Please Remove the Materia Melding Crafter Restriction

[Cabalabob]

I got my crafters to 50 to be able to do all my own repairs and that was such a CHORE! I just decided today to start melding my gear and after paying a ton for grade 4 carbonised matter cause I don't have gatherers levelled I saw the message "requires level 60 goldsmith" -____- sold the carbonised matter, sold the materia, took a shower because seeing that message made me feel dirty...

I'd maybe be ok with it if they made it 1 crafter to 60 to meld anything or stopped the crafting requirement at 50 like with repairs, but having to get all my crafts to 60? Just no... Crafting should remain just that, crafting, making the gear that we meld the materia to.

[Lambdafish]

that was such a CHORE!

lol...
/10char

effort (lets bold that, it is a key word).

[Shurrikhan]

[CHORE -> effort]

lol...
/10char

Correct my understanding if I'm mistaken, but, if a given "effort" feels in almost no way satisfying but merely necessary or otherwise punitive, isn't the term "chore" equally applicable?

So you are saying that we should complicate the system massively for... no benefit to the balance of the game as a whole? You also don't like the restriction, but all classes have restriction, that is what gives them relevance in a team based game.

Technically speaking, the balance of the game shifted already with the addition of traditional materia slots to non-crafted gear. For the balance itself not to have been changed or additionally complicated with this patch, the materia slots added would have needed to be of a different type that requires no crafter, a minuscule design addition, but one that allows the faint stat customization SE apparently wanted to add without adjusting that balance. If you are of the opinion that crafters need more required presence throughout the game (the ability to jump straight into i220 gear, generate large amounts of money, self-over-repair, craft glamor gear and housing items, and bind materia to crafted gear somehow far too lacking) then perhaps this shift in balance was for the better to you, but it was nonetheless a shift. The requests not to require a crafter for non-crafted gear melds merely maintain the balance that has existed until this patch (while requests to allow binding of materia by oneself--without a crafter--to all but advanced melds would inadvertently shift the balance in the opposite direction).

Couldn't you say the same about leveling any class in the game in order to do end game content? (btw scroll back to page 29 to see the context of the quote). Also, I may have misquoted in that it was directed at the overall tone of the post, rather than specific words

Fair enough. I do at least feel like the jobs come out feeling different enough from each other though, rather than the 'gotta catch'em all' of cross-class 15/50 crafter skills. Perhaps that's why I gave up on leveling all crafts on this char, in hopes that one day the system might actually be intrinsically interesting or enjoyable, but nearly had full 50s combat classes on both at that same time. Somehow the first seemed a chore to me, the second a mostly enjoyable effort. I can see why it'd be flipped for others though.

[Lambdafish]

Correct my understanding if I'm mistaken, but, if a given "effort" feels in almost no way satisfying but merely necessary or otherwise punitive, isn't the term "chore" equally applicable?

Couldn't you say the same about levelling any class in the game in order to do end game content? (btw scroll back to page 29 to see the context of the quote). Also, I may have misquoted in that it was directed at the overall tone of the post, rather than specific words

[Felis]

I got my crafters to 50 to be able to do all my own repairs and that was such a CHORE!

You can buy exp with gil

[Warlyx]

crafting in this game is the most boring thing ever....hell even FFXI was more fun , breaking crystals and losing mats.....sucked but if i leveled woodworking i didnt need to level weaver .....plus with arrowheads and buying wood from npc i could use it to create my own arrows for days.... 33 arrows every arrowhead...(66 or 99 if HQ or HQ2)

[Jacien]

It never made sense. Cloud and other FFVII characters never needed a specialist to put some balls in the holes.

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

[FoxyAreku]

You're still time-gated because of how leve allowances work. My point thus still stands.

I will grant you that battle leves have been made inefficient enough that it's just better to use allowances for local leves (one of the many gripes I have with what they've done to guild leves but that's for another day).

I still see it as a weak point. Time gating isn't new in mmos and really what else are you going to use leves for anyway? Almost willing to bet that you have 100 allowances atm that you don't even use. That's 4 or 5 level 60 crafts right there (if they are at 50).

I got my crafters to 50 to be able to do all my own repairs and that was such a CHORE! I just decided today to start melding my gear and after paying a ton for grade 4 carbonised matter cause I don't have gatherers levelled I saw the message "requires level 60 goldsmith" -____- sold the carbonised matter, sold the materia, took a shower because seeing that message made me feel dirty...

I'd maybe be ok with it if they made it 1 crafter to 60 to meld anything or stopped the crafting requirement at 50 like with repairs, but having to get all my crafts to 60? Just no... Crafting should remain just that, crafting, making the gear that we meld the materia to.

You don't need all of them though.

