Future Endgame gear vs crafted gear with Materia.

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Originally Posted by Xikeroth

Ajbs were a decent idea but imo if they allow that sort of thing it needs to be world NMs nothing inside of a raid. and it should at least balance things out a little since you need to go to endgame as well as as get crafted items, however don't forget that out of everyone that played FFXI very few people even got to see full sets of that stuff out of the entire population.

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Most people didn't obtain full sets because the abjurations were dropped by open world NM's, the Sky pieces were common. The NQ pieces were also very cheap, it was balanced aside from the Fafhogg side of things.

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Originally Posted by Xikeroth

Its fine you disagree, however keep in mind that the majority of MMO players don't want to only get half-rewarded for their efforts in endgame by having a lot of the items they get replaced by crafted stuff with materia.

The global MMO community would disagree with crafted items getting a top slot, gotta remember when it comes to 10 thousand subscribers and 1 million subscribers its down to what the rewards from content, not from what some guy can make when he never leaves the city walls.

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You may not personally enjoy crafting, but a lot of us do. If crafted gear is useless end game what point do we have taking any of those classes to 50? I currently make less gil crafting than I would selling the raw materials I mine in the current market. If SE decided to further reduce the usefulness of crafted items both my Armorer & my Miner would become completely useless.

Just imagine if they decided to remove the need for a tank & left your Paladin in it's current state to compete with the DD's. That's pretty much what you're asking them to do to crafters.

i have no problem with having to get the best gear from crafting only but the crafting in this game is just horrible.i actually have to sit in front of my computer for a few days just to max it out.i have to do each craft separately.i came from aion where the crafting is very easy compared to this.i can just set my craft to x amount of an item and go afk.few hours later and its all done

I don't feel like the current system is too far off from an ideal one, though there are better ways to balance it. As others have mentioned, every aspect of the game should be kept relevant or it will go unexplored. That said, I am of the opinion that there should be priority given to DoW/M content before DoL/H content.

I'm pretty sure the basic system should look like this; DoL gathers mats that DoH require to make standard equipment for DoW/M. The reward/incentive is gil & experience for DoL/H while DoW/M is rewarded with exp, better gear and story progression.

Looks like a nice system, but some people are willing to go beyond just one facet of the game and there should be incentive for them too. Your 50 paladin is also a 50 armorer, that opens a quest to further enhance a piece of endgame gear. Oh wait, your also a 50 miner, another quest opens to find a unique ore to turn that enhanced item into a relic. A system like that also doesn't require some RNG like materia.

My point is this, you don't have to like every aspect of the game, but if you are willing to do more then the guy next to you is, you should have better stuff then they do.

And I just had this idea of a pretty amazing raid... That completely revolves around the Disciples of the Land!
It's not about getting to the end and beating a boss- It's because at the end of the raise there is this one pretty hardass node for you to mine/gather/fish that gives you pretty dang rare materials used for crafting endgame gear! What's best, when you get at the end for those mats? That's where the fun begins, one or two of you change to your DoL, whereas the rest need to man up and protect you from wave after wave of monsters because otherwise the gatherers are getting whipped and you're not getting the rewards!

Of course, after the node is exhausted, there the dungeon's over. There is perhaps the 'extreme' mode wherein the gathering can only go on during a full-fledged boss fight and, lo and behold, gatherer has to play positioning chess too if he wants to live. And gather window, obviously, closes as soon as the boss is dead.

I've gotta say I disagree with the OP. Not everyone can afford or has the time to make a triple or quadruple melded gear set. The time and effort it takes to get one is about on par with the time it takes to get a full DL set. That's not to mention the cost. I have absolutely no issue with that. I should point out that I'm not much of a crafter either.

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Originally Posted by HoolieWho

I don't wander around Uldah examining random people, but I've never seen a quad meld. I have no doubt it's out there, but I bet it's rarer than the rare Darklight pieces. Triple meld is hard enough to deserve its place as some of the best gear in the game.

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There's a WAR on Balmung with a fully quadruple melded set. My jaw about dropped to the floor when he asked me to critique it.

You don't understand the materia system. From start to finish it's like a 1/500 chance to quad meld tier IV's. Let's say even a relatively cheap materia for 100k is used, that's 200 million gil. You're under the impression most of the population as spent this much on each slot? Really?

The varying values of the various kinds of gear aquisitions is fine as is.

