(3.1) Balancing Rental Airships vs Player Crafted Airships

[Nyalia]

First of all, I don't see the problem. Airships are useful and fun as is. Right now, they're just a tool for a very small number of FC members to play with, but which the whole FC can help make. Airships themselves aren't a waste of time or money - they're the only way to get level 3 company actions, and they can also bring back level 2 ones along the way (including one I think isn't available by other means (Jackpot)). They also bring back a few unique items, such as toyboxes and iron dwarfs, though those will lose their value quickly as more people get their airships leveled. But the grade 3 and 4 materia they can bring back in large quantities? That'll be useful for a while.

The problem with airships as they currently are isn't that they aren't worth it or that they don't involve everyone in making them (they can but don't have to), the problem is that not everyone gets to see them or do anything with them. That's what 3.1 is intended to resolve - letting everyone in the FC who worked to make the airship parts able to see and utilize the airship in some way. If this means that, for the purposes of the hidden islands, the airships are just mount glamours, that's okay. It still serves the necessary purpose.

If the only reason your FC bought a house, built a workshop, made airship parts, and leveled your airships was so you could make money from hidden islands, well, you're doing it wrong. Those things are supposed to be fun, and they're supposed to give other benefits not available otherwise, which they do.


Now, all that said, what would I like to distinguish FC airships from rental ones? PvP. I'd love to see airship battles as a PvP minigame involving a light party, full party, or alliance (don't care which). Is something like that needed? Heck no. Would it be fun to don an eyepatch, get out the parrot minion, and start shouting terrible [sky]pirate-speak while firing cannons at an enemy [sky]ship? Heck yeah!

[Nalien]

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.

I really don't see a problem here... Four lots of thirteen, at 10,000G a piece... That's still a fairly hefty sum to be bringing in...

Dusk Leather isn't even a rare item; It shares the same rarity as Platinum Ore and other random crafting materials. The rare items are the furnishing/minion parts. Dusk Leather is currently the most lucrative because of a better demand, since it has multiple uses (three pieces of gear?) and more people are likely to care about it since furnishings are only going to appeal to a small portion of home owners. Iron Giant Cores are going to be the long term money maker on Airships, see: Blue Bird/Tiny Nutkin/etc.

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.

Oh I'm not ignoring the issue, I've simply be clarifying your mistake. You seem to think that the i180 accessories being missing is somehow a shocking new direction the developers are taking, when it simply isn't. Crafted accessories were at the "cutting edge" of raids in this game at launch. That was it. Patch 2.2 added Second Coil, crafted i90 gear with no accessories, the i90 accessories came in 2.3. Patch 2.4 added Final Coil, crafted i110 gear with no accessories, the i110 accessories came in 2.5.

The only difference between i90/i110 accessories, and i180 accessories, is that the i180 ones might suffer from limited supply and might suffer from poor meld options. Call me optimistic, but when one of the major pieces of content in 3.1 has "access to new gathering nodes" as a reward, I'm willing to see where things go, rather than resorting to doomsaying. I sold enough i90/i110 accessories, long after Second/Final Coil were cleared, not to be particularly worried...

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

This is perhaps another issue I have with what you're saying... You seem to be under the impression that the only demand for materia is the 1% of people who bother with endgame raiding... I mean, we've seen the numbers of people who've attempted A1S and those weren't that impressive. I'd love to know how I'm currently selling IV's and III's, when crafted i180 is apparently completely worthless. The simple fact is that there is a greater demand for materia than just the top 1%, this applies to gathering and crafting too; I've seen plenty of people maximize their melds on such classes and then proceed to do nothing with them. Presumably these people care little for the fate of i180 crafted gear, but they're still going to be fueling demand for gathering/crafting materia.

Seriously, right now I'm getting crappy III's pretty much every day, and they're selling every day. Who do you think is buying these? I can't really fathom who is buying my Battle Dance III's, but I'm not going to complain at the extra 10~20k being brought in when the Tiny Bronco parts being used long since payed for themselves.

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.

You may want to give up on that, then. Airships are locked behind Housing. Housing has serious supply issues. SE simply cannot lock anything substantial behind them with that in mind, it would upset far too many players... Airships are simply the next tier of Gardening, another thing which is old as dirt yet still somehow makes money. That's how I view them anyway. Gil is the point of these things, be glad they at least added Grade 3 Actions to boost Airships somewhat. Honestly though, given my bank now has more Gil than I'll ever know what to do with, I'm seriously considering giving my members a weekly paycheck or something, which is potentially a nice draw (maybe they'll actually decorate their damn rooms).

Going back to my original post though, I think the best bet for them "balancing" this, if it's even viewed as required, would be an Allowance system just like Treasure Maps; You can board the Ishgard Airship once every 18 hours, but you can use a Free Company Airship whenever, provided it isn't on one of the current Voyages. Either Free Companies get unlimited rides there, or having a Company Airship just grants something like an extra Allowance; I can get twice a day, instead of once.