Just getting goldsmith, leatherworker and weaver (or armorer instead of weaver if a tank/dragoon) will cover 90% of your gear.

Also it seems you apparently have a very low tolerance for leveling because getting crafts to 50 is super easy and doesn't take any time at all unless you run out of leves (which in that case, you can just wait a week for more).

crafting in this game is the most boring thing ever....hell even FFXI was more fun , breaking crystals and losing mats.....sucked but if i leveled woodworking i didnt need to level weaver .....plus with arrowheads and buying wood from npc i could use it to create my own arrows for days.... 33 arrows every arrowhead...(66 or 99 if HQ or HQ2)

This isn't FFXI and this crafting system is better anyway.

[Aarik]

I've yet to see a compelling reason to keep it. Any reason I've seen is either a faulty Appeal to Tradition, ("It's always been this way, why change it?") or an incredible exaggeration overstating how essential, rewarding, or compelling clicking a confirm button is as a mechanic.

In the absence of a counter-argument, "because it's inconvenient" is reason enough.

You keep wanting a counter-argument? Fine, here's one. For crafters that have been on this game for a loooong time (personally, since 1.0 beta), arguments like yours (it's just a small change guys, what's the big deal?) have utterly crippled crafting. Here's a timeline showing how.

1.0: The absolute, best quality gear crafters could make was actually on par with what was BiS at the time (at least for a while). Crafted gear was extremely relevant, but not required; you could choose what 'path' you wanted, gear wise, each with benefits and downsides. Later on in 1.0's lifespan, the dev team introduced a really, REALLY cool concept; Hamlet Defense. This particular instance incorporated not only the battle classes, but DoL and DoH as well in a battle! The DoH had to produce quality equipment for the npcs that helped the players defend the outpost; the more and better quality provided, the better the npcs would fare. However, the beastmen knew this and thus DoH had to be defended. It was an amazing idea! But....but it had crafters....in a battle! How dare those filthy crafters move from their crafting corner and sully the battle classes! 2.0 remedied this, and Hamlet Defense died.

2.0: So, remember how top-tier crafted gear was equal to BiS gear in 1.0? Well that made crafters seem too relevant, so we'll drop them down 10 levels below BiS (15 for weapons, if I remember correctly). I mean, it's only 10 ilevels right, what's the big deal? And then the dev team revealed their true intentions for crafters; the glamour system! Seemed awesome, and is awesome at times....but it foreshadowed what would happen. Still, 10 ilvls under BiS was still relevant, if not ideal, so crafters trudged on. Over the course of 2.0, SE set a precedent; if you wanted to be a relevant crafter at all, you'll have to devote all your time, soul, and gil to it (crafting 'relics', anyone?), to make gear that would still be sub-optimal. Crafters weathered through it.

3.0: The scene for crafters gets worse. Right from the start, the best gear crafters could make was not 10, not 15, but 20 levels below BiS. 20. Just another small change right, it's only 5 ilvls difference from last time! Then a little later, SE introduced scrips. Now, on top of crafted gear being laughably below BiS, it was also heavily gated. Then 3.1 hits, and....best crafted gear is now 25 ilvls below BiS. Once again, it's only a little change right? It's only 5 ilvls! Oh, and did I mention that SE has already fully implemented their future plans for crafting on one of the classes? Remember Blacksmiths? Remember the last time Blacksmith had any relevant gear they could make? I do, it was approximately a year ago, with Wootz weapons. A year. Blacksmith is now officially a glamour class; it should be GLM, not BSM.

So no, Cosmic, "because it's inconvenient" is NOT reason enough. It's another 'just a small change, what can it hurt!' Guess what? Enough small changes make for MASSIVE changes over time. That is why we are so against this. Crafters are slowly, but surely being rendered irrelevant by comments like yours.

[SaitoHikari]

I'm not even sure what the big problem is. I only began playing towards the end of last Summer and I already have all gathering/crafting classes unlocked. I slowly leveled them all at once through grand company turn-ins. It took me like 4 months to cap them all (and I took a two week break after I hit the stat wall that was Heavensward gathering/crafting until I figured out how to proceed), but I kept at it in a steady pace that only took like an hour every day. I didn't break my bank along the way either, if anything I made tons of gil in the process just selling spare materials. I started at like 400k and ended up with about 8 mil by the time I capped all my crafters.

I did think crafting sucked at first, until I learned you could cross class crafter actions. It became incredibly easy to level from then on, since grand company and leve turn-ins double EXP for HQ items.

I never leveled my craft/gather classes to make gil. I only leveled them to become self-sufficient and to help others. At the very least, I'm thankful that crafter stats have no bearing on the success rate of overmelding, so pretty much anyone can walk up to me and request a meld for free.