An Analysis Of The Crafting Endgame

[Sollux]

Crafting isn't necessarily second fiddle to Combat so much as the majority of the playerbase has been and always will be Combat oriented.

With the introduction of Crafting/Gathering Red Scrips, Specializations, and lessened impact of Crafted Combat gear I believe SE is trying to do 2 things:

1. Bring Crafting/Gathering Endgame length in line with Combat, with each class having it's own set again and a weekly cap to reach. I personally don't see this as a bad thing, and here's why:

1a. I'll get flak for this I'm sure, but a 1-size-fits-all Crafting set ruins the Crafting Endgame. Its similar to only needing 11 pieces of gear from Savage and then you're done. Crafting is my Endgame. I enjoy it for the challenge and the satisfaction of reaching my goal, and when I returned in April after a 1.5 year break I was ecstatic at all of the new Crafting that I needed to catch up on and the challenge of 3-Stars and 4-Stars. I finished full Artisan's overmelded + Supras in a month. I was happy of course, and completing an entire Crafting set that was good for every class really helped me to catch up, but the challenge was short-lived and the satisfaction fleeting. After I caught up there was nothing left to do but make gil, which is nice yes, but it doesn't give me a goal and isn't necessarily a challenge.

1b. Let's be honest, a weekly cap is torture to Crafters, especially since we're used to the size of our wallets being the only limit to how quickly we can gear up, but it ensures you can't complete everything in a week or a month (At least not until well down the road when the market has a lot more mats on it). Plenty of people hate being artificially limited, but I ask you: If you can complete everything in a week, what is there left for you to do? Would you be truly satisfied?

1c. It also helps keep the market active. With an inherent limit to the number of items available on the market each week it takes much, much longer for the market to become saturated and the prices to drop. While this isn't a good thing for those wanting to speed up their gearing by buying these items, it keeps the market from stagnating and helps those who want to Craft but don't have the gil as they can choose to use their Scrips to sell 2-Star turn-in mats or sell the Scrips themselves.

2. Make it possible for each Class/Job to be self sufficient, where they can reach their own BIS gear and having another class geared and maxed is optimal, but not seen as a REQUIREMENT for Endgame. Let's talk about Gathering first, as it's the easiest:

2a. Gathering has historically been almost entirely self sufficient, save for relying on Combat to progress to new areas/fly at later levels. A Gatherer can start with very little investment, if anything at all, and can sell the materials they Gather to purchase new equipment. The introduction of Red Scrips had little impact as Gatherers require no cross-classes for their Endgame and can reach their current BIS gear by capping their Red Scrips (Which can be done with white gear and safe melds) and selling/using Favor mats to have their 2-Star OH/Accessories made.

2b. Crafting on the other hand is the exact opposite. Before Specializations you were practically REQUIRED to level other Crafts for their cross-class skills since almost no class could reliably HQ even lvl 50 recipes without them. Sales were slow going as the only things that really sold for a decent profit and regularly were HQ materials and gear which were difficult to make without leveling other Crafts, which was difficult to do due to lack of gil due to inability to HQ items due to...... you get my point. Specializations were introduced to address this, and while I've seen a number of complaints regarding their strength and reliability I think they're at exactly where they need to be. Specialist skills were never meant to be stronger than the original skills. They were meant to be used as a sub-par replacement until you were able to level your other Crafts. The only issue I really see with them is how complicated they can be to understand and the amount of time needed to really understand how they work together, which seems to contradict their intent to be used by more casual Crafters.

2c. Onto Combat! Anyone who is really passionate about something will want the best of the best for what they do. When one item is inherently better than another most will view it as a necessity, whether we intend to or not. I see no reason as to why Crafted gear can't be viable in Endgame raiding, but the problem near the end of ARR and COB was that some Crafted gear was BIS, even over Poetic or Dreadwyrm gear. This created a huge issue with those who were pure Combat because getting their BIS gear didn't depend so much on their skills or abilities in a fight but rather their ability to make gil. Outside of selling runs or Endgame Crafting mats Combat pures had no way to reliably make gil without resorting to Gathering or Crafting, either of which they may have avoided because they hated it or because it wasn't what they wanted to do. That isn't to say Crafted gear shouldn't be used in Endgame raiding at all, rather it would be better if Endgame Crafted Combat gear could be on-par or slightly better than Eso gear. This way Crafters could contribute much more to Combat, Combat players who do happen to have gil can use the gear as an Eso replacement to get multiple classes raid ready faster, and pure Combat players could still rely on Eso gear on their way to Savage gear.

We all have high hopes for 3.1 and I have no doubt Crafting will be revitalized. We KNOW SE listens to their playerbase, and while hardcore Crafters are far from the majority we are no less passionate when it comes to what we love.

[Alahra]

1b. Let's be honest, a weekly cap is torture to Crafters

You know, ultimately, I don't so much mind the weekly cap as I mind that it makes it harder to catch up. In ARR there were periods where I didn't craft much (especially as Relic stages were released), but I could always sit down and work on tokens for awhile to catch up. With the Red Scrip system in place, there's not really a good way to catch up if you miss a week for some reason or another, and I miss the flexibility of being able to not worry about crafting sometimes. The combat classes have always had this issue of course, but now that there are two (and potentially three, for gatherers, too) such structures, my playtime feel dictated rather than decided based on my mood.

[Sollux]

You know, ultimately, I don't so much mind the weekly cap as I mind that it makes it harder to catch up.... such structures makes my playtime feel dictated rather than decided based on my mood.

I completely agree with this, although my mood ALWAYS demands Crafting so I fell behind in Eso myself. I got my first Eso item 2 weeks ago (MNK fists) because I had other priorities, but I was and still am happy with what I chose to focus on ^-^

[Alahra]

I completely agree with this, although my mood ALWAYS demands Crafting so I fell behind in Eso myself. I got my first Eso item 2 weeks ago (MNK fists) because I had other priorities, but I was and still am happy with what I chose to focus on ^-^

I'm too...I don't know the word for it...to ever miss capping one week. I have to do both or I feel like I've messed up. I enjoyed crafting as a wonderful diversion from weekly caps, Relic grinds, and so on, and I certainly spent a lot of time on it in ARR. But now that I have to every week, it loses some of that...relaxing factor for me.