Crafting (Monopoly, Recipes, Challenge, Relevance)

[Denmo]

Recipe Monopoly - Players could either quest for rare recipes or get them as local leve rewards (as per the olden days). These recipes would not be transferable to other players, giving players a slight monopoly. This would mean the market doesn't get saturated. (Obviously this feature would be applicable to rare high level gear).

That would require a total rethinking of the recipe system. How do you give every player a chance at a unique recipe? What should these items produce?

A simpler solution would be to place recipes with materials that were difficult to obtain, and only a 'skilled' high level crafter could handle them. I mean, that's how it should be anyway.

Lodestone Recipes - The fact that lodestone reveals the recipes for all newly added items kind of spoils the fun of finding out recipes for yourself. Perhaps every now and again they could leave some out so crafters actually have something to do.

Wiki. Wiki Wiki Wiki. Even if the Lodestone didn't reveal recipes, a Wiki site would (and do). It's pointless for Lodestone not to. You talk about it sucking the fun out of the game, but we've been surrounded by Wiki's for years now.

Maybe Lodestone should hold off in posting new recipes for a month after a new patch, that'd work.

Challenge - Materia was supposed to add content, but it's really just a grind. It's not content in the sense that you do anything besides pray to every heathen god you know and hope the RNG rolls in your favor. So hopefully the new recipes S.E. mentioned lately will add some kind of challenge to the game (both in getting the ingredients, and also producing the item).

I think Materia system was a really smart idea with regards to crafting, for every reason stated in the producer's letter pertaining to it. The chance to produce an awesome piece of gear is something worth working on crafting for. There are kinks of course, as you stated, but I think it'll be smoothed out and worked on as the game progresses.

Relevance - Instead of excluding crafters from endgame, perhaps S.E. should think of ways to combine the idea of dungeon drops and crafting, rather than keeping them separate (which is what is happening at the moment).

They are. Hamlet Defense and that PvP attack/defense game thing outlined in the 2.0 .pdfs will both utilize crafters in some fashion. I'd imagine it'd have to do with producing things like ships, catapults, ammo, cannons, etc, and the team that produces more will win. If players get exp rewards for participating in that, I think it'd be a very nice side-thing for crafters.




Edit:

Monopoly was the incorrect word, perhaps. I meant monopoly upon the imminent release of items for a short duration of time. Eventually multiple people would have quested/received the recipe and there wouldn't be a sole monopoly, however a select amount of individuals would have access to the recipe rather than everyone on server who hasn't even bothered to quest the recipe or work for it.

That would just mean there'd be a bum rush of hardcore crafters goin' questing right after a patch releases, removing all fun for anyone who can't do the same. If other people already have the monopoly on said items, what's the point in doing it yourself?