Future Endgame gear vs crafted gear with Materia.

[AdvancedWind]

I'm not speaking for every player in all of them, however the fact this MMOs population is so low even after the countless changes they have made(they are good improvements no denying that) The fact the population is still low, the fact most new players don't stick around, and the simple fact that most players across MMOs don't have crafts capped is proof enough.

And you're somehow implying that the cause for all that is due to materia and crafting? Really?

Because I thought it was due to the terrible interface, subpar server infrastructure, lack of leveling content, lack of endgame at release, boring main storyline due to lack of fighting, lack of clear progression, non iconic classes, etc, etc..

Guess I was wrong.

[Jeronlmo]

Stop looking at the current FF11, theres a reason the game is dieing. Anything before WoTG, fine.

Your making it sound like hundreds of people are running around with crafted gear and quad-stacked T4 materia on it that are just so much better geared than people doing actual endgame. I think ive only ever seen 1 quad stack anything and it was T4 > T4 > T4 > T3 STR hands, thats it, just one.

I am still waiting for the melded gear that beats full HDL btw.

[Xikeroth]

...we get rewarded by endgame. Primal weapons are only rivaled by Relics and very few company gear combinations. most Darklight gear is pretty much BiS, even compared to very good materia melds. Some of the hamlet gear are very good, and even BiS depending on your build. Random chest acessory drops from CC/AV are BiS for some builds as well. Some company gear combos and sanction make pretty powerful gear sets.

Heck, hamlet crafting pieces are much better than anything the crafters can make themselves.

How's that not being rewarded by doing endgame? Other than the lol drop rates of a few things, I find it hard to complain about the current endgame, non materia gear.

Hamlet first of all isn't very good(I actually don't like the concept around it, or the fact that DoL are involved(i'd rather it be similar to besieged or campaign battle then involve non-combat classes), some Darklight can be replaced by triple melded tier 3 gear in some slots, Company seal items won't last forever. Company Seal items are basically there for now, but in all honesty, do you REALLY think this is what we'll have? This is how the game will always be? If you do you're sadly misinformed.

I'm not talking about just now, the game right now, endgame right now is a complete joke, However they had to add stuff for us to do to keep us here while they work on 2.0.

Its called an opinion and thoughts as the title says the FUTURE, not present, because the future a lot of things will change and crafting needs to kind of stick in a supporting role, not a dominating final role.

[Jeronlmo]

So basically, your talking about fictional gear that doesnt currently exist, or has even been talked about in any way/shape/form to come up with a reason to kill crafting and remove melding from the game.

[Nephera]

whoa this thread's going a mile a minute

Crafters can sell items fine, the main issue is the lack of population means people won't be able to sell very much regardless and will end up dieing out anyways. If the population grows they'll have more to sell to, however eventually they'll run out of people to buy their items.

Materia was just a sad attempt to keep items leaving circulation so that crafters wouldn't feel it as bad in a game with a very low population.

well yes thats why i hope they add more things to materia (like status effects) so people would buy more weapons just because they have different properties. (For example i carry a couple of spears on PSO2, as one can poison bosses for considerable amounts of damage over time, and the other can cause enemies to become confused and attack eachother. It's essentially the same spear but i've made a reasonable investment in both.)

I agree with you that crafters do need to fit some roll and other MMOs have found that roll, by having larger population games, constant creation of new characters and new classes to level cap that need different kinds of items and stats have all helped crafting stay alive, in this game it doesn't really fit due to its low population.

That sort of thing becomes very problematic for MMOs in the long run once they start to lose subscribers however, development tends to grind down to a halt as they exponentially increase the amount of work they need to do (and associated costs) every major content update. Quite a few of the AAA mmos that went free to play in recent years had backed themselves up into this corner, and ironically as soon as they went free to play they started getting enough money to do more than just maintain the servers and pay everyone at the company and development sped right back up again.

Square Enix can easily find ways for crafting to stay alive even if it doesn't make top notch items, allowing crafts to make the best items without having to really go out and do anything is flat out poor development.

Well keep in mind there is a time and monetary investment associated with crafting. Not adventuring is not necessarily not doing anything.

The amounts crafters charge for some things isn't even reasonable, putting 1 materia onto an item doesn't instantly make its price go from say 90k to 900k that's not even realistic.

Current prices are somewhat the fault of the devs for creating a system that requires lot of collaboration between crafters to get stuff done and somewhat the fault of our profiteering,there's a lot of excess cash back from when people mass produced crafting components and did gathering runs with friends en masse and just general market manipulation.

They should however be able to upgrade gear to some point however the cost should be minimal. Crafters would still charge unreasonable amounts to do it even if its no cost to them.

Yeah the ball is entirely in their court on this one, they do the work they set the prices i'm afraid.

Edit: SE also made leveling in this game too fast and exp party speed also does harm crafters to a smaller extent that people won't really need top notch items while leveling up and can skip several items that they could buy from crafters.

this is true. which is why I propose a system that will get people buying more weapons because they do different things rather than the weapons just having slightly higher numbers the last.

One of the major things in FFXI was leveling wasn't insanely easy or fast for most of its run, its actually easier and quicker to level in this game then any MMO I have played, however that can also be a problem for crafters as people won't need to buy items from them as much as they could to progress through the game.

well part of the quickness was them expecting people to play multiple classes and addressing complaints of too much grinding in xi. So in the case of the person who only mains one class yes, he is going to be buying less from crafters, in the case of the person who levels multiple they are going to buy more.


