Quote Originally Posted by Nikita View Post
This whole "dungeons should drop crafting mats" arguement brings up another issue.

If the dungeons drop materials, this "shiny gear" will have to be tradeable. Will I be going into dungeons on my CON for caster gear only to be rolled against on it by a jerk who can't even use the gear that these materials produce because he wants to sell the gear? Or even the mats? Will the drops be untradeable? Hmm...
I think that this is a fundamental design issue that SE will need to correct at some point.

The first set of NMs dropped materials for crafting, which of necessity was trade-able, thus leading to farming etc. Except that in this case, the gear wasn't all that great, so the farming quickly dropped off.

The second set of NMs dropped unique / untradable gear, thus reducing the camping and its subsequent problems, but in order for the gear to be useful, had to be finish gear, thus marginalizing the craft / gather segment of the population and leading to the issue of "which gear is better?"

Ultimately, I'd propose a system in which the materials are drops yet unique / untradable, and adding a system where a crafter can create items using another player's materials, similar to the seek item function. This is kind of clunky and probably would be pretty hated, though, so it's not really the best solution.

Another alternative is to have these rare/unique drops come from Grand Company - specific missions, and the results are automatically stored in the company vault, where crafters undertake 'missions' to turn these materials into the rare and wonderful items. Players would earn company marks by completing various company missions (all class types) and would then exchange these marks for the final goods. This also allows rare materials gathered from NMs to be used in craft / gather gear as well as battle gear, while minimizing the 'camping' issue.

My ½ cent