Specialist Compromise

I know the pros and cons of the specialist systems have been argued plenty of times and while I am not a fan, I understand there are plenty of people like it.

It seems that it hasn't helped a whole lot with people who want to just level 1 or 2 crafting classes, so at this point it is mostly to prevent 1 person from controlling all the markets with the top tier crafts and is attempting to encourage crafters to work together. And though I find it annoying to have to bother other people to make ingots and feel the people who want to control the markets level an alt and do it anyway, I can see some merits to the system on the economy.

I've resigned myself to the fact that the specialist system isn't going anywhere, but here is my proposal: Let me make my own gear. I didn't get into crafting to make a whole bunch of gil that I don't spend anyway. I do it because I like to see my signature on all my gear. I just want an ability to toggle on (similar to the collectable synth) that lets me make untradable, non-specialist gear for myself. Especially when it is crafting gear (i.e. ironworks). Maybe it's stupid and I should just wait the 4 months until the gear is irrelevant, but I just want to make my own gear since that's why I started crafting in the first place.

TL/DR: I want to make my own gear.

Ironworks gear isn't specialist anymore, any of it, you just need 3 stars on BSM, GSM, LTW, CRP and WVR to craft everything now

I'm sorry, but I'm not sure I understand.

What, pray tell, is stopping you from making your own gear?

I think the situation we had during the 3.5star recipes (ironworks) was the best balance.

Materials were all non-specialist and only the final synth was locked behind specialist. I'm fine with this, but when I have to ask my friend to craft me 9 HQ ingots and oh btw can you please also craft me 5 more final synth items, it's just too much of a hassle and as a 4 star crafter myself I wouldn't want that burden placed me and so I wouldn't want to do it to someone else either.

^This! It's too much! Between ingots, disolvents, etc. and then to need 4-5 specialists to gear 1 class. I completely agree.

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Originally Posted by Laurima

Ironworks gear isn't specialist anymore, any of it, you just need 3 stars on BSM, GSM, LTW, CRP and WVR to craft everything now

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Not at this point. I'm referring to when it is relevant.

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Originally Posted by Zetsumei_Tsunarashi

but when I have to ask my friend to craft me 9 HQ ingots and oh btw can you please also craft me 5 more final synth items

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You don't have to do that, you never did. Just buy the stuff off the marketboard, using the money you made selling your own stuff there.

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Originally Posted by Fife_Muggins

I've resigned myself to the fact that the specialist system isn't going anywhere, but here is my proposal: Let me make my own gear.

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Well, if you had three characters, you already could. I have two omnicrafter characters (ones also an omni-gatherer) right now, and a third with crafting classes in the mid-50s at the moment. So I am almost at the point where I can specialize in everything. I don't need to, though, because my wife also has two omnicrafter characters, and a third on the way, and we coordinated our specializations.

And we're just casual players.

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Originally Posted by Silverbane

You don't have to do that, you never did. Just buy the stuff off the marketboard, using the money you made selling your own stuff there.

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Oh sure, let me just sell these things that NOBODY'S BUYING FROM ME ON MY SERVER. Not enough demand for the competition to sell at a speed faster than molasses, and it all sells super slowly. So if I want to make a full set of something for myself, I'd have to spend millions on mats that would literally take weeks to sell enough mats to recoup the costs of, or pester a friend to make me a bunch of mats. I hate pestering friends, especially when they're already being pestered by 20 other people to make the same mat.

In addition, there are literally only TWO recipes outside of bsm/arm that require heavy metal ingots, both weapons. I gave up on making any money on the few heavy metal ingots I made. Obviously, I can make different things, but it's the principle (and bsm is my favorite crafting class). Very little of the crafted gear has a full page in the selling history.

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Originally Posted by Silverbane

And we're just casual players.

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Clearly, casual means different things to different people.

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Originally Posted by Fife_Muggins

Not at this point. I'm referring to when it is relevant.

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Except Ironworks gear is still relevant, even though it's no longer Specialist?

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Originally Posted by OoglieBooglie

Oh sure, let me just sell these things that NOBODY'S BUYING FROM ME ON MY SERVER.

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Clearly, you're doing something wrong then.

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Originally Posted by Allyrion

Clearly, casual means different things to different people.

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Well, we're in no hurry, we're not in any kind of a competition with anyone else, and we just do what we feel like we'll enjoy doing when we feel like doing it. No static, no great desire for wealth, just having a good time. Seems pretty casual to me.

We'd both been in statics in another game (SWTOR), and got burned out on the obligation. And the bugs in the raids, of course, which were pretty bad at the end. FFXIV isso much better ...

