Please reevaluate the balance between crafted and U/U items.

[Brannigan]

You shouldn't be able to get the best gear in the game without leaving town. You're adventurers. The best gear should come from ADVENTURING. This means killing monsters, doing quests, and exploring dungeons. Crafted gear should be good for a starter kit, and some crafted gear (with rare materials that come from ADVENTURERS KILLING THINGS) should be comparable to dropped gear, but mass-produced stuff with materia (that is made from other mass-produced stuff) shouldn't be better than items that actually require an adventurer to go out and do stuff.

Basically, just give U/U gear higher and more interesting stats let it and meld materia, even if it's only a single piece. Take a look at the Sentinel's set. No tank in their right mind would use a single piece of that stuff if it wasn't meldable (except maybe the helmet because, surprise, head materia doesn't matter much for tanks).

Maybe it'll suck for crafters or whatever but oh well. This is Final Fantasy. No Final Fantasy boss was ever defeated by some dude making wooden masks for hours. Plus, crafters will still be necessary in order to get materia and they'll likely add a bunch of crap for crafters to do related to player/company housing or whatever.

If there's no reason to go out and get gear from monsters then people will get bored and quit.

[Cycloptichorn]

You shouldn't be able to get the best gear in the game without leaving town.

You couldn't do that even if you were using crafted gear - the money has to come from somewhere, and that all leads back to leaving town.

[Brannigan]

You couldn't do that even if you were using crafted gear - the money has to come from somewhere, and that all leads back to leaving town.

Good job taking the first line of my post and ignoring everything after it. Yeah, technically going and doing brainless farming until you have enough money to afford the best gear in the game is leaving town. It's also completely dull and not adventuring. It also kills all motivation to do content more than once. Now, you might say "but I don't want to do content more than once!" but this is a MMORPG and it is literally impossible for developers to keep pace with the rate players consume content at.

Tell me, what should be better: an item obtained by delving into the depths of a dungeon and defeating a difficult boss, or an item created by a guy pressing standard synthesis for 50 hours to get high enough level to make it?

[Naylia]

There needs to be better balance. The problem I see is that in many slots, for many disciplines, the drops don't even compete with the basic crafted gear, let alone crafted gear with one materia, and god forbid comparing it to a 2/3 materia'd item. I was looking up what gear I should adventure for...and it's essentially none of it. I need to get the Siphai Turban - and the only reason is because as a DD my best helm materia option is Manaflight.

IMO - rare drops should be better than/similar to gear with a single materia IV but less than multi-materia gear. This gives everyone a good incentive to go adventure for the gear, while still also creating a demand for multi-materia crafted gear. And when they re-did the stats they shouldn't have made such bad decisions like making Hart's Guisarme have more base damage than a Champion's Lance.

[Physic]

You shouldn't be able to get the best gear in the game without leaving town. You're adventurers. The best gear should come from ADVENTURING. This means killing monsters, doing quests, and exploring dungeons. Crafted gear should be good for a starter kit, and some crafted gear (with rare materials that come from ADVENTURERS KILLING THINGS) should be comparable to dropped gear, but mass-produced stuff with materia (that is made from other mass-produced stuff) shouldn't be better than items that actually require an adventurer to go out and do stuff.

Basically, just give U/U gear higher and more interesting stats let it and meld materia, even if it's only a single piece. Take a look at the Sentinel's set. No tank in their right mind would use a single piece of that stuff if it wasn't meldable (except maybe the helmet because, surprise, head materia doesn't matter much for tanks).

Maybe it'll suck for crafters or whatever but oh well. This is Final Fantasy. No Final Fantasy boss was ever defeated by some dude making wooden masks for hours. Plus, crafters will still be necessary in order to get materia and they'll likely add a bunch of crap for crafters to do related to player/company housing or whatever.

If there's no reason to go out and get gear from monsters then people will get bored and quit.

materia doesnt come from town, it comes from every part of this game, battle makes most of the actual materia, crafters put it on items, and gatherers get the stuff.

Materia items are also the hardest stuff to make in the game BY FAR. Killing ifrit 100 times is actually more likely and happens more often than someone making a +3 3xmateria item. Darkhold? yeah it sucks that it isnt done that miuch any more, but you can get like 3 chests without even fighting a single boss. regular NMs? they spawn every 5 minutes.

also battle classes, im sorry but you are not the whole game. even if they put crafting and gathering to a backseat you still are not the whole game. The fact is how relevant U/U gear is entirely dependend on the stats they put on them. which usually has something to do with how rare or difficult to obtain it is.

