EndGame Crafting

Iv'e been wondering this for a while...outside leveling a craft that makes consumables like Culi or Alchemist...why level crafts that clearly specialize in making gear(blacksmith,armorsmith,goldsmith) when majority of the gear is not Best In slot for most classes? Yeah there are a few exception for certain classes like penta melded platinum accessories...but WHY ISN'T THAT THE STANDARD FOR ALL PIECES?

I know SE doesn't want players to just be handed BiS gear for every slot easily...especially when the tomes system and end game raids have limits to prevent players from gaining too much too quickly giving them less incentive to run these dungeons(tomes) and raids(1 piece a week from alex prob.) therefore directly affect the amount of players who log in every week directly lowering the quality of experience for everyone else.

However, it feels like such a blow that you spend sometimes 100's of millions of gil ,countless hours gathering, obtaining high level recipes, and gearing your crafting classes to just not craft anything that's close to BiS for the majority of players. (minus certain exceptions)

So my question is...How would you feel if SE added recipes of full sets of gear that is comparable to tomes gear to craft...BUT you would need to do a weekly quest, or get certain catalysts from endgame raids that can only be looted so many times a week(maybe in place of actual gear, because that catalyst means you would be getting a piece crafted equaling to one anyways?) Would a system like this be acceptable to most crafters? Would it annoy you that you could not craft your full set right away? Do you think that the MB would be flooded with BiS gear too soon...or maybe barely at all due to the rarity of said catalysts?

Please share your thoughts.

I think they either need to raise the stats to make the gear better,or they need to leave em as is and lower the recipe costs. The time/effort and/or gil required to make some of the 110 gear now is totally not worth it for gear that's gonna be just glamour. There should be no reason that a set of 'glamour gear' costs as much as a small house.

Well, as for the under-powered gear, I've found a use for them since I don't raid or run dungeons a whole lot (just enough to get an i130 weapon and a couple of other i130 pieces). The crafted gear has allowed me to jump from <i50 to i110 immediately upon reaching level 50, meeting all ilvl requirements associated with the main story quests.

I suppose its purpose would be to simply bypass the normal gear progression, which can be helpful if you're leveling a lot of battle classes.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by MN_14

Well, as for the under-powered gear, I've found a use for them since I don't raid or run dungeons a whole lot (just enough to get an i130 weapon and a couple of other i130 pieces). The crafted gear has allowed me to jump from <i50 to i110 immediately upon reaching level 50, meeting all ilvl requirements associated with the main story quests.

I suppose its purpose would be to simply bypass the normal gear progression, which can be helpful if you're leveling a lot of battle classes.

---

The thing is...while i think its useful to have filler gear for your alternate classes...it just ends up making those certain crafting jobs nowhere near as desirable as they should be thus making the intrinsic value of what they make very nil.Most people rather farm tomes to level alternate classes since you will have more than enough for your class if not whole soldier/poetics set already bought about time you get a new class for 60 anyways. In the case that you are a fresh 60 who never got much tomes, i can see it being useful...but can a fresh 60 really afford a fully pentamelded set of gear anyways?

If you specialize in that particular crafting class...they should be able to make top shelf gear, but have limitations on it...but still have your filler gear you mentioned as lesser recipes.Maybe the new tomes of law can also help you get crafting materials for law equivelant crafting gear like soldiery did and that it doesn't require specialization or special catalysts.It will give a chance to have filler gear for multiple classes while stilling having BiS war/magic pieces available for disiciples of hand who specialize?In the end you could have a system where you get 1 more BiS pieces a week adding another source for players to exploit..but without taking away the value of tomes and end game raiding since catalysts will slow the process of obtaining that gear considerably but at the same time..speed it up slightly if you goal is to get more BiS for your gear. If Alexander is very hard, i dont see most people obtaining much gear from it anyways until they learn/get good at the fights, like how alot people don't have dreadwyrm gear because they can't beat T9. Crafting would help people feel less frustrated with weekly limits...and crafters and gathers would actually be much more rewarding for putting a lot of work into since everyone would want their services...AND alot people would want to equip multiple jobs/classes with BiS not just 1 or 2.

