We'll have to disagree, because the time taken isn't the same either. You put way more time into making your own 170, because your still farming the same red scrips you would be for i180 plus a whole lot more effort. The "time" put into i180 is waiting for your lockouts to refresh. That time in no way = the effort put into i170. So while they should be relatively close, they should definitely not be the same.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sardonia
Unfortuneately, I do find the assumption unreasonable, given the effort vs reward. It can happen to anyone at any time, everyone interprets things differently. Unfortunately now your paying the price for taking the path of least resistance, but its not that bad.Quote:
Originally Posted by Alahra
Luckily with some careful planning you can come back from it without too much wasted effort, as has already been pointed out. Everyone had to meld, so don't feel like your climbing an extra mountain then the rest of us.
Just to be clear I'm not fully melded or fully geared. I'm 3 star on Weaver, 2 star on the 7 remaining crafts. I've made the best of what I have and am by no means rich. I keep a float of 5-6 million and spend my excess on Wattle bark, Demimateria and Seabornes, the only items I cant harvest myself that I need to make more i170 for myself. Its not as daunting as it seems, just have to change your mindset a little.
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03-17-2016, 08:00 AMZelzubub
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03-17-2016, 08:08 AMSolluxWhat's unreasonable is your assumption that putting in a fraction of the effort that an i170 Crafter puts into their gear would leave you both at a level playing field for the entire lifecycle of the gear.Quote:
Originally Posted by Alahra
It took 7 months for i170 Crafters to have any sort of significant advantage over i180 Crafters, not counting being able to Craft 2* earlier which frankly meant next to nothing as sales were practically non-existent. That's 7 months that you could Craft on equal terms to someone who easily put in 10x the effort and/or gil in their gear, and on top of that you said yourself that you can actually Craft 3* recipes and only had to do some light melds.
You compare the difference between "casual" and "hardcore" Crafters but you left out "midcore" which is where you lie. If you're going to make comparisons start with those who didn't get ANY i180 gear, then compare the advantages an i180 set has over the white gear and tell me they aren't as big or bigger than the advantages an i170 set has over i180.
The primary difference between HC and any other type of Crafter is that HC Crafters don't "predict the future", they plan for it. As time goes on a game will evolve, more recipes and gear will be added, and even though overmelded i170 might have been overkill and unnecessary at the time those who worked for it were planning for something exactly like 3.2 to happen. It was a long time coming, and their investment could have easily turned into a MASSIVE loss (Or at least nowhere near worth the effort) had new Crafting gear been released that made i170 obsolete, but that's a gamble that they took and it paid off big.
HC Crafters may be making a nice profit right now, but the profits being made are still a fraction of what was spent to reach that point. I personally finished every i170 set, overmelds included, which was valued at 200m+ at the time (I'm on Tonberry, and to use as an inflation comparison Command IV is currently 110k each). Now I haven't been living at the market board since 3.2's release, but I've still kept on top of my markets and I've only made back about 90m of the 200m that the sets are worth, which still leaves me 110m away from "breaking even".
I know I'm probably sounding elitist and I apologize if I do, but if you take away anything from this discussion please let it be this: Regardless of whether you can make as much of a profit as a HC Crafter the fact remains that you have the ability to Craft 3* when a vast majority of players still do not. -
03-17-2016, 08:40 AMAlahraThe main thing I'm taking away from it is that the entire crafting endgame for Heavensward is still an unbalanced mess on both progression paths, such that i170 crafters still aren't making back their investment, either. You definitely should have been able to break even by now and I agree that it's ridiculous that you haven't. The combo of Red Scrips and Specialization, which were intended to address a number of "problems" with crafting in ARR have failed to address most of those issues, and they've left the state of crafting as a whole largely broken. I took the opposite path from you: I saw that the investment to max out 170 gear likely wasn't going to pay off and chose not to, and now I'm paying for that.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sollux
But that the system is messed up for 170 crafters too shouldn't necessarily mean that 180 crafters should now be locked out of equal market participation, at least not without advance warning. I'm sure many crafters in my position would have gladly changed directions had we been aware that there was going to be a much greater gap going forward.
I do think they should have put the new 180 gear on a new token, not the old one, so that that option would have locked 180 crafters out of the highly profitable early market. But then the gear we eventually got would be somewhat weaker but still comparable to the other option. That was the bargain we signed up for originally, going by how the gear was balanced in 3.0. Instead, we were able to participate (in a hindered way) in the early market and will not, for this raid tier at least, ever be able to craft the items at a comparable level of effectiveness to what we had in 3.0 and 3.1.
