An Analysis Of The Crafting Endgame

[CatfishCassie]

And that's really the point. They need to find a way to let crafting be in parity with drops.Otherwise it'll be the same problem in 3.1 as we've consistently had throughout the game: people don't buy high end crafted gear because high end drops/currency gear are easier to obtain for better stats, and the difficulty of making high end crafted gear makes it too expensive.

[Lastelli]

And that's really the point. They need to find a way to let crafting be in parity with drops.

No, that would we a catastrophe. Drops from savage should always be the best gear in the game, or you'll just see the top guilds using their crafters and gatherers as slaves just to have crafted gear as soon as possible and have a slight advantage for progression, which actually happened in ARR, though crafting high end gear was way easier back then. Also, crafters are a minority and raiders would really get pissed at devs if they do what you're suggesting (tanks are already complaining that they have to buy ilvl150 accessories, mind you), so having to choose which side to displease, they'll probably choose crafters. Moreover, devs clearly said that crafted gear will no longer be optimal for progression, this is the main point they were considering when designing the new DoH/DoL system. If they want to fix it, they'll have to find other ways.

if Void Ark is to drop ilvl 200 gear, will people still buy crafted gear?

Are people actually buying that stuff? I think 3 or 4 pieces of gear have been sold on my server (for DoW/M).

[CatfishCassie]

I think you missed my suggestion from the earlier post, which was to allow crafted gear to be upgraded like the Alex drops. The idea being that the crafted gear would not, itself, be the equivalent of the Alex drops, but could be upgraded to be the equivalent of those drops. The items that would upgrade it would be the same items they currently use to upgrade their Alex gear... which means they'd still have to raid to get the high level gear, but would now have the option of it being the dropped gear or the crafted gear. This keeps people from being able to skip raid progression with crafting, but keeps crafting relevant for raiders, which is currently the part that's missing.

The problem with MMOs in general is that if crafting stops being relevant to the endgame, it stops being relevant to the game at all. Even though Alex Savage raiders are a small minority of the players in the game, endgame considerations still drive a large portion of the game economy. Crafters put in as much if not more work than raiders, and deserve to see that work rewarded just as raiders do. The compromise shouldn't be to favor one group over the other... the compromise should be to find an itemization system that fills the needs of both.

[Aniforani]

It doesn't take much creativity to devise ways to limit the impact crafting can have on endgame while giving them a market. Give raiders material drops from their victories required for our high level crafts, which also gives them a way to fund their potential purchase. Gate our acquisition rate of some unsaleable materials to help avoid RMT and prevent market flooding. If materia is too much of an issue the final craft could be devoid of slots, like very low level gear. Even with all those barriers it should not be the best the game has to offer, but if they turned out as ilvl 190nq 195hq. I think that would be pretty well balanced. Similar time/effort to get as eso gear, while being slightly less desirable and unable to upgrade to ilvl210.

[StouterTaru]

It doesn't take much creativity to devise ways to limit the impact crafting can have on endgame while giving them a market. Give raiders material drops from their victories required for our high level crafts, which also gives them a way to fund their potential purchase.

They had a system like that in 2.x; remember those items you could buy with uncapped tomes?

[Lastelli]

I think you missed my suggestion from the earlier post

I understand your standpoint, but devs have a completely different opinion. They do not want crafting to be relevant for end game raiding, they clearly stated that. And, as both a crafter and a raider, I completely agree with them.

[CatfishCassie]

I understand your standpoint, but devs have a completely different opinion. They do not want crafting to be relevant for end game raiding, they clearly stated that. And, as both a crafter and a raider, I completely agree with them.

I guess I don't understand why. I'm not a raider currently... but I have been in the past, and I have been in other games as well. If crafted gear were relevant to the endgame, sure, that'd mean you'd feel obliged to buy crafted gear. Of course, people still raid without the Best-in-slot item... in fact, you have to raid to GET a lot of the best-in-slot items... so it's understandable that people would still raid without crafted gear even if that crafted gear was Best-in-slot. It's also understandable that the best raiding groups would have a crafter or two to hook them up with that gear... in fact, the best raiding groups already have a crafter or two for potions/food, and many of those crafters are lvl 60 in other crafts as well (in fact, many of them are lvl 60 in all crafts). So in terms of needing crafters, things wouldn't really change for most raiding groups. What WOULD change is that crafters who aren't raiders and raiders who don't have crafter friends might find themselves needing each other, which would enhance the game considerably for the crafters without really detracting from it for the raiders. And, in the end, it's not like I'm saying "Get rid of the endgame as it is now and require that all endgame armor be crafted". I'm just saying let crafters have a piece of the pie. Even if only one or two crafted pieces per tradeskill end up being best-in-slot, that's enough to reward the crafters that have spent months of time and millions of gil getting themselves up to the crafting endgame... crafters that currently have absolutely nothing to offer the rest of the game except for glamour items, food, and potions.

[Alex_Lenderson]

And that's really the point. They need to find a way to let crafting be in parity with drops.Otherwise it'll be the same problem in 3.1 as we've consistently had throughout the game: people don't buy high end crafted gear because high end drops/currency gear are easier to obtain for better stats, and the difficulty of making high end crafted gear makes it too expensive.

I agree with you but this will never change.