Now, all that said, what would I like to distinguish FC airships from rental ones? PvP. I'd love to see airship battles as a PvP minigame involving a light party, full party, or alliance (don't care which). Is something like that needed? Heck no. Would it be fun to don an eyepatch, get out the parrot minion, and start shouting terrible [sky]pirate-speak while firing cannons at an enemy [sky]ship? Heck yeah!

As awesome as "Final Fantasy XIV: Skies of Arcadia" would be, I cannot see them doing this with the current housing shortage. Although it would be nice to have some kind of open world siege based PvP, in which anyone can take part, but Free Companies can bring Airships (and later Primals, because that was promised back in 1.23.......) to the table... Though the popularity of PvP in this game leaves me somewhat doubtful we'll ever see something that awesome...

Wouldn't have to be Airships though, come to think of it, could just be siege weapons made in the Workshop. Effectively make them consumables, and made from items the Airship brings back, and they'd have a constant demand for things like Cassia Logs. Though again, I don't think PvP is popular enough for that...

[Yeldir]

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

As I stated earlier in this thread, I did in fact make them myself. I threw very little into it, in terms of pure gil. As I said before, I factor what I could have made by simply selling the individual components to go into the parts. That withstanding, I also said that early adopters such as myself have done well enough. Some variance due to servers aside, I haven't lost money - neither have I made a fortune from this. Certainly not compared to straight up solo crafting in 2.0.

I feel like I made a grievous error in making financial consideration such a strong part of my initial post. It's not what I was hoping for when I started - but if I didn't start this angle of the conversation, someone else would have.

I really don't see a problem here... Four lots of thirteen, at 10,000G a piece... That's still a fairly hefty sum to be bringing in...

Dusk Leather isn't even a rare item; It shares the same rarity as Platinum Ore and other random crafting materials. The rare items are the furnishing/minion parts. Dusk Leather is currently the most lucrative because of a better demand, since it has multiple uses (three pieces of gear?) and more people are likely to care about it since furnishings are only going to appeal to a small portion of home owners. Iron Giant Cores are going to be the long term money maker on Airships, see: Blue Bird/Tiny Nutkin/etc.

If I say, as we're both thinking, that thirteen per more than once in the same week was probably lucky on my part, then you can say then dusk will be worth more, and I can say that if it wasn't lucky on my part, and it really is that common, then we'll see prices in the four digits. At this point I think a statement to that effect would degenerate from educated guesses into pure speculation, though. I only know that the price roof on dusk leather is going to be really, really low, compared to what we're seeing now. I'd be quite impressed (and surprised) at your hypothetical 1.5 mil income every three days or so - that's a lot of gil for playing with some retainers.

As for iron giant cores, I can't see those having the same appeal as the blue birds and nutkins. Cuteness is the first thing the pet fanatics go for. Maybe it'll have an appeal when the pet battle system goes live, but again, the prices you're seeing now must necessarily plummet, as the supply is presently a tiny fraction of what it will be when everyone has their four airships at levels capable of bringing them in.

Oh I'm not ignoring the issue, I've simply be clarifying your mistake. You seem to think that the i180 accessories being missing is somehow a shocking new direction the developers are taking, when it simply isn't. Crafted accessories were at the "cutting edge" of raids in this game at launch. That was it. Patch 2.2 added Second Coil, crafted i90 gear with no accessories, the i90 accessories came in 2.3. Patch 2.4 added Final Coil, crafted i110 gear with no accessories, the i110 accessories came in 2.5.

The only difference between i90/i110 accessories, and i180 accessories, is that the i180 ones might suffer from limited supply and might suffer from poor meld options. Call me optimistic, but when one of the major pieces of content in 3.1 has "access to new gathering nodes" as a reward, I'm willing to see where things go, rather than resorting to doomsaying. I sold enough i90/i110 accessories, long after Second/Final Coil were cleared, not to be particularly worried...

My mistake? I see we made our personal fortunes in the same way in 2.0, so we can't point to any of these things as something one of us might have left out of our considerations. Yet, by your own predicted pattern, 3.1 is going to see the appearance of i180 accessories. That won't be good enough to fuel any kind of the sales you're used to from 2.0. The materia (probably) won't be available in quantities adequate for their widespread use, and it's still going to be shackled by those goddamn scrips. I see it as another crafting flop in 3.1, and I fully expect demand for the gathering materials on the sky islands to be hamstrung by weekly scrip caps. Why do I believe that? Because scrip caps are doing what SE wants them to be doing: keeping crafted gear out of raids. Why would they stop that process?