But your post seems to suggest something analogous to this: imagine that MNK spent the first seven months of Heavensward underpowered (which, they actually sort of did, relative to the other melee). Changes in 3.2 to MNK meant that it was now the preferred melee DPS (compared to say, NIN). But imagine that the raid environment had also changed at the same time such that NINs could no longer effectively participate (perhaps due to increased damage taken for some reason or another, much as was the case with DRG in early FCOB before their Magic Defense buff). The response to NINs rightfully frustrated that they could no longer effectively participate in raids (with the market being analogous to raids) should not be "But MNKs couldn't raid for 7 months!"
The response should be that both NIN and MNK should be on relatively equal footing (they still aren't, from what I can tell of most raid compositions—NIN still has a slight edge). I'm a NIN main and I still think MNK needs to be brought up to par (even if I'm not really happy with so much of NIN's design direction in the expansion). NIN is in fact generally considered easier to play at a high level than MNK, but that doesn't mean NIN should be less useful in a raid because of it, in my view. I see 180 vs. 170 similarly (which should, in my view function much as Zodiac/Anima weapons do vs. raiding, with the investment of time on the one hand and the investment of effort/gil in the other).
The fact of the matter is for everything else in the game, you are able to participate in all aspects of content if you follow your chosen progression path to the natural endpoint in a way that is virtually indistinguishable from the other progression paths. Tomestone gear is at worst, marginally less effective than an optimal mix of raid and tomestone gear. Zodiac/Anima weapons still eventually reach the exact same weapons damage as raid ones do. Market participation is part of the overall "content" of crafting much as raids are part of the "content" for battle content, and it's my view that the progression paths should ultimately be comparable in a similar manner. -
03-17-2016, 12:19 PMSolluxTo make things clear, I didn't become a i170 Crafter for the profit. It's nice, yes, but to me Crafting IS my Endgame, and I would have geared my classes to the teeth regardless of whether it paid off or not. I don't care that I haven't made 200m because I farmed the majority of the mats for my sets myself because prices were insane and I wanted to gear up as quickly as possible.Quote:
Originally Posted by Alahra
The system isn't broken, but it's also by no means perfect. The reason a lot of Crafters are playing catch-up now is because from 3.0 until 3.2 there was no monetary incentive to gear up which meant they either stuck with white gear or slowly got i180 gear. This actually worked in my favor since materia and aethersand prices stayed low for a very long time which made Crafting and melding the gear much less painful than it is now.
One other thing as well, in regards to being prepared for changes in Crafting: They never have, and likely never will, release information on the next tier recipes before release. Part of being a good Crafter is planning for the future, and preparing for possible changes that might occur based on previous trends. In 2.0, 3* recipes were released 7 months after the game was released and had such a big requirement jump that you almost had to get at least a few Artisan pieces and overmeld a little in order to Craft it. Guess how long it's been since Red Scrips were released? 7 months. Someone in full i180 with a few melds can Craft 3*, the only difference between now and ARR is that you had 7 months to gear up whereas in ARR the Artisan gear you needed to Craft the 3* was released along with the patch.
Your example comparison with MNK and NIN was good (MNK is my Combat main actually), however it wasn't that i170 was underpowered, it was actually overpowered and unnecessary for the current content. When I mention it taking 7 months for the i170 to be relevant it's not just a complaint, it's an example of how long you could go without needing i170 gear as well as a reminder of how much time we had to GET i170/i180 gear before it actually became necessary.
Regardless of what aspect of the game you're speaking to the majority of the time the optimal build involves a combination of both the time-based and skill-based gear, and if you want to be optimal and reach Endgame faster than others you HAVE to mix and match. The increase might be marginal in some cases, but that increase becomes much less marginal when you're on the bleeding edge of Endgame. Also, Tomestone gear only reaches the ilvl of Raid gear when upgraded, and if you don't Raid or are unable to then you're going to be behind everyone who can until they release an alternative way to get the upgrade mat. In the same vein, if you don't Craft/meld i170 gear or are unable to you're going to be behind every who can until they release alternative Scrip gear.Quote:
Originally Posted by Alahra
I would also agree that "Market participation" is part of the overall Crafting content, however I see it in the sense that there's always money to be made if you're willing to look for it and a dedicated Crafter will never be poor. Those who actively participate in the market should have no trouble buying or melding 1 or 2 pieces to reach the level they're comfortable with for 3* recipes. -
03-17-2016, 12:42 PMAlahraThis is actually the biggest point at which I feel they screwed up. There's essentially no "time" element to the 180 gear for 3.2 and there should have been, so that, just like the left side gear, the right side gear could have had "psuedo-melds" that were comparable (but not as good as) pentameld gear. That cements the primary benefit of 170 gear being early readiness. I honestly don't think the 180 gear should be able to craft the gear yet, period—but once they *can* craft it, it's my belief that it should be comparable in effectiveness to the 170 gear, which parallels the gap between Tomestone and raid gear for non-raiders. Once non-raiders *can* upgrade their gear, it is essentially just as good as raid gear since the period for bleeding edge progression is gone, and that's fine.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sollux
What we got instead with crafting this patch is the equivalent of tomestone gear not being upgradable without raiding, period (meaning non-raiders would always only have i230 gear) unless they do something unexpected and increase the strength of the 180 accessories with patch 3.25 or 3.3. We have no precedent for that, though, so as of now, it looks like 180 crafters are always going to be behind.
