So, this Scrip system...

What are your thoughts on it?

For those who aren't aware, here's a quick bit of info:

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Originally Posted by Bayohne

A new system called “Scrip” will be added in 3.0. Up until now, Disciples of the Land and Hand had to meld their gear if they wanted to partake in high-level gathering and crafting. However, with the “Scrip” system, you will be able to trade them for new gear. Therefore, Disciples of the Land and Hand will no longer be forced to meld their gear. Players who wish to stay ahead of the pack will still be able to meld their gear. Those who meld their gear will be able to craft faster than those who collect gear through the “Scrip” system. The main point of this system was to offer multiple ways to upgrade gear.

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It sounds like materia melding might be a thing of the past, at least for the average crafter. Experts will still gain an advantage, especially with the new T5 materia being added somewhere down the line.

For my part, I think this is a very bold and wise move from SE. It levels the otherwise rocky playing field a little bit, giving casual players a chance to get their 3-4 star crafts without spending millions of gil on materia. At the same time though, it rewards those who go the extra mile by having distinct advantages over casual crafters.

With this and the planned specialist system, things are going to be quite interesting when Heavensward arrives.

I think it's nice they're putting in some variety in gearing.. At the same time, it makes me wonder how trivialized crafting will become.. Imagine if..

Specialist, no cross class skills, with scrip gear can make highest tier with ease.. let's just say 4 stars.. Specialist with scrip gear makes 4 stars with relative ease (that's what they're shooting for right?)

Then a specialist, WITH all the other classes leveled up. WITH materia melded gear.. That's 2 distinct upgrades over the crafter mentioned above, how trivial will it become for this guy? Will there be any sort of challenge for him? Any RNG that can result in him getting a nq? I feel like if that's the case, this person should be able to hq the item without even using hasty touch.. kind of like how 4 star crafters make 2 star items now.

Not a huge concern though, 4 star crafting is already pretty much 95%+ hq anyway.. just curious how the difficulty will pan out in 3.0

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Originally Posted by GenJoe

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Crafting is already trivial. They make glamours, housing furniture, niche combat gear, pets and BiS crafting/gathering gear. So the soul purpose of a crafter is to make gear for crafters and gathers... Yea I would say that's pretty trivial.

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Originally Posted by Sibyll

Crafting is already trivial. They make glamours, housing furniture, niche combat gear, pets and BiS crafting/gathering gear. So the soul purpose of a crafter is to make gear for crafters and gathers... Yea I would say that's pretty trivial.

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Yes, but there's still a slight chance to nq 3 or 4 star items if RNG is not in your favor.. Earlier, I failed PbP twice, RS 4 times.. HT 3 times.. didn't have enough for the finisher so had to bait Good after hitting GS to get enough for Byregots.. on 10 stacks.. That kind of RNG is what makes crafting interesting I think.

But say, someone with melded gear + specialization + all the cross class skills is crafting something from his specialized craft, it would be like 4 star crafter making a 2 star item.. like I said, not a huge concern. I'm just genuinly curious.

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Originally Posted by GenJoe

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I think RNG can be interesting, but the type they have implemented is not. When you are given all the tools to handle the RNG that is thrown at you and the challenge is knowing how to adapt to that RNG, that's fine. However, if you aren't getting Good procs or get bad RNG on your hasty touches, and then fail your Reclaim you really can't do anything there. To me that isn't something that tests skill. It's lottery.

Just to reiterate, RNG is fine, but binary success/fail RNG is not a very interesting mechanic.

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Originally Posted by Sibyll

Just to reiterate, RNG is fine, but binary success/fail RNG is not a very interesting mechanic.

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Agreed, current system of RNG can be combated.. with good rotation and foresight and high volume, but that can only go so far. I wouldn't be surprised if 90% of the 4 star crafters have very similar if not the exact same methodology about crafting. So there's little variation. I personally wouldn't mind if they made crafting a little more interesting, put a few more mechanics in. Maybe have 3 bars instead of 2. Third could be something like quantity bar for the base level mats.