Truth of the matter is, double and tripple melds should be able to compete with certain endgame pieces, or at the very least be consitered on par.

Melded gear is risky, and provides as much if not worse time sink to create. Worse, it's a continual gil sink if you don't go aquire all the necessary pieces yourself, down to Tier IV meteria, which can be very time consuming and luck based to aquire.

The recent GC gear is farily compariable to meld gear, Primal Weapons and Relics Weapons are still superior to anything we can simply 'craft'. And it actually provides incentive to go out and do these various things to meet your various build expectations.

Rather than making this raid gear be 'clearly superior' we could have these build access cover different methods of accurately gearing your character. Those who like doing raids, go out and do raits and get the builds they want. Those who like to craft for their gear, can craft the their gear. And those who prefer Company gear can do what is necessary to get the points needed.

Idealy, the concept of "Best in Slot" should only be reserved for far high end pieces such as Relics. And only then, for a moderate (That's not 'minimal') improvement. Each of these courses can and should have their own unique means toward meeting the necessary 'gear requirement' for doing events.

This game shoulden't be entirely about loot whoring. I'm sorry but I just don't agree with that. Sure, battle content is great and being able to have a trophy piece that does shiny things for you is always a good feeling. But there can be much more depth to the game than that. There really should be more reasons to fight a boss or NM than just getting his loot. I for one would love to see Guild Halls get trophyies for specific monsters they defeat or areas they clear.

I know I'd love to mount the severed head of Ultima Weapon on the OTG guildhall entrance.

What are you talking about? Most of the raid gear have stats that you can't even get with materia, so depending on your build you might want to use them instead of even a triple meld.

Also, on most slots, materia only starts being a viable option after III / IV materia triple meld, something that's pretty expensive and has a ridiculously low chance. Single meld is essentially worthless outside of anything but belts with enmity + - (and even so, not that good), double meld is good for a few specific builds and slots, but can be replaced with other gear most of the time.

Everything else you either have to use sentinel gear + materia, raid gear or company gear. All of that is gotten via endgame content or seal farming.

And yes, doing crazy, tier IV triple / quadruple melds should be BiS. The chance to get those things done is very low, considerably lower than even endgame drop rates.

When they first introduced materia it was unbalanced, but nowadays I'd say it's quite good. Heck, what I use nowadays for black mage:

Head: Materia, 2X int IV
weapon: Materia, 2X int III
shield: Raid drop
Robe: Militia drop
Legs: Company gear
feet: Company gear
Hands: Af gloves
Belt: tier IV enmity- belt

I have 3 crafted gear out of 8 slots. And I only use single and double materia gear because I'm a poor gimp. >:

Well People lets face it, noone of us know what SE is planning for 2.0... all we know is Yoshi wants to streamline it and thats fair enough...

Like i mentioned before, its fact DoL and DoH should play a decent role in Endgame, its okay if they work as buffer in an instanced raid like Hamlet were u get extra scores etc by using this kind of class etc etc... (its more like and event for me then truly endgame)

But i dont like to see DoL or DoH classes in Roaming HNM battles or w/e... i mean like the titel already says: Discipline of the Hand/Land, these are farming and crafting jobs and not Battle ones... :P (my mind so dont feel attacked)

Streamline:
SE seems to keep the Dungeon system:
.) Dungeons should have a cooldown by arround 12-24 Hours
.) on an 8 Man Dungeon give every Boss an 100% dropchance by 1 Abjuration/Gearpiece
.) To clear a Dungeon you should take a full Hour

.) Raids (8 or 24 Man) should have a higher cooldown by arround 36 Hours
.) on an 24 Raidcontent: should have 100% Dropchance by 2-3 Abjurations/Gearpieces
.) To clear a Raiddungeon (8 or 24) you should take arround 3 hours

.) Get rid of the speedrun and time limit system thats not streamline.

.) Every Boss should only drop special Abjurations Like:
Boss a Drops Helm Abjurations
Boss b Drops Hand Abjurations
etc,etc...

Two different types of Endgame should be added, the one lets take CC and AV, if they work like mentioned before... 1 Day cooldown , these Dungeon should be the one were u farm your Gear before facing the real content "RAIDS" with 8 or 24 People.


The Dungeon System and the No Gearswitch in Battle is a handicap, face it ^^, in 11 it was possible to farm 2-5 different sets for each class to switch during the battle and its not possible in XIV anymore.... So to keep players busy they have to add every half year new Raiddungeons for either 8 or 24 Players.

