Please Remove the Materia Melding Crafter Restriction

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Originally Posted by RhaegarFFXIFenrir

This is sort of off topic....but I see some fairly long posts in here. How do I overcome the 1000 character limit? This limit has been giving me fits when trying to craft thoughtful replies to what people are saying.

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Your original post is limited to 1000 characters but once you post it you can edit it and make it as long as you want.

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Originally Posted by Ulathskullsplitter

Your original post is limited to 1000 characters but once you post it you can edit it and make it as long as you want.

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I'll test this out now. Thanks for the tip. Success will mean a nice long post below this lol

When I started this thread it seemed like a small matter to me. I certainly didn't expect so much vehement opposition. I also didn't expect the support from some players who are much better at arguing or making a point than I am. That being said, the intent of my request was NOT to offend anyone. It also was not intended as something to make crafters less relevant.

As has been pointed out in recent posts, crafters have increasingly getting the short end of the stick from SE. The time requirements grow ever longer before crafters can make their top tier gear. That gear isn't even relevant beyond the second instance of the current raid content. To top it all off, that gear is so expensive that most players who might have liked to just grab all the i220 stuff right away were unable to due to lack of funds. Here on Excalibur the MCH stuff runs between 1.5-2.5m per piece.

We can't blame the crafters for these prices. The amount of work to be able to even unlock those recipes is staggering. The materials are also very expensive and difficult to come by. One little bit of RNG also results in a nq synth and millions of gil down the drain. We can't blame the gatherers/DoW/DoM for these material prices either because they are so rare and hard to come by.

My point in bringing up this i220 gear problem is this: the problem of crafter relevancy is much larger than a request that everyone get access to melding their alexander/lore gear. There are huge problems in the chain of supply and demand. There are also issues when it comes to crafted gear availability to the average player and overall crafted gear relevancy in the raiding environment.

I'm not going to recommend any changes to those problems here. A crafter more versed in the problem than I am should start a new topic of discussion where we can discuss such things. All I can do is respond in the context of the current discussion: allowing melding access of standard materia slots to everyone.

The feasible suggestions so far are:

-Add a NPC that charges a modestly substantial fee (<10k) to meld each materia with varying degrees of success. Such an NPC would still require the player have both the materia to be melded and the appropriate catalyst.
-Add some sort of crafted item in the game that would allow players to meld in place of having a crafter present. Each tier of materia would require it's own grade of crafting kit. Players would still have to have the materia and the appropriate catalyst.
-Allow players free access to melding T4 and below materia, reserving overmelds and T5 materias to crafters.

There is another solution as well, one that would set the game's balance back to where it was prior to 3.2 without taking melding away from crafters at all. I propose introducing a sort of "special materia socket." that any player can meld into. These sockets would ONLY be found on raid gear. Advanced melding for these special sockets is forbidden. Players would still have to have the materia and catalyst. Anything having the "standard materia socket" (everything prior to 3.2 and all 3.2+ crafted gears) can only be melded by crafters, as is the case now.

I welcome any thoughtful response to this whether in support or against.

Honestly, I'd make this deal:

Allow anyone of any class to meld any materia to any level gear in exchange for the removal of crafting specialization requirements from all recipes, now and forever.

I've melded for people on the odd occasion, usually for the level 50 relic weapons, and most of the time I had to explain materia melding to them. This has led to a few problems:

1. People getting to 50+ not understanding something that they've had unlocked since level 19!
2. People still not understanding it because they're simply following a quest that tells you exactly what to meld. Worse, it often asks for melds that go way over the caps for those stats. What a surprise to them to find out about the caps when they actually want to meld for stats.
3. What is a fair price for doing practically nothing on my part? Yes I leveled a crafting class and that took time, but I'm "rewarded" with a system where I pretty much stand there and gil rolls in? It feels almost like as if DoW or DoM could hit 60 and have free Esos/Lore come in periodically for hitting a button and standing in Idyllshire.

The other end of the bargain basically leads to trying to get 2.X omnicrafters back into the game, hopefully increasing supply on these new things like i220 crafted gear and do something about the insane prices. Honestly, what's the point of allowing everyone to meld their own gear if they can't afford the gear in the first place?

Basically, I'm not personally affected so much by the crafting class restriction on melds, and neither are the people close to me (because I help them), but I'd be more than happy to support this and sacrifice this potential source of gil to restore omnicrafting to what it was during 2.X.

You know since retainers can bring back tons of battle class materials (such as hides, blood, etc.) it's really only fair to let them meld stuff.

Here is a crazy idea: What about instead of trying to remove melding from the crafters you would give them more melding features?

Basically allow them to auto/afk meld. They would work exactly like the NPC you are looking for and you wouldn't even have to say one single word to them.

Just a note to all those who claim it wouldn't bother crafters if players could do simple melds via NPC, this is completely wrong. Experienced crafters know full well that melding gear is good for sales. This makes my product stand out and I can either regain my costs by selling higher or undercut without crashing the product value by selling for the same, either way it will sell faster.