Edit: anyway it's late in the game for me to be making suggestions like this, they could have reworked the entire system for all i know.

double edit: or implemented exactly what i'm suggesting aaah

[AdvancedWind]

Hamlet first of all isn't very good(I actually don't like the concept around it, or the fact that DoL are involved(i'd rather it be similar to besieged or campaign battle then involve non-combat classes)

So you don't like hamlet because you don't like DoL, that means hamlet is inherently bad and should cater to your tastes.

Kay, noted. Gonna send a letter to Yoshi-P and see if he fixes that.

, some Darklight can be replaced by triple melded tier 3 gear in some slots

And you're assuming everyone out there can do that.The thing is, and I'm gonna inform you because you don't even have a crafting class leveled: a good triple meld is rarer than darklight gear. The majority of the player base cannot and will not get a triple meld better than DL gear. The problem here is that you're assuming the contrary, that everyone and their moms will get one. This is false.

, Company seal items won't last forever.

What the hell do you mean about that?

If you mean they're gonna get removed from the game, you're wrong, plain and simple.
If you mean that they aren't good enough to "last forever" with the player, then yeah, you're right. The same can be said about 99,9999999% of the current gear, up to AND INCLUDING materia gear.

Company Seal items are basically there for now, but in all honesty, do you REALLY think this is what we'll have? This is how the game will always be? If you do you're sadly misinformed.

I'm not talking about just now, the game right now, endgame right now is a complete joke, However they had to add stuff for us to do to keep us here while they work on 2.0.

Its called an opinion and thoughts as the title says the FUTURE, not present, because the future a lot of things will change and crafting needs to kind of stick in a supporting role, not a dominating final role.

Of course things will change, but unless you have a crystal ball, we both can't know exactly how it will change. One thing that we both can agree is that new endgame content will be added, with NEW endgame drops, with different stats than the current ones.

Another thing I also know is that they will not change ,ateria melding rates. And those damn rates are exactly what prevents crafted gear from becoming, as you put it, a "dominating final role."

Again, and I will repeat it until you get this in your brain: Melding rates are low. Very low. Extreme ****** low. It's not reasonable to use it as an argument that crafted gear eliminates the use for dungeon gear because the VAST majority of the player base will never, ever get an actual good multiple meld. Seriously, look around Ul'dah and tell me how many players have really good, triple tier IV melds that are unquestionably better than Darklight gear.

How's this so hard to understand?

[Malix]

Alot of raid gears are BiS, what are you tlking about? Unless you have triple to quad meld which is extremely rare and justifies their strenght..

Primals are still the best after relic...

As a BLM i disagree. weaponwise onthing thing better than melded lightning brand is garuda's van and relic. melded hat,gloves, feet, legs are BiS.

[Arcell]

I'm not speaking for every player in all of them, however the fact this MMOs population is so low even after the countless changes they have made(they are good improvements no denying that) The fact the population is still low, the fact most new players don't stick around, and the simple fact that most players across MMOs don't have crafts capped is proof enough.

Quick thought here, in my experience the fact that the population is low actually has little to do with crafting. A vast majority of the people I've talked to who quit and haven't come back yet are simply waiting for 2.0. Most don't want to play "another beta" while waiting for 2.0 and would rather just come back once everything's fixed. Some are waiting for the PS3 launch. There's a wide variety of reasons the population is low, crafting and gear priority is kind of low on that list from what I've seen.

[Drexel]

I personally realize that some endgame gear is best in slot and I think that’s great, I’m not really going to address that. My personal beaf is with the forbidden meld system in general and the RNG. Case in point my 50 or so double melded Tier IV STR gloves I tried to triple meld with an additional Tier IV STR, all of which blew up. 12 of those were HQ attempts so the collective probability of success was around 417% or so. That being said my first pair triple Tier IV meld I ever tried succeeded. The system just sucks for lack of a better word, personally I have no problems putting the work in to get what I want in the end although I would love for there to be more options than this terrible RNG system

Example #1: Could simply be create more crafted gear something like the Class specific weapons, gear with mats that are hard to gather and farm as well as hard to craft but may only need to have a double meld to equal a BiS piece making the RNG have far less of a chance to F you.

Example #2: Let us create a batch of triple meld attempts for example. Say I have 14 identical pairs of gloves with 32 STR melded to each, let us use 14 Tier IV STR materias all at once to create one pair of gloves out of all of the double melded pairs allowing us a 100% change on one final product that we desire vs 14 independent 7.5% chances. Thus eliminating the possibility the RNG can F you.

Example #3: Forbidden melds attempted with Luminary tools have a higher chance of success.

Example #4: Spirit bound forbidden melds have a higher chance of success, melding to a spirit bound item removes spirit bond should you desire to meld further and have the same increase in meld chance again you would have to re spirit bond.

Example #5: Provide a consumable item from Grand Companies that gives a considerable bonus to forbidden meld % for 30min at great cost to you either gil, GC seals, Materia traded to GC etc.

Example #6: Create an interactive material melding process that requires skills learned in some manner that rewards a player’s hard work to gain said skills to give them larger chances of forbidden meld success.

Personally I like the idea of forbidden melding a lot but the fact that the RNG can just sting you so bad is just an inevitable element of a poorly and lazily designed system. I think many of us crafters would gladly work and pay for better chances of success if SE implemented a system for us to do so.

[Arcell]

Forbidden Melds NEEDS to be a system with an extremely high rate of failure, the devs did not intend for everyone to be running around with triple/quad melded gear. It's supposed to be quite rare and for a good reason. The easier it becomes the faster it becomes a standard and people start expecting everyone to have it.