Maybe what battlers need is something that is as unlikely as materia items, with as much time investment, lets say you could kill things to get mats, and craft without a crafter, to make something similar you would need

say a recipe of cobalt claws, 1 cobalt ingot 1 cobalt plate 1 brass ingot 1 horn glue, 1 mahogany lumber. to make this equivalent
3 monster drops to pop the NM that can give cobalt ingot lets say he is level 35
the monster that drops cobalt plate needs 2 ingots to pop it lets say hes also level 35
brass ingot needs 3 low level monster drops and a fight with a weak NM
horn glue needs 2 drops from mob you have to incapacitate, then you can pop a level 30 nm
mahogony needs 1 drop from a level 40 mob to pop a NM thats level 40

so now with all those drops you can pop a level 53 NM to get your claws.
hes pretty easy if your level 50, BUT If you want to get an HQ1 item, you have to beat him without getting hit at all, and then he has a 10% chance to drop the hq1, if you want the HQ2, you have to get HQ1 mats from all the previous NMs with similar conditions

Now you can do your materia, first is guaranteed, but second will have a chance of failure depending on how good the materia is you want to craft and the one already on there. something to the effect of 15$ chance for best of the best.


You guys have no idea really how rare the materia gear really is, and how much grind they would have to put into giving battle something equal to try to create.

You get a premade completely functional item for doing something in 30 minutes, that if they made you have to get it based on a materia like building up system would take you like 200 hours at least.

those easy made materia items you are imagining actually cost, even if everyone is preleveled. 100s if not thousands of man hours from a whole slew of different players.

HQ is not easy, it is not guaranteed, I need to fight harder mobs to get an antelope horn than people need to fight to get whole premade weapons from the level 35nms.

people see people selling stuff and think it appears by magic. the most magical thing in the game is getting good premade gear from a box.

[Brannigan]

Time isn't difficulty

[Resty]

Let's face it, in XI you had the oppsite problem. Virtually ALL worthwhile gear ended up being rare/ex or at the very least dropped only from an NM/mission/quest. Crafting and all the effort put into it was useless after year 3-4, save cooking and the in demand consumables such as ammo and ninja tools, was made obsolete, and a waste of time/resources put into it.

Rare/Ex stuff however was handled much better in not only it's superiority, but it's longevity. Things that were hard to obtain were THE BEST for years, even some of the low level NM items were the best for all but level cap gear for years. None of this "work ur ass off to get this sword, to work your ass off to throw it away and get this new sword, to work your ass off to throw it away and get this new sword ect. , every two months.

SE has not had a good track record of finding the middle ground since day one of XI. It's been nerf it to hell or overpower, take 3 years to get a relic or lol Abyssea lolucanhaveitforlittletonoeffort etc.

They suck at middle ground, and the day the two are indroduced, you might see a balance that makes sense. Until then, any adjusting they do will result either in crafted stuff being loludonthavethedungeongear, or lolurwearingdungeongear.

[Physic]

Time isn't difficulty

diffculty isnt rarity, if you want drops that equal materia in terms of how many can be produced in a month, they would need some insanely low drop rates.
Also difficulty is not only for battle. really, go try to HQ3 an item 3 levels higher than you, i think you ll find it will take you more than a half hour.

also, see people saying how they now fall asleep fighting ifrit. or the people who paid doctor mog for drops from darkhold, soon to be ifrit as well when they change the loot system.

[Brannigan]

Also difficulty is not only for battle. really, go try to HQ3 an item 3 levels higher than you, i think you ll find it will take you more than a half hour.

diffculty isnt rarity

I know full well how low the success rate for forbidden materia is. I know how much time it takes for crafters to level. This doesn't change the fact that to do these things you are just grinding.

[Physic]

I know full well how low the success rate for forbidden materia is. I know how much time it takes for crafters to level. This doesn't change the fact that to do these things you are just grinding.

im not talking about how long they grind to level up, im talking about how long and how difficult it is for a level 50 crafter to try and HQ an item. Im not even talking about the materia fail rate. Do you really have any idea how hard it is to get HQ of gear?

the better U/U items are usually as good as a +1 item with 1-2 materia already on it.
Ifrits gear is closest to a +3 3xmateria item, and even then it might not hold up. Sentinels is like a +1 with two materias. Siphapi has things you cant find on any materia for certain slots.

the midlevel NM drop gear isnt spectacular but its also extremely easy to obtain.

you are just a person who does battle, and think its the only thing in the game. Crafters, in order to HQ need to obtain and create topline gear, and then engage in a battle with the materials to try to get HQ. you only respect one facet of the game, and thats why your solution fails.

some U/U equipment i think needs a boost, or they can add a few more created by crafter with dungeon loot pieces.Your solution is fail because it invalidates a large portion of the game. I can understand wanting more battle earned rewards, but the U/U materia as you present it invalidates all other facets of item creation, which is actually a pretty big portion of the game.



Im talking about how hard it is for a level 50 player, battle or craft to create an item of power.