(3.1) Balancing Rental Airships vs Player Crafted Airships

[Belhi]

My concern is that if FC Airships just remain glorified FC retainers then interest in my FC in the Airships is going to shrivel up. The fact that most of my FC cant even see what the Airships we have built look like only cements the feeling of it being pointless.

While you can make a profit of the Airships that isn't a big issue for my FC. As it is my FC doesn't really have anything it needs to spend gil on. Tier 3 actions frankly seem like a hell of a lot of work for rather small benefits.

[Dante_V]

Well the opinion that FCs will never make their investment back doesn't have any substantial evidence to support it. Beyond that my FC has made our money back and then some but more so it has given is something to do and work on. I'm willing to bet that the airship stats affect what areas you can explore (they do right now) and that the rental ships won't have optimal stats. But like I said people are making them for other reason then just to get Gil.

[JayCommon]

What they really shouldn't do is lock other players out of content that is REPLACING a third expert dungeon in patch 3.1, just because there is a housing shortage that SE hasn't properly addressed.

A bit off-topic so I apologize for that, but this isn't true. Yoshi stated in an interview (i think a famitsu one?) near the end of 2.x timeline saying there would never be 3 dungeons introduced at patch cycles again. The only reason they were able to get 3 out every patch was because they were effectively taking new routes in old dungeons (read: all the HM dungeons we got) and that cut the development time. As far as that interview went, they wouldn't be rehashing old dungeons with a HM tag on them anymore in 3.x, and all dungeons brought out in patches will be brand new. I think he said they were aiming to be able to bring out 2 new dungeons every patch cycle.

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Good to know, must have missed that. Ty

[Colorful]

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Actually we're getting 1 new dungeon, and Pharos Sirius Hard Mode, and that's how it's going to be from now on. They removed the 1 dungeon to make time to develop different content, such as airship exploration.

[Nalien]

Item level isn't everything. Viability of crafted gear also depends on materia - in many cases (particularly accessories) you could make a piece of lower item level crafted gear equal to or even marginally superior to dropped gear via melding. A lot of early coil raiders did just this. This functionality and flexibility is gone, by design. The materia isn't there.

I know... Getting i90 crafted stuff in 2.2 seemed fairly lackluster, considering we were getting i100/110 from tomestones/Coil, and everyone already have i90 Mythology gear, but the melds/fact that tomestone/Coil was on a weekly lockout made up for it. Again though, my point has nothing to do with the viability of the gear, simply that getting crafted accessories a patch later is nothing new. It's literally been happening since 2.2 when we didn't get the i90 crafted accessories until 2.3...

You specifically mentioned the lack of crafted i180 accessories as though it was some new shocking change. That's all I'm really commenting on at this point... If you want to complain about the state of crafting, make a thread about that, as far as I'm concerned, crafting doomsaying is laughable at best and heck when it comes to Airships... That only applies to selling the materia (of which the gathering/crafting ones are the only real big ticket items, at least on my server) and miscellaneous items... The idea that the rare items like Dusk Leather and Iron Giant Cores will suddenly lose their value is quite alien to me... Will I still be able to bring in 10m off one Voyage with them in a month or two? Probably not, but will they lose all value and make Airships worthless? Not by a long shot.

Do me a favour, go to the Market Board and check the price of the Blue Bird minion, or any of the Treasure Map minions... These are from what, 2.1? Treasure Maps are also something which aren't locked behind Free Companies. We can easily work out how many Airships there are on a server by just checking the housing wards. Meanwhile literally everyone can do Treasure Maps daily. On Cerberus, the original Treasure Map minions are worth as much as Iron Giant Cores, I have little worry of them depreciating in value with that in mind. If items that old and that "common" still have value (and still move), I don't think I have to worry much about my Airship suddenly bringing in worthless items... Another apt comparison would be any of the gardening items, those are all still plenty worthwhile for me, because like the Airship items, they're locked behind housing, so there is a fairly fixed supply.

You're betting the way things are can't possibly be the game from now on, in spite of SE stating, specifically, that they want crafted gear to be so bad it can never be used in any fresh raids. You're betting they'll change their minds, huh?