I have a feeling we'll be seeing more difficult recipes in the future which make use of the specialist system. I suspect that those recipes will also be far easier to HQ as a melded crafter than unmelded, to maintain balance. As mentioned in the post, their intention is to give advantages to players who do meld while still giving access to the recipes for those other crafters.

At the moment, it's highly gated. You can't even come close to 4-star crafting without a single meld, so it'll be interesting to see how this plays out alongside the level cap rise.

What do you think this will do to the materia market?

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Originally Posted by Sadana

What do you think this will do to the materia market?

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If, as SE has indicated, there will still be meldable equipment that is superior when fully melded, I'd say this will to jack-all to the materia market.

After all, crafters already have "casual" gear options available in the form of the gear available through 2-star token trade-ins, so it's no surprise for me that SE plans to add high-level casual options as well. The current token trade-in armors are better than fully-melded ilvl 55 crafted armor, but worse than fully melded ilvl 60 crafted armor.

Unfortunately, the need is still there for melded accessories and/or off-hand before you'll be able to manage 4-star crafts. Perhaps this is the new gear that's planned through scrip? Right-side accessories and off-hand to match the trade-in left-side armors we already have, and thus fully remove the need for melding for casual crafters?

Specifically with what we know about the system? Nothing the materia will have a huge boost with tier 5s and the carbon required for it. The AF pieces will be sought out and people will meld them up to get into the next tier of crafting. The scripts might have crafting materials inside them to remove the "poetics" materials so if those materials are required for the next crafting sets then comes the trade of time and difficulty. Also Is it possible to craft hq the new sets with out the script gear? But overall it is going to balance out more then battle will. But how drastic the changes are and what we will have to actually do for scripts capped/uncapped will really determine because people that are already omni crafters will level everything and choose the best 3 spec abilites to produce what they want.

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Originally Posted by LineageRazor

If, as SE has indicated, there will still be meldable equipment that is superior when fully melded, I'd say this will to jack-all to the materia market.

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The quote says players who want to "stay ahead of the pack" can meld gear. I read it more as "you get top of the line gear faster" if you meld rather than "melded gear will be better". It would be more like groups who challenged coil early. Instead of saving up myth/soldiery/poetics they would pentameld accessories so they could tackle coil more quickly compated to collecting tomes for a few weeks in order to hit gear checks. Of course since most of the profit is made within a month of updates it would mean the same thing....those who can afford to meld will get most of the profit. Those who wait to gear through scrips will arrive to the party late.

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Originally Posted by Letter from the Producer LIVE Part XX

With the Collectible system you will receive orders from Rowena’s House of Splendors to create items. Until now the idea of NQ/HQ was strong, so this time you’ll be asked to create items at specific values, and you’ll need to create items which is above that value. You’ll also gain experience points, so please use this to level from 55 onwards. Disciples of the Land will also have delivery.

A new system called “Scrip” will be added in 3.0. Up until now, Disciples of the Land and Hand had to meld their gear if they wanted to partake in high-level gathering and crafting. However, with the “Scrip” system, you will be able to trade them for new gear. Therefore, Disciples of the Land and Hand will no longer be forced to meld their gear. Players who wish to stay ahead of the pack will still be able to meld their gear. Those who meld their gear will be able to craft faster than those who collect gear through the “Scrip” system. The main point of this system was to offer multiple ways to upgrade gear.

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Does this mean that for instance if Rowena required XX item of atleast 60 value, that instead of getting HQ/NQ you just need to make the quality % of the craft above 60% when making it and thus would create the item necessary to meet Rowena's requirement's, would that then also count for normal gear so that a 100% value item would be equal to that of a complete HQ today and a 1%-10% would be equal to NQ today and inbetween some kind of sliding scale for the attributes on a item/weapon eg; If an armor had 1str at NQ value and 4str at HQ could it have now have 1str below 20% 2str after 20% and 3str after 60% and 4str at 100%, or will this just be specific to Rowena's quests.

