Propositions to address crafting/economic woes circa 3.0.

[Ohiuu]

Due to lack of access and desirability of the end products (as we all now know) it has created a huge imbalance in the economy. Here is a short list of basic changes that would rapidly alleviate many of the primary issues:

1. Make the DoW/M gear i190. The crafted set shouldn't be sub-par to Alex normal stuff that's free and easy to obtain, esp. since materia scaling is bad atm.
2. Make the i190 gear require you to obtain some i170/180 craft gear to create.
3. Give adventurer's a way to make gil with a system similar to 2.x that comes from law and/or dungeon drops and add those mats into i190 battle gear.
4. DoH/L Rowena tokens should cost 25 to make gear cheaper for adventurer's.
5. Skyspring water should convert into Law tome item or dungeon drop (or just remove the red scrip token as others have suggested).
6. Make i170 crafted DoL set and a reason to have it.
7. Make draconian pots craft 3 or reduce mat requirements and make food worth using (scale better/raise the % limits on the stats).
8. Make high level fish that turns into potent food/pots (this one seems silly, but marrying raiders and crafters is good for everyone...also fishing should be more desirable).
9. Create crafted battle accessories BUT do not allow for melding of primary stats (stat cap them) because I'm assuming the reason these were taken out of the normal crafting recipe/iLVL cycle of the 2.2 era onward was due to the doubling up on primary stats for certain classes (i.e. tanks max melding str and vit and refusing to use the raid accessories) which could create an actual imbalance in end-game raiding.
10. Create EFFECTIVE consumable sinks for gatherers to funnel their folklore (so much work for so little payout)/ephemeral mats into to keep costs up (food no one needs doesn't count).
11. Create armor packs/gear enhancements that add permanent stats and/or materia slots onto existing equipment (this could pair strongly with point #10)

EDIT: I would love to hear input from the crafting community in regards to other possible solutions. This is a basic outline of some of the glaring points but I really would like to see some suggestions on how we could build a robust and sustainable economy. Relegating crafters to glamour pimps just means we're always going to be putting up chintzy crap that will quickly lose most of its market value...I for one love crafting and want it to be something great that gives us a real place in the overall scheme of the game.

EDIT #2: Thank you Kiara for bringing up the old prohibition on end-game (i210 circa 3.0) crafted gear. I really feel it's time for the dev team to readdress this concept. The i190 should have been an obvious choice since it's just a redux of the 2.x paradigm for crafted gear, but what about a horizontal set for the raiders? Let's reconsider what the harm of creating a crafted set of i210 that requires the equivalent Savage turn (say, a rare drop akin to abjurations in FFXI) as well as numerous other rare and expensive materials in addition to a skilled and geared crafter to create? It could be properly gated to require a large amount of effort to obtain (and also allow for the challenging of raid content more than once a week for potential benefit) but could bring together a wide variety of players to make gear for one another. The interest and excitement this would generate would be tremendous across the board and so long as it was properly implemented, I find it hard to envision the drawbacks. EVERYONE wants choices and players have been clamoring for horizontal progression since day 1. Economically, the implications are obvious: most of the player base would be willing to invest large amounts of time and energy into creating this sort of thing, and the materials would come from raiders, crafters, gatherers and even the casual adventurer's in the form of dungeon or older content drops (or Law tome mats, even Eso tome mats for that matter). I think it's time, don't you?

For an explanation of how abjurations worked in FFXI see this link: http://ffxiclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Abjuration.
Basically you get a drop that's binding from raid content (so people can't just buy them outright) and then buy a piece of unequippable gear made by crafters using rare mats then combine the two to make end-game gear.

