Craft Skill Limitations

[vedder]

honestly, as someone has previously pointed out, the biggest issue is that there is no huge money-making synths anymore like the days of yore

hakutaku pops/haubs/abj/snipers/ etc etc etc....

this is the biggest reason the AH is dying, why craft anything when the end result is trumped by af3? Gil is a luxury now since abyssea is "all there is" in so many ppls eyes

in my opinion, they need to raise caps on the base synths and introduce a bunch of new synths for lvl 91-99 (eg 150cap some ppl mentioned) to take the "spots" of the old ones and get ppl spending/farming plain out circulating the gil they have, i know so many ppl that have 1m+ on them just cus theres nothing worth buying, and these are ppl that had a hard time getting more then a couple hundred k before.

im not knowledgeable enough about economics to really take a firm stance on this but honestly i dont think this will affect the game too much as it stands

[Treasurehider]

I like the idea. Would be excited to see the aftermath once it's implemented.

However, I agree with a few here that have stated most of the past equipment required a crafter. Heck, Optical Hat, Cursed Gear from sky or whatever, even Salvage Gear, even other stuff.... Relics as well (kinda).

Abyssea doesn't really have much of this and Abyssea gear seems to be the new dominating desires of most FFXI players.

While news of being able to augment pre-obtained pieces was exciting (i.e. Kitty pants), requiring synergy to do it was a bit of a ... well I guess what else would you do. But unless I've misunderstood it, it would be great to offer some new 90~100 level synths to the original set of craft skills to assist in these augments.

If that was done, I think, personally, without trying to be biased, this would be an overall good change.

I've personally felt a bit betrayed lately in the fact that I, as well as many others, spent 7+ years obtaining all this great gear, just to have it replaced by Abyssea gear; which is great, but just as easily obtained within ~month, whether you've been playing the game for 8 years or 6 months. It was nice having gear to show off (gloating) from all of the hard work you've done. (tried wording that without sounding like a leetist (sp?), but I'm sure I failed) Sorry.

[ShadowHeart]

yes i myself don't have a group of crafting buddies so synergy doesnt work well for me and i find skill ups a pain in the butt to level :s I myself have leveled crafts up as well as mules but i can't get my head around synergy skill ups at all and driving me nuts trying. PLEASE make the recipes available without having to use syngery as well!!

[Shoko]

I'm excited about this adjustment. Now I can get a 2nd 100 Craft on my main instead of having to level another 100 on my mule accounts

Don't get too excited! They didn't say it would happen or not just yet, lol.

I think it would personally upset most who have mules that craft as well to have multiple 100+ crafts since that let's say you make new recepies w/ higher subcrafts required since they'd have to level crafts again that they already have 100+ on a mule.

Nah, we'd just level another craft to 100 to close the spread of 100 crafts [they] have. I for one would probably level up Woodworking on my main to accompany Alchemy and Clothcraft on my Leathercraft mule to accompany that. And Goldsmithing on my Smithing mule... haha.

I for one would welcome the change. There's only so few crafts out there that will benefit from dual crafts @100, and they are mostly consumables, outdated gear/items, or share a third craft that maintains a limitation on HQ tiers. Also like Kirschy mentioned, the top top tier items won't be affected much at all or are already at a T1 because of the new crafting items.

Finally it might encourage a select few people to attempt an "expensive" [rare] craft on their main character (mainly goldsmithing & smithing).

What I'm interested in is if you guys would add newer normal crafts for people that benefit having two crafts @80~100.

[GERM]

Well considering I find the synergy system crap to begin with I could care less about way to improve it for those that do benefit for it.. I think you should just leave the system.. Crystal prices are going to get out of control again and quite frankly im going to stop skilling my crafts up until they go back down because I refuse to pay 5k for a stack and what not.. I think you should look into decreasing NPC price of good or increase the resale price to NPC so that way Im not sitting with a bunch of stuff on the AH that I skilled up on that don't sell because its useless and Im not going broke making stuff and selling it back because I need the inventory space.. just a thought

[Bhujerba]

Synergy didn't ruin Crafting, even tho i hate it.., what ruined crafting IMO, is that SE stopped caring/introducing new POWERFUL gear to crafting alongside Synergy, if that was the case you wouldn't see ppl complaining much about it, except about Synergy having much better mechanic when creating items, basically what we always wanted in crafting (no break, better NQ result, high HQ rate etc) that's about it I guess.

Suggestions:
- As ppl mentioned earlier we need crafting to continue to grow beyond 100+ (maybe in the near future for level 99?). now once you decide to add new items and POWERFUL gear and continue Crafting growth, I really....really wants you to consider hybrid job itemization, in fact any job who is capable of doing different type of damage/utility I consider it a hybrid, what I'm trying to say is that job specific gear and the way you introduce new gear, you always ignore stats that are very beneficial to hybrid jobs, most of these items with different and wanted stats than what originally planned for the job, are extremely rare, randomized and scattered all over the game (with no direction or consideration in continuous gear updates), Crafting/Synergy can be the perfect outlet for these type of items.
for example PUP AF3 is focused mostly on melee/physical dmg for master/pet, with little to no stats for mage pet(pet:fast cast/mab/macc/cure potency/etc), in other MMOs, most hybrid jobs get 2 to 3 extra sets (AF/Relic) to compensate all the different fight style the hybrid job can do, in this game they don't, for some reason, but all I'm asking is to let Crafting help with that, don't add these stats to some random event that we have to repeat many many times until we get the desired stat, or not adding the item at all. (jobs in mind COR,PUP,BLU,DNC,RDM,SCH,SMN,etc).

