The Current Ecnomical State of ARR

[TahoeMax]

Well, as a 3-star crafter who went through 3.1 and all of the hassle of favors, I\\\\'ll say that the newest crafting materials are light years easier than 3.1

Then: gathering Adamantite, trading for red scrips, gathering ooids, crafting for other red scrips, trading for mats, crafting other mats, using those to make gear. Weekly limits

Now: Gather a few mats with hourly nodes. Trade some esoterics for other mats. Craft advanced mats. Make gear. No weekly limits. Everything market-ready

So it\\\\'s more streamlined in a way. That said, you need to have some SERIOUS gear, either having invested months of red scrips or melded the crap out of your crafted gear. You also now need help to make all the gear. I think eventually the i220 gear, which is quite raid-viable, will be affordable for many and will make the cost of entry into that tier of gameplay somewhat reasonable compared with grinding gear to reach the next ilvl cap, then grinding again.

So them\\\\'s my thoughts

[-BlueGreen-]

I think eventually the i220 gear, which is quite raid-viable, will be affordable for many and will make the cost of entry into that tier of gameplay somewhat reasonable compared with grinding gear to reach the next ilvl cap, then grinding again.

For kicks, I just checked this point on my server:
High Mythrite Helm of Fending 4-6 mil (no current listings)
High Mythrite Cuirass of Fending 4-8mil (currently only one listing at 8mil, history shows just four sales in this price range)
High Mythrite Gauntlets of Fending 4-6 mil (1 current listing at 5 mil)
High Mythrite Sabatons of Fending 4-6 mil (1 current listing at 5 mil)
High Mythrite Plate Belt of Fending 3-4 mil (2 listings for 3.1 mil each)
Each accessory in the range of 2-3 mil (a fair number of listings in this range for each type)

Without considering weapon, that's about 30 mil for the low end. How in the world can that be considered affordable? Will prices go down? Let's look at the items for anima weapons:
Kingcake x4 for a total of 2mil
Adamantite Francesca x4 for a total of 1.4mil
Titanium Alloy Mirror x4 for a total of 1.8 mil
Dispelling Arrow x4 for a total of 1.2 mil
Grand total of 6.4 mil. It's been a good few months, and this weapon is now outdated by 3.2 standards, yet still costs about double the max price of a small house on this server, and that's also not counting any of the other effort of grinding and such for this weapon.

Now, if I happened to be the greedy type, I could certainly power up a few specialist and have fun posting some of these items and rake in the gil. But what purpose would that serve? I don't want gil, I want to have fun. The specialist system sucks and I don't want any part of it. Besides, at these prices, how is this sustainable? Is this SE's way of endorsing the gil sellers? I can't think of any other way for this kind of gil to enter the economy for "most players" to use this stuff to gear up for entry level raiding. Going based on what I've seen before with prices, these will crash once they're obsolete and therefore won't do anyone any good for entry level raiding.

[Sollux]

Besides, at these prices, how is this sustainable? Is this SE's way of endorsing the gil sellers? I can't think of any other way for this kind of gil to enter the economy for "most players" to use this stuff to gear up for entry level raiding. Going based on what I've seen before with prices, these will crash once they're obsolete and therefore won't do anyone any good for entry level raiding.

The problem with your economy is almost certainly due to a low number of Endgame Crafters on that server. Either your server is small and a few people are holding a monopoly, the market isn't Crafter-friendly (Low mat costs, plentiful amounts listed, etc.), or others have taken the exact same stance you about the Specialist system.

The best explanation I can honestly give you is that since the start of 3.0 SE has been trying to appeal to all types of Crafters, including HC Crafters, but the Crafting Endgame for the past 6 months has been lackluster at best with no real motivation to improve gear other than self satisfaction. Now that Crafting gear is viable those who put off gearing their Crafters for the past 6 months are struggling due to inflated costs and no preparation (I.E. Didn't save Red Scrips). Because of this the only players capable of mass producing 3*s are those who planned for the future and those who Craft for enjoyment and progression like myself, and the demand is much MUCH higher than the current supply.

I can't really find a non-Elitist way to say this, but the drastic changes to Crafting since HW release has effectively separated the HC Crafters from the Casual Crafters, and there is a VERY small number of HC Crafters even when compared to HC Raiders.

[-BlueGreen-]

I did say "eventually". And apparently what I meant was "in a few days".

I know you're being sarcastic, and I was being slightly unrealistic given that the content is so new, but that's also why I continued on by examining the costs of the anima weapon, which is inferior iLvl-wise and has been out a while. My basic point isn't so much that the prices aren't affordable within days of release, but rather that they're so slow to come down to reasonable levels that even being one patch outdated doesn't cut it. Want to gear up to pre-3.0 i110 in level 50 gear? That's affordable enough last I checked, but what would be the point? It's pretty obsolete and the 3.0 i115 gear is much easier to get the materials for.

The problem with your economy is almost certainly due to a low number of Endgame Crafters on that server. Either your server is small and a few people are holding a monopoly, the market isn't Crafter-friendly (Low mat costs, plentiful amounts listed, etc.), or others have taken the exact same stance you about the Specialist system.

