Hardcore crafters, SE has rewarded you big-time in this patch.

[Seyb]

I'm definitely not a "tiny bit" from being able to do them without Beet Soup, though. It's going to cost millions that I presently don't have.

How is that so? Full ilvl 180 with white belt and white accessories get you to 3 stars with 437/439 CP. Overmelding needed, but you do it once for all classes. No big deal. Doesn't matter how expensive the IV materia are. You get enough of them from the level 58 and 60 quests. Square did a great job in my opinion.

[Alahra]

But if you were a crafter who picked two or maybe 3 (the specialist focus in other words), odds are you had your mixture of cheap i180/i170 already set up. I can guarantee that I was in the bottom percentile of 'people prepared for 3.2' and I still managed to cheaply hobble together the bare essentials to get a tiny slice of the volatile first day market.

I made the apparent mistake of not being able to see the future and waited to see the new 180 gear before committing to melds, assuming that the gear would be a viable option just as the 180 gear was viable up until this point. By that time, prices on Diabolos had plummeted to below the cost of HQ mats, and I'm left in a position of essentially not participating in endgame crafting this patch cycle while I instead take most of it to catch up.

It actually *is* a "shocker" since the developers had told us repeatedly that we wouldn't need specialized melded armor for crafting advancement in HW and now we essentially do. I don't get why people are being so non-empathetic about this. We were told one thing, which held true for HW up until now and what we were told no longer holds true, with no advanced warning. Apparently it's my fault for not reading the developers' minds, I guess, and using what they had told us to make decisions regarding my progression.

How is that so? Full ilvl 180 with white belt and white accessories get you to 3 stars with 437/439 CP. Overmelding needed, but you do it once for all classes. No big deal. Doesn't matter how expensive the IV materia are. You get enough of them from the level 58 and 60 quests. Square did a great job in my opinion.

It's going to be millions for me, I've looked at the costs on my server (or the equivalent of millions in time and money spent spiritbonding). I'm not an Omnicrafter, so I don't have everything at 60. We were also told that they wanted people to be able to participate in endgame crafting without needing all of the crafters leveled, so I stuck to the three crafts that I focused on in ARR (I had everything at 50 then, but I was never happy about it). Now you're telling me I should get everything to level 60 for the materia, too, something that also wasn't necessary up until this point (and shouldn't be, if the developers original statements were to hold true).

Again, my issue is that what we were told about the future of crafting progression leading up to HW, and regarding the purpose of the Red Scrip system doesn't line up with the present reality in 3.2. If we had been given some information regarding this (much as they gave information for the future of tank gearing for 3.2 ahead of time), I wouldn't be nearly as frustrated as I am now.

Instead, I get to spend this crafting tier playing catch up, which isn't exactly enjoyable. I feel like I'm being punished for making a decision regarding progression according to the stated development direction that was apparently the "wrong" one because things are being balanced differently now with no indication that a change was incoming.

[Seyb]

Now you're telling me I should get everything to level 60 for the materia, too, something that also wasn't necessary up until this point (and shouldn't be, if the developers original statements were to hold true).

http://ffxiv.ariyala.com/TBZ4
In my build you need:
4x CP IV
2x Control IV
RNG dependent amount of III materia

You say you have 3 crafters at 60:
3x level 58 quest: 3x IV materia of your choice
3x level 60 quest: 3x IV materia of each type

So you already get the small amount of IVs that you need through those crafting quests. Control III can get expensive, but it's manageable.
Anyway, crafting has always been and will always be: put money in and get money back.

We could argue all day. But in the end, it's not S-E's fault if we weren't prepared for 3.2.

And again: No. You did not make the "wrong" decision by going the 180 route until patch 3.2, as I have proven again and again with the above build.

[Kabooa]

It honestly sounds like you sat on your haunches.

Day 1 markets favor the quick, the prepared, or the rich. The best advice I can give you moving forward is be at least one of those three.

