Your killing the crafters off why?

[Orophin]

Low lvl HQ stuff does indeed sell. But the amount of profit off one item is such a drop in the bucket. It becomes mind numbing when you are striving for millions...lol

That's true, but if you can do it consistently it adds up over time with very little investment to the crafter.

It's kind of like doing your daily quests and roulettes everyday. It's not a lot of money, but calculate it up after a couple months and it'll snowball.

[Wadoka]

IMO, the only reason any gear in the game should have higher stats than crafted gear, is if you work in a "lost skills" or "lost technology" aspect - there's something about the gear we poor follow-afters haven't been able to reproduce... YET.

But crafting for me isn't about being able to sell in the markets, never has been, never will be. It's about the satisfaction of being able to gear myself, with the best gear I can make, and NOT spending gil at the NPC sellers or in the markets. I'm still low-level; my best DoH is 26 WVR at the moment. And I felt very satisfied last night when I put everything together just right, to make a HQ pair of Velveteen Tights. Then of course I went and turned in a few GC seals and got a piece of equipment I couldn't dye, which was much, much uglier, but has higher defense ratings at a lower iLevel.

You have to keep the sense of a job well-done in the crafting. We need to be able to make gear that's better than any raid drop to make it worth it all.

[Letzt]

Stats determine value, which determines purchasing price. How can you state it isn't about money, and then immediately state it is?

Every person disagreeing that the OP is complaining about profit loss, has not done so without blaming profit loss. I challenge anyone to explain how crafters are "dying off" without mentioning anything to do with crafters selling their wares.

It seems we are all wrong and you are right , you are like a politician , conviniently disregarding stuff people said for your gain , it seems you are the one that strikes for maximum profit , not us.

I want exactly what Wadoka said and I stated with my other character but it seems we can't have it for now , I want to be able to craft for myself and for others that will ask me(cost is one gil folks , I am greedy!) item lv 90 gear that are on par with AF and everything that drops. If we can't have it , crafting will be present for low ranks but non existent for endgame , pretty much like FFXI.

[Lyrinn]

Stats determine value, which determines purchasing price. How can you state it isn't about money, and then immediately state it is?

Every person disagreeing that the OP is complaining about profit loss, has not done so without blaming profit loss. I challenge anyone to explain how crafters are "dying off" without mentioning anything to do with crafters selling their wares.

It's funny how you claim we're concerned about profit when you're the one who continuously brings it up. Are you sure you're not the one who's obsessed with money?

Let's break the problem down so that you can see past your reflection on your shiny coins.

1. There is no need for crafted gear.
2. There is no need for market interaction.

You can remove the market board and trade functions and these will still be fundamental flaws with crafting. This has nothing to do with profit.

[mendsy]

Crafting as of 2.1 has taken a huge hit in a way with the release of crystal tower reduction in philossphy materials and tome mats just being handed out left and right via treasure trails. But in turn this also hurts thoughs that dont craft even more they don't have that market they once had. While crystal tower is ilvl 80 gear and pretty much a hand me out at one gear per week as the economy settles you will see your 2 star crafts moving more and more but not anywhere near the rate as before. People keep complaining about SE ruining crafting when in all reality its these bots i see out there with there own little FC gathering materia for months on end without getting banned ever. I report along with others hell i even give SE the evidence of them botting by trade killing them but nothing is ever done. In order for our economy to gain some structure i believe we need some in game moderators or some crap along them lines.

[Fyreus]

The strategy about making craft-able armor stats and such no higher than the beginning rewards in Coil is hurting the game. It seems that the prices for craft-able items is hitting the floor. The people that were fans are now leaving the game because the time invested in all the crafting and such has been wasted, It is kind of silly that one dungeon run will get you a better piece of gear than the best you can craft after investing months of work in your crafting system. I think the strategy should be revisited before more give up and walk away. The rewards for the Luminary completion and level 50 quests are also a joke being that they are the same who was the bright mind behind that?

If they made the level gaps like darksteel is to darklight then i'd be alright with it.


btw when's the last time this forum got a dev response? lol

[SirGazuntai]

I'd love to see crafting be more useful. However, I don't think it will happen in an MMORPG.

Out of all the things Developers of all MMORPG's think about, there is 1 major thing that requires more thought than anything else when it comes to PvE. End-game.

When it comes to end-game, they need to make a decision that goes something like this:

1. Allow crafters to be able to craft the best gear, making end-game content less appealing. This would result in most people just farming gold and buying end-game gear, rather than actually working for it.

2. Make people run dungeons for the best gear while limiting the amount of gear they can obtain, making them pay repeatedly so they don't fall behind. This would result in most people just finding Static groups and farming dungeons rather than caring about crafting.

The only way to make both of them work is to make the materials from dungeons a requirement to make the best content, but then most people still won't run dungeons as farming gold is a lot easier.

It's a huge problem all MMORPG's face, but taking option number 2 is usually better because the majority of players would rather run dungeons than just buy armor. I wish Allagan gear was better than Myth so I actually had to farm for my gear rather than just buy half of it and farm the rest.

[Feilina]

[...]The only way to make both of them work is to make the materials from dungeons a requirement to make the best content, but then most people still won't run dungeons as farming gold is a lot easier.