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Originally Posted by Silverbane

Clearly, you're doing something wrong then.

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To be fair, it does sell, but at an extremely slow rate. Slow enough that I gave up bothering with it. I have no desire to sit in front of the marketboard all day long and constantly adjust my prices to match/undercut other people. It's not "I can sell item A for X amount of gil and then buy item B with that X amount of gil" (a rough equivalent to a trade). The primary problem is when you get to multiples. Let's say I want to buy 15 item A. For a rough exchange, I could make 15 item B and sell them for the same amount of gil (As this is simply an example, I'm assuming all the crafting classes are balanced to the point where the mats cost roughly the same amount) and be back approximately where I was before, with the equivalent of having crafted the mats. But I just CAN'T sell 15 item B to make up that gil. There's no way it'll sell in any reasonable amount of time. The entire history page for the mats goes back over a few days to a week or so. For me to make that back in a few days (a fairly reasonable amount of time), I WOULD LITERALLY HAVE TO HAVE NO COMPETITION TO HAVE THOSE SALES, OR ADJUST MY PRICES AS SOON AS SOMEONE ELSE PUT UP AN ITEM OR ADJUSTED THEIR PRICES TO ENSURE NOBODY ELSE CAN GET A SALE.

This is, of course, assuming I even have the gil to start the process with, because it requires gil on hand to begin with (spending the gil first then making that same gil back later). So if I were to do this, then that means nobody else can sell any of that item B. Since they can't sell anything because I'm controlling the marketboard (in this example) for that item at this point, they're unable to do the effective trade for the other item. So what do they do then? What happens if they also want to buy 15 of item A and make item B to recoup their gil? Since they're unable to use the marketboard, they are then forced to find other people. If they don't know another person? Then they have to sit in the party finder or run around shouting, and hope someone is nice enough to make them 15 of that item A and that they either don't want a fee or want 15 of item B in return. That's not fun. That's frustration. I tend to keep to myself in game mostly, so I don't really have a large list of friends that are willing to make me some mats at the drop of a hat. I can understand how the system would ideally work as you make me item X and I make you item Y. But the problem is that it breaks down when you get into multiples of the mats. You shouldn't have to go around making 20 different items in an attempt to diversify just to buy the mats you want.

To be honest. I think the specialist system is a joke. Should be able to specialise in everything. Or at least make it easier to change specialisations. Rather than require a full weeks red scripts. Just make it a thousand blue or something.

The point of the game is you can be everything. The specialist system is kinda contrary to that

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Originally Posted by Zetsumei_Tsunarashi

Materials were all non-specialist and only the final synth was locked behind specialist.

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Every single piece of Ironworks gear took Luminous Fiber. And that WAS Specialist-Only.

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Originally Posted by Dzian

To be honest. I think the specialist system is a joke. Should be able to specialise in everything. Or at least make it easier to change specialisations. Rather than require a full weeks red scripts. Just make it a thousand blue or something.

The point of the game is you can be everything. The specialist system is kinda contrary to that

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The Specialist System FAILED at its stated purpose : to let people leveling only one crafting class compete with people who leveled them all. To salvage something out of their FAILURE they came up with the idea of temporarily locking most new recipes behind the Specialist stone.

The entire thing needs to be scrapped. Or, failing that, they need to remove the recipe restrictions and give the Specailists every single cross class crafting skill not conferred them by their base class. That would permit a Specialist to compete effectively with their omnicraft competitors, though not all classes would benefit equally. Omnicrafters would still benefit from being able to craft every refined material, rather than having to seek a supply.

I suspect they'll fix the cross class skills in the expansion. But yes the specialist system failed in its primary goal of making crafting more accessible.

Even with the specialist system you don't need to rely on other characters. Just swap specialist using your soul of the crafter. Right now if you're geared for 4 star there isn't anything worth spending red scrips on anyways. When 3 star recipes hit I switched to alchemist till I had a few stacks of luminous fibers then rotated till I had large supplies of ingots/leather/cloths. This patch I did the same and still have enough souls to do another full cycle though my DoHs.
Having said that, I still hate the specialist system. I think there is nothing wrong with one person being able to craft everything themselves so long as there are measures in place limiting how much can be produced. Timed gathering nodes and the items bought with seals/tomes are doing a decent job of that. As someone who spends my time crafting rather than running dungeons for tomes I've given plenty of gil to fellow adventurers. Although I gather a lot it's still not enough to feed my needs so I spend my gil on DoL mats too. Once it comes time to craft, that's my joy and I rarely buy crafted goods unless I'm in a rush to get an item to market asap.