I suspect it's a mix of those reasons, but given how crafting doesn't involve forming an 8-man static I would think that the ratio of crafters to non-crafters should be relatively similar across all of the servers. Although, a question: How does low mat costs/high mat availability hurt crafter-friendliness? What I've found so far is that if I need something for a craft, it's generally available and reasonably priced on my server unless it requires specialization.

The best explanation I can honestly give you is that since the start of 3.0 SE has been trying to appeal to all types of Crafters, including HC Crafters.

...

I can't really find a non-Elitist way to say this, but the drastic changes to Crafting since HW release has effectively separated the HC Crafters from the Casual Crafters, and there is a VERY small number of HC Crafters even when compared to HC Raiders.

If that first part about SE's goal in this is accurate, then your closing statement acknowledges that SE has failed and that they need to re-evaluate the path they're on.

[Sollux]

I suspect it's a mix of those reasons, but given how crafting doesn't involve forming an 8-man static I would think that the ratio of crafters to non-crafters should be relatively similar across all of the servers. Although, a question: How does low mat costs/high mat availability hurt crafter-friendliness? What I've found so far is that if I need something for a craft, it's generally available and reasonably priced on my server unless it requires specialization.

There are plenty of players who are also Crafters of course, but when I mentioned Endgame Crafters I was referring to the players who had their classes geared and ready for the current Endgame Crafting recipes. A properly overmelded white set could HQ all the way up to 2*, and given the potential time/gil sink getting i180/i170 gear requires coupled with no immediate benefits caused most players to not even touch Red Scrips at all. Because of this, the only players actually capable of Crafting the current 3* recipes are those who either had the gil/time to spare for the gear and were planning for the future or those who enjoy Crafting and geared their classes just to see improvements. Even combined, these types of players are an extremely small fraction of the Crafting community and I wouldn't be surprised if there was only 1 or 2 players capable of making 3* recipes at 3.2 release on smaller servers. I'm on Tonberry, a server I've been told has more high level Crafters than most and even now I usually only compete with 3-5 people max on most of my markets.

As to markets being Crafter friendly and my "(Low mat costs, plentiful amounts listed, etc.)" I was giving an example of what makes a market Crafter friendly. Some mats may be harder to find making the price rise and availability limited, and while this may not be true for Gathering mats it most certainly is in terms of 3* mats. Having a smaller playerbase means it's easier to have a monopoly on a certain market, and if you need a 3* mat that you can't make you're going to be forced to pay whatever price the person that has that monopoly deems fit, or spend a week+ worth of Scrips to change one of your classes. Higher mat cost means the final product will cost more to compensate, making it harder to sell (Or buy if you're trying to purchase it). You might make a large profit from big spenders every once in a while, but it's a drop in the bucket compared to how often you could have sold that item had it been at a more reasonable price.

If that first part about SE's goal in this is accurate, then your closing statement acknowledges that SE has failed and that they need to re-evaluate the path they're on.

Yes and no, the real issue lies with player mentality and SE's inability to interpret how the majority of players viewed Crafting. The biggest thing that caused most players to drop Endgame Crafting was the lack of any tangible benefit to gearing up. More 2* gear only helped in making 2* gear easier to Craft, but costs were so high and demand so little that there was no point to doing it if you were in it for the gil. It also didn't help that a gating system such as Red Scrips was a completely new concept and had it's own inherent flaws (15 minute Favors with no guarantee of getting anything at all was my biggest complaint). This was where SE dropped the ball.

As for the players, it took over 6 months for SE to release recipes that couldn't be Crafted with properly melded white gear. That's at least 25 weeks worth of Red Scrips, or 225 Red Scrips that could have been collected. With minimal melds on Accessories a player can Craft a 3* in full i180 gear + the OH, which costs 100 Red Scrips total IIRC. That's at least 2 classes that could have been 3* ready only by capping Red Scrips each week. Not only that, Red Scrip mats to craft i170 gear are literally 3 times easier (And cheaper) to get thanks to the increases near the end of last year. They may not have had the incentive to gear up their classes, but they had the ability to. This is the player's fault, but one I don't hold against them.

[MomomiMomi]

This is the player's fault, but one I don't hold against them.

But not the fault of new players, who get hit by this pretty hard.

Basically, red scrips are where they've really messed things up at. That's where the real problem lies.

[Sollux]

But not the fault of new players, who get hit by this pretty hard.

Basically, red scrips are where they've really messed things up at. That's where the real problem lies.

This isn't a problem, it's something that happens in every MMO. A new player cannot expect to immediately enter Endgame content for Crafting OR Combat if they start months later. The Crafting system functions differently in that the time between gear progressions is MUCH longer than it is for Combat, this hasn't changed since 2.0, the only difference is that the best gear is now locked behind a weekly cap. Even then, a properly melded white set can Craft everything up to 2* which means a diligent player can reach up to 2* levels of Crafting without touching Red Scrips at all.