Petition for leves

[Caimie_Tsukino]

Let's look at samples for level 64 BSM for each with cost to make using prices from the Coeurl Marketboard (obviously can vary world to world).

Leve - Doman Iron Culinary Knife. Cost to make: just under 2400 gil. Difficulty: Durability 80, Progress 830, Quality 3150.
Reward for HQ: 981k EXP plus 5990 gil. (don't forget that the listed reward on a leve is for NQ - the HQ reward is double)

Collectable - Rarefied High Steel Claw Hammer. Cost to make: 4800 gil. Difficulty: Durability 80, Progress 780, Quality 3060
Reward for max tier rating: 471k EXP plus 54 White Crafter's Scrip

I haven't looked at the price of individual mats closely. Technically, the cost of a culinary knife can be ZERO if nothing is purchased from the MB. However, my gut feeling is that many novice crafters may buy crafted intermediate mats, and possibly even HQ ones from the MB, in order to make HQ products. So in the end, the cost of a culinary knife might be a lot more than just 2400 gil. E.g. during peak time of leveling (at the beginning of an expansion), an HQ lumber (from CRP) for making a knife (made by BSM) could easily be 10K gil or more. This price is excluding other mats, such as ores for ingots. In the end, the cost of 1 knife could be ~15-20K. The knife itself could have probably been sold for ~35K on the MB. But if submitted for leves, you get back only around 6K gil. Such continuous deficit of gil is nothing to someone like me with a deep purse, but is unsustainable for a novice crafter.

For collectables, usually at the beginning of an expansion, the prices are high (EDIT: I meant prices of materia). So selling them (materia) could be very profitable... or the materia can be kept for overmelds at endgame after lv 90.

For Firmament, the dyes bought with Skybuilders' Scrips are actually still as pricey as they were a year ago. So very profitable.

Of course, current it is no longer the beginning of the Endwalker expansion, so my price estimates are way-off. An HQ lumber might cost ~2K instead of ~10K, and the prices for products (e.g. a culinary knife) are probably as low as 10K to 15K instead of 35K. But I think you get what I mean -- they buy mat/products, they dump into leves, and then deficit of gil instead of surplus. In the end, they have no gil and no materia for overmelds.

I think the Coffee Cookie incidence was a special case that made leves very profitable. But now that it's gone, I believe leves is still overall a gil-draining action. I do not doubt its power in speed-leveling though. It is definitely FASTTTT!!!~

They could easily use the same system as they added for Collectibles. Maybe they even plan to and haven't got round to it yet.



That sounds more like a problem with leves. If something has to be tedious because it's healthier to discourage people from using it, there's probably a large flaw with the design of that feature. Do you feel leves need a rework overall?

I have no idea how it can be reworked. I think it still has its place in the game, as a mean to turn gil into speed-leveling. I just don't recommend it to new crafters as the ONLY mean of leveling, since they definitely won't have enough gil for leves for 90 levels across all 8 classes using leves alone.

Not everyone is doing leves purely for experience. Some are doing for completion, achievements, etc. Those players would probably appreciate a quicker turn-in method. I don't see it happening though.

I guess if a veteran crafter is doing it for achievements, it's fine. But it just creates a dangerous trap for the new people, since they wouldn't know how gil-draining it can be for someone with a bank as small as 50-100K.

Ive been making commanding tea and turning them in HQ which gives me 10k per turn in immediately while my auction stuff are being sold in the meantime. Its not that im using for exp its purely to sell something in the meantime but the problem is just that I have to keep clicking and turning in for 99 times.

I understand. To people who "know what they're doing", it can be a QoL improvement.