Questionable decisions on patch 2.35

[Ultimatecalibur]

I agree with you completely OP. I can understand why they dinged SB in dungeons, but what in the world was in hurting in the overworld? Dedicated groups at Urth's Fount did nothing but spiritbond which didn't mess with anyone else's experience. Not to mention that and the i70+ SB change to make materia even MORE expensive for new crafters and Novus hunters, smh.

Tier IV conversion rates for i45 to i55 crafted gear havn't changed. Materia prices spiked because most players have yet to comprehend the new spiritbonding rules. Mass testing needs to be done to learn the conversion rates for i70 and i90 gear. Going by our current testing without the conversion rate change Tier IV materia prices would have crashed making Tier III materia the most expensive.

This was a very bad patch, almost bait and switch-like for new players. I hope things either revert or improve in time.

It is only day 2 of the patch so calling it a bad patch before things have settled down is presumptive.

[Miakisaki]

Tier IV conversion rates for i45 to i55 crafted gear havn't changed. Materia prices spiked because most players have yet to comprehend the new spiritbonding rules.

I'm not quite sure I follow. How would tier IV materia prices crash when supply is heavily reduced and demand continues to steadily rise? Further, how would tier III materia become the most expensive when supply for it would increase based on i70-90 now converting more often into it? If people aren't converting i70+ into IV regularly anymore, the supply will bottom out making IV materia that much more expensive. This will turn a "Perfect" Novus where Savage Aim/Might IVs are completed on it into something you only have if you are ridiculously rich or acquire gil through other malicious means.

As for it being only the second day, it doesn't take much to see how anti-friendly the changes are to people playing catch-up with crafting and relics.

[Ultimatecalibur]

I'm not quite sure I follow. How would tier IV materia prices crash when supply is heavily reduced and demand continues to steadily rise? Further, how would tier III materia become the most expensive when supply for it would increase based on i70-90 now converting more often into it? If people aren't converting i70+ into IV regularly anymore, the supply will bottom out making IV materia that much more expensive. This will turn a "Perfect" Novus where Savage Aim/Might IVs are completed on it into something you only have if you are ridiculously rich or acquire gil through other malicious means.

The majority of Tier IV materia are from i45 to i49 gear and almost all Tier IV crafting and gathering materia come from i45 to i55 gear. The conversion % on those has not changed and the speed of binding them has increased significantly, meaning a potential increase in supply. i70 and i90 items were a much less common source of Tier IV materia, but speed of bind them has increase significantly. You may be able to bind 3 or more now in the time it took to bind one previously.

As for it being only the second day, it doesn't take much to see how anti-friendly the changes are to people playing catch-up with crafting and relics.

This is what I mean by presumptive. You do not know how things have improved in other areas that makes it easier to get Tier IV materia and have assumed that since i70 and i90 gear no longer guarantees Tier IV materia that supplies will dry up even though they have never been a primary source of the materia.

[Xellos2099]

There is ZERO reason why the sb change in overworld. NONE beside to control the supply. By remove the method of sbing i49 stuff for expert roulette and lower the chance of i70 and i90 convert rate, they effect;y lower the chance of getting the right tier iv by 50%. People LOVE multtask, what is better than, farming for vanity, daily alexnder, and sb at the same time.

[SulwynCaliope]

There is ZERO reason why the sb change in overworld. NONE beside to control the supply. By remove the method of sbing i49 stuff for expert roulette and lower the chance of i70 and i90 convert rate, they effect;y lower the chance of getting the right tier iv by 50%. People LOVE multtask, what is better than, farming for vanity, daily alexnder, and sb at the same time.

Actually there was a VERY good reason why SE made the change they did. It was to stop people from running into dungeons WAY UNDERgeared and then expecting the rest of the party to carry them. I will admit that I used to SB job appropriate i50 gear in i70+ dungeons while doing roulettes. Since the change I actually find that as a serial SBer, I have BENEFITED greatly. The increased SB rate has actually helped me SB way more than I have before. The ones who have been inconvenienced are the casual SBers. Since the change was targeted towards them in the first place, I will say that SE has achieved its goal.