With 8 or 9 Souls of the Crafter in my bank somewhere, I'm holding on to my Red Crafting Tokens. I figure that they will come in handy when it comes time to meld my next crafting set sometime in 4.0.

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Originally Posted by Dzian

To be honest. I think the specialist system is a joke. Should be able to specialise in everything. Or at least make it easier to change specialisations. Rather than require a full weeks red scripts. Just make it a thousand blue or something.

The point of the game is you can be everything. The specialist system is kinda contrary to that

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This never was the point of the game. It was listed as a perk, and it still holds true as nothing is stopping you from being level 60 in everything. They just added onto it so crafters have to work together. It's a great system imo.

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Originally Posted by Roth_Trailfinder

With 8 or 9 Souls of the Crafter in my bank somewhere, I'm holding on to my Red Crafting Tokens. I figure that they will come in handy when it comes time to meld my next crafting set sometime in 4.0.

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Considering red scrips are basically useless right now, I wouldn't expect them to keep scrips in 4.0. They'll probably change the system completely.

Red Scrip gets you Red Tokens, which are one way of building up your supply of T4 materia.

Useless now? Depends on your situation. Useless forever? No, that's why I'm thinking ahead to 4.0.

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Originally Posted by FoxyAreku

This never was the point of the game. It was listed as a perk, and it still holds true as nothing is stopping you from being level 60 in everything. They just added onto it so crafters have to work together. It's a great system imo.

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The point of the specialist system was to make it easier for crafters to stay competitive without having to become an omnicrafter. This system failed in 3.0, because few people cared about the specialist abilities. They saw this, so they added specialist recipes to force that system onto crafters.

Fortunately, they also saw that forcing crafters to work together isn't the way to go, so they've been applying bandaid fixes to the system, the current one being that recipes only stay specialist for one major patch.
At this point, they should just scrap the entire system and add something that encourages crafters to work together, perhaps through specialists needing less materials to craft something.

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Originally Posted by FoxyAreku

Considering red scrips are basically useless right now, I wouldn't expect them to keep scrips in 4.0. They'll probably change the system completely.

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You can buy grade IV materia with the old red scrip tokens, which will likely still be used for overmelding in 4.0.

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Originally Posted by Nezerius

You can buy grade IV materia with the old red scrip tokens, which will likely still be used for overmelding in 4.0.

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I'm aware, but there are so many other (better) sources for materia my statement still stands.

Not to mention they (and every MMO I've ever heard of) likes to do hard resets on everything when expansions come out. Even if scrips do stay, there is a 99% chance we'll have some new one so nobody is ahead of anyone else. Probably Green scrips? Lol.

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Originally Posted by Katlyna

I suspect they'll fix the cross class skills in the expansion. But yes the specialist system failed in its primary goal of making crafting more accessible.

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Unfortunately the specialist skills failed the most. With the whistle system completely relying on good or excellent condition to benefit and the lack of those events occurring enough in 3 & 4 star lvl 60 crafts broke it for me. I understand that you can purchase Heart of the ...... delineations and burn those but the CP cost and limit of 7 steps makes those risky at best. A simple fix in my mind is drop the CP cost to 0 for the heart of delineations and crafters would use them. Heck since they are consumables, making them CP free would likely encourage folks to grind blue scrips for them further boosting the game encomony.

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Originally Posted by FoxyAreku

I'm aware, but there are so many other (better) sources for materia my statement still stands.

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Just because you find this way of obtaining them useless, doesn't mean everyone else does. It's still easy to stock up on for a relatively minor amount of effort.

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Originally Posted by FoxyAreku

Not to mention they (and every MMO I've ever heard of) likes to do hard resets on everything when expansions come out. Even if scrips do stay, there is a 99% chance we'll have some new one so nobody is ahead of anyone else. Probably Green scrips? Lol.

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Which is unrelated to the fact that red scrip tokens that have been stockpiled up to that point will still be a currency that can be turned in for grade IV materia.

IV materia will still be the go-to for overmelding at the start of the expansion, just like grade III still fit that role at the start of 3.0.

Sure, I just don't see the point personally. But if you want to spend the time to save a minor amount of gil that's your choice. :P I'll be very surprised if grade IVs don't rain from the heavens by the time stormblood comes out, much like how common IIIs have always been.

