Quote Originally Posted by origamikitsune View Post
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.