Solution to the crafting debate!

Firstly, a pretentious title I know :p. Sorry, I wanted to get some attention and opinions on this.

I really feel that simple accessible recipes can be introduced without the need to change the current (intricate, charming, but also painful and often inaccessible) system at all! For me the perfect solution would be as follows:

• basic bog standard gear (minimal stats) available as levequest rewards (a COMPLETE set of gear should be attainable at each new levequest set (rank 1-10, rank 10-20, etc), through levequest rewards, and relevant to class based on levequest type)
  
• better (fair stats) gear available from simple recipes (recipes don't necessarily need to be free of parts but it is fundamental that the required rank to produce any part of this recipe be no more than 2 ranks above the equipable gears optimal rank)
  
• best gear (excellent stats) should be made available through difficult recipes (similar to the current recipes in the game). Completing these recipes will only be possible for the most dedicated Disciples of Hand, as completion of components/parts in the recipe may require various Disciples of Hand ranks to be 5 or 10 ranks above that of the final products optimal rank to wear.

Disciples of War and Magic would always have access to attain gear suitable to their level, regardless of their current gil or Disciple of Hand and Land ranks. Disciples of War and Magic seeking the best gear for their current rank would commonly attain it at the market wards or from generous linkshell friends, although for the true hardcore solo players it would be possible to push Disciples of Hand/Land 5-10 ranks above their Disciples of War/Magic rank, and attain the best gear without spending a penny (as I believe is currently the case).

Of course players who party up and raid together or take down Notorious Monsters, should be rewarded with special and/or exceptional gear. Weather this gear should surpass the best craftable gear or simply be unique and different, I don't know.

I understand this solution could imply a need for a lot more content (roughly 3x the current available armour and weapons), but I feel an adequate compromise would be reuse the lovely graphics for similar pieces of gear and armour (as many MMO's do) i.e. the Bronze Chainmail (link) would now have 3 variations with incremental stats (as described above); Bronze Chainmail, Fine Bronze Chainmail, and Exquisite Bronze Chainmail, all using the same graphics.

Even when recycling the graphics in this way, I would expect this solution to take significantly longer to implement than the currently proposed solution. Meaning, it would not be ready for the coming update. Personally, I would prefer to wait!

I am not a game developer (just a wannabe :o), and though I've played a couple MMO's I can't claim to be an expert, but I hope you will consider my proposal as I feel it tackles all the issues raised so far. A bold statement, but I'm willing to risk being called a twonk if I'm wrong, lol. Seriously though, if you have read this far, please reply and make your opinions known, weather for or against or whatever.

Keep believing! :cool:

Vel :)

/edit:
p.s. I do also want to say that the updates to make recent and recieved recipes avaiable in the game is a great and needed improvement, but I feel that all recipies need to be available to players, or at least purchasable as well as being awarded from quests. I understand the appeal of trial and error for some crafters as it can result in a great sense of achievement, however I would argue that it is very unlikely anyone has achieved considerable sysnthesis results without relying on online sources like Yellow Gremlin. Using sources like this can feel like cheating to me, but I think it's completely neccessary at the moment. Therefore, the recipes should all just be made available more easily in the game.

My suggestion to them was similar to yours...but since they said they will keep both recipes for a while i asked them to keep them foorever like this:

Simple recipe: Has easier-to-get material, but can only generate NQ or +1 result.

Full recipe: Uses the current recipe style, asking much more effort than simple recipes but being able to generate NQ, +1, +2 and +3 rewards.

The benefits of this:

1- Would protect the realistic crafting system, which appeals many players (including me).
2- Would prevent parts from being removed, protecting market from people grinding on finished item, which would generate an overflow of finished items and the marked ending like FFXI one, where all low/mid level gear were woth nothing.
3- Would still keep the creation of +2 and +3 items still restricted to those who can obtain the parts, which is fair enough...a sword made of a raw lumber and an ingot should never have the same quality of one made of parts created specifically for that sword.
4- The removal of parts would shrink the recipe list drastically, making ranking up way more complicated since the original idea is exactluy this...parts are cheap recipes made for grinding and finished item are complex recipes made exclusively under demand. This is how they protected the finished item prices from dropping under material cost and messing with crafters.