Island Content Gated behind Expertise Crafts

[Henji]

I can earn raiding gear through clearing normal mode and gathering tomes if I don't have the gil to buy from the market board or the ability to craft gear. Where's the in-IS way to earn these materials? Even being able to buy them for the IS currencies would be an improvement over this mess.

Yes. Just like you can earn landmarks with IS currency You're complaining about having to pay for/make a skin for a landmark. Why aren't you complaining that you have to pay for/make a skin for your gear?

[Deveryn]

Truly, this was the best case scenario for a new expert recipe, for all the reasons mentioned above. I've tried it a couple of times and it's brutal. I'll try some more and eventually leave it alone. In a year's time, the gear will improve and the recipe will be much easier. Of course, in a month's time, the price should be reasonable.

[Boblawblah]

See, I think we're looking at this from opposite directions; I look at this and go "crafters wanted more challenging crafting content"

Right there is where I'm confused. What does casual content that was meant to be separate from the regular grind have to do with crafters wanting more challenging content? The entire premise of the island is that your crafting levels aren't important there. Hell, they start off making you craft a NEW hatchet just to reinforce that your gathering/crafting jobs don't mean anything on the island...until they do.

I don't really have a horse in this race if I'm honest, I think the Island Sanctuary is disappointing, but I can see why people would be frustrated that the "end-game" of the Island Sanctuary is just more of the same.

[AlaineIV]

Land marks do affect the groove bonus of your workshops. Though if the water odder otter fountain offered a higher groove bonus then say the light house, would it then be worthy to complain?(Not saying it does, Tomes are only affected by the amount of landmarks placed.) In some correlation regardless it does affect the tomes gathered from your workshop. In essences from an aesthetic stand point, if you don't like one of the land marks solely made through the island and left with a open land mark spot, one is left with less groove processing status for their workshop, than one with all four land mark spots filled. They should also make the parts available for green scripts as green scripts are completely useless, unless you like the X materia for crafting/gathering, but that is a way to gain gil, but at the same time its meant to drive down the X materia that gathering/crafting cost have. I wouldn't mind it being a crafted set, if it wasn't an expertise craft. Crafted Raid gear should honestly be the expertise crafts, it would give normal raids a more meaningful reason to do and find different forms of out putting the most damage in the shortest amount of time before getting max ilvl. It also makes crafters/gatherers more valuable. So what if the 1% of the hard core raiders rage at it.

Edit- Especially with savage being delayed 1 week, more so the reason to release current crafted gear as an expertise craft.

[Packetdancer]

Right there is where I'm confused.

If you clear an ultimate, you get special adventurer plate items you can use -- backgrounds, borders, accents, etc. Adventurer plates do not require ultimates, but content you get from ultimates is relevant to adventurer plates.

If you complete an extreme trial, you can sometimes get a rare crafting material; this lets you craft a glowy weapon or a neat housing item. Housing is not, inherently, tied to extreme trials... but there are things you can get from extreme trials you can put in houses. Houses do not require these things, of course, but you can put them in there.

I view the fountain as being the same sort of thing. In fact, I would be shocked if they didn't have other island perks planned as unlocks from other content, not just crafting. Likely as landmarks or alternate appearances for things. Maybe eventually you can trade in two TEA totems for a chunk of Alexander you can drop on your island as a landmark! Who knows?

Is it unfortunate? Maybe; I'm of two minds on it. One half of me says "I see why folks who really like Island Sanctuary want 100% of everything possible on the island to be tied to the island and have nothing on the island even acknowledge the existence of other parts of the game at all". But the other half says "people don't have houses, but do want places to show off things -- whereas everyone does have an Island Sanctuary, if they want one, so there are worse places to put cosmetics not tied directly to Island Sanctuary than in Island Sanctuary."

But, again, none of this -- nothing I've said, nothing anyone else has said -- changes the fact that the devs never promised that Island Sanctuary might not be affected by other systems and parts of the game. They promised the inverse: that Island Sanctuary would not, itself, affect other parts and would thus never be required content. And that you could unlock your island and engage in all the core gameplay loop there without a DoL or DoH job.

Edit: Since I let myself get somewhat sidetracked there... I think where folks are butting heads/disagreeing is that some folks are viewing Island Sanctuary as wholly self-contained and feel that anything possible to put there forever and always should only be in the Sanctuary, whereas other folks -- myself included -- are looking at Island Sanctuary as maybe a basis where SQEX can let people put things you obtain elsewhere in the game going forward, since everyone has an Island Sanctuary. As opposed to making stuff you can earn to show off be just "Yet More Housing Items (BTW, Sorry You Don't Have a House)".

(Or, for that matter, having seasonal events give you housing items; wouldn't it be nicer if those seasonal events gave, for instance, Island Sanctuary landmarks, or alternate appearances for things? Yeah, it would mean engaging in content outside of Island Sanctuary, but I suspect a lot of people would find more use in, say, a lovely cherry tree with falling blossoms and a picnic laid out beneath it as an Island Sanctuary landmark unlock, as opposed to yet another outdoor housing decor item.)

[EgilTheStressedMage]

Re: Expert craft for the fountain.

The entire point of Island sanctuary is casual, which expert crafts are not. They are completely antithetical to the purpose of the Island Sanctuary.

They're the hardest things crafters can do. It's like requiring Ultimate for doing a Relic.

It's more like getting the golden crown in Kingdom Hearts 2.

[Darthgummibear]

You mean like how the current endgame crafts require battle tomestones to make?

That's not even remotely the same. You can get those tomestones from any one of a dozen different activities.

[VerdeLuck]

Yes. Just like you can earn landmarks with IS currency You're complaining about having to pay for/make a skin for a landmark. Why aren't you complaining that you have to pay for/make a skin for your gear?

Because I can earn equivalent gear by playing combat content? Did you just skip over the entirety of my post? You can earn Tome gear and Normal mode gear through battle content and not need to have a crafter leveled.
You can't buy the materials for the fountain no matter how many cowries you farm. The only way to get the fountain landmark is to spend millions of gil on the materials on the marketboard or have pentamelded level 90 crafters.
It wouldn't be a problem if they let you buy the materials for cowries earned on the island.

[hydralus]

That's not even remotely the same. You can get those tomestones from any one of a dozen different activities.

None of those activities involve crafting or gathering them. But if you need an example of something more difficult, materials that drop from extreme fights. All of which can be bought off other players so it's not like you absolutely need to do the content to get it. But they are examples of crafters relying on battlecraft (and Chad gatherers don't rely on anyone).

All that said, I would have preferred if they kept it as an island-earned thing, even if I've made lots of gil off selling the stuff. Or at least put the materials in the island itself. But what can I say. They're weird. At least it got me to go fishing.

[Darthgummibear]

None of those activities involve crafting or gathering them. But if you need an example of something more difficult, materials that drop from extreme fights. All of which can be bought off other players so it's not like you absolutely need to do the content to get it. But they are examples of crafters relying on battlecraft (and Chad gatherers don't rely on anyone).

All that said, I would have preferred if they kept it as an island-earned thing, even if I've made lots of gil off selling the stuff. Or at least put the materials in the island itself. But what can I say. They're weird. At least it got me to go fishing.

So you're defending it because it benefits you directly. Gotcha.