Confused by live letter....

[Skies]

Someone help me understand. In the latest letter from the developer live there is this quote.
"The economic balance of FFXIV: ARR is set up in such a way that players save up to fill the gap created by the item level cap, or perhaps craft equipment and meld it with materia, to raise their item levels faster"

Is anyone else confused by this? Since when does adding materia to a piece of gear change its item level?

Bolded a small change I did that will fix your understanding of it.
Sometimes a comma changes the entire meaning of a phrase.

[chococo]

What the devs are pointing at is probably like, to get from current avg i80 to i100, you can buy/craft gear that are i90 and meld it with materia to get gear similar to i95, say. You just throw money at it to get the item, so you can upgrade it fast. Then in the meantime farm for stronger gear that is i100 and replace those lower-end gears in your set to upgrade your ilv.

As if the crafted gear will be dirt cheap from start for the majority of players to be able to afford. By the time they are affordable, they don't matter anymore. Also, they confirmed this cycle will repeat, so it's not like people would spend loads of money on some crafted gear and playing the RNG game to full meld items if they become replaced in due course.

People probably melded vanya/gryphon/darksteel stuff was probably to test the waters and see how things go. When this cycle keeps repeating at frequent intervals, I really doubt people would spend that effort to craft and fully meld gear in lieu of just farming.

[Penguinmayhem]

The sheer cost in time and effort needed to craft these really high level items is just ridiculous when you keep in mind the fact that crafted gear is still easily obsoleted by dungeon drops and bought gear.

And the sad part is, the materia system could make crafted gear worth bothering with, but the team seem to be completely uninterested in overhauling it.

[waca]

Let's say you are a healer and have the DL Cowl of Healing. You spend the myths on the iLvl90 body piece. You have to replace your head item. Your options are either an iLvl 60 piece AK/Haukke/etc or the iLvl80 CT piece or the iLvl70 2-star crafted Vanya head item.

Now, if you are a PLD or WAR, and you have the Heavy DL Armor and you spend myths on the body piece, you get to replace your head item with only the iLvl60 stuff or the iLvl80 CT piece.

http://ffxiv.gamerescape.com/wiki/Ca...ad/Level_90-99

[Empressia]

Probably not. If you use current situation as reference, 2 stars crafting gears were never on par with the best gears iLvL90 T1-T5 gears or myth gears on first release, they have same iLvl with second best gear, namely the Darklights, but slightly better than DL after full meld.
I believe they'll still use the same idea.

which means whatever craftable gears in 2.2 will most likely become i90 as a "filler" slot to t6-9 i100 or above? but then again its gonna be a joke since no coil lockout which means free 90 gear for everyone?

[cloverkitty]

I think there is going to be new recipes to make gear equal to whatever t6-9 has by adding materia. Just my thoughts.

RMT Limitation will insure this is not going to be the case, when the ILvL goes up to 100, then crafted gear will go to 80 to fill in the new adventurers needs to reach the higher ILvL gear, the same as crafted ILvL 70 is today.
It was clearly stated that crafted gear will never come close to gear dropped in end game dungeons in order to "Stamp Out RMT"

[waca]

since no coil lockout which means free 90 gear for everyone?

What does "no coil lockout" mean anyway? Devs never specifically explain that in detail. Since the Live session, I'd heard several versions of it, some said
1 loot from T1-T5 per week (similar to current CT);
1 loot from each turn per week;
unlimited loot drops with limited attempts;
unlimited loot drops with unlimited attempts;
So i won't jump to that assumption before everything is clear. Let's wait and see.

but then again its gonna be a joke

Please remind me reasons ilvl 70 accessories are still selling despite there are free ilvl80/90 accessories from Ultima HM and Primal Extreme.

If you do watch last Live session, devs did point out the purpose of crafting gear is for fast ilvl/basic stats upgrade (read: you don't have to run the same dungeon 10 times gambling the gear you need will drop / to reach certain stats goal). They are never meant to be BiS gear. Working as intended.