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Originally Posted by Ostwar

Unfortunately the specialist skills failed the most. With the whistle system completely relying on good or excellent condition to benefit and the lack of those events occurring enough in 3 & 4 star lvl 60 crafts broke it for me. I understand that you can purchase Heart of the ...... delineations and burn those but the CP cost and limit of 7 steps makes those risky at best. A simple fix in my mind is drop the CP cost to 0 for the heart of delineations and crafters would use them. Heck since they are consumables, making them CP free would likely encourage folks to grind blue scrips for them further boosting the game encomony.

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You only need 2 good procs for whistle to be worth it. If you couple it with makers mark, there is almost never a time when that doesn't happen, and in the once-in-a-blue-moon that that DOES happen you can just use a delineation, so whistle really isn't as bad as you think. But if you don't like using makers mark, I can understand not wanting to use whistle.

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Originally Posted by FoxyAreku

Sure, I just don't see the point personally. But if you want to spend the time to save a minor amount of gil that's your choice. :P I'll be very surprised if grade IVs don't rain from the heavens by the time stormblood comes out, much like how common IIIs have always been.

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That's fine, it's your opinion on the matter. Your initial post made it look like a fact, which it isn't, as not every crafter is in it to make millions of gil.

Besides, grade III materia didn't rain from the heavens at the start of 3.0, unless you spiritbonded set after set. Something like that takes just as much effort (probably more) on the short term, while capping red scrips is more a long term thing, but only takes a small bit of time per week. It's also not gonna be a minor amount of gil once the majority of the crafters are gonna be overmelding their 4.0 gear.

Hm, our servers must be pretty different than, as grade 3 materia has never been anything but cheap on mine even in 2.0, seems like people could never get rid of it fast enough. Even now grade IV is going for decently low, it seems to have taken its place. My bad.

I will say that on Hyperion, it is not uncommon to see t3 materia going for a fraction of the price of t1 or t2, at least in regards to crafting and gathering materia. t3 materia have by and large been produced by the boatload from people mass spiritbonding to try and get t4 for the lowest cost possible.

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Originally Posted by Bloody

I will say that on Hyperion, it is not uncommon to see t3 materia going for a fraction of the price of t1 or t2, at least in regards to crafting and gathering materia. t3 materia have by and large been produced by the boatload from people mass spiritbonding to try and get t4 for the lowest cost possible.

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On Famfrit at least, grade III crafting materia goes for around 20k a pop and grade IV 50-70k each. I wish it was raining from the sky, spent millions overmelding to reach 4 star lvl 60 min requirements.

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Originally Posted by Bloody

I will say that on Hyperion, it is not uncommon to see t3 materia going for a fraction of the price of t1 or t2, at least in regards to crafting and gathering materia. t3 materia have by and large been produced by the boatload from people mass spiritbonding to try and get t4 for the lowest cost possible.

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T3 also rain down from airships (T4 to a marginally lesser extent too). I have at least 2 stacks of every DoH/DoL T3 and T4 materia in my FC chest from that alone. Would have more, but I sell for space.

It is pretty apparent the game designers do not actually play the game. Specialist system was intended to help casual crafters compete on the market board. In reality, Specialist gave more power to the dedicated hardcore omnicrafter that levels 3 characters to cover all specializations. It is hard to compete against someone who can make it cheaper by having all specialists versus having to purchase items from a middle man.

Crafting is really just for the hardcore crafters even more than before. The barrier of entry for new crafters is really high and favors "old money" crafters.

I think going forward, the specialist system should be fixed to do what it was initially intended to do: help those who just want to level a couple classes. Based on the hints about the 4.0 battle system, it seems that the devs do not want to force people to level other classes for cross-class abilities. Let the specialists take cross-class abilities from the "pool" of crafter abilities without leveling them. This allows people to have 3 crafters guaranteed to be on the same level as the omnicrafters, but doesn't put gates and hindrances on the people who want to focus on all the crafters. Omnicrafters would have the advantage of being able to make all their base-mats, but it would allow someone to level a cul, for example, to be able to compete without needing to level everything for BB, CSII, etc.

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Originally Posted by lulunami

Specialist system was intended to help casual crafters compete on the market board. In reality, Specialist gave more power to the dedicated hardcore omnicrafter that levels 3 characters to cover all specializations. It is hard to compete against someone who can make it cheaper by having all specialists versus having to purchase items from a middle man.

Crafting is really just for the hardcore crafters even more than before. The barrier of entry for new crafters is really high and favors "old money" crafters.

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Not so sure about that. Most of the 3 & 4 star lvl 60 crafts still require several 4 star lvl 50 mats (Wolfram Ingot/Square, Saurian Leather, Gold & Platinum Ingots, etc...). These items help lower lvl casual crafters make Gill all day long. No need to omni craft if you want to support your battle classes with cash. All it takes is a little research and a handful of crafting classes to reach that level.