- As I mention in my previous post, since now we will be able to have 2 main craft after the 40 skill increase, now ppl may need to get new GP items, I just wants you to consider lowering GP cost of items, or enhancing GP gained from the daily quest(get rid of 80 item = 800GP for example) or/and being Veteran will ensure getting the highest GP return per day? anything really would be nice to this outdated system.

[Jamesaji]

I would love to see this happen. Having the ability to level two craft skills to 100 would give me incentive to finish off Woodworking (currently at 79+1), and level another craft to 100 (haven't decided which yet). Moreover, it would probably make me want to level another two craft skills with my mule character.

Low level gear, at least on my server [Valefor], is scarce. I'm in the process of leveling SCH (currently at 25), and the pieces of armor I have been looking for are never in stock on the Auction House. An assumption that is made by a lot of players is that folk level a new job to ~11, get themselves into a "Summoner Burn" party until level 30 and then power through Abyssea until level 90. This assumption is wrong ,and is what I believe to be the reason for this scarcity. There are still plenty of players who level the old-fashioned way (myself included). Therefore there is still a market for low level gear, but there is little to none being produced by crafters. Increasing the extra skill levels from 40 to 80 may partly solve this scarcity of gear.

Something which I believe will compliment this update would be increasing skill up rates. Maybe not a constant increase, but rather, for example, a timed enhancment, obtainable every 24 earth hours, which lasts for, say, 30 earth minutes that will give you at least a guaranteed 0.1 skill up for every synthesis. That's purely a quick example. There would have to be some sort of increase in skill up rates to give non-crafters the incentive to take up crafting (and to give crafters incentive to level a second craft to 100), especially if you [SE] plan on increasing the extra skill levels above 80.

I am certainly looking forward to seeing more update information on this, and also seeing how far it progresses.

[Yekyaa]

Related, but not specifically on-topic:
I doubt this will get considered, but why not remove the 1 Guild Point contract design while in the process of increasing level caps?

Earning GP on multiple jobs will benefit those trying to complete two crafts to 100. As an example, there's still items I'd like to finish from Goldsmithing, but I have to pick Fishing atm to earn GP on. If we're adding another 40 levels to share around crafting, I'd see an additional benefit in allowing us to earn GP on more than just one craft.

[katz]

One of the main problems in getting any craft to 100 is the supply of materials post level 70. It is more to do with the supplies that limits which craft gets to 100. having 2 100 crafts will just mean the supplies for 2 crafts will be rarer unless you make the supplies more attractive to farming. It is the supplies that will force people to chose to level 1 craft or the other craft not that you have craft 100 x2. If you made it possible that all crafts could be taken to 100 unless you change the drop rates on the items no one will have them. Also if its items you are worried about, you can still only sell 7 items at a time on the ah which is another limit to selling stuff.

[Qtipus]

I really can't see any down sides to it. Crafting is alive and well where I'm standing. People are just bitter their gold mines have been cleaned out. Mines that were the only reason they bothered crafting. I wasn't happy either but I moved on. We all know how that junk went. You did wood for staves. Bone for Scorpion harness. Leather for sniper rings. Gold smithing for.. well, pretty much to be filthy rich. Cloth for verms. Cooking for sushi. Smithing for haubs. Everything else was a side bonus to the big synths. And I can't say I blame them, but it was headed that way anyway after the inflation period thanks to gil sellers. People bought a ton of gil and got those 100 crafts.

Exactly. People basically treated crafting like the lottery. I spent years making gil off RR items, Arrowheads and a few random pieces of gear. I did get lucky with some unicorn leggings +1 at one point, but beyond that, I had just had myself in a routine and made money the good old fashioned way. Slow and steady.

I tend to think raising the cap is a good thing, but I have to admit that my initial thought on the subject was "Why?". If they're going to do that, there's a few other things to look into.

- Change Guild Point items and/or rewards. A good majority of the rewards can end up costing 6 figures or have zilch in the way of supply to even craft them. I think a better system would be to give us 3 options each day for points. First option is stuff you can readily buy materials for from an NPC. The second is a mid-ranged option that's going to combine NPC purchases with Auction House. The last would be an option to turn in something you won't find on NPC and would likely have to spend a good chunk of time farming. Also, give us the option to turn in all 3 of those each day or lower the costs of the Guild Point items altogether.

- Treat Cooking like Fishing. It's way too broad and, I may be mistaken in saying this, but there are 0 cooking crafts that involve having a sub craft. Just a bunch of Guild Point items.

- Give other crafts items like Hocho. No, a "Trainee Hammer" is not like Hocho.

- Fix material loss on breaks. There is nothing in this game more infuriating than being 51 levels above the cap on something and losing all the materials. I wouldn't go so far as to say get rid of it if you're above the cap, but I think if you reach the ability to T1 HQ something, you shouldn't lose materials.

- Lastly, give us gear we can craft that's at least on par with some of the stuff dropped from lesser NMs in Abyssea or that even uses items from those NMs. I love Abyssea, don't get me wrong, I just don't think the developers really looked at the impact of adding all that gear on the crafting market as a whole. End game was sorely lacking prior to Abyssea, so you won't hear me trumpeting about how "Abyssea wrecked the game", I just think some of the focus needs to be put back onto the areas Abyssea really affected. Some of that focus is already there with the XP boost in non-Abyssea areas and the upcoming Dynamis and HNM adjustments, so I have faith something good will be done here as well.