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

[Kimahri]

Are you kidding me? Grow the hell up. This is a game. That's it... No need to go about slapping each other over such a thing. This game needs adjustment, not childish arguments. There is nothing wrong with more competition. The reason why I hated FFXI economy at first was because everybody was monopolizing the gear. If anyone from Siren server knows Quizatsa, then you'll know what I'm talking about.

The only thing I'm concerned with is the difficulty of the HQ++ items. Right now the Quality is loopy in my mind and needs to be adjusted. It needs to be based on skill & luck rather than just luck. The most difficult things should revolve more around luck. Haha, I'm confusing myself. Sorry.

Point is we're not going to find any alternative if we keep having a cat fight over every topic. Shut up, act like an adult, and discuss different points of view that you can use to further develop a better crafting concept.

[Solipse]

Are you kidding me? Grow the hell up. This is a game. That's it... No need to go about slapping each other over such a thing. This game needs adjustment, not childish arguments. There is nothing wrong with more competition. The reason why I hated FFXI economy at first was because everybody was monopolizing the gear. If anyone from Siren server knows Quizatsa, then you'll know what I'm talking about.

The only thing I'm concerned with is the difficulty of the HQ++ items. Right now the Quality is loopy in my mind and needs to be adjusted. It needs to be based on skill & luck rather than just luck. The most difficult things should revolve more around luck. Haha, I'm confusing myself. Sorry.

Point is we're not going to find any alternative if we keep having a cat fight over every topic. Shut up, act like an adult, and discuss different points of view that you can use to further develop a better crafting concept.

Oh, I agree with you. My last post was total sarcasm - the guy just doesn't get it (as his last post showed) and I was having a little fun.

Back to the point, though, you're absolutely right about HQ chances, at least for materials. The problem, though, is that that CANNOT be the first change they make. If that were the first change, it would bottom out the entire economy to the point that gil was completely worthless.

Case in point:
If I can make an HQ+3 weapon in 10 tries with HQ+2 mats, whereas right now it takes 20 HQ+3 mats, then price of materials will drop to probably 8% of current prices because people won't need as many of those to make their items. When prices get that cheap, it will cost next to nothing to craft to a HQ+3 weapon aside from 10 minutes of someone's time to do those 10 combines, and so within a month, everyone is going to be strolling around with HQ+3 items. Extending that out even further, within a month of THAT, +3 items will be so commonplace and overproduced that THOSE will be just as unsellable as NQ items are currently.

What needs to happen, roughly in this order:

1) Materials consumption needs to remain high so that gathering continues to be viable.
2) A positive-reinforcement approach needs to be implemented for removing gear from the economy ( see http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...-are-Worthless ).
3) Sub material synthesis HQ rates need to be tweaked. ( again, see http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...ute-for-HQ-ing ).

There are certainly more steps, but think for a minute about where the economy will be at this point:

1) Material costs actually INCREASE from where they are right now: you will see yew logs back up to 10k. Since even NQ materials can, in great enough quantity, eventually find their way into a piece of a +3 or better synthesis, the max ranked crafters will utilize those in item synthesis. In other words, if your server is like most, using the yew log example, what you will see in your retainer ward are 1200 NQ yew logs for 2-3k, maybe a couple +1 yew logs for 10k or more and on rare circumstances a +2 or +3 yew log for 30k+. If, following 2) above, there were a way for NQ materials to have a use in making truly endgame items, then NQ materials will increase in value. Right now they are falling in value because they have no endgame use. In this case, EVERYTHING has a use endgame.

2) Removing gear from the economy means that there is not a huge influx of NQ gear being sold for ridiculously small prices. Talk to an r50 archer who upgraded an NQ crab bow to an HQ crab bow and ask them what they were able to sell their NQ for. They're lucky if they can get more than 30-50k for it right now because they are so overproduced. Further, because there is no gear leaving the economy, since they are so overproduced the market is flooded with people trying to undercut the other guy. The only reason this hasn't expanded to +2/+3 items at this point is specifically BECAUSE they are so difficult to create. If HQ rates were just blanket upped, then +2/+3 items would become just as worthless just as quickly.

3) Higher quality end results should be relatively difficult to obtain. The primary problem with the current HQ system is that certain materials carry a geometric progression of difficulty to create. The example I used in the post I linked in 3) above were iron plates. Right now it takes about 12 million gil worth of materials to have a mathematically significant chance of obtaining just a single iron plate +3. This means that anything using those materials is unrealistic to +2/+3. Now, when you take the best blacksmith or alchemist mainhand tools and compare them to something like a crab bow with easy-to-obtain +3 materials, it's pretty obvious to see that these particular classes are held at a disadvantage solely because of the materials that were placed within their tools.

I'd love to get some actual discussion on these topics, here, trust me. The other guy is just so fundamentally wrong due to not understanding basic economic concepts, and is so unwilling/unable to understand where his understanding is breaking down, that it's pretty pointless to carry on a serious discussion with him.

[Peregrine]

You keep trying to hold ground as a crafter who is simply too lazy to gather quality materials, and it will never work. You will always be in a state of production overload.