To involve the Crafters, let them add Cursed Items to create endgame Gear, let DoL classes farm inside the Dungeon for Rare Ore's to create Cursed Items! (thats how DoL and DoH should be used in Endgame)


And dont tell me now thats a WoW clone, i know it, but srsly some people say they dont want FFXI clone and some others say they dont want a WoW/Aion/SWtor clone, everything is already cloned in every single MMO and its called Streamline. All things they can make a game different is the Combat system like in TERA pure action (what makes the game different) and if you have a use for DoL and DoH in endgame.

just my mind, dont feel attacked. :P

The game is supposedly balanced around single-meld gear. They didn't want force people to go above that. Additionally dropped/endgame gear tends to have stats you can't get through materia.

Crafting in FF14 actually matters. I hope they keep it that way. Not only do you need to devote comparable amounts of time to the gathering, the inventory management, the building of a craft based character, you need to devote your attribute points to crafting.

I've not yet done any comparisons to see if it factors in, how you build your meld bar influences what materia you get but the surest way to do that is also through crafting. For example if I put a Jacket on and get it to meld level doing nothing but lightening crystals, will I get a lightening based materia?

The thing I have noticed in FF14 is everything they have done while very subtle was with a purpose. I just need to figure that purpose out.

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Originally Posted by Disc

Most people didn't obtain full sets because the abjurations were dropped by open world NM's, the Sky pieces were common. The NQ pieces were also very cheap, it was balanced aside from the Fafhogg side of things.



You may not personally enjoy crafting, but a lot of us do. If crafted gear is useless end game what point do we have taking any of those classes to 50? I currently make less gil crafting than I would selling the raw materials I mine in the current market. If SE decided to further reduce the usefulness of crafted items both my Armorer & my Miner would become completely useless.

Just imagine if they decided to remove the need for a tank & left your Paladin in it's current state to compete with the DD's. That's pretty much what you're asking them to do to crafters.

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And apparently you completely misread half the post or didn't bother to read it at all, because you refuse to take fact and rather live in a world where FFXIV has a huge population, when it doesn't, The population of FF MMOs is so small in fact most companies laugh at square enix for running failures in their eyes, and to be honest FF MMOs 11 and 14 have fallen greatly behind. Maybe its time to change their model a bit.

They could EASILY keep crafting useful by helping to make better items as time goes on rather then only make basic items, materia should NOT be involved at all. If they keep materia then they need to either nerf it or make pve drops have insane stats. They could have the great items come from crafting, since in ALL SUCCESSFUL MMOs craftig is used as a boost all, not an end all. They boost players to be able to do endgame, but gear doesn't end in crafting.

Perhaps you want the game to keep the low population and have an early death, i sure as hell don't. What we have right now is terrible and a lot of the current ffxiv fans are pigheaded and think the game is perfect anyways and refuse to admit there is a problem.

It doesn't matter what the current players think is balanced, it matters what those people that have quit think, and I often invite new players to my linkshell and within a month they quit because the game is more focused on crafting then anything else. They have little to do, they want to be able to do more when they first pick up a game not run around killing mobs with no objective in sight. This doesn't help crafting this helps the game die. When people pick up an MMO the LAST thing on their mind is crafting, and nothing will change that.

I don't think you really understand how much larger MMOs work, they all have crafting and its still useful if you think it isn't maybe you should check them out or at least read about them. If SE thinks their current "balance" will work its because they are asking fanboys who think their game is perfect anyways rather then ask the people that have quit what they think and what they want. They vastly outnumber the people currently playing the game, and its them that will bring it back to life, not the current subscribers.

my personal opinion is they need to do away with the unmeldable gear drops from dungeons and raids. i have the opinion they should have it to where both running the dungeon and then upgrading the gear you get afterwards is their way forward.

say for example running darkhold you get the alpine war jacket, but the way it is now it is worthless. make it to where in a future dungeon there's additional pieces you can get that will allow you to upgrade that piece to make a better piece of gear and then allow materia to be attached to it. it would keep the value of darkhold up and keep people wanting to run it and give them reasons to want to work towards a nicer piece of gear.

in other words, i don't think melded crafted gear should be the best over dungeon gear, but i don't think dungeon gear should be the best either. to me it should be a combination of both where you do dungeons, get gear, run more dungeons, upgrade gear, and add materia to the upgraded gear.