I'd love to have crafted gear that is as good (or better when melded) as tome / raid gear. Remember that a lot of the 4 star crafts already need mats that are only available from places like Coil. Wootz armor, for instance, needs ALlagan Wootz nuggets. Artisan's stuff requires Ehcatl sealant (quested with daily limits) and Mastercraft Demimateria (Desynth). I expect more of the same. I hope that they never have recipes that require mats that are exclusive.

While gear isn't BIS, I've been very happy equipping my PLD on the right side with full meld Plat (which some argue IS bis) while glamoring the left side with Wootz (which I think is the best looking PLD gear in the game). I also equipped an alt BRD with full Kirimu / Plat for use when I hit 50.

What surprised me, though, is how much value I've gotten from ALC and CUL 4 star. Tinker's Calm (increases desynth chance by 10%) has been fantastic, as has a lot of the 4 star food.

Maybe I'm just too old school but gear progression is a complete mess and utterly boring. Do people really like playing a game where there is one set of armor per tier and everyone wears the SAME exact thing with only one set of BiS at the end?

I'd much prefer a game where gear is different based on play styles and crafted gear is the same if not better than other gear and there are sets of gear that focus on different stats which affect different abilities performance which affects playstyle.

There are so many possibilities for branching out with equipment, it really frustrates me that SE keeps everything so limited and boring.

Currently, crafting is good for being able to meld things and for making glamour prisms and (if you didn't do anything else), be able to make "to-the-endgame" gear for yourself or others. There is money to be made for fresh 50's for them to get geared up for the long haul through SM and onwards for you have to hope for a drop or rely on poetics (mind you, until you unlock the upper tier dungeons, poetic farming isn't too quick, though so much faster than pre. 3.0) For myself, I was able to buy (and still wear) an ilvl 110 bracelet that made meeting the minimum ilvl for even new dungeon a breeze and I could focus on tomes for the other slots).

That said, the current system isn't bad. It's still the only way to gear up... DoH/DoL roles (thus making it a contained system in itself). I was thinking of how else crafting could affect dropped gear, but I think the meld system is the best way really. This other game I played let you dismantle all gear for a "chance" to get a recipe that would progress the gear to a higher tier. I wouldn't mind that here, but considering how hard it is to get a drop, this would only be useful for gear obtained relatively easily. However... SE could induce more grind by including such a system so that you would have have to dismantle BiS gear or so forth to produce a "Superb" quality recipe (1 time use) to make the same gear but.. idk shiny with better stats.

Something to think about.

I floated an idea in a thread a while back that they could allow us to do a craft to augment a piece of gear to a competitive ilvl, but have the augmented piece become untradeable. That way, you could craft your way into viable endgame gear, but can't buy your way into it.

the problem is the obsession with being BiS. you don't need BiS to clear any content in the game. Crafted, properly melded gear is usually just under the BiS and is more then enough to clear most content, and for many players like myself, just clearing the content is enough. I don't have the desire to grind end game raids over and over again for drops. I just want to clear it once for completion/story sake. And for that, well crafted gear is perfect.

Current "end game" crafting is a joke and pretty much pointless.

I've got 5 of the Master III books now and the only useful crafts are Glamour and Barding... mostly it's White lvl60 junk.

Cul/Alch may be better, I don't know, but armour and weapon crafts are a waste of time and gil.

I got my Weaver to lvl and got a nice load of gil from the orthodox barding ( 2 million a piece...i'm a bad person), but, correct me if i'm wrong, the only way to get lvl 58 gear or scripts is to craft collectables? Prices went skyhigh i just blew 1.3 million into the dust and went braindead and failed the crafting...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Dandte

I got my Weaver to lvl and got a nice load of gil from the orthodox barding ( 2 million a piece...i'm a bad person), but, correct me if i'm wrong, the only way to get lvl 58 gear or scripts is to craft collectables? Prices went skyhigh i just blew 1.3 million into the dust and went braindead and failed the crafting...

---

For now. We'll get more crafts when red scrips are released. People are being retarded. We'll get law equivalent crafts when esoteric gear is BiS.

I agree with the OP. There were a bunch of discussions about this when Yoshi P announced his intentions back during the 2.0 era (changing from 1.0).

