Crafting a Dead Horse: Work vs. Reward Seriously Needs a Revamp

[Viviza]

You'll never see a serious effort made for crafting to be end-game relevant. The focus is largely on leveling gear, novelties, and side content like airships.

If this makes you unhappy, you should drop crafting. I'm not saying this to be dismissive, I'm saying this because crafting must be this way. Making crafting competitive with drops will ultimately reward people who bot or RMT more than actual players. Many top raiders, crafters, and gatherers abuse these systems because they can use them to get ahead. Botting and cheating are not well controlled, but only have a mild impact because the economy isn't tightly bound to the core mechanics of the game. Also the gating system frustrates a lot of people, but it does keep people without much playtime on more equal footing.

I'll agree that the sheer effort involved is not in proper proportion to the rewards. The system is very convoluted, and only really serves to make crafters craft things which make them better at crafting. That's a lot of running in circles.

[F_Maximillian]

You'll never see a serious effort made for crafting to be end-game relevant. The focus is largely on leveling gear, novelties, and side content like airships.

If this makes you unhappy, you should drop crafting. I'm not saying this to be dismissive, I'm saying this because crafting must be this way. Making crafting competitive with drops will ultimately reward people who bot or RMT more than actual players. Many top raiders, crafters, and gatherers abuse these systems because they can use them to get ahead. Botting and cheating are not well controlled, but only have a mild impact because the economy isn't tightly bound to the core mechanics of the game. Also the gating system frustrates a lot of people, but it does keep people without much playtime on more equal footing.

I'll agree that the sheer effort involved is not in proper proportion to the rewards. The system is very convoluted, and only really serves to make crafters craft things which make them better at crafting. That's a lot of running in circles.

The masses shouldn't be punished because the very few break the rules. Plus, plenty of DoW/DoM bot fates and such, should fates be removed and exp slowed to punish the masses leveling those classes because a couple people bot? If not then why should crafters and gatherers receive the same treatment?

[Sartori]

" recipes are locked behind Master books"

This made me laugh, seriously? Locked? You do know how incredibly easy it is to get these books...or maybe you don't.

[Roth_Trailfinder]

The ease at which a lock is bypassed does not remove the presence of said lock.

Leveling recipes are locked behind Blue Crafting Scrip. Those who only have one class 55 or higher to obtain those Blue Crafter Scrip may find them a lot harder to gain than those of us who had brought all of the crafting classes up.

[Sartori]

The ease at which a lock is bypassed does not remove the presence of said lock.

Leveling recipes are locked behind Blue Crafting Scrip. Those who only have one class 55 or higher to obtain those Blue Crafter Scrip may find them a lot harder to gain than those of us who had brought all of the crafting classes up.

uhh, level another class?

[Roth_Trailfinder]

I don't disagree. That is the standard advice. Yet those who persist in their refusal to level other crafting classes will continue to have a hard time, and will find that leveling recipes are locked behind the Blue Crafting Scrips.

[Alahra]

Master books aren't particularly hard to acquire (though it does depend on your class--some of the recipes are much easier than others and also much less expensive in terms of gil and/or opportunity cost). However, levequest items and even some of the *Blue Scrip* items are locked behind the Master Books, which is rather counter intuitive since you need Blue Scrips to *get* the Master books. That's needlessly restrictive (as is, in my view, the presence of basic "starter" gear for level 60--you should be able to do basic things for people by capping your class without a currency grind).

I don't disagree. That is the standard advice. Yet those who persist in their refusal to level other crafting classes will continue to have a hard time, and will find that leveling recipes are locked behind the Blue Crafting Scrips.

It's also worth noting that HW was supposed to make it *easier* for people to have just one class, or a few--that's the entire point of Specialization. The Blue Scrip turn-ins are in no way balanced across the various classes, which is just another thing SE did that actually still greatly encourages omnicrafting (Red Scrips are the same way of course, but that's not the topic of discussion).

[StouterTaru]

Many of the items are on people's wish lists, but the opportunity cost of making them is simply too high still, even after 2.5 months.

I'm sure at least 90% of those people with the item on their wish list have no idea what the cost would be.

Body/Legs: 92 favor items, 300 red crafter scrips
Head/Hands/Feet: 66 favor items, 200 red crafter scrips
Waist: 46 favor items, 150 red crafter scrips

Add in all the aethersand, timed node items, legendary node items, and profit for the crafter, and you're looking at 5-50M per item depending on server.

[Alahra]

I'm sure at least 90% of those people with the item on their wish list have no idea what the cost would be.

That's probably quite true. I mentioned it mainly to indicate that there is demand for the items, though, so if we *could* reasonably make them, they would probably sell, though how well they would sell is another matter entirely.

[StouterTaru]

That's probably quite true. I mentioned it mainly to indicate that there is demand for the items, though, so if we *could* reasonably make them, they would probably sell, though how well they would sell is another matter entirely.

Pretty much, I had a FC member ask me how much a set of tank gear would cost a few weeks after the stuff came out. I gave a very generous price knowing there was no way he could afford it. He responded with an "oh, nvm."

You could get the 6 piece left side 180 set from less than an hour a day for 15 days, doing a daily expert roulette and daily hunts.

Or you could spend over an hour a day for 3 weeks gathering and crafting to make the same 6 pieces, using all your DoL/DoH lockouts.

100M gil for something that would require 12 hours of your time... How is this catch up gear again?