It's my belief that they should have made it easier to catch up to 170 gear too, though (much as they did with Esoterics gear this patch). The cost for the materials has actually gone up on my server at least since 3.2, so for someone who is perhaps coming back to the game after not being happy with the state of crafting, they're in a pretty tight spot right now unless they're already prepared to do all the gathering of the mats themselves (and I'd imagine that there are a lot of folks who aren't). That would have also made the transition from 180 gear to 170 pentamelds an easier pill to swallow for those of us who aren't satisfied with the change in relative effectiveness.
Regarding how long we had to get to 170 gear: the time period is obviously true. But there was no indication from the developers that one path particular would ever be necessary to be effective at the highest tier of crafting, since they were fairly comparable in 3.0/3.1. The effective gap is simply much larger now, since we all know CP is the single most important stat—and the gap would be analogous to locking tomestone players to lower Weapon Damage or something, which they do actually do, but they've never yet done something of that nature for crafting. However, the clearest example of time (as opposed to effort) producing a top-level reward is with the Zodiac/Anima weapon: those do in fact meet the potential of raid-class weapons given enough time, all without ever needing to do difficult content (the equivalent of melding in this example). But regardless, they could have told us that they were going to reduce the relative strength of 180 gear without actually revealing any information regarding recipes or the like (much as they told us about the new advancement path before HW even though we had no idea what endgame crafting would be like at the time).
I had stopped doing Red Scrips about 2 months prior to 3.2, when I finished the gear for my last specialist, as the standard practice for battle classes is that the old currency had always been replaced with a new one. We found out about 2 weeks before the patch (in a Japanese interview) that this wouldn't actually be the case, and once we did, I capped Scrips for those two weeks—but given how abysmal the 180 accessories are, that ended up being unnecessary. i150 accessories provide more CP than the i180 ones with a single base meld that I already had, which is honestly pretty strange, given that it likely costs more to cap Red Scrips for one week to get an i180 accessory than it does to get a single Grade 3 Cunning. -
03-18-2016, 07:18 AMSolluxYou are correct that there is no Crafting equivalent of the Combat i230-i240 upgrade but consider this: A Crafter can, for all intents and purposes, have a full overmelded i170 set without even unlocking a single Master Book. No amount of "Raiding" is necessary, as a clever Crafter can easily earn enough to afford any "Raid" piece they want. Think of gil as a sort of token system, except it has no cap, there are a TON of ways to get them, the better Crafter/Merchant you are the more tokens you can make in a day, and with enough tokens you can trade them for "Raid-level" gear.Quote:
Originally Posted by Alahra
Combat doesn't have this option. They can't work towards Midas gear by running Brayflox over and over again. There's no token they can trade for Raid gear that drops outside of Raiding. They can't even upgrade their Tome gear until SE releases an alternative method weeks if not months after release.
You said yourself the Market is a part of the Crafting experience, and you can BET they took that into account when they planned the gear progression.
I see this comment a lot these days, and to save what little space I can in this essay of a comment here's a link to a reply I made in this exact thread detailing all the ways gearing has been made easier since release, ESPECIALLY for i170 gear: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...=1#post3618514Quote:
Originally Posted by Alahra
In regards to the prices, how easy the materials are to obtain has little to do with how much they cost on the market. Demand VASTLY outweighs supply right now because a ton of Crafters are trying to catch up. If they DID choose to gather the mats themselves they'd find it MUCH easier than it was before and would likely save way more in gil than they'd lose in time.
How do we know they're not releasing a Crafting Relic? There's definitely a precedent from 2.0, and it would fall in line with why you're struggling now. Combat classes that can't/don't raid are "locked into lower Weapon Damage" and cannot perform as well as those who can until the next step of Relic is released. In comparison, i180 Crafters are suffering now because they can't/don't Craft/buy i170 gear and cannot perform as well as those who can until the 3.0 Crafting Relic is released.Quote:
Originally Posted by Alahra
While I don't have time to find a quote I know for a fact they've stated that the i170 when overmelded would definitely be more powerful than the i180 and will edit with a quote when I can find the time.Quote:
Originally Posted by Alahra
I don't blame you for assuming we'd have a new color Scrip by now (I thought so too), and I agree that the i180 accessories are sub-par at best and have no idea what they were thinking with those. Spirit Bonding maybe? Regardless, I stopped capping Red Scrips purely because I no longer need them, but if I did I would likely use the tokens to turn a profit selling mats.Quote:
Originally Posted by Alahra
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03-18-2016, 07:46 AMKakure
I feel like I am the only one who is actually reading what Alahra wrote.
