What is exactly is the point of crafting?

[Kewitt]

Here is the point. It's pointless right now.
Maybe they will clue in and make rare drops at some point which are needed to make higher items.

I would like to see crafted gear fill the voids. make a i65 and i75 and i85 sets of craft able gear.

But really the hole crafting system need to be more useful.

IE more items for later stages of upgrades.

[Asiaine]

Here is the point. It's pointless right now.
Maybe they will clue in and make rare drops at some point which are needed to make higher items.

I would like to see crafted gear fill the voids. make a i65 and i75 and i85 sets of craft able gear.

But really the hole crafting system need to be more useful.

IE more items for later stages of upgrades.

Problem with i65/i75/etc. is that the trend so far is such that the cost to make it greatly exceeds the cost to get an equivalent or better drop.

Additionally, it seems they may not want anything valuable to drop that could be used for crafting, lest it be 'farmed' by RMT. This may well be the way forward.

[Skyhound]

What makes crafting useless isn't the lack of gear. In fact, the high end Crafted gear + Materia can easily be better than DL gear. No, what makes crafting useless is the obscene pricing on crafted gear. 200k for one piece of gear is ridiculous, only someone who has already leveled a crafting class can afford that. For dedicated raiders, it's easier to farm tomes than it is to farm gil. If we had more gil or if you charged less, then you would see crafted gear be the staple in coil. Though I'm not sure if it's the crafters or the gatherers that are charging too much, but someone needs to cut those prices by at least half.

[Freakiie]

What makes crafting useless isn't the lack of gear. In fact, the high end Crafted gear + Materia can easily be better than DL gear. No, what makes crafting useless is the obscene pricing on crafted gear. 200k for one piece of gear is ridiculous, only someone who has already leveled a crafting class can afford that. For dedicated raiders, it's easier to farm tomes than it is to farm gil. If we had more gil or if you charged less, then you would see crafted gear be the staple in coil. Though I'm not sure if it's the crafters or the gatherers that are charging too much, but someone needs to cut those prices by at least half.

You're looking at the wrong groups since the i70 mats are obtained by exchanging philosophy tomes. Although, considering the amount of tomes you need you can't really blame the "raiders" there either.

i70 crafts cost 1125 or sometimes even 2250 tomes. So yeah, take your pick. 2250 tomes for a single ring or... well half your DL.

[Ksenia]

What makes crafting useless isn't the lack of gear. In fact, the high end Crafted gear + Materia can easily be better than DL gear. No, what makes crafting useless is the obscene pricing on crafted gear. 200k for one piece of gear is ridiculous, only someone who has already leveled a crafting class can afford that. For dedicated raiders, it's easier to farm tomes than it is to farm gil. If we had more gil or if you charged less, then you would see crafted gear be the staple in coil. Though I'm not sure if it's the crafters or the gatherers that are charging too much, but someone needs to cut those prices by at least half.

That's the catch. Dungeon farmers just use Philo for gear turn in. Crafters don't dungeon farm and they need to compete with Philo Gear to even get the materials.

Putting Coke/ Potash/ all mats to Philo in dungeons was like shooting crafting in the face and it was done on purpose. Square have done little but make bullshit excuses. As I said before, I'm a level 55 crafter until that changes, crafting for the sake of an alternative content to dungeon farming.

[Lyrinn]

My complaint with the crafting system is that everyone can level everything to 50 in virtually no time. There's no specialisation. You don't see people taking pride in their craft and shouting, "50 WVR LFW." Instead, you see, "All crafts 50."

I and many others are at and have been at the point where no market interaction is necessary. I can farm everything myself; I can craft everything myself; all that's required is for me is to sell the items to some poor sap who hasn't reached that point yet.

While I appreciate the "do-it-yourself" design, this isn't healthy in the long run. Specialisation is required to force market interactions. Furthermore, item design is completely backwards. Rather than making it difficult to reach the point where you can make, say, Hi-Elixirs, they just made it so that creating them (obtaining the materials) is so cost-intensive that it's undesirable for anyone to make them.