Those items are so easy for a 4 star level 60 crafter to produce though, the only reason there would be any market for them at all would be a lack of on hand materials on the level 60's part.

I'm not much for macro crafting, but those old refined mats are the perfect candidate for it.

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Originally Posted by Roth_Trailfinder

Those items are so easy for a 4 star level 60 crafter to produce though, the only reason there would be any market for them at all would be a lack of on hand materials on the level 60's part.

I'm not much for macro crafting, but those old refined mats are the perfect candidate for it.

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You forgot "lazy" crafters that simply find it faster to buy off the MB then gather the mats and hit the macro button, I see that all the time.

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Originally Posted by Ostwar

You forgot "lazy" crafters that simply find it faster to buy off the MB then gather the mats and hit the macro button, I see that all the time.

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You have to consider Opportunity Cost, which is the time spent gathering and making the crafting materials which may need to be made into more crafting materials against the money spent buying the materials and making the item.

Sure I can make Aurum Regis Nuggets for basically free if I spend the time to gather everything, but I'd rather spend the 2-4k for the HQ Nugget instead of spending however long it takes to gather and create the item. The Opportunity Cost is further increased if I need to make multiple items or an item needs many items to make.

I fight Opportunity Cost often when doing my weekly Red Scrip items. Sometimes I buy the materials if I think they're cheap enough, and sometimes if I feel that the market is overpricing something I'll either buy the materials that makes that item for cheaper or manually gather it and buy any items from vendors if possible.

The example I'll use is 10 Noble's Codexes (when starred) to get my 450 Red Scrips. Here's the list of materials to make ten books if you bought the items that make the book itself from the MB or vendors.

• 10x Lightning Clusters
• 20x Water Clusters
• 20x Aurum Regis Nuggets (can be bought from the Vath)
• 20x Hardsilver Ingots
• 10x Chrysolite
• 10x Dragon Leathers
• 10x Enchanted Aurum Regis Ink

Crafting the 10 books will take about 10-12 minutes if you craft all 10 in one go and whatever amount of Gil it would take on your server to buy the items.

Now here's the list of ingredients to make the same ten books, but this time you want to gathering everything yourself and make the materials that makes the items that make the book.

• 10x Lightning Clusters
• 20x Water Clusters
• 310x Wind Crystals
• 50x Earth Crystals
• 50x Water Crystals
• 20x Hardsilver Nuggets (bought from Vath Beast Tribe)
• 80x Hardsilver Ores
• 20x Gold Ores
• 140x Aurum Regis Sands
• 30x Raw Chrysolite
• 30x Cloud Mica
• 30x Dragon Skins
• 10x Dark Chestnut Logs
• 20x Dragon Blood
• 10x Abalathian Spring Water

Depending on how much time you have to wait to mine the Gold Ore and Lightning/Water Clusters, gathering all of this will easily take up to an hour or possibly more. After you've gathered all of this, you then have to spend another hour+ to make the items which become the 10 books. Even then you're still buying Hardsilver Nuggets from the Vath.

The Opportunity Cost here is the ~2 hours spent gathering and crafting the materials and then crafting THOSE into the 10 books VS about 10-12 minutes + how much Gil you need to buy the materials to make into the books. Another aspect of the Opportunity Cost is that the two hours you spent gathering and crafting those materials could've been spent doing other things, like beast tribe dailies for G4 Materia or grinding tomestone for Lore mats/Anima Step.

TL;DR: We're not lazy buying materials off the Market Board to save X amount of gil, we're making the most of our time we're saving by buying items and using that time saved to do other things.

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Originally Posted by magnanimousCynic

stuff and example of not keeping materials on hand

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Meh .. I just take stuff off of my retainers. I send them out for materials while I'm crafting or running dungeons or whatever else I'm doing. This converts the cost of materials from time or gil into ventures, which take little enough time to obtain (craft GC hand ins for a day, get enough GC Seals to get ventures for several days).

Opportunity cost is a thing, but lets face it - if you consider opportunity cost at all, making scrip hand in items is a waste of time and money. You would be better off selling the hq stuff you craft, or possibly just the materials for that stuff, and buying the finished stuff you want to make that involve bcs materials. That suggests that opportunity cost is not the deciding factor here.

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Originally Posted by Silverbane

You don't have to do that, you never did. Just buy the stuff off the marketboard, using the money you made selling your own stuff there.

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This^

I can't even begin to tell you how many maps I have bought using the money I make from the stuff I sell. So I literally pay nothing for rare mats other than time and prayers to RNJesus.