It would have a direct impact on my ability to make money from the crafts I put work into to level so why should I give that all up because you don't want to /sh in town?

Allowing anybody to meld is not a victimless act, far from it in fact.

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Originally Posted by Artemiz

Just a note to all those who claim it wouldn't bother crafters if players could do simple melds via NPC, this is completely wrong. Experienced crafters know full well that melding gear is good for sales. This makes my product stand out and I can either regain my costs by selling higher or undercut without crashing the product value by selling for the same, either way it will sell faster.

It would have a direct impact on my ability to make money from the crafts I put work into to level so why should I give that all up because you don't want to /sh in town?

Allowing anybody to meld is not a victimless act, far from it in fact.

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I agree that's on point, but I don't see it having THAT much of an impact on sales.

At least the most common demand that they want to be able to meld raid gears, but "Agreed not to be able to overmeld".

Overmelded gears, especially Eikons, will still pull in profits.

I have an idea.

Allow anyone to meld, but give specialists an inherent +8%/5%/3% overmelding chance when affixing materia to equipment of their class. For Alchemists and Culinarians who don't get to meld much of anything, give them the ability to make potions/food that further boost overmelding chance by +4%/2%/1%.

There, now anyone can meld, but crafters will now have a legit reason to charge you for higher overmelding chance.

(And before anyone asks, yes I am somewhat being half sarcastic/passive aggressive with this suggestion. 'I don't like this part of the game and I won't put in the effort to understand it, therefore make it less important to my progression' is not a legit excuse to alter something at the detriment of a community that you're never going to associate with.)

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Originally Posted by -BlueGreen-

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No thanks. Omnicrafting needs to stay dead forever and we need more specialist recipes, speaking as someone who was an omnicrafter in 2.x.

But that's not really related to this topic anyway. Please keep melding a crafter thing SE, thanks.

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Originally Posted by FoxyAreku

No thanks. Omnicrafting needs to stay dead forever and we need more specialist recipes, speaking as someone who was an omnicrafter in 2.x.

But that's not really related to this topic anyway. Please keep melding a crafter thing SE, thanks.

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I suppose you completely overlooked the fact that I did tie it back into the discussion.

"The other end of the bargain basically leads to trying to get 2.X omnicrafters back into the game, hopefully increasing supply on these new things like i220 crafted gear and do something about the insane prices. Honestly, what's the point of allowing everyone to meld their own gear if they can't afford the gear in the first place?"

I'm so tired of these changes to crafting leading to at least one of (if not both):
1. Your network of friends, as a crafter, must consist of other crafters and gatherers. I suppose non-crafters don't count as people and friends anymore?
2. You must get enjoyment out of earning and sitting on massive piles of gil. Otherwise you risk not being able to afford to continue crafting.

I know the stuff I suggest and support all hurt point #2 for the people that fit into that group, but it's not like there weren't any rich players long before 3.0.

As things stand now, a crafter *can* do everything they need to do with 0 interaction with other players. I say that because they can buy pretty much everything they need from the market board or NPCs. There's nothing requiring a crafter to go out and gather their own materials either via DoL or DoW/DoM. That being said, having their own DoLDoW/DoM to gather these materials is the most gil efficient way for a crafter to get these item components. That gil efficiency is the main perk to having a gatherer.

I don't necessarily want melding taken away from crafters. There needs to be a parallel system in place. NPCs and items could provide that. Getting a meld then would then be:
meld yourself via DoH
ask for the assistance of another player who has the DoH class you need
buy something off the MB
visit a NPC

Such a system would be no different than what is in place for crafting. When getting components for a recipe together a crafter can:
gather the components themselves via DoL/DoW/DoM
ask for the assistance of another player with DoL/DoW/DoM
buy something off the MB
visit a NPC

The two models would then be virtually identical. In both instances, the most gil efficient way to do things is to level the required jobs and do what needs doing yourself. Failing that, the next option is finding someone who can give/sell to you their services cheaply. Thirdly, and usually if time is a constraint (or a player just can't be bothered to do #1 or #2), is just going to the market board or an NPC selling services. Before anyone goes off on my "can't be bothered" comment: as a botanist I rely on people not wanting to be bothered to go out and gather their own mats and buy a stack from me off the MB.

What's outlined above is a model that has been present in the game since day one. It's also the model that can be found in most MMOs. It's fairly simple and it works. Introducing melding into the same service system makes sense. Crafters would still be top dogs in the melding game. If anything, making melding more accessible (if more expensive via buying stuff off the MB or an NPC) would stimulate the economy. All those empty sockets people are running around could possibly end up being filled. I'm not just talking about endgame gear, I'm talking about the lower level stuff as well. This results in faster content all around: It's not just raiders that would benefit. All players benefit when those roulettes get knocked down a little faster. Then again, I could be completely wrong about this last point. I know many omni crafters who are running around in completely unmelded lore/midas gear. If the people that definitely have the capability to meld their own gear for free aren't doing so, who is to say allowing the rest of us access to MB/NPC is going to result in more gear being melded?