No, I'm betting that the majority of crafters simply wont care, and that 3.2 and 3.4 will bring new gathering/crafting gear (since Scrips mirror Tomestones) to renew interest in their materias and once again create a sizable demand for the mountains of still I bring in. I'm also betting that SE will, in some way, add new demand for combat materia, likely through something like the Sphere Scroll. Although even without that, Heaven's Eye/etc have been selling, just for fairly pathetic amounts when compared to the Sphere Scroll days. Seriously, who the hell is buying all the Accuracy materia I keep getting? That shouldn't even be needed for many melds, should it?

I guess if I'm betting on anything, it's that materia will always have a demand (although not really, because I'm fairly certain Iron Giant Cores and Dusk Leather will be hot topic items for a very long time). Currently I don't even know (or care) what that demand is for Heaven's Eye/etc, all I know is that it still sells, like it always has and always will. If SE royally f*cks crafting, to the point where all materia becomes unmovable, I'd be amazed beyond belief, more amazing if they leave it like that. If you want to talk about crafting, I have plenty of complaints and suggestions (where's my damned Abjuration system!), but this thread is about Airships, and since I last posted here, my Airships have pulled me in another 15m... These things aren't going to be worthless because SE gave everyone a free ride in Ishgard. If you think I'm shortsighted for saying that, so be it, but I really cannot see that 15m dropping to anything lower than 1m by 4.0, and I'd still consider that 1m to be great, considering all I really did was a glorified Retainer Venture...

The only people I can see being hard done by this, are people who haven't yet started because of the housing shortage. Still can't see Airships being unprofitable for them, though. Also worth remembering that construction will probably be cheaper for them, since Coke/etc. are currently being inflated by the high demand from all the Free Companies building Airships, once that dies down I'd expect the price on those items to return to normal, and anyone still building at that point has it fairly well off. Then there is upcoming content as well, I already pointed out the fact that the Islands in 3.1 are meant to have gathering nodes... It would be utterly pointless for those to be regular nodes for items like Mythrite Sand... I expect they'll at least be a new source of Darksteel/etc., which would increase the supply on those items and should push prices down.

[Xenora]

Pure speculation but the rental ships might only be able to travel to sectors 1 & 2 which are open by default when starting an FC ship. I would be surprised if airship progression yielded no benefits for the exploration and rental ships could go to sector 24 right off the bat...

One way to allow rentals access to the higher sectors would be to add some farmable tokens to 1 & 2 which can be exchanged for a 1-time travel to the higher sectors with the highest sectors costing the most tokens. FC airships with these sectors unlocked on the other hand could bypass this system to some degree.

[Aoxaviar]

I have read over most of the posts in here, and as the sole worker who didn't do much leveling on crafting in the 2.x series, let me point out some things:

1. Having Botanist at 50 and miner at 30 has made it easy to get the mats needed for this - time spent, no money.

2. Having a better goal than skill grinding crafters to 50 (not trying to be offensive with that, but the 2.x series, I wasn't inspired by the grind of the recipe's to get to lvl 50. I have an airship now to work on. Very awesome goal to me, and so I grind now) I enjoy the time spent into not only skill grinding my crafters but also making small goals happen.

3. So far, I have spent 850,000 gil on my FC airship. the gil needed to open the workshop, and trying to to test the system I bought mats without the crafting lvl to back them up.

4. I foresee the Sea of Clouds becoming a true expanse and becoming the casual players (and probably even hardcore players playground) for the following reasons:

A. Yoshi-P has said that at 3.1 launch they will have 2 types of teams:
Battle Teams - go and clear the islands of the lvl 80 to lvl 90 creatures!
Gathering Teams - after the island is cleared, you get to gather.

Considering that way that the Sea of Clouds is being talked about (or hyped) I think that crafters will have their hands full keeping up with the crafted gear through patch progression needed for the island hoping of the Sea of Clouds which will always keep the prices for SEA OF CLOUDS Endgame gear high, or at least very profitable.