The i180 accessories are terrible. We all agree on this. They are strictly inferior to i170 accessories.
The community has long understood the i180 gear to be an independent, parallel gear path with distinct tradeoffs, not just a bunch of suboptimally itemized a la carte pieces. Every tutorial I read after returning to the game described the Heavenward crafting system this way.
It was perfectly reasonable to assume that the relative strength of the i170 and i180 accessories would mirror the relative strength of all the other i170 and i180 crafting gear in the game, with i180 pieces equivalent to partially melded HQ i170 minus a few CP.
When i180 gear was introduced, the full set (with i110-i150 offhand and accessories) had far more craftsmanship and control than the two-star minimums. On that basis, and on the understanding that the i180 gear was created as an independent, parallel gear path, it was entirely reasonable to expect that the full set of i180 gear would at least give crafters adequate craftsmanship, control, or CP for three-star crafting, with the other two made up by food. It would even be reasonable to assume that the i180 set might give crafters enough of more than one stat.
What part of this is even slightly controversial? -
03-18-2016, 09:04 AMKabooaThe part where 'reasonable assumption' is supposed to be some sort of valid argument.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kakure
I'm not really knocking her for being wrong. I'm telling her she's making a bigger deal out of this than it is.
My goldsmith, the only craft I have that's relevant to this particular discussion, can both craft 3star and have a pretty reasonable chance at HQ without the HQ 3star components. Other than the new redscrip offhand, that gear hasn't changed since 3.1
I have an i170 helmet, full i180 otherwise for major armor pieces. I have the i180 mainhand. I have eco melded white belt and accessories. For all intents and purposes I am not in this 'super melded i170' she believes she needs to have in order to compete.
I am, admittedly, not the richest person to come on to these forums, but the amount of effort I put in for my gil this patch cycle is near non-existent. A few minutes here and there, some near-afk craft sessions, and then some give-and-take experimentation with full blown crafts. I've made every piece I can for my battle classes that I care for, for others, and a fair amount I've sold. The fact that she's having such an issue adjusting is, frankly, unfathomable to me, because she'd have to literally be doing nothing.
It's like LZ all over again. -
03-18-2016, 09:21 AMMN_14
One thing to consider is that a full i180 build with beet soup might have been balanced to go hand in hand with specialist abilities. Although non-ideal for those with sufficient CP, these abilities do work most of the time (under average RNG) and are particularly useful for CP recovery.
It could be worth trying out. -
03-18-2016, 02:27 PMKabooaEh. Thing about that is, in all the 3star crafts I do using Maker's Mark (17 free steps), on average I'll get 2-3 Goods. Whistle is a heart breaking 36cp to start. So you not only need the 'goods' to count it down, but you need enough to trigger it to 9 to whistle for 15, then from 8 to 6 to whistle again for another cp. You're still 6 CP down at this point. It's difficult to justify the step loss during Maker's to use it, but it's also the best time -to- use it. You need 2 goods to hit 9, then 2 more to 6. That's not even breaking even, and if you're using whistle at those stacks you don't get the 3 stack benefit unless you're fine with getting RNG'd out of whistle.Quote:
Originally Posted by MN_14
Whistle While you Work really needs to be a one time use, free ability because I can't see it being worth the bother. -
03-18-2016, 03:15 PMMN_14I haven't tried the specialist abilities with 3* crafts yet, but I have tested them on other master crafts sometimes using only level 15 cross class skills and steady hands 2, while other times with all of the level 50 cross class abilities.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kabooa
I don't actually think specialist abilities are a good match with maker's mark because with the heart ability (I used it 3 times during my tests) and whistle while you work, you'll spend a lot of time using tricks of the trade and satisfaction. I found the biggest advantage to be the cheap durability restore from Nymeia's wheel.
With standard cross class abilities, you'll typically be able to restore 90 to 120 durability (although if you have WN1 equipped, you can sometimes technically add another 2 touches, but at that point excess CP is probably best used for precise touch) while with the specialist abilities, I can usually restore at least 120 durability and often 150 durability. Even without a major CP boost from food or melds, I doubt it would be difficult to restore at least 90 durability and maybe up to 120.