[Alahra]

So you already get the small amount of IVs that you need through those crafting quests. Control III can get expensive, but it's manageable.

Considering I got those materia six months ago at a time when the development directions stated we didn't need them, I didn't hold on to them. Again, you're asking me to have predicted the future.

Anyway, crafting has always been and will always be: put money in and get money back.

You're not telling me anything I don't know. Again, I had fully pentamelded sets in ARR (for more than my three main crafters, for that matter). But what changed in 3.0 is that the developers told us we would be able to invest time instead of money (in the form of overmelds) to reach the same result. Now, without indication, the state of the gear balance is that in order to be successful, you have to invest money instead of time again.

Again, my issue is that the direction changed without warning. Imagine how great the outcry over the tanking changes would have been if they hadn't given any warning that they were nerfing STR's contribution to attack power, leaving everyone who only had Slaying accessories at the beginning of 3.2 needing to do a bunch of work to get to a "proper" state again. Thankfully, they didn't do that. We had several weeks of tomes that we could dedicate toward Fending accessories as necessary since they informed us quite in advance that some form of change was coming (and they also made it pretty easy to catch up, far easier than it is for a 180 crafter to catch up at this point).

But I'm done with this. Folks honestly aren't trying to respond to my actual problem, only repeating themselves ad nauseum that since one can catch up it's fine. My issue is that we shouldn't need to be playing catch up for working within the design structure that was given to us and making what seemed like the best choice to us at the time given the information we had.

[Zorlinta]

Alhara, did u have checked the katlyna rotation that needs 387cp? thats very good one and if hq mats almost sure hq result

[Alahra]

Alhara, did u have checked the katlyna rotation that needs 387cp? thats very good one and if hq mats almost sure hq result

I'll take a look at it. I presently don't have much issue HQing them with all HQ mats, but needing all HQ mats significantly limits my ability to actually profit on 220 gear in my server's current market. A number of 170 crafters on Diabolos have been selling the pieces at roughly the cost of HQ mats, which makes it hard to compete if you can't do the same.

[Sollux]

Considering I got those materia six months ago at a time when the development directions stated we didn't need them, I didn't hold on to them. Again, you're asking me to have predicted the future.

He's not asking you to see the future, he's telling you that regardless of what you did with the materia at one point you had almost everything you needed to reach 3*. Of course it's not fair to expect you to hold onto it forever JUST IN CASE you needed it, but it also isn't fair to expect that Endgame stat requirements wouldn't go past what the base i180 gear gave 6-7 months later, regardless of what you think you were told.

It actually *is* a "shocker" since the developers had told us repeatedly that we wouldn't need specialized melded armor for crafting advancement in HW and now we essentially do. I don't get why people are being so non-empathetic about this. We were told one thing, which held true for HW up until now and what we were told no longer holds true, with no advanced warning. Apparently it's my fault for not reading the developers' minds, I guess, and using what they had told us to make decisions regarding my progression.

I could only find a single comment where the developers mentioned i180 gear vs melded gear and that was here: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...804-23-2015%29

The intention behind implementing the scrips system was that advanced materia melding was the only method by which players could increase their stats for Disciples of the Land and Hand classes, and we reached a point where a large amount of items was required to increase stats by even a small amount. For players who wish to race to the top as quickly as possible, they will be able to use materia as they have until now, but we’ll also have an alternative route for players to gear up by gradually saving up scrips. All players will need to use scrips at some point, so there will be a difference in speed for players who spend large amounts of gil on materia, but we're implementing this system with the goal of providing a new route for leveling Disciples of the Land and Hand classes.