From that standpoint, I see the long term needs of FC members who are heavy crafters needing the ships for long term gains in mats and materia, but also for the fact that the Sea of Clouds could very well be the type of end game content that could carry over expansion to expansion as SE chooses to expand upon the content.

Who knows, the Sea of Clouds may be where we finally get the Primals spawning in the open world....I know that seems to be a subject that hasn't lost any sort of following since the Yoshi-P's comments about trying to do it around 2.1 or 2.2....

[Yeldir]

Well the opinion that FCs will never make their investment back doesn't have any substantial evidence to support it. Beyond that my FC has made our money back and then some but more so it has given is something to do and work on. I'm willing to bet that the airship stats affect what areas you can explore (they do right now) and that the rental ships won't have optimal stats. But like I said people are making them for other reason then just to get Gil.

I said late adopters will never make their investment back, for two reasons: the first is because the price of dusk leather will see five digits on most servers. Most of you find that unbelievable, I'm sure - but I brought back thirteen dusk leather with one trip to 21. Thirteen. It's really easy to get once you break the 20 barrier. When people have four airships capable of these runs, the markets will be completely flooded. The perceived scarcity of the "rare" airship only materials is temporary. Five digits - you mark my words.

The second reason is that it is my belief that the crafting community will eventually sicken of being unable to produce PVE gear people care about at 60, wither, and die, destroying the value of all crafting/gathering materia IV's. The entire remaining crafting community has its fingers in its ears on this issue. Lalalala.

For example, Nalien believes that better crafted gear is around the corner in 3.1, and 3.2. And he's right. What he doesn't seem willing to accept is that this crafted gear will never be desirable by the endgame PVE community. I have told him again and again that SE has declared that they don't want crafted gear in cutting edge raids, and he's completely ignored this at least three times. Not much to say to that guy, really. It's going to come out, and it's going to be released alongside gear superior to it that is far easier to get through a tomestone grind, and it's going to be shackled by the latest scrip system, limiting a supply that didn't have a demand in the first place.

Who ya' gonna' sell materia IV's to when people get a load of that?

And anyway, a lot of us have expressed sentiment that we want these airships to be something our FC communities can care about beyond mere gil. Even if they remain profitable three patches later, the general consensus among players will still be that they are gil-making toys for rich FC leaders, and not something anyone should care about.

That thought bothers me, because I was sincerely hoping these would be a draw to new members, and something people could be excited about for their own sake.

[Magistrella]

Don't see the problem.

Maybe you shouldn't have thrown so much money at the airships and made them yourself? I mean, i started with 59m in FC funds into airships and all the items they brought back raised that to 65m. Even after buying a second set of bronco from the MB for 2m total. And fitting all 4 Ships in the end with my desired parts will not even take close to the amount of money i already made.

I mean - what are you gonna use it for? Useless i170 crafting items that are only used to craft more useless i170 crafting items? Nothing in this game is so high in price atm that you need more money then i already have after you got a FC Mansion... like... really x.x

@Topic: Rented will hopefully cost a fee in gil - FC ones hopefully only Ceruleum Tanks ;3

[Pterois]

Don't see the problem.

Maybe you shouldn't have thrown so much money at the airships and made them yourself? I mean, i started with 59m in FC funds into airships and all the items they brought back raised that to 65m. Even after buying a second set of bronco from the MB for 2m total. And fitting all 4 Ships in the end with my desired parts will not even take close to the amount of money i already made.

I mean - what are you gonna use it for? Useless i170 crafting items that are only used to craft more useless i170 crafting items? Nothing in this game is so high in price atm that you need more money then i already have after you got a FC Mansion... like... really x.x

@Topic: Rented will hopefully cost a fee in gil - FC ones hopefully only Ceruleum Tanks ;3

Seriously. I pretty much gathered all the mats for all the airship parts we used rank 1 to 50 plus a few extra parts here and there for the other ships. I raised the gil in our FC chest by 5 mil and the only time i spent gil is when i got lazy and would buy stupid darksteel ore or crystals to craft. I'm pretty sure this is a case of the gamer who burns though content fast and gets to the end only to realize how wrong they did it. Take your time guy... Gil making is not that serious... unless your planning for a in-game retirement?