I like the materia system, but it does take away the limelight from a lot of dungeon drops, they should just put sockets on every dungeon drop OR give us a method to add socketability to items

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Originally Posted by Chardrizard

Everyone, do we need to go further?

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Troll, besides if you had any intelligence at all and actually had real fact and opinion at all that would say something constructive you'd say something real. Maybe you're blind or maybe you're just stubborn however i often see grade 3-4 melded on quite a bit. Maybe you should try to have some sort of intelligent opinion rather then troll. Or maybe you should check top endgamers.

how is doing raids going to help when most ppl in ls dont want to doit most i see shout for thing alot by japan players in thier languge and majority want japan player only no english i heard that only seen 10 shouts for random things a day thats on riddill in order fo it to wrk put non english ppl on a server catered to thier launguge and mor things as content can b done and raids with the material drop but any way i hate creafting id rather fight spend hours leveling and not gaining much in levels its not like we can join exp pt to lev up

Hmm..I have melded plenty of double melds and triple melds...not sure if that is uncommon (I've done it for friends, etc) but anyway..I think end game gear should be superior to materia gear. It is more exciting and rewarding to fight an epic battle against a scary boss using battle tactics etc, vs kneeling down and hitting a button to wonder if I will "defeat" the random % chance of failure heh.

Now if they wanted to still use materia in end game..why not have end game mobs drop materia pieces, or items that guarantee 100% success of any meld? I dunno, just an idea.

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Originally Posted by Xikeroth

They could EASILY keep crafting useful by helping to make better items as time goes on rather then only make basic items, materia should NOT be involved at all. If they keep materia then they need to either nerf it or make pve drops have insane stats. They could have the great items come from crafting, since in ALL SUCCESSFUL MMOs craftig is used as a boost all, not an end all. They boost players to be able to do endgame, but gear doesn't end in crafting.

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in aion crafting is end game.dungeons drop weapons with comparable stats to the 2nd best crafted weapons but if you are into min/max then crafted gear is the way to go

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Originally Posted by Wobi

I am reading far too much whining in this thread. Most endgame and the majority of AF gear has stats abilities that cannot be modded on. Materia excels in only a few slots if you happen to be very lucky ~5% for Quad meld, on anything decent you deserve to have that top something you walked into a raid for 30min of your time and lucked out to find in a chest. Take the feet slot for example, the only things you can add worthwhile to a DD is HP. Darklight boots, most AF and even the Explorer's Boots are far better options. The current balance is pretty good as far as I'm concerned.

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I find it funny how defensive you're getting over a mostly dead game that SE is trying to fix, SE will NOT improve this game by listening to fanboys such as yourself that for some reason think the game is perfect and the overwhelming FACT that people starting this game actually quit partly to the fact there is nothing to do but the other facts are complaints with crafting and the fact they don't want to feel as though they have to do it. Which with the current setup they do.

Maybe you need to stop thinking with your nose up SE's backside and think in fact of broadening the population which the current model will not do(which will also mean you crafting fanatics will have less customers), and this games population likely will not grow unless they address the major problems as to why people are quitting.

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Originally Posted by Wobi

Technically dungeon/NM gear is crafted gear, perhaps by some talented blacksmith from the previous era with access to some ancient materia we have yet to come across.
If 2.0 brings back a sizable increase in the population the % of crafters/gatherers to the general population will be marginalized. The only reason we have so many currently was due to the dearth of content early on in the game. But there needs to remain a balance, so quit whining if someone can make an item better than what you happened across in a chest.

As for those that want to be able to meld U/U items, they better be able to break. No risk, no reward. No one got to be the best by playing it safe.

Sidenote: Crafting is still the only thing that serves the needs of crafting/gathering jobs with the exception of the few new items that come in Hamlet defense.

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You're reading "whining" but its opinion, a constructive one pointing out one of the many problems with this game that will stall its population growth and actually harm the game in the long run. When people pick up an MMO the first thing they do normally is go fight something try to level up quickly, see what they can do at those levels and when they see nothing they basically get frustrated.

The second problem is when they go to the wards and ask why an item costs so much and what that shiny circle next to its name means its materia and when I tell them you need to have a craft leveled to a specific level to be able to do that, they actually think its kind of stupid and when people explain how the game is with crafting they kind of don't like it.

