I just...don't care anymore.

[Caimie_Tsukino]

This is a social game.
Make allies. Form long term working relationships with gatherers (extra mats for gear, bulk purchases etc). Look for crafters to mentor or the ones that arent interested in doing high end crafting for extra tokens.
Yes you need some sort of capital at first till you get the ball rolling but you guys here are high end crafters, you know how to make moolah.

The only gathering i did for the past month is to cap red scrip, i just couldn't stand favors lol.
But still i manage to make 20-30 pieces a week (for me ,and others), and make some profit to boot.
I realize most people want to be able to self-sustain but one look at the system is enough to figure out that you simply aren't supposed to do this alone.

The relationship between crafters and gatherers rely a lot on the idea of "helping each other out". Right now gatherers dont need crafters' help. They don't just "give favors" to crafters. Crafters either pay them in cash, or do them some other "favors" like supplying glamor gear.

Right now, the gil flow is pretty one-sided.... only from crafters to gatherers... And crafters are just making lower level crafters' money by selling everything below 2 star.

[Porkchop]

The relationship between crafters and gatherers rely a lot on the idea of "helping each other out". Right now gatherers dont need crafters' help. They don't just "give favors" to crafters. Crafters either pay them in cash, or do them some other "favors" like supplying glamor gear.

I do not quite agree with you on this point. Every gatherer worth their salt knows that future proofing is always worth it. First week gathering is *really* lucrative. You can make one or two months' worth of cash in the first week if you can grab new stuff ASAP.
Also, gatherers can only reach 700gp with the new accessories, which gives them additional options on their rotation. The offhands also give significant boost that will be needed for the new nodes. If previous patches are any indication (since SE loves following patterns and tweaking them), this is up to par. Minimal stat requirement for x.0 patches, stringent ones for the new stuff.
Of course, most gatherers don't know about this, but you just need to convince them to. If they prefer short term profit (selling favor mats), you can still take advantage of that.

The relationship between crafters and gatherers rely a lot on the idea of "helping each other out". Right now gatherers dont need crafters' help. They don't just "give favors" to crafters. Crafters either pay them in cash, or do them some other "favors" like supplying glamor gear.

Right now, the gil flow is pretty one-sided.... only from crafters to gatherers... And crafters are just making lower level crafters' money by selling everything below 2 star.

This is true for the most part. I admit, high end crafters are dealt a shitty hand this time around. But in the long term it will benefit us. More people are getting into gathering, since it is pretty much the only way to make serious cash right now. When new recipes come, if we have a geared army of gatherers, the competition between them will drive the price of mats down. That means more mats available at market board at affordable prices, more 'catch-up' people to sell gear to (including crafters lol), bigger market in general.

The only catch is if the new recipes somehow managed to be poopier than the current ones (tinkers calm v2?), then we're utterly screwed. But I have faith on SE, they aren't stupid. I'm sure the current system is here for a reason.

Thank the chocobo fairy for a good art team, because this is the one redeeming factor of the red scripts. At least the gear looks pretty! Unfortunately it also makes me wish we could glamour our new goodies combat gear >.< CRY!!! This would be a fun-tastic feature.

Me too... I wish I can glamour the pimp coat onto everything.

[Alahra]

The only catch is if the new recipes somehow managed to be poopier than the current ones (tinkers calm v2?), then we're utterly screwed. But I have faith on SE, they aren't stupid. I'm sure the current system is here for a reason.

The recipes themselves aren't even necessarily the issue. By and large, it's that making them is far too restricted by time gating and material scarcity given the place they're supposed to sit in progression. If crafters are supposed to help people catch up, the recipes need to be designed so that they can reasonably be available to people trying to catch up, not progression raiders who spent the last six months of ARR selling FCOB runs or omnicrafters.

The system is here for a reason, of course. They didn't like the impact that crafting had on progression. The problem is that they implemented several solutions all at once, when any one of them probably could have dulled the impact enough (especially given how much more tightly tuned Savage is). They went way overboard. Now instead of having *too much* impact, crafters now essentially have *no* impact.

[Porkchop]

The recipes themselves aren't even necessarily the issue. By and large, it's that making them is far too restricted by time gating and material scarcity given the place they're supposed to sit in progression.

Its both. The current combat gear recipes are i180, which makes them pretty much worthless for progression raiding, even as starter gear thanks to the secondary stats nerf. However, they do look good. I've been selling pieces of this and that for glamour purposes, and there is demand for them (like all good glamour pieces). Not many people can afford it though, due to reasons you stated. I believe this issue will be solved once the mats are more available.

Unfortunately, this is difficult to find (At least on my server). Most Gatherers I've dealt with believe their i180 sets will carry them through any new Gathering in 3.1, and they might be right. It's difficult to find a serious Gatherer who actually thinks with the long term in mind and is willing to take a pay cut now for a possible profit later or a discount/free 2-Star craft.

Even if that is the case, its no skin off your back. That means when they figure out they'll need the 700 gp later on, they'll be a potential buyer for the gear (which will be marked up due to demand :3). It's a win-win situation.


