whats the point of crafting...

[Fantasy9]

While I can totally understand the reason for not allowing us to craft gear equivalent to the highest tier gear available, I do have some concerns here.

Materia - Is all but useless leveling up, as the main scenario is -very- easy and all content there in can be completed with minimal difficulty even in gear several levels below it. This needs to come into play much more in end game, allowing player to better spec their characters where they otherwise cannot.

Crafted iLvl 70 gear - The cost to craft this also seems disproportionately large (especially in the case of the DRG set, for instance, which requires far more of the tome materials than the other sets do). If you compare how much philosophy it takes to craft a piece of ilvl 70 gear, compared to how many pieces of DL you could obtain with those tomes, it seems hardly fair, especially since ilvl 70 is not the best in the game.

Exactly This^^

[Supersun]

This doesn't seem that difficult of an issue to fix.

Just make iLVL 90 Dungeon gear the "Jobs" of armor while making the Crafted gear the "Classes" of armor.

[Kincard]

This doesn't seem that difficult of an issue to fix.

Just make iLVL 90 Dungeon gear the "Jobs" of armor while making the Crafted gear the "Classes" of armor.

This is also a good idea. Honestly there's no shortage of good ideas for them to fix this in a way so that crafting feels like it actually has an endgame or some kind of interaction with the top tier of battle play (And no shortage of bad ideas either I guess), the only real reason they wouldn't take any one of them is laziness.

[Feilina]

I wouldn't say laziness. It is more a kind of being too protective to their product and some kind of stinginess.
Yoshida made the decision to not give the crafters the standing they had in 1.x. Was it a good one? In my honest oppinion it was the worst he could have done.
They reworked the crafting extraordinary good. The using of skills, just like a fight, was an excellent idea. But at this point the evolution stopped, suddenly. In fact we lost the ability to produce comparative items, be it because of high costs, missing damage or the focusing of one crafting class (only goldsmith can offer nearly comparable items, if melded properly). They drew a system with a potential no other modern game has atm, but let it stuck "one foot/meter" before the goal. The last step has to be done, and it has to be a good compromiss, nothing other seems to be expectable, as Yoshida "hinted".
Let us see what he offers us with the PVP things he mentioned and 2.1 in a whole.
"Only" housing crafting will not please me, and i ecpect others too.

Sure RMT has to be considered and is absolutly valid but we can't, we mustn't stand back 'cause of those suckers trying to diminish our game experiance! SE has to risk a bit and we, the community, has to report em every single time we see some.

[Jynx]

The anoying part about the tombs for Ilvl 70 gear is that the darklight equivalent is cheaper and easier to obtain. While one can actually "Sell" the gear they craft the profit margin is next to none due to lack of utillity the gear presents without heavy melding. People would rather just slap their darklight on and not worry about melding, especially for a few items that require 2-3 crafted tomb items.

It's insane who would spend 3000+ tombs on a single item when they could gear their entire character for almost as much.

[TwingTwang]

Keeping crafted gear weaker then end game dungeon gear is definitely the better idea. AKA: Work hard to....wear hard? O_o

Lowering tombs costs wont solve anything either. I understand crafted gear costs are ridic but the community is what controls those prices. The devs shouldn't have to adjust their specs because Joe, Moe, and Lo want 56240567204576 Gil for their crafted chest piece. Maybe if they had the player names on the Market Boards rather then the Retainers you could try PM'ing or emailing the player and do offers if you saw what you wanted.

[Lucke]

What about instead of buying Darklight outright, you have to buy pieces and parts for Phil/Myth tomes. Then you have to take it to a crafter who uses these pieces and parts to make the armor? If you really want people to level crafting, make it so only the player can make it.

[Mihael_Longclaw]

I'd actually level crafting classes if you could make top-end gear only usable by the crafter. I was doing ARM, but it just felt so useless that I stopped, but if I could make myself some special gear/vanity gear, that's comparable to dungeon gear that would be best.
Give people something to work towards that isn't "grind for drops, grind for tomes".

[Vanidin]

Until there is a realistic level of demand for crafted goods (let's be honest.. primarily consumables) crafting in this game is little more than a time consuming hobby.
So long as consumables aren't worth bothering for and crafted gear continues to be a waste of time... the lack of demand will just get worse.

Thanks for confirming that crafting is pointless by design Yoshi P.

[Xenobius]

Crafted gear that is worth the effort should be:

Maximum available item level (90 for now);
Made from bind-on-pickup materials obtainable from Coil;
Bound to character upon creation/untradeable;
Customizeable, with both materia and dyes;
Unconditionally better than Allagan if HQ and slotted with proper materia;

...Or you can just forget about crafting and just sell tomes to naive people who think it's somehow "useful" and spend your money on consumables/repairs only.