[Miakisaki]

stop people from running into dungeons WAY UNDERgeared

This part will not change. The fastest way to bond i45-49 gear now is to get into a dungeon that drops i55-i60 gear and then bond there. This was the wrong way to achieve that goal.

The method that should have used was to simply make it impossible to fall under a certain ilvl with armor changes once you are inside a dungeon. Meaning people have to mix and match and choose what they bond in order to meet the minimium ilvl requirements of the dungeon, because with this fix trying to equip anything that drops you under the ilvll limit will return "Cannot equip. Item level will drop below the minimum." Which would have achieved everything needed to keep people equipped with their gear but still allow some casual spiritbonding.

Now the open world change was absolute garbage, pure SB groups at Urth's Fount bothered absolutely nobody. There is no reasonable argument for that.

[SulwynCaliope]

This part will not change. The fastest way to bond i45-49 gear now is to get into a dungeon that drops i55-i60 gear and then bond there.

Actually you're wrong about this. The closer your item is to the level of the dungeon, the more SB you get. i48 gear in an i55 dungeon will bond slower than in an i50 dungeon like castrum. Take a look at the tests people have run in the different threads about SBing. You'll see that your best SB rate will come from dungeons that are level appropriate. And no, even though I'm running through castrum is full left and right job appropriate SB gear, I'm technically not leeching or undergeared for the dungeon because it is level appropriate for the gear I'm wearing.

[Xellos2099]

Actually there was a VERY good reason why SE made the change they did. It was to stop people from running into dungeons WAY UNDERgeared and then expecting the rest of the party to carry them. I will admit that I used to SB job appropriate i50 gear in i70+ dungeons while doing roulettes. Since the change I actually find that as a serial SBer, I have BENEFITED greatly. The increased SB rate has actually helped me SB way more than I have before. The ones who have been inconvenienced are the casual SBers. Since the change was targeted towards them in the first place, I will say that SE has achieved its goal.

You say that yet there was no reason to mess with Sbing on overworld.... is there? As if SA4 and SM iv are not expensive enough. According to report, the SB rate of the i49 gear(where most of the tier iv materia come from) is around the same at Urth from before the patch. Now here is the next question, if this is target for the causal sber, they are doing it WRONG. A causal sber is not going to urth to sb, nor will they queue up Castrum only for sb, they mainly just buy a few cheap of cheap i49 stuff on mb and go sb at either expert routtle/ST and use it to work on novus on the side or sell for allowance. Now if they are using i100 stuff on the left side and us i49 stuff on right side they should still be around i70, which is within the entry ilvl for ST and the expert routtle. No real harm is done as long as they got good weapon but now the casual can't even sb casually. This will decrease the supply t4 of the materia.

I truly feel sorry for those people who are stuill working on novus and want SA/SM build. It is as if SE do not want us to stabilize the price of the tier 4 materia.

[Ultimatecalibur]

You say that yet there was no reason to mess with Sbing on overworld.... is there? As if SA4 and SM iv are not expensive enough

All i45 to i49 gear bonds roughly three times faster at Urth's Gift now while maintaining there Tier IV conversion rate. SMIV, SAIV and all other Tier IV materia quantities should increase.

[StouterTaru]

There is ZERO reason why the sb change in overworld. NONE beside to control the supply. By remove the method of sbing i49 stuff for expert roulette and lower the chance of i70 and i90 convert rate, they effect;y lower the chance of getting the right tier iv by 50%. People LOVE multtask, what is better than, farming for vanity, daily alexnder, and sb at the same time.

And you can still do that, you just can't do that in a dungeon with gear outside the range of what you should be wearing in there. You just can't farm stuff that is horribly out of range of your gear, but you can with other gear, or on other mobs.

Lower rate for IVs off 2-3 star gear per piece, but it SBs at a highly accelerated rate. All of a sudden crafters have something to do again instead of making trivial lowbie gear.