As an afterword, my thoughts are that the current system is only hostile if you insist to go omnicrafter come 3.1 . If you just buy i180 gear, you can reach the coveted "ez 2-star" status with minimum effort and cost. There are pros and cons of doing that, of course. Such as... the undyeable gear (yuck), and the inability to go omni till much later. But you save money on melds and the total cost is much cheaper per piece.
It is my belief that they put up so much roadblocks on the road of going omni because we will reap the most benefit when the new stuff(s) come.

I think I've said too much and starting to compromise myself lol ( alot of ultros crafters read the forum apparently >>) .
Whichever path you take, I wish you all success and a lot of fake internet money coming your way.

[Alahra]

However, they do look good. I've been selling pieces of this and that for glamour purposes. Not many people can afford it though, due to reasons you stated. I believe this issue will be solved once the mats are more available.

Some of them are decent for glamour, yeah. Others of them are rather disappointing old gear, though (while Kirimu is a great set, it's not exactly a good fit for MNK and NIN just from animations alone--serious dissonance there), and BRD/MCH got a set they can *already wear* at level 50.

As for the increased availability of mats...I don't see that really happening until 3.2--at least not to a significant degree--unless they add the materials to either Law tomestones or the new sky/airship content. And if it does take until 3.2, crafters will have waited an entire raid cycle to readily be able to craft stuff they've been *able* to craft for months.

[Sollux]

Even if that is the case, its no skin off your back. That means when they figure out they'll need the 700 gp later on, they'll be a potential buyer for the gear (which will be marked up due to demand :3). It's a win-win situation.

It would be nice if this were the case, but I can't see SE making it impossible to farm the new nodes without 700 GP (Gathering has historically had a relatively low barrier to entry as well as a low ceiling) and if there is an optimal rotation that requires 700 GP most Gatherers I know of would just prefer to be able to Gather the item and don't really care about optimization.

It is my belief that they put up so much roadblocks on the road of going omni because we will reap the most benefit when the new stuff(s) come.

SE will stop me from omni-crafting when they pry the tools from my cold dead body in my HQ Astral Lumber Coffin.

[Alahra]

SE will stop me from omni-crafting when they pry the tools from my cold dead body in my HQ Astral Lumber Coffin.

They didn't do a very good job of discouraging omnicrafting with 3.0 anyway, to be honest. Individual DoH classes depend far more on other DoH mats than they ever have before, and Specialization abilities don't compare to the power of the old suite of level 50 abilities well at all. I never liked being an omnicrafter, so I was looking forward to Specialization, but they didn't really make it worthwhile.

[Sollux]

They didn't do a very good job of discouraging omnicrafting with 3.0 anyway, to be honest. Individual DoH classes depend far more on other DoH mats than they ever have before, and Specialization abilities don't compare to the power of the old suite of level 50 abilities well at all. I never liked being an omnicrafter, so I was looking forward to Specialization, but they didn't really make it worthwhile.

Unfortunately I think that a lot of people loved Crafting BECAUSE they could omni-craft, and their methods of discouraging omni-crafting have actually worked so well that it has discouraged a lot of people from Crafting in general. Their intent (In my opinion) with 3.0 was to discourage omni-crafting and encourage us to rely on other people which would in turn revitalize the market and keep it from stagnating because most people can craft everything themselves. This doesn't mean omni-crafting is impossible, and it will certainly get easier as time goes by, but the length of the grind means that the market will be active much longer than it was previously.

The main problem is the fact that Combat classes have very little incentive to spend gil on anything from Crafting/Gathering which has removed a HUGE chunk of potential gil from the market, which leaves much less incentive to Craft or Gather, which in turn means less mats on the market, which means higher prices on the mats that ARE on the market, which means most Crafters are Gathering their mats themselves, which means less people buying said mats, which makes the market stagnant.

As for Specialist skills, I may get some flak for saying this but I think they're exactly where they need to be. They were never MEANT to be as powerful as their respective lvl 50 counterparts, otherwise their would be no real reason to level any other Crafting class. They're there as a stepping stone to be able to craft Endgame recipes but still have an incentive to level the other classes.

[Porkchop]

It would be nice if this were the case, but I can't see SE making it impossible to farm the new nodes without 700 GP (Gathering has historically had a relatively low barrier to entry as well as a low ceiling) and if there is an optimal rotation that requires 700 GP most Gatherers I know of would just prefer to be able to Gather the item and don't really care about optimization.

The only thing that we need now is a 700gp rotation with some long term benefit (either for collectables or more yield/HQ chance on stuff). Once the theorycrafters figure it out and come out with a popular rotation, everyone'd want 700gp. Of course, this is mostly speculation. But I'm definetely putting my eggs on this basket.
Whether people believe what i'm saying or not is not my business. To be honest its better if people don't , less competition for me lol.

[Sollux]

The only thing that we need now is a 700gp rotation with some long term benefit (either for collectables or more yield/HQ chance on stuff). Once the theorycrafters figure it out and come out with a popular rotation, everyone'd want 700gp. Of course, this is mostly speculation.

I actually agree with you on this one, though I think it will be a long time before anyone seriously starts looking into this/shares their rotation. The more people know a good rotation the less profit there is for the ones who found it themselves.