No, the problem isn't with crafted gear. It's as Skyhound suggests; it's the ridiculous cost of crafted items, which stems in part from the fact that everyone has access to these crafts.

[Kyana]

For dedicated raiders, it's easier to farm tomes than it is to farm gil. If we had more gil or if you charged less, then you would see crafted gear be the staple in coil. Though I'm not sure if it's the crafters or the gatherers that are charging too much, but someone needs to cut those prices by at least half.

If you get a piece of HQ crafted ilvl70 gear for 200k, that's not bad at all.

The problem is that the crafted 2-star stuff requires lots of tomestones of philosophy. You have to do at least 11-12 dungeon runs to get enough for one piece.
With the same ammount you could also buy 1-2 darklight items with equivalent stats.
Crafted and melded ilvl70 is better than DL, but you have to decide yourself if it's worth the higher cost. Especially since getting AF2 is so easy.
So, yes, I agree that crafted items are too expensive to make in terms of time investment.

People better don't come up with any arguments of how you need skill or have to do endgame content to get endgame gear because it's not true. All it takes is some time to get enough tomestones.

Regarding crafting, I really don't understand the argument of crafting for alts.
Why would you need an alt? And if you really want one for whatever reason, why would you need gear for it?
You get all the gear you need from quests or chests while leveling up. And for running with the FATE train you don't need any gear at all.

Another silly argument is housing.
I didn't level all the crafts to make furniture which serves no purpose besides looks.
And once the house is full, crafters will be in the same situation again.

Also, I don't see what would prevent RMT from running dungeons all day and selling tomestone materials on the AH.
So, using the argument of RMT as reason for making crafting so weak seems pretty weak too.
And btw. if you haven't noticed by now, RMT already control the crystal market. But while RMT spammers get deleted within a day now, reported bots are allowed to continue farming for months.
Not one of the 100% obvious bot/hack users I reported got deleted yet. Looks like teleporting between nodes and being below the map is not against the rules. However.

Back on topic.
Most crafting classes miss items with a steady demand. Culinarian and Alchemist are the only classes producing consumables, and most of the potions from alchemy are not even used because they serve no purpose in endgame.
Ammo got taken out of the game and won't come back, Ninja (if we ever get it) will probably not use any powders either, so they took that part of crafting away.

I like the idea of crafting pop items for special NMs which drop either gear or materials required for crafting good gear.
Enhancing items or enchanting them sounds nice too.
It would also be nice if crafters could repair the equipment of other players again.

How about SE buffs the stats of base classes like Archer, Conjurer and Marauder to the same level of the advanced classes and gives them abilities which require some sort of crafted reagent or ammunition?
Or let the base classes use items to recieve a stat boost up to or above advanced class level.
I find it a bit sad that the base classes serve no purpose and have much lower stats than the advanced classes.

[ufufu]

Leveling crafting professions is worth it for the cute outfits.

[Seirra_Lanzce]

this is sickening, leave crafting alone will you guys?

In future will have more then just craft/gathering. give it time. Soon we will be riding on our FC airship, group baking cakes and stuff.

[Grundy]

this is sickening, leave crafting alone will you guys?

In future will have more then just craft/gathering. give it time. Soon we will be riding on our FC airship, group baking cakes and stuff.

I never got the group cake thing? I agree that they need to overhaul end game crafting, I really want to make myself full Heavy Darklight but feck farming the tomes for coke and there is no way I'm buying a Darksteel Ingot for 300k when I can get an HQ Heavy Darksteel Body for 250k, except I can't BECAUSE IT WON'T HAVE MY NAME ON IT.

Perhaps having unique material drops from endgame dungeons that are needed to craft ilvl 65/75/85 gear could help? Who knows, housing can't come quick enough, it'll be good to have actual stuff to make that will be in demand.