Worst fears about specialist crafting are realized

[Mindy_Macready]

It wasn't this way in 2.x. Crafted gear had real uses, mats weren't gated behind ephemeral nodes gated behind RNG, we didn't have a red scrip system that was supposedly designed to help people gear up without spending tons of gil, but has failed to do so, etc. etc. Really it just seems you're arguing for the sake of arguing.

What I described is that there's a real, definitive work versus reward ratio in this patch regarding gearing. Crafters having a lot of things to spend gil on is only good if there's a decent carrot in it for them, and there just really isn't one at the moment. I've made most of my gil in this patch while avoiding the specialist recipes and red scrip system, and it isn't just to FC members I'm selling to.

If you don't think there's a work to reward ratio problem in HW, then that's on you. I'm pretty sure my sentiments have been echoed by plenty.

[MN_14]

It was exactly the same way in 2.x; the first few to hit the new top tier can make the big gil per synth, anyone after that has to settle for a mere 5-6 figure profit per synth.

I've made several pieces of Sky Pirate gear for myself and FC members, there is demand for the gear. The problem on my server is the people look at the MB and see ingredients cost 120k, NQ gear listed for 1M, HQ for 2M.

The main problem isn't really related with specialization, but rather is the fact that there still isn't much incentive at the moment to be gearing your crafters with i170 gear, which is a time consuming process. The biggest recent money makers have been Sky Pirate gear, but those are merely 2* recipes which can be crafted and HQed easily with melded i150 gear as long as the minimum craftsmanship/control requirements are met and the crafter has a decent pool of CP. It might have been better if the i185 gear had tougher quality/progress requirements, but they're the same as the i170/i180 gear (and you can easily start with very high initial quality).

One benefit to the specialist recipes is that there are finally viable ways of monetizing 2* crafts at least. Despite the fact that a crafter is locked out from certain recipes, it does provide a reward for those who have upgraded their gear to meet 2* requirements.

However, just like before, there isn't much benefit to having craftsmanship/control stats higher than the minimum requirements other than to have a slightly easier time crafting them. This would be kind of like if you fully melded your patrician's gear in ARR, crafted all of your AF gear, fully melded them, and then acquired your artisan's main hand tools only to discover that all of the new recipes released are level 50 2* items, which could be HQed easily with the melded patrician's gear you started with. There might be a decent reward for gearing in the future, but it isn't here yet.

[StouterTaru]

The main problem isn't really related with specialization, but rather is the fact that there still isn't much incentive at the moment to be gearing your crafters with i170 gear, which is a time consuming process.

And like you said, that has nothing to do with the new system, that's how it was throughout 2.x.

There are issues with the HW system, but none of them are "it costs too much" or "there's no money to be made at the top tier." The problems in HW crafting are:

• DoL and DoH lockout scrips being used to get mats for DoW/DoM gear. Horrible idea, good riddance and don't come back.
• Specialist skills are junk.
• The DoL favor grind gating crafting. Even after being nerfed twice, they just need to eliminate favors completely.

[Mindy_Macready]

And like you said, that has nothing to do with the new system, that's how it was throughout 2.x.

There are issues with the HW system, but none of them are "it costs too much" or "there's no money to be made at the top tier." The problems in HW crafting are:

• DoL and DoH lockout scrips being used to get mats for DoW/DoM gear. Horrible idea, good riddance and don't come back.
• Specialist skills are junk.
• The DoL favor grind gating crafting. Even after being nerfed twice, they just need to eliminate favors completely.

You've just listed points that point to a huge problem with work versus reward. Why did you feel the need to be argumentative about that phrasing when you're pointing out the exact same thing?

It's not just about gil, and that seems to be the point you're getting stuck at when reading my posts (not that you've really addressed any of my points to begin with).

[StouterTaru]

You've just listed points that point to a huge problem with work versus reward. Why did you feel the need to be argumentative about that phrasing when you're pointing out the exact same thing?

Because it's still the same way it was throughout 2.x.

You can buy your way to the top quickly; just like it was with sealant and artisan/lucis weapons.

You can work your way to the top by adding the gathering grind. It's slower and less costly, but requires more playtime to get there.