I assume this would have a host of negative impacts on crafting as it as they would have to make 100% HQ's simpler than they are right now, but I would assume with specialisation and melded gear you could meet that criteria easier, which then excludes the majority from making 100% HQ's until they have got enough weekly scrip gear or just get lucky with Excellent proc's. That how much data would having 3+ different types of the same gear affect the storage/item limits in the game servers where before it was HQ/NQ item now it would be HQ/MQ/NQ

What i think is.... i would rather not think about it, haha

Either way, if scrip system gives equal level gear to fully melded... I still have a feeling it'll take weeks of grinding.. Probably with a daily or weekly limit as well. So I won't be bothering with those, there's no good reason to save money in favor of time.. Time is always more precious to a crafter than money is. Get geared 2 weeks quicker, you'll be in the black 2 weeks faster.

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Originally Posted by Maero

What i think is.... i would rather not think about it, haha

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I'm feeling the same way..

However, first thing to cross my mind was..

Anyone feel like this may be SE taking another swing at RMT? I wasn't aware materia was a source of RMT revenue, is it?

The crafting aspect of this game is already so 'stop RMT' conscious, I wonder.. it's something SE would do, heh..

The way I interpreted it, is a Poetics / Soldiery system, but for crafters. Since crafters can't raid for high level gear, SE is offering them the ability to either get gear over time (using Scrips), or to craft it using expensive materials.

When you read the details about weekly caps for the system, it seems quite similar to the current system in place for adventurers.

Yeah, this combined with specialization seems like a broad based move to make crafting more accessible. This is a good thing, cause it makes everyone's lives less crazy. I mean in order to progress as a crafter you had to level other crafting classes to 50 and 37, a large chunk to at least 15, meld your gear like crazy, and make things to turn in to make things to turn in. Breaking that open is good for everyone.

Really glad this will balance the playing field a bit for Crafters.

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Originally Posted by Justuo

Really glad this will balance the playing field a bit for Crafters.

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It really won't.. Poetics gear have been around for much longer and work on the same premises... You can still see a load of people running around without a single piece of it.

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With the Collectible system you will receive orders from Rowena’s House of Splendors to create items. Until now the idea of NQ/HQ was strong, so this time you’ll be asked to create items at specific values, and you’ll need to create items which is above that value. You’ll also gain experience points, so please use this to level from 55 onwards. Disciples of the Land will also have delivery.

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I dont know what this means?
Is this mean they are getting rid of the RNG on NQ/HQ and making HQ automatically at a certain value now.. Meaning no more NQ at 93 percent now?

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A8: The specialist system is a new system for Disciples of the Hand, and you’ll be able to undertake a quest to become a specialist from level 55. It’ll be possible to become a specialist in three classes of your choice. By using “scrips” you’ll be able to change which classes you specialize in afterwards. By setting a specialist class, you’ll be able to learn special actions. Currently, in order to make some of the higher difficulty recipes, there is a necessity to level various classes for their actions, and we feel that the difficulty has spiked a bit. We plan to improve this through the specialist system, so you can think of this system as something that will allow you to broaden your options by either playing as the classes you really like or enabling you to use all of the classes.

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So it looks like you can specialize in 3 jobs. Also does it man you can only take 3 jobs past 55?
How does this make it easier for the casual?
Honestly the token artisan gear made crafting pretty accessible for all..

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Originally Posted by Nashred

So it looks like you can specialize in 3 jobs. Also does it man you can only take 3 jobs past 55?
How does this make it easier for the casual?
Honestly the token artisan gear made crafting pretty accessible for all..

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Go back and read the whole Q&A segment. You went all tunnel vision just now.

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Originally Posted by Nashred

Enlighten me than because all I saw was in the my last two post.
Honestly I think most is left up to interpretation and SE is being very vague on the whole thing.

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I'm just going to edit this post: I'm not going to enlighten u, it was very clearly addressed. You just need to go back and read the whole thing, not just that one answer.

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Originally Posted by ZephyrZ

Go back and read the whole Q&A segment. You went all tunnel vision just now.