Without Maker's Mark, you'll likely use more durability for progress, but the CP you gain plus the savings from Nymeia wheel more than compensate for it unless you're unlucky with the good procs. -
03-19-2016, 12:21 AMAlahraI should have been more specific (I'd seen your post before). Most of those changes weren't made with the purpose of facilitating folks catching up. They were made because the system as originally implemented required far too much investment for almost no actual reward.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sollux
I think they should have done more to make the items easier to acquire in 3.2 specifically, in parallel to the way they reduced the cost of Esoterics gear, removed the weekly lockout on it, and made Gobdip/twine/coats easier to acquire. The addition of the materials to the dungeons is normally how they do this, but something seems different about the drop rates this time, as I've not personally seen any drop since the patch. Compared to how common the materials drop in the i70, i80, and i90 dungeons in ARR, the difference is pretty striking.
You can catch up a class to i210 in a matter of days now with little effort, but you're going to be looking at more time to do so with i170 crafted gear unless you're sitting on a lot of gil, since the weekly lockouts are still in place, limiting the number of items you can acquire if you go the route of gathering them youself via Red Scrips. And of course, that requires having multiple classes at 60 (at the least, 1 crafter and 1 gatherer)—battle classes don't need to have that in place to quickly catch up (and also requires weekly capping of two currencies—twice what a battle class needs to do).
It's even worse for i180 crafters, who are still looking at the same total number of weeks to gear up that they've always had since 3.0. I don't even want to know what that wall would look like to a fresh level 60 crafter. They would be insane to choose the i180 path at this point (which honestly makes me wonder why the i180 path even exists).
Obviously, crafting is more about time investment than battle content is, so it's reasonable that the catch up period would be longer—but it's probably too much longer at this point.
We don't, but that's sort of the issue. If the two advancement paths are meant to be roughly parallel (as they were in 3.0/3.1), then i180 crafters should, I feel, have at least some ability to prepare, which does require at least some sense of of where things will go. The only sense we had of where the i180 gear would go had to be based on what gear was available in 3.0—and that gear provided us with more than enough stats for the top tier of crafting at the time. But the new i180 gear only gets us to the bare minimum instead, so the baseline seems to have changed, and with no information from the developers since prior to 3.0 regarding their design goals for i180 gear, we have no idea why, which makes it very difficult to plan for the future. Being able to plan is, I agree, a very important part of being a crafter.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sollux
But if one advancement path isn't going to be consistent in how it progresses, it significantly hampers the ability for players on that path to really plan, making it a notably suboptimal choice (something that say, tomestone gear isn't—it is still roughly equivalent, with the difference being relatively minor differences in "effective main stat" at the progression path's endpoint). As you've noted, I'm more of a "midcore" crafter, which is part of why I chose the i180 progression path. But as a midcore crafter, being something approaching optimal is important to me. Being able to make the items isn't enough to satisfy me: I want to also effectively participate in the market.
The i180 gear was more than capable of doing so in 3.0/3.1 relative to the i170 gear, now instead of being more than capable (by providing us with stats above minimums, allowing for CP food), it instead only reaches the bare minimums with food, and the CP gear leaves us with a very significant CP deficit that causes a heavy reliance on HQ materials. This impacts one's ability to participate in a market where the ability to HQ with NQ mats is greatly desired (understandably so, of course).
There's no need, I'm pretty sure I remember the interview you're thinking of. They did say the i170 stuff would be the better option, and that was true in 3.0. But the gap between the two advancement paths is much larger now (since it's one of CP, rather than Crafts or Control, which have less of an impact past the minimums for whatever tier of crafting you're aiming for).Quote:
Originally Posted by Sollux
Exactly. Heavensward established a certain baseline of relative strength for the two advancement paths. That baseline is now significantly different, and different enough that it seems to me that either the developers improperly balanced the new gear additions, or they wanted a different baseline. If they did want a different baseline, I feel they should have at least given us some information regarding their design goals for i180 scrip gear, so that we could prepare accordingly.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kakure
This is what I meant earlier when I said that people weren't actually responding to the things I'm actually saying. I've said numerous times that I'm able to craft the pieces. I'm not having "an issue adjusting" at all. What I am taking issue with is the apparent change in design direction from two roughly parallel gearing paths to one noticeably subpar gearing path and one functional gearing path.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kabooa
I've considered this myself, though I haven't experimented much with them. My experience with the Specialist abilities early on at 60 certainly didn't show that they were useful for CP recovery, though. I nearly always had less CP than if I hadn't used them. At some point when experimenting with the materials won't break my meager bank, I want to sit down and play with it and see if the longer synths will work out more in favor of Whistle While You Work, even so, but I'm skeptical they'll really make much of a difference.Quote:
Originally Posted by MN_14