Lets take some better looks at overall populations... over 10 million people across the world play MMOs, of that not even 250,000 of them play a FF MMO right now. a lot of people bought FFXIV at launch, I'd be shocked if we had 50,000 active on FFXIV.

Now considering all of that, you're really going to tell me what they have now is best? You're really going to claim its great how it is? Clearly if it was there would be millions of people playing this game, but there isn't because millions DO NOT LIKE how this game is set up (even the people that came back for that welcome back campaign didn't stick around for the most part).

So the next time you post thinking the way the game is set up is great, take into consideration that far more people disagree with you then agree with you, however thanks to SE's policy they can not post on these forums without an active account.

Xikeroth - Idiot (I can do that too)

"You" specifically not being able to craft, is not my problem. "ALL MMO'S EVER EVER" (basically what your saying) sounds like your talking specifically about wow, like in Dragon soul atm, nearly every single piece of gear for every single job that BiS, comes from DS. I took a 4 month break from this game and during 2 1/2 of those months my brother talked me into trying it, im 4/8 heroic with 4 chars over 394ilvl and 1 at 398ilvl.

We dont need that crap here, thats a joke of an MMO. Your attitude is that of "follow the crowd".

People here are also saying over and over to "keep things relevant", but where were all of you on the gear swap threads? Thats exactly what gear swaps was, do you think FF11 would have survived aslong as it did if old content didnt stay relevant for so many years.

But the gear DOESN'T end in crafting, even with materia. Sure, it is possible to make some materia gear that are unquestionably BiS, but the cost and luck needed to do that is ridiculous, plain and simple.

Did you ever try to meld 3X Tier IV materia into something? Now imagine doing that for all eight gear slots. Now imagine doing that for every class you play.

It's safe to assume that a good deal of players might be able to craft or buy one or two pieces of BiS gear with materia, some players might even craft many of these, but saying that this possibility overshadows the usefulness of raid drops is insanity, specially since many raid drops have stats that ain't even available from materia.

Raid gear will always be useful, because it's impossible to make some kind of ultimate gear set with materia only unless you're ready to dump billions of gil into it. Billions!

Edit: (ok, maybe not billions)

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Originally Posted by Nero

Pic's or it didnt happen.

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Less troll, more opinion. Maybe you should try checking serious endgamers.

If you like the majority of current MMO's out there atm... you sir, are not a serious endgamer, please specify these many mmo's you have so much experience with and are speaking for every single player throughout all of them.

I just looked up your char, your opinion no longer matters.

Who are you to talk about the difficulty of crafting, when youve tried no crafts.
Who are you to talk about gathering when you do not gather.

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Originally Posted by Aniforani

I don't feel like the current system is too far off from an ideal one, though there are better ways to balance it. As others have mentioned, every aspect of the game should be kept relevant or it will go unexplored. That said, I am of the opinion that there should be priority given to DoW/M content before DoL/H content.

I'm pretty sure the basic system should look like this; DoL gathers mats that DoH require to make standard equipment for DoW/M. The reward/incentive is gil & experience for DoL/H while DoW/M is rewarded with exp, better gear and story progression.

Looks like a nice system, but some people are willing to go beyond just one facet of the game and there should be incentive for them too. Your 50 paladin is also a 50 armorer, that opens a quest to further enhance a piece of endgame gear. Oh wait, your also a 50 miner, another quest opens to find a unique ore to turn that enhanced item into a relic. A system like that also doesn't require some RNG like materia.

My point is this, you don't have to like every aspect of the game, but if you are willing to do more then the guy next to you is, you should have better stuff then they do.

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Much like the endgame content of this game will go ignored if it doesn't have top gear in all slots?

Those many people you have mentioned also weren't smart enough to realize I did point out solutions to the problem but chose to ignore it because they would rather argue.

They could easily fix that by allowing some things to be made, also keep in mind that crafting will die if the population DOES NOT GROW and the only way for it to grow to the extent of other MMOs in the world they need to cater to non crafters of which the world's MMO population typically doesn't want to spend most of their time crafting

This is fact, the opinion of the population of FFXIV matters but it means little when it comes to making this game expand and grow when the majority of MMO players in the world want rewards from content, not just from crafting, this is a FACT weather you like it or not, and if SE does not learn this fact the game's 2.0 relaunch will be for nothing.