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Enlighten me than because all I saw was in the my last two post.
Honestly I think most is left up to interpretation and SE is being very vague on the whole thing.

If you had asked me 2 days before this announcement whether I was pleased materia melding would not be as needed then I would have answered emphatically yes...but then I saw that our cracked materia would go away in the expansion so traded in all mine for crafting/gathering materia since that seemed like the safest option:(

I think the scrip system will be great for casual people with not a lot of time to craft, but I will almost be willing to bet that the scrips will take just as long to get as the materia would. Lets face it, crafting/gathering materia is ridiculously easy to SB. I've got several stacks of each type of three, and 20+ of each four, just from crafting alone. Try it sometime. Need to craft a bunch of cobalt ingots? Toss on a garbage set of crafting gear and the cheapest materia you can find in it. I went through 20 sets of gear just getting the seals for my Lucis weapons.

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Originally Posted by Nashred

So it looks like you can specialize in 3 jobs. Also does it man you can only take 3 jobs past 55?
How does this make it easier for the casual?
Honestly the token artisan gear made crafting pretty accessible for all..

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It just means that specialist classes need to be level 55 to qualify. They've said nothing about restricting levels to 55 for non-specialists. Specialists will have access to new skills which might make crafting easier for casual crafters, while accelerating progress for professionals.

As for the token gear, it's nice and all, but it's only about as good as melded AF gear, and requires a pretty strong grasp of your crafts to obtain in the first place. It's main benefit is that one size fits all, so you only need one melded set to obtain it. The catch is that all said and told, the final stats aren't identical to full melded AF and in some areas are actually worse off.

Chances are the scrip system will work in a similar fashion, but we'll see when it arrives.

I am pretty sure they mentioned in the live letter that all crafts will be able to reach 60 without specializations but specializing will grant the ability of crafting higher level items without necessarily having all crafts at 60. In the current system, to be an efficient (and in some cases) viable crafter you need to have most if not all maxed out.

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Originally Posted by Lemuria

...I suspect that those recipes will also be far easier to HQ as a melded crafter than unmelded...

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I wouldn't doubt if Square made some recipes impossible without without melds.

Just wanted to say that melding crafting gear is ridiculously easy, especially the 4 star stuff. The hard and expensive melds are the battle gears.

i use crafting to sell on market board, i like money :) i dont care what specializations will be, just level an alt in the 3 you dont have to have a better range yeah?

So specialization will give access to new abilities that are alternatives to the present list of rotation-preferred cross class abilities

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The following actions are shared by all specialist classes:

Level Action
55 Satisfaction
55 Whistle While You Work
56 Innovative Touch
57 Nymeia's Wheel
58 Byregot's Miracle
59 Trained Hand

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Each class has a lvl 60 action "Heart of the Weaver/Armorer/Blacksmith/etc, but specialization is required to use it

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Culinarian

Level Action
50 Collectable Synthesis
51 Byregot's Brow
53 Precise Touch
54 Muscle Memory
60 Heart of the Culinarian *

* Specialist actions.

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edit:woops wrong thread ._.;

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Originally Posted by PenutButter

Just wanted to say that melding crafting gear is ridiculously easy, especially the 4 star stuff. The hard and expensive melds are the battle gears.

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Yeah its very inexpensive. Clearly youve never penta melded accessories or off-hands. :P

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Originally Posted by PenutButter

Just wanted to say that melding crafting gear is ridiculously easy, especially the 4 star stuff. The hard and expensive melds are the battle gears.

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its easy right now but as of the next few days you have every serious major crafter looking to get and meld the new gear on multiple classes, not to mention you will need grade 5 materia to max the stats on the gear, which although can be obtained via mutamix gamble or in a later patch via converting gear.

what this spells out is a major cost and inflated prices on materia for the foreseeable future. this will be offset by the scrip system to a degree and the gear obtained via it but melded crafter gatherer gear wont be as easy as it is right now.

another thing id like to add though is that everyone will be converting their current gear which will no doubt produce a lot of varying grade materia so the first people to buy those will get the cheapest melds i'm sure