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03-19-2016, 04:42 AMSolluxYou're right, I can't honestly say that all the changes were made to make it easier for others to catch up and you're right that a number of them were implemented to fix a broken system.Quote:
Originally Posted by Alahra
I agree that the caps should have at LEAST been raised, however historically they've only ever reduced gear cost and removed caps completely when a new Endgame gear set was released. We haven't had any new Scrips or any new gear besides the i180 accessories (Which are completely underwhelming by the way) and unlocking the caps now would be the equivalent of unlocking Lore gear a month or 2 before a new Tomestone is released.Quote:
Originally Posted by Alahra
Something that seems to be a recurring issue here is the idea that since Crafting progression is similar to Combat now it should be similar in other aspects as well. Compared to Combat, Crafting gear progression was historically slow and that hasn't change in 3.0. Yes, both the i170 and i180 gear was more than enough to Craft anything up to 3.2, but that's because it was intended to have a longer shelf life, NOT because it was a precedent to how gear progression would function in the future. Let me share a (rough) example of how gear levels vs recipe difficulty has functioned from 3.0-3.2.Quote:
Originally Posted by Alahra
I'm going to rate the Star Recipes and Crafting gear on a scale of 1-10, with 10 being the strongest gearset/highest difficulty recipes. A gearset with an equivalent rating to a Starred Recipe means that gearset has the ability to Craft it, but just barely or at a sub-optimal level. Having a higher rating means the gearset can not only Craft that Recipe, but it can do so at more and more optimal levels depending on the difference:
Full White Gear - 5
1* Recipes - 6
Full White Gear Overmelded - 6-7
2* Recipes - 7
Full i170 Gear - 7
Full i180 Gear - 8
3* Recipes - 8
Full i170 Overmelded - 8-10
Keep in mind this is just my opinion, but notice how I left room for a 4* Recipe that requires full overmelded i170 to Craft. Is it possible? Of course it is. Will it happen? Maybe. Will they release new gear before then? No one knows, and SE likely isn't going to tell us until the Patch Notes Preview or Live Letter a week before a Patch, but we can plan for it.
With SE being notoriously tight lipped on any kind of specific information regarding Crafting the players are forced to either plan for multiple contingencies or be left behind, and that isn't necessarily a bad thing. Because Crafting is so heavily tied to the game's economy a single leak of a future change can DRASTICALLY affect the Market. Had we been specifically told that it would be difficult to Craft 3* Recipes in full i180 gear then the market for i170 mats/gear and materia would have SKYROCKETED from the very beginning, leaving anyone without a ton of gil or a Gatherer unable to obtain the i170 gear that they would eventually need. Instead it was up to the players to decide what they might eventually need, which meant those who planned ahead could Craft and meld i170 gear at a fraction of the price it's currently at.
In regards to SE's apparent Crafting information policies -
They've never once released Recipe difficulty information before a patch, and after a Patch it's only available on the Lodestone or by checking it in-game, not in the Patch Notes.
They never said i180 would be directly paralel to the i170's full potential, only that it was an alternate gear path.
Apart from general info such as the STR/VIT change and their stance on Crafted gear's strength over the years, they have never given us detailed information on what their plans are for future gear progression, nor how far you can go with a specific gearset (I doubt even THEY know what limits can be pushed depending on gear). It's up to the player to decide what works best for them and how they want to plan for the future, and THAT is the type of planning that set apart those who were able to take advantage of 3* Recipes early because they opted to Craft/buy/meld a few i170 pieces just in case they needed them.
There cannot be a "change in design direction" when the entire design has already been changed. 3.0 marked the first time we had an actual weekly token and lockout, and because of this we have no idea where they're planning to go with gear progression because there is no precedent. EVERYONE is flying blind when it comes to planning for gear progression. Can you imagine how someone who overmelded all i170 sets would feel if a new Scrip set was released that was easier to get and the equivalent or better than their current gear? They might have a small leg up on the competition for a while, but it would still feel like the effort they put into their gear was a waste of time, much like many i180 Crafters are feeling now. This is just an example, and their work might be paying off now, but it could have just as easily turned out to be a disaster.Quote:
Originally Posted by Alahra
It's important to remember that as much as we like to find similarities in gear progression to 2.0 Crafting or Combat gear the fact remains that the core design for Crafting gear progression has been changed, and even if it hadn't there would be nothing stopping SE from "shaking things up" and doing something different. -
03-19-2016, 06:05 AMAlahraYou're right, they didn't.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sollux
But they were directly parallel in 3.0, and we all had to make assumptions based on what would be coming in the future, with what information we had available to us. There are numerous precedents in game for alternate advancement paths that are roughly comparable to one another. I'm not saying that the progression paths for combat and crafting should be exact mirrors of each other: they are very different systems, and you can't just apply things in a one-size-fits all manner (in fact, I honestly think their attempt to make crafting progression more like combat progression is the source of most of the crafting issues in HW to begin with). But what I am saying is that it was reasonable to look at the gap between the two crafting paths in 3.0 and make certain educated guesses about how things would progress based on what other similar examples we have, especially since Yoshi-P himself compared the new crafting progression system to the progression systems for combat classes during the pre-release period.