There are many ways to keep crafting involved, the way its currently setup can however harm the games growth in the longrun. Most MMO players don't do content just to do it, they do it for instant rewards, keep that in mind.

Also linking it to that degree, 50 paladin, 50 miner 50 armorer is a TERRIBLE IDEA Thats basically the same concept for DoW/DoM classes at the start of the game that failed so miserably if you don't remember. Its the same basis as "the more they have the more they should be able to have and the more they should be able to do"

They already get rewarded for having those classes leveled and it should be enough if it isn't then its not Square Enix's problem...

Keeping the current model that discourages new players from continuing the game IS SE's problem and it is something they need to address.

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Originally Posted by Xikeroth

Less troll, more opinion. Maybe you should try checking serious endgamers.

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oh yah Mr. "ionlyhavetwo50butimatrueendgamer".. you are giving me a good laugh here.

lol.. opinion you are not able to accept? your whole explanations are a fail itself, since you dont realize/dont understand how the melding-system works at all.

you are the one who said everyone got triple-melds.. and a decent amount of people told you allready that its simply not true. if you want to argue go and backup your arguments, but you obviously cant or you wouldnt pull the "troll-card".

keep dreaming. lol

What is the point of trying to make this game like other games, why not just go play those games?

SE needs to address people like you who say something is a problem when its not and flames about it on forums trying to get people to quit, obv any1 who doesnt agree with you is trolling.

I like what Phantasy Star Online 2 is doing in that while rare weapons usually have a better base value, both rares and non rares can still be improved and tailored very much to a player's preferences.

I think ultimately when it comes down to it, people would be happy with a weapon that looks cooler than crafted weapons as opposed to one that is better by a wide margin. With a system that lets players tool their weapon to their needs.


To give an example from pso2: I could take weapon A which i bought from the vendor and transfer a lot of attributes from other weapons onto it (+10 attack power, the chance to freeze enemies,etc) and by the end of it I would have a pretty nice weapon that i'm pretty happy with. Or i could take weapon B, that dropped from a boss, which looks really rad and then do all the same things i did to weapon A with it and have a weapon that is much more desirable solely through its skin despite not being too much more powerful.

Lets be honest do you want to be dramatically more powerful than your teammates? The ones who are going to be helping you fight?

Rare drops can be better sure, just not by such a wide margin that crafters aren't going to sell anything.

TLDR: I like lateral weapon progression a lot.


Edit: also i am aware that the materia system is very approximate to this atm.

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Originally Posted by Jeronlmo

Xikeroth - Idiot (I can do that too)

"You" specifically not being able to craft, is not my problem. "ALL MMO'S EVER EVER" (basically what your saying) sounds like your talking specifically about wow, like in Dragon soul atm, nearly every single piece of gear for every single job that BiS, comes from DS. I took a 4 month break from this game and during 2 1/2 of those months my brother talked me into trying it, im 4/8 heroic with 4 chars over 394ilvl and 1 at 398ilvl.

We dont need that crap here, thats a joke of an MMO. Your attitude is that of "follow the crowd".

People here are also saying over and over to "keep things relevant", but where were all of you on the gear swap threads? Thats exactly what gear swaps was, do you think FF11 would have survived aslong as it did if old content didnt stay relevant for so many years.

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Firstly I never called anyone an idiot directly so I have reported your post.

Secondly its fact that SE MMOs have a dieing population and will not grow unless they adapt to mainstream and what more people want, people like you are the minority.

I have never suggested SE clone what others have done, and I am not talking about WoW I don't even know what you're talking about as far as "Dragon Soul" is.

You may think we don't need that here and I agree but that's a problem that has nothing to do with FFXIV that has to do with WoW being patheticly easy.

My attitude is that SE needs to follow the "endgame top reward" path, and you clearly do not understand what I am saying. I am saying that other MMOs not limited to WoW have found GOOD WAYS to keep both in balance and crafting is still alive in those games even though it doesn't give top items.

FFXI is a terrible game now and only survived the last 2 years due to its WoW-like pathetic turn kept people playing since they were able to get more gear. Yoshi-P also said he plans on increasing the level cap on a somewhat frequent basis which means everything we have now WILL be useless at an earlier point then FFXI's.

Also using FFXI as an example most crafting in that game was useless with the exception of very few items. Abjurations is the best thing they did in terms of crafting-endgame balance as you needed BOTH in order to get them.

