Have a Materia Melding NPC

[Khalithar]

Snip

Not sure if serious about crafting being "worthless" or if that was sarcasm. Assuming it's the former, crafters still have the stranglehold on glamour crystals (and with lots of new gear coming out there will always be a market for them) and they still make the best gear for gatherers and other crafters to until you start the BS that is scrip farming. If they reduced (or better, removed) the level minimum for melding, it would be fine. Another thought though, is that you could make it so that to overmeld (i.e. materia that has a chance to fail) it has a much higher chance of success based on the level of the crafter. That can actually encourage people to seek out higher level crafters or to just level it themselves.

[Gunspec]

they still make the best gear for gatherers and other crafters

Look, I love crafting, but come on. Its a classic case of the industry creating a demand for itself.

Outside of raid food and pots, and the occasional penta-meldable item that assists raiders in getting an edge, crafting has no point for endgame, and penta-melding is getting an overhaul soon. Crafting is mostly useful in keeping yourself and others geared while leveling, and providing various fun cosmetics either as personal glamour or housing decorations.

Glamour crystals is just a sub-system that was tacked onto crafting to make us feel relevant, but it comes as a determent to non-crafter's fun.

[Khalithar]

Crafting is mostly useful in keeping yourself and others geared while leveling, and providing various fun cosmetics either as personal glamour or housing decorations.

I've recently started crafting myself, power leveled cul to 50 using a leveguide and about to do the same for the others (all my crafters besides Cul are 25+) with HQ crafting sets already prepared for me to go by a very kind omnicrafter buddy of mine. So I'm not saying this as a non-crafter, I'm serious about getting in to crafting myself and I actually really enjoy crafting and gathering in MMO's I play. But I have a question for you with the above quote specificially: Is that really so bad?

[Gunspec]

Is that really so bad?

Crafting is fine, even if it is mostly a fun side diversion. I leveled mine to 60, knowing that the only real reason to do so was to gear them to continue gearing themselves. The problem is that crafters often complain about not being relevant, and the devs throw them a bone by shackling new systems to crafting.

Case in point... I know a few fcs of moderate size, and they are excited for the upcoming airship exploration, but they can't build their own airship because they don't have players who have the appropriate levels of blsm, arm, and crp to turn in the items.

While I can just shrug and do my own thing, I can understand people who just want to have fun and don't want to play an mmo like a chore. And the need to constantly ask your crafter friends to make a thing, or put a ball into a slot, can lead to people not even bothering to do it. Do you ever see someone in ilevel 35 gear that has melded materia? No, because while they might have materia to do it themselves, it's not worth asking someone to give you a moment of their time.

[Belhi]

Crafting is fine, even if it is mostly a fun side diversion. I leveled mine to 60, knowing that the only real reason to do so was to gear them to continue gearing themselves. The problem is that crafters often complain about not being relevant, and the devs throw them a bone by shackling new systems to crafting.

Case in point... I know a few fcs of moderate size, and they are excited for the upcoming airship exploration, but they can't build their own airship because they don't have players who have the appropriate levels of blsm, arm, and crp to turn in the items.

While I can just shrug and do my own thing, I can understand people who just want to have fun and don't want to play an mmo like a chore. And the need to constantly ask your crafter friends to make a thing, or put a ball into a slot, can lead to people not even bothering to do it. Do you ever see someone in ilevel 35 gear that has melded materia? No, because while they might have materia to do it themselves, it's not worth asking someone to give you a moment of their time.

With Airships you can buy the components of the MB if your FC all contributes funds to it. You don't have to build each component to have airships.

Seriously though, for the sake of balance, crafters don't make much in the way of endgame worthy gear. Crafting though takes a lot of work and while people enjoy it, they still want to feel rewarded for their efforts. Removing the perks of that effort is likely to make them unhappy.

Crafting shouldn't be mandatory for everyone, but likewise, it should be rewarding enough to match the effort it takes. Particularly now with all the gating/red scrip stuff.

[Gunspec]

snip

There is a difference, though, between making crafting rewarding, and adding tedious restrictions to players that don't craft. The glamour system is absolutely atrocious in this game, and it exists in that form solely to make crafters feel "rewarded". Melding can be frustrating, and doubly so when two people are forced to do it together.

As for the FC airship stuff, I've never seen an airship on my server's marketboard besides the Tiny Bronco, and those are normally listed for well over material price. They usually don't even have all four pieces listed at once. An FC with every craft except armorer can't turn-in darksteel plate, and thus can't finish their airships, even if they have all the darksteel they need from the marketboard. It's not like crafters are being cheated if that restriction is removed, because SOMEONE on the server crafted that darksteel plate. It's just the people who haven't leveled crafts that are being penalized. But yeah, I've told people if they give me the mats, I'll make the airships in my own FC workshop and trade it to them.

It's a matter of knowing someone that won't rip you off because they want to be "rewarded".

[Belhi]

There is a difference, though, between making crafting rewarding, and adding tedious restrictions to players that don't craft. The glamour system is absolutely atrocious in this game, and it exists in that form solely to make crafters feel "rewarded". Melding can be frustrating, and doubly so when two people are forced to do it together.

As for the FC airship stuff, I've never seen an airship on my server's marketboard besides the Tiny Bronco, and those are normally listed for well over material price. They usually don't even have all four pieces listed at once. An FC with every craft except armorer can't turn-in darksteel plate, and thus can't finish their airships, even if they have all the darksteel they need from the marketboard. It's not like crafters are being cheated if that restriction is removed, because SOMEONE on the server crafted that darksteel plate. It's just the people who haven't leveled crafts that are being penalized. But yeah, I've told people if they give me the mats, I'll make the airships in my own FC workshop and trade it to them.

It's a matter of knowing someone that won't rip you off because they want to be "rewarded".

A fair point. I don't disagree with you that there are unfair issues, particularly with the FC Airships.

I would ask however, how you would balance things so that crafting didn't feel mandatory or restrictive to non-crafting players and still was rewarding for crafters for the substantial time investment endgame crafting has? I suspect the heart of the issue is this balance. This issue isn't simply linked to the FC Workshop. Even now a lvl 60 ARM in endgame gear has practically nothing worthwhile making except stuff for the FC Workshop, Glamour crystals and a couple of pieces of glamour.