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

[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.

[Peregrine]

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...

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.

The story of every first-generation crafter ever. That's how you see yourself in your head, but that's sadly not how gathering works. When I gather, 75% of the items are materials that I use myself. 15% no one wants. 10% someone else wants. That's the reality of mining, so if you got to BS, GS, or ARM on someone else's ores, you leeched off them or they just didn't care because it was october and their inventory was a mess. That was no exchange of equal product. How's a friend helping you out of your silver earring and ring phase in goldsmithing, by giving you ALL of their silver ores? What are you giving them? Not gems. You're not a miner. Wind shards? I highly doubt it. Maybe some paltry fire shards then. What you probably gave them is your divine might as a crafter. A polished iron pickaxe. There. You're equals now! How about your iron phase in blacksmithing, did they give you 2500 iron ores? What, exactly, did you give them in return for that? A bladed lantern shield they could afford by selling a tenth of those ores? THANKS!

Botany may be different. Alch, carp, and weaver don't all use the same materials, so I can see a shell powwow working somewhat. Less now with the item-targetting updates.

If you leeched silver ores off a miner who was a blacksmith, you killed their R45-50 progress. Just flat-out took it from them.
If you leeched iron ores off a miner who was an armorer, you killed their R30-50 progress.
If you leeched iron ores off a blacksmith, they can't even be called a blacksmith really.
If you leeched gold products off a miner who was anything, they should own 80% of the profits that you ever land until you buy their share in you back out. The saddest town crafter is a R50 goldsmith with no miner. Or lucky if they got there on silver needles.

You can get iron off a miner who'se a goldsmith, but I still think that's a leech. That poor soul could use the money.

And as far as all R50s being equal, you're going to have to make that argument before we had a handful of first-gen town crafters try to posture with their pokemon ball collections. Hand of the Gods, I choose you to separate me from the herd of other crafters!

Desynthesis and product destruction is something you patch a broken system with. It's giving up outdated content as worthless and arguing that there's enough existing content to keep the game interesting. The game is way too young for "we don't really care any more" fail like that.

They need to cut production. They can cut production by giving town crafters absolutely no shot at multimillions with NQ product. Guarantee the number of crab bows drops by 90% if NQ products can't make HQ2 and 3 bows and if the only good a megalocrab shell NQ was for...is crab oil. Then you may think there will be a lot of NQ raw materials on the maket, but that's not how final products work. The only spam to final product is the final product. All of the materials probably wouldn't exist if you didn't insist on them en masse. Look at the ingredients for crab bows. Which of those mats would be in excess if carps didn't mass-produce crab bows? None.

They can try to cut production on the gathering side, but it won't help. Prices will just go up because most of you all don't gather. You mass-consume because that's how you compete, not because mass production exists inherently. You create those markets of mass production where none existed. Mass production is there for mass grinding on levels. Ornamental iron hammer heads that you know are going in the trash. Not crab bows that you spammed and now want them to be worth more than they can possibly ever be.

Desynth and thousandbows are simply poor ideas. They only encourage the problem, which is too many crafters grinding too many final products. Take their incentive to mass produce final products away. Any other solution only buys you time. It won't buy you a solution.

[Rentahamster]

That's the reality of mining, so if you got to BS, GS, or ARM on someone else's ores, you leeched off them or they just didn't care because it was october and their inventory was a mess. That was no exchange of equal product. How's a friend helping you out of your silver earring and ring phase in goldsmithing, by giving you ALL of their silver ores? What are you giving them? Not gems. You're not a miner. Wind shards? I highly doubt it. Maybe some paltry fire shards then. What you probably gave them is your divine might as a crafter. A polished iron pickaxe. There. You're equals now! How about your iron phase in blacksmithing, did they give you 2500 iron ores? What, exactly, did you give them in return for that? A bladed lantern shield they could afford by selling a tenth of those ores? THANKS!

Are you considering the possibility that a lot of people don't care about their exchanges being monetarily equivalent? That maybe some people want to give stuff away to their friends because they are...friends?

I give away shards and mats to my friends all the time. Even in the early days when shards were worth a lot more than they are now. I could have over 50 million gil now if I had just kept everything to myself, but I don't care. I'm not the only one who feels this way.

[Peregrine]

Are you considering the possibility that a lot of people don't care about their exchanges being monetarily equivalent? That maybe some people want to give stuff away to their friends because they are...friends?

I give away shards and mats to my friends all the time. Even in the early days when shards were worth a lot more than they are now. I could have over 50 million gil now if I had just kept everything to myself, but I don't care. I'm not the only one who feels this way.

No, I'm not because while you can raise your heart ring in the air and scream that it's so on the internet, I know that you don't have miners going out to gather for YOU, and as such there's not enough materials to go around a shell like you claim. Two town crafters leeching off the entire gathering population of the shell pretty much taps it out of any stray resources.

Tell me how many shards you've given away when you spend 3 hours doing nothing but farming shards, then we'll talk about the power of friendship and love. I know you'd like to strawman me into this harsh, cruel, friendless person because it makes your story sound good, but I do the same thing you do. I just don't lie about how well it works for personal reasons. Sloppy seconds, which is really all you should be asking of FRIENDS in this game that they got incidentally and not for their primary use, will not fuel a crafter to anything.

But hey. You keep telling yourself that the person who you've tricked into giving you gold sand and ore is your FRIEND if we're strawmanning here. Or rather, keep telling them that.