Dropped vs. Crafted a compromise?

Crafted gear on its own is garbage.

Materia is what matters when it comes to crafted gear, even HQ gear is still garbage and only after adding materia does it become acceptable to use.

In ARR when U/U gear will have a token system and people start obtaining equipment on a regular basis, I can see alot of people choosing to work towards getting their U/U equipment instead of gambling their money away on trying to double meld crafted equipment. (Burn money trying to double meld felt trousers vs farming tokens to buy Militia trousers?)

In my opinion there should be a balance of gear. The top notch best in slot gear should be dropped by an uber difficult boss in an extreme dungeon (or something that is equally as difficult) something that no amount of spamming will get you that gear, only skill of the entire group and thats it. PERIOD. The next level down should be from tough bosses, dungeons, primals, NMs, or crafted gear with 4 or 5 materia. The reason crafted/melded gear is listed is because of the level of difficulty to have a x4 or x5 materia melded gear. Next level down should be gear from tokens for completing a dungeon but maybe not getting the best drop(s), from lesser NMs and bosses, normal dungeons vs difficult or hyper dungeons, and gear with x2 or x3 melds. Bottom level should be crafted gear with x1 melds. This isnt saying i advocate gear rating because i dont. I cant stand that system. Im only giving levels to differentiate between top levels of gear and bottom levels. Bottom levels being gear thats good enough to boost your DPS, healing, DMG sustained to a level thats manageable providing your skill is adequate enough to get you through, top level being a group a of top leveled players can smoke through a hyper dungeon and only have a rough time with a hyper boss rather than sweating it and hoping to god their skills are good enough to pull it off.

An example would be a top leveled tank would have no problem holding hate and sustaining damage giving the healer breathing room. The fight would then be up to DPS to crank it out and do thier job. A low geared tank would need a good healer via skill or gear and DPS that know how to push their skills without pulling hate. As i said earlier, the difference between a sweaty armpit fight and a fight that you can win unless you all just suck and arent on your game at all.

This is just my thoughts though. Theres arguments that can be made in both directions. Im aiming my opinions towards a happy medium.

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Originally Posted by fusional

ahh yesss another brilliant suggestion for casuals that would completely drive away the hardcore playerbase who actually worked hard for their gear. good idea.

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last i checked nothing but casuals are playing. not like you have to put in work for anything. anyone "hardcore" is playing something else.

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Originally Posted by IBloodmoon

I agree with the idea, but there would have to be a way to make items for non-crafters. Even though some of us will, you can't reasonably expect all end game players to level all crafts to 50.

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I never said I want this to be what's done for ALL endgame gear. There should be plenty of normal drops and normal crafted items for other folks.

I'll retort that you can't reasonably expect players who don't put forth the extra effort to get all the benefits of the people who do.

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Originally Posted by Urthdigger

I never said I want this to be what's done for ALL endgame gear. There should be plenty of normal drops and normal crafted items for other folks.

I'll retort that you can't reasonably expect players who don't put forth the extra effort to get all the benefits of the people who do.

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I wasn't trying to imply that you were asking for this for all end game gear. It would be nice if they made boss dropped materials for U/U items. They did say they would make a crafting npc for the old seasonal items, so perhaps they could also make the U/U gears also for a fee. That way non-crafters could still get the items and crafters would have the advantage of making it for free and having the ability to HQ the item. Thoughts?

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Originally Posted by IBloodmoon

I wasn't trying to imply that you were asking for this for all end game gear. It would be nice if they made boss dropped materials for U/U items. They did say they would make a crafting npc for the old seasonal items, so perhaps they could also make the U/U gears also for a fee. That way non-crafters could still get the items and crafters would have the advantage of making it for free and having the ability to HQ the item. Thoughts?

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That sort of defeats the entire point. The point is, if you want those pieces of gear, you need to be able to make them yourself. Allowing players to just pay for it defeats the purpose, especially if inflation makes what was originally a fair price laughable.

Lemme put it this way: Do you think a player should be able to pay 100k to get a piece of Darklight gear, or a primal weapon?

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Originally Posted by Urthdigger

That sort of defeats the entire point. The point is, if you want those pieces of gear, you need to be able to make them yourself. Allowing players to just pay for it defeats the purpose, especially if inflation makes what was originally a fair price laughable.

Lemme put it this way: Do you think a player should be able to pay 100k to get a piece of Darklight gear, or a primal weapon?

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This, so much.

For people who "don't like crafting," I get it. Set aside that crafting will be at least somewhat different in ARR, some people just don't want to spend their time crafting.

What we have now is a system that only rewards people who do spend their time crafting monetarily. I 100% agree that it would be beneficial to be able to make U/U gear that was superior to drops; leveling a crafting job to 50 is incredibly time-consuming (unlike powerleveling a DoW/M job, if that also still exists in ARR).

You put in the time/effort, there should be some reward available other than "being able to make gil and repair stuff."

Granted, for certain (ahem, primal) fights there is some time involved to A) learn how to play your job effectively and B) learn the strategy of the fight so you don't botch it for everyone else and get kicked from your party. However, this is a fraction of the time it takes to get one crafting job to 50.

Crafting shouldn't be a requirement for dungeon items (No dungeon armor/weapons come from crafts instead of chests - at least the main ones (minor things like cosmetic, potions, and other little trinkets could be fun, house upgrades / stuffing a creature and putting him in your FC hall).

It is a bad idea, as not only are you taking the gatherers job you are also taking away a method of gearing up entirely.

In ARR powerleveling shouldn't be such a problem and leveling will be hard(er) again. Also crafters may take a long time but I assure you that someone who has done hundreds of dungeon runs (long time) would disagree with Crafters > Dungeons. Rates being changed in ARR makes this a hard topic to really get going logically though.

The best balance is one, as someone mentioned, that dungeon and crafted gear are better and worse in different aspects.

[QUOTE=Dannythm;861304]I think the better compromise is, if the boss is wearing the weapon/armor give it a chance for it to drop, if not, make it drop materials that can be crafted into high level items.

Or even better, make it so gatherers have o go to the instance to get the materials, then locate special forges or workbench so crafters can move their asses from the cities too and venture into the dungeons too. ...QUOTE]


I like it when gear is crafted, sold and augmented or melded to become stronger than plain gear you find it the shops. Monsters should drop MATs for craftables. weapons and gear should be found in chest and reward players for exploring if not defeating a high level boss.

It all depends on what ARR wants to promote, more crafting, more gathering or more battles. In the end, the community should be the ones learning responsibility and keeping balance. A interface should be present to show economy vs ecology trends. Supply and Demand. Purchasing vs Discovery. Crafting vs Battling.

No one can complain there's nothing to do if all they do is fight mobs and no craft.

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Originally Posted by Urthdigger

Lemme put it this way: Do you think a player should be able to pay 100k to get a piece of Darklight gear, or a primal weapon?

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Not really the same since the mats would need to be U/U or anybody able to craft the item could just buy end game gear then.

Anyway, I think that either being able to make the item for free after you collect the mats, have the possibility of HQ'ing the item, and if its meldable, you would have the chance to double/triple meld the item and non-crafters would only be able to get a single meld. Personally, I think that is a huge advantage for leveling a craft to 50. Non-crafters will probably think it's too much of an advantage and you will probably say its not enough. If so let's shake hands and agree to disagree.