I'm someone who never even glanced at the i180 gear before going full force for the i170, and even I was surprised that a full i180 set wasn't able to meet 3* requirements without some melding. The thing is, they never specifically stated that i180 gear alone would always reach Endgame levels, only that it was an alternate route to help gear up. They also never said overmelding wouldn't be a requirement to reach Endgame levels, and a full i180 set with minimal melds on white gear can reach 3* minimums with the right food:

http://ffxiv.ariyala.com/TBZ4
In my build you need:
4x CP IV
2x Control IV
RNG dependent amount of III materia

Seyb's build can actually be made even cheaper since it doesn't include the bonus from the Soul, which as of right now AFAIK every 3* recipe is Specialist only so the Soul bonus would be there by default.

In fact, you CAN reach 3* minimum stats in full i180 gear with no overmelds whatsoever and the only additional cost being a HQ Beet Soup: http://ffxiv.ariyala.com/TBZ4

Yes, you take a massive hit to CP, but the fact remains that you have the ABILITY to Craft Endgame items in full i180, and if you want more CP it takes a FRACTION of the cost to reach a comfortable level compared to someone overmelding even a single i170 piece.

But I'm done with this. Folks honestly aren't trying to respond to my actual problem, only repeating themselves ad nauseum that since one can catch up it's fine. My issue is that we shouldn't need to be playing catch up for working within the design structure that was given to us and making what seemed like the best choice to us at the time given the information we had.

Your problem is one you created yourself. You made the assumption that if you only focused on i180 gear you would never have to overmeld anything ever again and you would always be Endgame relevant. Your only reasoning for this is that we were told "multiple times" that i180 gear was all you needed to be Endgame relevant when I could only find a single quote on the subject, and nowhere in that quote did it state that you wouldn't eventually have to overmeld or get a non-i180 gear piece. On top of everything else, you actually DO have the ability to reach 3* minimum stats in full i180, you only need to eat the right food.

Tl;dr, Developers have never once stated that i180 gear alone would always leave you Endgame capable. If you focused on i180 you're not fat from 3* and can still reach it without spending millions, and this can be done either through minimal melds and HQ Seafood Stew or getting the i180 accessories + HQ Beet Soup.

[Alahra]

You made the assumption that if you only focused on i180 gear you would never have to overmeld anything ever again and you would always be Endgame relevant.

It is fair to say I assumed, yes.

Do you find that assumption unreasonable, given the state of things prior to 3.2? The i180 gear was more than enough to safely and comfortable craft 2-star items to the point that you didn't need all HQ materials to do so. Given that the gearing paradigms don't tend to wildly shift between raid tiers, was it unreasonable to assume they would stay the same from 3.0 to 3.2? There's an analogous system for battle class progression in that there are also two progression paths (raiding and tomestones): both of them end up at roughly the same point, with the difference between a full tomestone set and an optimized mix of raid and tomestone gear being relatively minor. Given the parallels between the battle progression paths and the crafting progression paths in 3.0/3.1, I'm not sure that the assumption I made was unreasonable.

There was actually similar frustrations back in 2.2, when they introduced the upgrade system for tomestone gear, for what it's worth, without much warning. A number of non-raiders I knew were understandably frustrated by the change (especially when there was, at the time, no indication that they would ever be able to upgrade the items without raiding). Maybe we'll see something in 3.3 that will make the i180 gear more comparable to the i170 gear, but as of yet, we've got no indication that this will be the case, since they're notoriously tight-lipped about crafting changes.

As I've said numerous times, I am capable of making 3.2 gear. I use Beet Soup and hit the minimums (I used some light base melds to get there). But hitting the minimums has left me at a disadvantage compared to a i170 crafter that did not exist before 3.2 to the same degree. I take issue with that size of the disadvantage, given that the difference between "hardcore" and "casual" gearing options generally do not have such noticeable differences in this game, so I do not find it unreasonable to have believed that no vast differences would exist for crafters in this regard.

[Iagainsti]

I concur, i220 crafted accessories are sweet! Especially with old beast tribes giving out grade Ivs like candy, I'm one 6% meld away from having 15 Str and 36Crit on my fending Neck /fireworks