Patch 3.1: Crafting Not Reborn

[Millen1]

If I had to guess on why tier V materia is so costly to get from spoils or SB'ing the new i185 gear is that it may be the base for relic in 3.15 and they are giving us a few weeks to add to the lack of supply. Other than that I see no reason or use for tier V materia at this time.

On another note, they should have added an i170 gathering set for crafters to make plus the tier V materia to meld into it. I think they didn't do the crafting V materia cause they are looking for crafters to break a ton of materia melding their current gear.

[MeridaQ]

You missed my initial point though. This isn't about where you can get red scrip materials without gathering. It is about the fact that you cannot SPEND the red scrip TOKENS farmed via crafting without using gathering items. Even with the nerf on the amount of gathered items needed, that was just another example of a bone-headed move by whomever is in charge of the crafting/red scrips system at SE.

I hope that whenever Rainbow Tokens of Crafting get added, they avoid that mess and allow crafters to initially buy crafting mats without having to have gatherer items. At least with that setup the system won't be skewed 100% to gatherers.

Yes, that was the case for a long time. I was simply explaining how it is now, it was painful before less painful now. Now there are a multitude of options to get yourself gear, still wonky, still grindy but we hope for the next step!

[Loony_BoB]

If I had to guess on why tier V materia is so costly to get from spoils or SB'ing the new i185 gear is that it may be the base for relic in 3.15 and they are giving us a few weeks to add to the lack of supply. Other than that I see no reason or use for tier V materia at this time.

It is known that at patch 3.2, all endgame gear (raid + tomes gear) will be meldable. This could have been a huge reason for crafting to become useful (and they can still gate the prices by NPC options if they are worried about it becoming too big an expense to non-crafters), but instead it's faster to get the materia you want but running Diadem a few times. I mean, I'm one of the few that like Diadem, but it's ridiculous that you should get esoterics, i210 gear, red scrip mats and the option to pick out which materia you want all at once. Diadem has too much reward for any kind of content if you ask me. If they want to make materia more easily accessable, remove elemental materia from the game (or make it genuinely useful) and/or let us pick which materia we get each time we spiritbond gear and/or let us spiritbond at a much increased speed outside of Diadem, too. Right now spiritbonding war gear just isn't worth the effort. You could be wanting a Tier V Vitality materia and end up with a freaking Tier III Wind materia. That's just... urgh. Yeah, I personally wouldn't waste my time, and I actually enjoy spiritbonding gear to some extent.

[Mindy_Macready]

Yes, that was the case for a long time. I was simply explaining how it is now, it was painful before less painful now. Now there are a multitude of options to get yourself gear, still wonky, still grindy but we hope for the next step!

My point was that it is stupid that I cannot spend tomes I farmed via crafting without using items from other classes. It'd be like not being able to buy esoterics gear without also turning in a level 60 crafted item from a masterbook, given how the gathering items needed for red scrip purchases are hidden behind stupid Folklore books.

Leave the gatherers out of the crafter's tome system for the next expansion. They've had their time in the sun.

[DarkDedede]

Let's not forget the 3.1 retainer upgrade, which allows retainers give away previously crafted only items away like candy. When the entire server can now obtain these items, it ends up saturating the market. Since the player spent very little effort to obtain the market, they have no problems with driving the prices down to the point where it's no longer profitable to make by crafters. It's very difficult to compete with people that obtained their goods for free, and it leaves fewer areas of the market where crafters can make a profit.

[Lobotomite]

This is (probably) why DoH/L tier Vs are still incredibly rare; they're trying to use their rarity (and thus, cost) to sink some of the hardcores' gil stores out of the game. Thing is, (a) the hardcores are savvy enough to see what the devs are trying to do, and they're largely not going to bite/play ball, and (b) the entire non-hardcore crafting community's being held at gunpoint as well, especially if the recipe difficulty of 60 3* will require fully-melded 60 2* gear to reliably HQ (or, hell, even break past the drop-dead craftsmanship/control requirement).

Again, wasn't the whole point of the 3.0 crafting rebalance to make it accessible to casuals? Where is this vaunted accessibility? I, for one, am not looking for the recipes to be faceroll easy. But I am looking for a clear progression path, a reason to care, and for recipe materials to be cheap enough so that I can play around and experiment with rotations just like when things were good with Lucis and 50 4* back in the glory days of 2.4 yore.

Another potential reason that I thought of: it's a time gate. Keeping the DoH tier Vs rare will ensure that the new 'worthwhile' crafted raid gear will be inaccessible for a few weeks after the patch drops while crafters try and farm their materia to overcome craftsmanship/control requirements for 3* recipes. They don't want crafted gear allowing an easy way over the A7S and A8S Great Gear Walls of China.

[Rath]

My point was that it is stupid that I cannot spend tomes I farmed via crafting without using items from other classes. It'd be like not being able to buy esoterics gear without also turning in a level 60 crafted item from a masterbook, given how the gathering items needed for red scrip purchases are hidden behind stupid Folklore books..

Sorry, I may be misunderstanding your point. Are you saying you cannot spend red crafter tokens without having the gathering mats? If so, that is what the il180 crafting sets are purchased with. It is also the "intended" way for non-hardcore crafters to gear up.

[Mature]

Well I'm crafting lots and I mean LOTS more thanks to the 15 mats you get from red scrips so I'm happy. What I'm not happy that we are crafting for crafters....

[Mindy_Macready]

Sorry, I may be misunderstanding your point. Are you saying you cannot spend red crafter tokens without having the gathering mats? If so, that is what the il180 crafting sets are purchased with. It is also the "intended" way for non-hardcore crafters to gear up.

I'm aware of the 180 sets. I just find it stupid that I cannot buy mats with the scrips I farmed while crafting without also turning in level 60 folklore items.

[Alahra]

I'm back into crafting a bit, but overall I'm disappointed in 3.1 as well.

The Sky Pirate gear isn't really in that much demand since they can't even be melded (which makes the fact that they're i185 pretty weird to me--they could have at least been i190 to be a decent alternative to Alexander Normal).

Specialist Recipes are a bust since they didn't balance them in any way whatsoever (and they went seriously overboard too).

While it's nice that materials for the old two-stars are a little more readily available, things are still far too convoluted. Everytime I decide to make one, I get so turned around trying to remember which mats need which Ooid/Roundstone and which gathering item and I just get annoyed and say forget it.

ALC got new potions, but unlike almost everything else introduced this patch, they *aren't* Specialist recipes, so there's essentially no benefit to ALC specialization (as is the case for a few other crafts too). The difference between NQ and HQ isn't all that high either (not that it ever was), but with NQ being readily available from dungeon runs, the market's somewhat flooded with a cheap, nearly-as-effective, alternative (which is a repeat of the problem that occurred when they put X-Potions/X-Ethers in dungeon chests back in ARR). That being said, this was probably the best addition for me personally, though it would be nicer if they at least produced 3 potions per synthesis like they used to.