Up until this point in the game's life, alternate progression paths have always reached the same basic level of strength to the primary one, with the exception of the change to Tomestone gear in 2.1. But they also explained that one to us: Yoshi-P wanted to make sure people still had incentive to raid. That's ultimately why I don't think the i180 gear path should be capable of hitting 3-star stats right now. But the i180 accessories also shouldn't be so abysmal that they wouldn't be worth waiting for, either.
I've said I don't think i180-only crafters should be able to craft the 3-star recipes right now. The early market is and should be entirely the realm of those crafters who do the additional work (much like early progression requires more investment into one's gear with pentamelded crafting gear, and so on). i180 crafters should have had to wait until they had the new gear, and the new gear should have been tuned such that they were on comparable footing to i170 crafters after they had waited the appropriate amount of time (perhaps 6-8 weeks, using the cost in tokens of the 3.0 180 gear as a guide). The system we have now instead allows i180 crafters to participate in the early market (at enough of a deficit that it's difficult for them to really take advantage of it), and they'll always be at a distinct disadvantage even after the 8 weeks they would have waited if the progression had followed a pattern based on what it was like in 3.0 itself.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sollux
It is the addition of this disadvantage that concerns me, as I have said numerous times. It essentially means in the long term that the i180 progression path has very little purpose, as newer crafters are going to find an increasingly larger and larger time investment to catch up on crafting. This is actually one of the things that the Red Scrip and Specialization systems were supposed to address, and if the progression path meant to help make it easier for players to get into crafting is significantly weaker, it's not exactly going to encourage people to engage with it when it takes a rather long amount of time. It currently takes 12 weeks for a fresh level 60 crafter to earn enough scrips to get the entire i180 set—that's almost the length of an entire major patch, at which point the 220 crafted gear won't even be relevant anymore in the face of new 24-man raid gear and the presumed removal of lockouts on Midas (Normal). And on top of that, they'll still be crafting the gear at a significant disadvantage. -
03-19-2016, 07:20 AMNezeriusIf the stat requirement increase from 2* to 3* is anything to go by, then I can't see it being possible for a fully melded i170 crafter to get anywhere near the 4* stat requirement. Unless SE wants to force every crafter to use the 3* craft/control food.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sollux
SE likes to repeat things that it has done previously, so we're not entirely flying blind here. We also know there's likely going to be a new color of Rowena's Tokens:
Source: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...with-Patch-3.2Quote:
Yoshida: When the level of crafter and gatherer equipment rises, the current Rowena's token will become an intermediate currency, red scrip and the current Rowena's token rates will be lowered, and a new Rowena's tokan will become the main exchange. Further carrying out high difficulty collection and production from there is the flow that leading players will want to keep up with.
What I think will happen is a universal crafting set being added in 3.3, along with materials that are obtained through the new color tokens. With mats that hopefully not, but likely will involve the favor system again.
This will be a repeat of the current i170/i180 sets, with one set being meldable, crafted from 3* recipes.
The other is simply bought with the new tokens, without the possibility of melds.
These sets will be required to reach the 4* stat requirement on the recipes that will be added in 3.4.
Why I think they'll be adding these new DoH sets in 3.3, instead of 3.4, is because it'll give crafters about 3-3.5 months of preparation for 4* crafting, so the crafted DoW/M gear is much more readily available, similar to the current 3* DoW/M gear. -
03-19-2016, 08:26 AMSolluxThis is entirely subjective and not a conclusion everyone reaches. With Combat gear you can eventually reach the same ilvl and overall number of stats as Raid-level gear. With Crafting gear there is no way whatsoever for the i180 gear to be on the same level as an overmelded, and unless they implement a feature to do so or a new gearset I would say it's reasonable for an i180 Crafter to pick up some i170 gear in preparation for future difficulties.Quote:
Originally Posted by Alahra
We've been acting like this is a black and white subject and it's not. An i180 Crafter is more than capable of obtaining i170 gear, whether through Crafting or gil from profits (Or both), and I'm finding it hard to sympathize when the replacement of just the accessories can have a huge impact on their success and yet it's not being considered as an option.