I am not saying SE needs to completely follow the crowd i'm saying there are better ways to keep crafting involved while still keeping endgame top notch and having people do that content.

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Originally Posted by Jeronlmo

I just looked up your char, your opinion no longer matters.

Who are you to talk about the difficulty of crafting, when youve tried no crafts.
Who are you to talk about gathering when you do not gather.

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Do people really think this? There's nothing to crafting or gathering. You can do 1-50 on a craft while AFK. Gathering is as simple as knowing "go +4 here, -4 there, +3 here" etc. HQing items has little to do with player input compared to leveling a bunch of crafts to get all the good HQing skills. There is no difficulty to crafting.

Your asking for clones of other games, literally and directly asking for clones, you want exactly what other games are doing. I dont believe you have played this game enough based on your levels to have a real opinion about things (esp endgame).

The majority are also casuals, that doesnt mean they should build every game that is ever created. How can you possibly argue that you want better endgame rewards and how hardcore you are when you are pro-casual for creating the game.

I promise you if you played 11 I was more into engame than you, gil sinks are what the game needs, and materia is currently it, the constant inflation and price fluctuation doesnt need to come back.

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Originally Posted by Nephera

I like what Phantasy Star Online 2 is doing in that while rare weapons usually have a better base value, both rares and non rares can still be improved and tailored very much to a player's preferences.

I think ultimately when it comes down to it, people would be happy with a weapon that looks cooler than crafted weapons as opposed to one that is better by a wide margin. With a system that lets players tool their weapon to their needs.


To give an example from pso2: I could take weapon A which i bought from the vendor and transfer a lot of attributes from other weapons onto it (+10 attack power, the chance to freeze enemies,etc) and by the end of it I would have a pretty nice weapon that i'm pretty happy with. Or i could take weapon B, that dropped from a boss, which looks really rad and then do all the same things i did to weapon A with it and have a weapon that is much more desirable solely through its skin despite not being too much more powerful.

Lets be honest do you want to be dramatically more powerful than your teammates? The ones who are going to be helping you fight?

Rare drops can be better sure, just not by such a wide margin that crafters aren't going to sell anything.

TLDR: I like lateral weapon progression a lot.


Edit: also i am aware that the materia system is very approximate to this atm.

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Crafters can sell items fine, the main issue is the lack of population means people won't be able to sell very much regardless and will end up dieing out anyways. If the population grows they'll have more to sell to, however eventually they'll run out of people to buy their items.

Materia was just a sad attempt to keep items leaving circulation so that crafters wouldn't feel it as bad in a game with a very low population.

I agree with you that crafters do need to fit some roll and other MMOs have found that roll, by having larger population games, constant creation of new characters and new classes to level cap that need different kinds of items and stats have all helped crafting stay alive, in this game it doesn't really fit due to its low population.

Square Enix can easily find ways for crafting to stay alive even if it doesn't make top notch items, allowing crafts to make the best items without having to really go out and do anything is flat out poor development.

The amounts crafters charge for some things isn't even reasonable, putting 1 materia onto an item doesn't instantly make its price go from say 90k to 900k that's not even realistic.

They should however be able to upgrade gear to some point however the cost should be minimal. Crafters would still charge unreasonable amounts to do it even if its no cost to them.


Edit: SE also made leveling in this game too fast and exp party speed also does harm crafters to a smaller extent that people won't really need top notch items while leveling up and can skip several items that they could buy from crafters.

One of the major things in FFXI was leveling wasn't insanely easy or fast for most of its run, its actually easier and quicker to level in this game then any MMO I have played, however that can also be a problem for crafters as people won't need to buy items from them as much as they could to progress through the game.

They arent hard to level, no, and neither are DoW/DoM jobs yet he has only 2. The fact that he has no DoL/DoH yet has such a bad opinion of them is dumb. He wants the game to completely revolve around what he likes, and only what he likes.

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Originally Posted by Xikeroth

You clearly have no idea what you're talking about. Almost every player I see wearing materia gear has at least 3 materia melded onto it. Often 4, rarely 2...

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I'm not sure you realize what people mean by double, triple, and quad melds. Its not 4 materia over all their pieces of gear, its 4 materia melded on to one piece of gear. Melding 4 Tier IV to a piece of gear is something like a 1% chance. I, for one, have never actually seen a quad tier IV meld and I go around checking every well-geared looking player I come across. While the richest and most well respected players have one or two Tier IV triple melds, it is not common in any way.

