What is exactly is the point of crafting?

[SarcasmMisser]

5) It requires 23 runs of WP/AK to earn enough Phil tomes to buy the materials to make a single piece of 2-star gear (HQ or otherwise). In that time, you will have earned 690-820 Myth times, which is enough to buy Artifact 2 gear, which outclasses penta-melded HQ 2-star gear in almost all scenarios barring a few examples

Uh, it takes 3-4 weeks to earn that many myth tomes, and only some items require 18 philo materials so it will take half as that many items. A WP run takes no time at all and you get 100 philo from it, many people cap out without even trying. Penta-melded gear has a use to fill gaps in your i90 gear if you are missing some stats especially accuracy. People are still very far off full af+ gear and in any case some parts just aren't worth buying in comparison to it's allagan counterpart, which is random in drops.

[Ksenia]

Crafting for me is the only option that lets me escape the mono-rail theme park nature of the game. I'd rather log in and ask myself, what material will I gather today or what component will I craft tonight or will I make a back up set of gear to bond for materia. Instead of, what dungeon will I farm tonight? Philo in dungeons takes two star off the table for me in that respect and it's why I am working with 1 star only right now.

This isn't even an issue of just intuition on content. I could do dungeon farms, I could break a billion Gil. If I do those things the game will lose the sense of freedom crafting gives me. I will burn out and I will leave this game. I really don't want to but I know that's where it will end.

As a Crafter, am I relevant to the server wide community? Maybe not. I really don't care.

[Umero]

They should make all crafting at Endgame level worth as much as Cooking.
Woodworking should be able to craft ammo and stuff that strengthen combat jobs while being dispensable like food.
Alchemy is good but need more variety of Endgame medicines to be useful.
Armory should be able to enchant combat jobs gear for them to last longer without repairing them, and/or strengthen their defense.
Goldsmith should be able to enchant combat jobs jewelry for them to give more temporary stat boost, if the boost is gone, re-chant them.
Blacksmith should be able to enchant weapons.
So do Leatherwork and Weaver's.

[Dale]

I think what they should have done is limit one craft/gathering per character and give them the option to create a very powerful - but bound - item once it is mastered for their character that can't be rivaled elsewhere.

That way crafting would be very beneficial and worth the effort, even in an endgame context. But it wouldn't over-shadow the usefulness of running instances since each character would have a very limited number of crafted gear available to them.

I don't like crafting in its current form. It is useful, but not useful enough to justify the amount of work it requires. Especially if you do multiple crafts.

The stat caps on items are too strict. And melding materia at higher levels can be very expensive and time consuming for little benefit.

[Valhinjin]

I can think of a few things:

Making lowbie gear for leveling your alt jobs
Making gear for fresh 50s to get out of their AF (militia gear is on par with WP gear unmelded, usually better than AK gear when melded)
Making gear to supplement your jobs between DL and i90 (two-star gear is generally superior to DL even with just standard grade III melds)
Creating specific melded gear for min/max purposes (also reaching specific stat caps when transitioning between sets)
Crafting for housing
Crafting consumables (mentioned)
Having fun trying to HQ and killing time

I'm sure someone will shoot all this down but that's why I craft. I make useful stuff all the time for myself and the FC, and it blows my mind that people think crafting is useless.

[Thunderz]

yes crafting is useless and Yoshi-p plan to keep it that way because apparently he doesn't like it when people save up money to buy that very expensive crafting equip

Combat RMT is such a bad excuse, if that was the case well RMT would be leaving XIV alone since you know crafting is entirely pointless as is but newp they are still here and SE is just as incompetent when it comes to dealing with them with or without a solid crafting system. (see XI and XIV)

Consumables are going to be taking a hit since in 2.1 you won't lose food buff when you die GG all cooks final nail in the crafting coffin if things keep up

in the time being crafting is good to pay for teleport and repairs /end

[Despite]

I agree the RMT excuse is lame. but if it is such a big issue just make endgame crafted gear BOP.

[Freakiie]

I can think of a few things:

Making lowbie gear for leveling your alt jobs
Making gear for fresh 50s to get out of their AF (militia gear is on par with WP gear unmelded, usually better than AK gear when melded)
Making gear to supplement your jobs between DL and i90 (two-star gear is generally superior to DL even with just standard grade III melds)
Creating specific melded gear for min/max purposes (also reaching specific stat caps when transitioning between sets)
Crafting for housing
Crafting consumables (mentioned)
Having fun trying to HQ and killing time

I'm sure someone will shoot all this down but that's why I craft. I make useful stuff all the time for myself and the FC, and it blows my mind that people think crafting is useless.

Lowbie gear - GC coughs up tons of gear. Not like you really need it for fates either.
Fresh 50s - There's no need for that tier of gear. You can start doing WP in AF and get Philo tomes for DL without ever touching i55/60 gear. Not to mention it'd be stupidly expensive to get get a melded piece you don't need and you're guaranteed to replace after a number of dungeon runs. All you need is a half decent weapon, which, once more, you can obtain from your GC.
Supplementing gear - True, however it's expensive as hell and there aren't all that many that really need it. So crafting just for that is pretty moot since you'll just be crafting a few pieces a week.
Housing - If your FC has a house. Otherwise you'll be waiting for another few months.
Consumables - About the only use crafting really has atm.
HQing - *Start macro 1* *Start macro 2* Another HQ done!

That's the thing. Crafting was fun. The first time around. Now I got 7/8 at 50 and it's just the same crap over and over, where I'm basically guaranteed HQs so that I can just macro my crafts and read the forums while the craft is finishing. Pretty much all I'm doing with crafting nowadays is helping people that need melds, but even that is getting pretty rare as the number of people that need their relics is pretty low nowadays.

[Sotek]

I must say, I find the RMT defense pretty funny. More so when coupled with "Crafters have housing!". Do the developers seriously think RMT wont take advantage of housing as well?

[Freakiie]

I must say, I find the RMT defense pretty funny. More so when coupled with "Crafters have housing!". Do the developers seriously think RMT wont take advantage of housing as well?

If I'm not mistaken the plots for houses are sold in an auction. Hmm, that's not going to encourage RMT or anything!