As for why your stuff is selling, it is as I said before - the crafting community at this time is coasting on hopes of a brighter day. That really illustrates better than any other individual point the difference between how you and I are thinking - you, and many others like yourself, expect the mechanics of the current system to improve in your favor, in spite of SE telling you that they specifically destroyed the system that made you rich in 2.0 with the intent of never allowing such a system to come around again, and I expect SE to stay true to their godawful plans and allow crafting to atrophy to such a degree that the market will wither and die.

They said they wanted crafting gear out of raids forever. That isn't how 2.0 was. Those days are gone, and they're not coming back unless SE does a total 180 (which is, I concede, entirely possible) - but I prefer to make my guesses educated ones. You're guessing upstream, and so is everyone else who understands the current crafting system and hasn't seen how it ends. There's a lot of people like you - and they're the ones buying your crap. There'll be less and less of them with each major patch iteration, and, as the disappointment of 3.05 becomes a repeat thing, crafting as you and I knew it in 2.0 will die out forever.

I doubt either of us can convince the other of anything more at this point. Why don't we reconvene on this issue after 3.1's dust settles, and see how things are doing, then?

[Nalien]

My mistake?

Let me attempt this one last time;

You commented on how i180 accessories had been omitted from 3.0, as though it was a point. I picked up on that, and that alone, thinking "Hasn't it been like that for a while now?", because sure enough, it has, since 2.2. To which you responded that it was, in fact, new. I assume at that point you were referring to the other crafting changes, despite me quoting you about accessories and my sentence being entirely about accessories.

Is that cleared up now? Honestly, I think that's root of most of our misunderstandings here...

Why do I believe that? Because scrip caps are doing what SE wants them to be doing: keeping crafted gear out of raids. Why would they stop that process?

Simple. Alexander (Savage) has been cleared.

The entire purpose on locking crafted gear away was to make it so clearing the top tier raids was not dependent on your wallet. They don't want to keep crafted gear out of raids per-say, they want to level the initial playing field. Rather than Group A getting a clear because they penta-melded their brand new crafted gear, while Group B still wipes in the old gear, everyone is instead locked to the same progression, slowly gearing up with raid drops and new tomestones, rather than being able to buy an entire new set of gear and have a significant edge.

I imagine this was the exact same thought process which lead to them delaying crafted accessories in the first place. Accessories were always the more useful of the crafted gear, so they kept them out of the patch which introduced the new raid content. Come a patch later, the new raid content has been cleared countless times, people now have a fair amount of tomestone gear and can ignore the marginal bonus provided by crafted stuff if they wish, while others who care about min/maxing, despite already clearing, can have something new to aim for, so they push out the accessories. Obviously the non-accessories gear also helped out, so now they've opted to slow the production of the gear entirely. The accessories, though? Those were always pretty powerful and had plenty of demand despite being an entire patch late. Scrips will be an issue (though that is a supply issue, not demand), but I still don't see it as the final nail in the coffin which will damn crafting so much that all materia becomes valueless, which is the only conclusion which would impact Airships income.

As for why your stuff is selling, it is as I said before - the crafting community at this time is coasting on hopes of a brighter day.

I don't buy it. I really do not think I am able to move bleedin' Parry III's because the crafting community is in a state of denial. Again, there are far more people playing this game than the top few percent of raiders/crafters who care about this stuff. Perfect example would be Fishers, for the most part that isn't a profitable thing, people mostly do it just to enjoy it, and to catch them all you're going to need materia at some point. You are really completely ignoring the casual market here, they will basically always keep some demand for trash like materia alive.

Am I selling Parry, or Accuracy, or Critical Hit Rate materia for a massive amount? No, not at all, but again, it's still a fair amount considering its from (effectively) a Retainer Venture. The price of this stuff has already shot through the floor, I can't see it getting much worse, it's quite a nice baseline to work with as far as Airships go; My (cursed) Airship has decided I want Parry III for several days in a row now, as far as I'm concerned, this is the trash tier of rewards (that I can sell, anyway) from Airship Voyages, and I'm still getting 10~20k off of it. Is that bad? Yes, but only when held up against my glorious first Airship, which loves me and decided to bring back 5 Iron Giant Cores (which I really think you're underestimating, I'd say minions follow the pokemon effect, rather than cuteness, people have to catch them all) and 5 Dusk Leathers from one Voyage.

Really though, if I had any "hopes" for the materia market to pick up, it would be from Relics. All it takes is another Sphere Scroll and materia becomes a big ticket item again, with or without crafting being relevant in this game.

There'll be less and less of them with each major patch iteration, and, as the disappointment of 3.05 becomes a repeat thing, crafting as you and I knew it in 2.0 will die out forever.

Honestly? Good.