It's a huge problem all MMORPG's face, but taking option number 2 is usually better because the majority of players would rather run dungeons than just buy armor. I wish Allagan gear was better than Myth so I actually had to farm for my gear rather than just buy half of it and farm the rest.

Well written.
The main problem is money, the hard earned Yen/Dollar/Euro. SE has to pay the employees. This for sure is no news at all. A second problem is the community and the way they developed themselfs. We had games like WoW/LotrO/SWToR and others trying to please everybody being more or less successful. And SE is trying now to get a piece from that "sure-cake".
What they are missing is, uniqueness. They had that and fell badly on their noses. If Tanaka had about a half year more time to invest it would have been a nice other game, and not "just another" game. The gros of the community didn't catch fire. So Yoshida was put in charge to make a solid game without a huge risk to fail, so we got some features we all know for long:

- FATES (or PQ from Warhammer Online)
- Dailes
- Instances (and their reuse as HM, NM, EM)
- Low Challange open world
- low repair costs
- and others

He made a good job and i like the game. If he had left the crafters untouched i'd love the game. But with recent changes it's kinda rough to estimate where the trip goes to.

[Letzt]

1. Allow crafters to be able to craft the best gear, making end-game content less appealing. This would result in most people just farming gold and buying end-game gear, rather than actually working for it.

2. Make people run dungeons for the best gear while limiting the amount of gear they can obtain, making them pay repeatedly so they don't fall behind. This would result in most people just finding Static groups and farming dungeons rather than caring about crafting.

What if The gear crafted were equivalent with gear dropped , wouldn't that just give options? Items crafted can be painted and meld materia unto them to maximize their potential but will have equivalent base stats , their big difference will be that , utter customization!

Items dropped will have stats equivalent those of maximized crafted gear BUT you won't be able to customize them , their main advantage is that you won't need to spend a single gil on them but you also can't change color or meld materias.

You present it with a two way dilemma , THIS or THIS , it isn't like that at all , try thinking outside past experiences a bit , outside the box? In life my friend there are no absolutes.

[SirGazuntai]

What if The gear crafted were equivalent with gear dropped , wouldn't that just give options? Items crafted can be painted and meld materia unto them to maximize their potential but will have equivalent base stats , their big difference will be that , utter customization!

Items dropped will have stats equivalent those of maximized crafted gear BUT you won't be able to customize them , their main advantage is that you won't need to spend a single gil on them but you also can't change color or meld materias.

You present it with a two way dilemma , THIS or THIS , it isn't like that at all , try thinking outside past experiences a bit , outside the box? In life my friend there are no absolutes.

Again, if people could just spend Gil on their gear they would and the majority of players would stop running dungeons. Everyone would fall to PvP with nothing left to do and the game would then focus around PvP. Not to mention if the gear is equivalent to gear dropped with potential to be better with Materia melds and customization, no one would bother going for gear drops. At that stage of the game people would go for the absolute best, proven by the huge amount of BiS threads all over the internet and the fact people are willing to mix 2 completely different armor sets while looking like complete fools just to get a few extra points in DPS. Why would I bother going for dropped gear at this point? I'd be silly to do that. This, again, brings us back to the 2 "dilemma".

I presented 2 dilemma. Not because it's the only 2 options available, but the only 2 viable options that developers have any chance with. People have tried your way and failed. People tried to make a game revolving around crafting and failed. People tried to make a game revolving around dungeon drops and then everyone complained that it was too much like the most popular MMORPG in existence. WoW plays a huge part in how any MMORPG turns out. So many people complain about WoW clones, so people try something different and all the WoW players give it a shot, hate it because it's different and go back to WoW. This causes developers to try and make a game similar to WoW, but with a unique spin. This results in people coming from WoW, labeling it a WoW clone and going back to WoW because they have more time invested there.

This has nothing to do with past experiences nor does thinking outside the box work when the only thing the majority want is the content inside the box. How does a game developer cater to every WoW fan without looking exactly like WoW? How does a game developer cater to the people who hate WoW without making a game that is too different from their perception of an MMORPG? This is the main issue. If you can come up with an idea that works so that Crafters are useful again without making farming useful, I'm all for it. The people who want Coil T1-T5 completed in an hour aren't going to do that for a chance to get materials for these crafted items, they'll spend an hour farming for gold instead to buy the gear from crafters or they'll just level up crafting themselves. Developing a game is much harder than the average player seems to think it is. "Outside the box" rarely works when money is involved.

Also, there are absolutely absolutes in life. Whoever told you that was high off his/her rocker.


EDIT: 1 thing that has any potential to save this game of this issue, even a tiny bit, is the vanity slot. If, for example, Crafters can make the best LOOKING gear available the dungeon crawlers will definitely jump on that. Nothing sparks excitement in an MMORPG like aesthetics. Let Crafters make wings, add glow to weapons that don't already have it (or remove it from Relic +1 since a lot of people seem to dislike the glow), make awesome new costumes that get added randomly, let people create costumes in events and whichever costume wins the crafters can create. Hell, let Crafters make mount bardings, too. When housing is much more embraced and people start investing more, people will be looking for crafters for that.

Another thing a lot of people want is new skins for weapons. Let Crafters make these. So many people complain that the Relics look good with AF gear, but when you go to i70/90 it looks like crap.

This doesn't fix nearly enough of the problems but it gives crafters something without giving them everything.