Proposal: HQ mat-to-HQ mat conversion of 100%

[Rentahamster]

How do you know for sure that he's taking advantage of his server's gatherers? You're just assuming. The most likely scenario is that his LS is just like your LS which is just like my LSes - we all help each other out to achieve our shared goals because it helps us to progress faster and because we're all friends.

[Peregrine]

This tangent tells me exactly why a lot of crafters balk at the prospect of making HQ mats have better HQ conversions. It's because many of them consider gatherers 2nd class citizens, commoners, and easy pickings. If +3 materials had better +3 conversion rates, they know they'd be out of a job because they get by on "marrying up" poor-quality mats that gatherers give away as scrap.

These first-gen crafters who don't have gathering jobs are well on their way out of influence in the game. No sense in keeping the archaic system that they rely on to stay ahead. Now that the gatherers almost all have significant crafting levels...there's just no use for a crafter any more.

[Peregrine]

How do you know for sure that he's taking advantage of his server's gatherers? You're just assuming. The most likely scenario is that his LS is just like your LS which is just like my LSes - we all help each other out to achieve our shared goals because it helps us to progress faster and because we're all friends.

Nononono. My shell is not just like his shell. We do not suport crafting leeches who get to carp and alch to 50 by the sweat of OUR brows, because it only takes two town crafting leeches to drag the whole shells productivity down to their average level. All our smiths are miners. All our carps are bots. 90% of my smithing levels were solely powered by yours truly, and it's the same for everyone in the shell. We trade each other cross-class materials from gathering that we don't need that other crafts do need.

If you're a R50 crafter with no gathering job and apply to us, you'll get told to go gather unless you're a tanner who can kill. Because we already know you'll just sit there and beg for things. That's what all crafters are without gatherers. Shell drains. Assets go in. Little comes out.

[Rentahamster]

Nononono. My shell is not just like his shell. We do not suport crafting leeches who get to carp and alch to 50 by the sweat of OUR brows, because it only takes two town crafting leeches to drag the whole shells productivity down to their average level. All our smiths are miners. All our carps are bots. 90% of my smithing levels were solely powered by yours truly, and it's the same for everyone in the shell. We trade each other cross-class materials from gathering that we don't need that other crafts do need.

If you're a R50 crafter with no gathering job and apply to us, you'll get told to go gather unless you're a tanner who can kill. Because we already know you'll just sit there and beg for things. That's what all crafters are without gatherers. Shell drains. Assets go in. Little comes out.

You're assuming again. I dunno, it seems like a you have a bit of a grudge against crafters who don't also have a gathering job, but not all high level crafters are the kind of stereotype you think Solipse is. He's not even on the same server as you. You don't even know him. How can you ascribe all these negative characteristics upon him if you don't even know him?

There are other ways to have a nice, mutually beneficial relationship besides having both gathering and crafting ranked. Maybe he synths gear for the gatherers for free. Maybe he synths gear for their battle classes as well. Maybe he's a generous member of the community who helps others out when he can, and then others repay him back in kind.

I don't know. You don't know. But you can't just look at his character ranks and then just automatically assume you know everything bad about him. That's not fair.

[AmyRae]

Difficulty and risk adds value, however. All the easy-to-make make items in FFXI were practically worthless. Make it easy to HQ, and you're basically shooting yourself in the foot. If it's really hard and risky to make a +3 item, then it's really worth something that will fetch a great price, especially since they'll also be rare.

[Crimzon]

Half the problem is people arguing in this post feel they need to HQ3 everything along the way to HQ3 what they are looking for.

You dont NEED to waste your time acquiring a bunch of HQ3 ore and make HQ3 nuggets, and do that over and over and over until you have enough to make HQ3 ingots. Doing that, of course your % is going to be extremely low.

You want to increase your % of HQ3 ingots? Stop wasting your time. Take a bunch of NQ nuggets and just go from there. You will get HQ3 ingots far more quickly.

If you say you can get 600 quality using HQ3 mats then you can get 300 quality using NQ mats, which is plenty high enough to HQ3. Hell, you can HQ3 with 200 quality. I have done it making lumber plenty of times. I have also made +2 Iron spikes with just over 100 quality using my low level 25 ARM. I dont waste my time trying to get Iron nuggets +2/3 in order to try because its a waste of time.

[Solipse]

Oh to save these gems for posterity and see your face in the future. Look around. This ain't a bubble economy any more. A carpenter and alchemist with botany outright kicks your ass and runs circles around you. The ONLY reason you EVER amounted to anything is because you had an early level spread on those who did gather at the start. Now they've all grown up and are essentially better versions of you. I've done it to a ton of BS and GS'ers who did the same thing you did. They rode the bubble, made their early millions, then RAGED when I came right up behind them and steamrolled them with HQ mat support that they ran out of.

Your warehouse will run dry. People will stop giving you materials. Without access to mats, your quality is poor. Your income is poor. And you spiral to obscurity. Just another R50 crafter without any production value.

Free ride's over son. You'd best get to gathering, because no gatherer's going to give you so much as a maple log with that kind of attitude.

LOL.

This is a pretty good comedy act.

"Dear Warren Buffet,

You made billions riding the easy money stock market back when it was EZmode, but if you tried that today you'd be a total failure because the market has changed so much that someone like you just couldn't understand it. I made almost $1000 in the market last year, and I doubt you could even manage that today if you didn't have billions in the bank.

Free ride's over, Warren. You'd best learn computers and data modeling, because no stock broker's going to give you so much as a penny stock tip with that kind of attitude.