Increase the power of the quality of materials. Decrease the power of low quality materials. HQ mats will become more expensive. NQ materials won't be used to make 500 crab bows a day because it's pointless to waste good NQ product on NQ bows. That solves your overproduction problem. NQs will be sold to grinders. HQs will be sold to crafters. HQ rates go up for the best crafters. They go down for the majority who scrounge for poor-quality materials for a living.

Which they should. A town crafter is like a Marmot. Everywhere.

People here seem to think a R50 crafter is something special still and that you all deserve epic things. You deserve no more notoriety than a R50 pugilist in this game. That's the price you pay for not being suppressed in your craft like in XI. In this game, +3 ore should be worth more than you are as a R50 crafter, because you're more common than +3 ore is. Sorry.

The game is in a state of overproduction of gear because of a glut of crafters all with the capability of +1 and 2'ing gear with low-quality materials.

Remove that ability from their hands.

[Peregrine]

It is a fact, just as the stat allotment system has created stats that by default have to have very little impact, that the ease at which crafters can level has created crafters that by default HAVE TO have very little impact or the economy turns to this. Again, you are not special. You are not unique. Your power in crafting has to reflect how common you actually are.

Just as shining cloth used to be worth more than a clothcrafter in XI because it was less common, the only solution for what ails the economy is to label common common and rare rare. Not let common act rare and rare be nerfed to common because it makes crafters feel SPECIAL when they are not. That's what we're doing now and it makes no sense.

The solution is to give gatherers equal status to battlers and crafters. If you want to be a good crafter, you need battlers to kill for +3 drops. Right? So why all the elitism against gatherers and THEIR +3 materials?

Well, because many of you all aren't one. That's why. No other reason but self-interest. A lot of crafters aren't interested in real balance. They just want to hold their positions.

[JunkPunch]

Gatherers are not a above crafters and vise-versa. Gatherers / crafters are the same as a sole gatherer, and crafter, with the exception of an abundance of hq mats at their disposal. Does that entitle them to be the only crafters who should make +3 items? Hell no. Every r50 should have a crack at it, it might take longer to make it. But they should have a chance at it. While the gatherers / crafters has the possibility to make that item quicker, and that is your reward for ranking up a gathering class.

When we see a change in the hq system, is when servers will see more gatherers being ranked up. And no longer will hq mats be in the wards. For now the barter system is working as it should, for gatherers and crafters alike.

Nq mats should be for grinders, however r50 should always have a chance to hq nq mats. They earned all the skill points for max rank, they should be able to do the seemingly impossible.

I personally like the current system, it keeps the +3 weapons / tools rare, and sought after. Though I'm biased, since I already made a crab bow +3 (made with +1/2 and +3 mats), and working on my list of other +3's I want to make.

[Kimahri]

Don't really see how your point about DoL classes holds water into your topics. As I see it, DoL farms up raw materials. Why do you feel more deserving than someone who would rather just buy the materials? So far what I hear is that you get the materials at a cost of time. He/She obtains it at a cost of gil.

DoL should in no way influence the synthesis other than the fact that it gathers up the raw materials for the synthesis. NQ or HQ. You're not better than everyone else because your miner is R50 as well.

[Peregrine]

Sure I am. I have access to any HQ mining mat I want via unrestricted free will, and it goes into my quality inputs. Crafters can't compete with that quality boost with any abilities (keep in mind that I AM two endgame crafters and know when you're lying). They're dependent on either the markets or "friends" and by friends I mean people they're essentially using. No crafter can give me anything in return for hundreds of iron or gold ore. Gear repairs? Weapons and tools I can just buy? No. Miners don't do that any more. This isn't october. They mine for themselves. Not for gil. Not for you. Sucks for many posters in here that like you, RMT decided it wasn't worth their time to gather. Now you're really screwed.

As much as you may claim that you can find iron ore+3 easily, I know you can't. I buy all the HQ ores on the market whenever I'm in there looking for tin ores, and there are hardly any ever on sale. So you're free to buy HQ materials if you want. But you're living in a hypothetical world. In your world I'm not better than every other smith because they get access to the mats that I have with their gil. In the real world no. They don't. Don't try to lie to me lol...I try to do exactly what you wish you did because I have too much gil that I want to conver to mats myself. And I can't. Because they're not there.

First generation crafters just don't get it. And they won't get it until it stares them in the face that they are out of a job until they level a gatherer. It's coming. Can't avoid it. I know you all rode all your bubbles and made all your millions from september to december with easy mats, and you decided not to gather because that means you'd fall off your crafting bubble.

But that's over. Done. Town crafters are inferior crafters. They shoot each other in the feet scavenging the wards and their friends for hand me down materials, and their quality shows it.

You can't fight this. It's coming regardless. We might as well put this system out of its misery. Enhance the power of quality. Enhance the retention of quality. Quality's price will skyrocket and rebalance this mess.

Does that mean you won't be able to afford +3 ores? Yes. Get to work.

