Specialist Compromise

[Roth_Trailfinder]

Red Scrip gets you Red Tokens, which are one way of building up your supply of T4 materia.

Useless now? Depends on your situation. Useless forever? No, that's why I'm thinking ahead to 4.0.

[Nezerius]

This never was the point of the game. It was listed as a perk, and it still holds true as nothing is stopping you from being level 60 in everything. They just added onto it so crafters have to work together. It's a great system imo.

The point of the specialist system was to make it easier for crafters to stay competitive without having to become an omnicrafter. This system failed in 3.0, because few people cared about the specialist abilities. They saw this, so they added specialist recipes to force that system onto crafters.

Fortunately, they also saw that forcing crafters to work together isn't the way to go, so they've been applying bandaid fixes to the system, the current one being that recipes only stay specialist for one major patch.
At this point, they should just scrap the entire system and add something that encourages crafters to work together, perhaps through specialists needing less materials to craft something.

Considering red scrips are basically useless right now, I wouldn't expect them to keep scrips in 4.0. They'll probably change the system completely.

You can buy grade IV materia with the old red scrip tokens, which will likely still be used for overmelding in 4.0.

[FoxyAreku]

You can buy grade IV materia with the old red scrip tokens, which will likely still be used for overmelding in 4.0.

I'm aware, but there are so many other (better) sources for materia my statement still stands.

Not to mention they (and every MMO I've ever heard of) likes to do hard resets on everything when expansions come out. Even if scrips do stay, there is a 99% chance we'll have some new one so nobody is ahead of anyone else. Probably Green scrips? Lol.

[Ostwar]

I suspect they'll fix the cross class skills in the expansion. But yes the specialist system failed in its primary goal of making crafting more accessible.

Unfortunately the specialist skills failed the most. With the whistle system completely relying on good or excellent condition to benefit and the lack of those events occurring enough in 3 & 4 star lvl 60 crafts broke it for me. I understand that you can purchase Heart of the ...... delineations and burn those but the CP cost and limit of 7 steps makes those risky at best. A simple fix in my mind is drop the CP cost to 0 for the heart of delineations and crafters would use them. Heck since they are consumables, making them CP free would likely encourage folks to grind blue scrips for them further boosting the game encomony.

[Nezerius]

I'm aware, but there are so many other (better) sources for materia my statement still stands.

Just because you find this way of obtaining them useless, doesn't mean everyone else does. It's still easy to stock up on for a relatively minor amount of effort.

Not to mention they (and every MMO I've ever heard of) likes to do hard resets on everything when expansions come out. Even if scrips do stay, there is a 99% chance we'll have some new one so nobody is ahead of anyone else. Probably Green scrips? Lol.

Which is unrelated to the fact that red scrip tokens that have been stockpiled up to that point will still be a currency that can be turned in for grade IV materia.

IV materia will still be the go-to for overmelding at the start of the expansion, just like grade III still fit that role at the start of 3.0.

[FoxyAreku]

Sure, I just don't see the point personally. But if you want to spend the time to save a minor amount of gil that's your choice. :P I'll be very surprised if grade IVs don't rain from the heavens by the time stormblood comes out, much like how common IIIs have always been.

Unfortunately the specialist skills failed the most. With the whistle system completely relying on good or excellent condition to benefit and the lack of those events occurring enough in 3 & 4 star lvl 60 crafts broke it for me. I understand that you can purchase Heart of the ...... delineations and burn those but the CP cost and limit of 7 steps makes those risky at best. A simple fix in my mind is drop the CP cost to 0 for the heart of delineations and crafters would use them. Heck since they are consumables, making them CP free would likely encourage folks to grind blue scrips for them further boosting the game encomony.

You only need 2 good procs for whistle to be worth it. If you couple it with makers mark, there is almost never a time when that doesn't happen, and in the once-in-a-blue-moon that that DOES happen you can just use a delineation, so whistle really isn't as bad as you think. But if you don't like using makers mark, I can understand not wanting to use whistle.

[Nezerius]

Sure, I just don't see the point personally. But if you want to spend the time to save a minor amount of gil that's your choice. :P I'll be very surprised if grade IVs don't rain from the heavens by the time stormblood comes out, much like how common IIIs have always been.

That's fine, it's your opinion on the matter. Your initial post made it look like a fact, which it isn't, as not every crafter is in it to make millions of gil.

Besides, grade III materia didn't rain from the heavens at the start of 3.0, unless you spiritbonded set after set. Something like that takes just as much effort (probably more) on the short term, while capping red scrips is more a long term thing, but only takes a small bit of time per week. It's also not gonna be a minor amount of gil once the majority of the crafters are gonna be overmelding their 4.0 gear.

[FoxyAreku]

Hm, our servers must be pretty different than, as grade 3 materia has never been anything but cheap on mine even in 2.0, seems like people could never get rid of it fast enough. Even now grade IV is going for decently low, it seems to have taken its place. My bad.

[Bloody]

I will say that on Hyperion, it is not uncommon to see t3 materia going for a fraction of the price of t1 or t2, at least in regards to crafting and gathering materia. t3 materia have by and large been produced by the boatload from people mass spiritbonding to try and get t4 for the lowest cost possible.

[Ostwar]

I will say that on Hyperion, it is not uncommon to see t3 materia going for a fraction of the price of t1 or t2, at least in regards to crafting and gathering materia. t3 materia have by and large been produced by the boatload from people mass spiritbonding to try and get t4 for the lowest cost possible.

On Famfrit at least, grade III crafting materia goes for around 20k a pop and grade IV 50-70k each. I wish it was raining from the sky, spent millions overmelding to reach 4 star lvl 60 min requirements.