3.0's Coming... What are the Craziest Game Changes you can Think of?

[Donjo]

The things(best not keep making replies that are 9000 pages long now...)

Catch up was what the crafted gear was intended to be. It is not currently what it is. It's not expensive because the materials are particularly hard to get... it's expensive because people really want it because of how powerful it is. To actually get to crafting it? Well, you could put a price on the time it takes to get there but there's no true skill involved... just time and RNG. I think the dev's original idea was that someone who hadn't played for a while could just buy a set of the crafted gear and instantly be ready to hit the next raid. This is clearly not what happened!

Hm... putting VIT on every accessory. I could actually see this naturally happening as a matter of course as the numbers climb ever higher. But, if SE puts VIT on all accessories by default, then encounters will be designed with that in mind. I don't think it would make the hardcore groups clear things any faster. I agree that having crafted gear that is at the peak of super melding and praying to holy RNGesus is probably okay being slightly better than the raid piece. You'll look at both, squint, and possibly realize that the crafted piece is better somehow, but the raid piece you have is way more than enough to clear things. I personally think that crafted stuff should be just below raid gear rather than just above, but that's just subjective.

The current Tank stats are not only limited in usefulness... they're also unnecessary at the moment. Well, except VIT to the point as you've stated. Regarding the unfun "your only upgrade is useless HP! Enjoy!" path, that's why I suggested making Vitality determine damage, whether alone or together with Strength. That way, even if you can't stack Strength, seeing the Vitality number go up is still an increase in all of your capabilities. I'd personally like for more meaningful defensive stats to appear, though. It'd help me balance out being tanky with being able to return the punishment. Parry... isn't quite enough for that.

[Giantbane]

Catch up was what the crafted gear was intended to be. It is not currently what it is. It's not expensive because the materials are particularly hard to get... it's expensive because people really want it because of how powerful it is. To actually get to crafting it? Well, you could put a price on the time it takes to get there but there's no true skill involved... just time and RNG. I think the dev's original idea was that someone who hadn't played for a while could just buy a set of the crafted gear and instantly be ready to hit the next raid. This is clearly not what happened!

Take the i110 crafted vs. i110 tomestone gear. Tomestone plate chest costs 895 sld, wootz plate chest costs 1350 sld worth of materials AND a bunch of other stuff.

My point was that the vast majority of people that hadn't played in a while will be able to earn the Soldiery for an entire set of i110 gear faster than they could raise the money to purchase all the pieces of a crafted set, let alone melding it. If it's supposed to be catch up gear, it's too expensive for that purpose. Most people who want to get caught up don't have that kind of $$ lying around.