You can take your time to the top by just doing red crafter scrips. It's a lot slower, much less costly, requires much less playtime to get there, but more real time due to lockouts.

The gil reward was always relative to how fast you got there, which is an inverse of how much time and gil you spent. The world firsts got the big prize.

You keep saying there's no carrot, no reward, not enough reward for the effort. What was the carrot in 2.x for you? Making gear for yourself, or your friends, ruling the marketboard, the sense of accomplishment in reaching the top?

[Mindy_Macready]

You're completely ignoring my posts.

[MN_14]

ARR and HW are not entirely the same of you look at it closely.

In ARR, the first major form of grinding was the artisan's mainhands and that coincided with the release of 3* recipes. You had to go through the grind in order to craft and take advantage of those new items. If you didn't craft those 50 tokens, no 3* items for you. The supras were released before they were required so most did not bother with them right away until the release of 2.4, which introduced artisan's offhands and 4* recipes. Again, if you wanted to craft the latest items and stay at the top, you had to go through the supra grind, craft your artisan's offhands, and obtain the new recipe books.

The only form of major grinding that was not required was the lucis tools, which seemed like they were designed to help those struggling with the master book ii tokens. Therefore, many 4* crafters did not bother with them.

Now over in 3.05, they introduced a massive grind if you wanted to gear your crafters with i170 gear. Even if fully geared and melded, there are no new items that you can craft and really no reason to gear at all (other than to prepare for hypothetical 3* recipes). In fact, the rational thing to do would probably be to wait until they nerf the process and then catch up later when they're actually required for something. Since the red scrips mats were tripled recently, it would actually have been better for me to start gearing now since the amount of work I did in the past would have been enough for me to be fully geared by now if red scrip tokens gave the same amount of materials as today.

There just isn't actually any real incentive for being at the top yet other than to show off your shiny new gear early.

Edit: I guess it should be noted that we're obviously completely off topic at the moment as this has nothing to do with specialization.

[AriaEnia]

Hi, can I ask something? Do you need to be a ltw specialist to craft High House Halfoots? That's what I want in a long time, a nice heeled half boots. I asked around in my server and they got too secretive about it, why's that?

[StouterTaru]

You're completely ignoring my posts.

I'll take Ephemeral nodes + reduction RNG over unspoiled nodes + craft + desynth RNG any day.

The red scrip system for DoH is nothing. On average, 6 retainer ventures, 90 minutes, and ~500 crystals bought from MB yields me my weekly cap and 7 maps in the process. Ixali was more of a grind.

As far as crafted gear being actually useful, the "useful" pieces were a tiny minority of all the crafted pieces in 2.x, and expansion/level cap raise balance was handled badly. The ilvl jump was steep and grindy, and making MB gear avoid that would have been bad. Expect "useful" crafted gear the first couple weeks of 3.2, now that the ilvl slope has settled.

My question still stands, what reward is there in crafting or the game in general for you? No, it wasn't trolling. You sound like the raiders that don't do Alex Savage because "there's no point with Diadem gear."

[Mindy_Macready]

The red scrip system for DoH is nothing. On average, 6 retainer ventures, 90 minutes, and ~500 crystals bought from MB yields me my weekly cap and 7 maps in the process. Ixali was more of a grind.

You're talking about grinding for red scrips, not actually using them. And you say the Ixali was a grind while red scrips are cake compared to those, honestly you're just being argumentative for quote-bites.

As far as crafted gear being actually useful, the "useful" pieces were a tiny minority of all the crafted pieces in 2.x, and expansion/level cap raise balance was handled badly. The ilvl jump was steep and grindy, and making MB gear avoid that would have been bad. Expect "useful" crafted gear the first couple weeks of 3.2, now that the ilvl slope has settled.

You're definitely underestimating the crafted gear in 2.x for the sake of your own argument. You're not even trying. You definitely come off as ignorant, did you even do raids in 2.x?

My question still stands, what reward is there in crafting or the game in general for you? No, it wasn't trolling. You sound like the raiders that don't do Alex Savage because "there's no point with Diadem gear."

Sigh...all I can say is read my posts. You're definitely trolling because I've already answered this, multiple times.