Please don't gate 3.2 crafted gear behind specialists.

[Roth_Trailfinder]

Keyburz, the specialist system does NOTHING AT ALL TO ALLEVIATE THOSE CONCERNS OF YOURS. The specialist system does not allow people to craft 2 star, or 1 star sky pirate or 1 star relic, items without those melds you complained about.



All it is doing is forcing whatever percentage of the crafting population that is at those stats out of the market based on the Specailizations chosen. That HURTS the market. It does NOTHING to help newcomers.

Getting t3 and t4 Materia are laughably easy. Forget buying Gil and spending it on Materia on the boards. 3 million Gil? That is more than enough to get a ton of t3 and t4 crafting Materia if that friend of yours wanted it. All it takes is hitting 50 (NOT 60, just 50) in both Miner and Armorer. No melds needed here. Mine up a ton of Cobalt Ores. BUY a bunch of Iron Ore off of a NPC vendor, or mine up a bunch of it. Buy, off of the NPC vendor, the left side crafting gear in Mor Dhona, and start QS'ing Cobalt Ingots. Hand them in for that triple leve in Mor Dhona. When the gear is done binding, convert and buy new gear. Guess what - income from those leves surpasses the money's spent on the gear, and you are getting t3/t4 Materia! With some t2/t3 from the i44 hat.

There are ways of getting Materia on the cheap if you but look. And they do not require melding. They simply require a little bit of the time and effort that you should want to be doing anyway. Having Armorer at 50 should be desired for the cross class skills. Having miner at 60 should be desired for the time savings in sending the retainer out for stuff you don't want to be bothered with, or for stuff while you are in a dungeon.

The problem with the specialist system is it does nothing at all to help people who have one or two crafts leveled. The problem with specialist is that it does nothing at all to help people get things done with lower gear. There is nothing good from the specialist system as currently implemented at all. I have said several times how to salvage the specialist system, how to make it at least alleviate the need to level all the crafters to 50 for the skills. SE does not seem inclined to actually do that, unfortunately, even though it is the solution that would best help your friend.

[F_Maximillian]

I started this game on July 4th weekend, after HW has launched. By the time patch 3.1 rolled around I had my DoL and DoH all at 60 and a week after I had full melds to reach 2* requirements on all my crafters. Between leves, turn ins, using online resources, and proper planning it isn't that difficult to get to that point. I play on what people refer to as the "graveyard server" where prices are, according to my friend who transferred from Balmung, 2 to 3 times higher than a more populated server. People seem to act like it's impossible for a new player to become omnicrafters and as a result people who actually put the time and effort in to become omnicrafters are penalized while those who the gating is supposed to help still suffer the same problems they had before. I'm new and I managed to do it so I don't understand why people can't just take the same steps as those that came before them so they don't need specialist benefits.

[Mindy_Macready]

Words

I'm pretty sure most of us agree that red scrips suck in general; just like the specialist system, they did exactly the opposite of what they were supposed to do, which is let someone catch up without having to be an omnicrafter.

I would not mind seeing both systems die in 3.2, and I don't think I'm alone in that regard (especially regarding red scrips. not everything needs to be a weekly lockout SE).

[Aikota]

So guys...about this "new crafting set" that is coming out...is anyone else gonna be pissed if its better than the i170 HQ sets O.o?

[Mindy_Macready]

Back in 2.x, the first upgrades were for the artisan specs, which were merely as good as a fully-melded AF head piece, but wearable by all crafters. Most of the upgrades in gear happened with the weapon and offhand until the Artisan craftable set. I'm hoping they follow this pattern because the 170 sets will still be useful at least for the next patch.

[StouterTaru]

the specialist system does NOTHING AT ALL TO ALLEVIATE THOSE CONCERNS OF YOURS. The specialist system does not allow people to craft 2 star, or 1 star sky pirate or 1 star relic, items without those melds you complained about.

Capping red scrips each week since they came out, you would now have earned enough red scrips to have bought 3 entire sets of MH + full left side. Fill in the rest of the slots with ilvl140 gear with minimal melds and you can make 2 stars.

[Roth_Trailfinder]

The scrip system is not the specialist system.

Yes, capping red scrip from inception to now allows you to get 3 full sets of gear (actually, I'd have to double check the math, I skipped saving them one week to try favors out early on, but I'm still two Thursday's from finishing the entire miner/botanist/fisher red scrip sets, my tool and all bought gear). Yes, melding the i140ish level Hallowed Chestnut accessories+belt would then give you stats to do 2 stars.

The specialist system, however, does nothing to help you cap those red scrips, does nothing to help you craft those 1 star sky pirate gear or the 2 star gear ... All it does is lock you out of the markets for crafted goods from at least 5 classes.

[keyburz]

Know what else limits people from crafting the 2 star stuff? GMs not handing out free materials. But no one wants that.
Look, lets stop looking to the specialist system as the reason very few people are geared enough to craft the highest level stuff, because we all know that the real reason is because the red scrips have a weekly limit and have a very high work requirement to receive those 2 star crafting materials. When the river stops flowing (the market), I dont waste time complaining about the large rock (specialist system) in the way, I care about the dam thats holding back the river (scrips system). It's a dam. A dam holds back water and lets a certain amount through at a time to generate power, and no more then what is designated. Just like the red scrip system. Only 450 a week. And just like turning turbines, the exchange rate is very harsh.

If the specialist system had as much of an impact as everyone thinks it is, then sky pirates gear would be even more expensive then the green 2 star clothing is. Is it more expensive? No.
I'm not saying the specialist system solves any of these problems. It's not supposed to. The solution to this entire problem is uncap the red scrips, and lower the amount of favor materials required to make an exchange.

Stop and think for a minute, and think about what would happen if red scrips had no cap. If the turn ins doubled in scrip value. If exchanges only required 2 favor materials each instead of 10. What would happen to the market? I could obtain the materials much easier, and could start making blue crafter gear for 500k each instead of 5 million. 200k each. 100k each. I could cut people a deal and help them with their offhands because I geared up my bsm and can guarantee an hq. And what would happen if crafter gear was much easier to obtain by buying instead of waiting 10 weeks? We would have many more geared crafters, with an even better set then mine because it could be melded, ready for 3.2

[Duuude007]

Stop and think for a minute, and think about what would happen if red scrips had no cap.

The examples you provided make such a suggestion sound like a nightmare. Don't crash the market, plox.

[keyburz]

Lucky for you I'm not on your server duuude, but thats exactly what i'm doing with adamantite ingots. If you spend all 450 crafting scrips on 9 tokens, you can make 9 trades for 135 coke per week, which makes 27 ingots. Which is what ultimately supposed to happen. I intend to put those 27 ingots up on the market every week from now on, starting in 2 weeks, because i am done gearing up. So far I've brought ingot prices down to 400k through hard work and reinvesting, while the other 4 are still hanging around 1m each. I'm not someone that wants to be the ceo of walmart and keep the profits to myself. My entire reason for crafting is simply to lower the prices to help others advance in the game.