[Ohiuu]

BTW since I know quite a few of these have been suggested elsewhere, I would like to point out that one of the biggest caveats is the i190 battle gear and the i170/180 crafting gear to make it. Another point I'd like to add is that while only a small percentage of people actually craft, there are many who would purchase viable (introductory) raid gear and consumables and it would improve their overall experience. A broken economy affects everyone, not just the crafters. Also: making an i190 set that raiders would actually purchase adds another income source for adventurer's by increasing the demand for materia that they can obtain through conversion. Whether or not they add an i190 set in 3.1, it should have been available out the door and I hope they have a viable intro raiding crafted set in 3.2, 3.4, etc and don't continue to flub up a paradigm that worked well in 2.x.

[Caimie_Tsukino]

@1: That's not reasonable. Crafted gear has ALWAYS been 20 ilevels below strongest tome gear available. Currently the Esoretics i200 vs the crafted i180 is not a problem. S-E made it very clear from day 1 of ARR that crafted gear will NEVER be strongest in the game. If you make crafted gear i200, and meldable, they will surpass Esoretics. In case you haven't noticed, the effect of pentamelding is similar to adding an extra 20 ilevels. So a fully, properly melded i180 will be very close to the powers of an i200. However, we do not have the proper materia to do so at the moment. So the problem lies in the materia and in the availability of i180. Not something that we can fix by making crafted gear i190.
*NOTE: (EDIT) I now agree with the OP on this point (see later posts).
@2: I believe 3* i180 accessories needing i170 crafting gear / specialization to make would be a fair thing to have in the next patch.
@3: Yes, they need "raid mats"... it can be like Myth mats or Soldery mats in the past, or it can be like Allagan leathers / Silks which are "drops" / "loots". Some kinda of raid mat will ensure money flow from crafters to raiders... and in return, raiders will have money to buy i180 accessories from crafters.
@4: Well, we all want it easier and faster, don't we? I won't complain if they make it cost only 25! I just don't see it happening too soon.
@5: No, just make skyspring water needed for some kind of recipe, like i180 accessories (but uses fewer other Favor mats please).
@6: Yes, SERIOUSLY! Everybody is agreeing with this right now.
@7: Yes, whoever decided that potions should come in only 1 was really really really "UNWISE" (I'm being as civilized as I can here, trying my best not to use any swear words).
@8: Well, but high level fish are rare, and if they're used for making food, then that food will be come very unavailable... It can be another problem.

[Caimie_Tsukino]

I made the following figure lately:

[Ohiuu]

@Caimie

Well in regards to your response to the first point: Secondary stats are not weighted nearly enough to make 20 ilvls (Also Eso gear is only i200 until its upgraded to i210, alex savage is also i210). As it stands, they couldn't even bridge 10 ilvls due to the loss of primary stats. Consider also that materia scaling is abysmal and tier V materia is nigh inaccessible. i190 would be equivalent to the i70 (allagan/myth was i90), i90 (upgraded soldiery and high allagan i110), and i110 (upgraded poetics/dreadwyrm i130) of the past. The pentamelding of the old crafted gear when it was only 20 levels below could make up much more of that gap in raw ilvl due to better scaling. But even with penta tier V...that's not going to make 20 ilvls. Also, point 4 wasn't due to laziness it was due to the economic implications of limiting it to 9 a week. Cost becomes extravagant. Point 8 was to add some real incentive into fishing and allow for hardcore raiders to participate in the economy while providing some tangible benefit.

PS: that illustration is amazing.

[Caimie_Tsukino]

You make a valid point concerning how the older gear's scaling is different from now. I did a lot of calculations and testings for i70, i90, i110 and i120, so I can say boldly that for those gear, pentameld can make up approximately 20 ilvls. However, I haven't done any testing on i180 vs i200. The scaling effect could make it different than the past now. Someone will need to actually test it out to verify...