While I understand Yoshi P's feelings that if Crafted Gear was "as good" as Dungeon Gear, then why would anyone Raid? His decision to make Crafted Gear always inferior has really destroyed the heart of Crafters in Final Fantasy XIV.

Crafting Furniture, Barding, Glamour, Minions can only go so far. It's boring and underwhelming. :rolleyes: :(

Some compromises that I think Yoshi P and the Dev Team should consider:

1. Crafted Gear that requires a Rare Raid Drop. In Final Fantasy XIV 1.0 and in Final Fantasy XI, there was Crafted Gear that required Rare Raid Drops as part of the Recipe List (rare Mats / rare Items, etc.).

This is a great compromise as it allows the Raid to still be important and necessary, *and* it involves Crafters and Adventurers to make.

XI early on had stuff like Cursed Gear (requiring Crafted Gear and Abjurations). There were other Crafted Gear that was great that needed rare mats as well.

XIV 1.0 had the original NMs (Dodore, Uraeus, Elder Mosshorn, etc.) that dropped NM Items that Crafters could then incorporate and Craft *Relevant* Gear from.


2. More Horizontal Progression (w/ More Meaningful Stats) = More Gear Sets that are Relevant, of which a Crafted End Game Gear Set could be a part of.

Instead of the awful, boring Itemization we have now ("Hey look! New Gear Sets = More +VIT, and More +[Main Stat]" :rolleyes: ), we could have Gear Sets with more Meaningful Stats.

(Note: Only IF various Stats were more meaningful in battle, and there were new Stats as well.)

Tank Sets (Same Item Level)

* VIT / HP Tank Set: This set yields the most amount of HP / VIT, basically like a "Blood Tank" in a way.

* Damage / STR Tank Set: This set focuses on more STR doing Damage. Some players might enjoy tanking with Less HP / VIT but at the cost of more Damage (we see some of this currently with HQ Crafted Jewelry swapped in).

* DEX / Block / Parry Rate Tank Set: This could focus on affecting Tank's Block Rate / Parry Rate (to more meaningful levels (and it would entail messing with Magic Damage being affected as well)).

Back in 1.0, when Block Rate / Block Strength on various Shields were a thing, there were interesting discussions amongst Paladins about the advantages / disadvantages to various Shields (some had Super High Block Rate, but Low Block Strength; others had Low Block Rate, but Super High Block Strength (so more damage was mitigated if it proc'd)).

* Tank Sets with Unique Stats: Maybe a new piece of Armor or a Set that adds in:

*** Enhances Rampart. Causes Rampart to be projected to all players within an AOE around the Tank.

*** Counterattack +X%. Every time incoming damage hits the Tank, they have X% Chance to proc a "Counterattack." (Final Fantasy VII had awesome Counterattack Materia. :))

etc.

The idea above is that various sets have Advantages and Disadvantages to them. Some players feel more comfortable with More HP / VIT; they might not have as reliable Healers (or they PF / DF a lot), or just want that buffer room. Other players might prefer having much higher Block / Parry Rates (if it affected Magic Damage also).

Others might want to give up various pieces of the above sets just to have Counterattack + X% Bonus Enhancement. Or "Enhances Rampart" because of their situation, or they just like to be able to shield more players around them in various fights.

But no matter what, ALL of the sets above would be the same Item Level. It's new interesting ways to gear. And unlike what we have currently, it's NOT worthless just for "Glamour" when it's released. If you don't end up getting all of say, 1 set of Gear, the next Patch with one of those Alternate Sets of Gear would NOT invalidate your Set 1 Gear, since it'd be Same Item Level, just different types of stats.

Other types of enhancements and unique stats from older Final Fantasies included stuff like:

* Adds Regen Effect

* Enmity +X

* Steal +X (when Thieves could Steal items)

* Evasion +X (not just for Tanks, DPS or Healers might consider more Evasion pieces to help avoid various bad situations at a tradeoff for other pieces)

* Conserve MP

* Double Attack +X%

* Increased Magic Defense (obviously at the cost of something else).

* TP Recovery


I'm not saying all of these effects are viable or useful the way FF XIV is now, but it illustrates the potential for *far more interesting* ways of Gearing than the awful, boring Gear we have every single patch since 2.0 launched.

But with these changes, multiple gear sets could exist, including Crafted End Game Sets.