While I'm not a fan of crafting in 3.0, I was never really a fan of it in 2.0 either... It never felt particularly significant to me, even when it was, it generally only was for a short while and for a small amount of people. I abused the heck out of it, sure, but I've always felt that this games crafting system was wasted on this game. Nothing I made ever had any staying power, for the most part new gear filled a "This is better than my old tomestone gear, but worse than the new tomestone/raid stuff I'm limited on obtaining" (which isn't entirely accurate when it came to some pieces/accessories, but it's how most of the visual gear felt to me), which just added to my lament that gear in this game is replaced too damn quickly. Add to that the fact that Omnicrafting completely killed its own purpose ("I craft so I can make money, but I'm entirely self sufficent so I don't need money!"), and I'm not particularly torn up over them trying something new. Specialists actually has me somewhat hopeful, since it might actually give my Gil purpose again since I wont be entirely self sufficient, but the end product is still lackluster, you're right, i180 is worse than the previous sets, they've f*cked up there, though I really can't see that impacting Airship profits too much.

At the end of the day though, I was dissatisfied with 2.0s crafting. It fell into the same trap so many crafting systems do; While your Warrior is a great and mighty hero, your Blacksmith will never produce the ultimate weapon, that's the job of some NPCs or worse, Treasure Chests. I find that stupid. Were it up to me, crafting would be central to a Relic style upgrade process. Add a "Request Synthesis" option to allow me to make a weapon for you, that you cannot then trade. I make a sword in 3.0 and sell it on the Market Board. You buy it as a placeholder while you raid. Then you get a new sword from the raid, and the one I made is replaced. Rather than binning it though, you bring both to me, and I make something superior for you after getting some extra materials. Rinse and repeat through the patches. As a crafter I've made something which has lasted from 3.0 to 3.5. I've made something which pretty much anyone could work towards with some communication and effort. People with Gil would get there faster, sure, but rather than that Gil effectively buying them a clear, they still need to clear the raid in order to really upgrade it. You'd need the raid weapon before I can do anything to upgrade a melded weapon with some materials your buy off me/someone else. You'd also have 3.05 to 3.19 to get the gear upgraded, rather than the gear mostly filling a temporary niche. It would be the same as Relics were, just for weapons/visible gear, and with actual players delivering the "quests", rather than two NPCs. You want me to upgrade your gear, so I tell you what I'll need. At the same time I'm gathering my own stuff to upgrade my own gear, and with Specialists, perhaps I need the help of another crafter. Then crafting would feel far more relevant than it ever did in this game.

Well damn, I ended up ranting about crafting... I forgot how much I ended up loathing crafting in this game... Enjoyed doing it (which is why I probably don't care so much right now), but I hated the end results...

Why don't we reconvene on this issue after 3.1's dust settles, and see how things are doing, then?

I'll probably be too busy ranting that the new Relic questline is handled by another bleedin' NPC, rather than actual crafters, in all honesty.

[Felis]

Except crafters could purchase as many of tomestone materials as they could afford, in many cases allowing them to produce as many items as they wanted. Now, there's a hard cap, and one that forces crafters to choose between improving their gear or selling for profit. That's also totally new.

2.0
Buy gear with myth tomes or mats to sell for pofit (where coke was still over 50k gil worth)

[Magistrella]

2.0
Buy gear with myth tomes or mats to sell for pofit (where coke was still over 50k gil worth)

Mats were never bought with Myth - only with philosophy - and those were uncapped. Hence the quick drop to 9k after 3 weeks in ARR

[Zhexos]

We discussed this a bit in the Letter from the Producer LIVE XXIV, but we are planning to introduce some unique aspects to Free Company-specific airships. We'll share details on this on Lodestone and such in the future, so please look forward to it!

[Zumi]

Yea the OP is just being greedy. Because you can make 10m a pop on an item the only reason is because there are only a few people with access to airships, because you have to have a FC house no personal houses so the number of people who can use airships is like 100 or so.

There are tons of people who craft who want the mats that make new pets, or new furnishings for our personal houses.

I haven't liked airships since they release they are just a tool for the FC leader to play with and locks almost everyone else out of doing new content and getting new minions from it. I welcome the new airships in Ishguard.

[maelor]

This entire thread is moot. We have crafted 2 airships in my FC, and are almost done our third. It has cost us nothing but time. We did not at any point HAVE to spend gil on anything other than the workshop, but crafting the ships requires only mats and time, and time spent in game is the reason why you're logged in in the first place right? Furthermore the ships BRING US stuff, so there is a gain. Finally us crafting our airships has not held back any of our members from being able to do anything. We have not required OR requested any mats or gil from ANY members, unless they themselves wanted to contribute. To be frank crafting airships has been easy, fun, and monetarily painless, and even if there are some small costs, so what, things are supposed to cost something (time or money take your pick).

[maelor]

It dawned on me that some will make assumptions about my previous post. In short, just so its clear, I am not from a huge wealthy FC. We're just a bunch of people who have fun playing together and are not over the top hardcore about the grind.