[Ohiuu]

@Caimie

Yes, I would be curious as well seeing as the stat weights seem pretty contested in the DoW/M forums I've perused. However, it's not i200 you need to consider its i210. Remember soldiery gear was only 100 until you upgraded to 110, same with poetics and i120/130 respectively...the same is true of eso being 200/210. They changed that in 2.2 since apparently myth farming to get gear equal to (and sometimes better than) end-game raiders who busted balls in progression wasn't entirely fair lol. So basically I'm simply arguing a return to the old values of crafted being 10 below un-upgraded tome being 10 below upgraded/end-game raid gear. If by some miracle a dev reads this and has concerns over whether people will still want to do alex:normal...have no fear, I'm quite certain the myriad limiting factors of purchasing crafted gear will keep your NM queues full but in the mean time, maybe some people will actually want to level their alts, have a way to gear them, have a reason to farm for gil, and generally have a reason to keep their subscription running. I, for one, am quite tired of alex:NM farms and would love to get my ninja some shiny new i190 crafted gear so I can run it in savage.

[Aeyis]

@1: That's not reasonable. Crafted gear has ALWAYS been 20 ilevels below strongest tome gear available. Currently the Esoretics i200 vs the crafted i180 is not a problem.

It kind of is.

S-E made it very clear from day 1 of ARR that crafted gear will NEVER be strongest in the game.

And that is the real issue. Making it below viable means it's not desirable. The only reason why they've sold in the past is for alt classes (with no time, or tomes already capped) or the greedy. (read: stupid)

Crafting is all about making interesting or powerful items. If you take away the option to make powerful items, that just leaves the interesting ones. Which in this game, due to lack of interesting effects comes down to just glamour, furniture, or bardings/pets.

[RiceisNice]

One of the big problems for the crafting scene, is as mentioned, is that crafters can't make anything for anyone for any purpose except other crafters.

The Ilvl180 gear requires red scrip materials, but it fails at everything
-It fails as catchup gear because law tomestones can go as high as ilvl180, and the loss of primary stat, vitality and defense is not really economical from a raiding standpoint; it's too big of a collective hit, espesically with how itemization is now with the inflated stat budgetting between each Ilvl milestone.
-It fails as raiding gear because of the sheer ilvl difference
-It even fails at glamour because the ilvl180 versions are exactly the same models as the i160 ones (which in itself fails for some classes because they're just recolored 2.0 gear that is debatedly ugly as shit).

I mean honestly, when you can't even craft it for glamour of all things, that's a problem.

And that is the real issue. Making it below viable means it's not desirable. The only reason why they've sold in the past is for alt classes (with no time, or tomes already capped) or the greedy. (read: stupid)

I've gotten away with using a penta melded kirimu coat for all of FcoB, but that's only because the other BRD tops were utter garbage with itemization. Outside of that, crafters still had a presence with relic progression

[Caimie_Tsukino]

It kind of is.

And that is the real issue. Making it below viable means it's not desirable. The only reason why they've sold in the past is for alt classes (with no time, or tomes already capped) or the greedy. (read: stupid)

Crafting is all about making interesting or powerful items. If you take away the option to make powerful items, that just leaves the interesting ones. Which in this game, due to lack of interesting effects comes down to just glamour, furniture, or bardings/pets.

Actually, that's inaccurate. Just because crafted gear are always 20 ilevel below the strongest tome gear does not mean crafted gear are not viable. In contrast, crafted gear had always been VERY DESIRABLE even when they were 20 ilevels lower. We all know very well how overpowering crafted i70 were comparing to the "hero" set of i90 bought with Myth tomes back then. For instance, you can sacrifice only 3 Strength, but gain a lot more Vitality, Crit rate, skill speed, accuracy and determination. In ARR end game, substituting appropriate i120/i130 accessories with the proper pentamelded i110 crafted accessories contributed much to the victory for a lot of hardcore raiders, and helped many of them beat T13.

I don't think the current crafted i180 items are weak at all. Have you pentamelded them and tested them yet? If not, we can't make that call saying they're not powerful yet. We obviously cannot substitute a whole set of i200 with pentamelded i180. That will hurt our stats by losing all the primary stats. But blending in 1 or 2 pentamended i180 is usually beneficial to tweak the secondary stats to our favor.

Right now, the biggest problem is not the powers of i180, but the availability of mats to make the i180.