[origamikitsune]

@Peregrine: Ok, your arguments are interesting, but your idea that a crafter who does not gather is just using other people is fundamentally flawed in one major respect. As crafter who enjoys gathering, I put off actively leveling gathering jobs because I don't need them right now. My LS gives me so many mats, its ridiculous. This. Does. Not. Mean. I. Am. Using. Them. I find it offensive that you suggest as much. I am lucky enough to be in a large LS with ties to other large LSs. We have our own little micro economy within the LS, as well as regular events in which DoW/DoM get together with our DoL/DoH and we do a free exchange of items. Mats for mats. Gear for gear. Gear for mats. It has nothing to do with anyone using anyone. It has to do with friends helping each other out. We play this game together. As a team. Cooperatively. Whats wrong with that? Nothing. So please, continue the arguments, but not at the expense of others, because you are right - there is an advantage to being able to go out and get whatever HQ mats you want. But you are also wrong - those of us who don't aren't inherently using people just to lengthen our own e-peens.

Also, there is a significant issue in that items do not leave the market. It may not be the SOLE solution to fix this synting/gathering, but it would HELP. If items were somehow encouraged to leave the market at the same market demand, the value of the remaining items would increase. If the encouragement for items leaving the market was high enough that demand went up, the value of items would increase even further because the reward for items leaving the market exceed current market value (An example of this would be if shards were NPC vendorable at 2k gil, the market price of shards would increase to 2k or higher.)

Another problem, again not the SOLE problem, is that +3 base mats mean little or nothing. When my HQ rate using NQ mats is the same as the HQ rate using HQ mats, then no, I don't need to be, nor do I need a gather in the grand scheme of things. Is it supposed to be this way? I doubt it. It should be easier to get HQ with HQ mats. As you say, the "power of quality" does need to be enhanced.

That does not mean that "town crafters" are somehow inferior. The fact is that they are needed. The play a vital part in keeping the economy healthy. If every crafter always gathered their own mats, there would be no economy to speak of. Everyone would be reduced to selling just finished products. And I'm sorry, people being people as they are would trend towards only buying a few select items that are optimal for their job, and that means would see even a more marked trending towards only specific gear being made, because nothing else is selling.

The fact is that some people like crafting but don't like gathering. Some people like gathering but don't like crafting. Some people don't like either, and like DoW and DoM. Varied people make for varied tastes, and that's a good thing. If we were all clones of each other this would be a pretty boring game. This Personal preference also does not make any of them inferior to the others.

What it does is create multiple markets. It adds depth to the economy and encourages people to play the way they like to play. And this is game. People play to have fun and do what they LIKE. The system accommodates this with the multiple markets and makes It makes it so that a crafter - ANY CRAFTER - is equal to every other crafter. It makes it so that a gatherer is equal to every other gather.

It doesn't matter what OTHER jobs you have. What matters is that an R50 is equal to an R50 of the same job. HOW they play is up to them.

In short, keep the debate going. You do have a lot of valid points. They are interesting. Please stop insulting other people's play styles. Its starting to get irksome, and detracts from actually solving the issue.

[Solipse]

Okay. Yet one more douchebag I'm adding to my ignore list right now. This dude just rants and cries like a baby.

Holy crap, there's an ignore list. You are my hero.

What it does is create multiple markets. It adds depth to the economy and encourages people to play the way they like to play. And this is game. People play to have fun and do what they LIKE. The system accommodates this with the multiple markets and makes It makes it so that a crafter - ANY CRAFTER - is equal to every other crafter. It makes it so that a gatherer is equal to every other gather.

That's my problem with the thing's he's saying - he wants to penalize people for not playing the game how he likes to play the game. That kind of thinking is almost never valid and usually amounts to self centered statements that are essentially meant to reward the person making them.

I think, at this state in the game, with the massive development that SE is doing, the only sane and logical attitude to have is to focus on the problems that plague _everyone_ - as you said, and as I've been saying, the largest economic problem right now is that nothing ever leaves the economy; that means that nothing ever really goes up in price, only down. If you can get 6m gil for an item this week, you better jump on it, because you'll probably only get 5.5 next week, and so on.

To use an analogy, imagine that cars did not actually consume the gasoline in their tanks. Once everyone had a full tank of gas, they'd never need to buy another until they bought a new car. After a long enough time, with people pulling billions of gallons of oil out of the ground, we'd hit a point where consumption would drop down to a low level (never quite zero, though) and the gas stations would have to fight constantly to undercut everyone else so that in the rare case that someone, somewhere needed some gas, they'd surely buy from them.

In a game where crafting is such a huge deal and huge part of the fundamental system, that kind of setup is almost counter intuitive. Essentially, unless you're one of the first to max level, you may as well not bother because you're going to invest in a massive money and time sink with no hope of reward on the horizon.

[Rentahamster]

as I've been saying, the largest economic problem right now is that nothing ever leaves the economy; that means that nothing ever really goes up in price, only down.

Indeed. This is a fundamental concept about our economy that cannot be ignored. In another game like EVE, which is also very craft-heavy, the items are always leaving the economy because they are consumed or destroyed.

The only items in FF14 that ever permanently leave are consumables like food and ammo. That's about it.

The concept of gear being permanently destroyed is a bit of an implausible possibility, however.

How many ways can things like gear leave the economy, anyway?