows much more augmentation than the base crafts do of existing gear, although I never see anyone really using Evolith. It is also incredibly easy to level, via fail synth. Lastly, yields of HQ seem to be more common, but even normal synths of consumables the NQ generally have higher yields (look at the synthesis recipies for beast jugs). With all of that, while you may not need any crafting skill somebody better have some if you want to synergize.

It is to be hoped that some of the changes SE has coming down the pipe provide a rebirth to crafting. Even cooking has taken a hit, with about half the players I see not even using food with all the Atma out there. My craft is leather, it is almost useless in the current game. There are also so many drops from end-game mobs that few need to buy anything, and quested/mission rewards are usually better than anything a crafter-or even a synergyst-can make in terms of gear. You can't rely on the low-level market either with players spamming to 30 and then leeching to 90 as they don't regear until endgame and that stuff is free. Only ammo, food and ninja tools (really only shehei, the stealth stuff, and the universal) are truly a steady market, and ammo is suffering with rangers getting so little Aby love. Bullets are a possibility, but Cor is getting possibly less love than ranger. Most rangers, cors and ninja usually level crafts for their own consumables anyway.

A few things can be done to fix this, one of which will hit the noobs hard.

1st: no skills at all can be gained if the gap between what prey can give and the level cap exceeds 25. So if you are 90, but with job level 22 skills you will be forced to sync to 27 or lower to gain skill, and consumables are the best way to accomplish that at a decent rate. Most skill bonuses are removed/nerfed from armor when you sync so lower level gear may function better. Side benefit, maybe you'll level WITH skills to aby levels, making you useful for SOMETHING besides back-up healing, and a market for mid-level spells will open back up for farmer-types.

2nd. New content added outside Aby. No atma means most players will go back to using the consumables, and some jobs that don't get love in Aby will see use, meaning things like Bullets will get a new life.

3rd. Increase the penalty for lacking skill. Varies by skill, obviously. Since consumables can boost skills they may be used to minimize the penalty, even in Abyssea.

4th. New recipies at high level in both crafting and synergy that yield items comparable to the quality of dark-ring as an example.

5th. Raise NPC sales prices for crafted items. If it cost more to buy an item from the NPC you will see the crafter if you can. At the same time, if the crafter can sell items-even low level synths-for decent ammounts maybe they'll take the time to craft, if only to use up random drops. But if they are crafting anyway, they might chance 1-2 items on the AH.

6th. The FFXI equivalent of a "rust monster" a rare critter that can actually degrade/destroy gear

this post is already TL: DR.

if you really want to craft, go to abyssea, get curor, buy armor from visions zones, npc. Take new found monies go to ah, buy crap, throw it together. TBH this is no different than 7 yrs ago when ppl would whine on forums on how they couldn't make money. Synergy didn't ruin anything, its the same belly aching that existed 7 yrs ago. Synergy actually requires some moderate interaction unlike mat burning. Honestly the original system is still 100x better than the bot crafting on WoW. So shut up already ur making my head hurt. What i used to tell newbies on crafting is lvl all them to 60 first. (ur gonna want them as subs ne ways) then take ur favorite to 100. by focusing in on a craft u know nothing about, in a game ur new to ur causing yourself problems ahead of time (b4 it even gets hard). As for the person that claims it requires a million gil to get synergy up >.>. Wow just wow. I think i spent a whopping 300k gil (most on fewell), i know its a real bank buster with the 6 billion curor everyone has. *Head Desk*