Hell, a lot of people don't even have double melds because of how expensive the materia is and how poor they are.

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Originally Posted by AdvancedWind

But the gear DOESN'T end in crafting, even with materia. Sure, it is possible to make some materia gear that are unquestionably BiS, but the cost and luck needed to do that is ridiculous, plain and simple.

Did you ever try to meld 3X Tier IV materia into something? Now imagine doing that for all eight gear slots. Now imagine doing that for every class you play.

It's safe to assume that a good deal of players might be able to craft or buy one or two pieces of BiS gear with materia, some players might even craft many of these, but saying that this possibility overshadows the usefulness of raid drops is insanity, specially since many raid drops have stats that ain't even available from materia.

Raid gear will always be useful, because it's impossible to make some kind of ultimate gear set with materia only unless you're ready to dump billions of gil into it. Billions!

Edit: (ok, maybe not billions)

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The fact of the matter is, people want reward through endgame this is a staple in all MMOs, they could include it through something like abjuration drops from some world or endgame NMs that would keep both crafting useful and require endgame events to be done in order to get top gear. It should not rely on something like materia, that's just lazy development

There is reward through endgame, 1 of your total of 2 jobs is Pld, try to beat full HDL with materia... go ahead... we can wait.

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Originally Posted by Ryans

I'm not sure you realize what people mean by double, triple, and quad melds. Its not 4 materia over all their pieces of gear, its 4 materia melded on to one piece of gear. Melding 4 Tier IV to a piece of gear is something like a 1% chance. I, for one, have never actually seen a quad tier IV meld and I go around checking every well-geared looking player I come across. While the richest and most well respected players have one or two Tier IV triple melds, it is not common in any way.

Hell, a lot of people don't even have double melds because of how expensive the materia is and how poor they are.

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Honestly the op prob doesn't even realize how good darklight gear is atm lol. OP show me some gear that beats DL gloves for whm or the DL body for mnk or the DL helm for drg.

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Originally Posted by Xikeroth

The fact of the matter is, people want reward through endgame this is a staple in all MMOs, they could include it through something like abjuration drops from some world or endgame NMs that would keep both crafting useful and require endgame events to be done in order to get top gear. It should not rely on something like materia, that's just lazy development

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...we get rewarded by endgame. Primal weapons are only rivaled by Relics and very few company gear combinations. most Darklight gear is pretty much BiS, even compared to very good materia melds. Some of the hamlet gear are very good, and even BiS depending on your build. Random chest acessory drops from CC/AV are BiS for some builds as well. Some company gear combos and sanction make pretty powerful gear sets.

Heck, hamlet crafting pieces are much better than anything the crafters can make themselves.

How's that not being rewarded by doing endgame? Other than the lol drop rates of a few things, I find it hard to complain about the current endgame, non materia gear.

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Originally Posted by Jeronlmo

If you like the majority of current MMO's out there atm... you sir, are not a serious endgamer, please specify these many mmo's you have so much experience with and are speaking for every single player throughout all of them.

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I'm not speaking for every player in all of them, however the fact this MMOs population is so low even after the countless changes they have made(they are good improvements no denying that) The fact the population is still low, the fact most new players don't stick around, and the simple fact that most players across MMOs don't have crafts capped is proof enough.

Take a look at current day FFXI, look how few people had a craft leveled to 100 and had items to push it further.... not very many compared to how many played the game.

I never said I liked the majority of the MMOs out there either. if I did I wouldn't be here now would I? However even if you DON'T like the way some games are or what they have, or even the low difficulty levels, some people are not stubborn to the point to realize there are SOME positive things do come out of those games.

Like the people in this game saying "WoW is terrible" yet a lot of the stuff they are introducing in this game, the same stuff those same people are blindly praising the for... is because of WoW's success, and are features from WoW or other games and the fact that though the game isn't exactly to everyone's liking it did have some positive points SE could use in their games. To refuse to realize that a lot of the stuff being put into the game, (Rested xp, content finder, how our raids are set up) All identical to how other MMO devs (not limited to blizzard but including them) have been setup for years.

I personally like how sky was setup and FFXI was my fave endgame out of every MMO Abjurations are basically a solution here. I'm sorry but I don't like the idea that someone that never leaves the city can basically buy his way almost to the top without having to draw a weapon or cast a spell.