I personally have no problem with i180 Crafters having immediate access to an early market if they're prepared enough that they meet the requirements. What I DO find disconcerting is the expectation that they would always be on the same level as a fully overmelded i170 Crafter. From the pure fact that i170 gear, when overmelded, trumps every single i180 gear piece in stats we KNEW an i170 Crafter would have an easier time on ANY recipe than an i180 Crafter, including having an easier time on future Recipes.Quote:
Originally Posted by Alahra
Neither the Red Scrip nor the Specialist System was built specifically to assist new players in catching up. Red Scrip gear was only intended as an alternate path to those unable to obtain i170 gear, and the Specialist System was intended to assist those who were unable to or didn't want to level multiple Crafting classes but still wanted to be able to HQ their items without the cross-class skills. That being said, the only thing stopping Red Scrip gear from helping a new player catch up is the weekly cap and/or the gear prices, and the Specialist System is a WHOLE OTHER thread worth of issues.Quote:
Originally Posted by Alahra
New players and new lvl 60 Crafters will have a difficult time catching up to 3*, yes, but that's both the nature of the current system and it's intent. Reaching 3* is the current Crafting Endgame, and the current system was built in such a way that that Endgame isn't 1 week long and Crafting becomes boring or stagnant for the next 3 months. SE wants Crafters to enjoy Crafting just as much as they want Combat classes to enjoy Combat. The system isn't perfect by any means, and I wholeheartedly agree there should have been more things implemented to help fresh 60 Crafters, but I enjoyed my journey to reach the point that I'm at now with my Crafts and I'm glad they're finally taking Crafting seriously because it's one of the most complex and enjoyable systems I have ever had the pleasure to work with and I'm always left wanting more when I finish a set. -
03-19-2016, 09:09 AMSolluxI honestly agree with the majority of this, and I've been planning accordingly by putting aside some gil so I can use it as a jump-start on the next level of gear progression. Should this occur in 3.4 rather than 3.3 it will just mean I have that much longer to prepare.Quote:
Originally Posted by Nezerius
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03-19-2016, 09:23 AMAlahraThat's exactly what I'm planning to do, actually. I'm finishing up BTN tonight so that I can start gathering the Red Scrip materials with it. After I have the accessories done, I'll slowly work on replacing my i180 left side with i170 pentamelds.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sollux
But I feel like I'm not communicating my position clearly, and I can't think of any other ways to convey it, so I'm just going to bow out of the discussion. Thank you for being civil about it. -
03-19-2016, 10:44 AMAarik
I love how everyone is just rolling in mountains of gil for all their hard work. Hey guess what class I specialized in, what class I maxed 170 HQ melded gear for? Blacksmith. Guess how much gil I, and any other Blacksmith has made from this patch. A heaping ton of....zero. You know the last time Blacksmith has been relevant in ANY fashion? A year ago with Wootz weapons. So yeah, SE sure did reward us alright, thanks for that low-blow, SE! Here's to you and, in the words of a wise Chinese proverb; may your life be eventful.
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03-19-2016, 11:10 AMEulIsn't blacksmith can make money from Replica allagan and high allagan weapon?Quote:
Originally Posted by Aarik
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03-19-2016, 11:12 AMHermaeus_mora1
I think a dedicated crafter should have a bnb set of products. Bsms for instance, while it's not a rapid fortune, find steady profit in i150 tools. Sometimes you gotta use your reserves to jump off a sinking ship. I was a bsm spec when the patch hit and Wednesday(day 2) I saw what was 3.2's gold mine and used that money to get to 3*-able stats. You always gotta spend some to earn some. I made over 20 times the gil spent on gearing the new spec. Anyways, they went wrong with alc and cut. Specially alchemists.
As of new gear, the apron came up only in 2.5. I think we'll only have new tools for now. Maybe accs(unlikely) and a new artisan's spectacles, which I don't want right now, as after four months I've finally got to full i170 8/8. -
03-19-2016, 11:55 AMAarikBest of luck on that. It's the only thing we can make with very few buyers and many many sellers. It's an undercutting war, and one that is quite frankly pointless. You'd make more gil from selling a batch of low-tier food, which does NOT require a stupid amount of gil and time investment.Quote:
Originally Posted by Eul
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03-19-2016, 02:41 PMNezeriusWhile it's possible to use the gearing process in 2.x as a base for how the 3.x one will be, I think it's better to look at something more recently, namely the stat requirements from 2* to 3*Quote:
Originally Posted by Hermaeus_mora1
2* recipes require 718 Craftsmanship and 695 Control
3* recipes require 850 Craftsmanship and 820 Control, which is an increase of 132 and 125 respectively.
Unless the iLvl of the tools greatly increase to accommodate for the presumed requirement for 4* recipes, we'll need a whole new set. -
03-22-2016, 09:39 AMStillShield
I went into pstch 3.2 with three spare soulstones in order to change to any trend based classes. I dumped ltw and wvr immediateling and swithched to gsm and crp wen i saw that accesories was in extreme demand.