Signed,
No-name Know-it-all"

My warehouse will never run dry. If I ever decide to level gathering, it will be when they remove the retarded gathering fatigue system, and not before. It's going to be funny when they do because you'll be on here raging any ranting about how 'I leveled it when it was hard, I deserve to be better than someone who leveled it now'.

I'll be laughing ... well, just as hard as I am now. Keep it up. This is great.

[Solipse]

Nononono. My shell is not just like his shell. We do not suport crafting leeches who get to carp and alch to 50 by the sweat of OUR brows.

STOP BUYING WALNUT LOGS FROM MY RETAINER YOU'RE NOTHING BUT A LEECH TRYING TO PROFIT FROM THE SWEAT OF MY BROW!

These first-gen crafters who don't have gathering jobs are well on their way out of influence in the game. No sense in keeping the archaic system that they rely on to stay ahead. Now that the gatherers almost all have significant crafting levels...there's just no use for a crafter any more.

"There's just no use for a crafter any more, but I'm useful because I'm a crafter than can play hot and cold!"

[Peregrine]

Half the problem is people arguing in this post feel they need to HQ3 everything along the way to HQ3 what they are looking for.

You dont NEED to waste your time acquiring a bunch of HQ3 ore and make HQ3 nuggets, and do that over and over and over until you have enough to make HQ3 ingots. Doing that, of course your % is going to be extremely low.

You want to increase your % of HQ3 ingots? Stop wasting your time. Take a bunch of NQ nuggets and just go from there. You will get HQ3 ingots far more quickly.

If you say you can get 600 quality using HQ3 mats then you can get 300 quality using NQ mats, which is plenty high enough to HQ3. Hell, you can HQ3 with 200 quality. I have done it making lumber plenty of times. I have also made +2 Iron spikes with just over 100 quality using my low level 25 ARM. I dont waste my time trying to get Iron nuggets +2/3 in order to try because its a waste of time.

Trying to marry up materials is as big or more of a waste of time than getting +nuggets, and it's an inferior model because of the excessive waste. You're playing the lottery over and over hoping to strike it lucky, and that's just not a sane strategy. 300 quality provides an insufficient rate of HQ3 nuggets just as 0 quality provides an in sufficient rate of HQ1 nuggets. Can you do it? Yes. Have I done it? Yes. At a rate that is of any function or practicality? Of course not. The only reason I bold NQ Iron ore is because I can sell the massive amount of NQ product on the market for a decent amount to grinders. I certainly can't do that with weapon heads and ingots. I don't want NQ metal parts. No one else does either. They go in the trash.

I've crafted enough to know that trying to marry more than one level up is a waste of time in this system where NQ goes in the trash 90% of the time. If your goal is a dozen +3 ingots for 4 shots at a +3 mortar, the level cap will raise before you accomplish that with NQ iron ore. You'll make a ton of +1s and some +2's. But in the end what is a +1 ingot. Nothing.

You all seem to adamantly support a market of waste and lottery because you know it's something you can do and tolerate to be an epic crafter. The thought of expensive +3 materials, which is how reality works, makes you cringe because for all the talk about how you don't need gatherers, you don't need gatherers because you try to marry up crap into something decent.

It's not viable. It's worse than XI. Make the conversion rates more directly proportional to quality. That will make +3 materials expensive. That eliminiates most crafters from using them. That eliminates most crafters from the HQ market. That makes HQ3'ing hard.

But the difference is that it makes it hard in a meaningful way instead of this mindless, wasteful grinding.

Crafters who don't want 650 quality to talk know they won't be able to get their hands on it if it does because they were too lazy to level the gathering job that supports their crafting and instead chose to level another craft to double their profits.

They chose greed. They chose poorly. Level a gatherer. For every gatherer, there are 10 worthless town crafters. The economy will reflect that eventually. The economy actually reflects that now.

[JunkPunch]

Half the problem is people arguing in this post feel they need to HQ3 everything along the way to HQ3 what they are looking for.

You dont NEED to waste your time acquiring a bunch of HQ3 ore and make HQ3 nuggets, and do that over and over and over until you have enough to make HQ3 ingots. Doing that, of course your % is going to be extremely low.

You want to increase your % of HQ3 ingots? Stop wasting your time. Take a bunch of NQ nuggets and just go from there. You will get HQ3 ingots far more quickly.

If you say you can get 600 quality using HQ3 mats then you can get 300 quality using NQ mats, which is plenty high enough to HQ3. Hell, you can HQ3 with 200 quality. I have done it making lumber plenty of times. I have also made +2 Iron spikes with just over 100 quality using my low level 25 ARM. I dont waste my time trying to get Iron nuggets +2/3 in order to try because its a waste of time.

^ This is my exact train of thought.

I have been on a look out for a Blacksmith to make me a +2/3 Steel Claw Hammer. I'm currently farming steel nuggets, and mats for steel nuggets ATM. After using 8 x pieces of oak lumber +1, resulting in 8 nq oak hammer grips i decided to use my left over nq's, and made 4 +2 grips so far. No need to get the +3 IMO.

Currently to me, and my history of hq'ing items; touch ups, persistency, and luck are the only things needed to hq items. The hq tools, and abilities (which i love so much) just make the synth easier to finish and have enough durability to touch up 4-8 times.

When I go for a hq item using nq mats I try and get atleast 150 quality, before I finish and spam touch ups till 25 durability. Using hq mats at least 250. I have a decent hq track record (not ratio ^^) I think. Though I am very stubborn, and that's where persistency comes into play.