A solution to the Crafting/Gathering/Economy crisis.

[Zantetsuken]

By now, most of us are familiar with these quotes

Greetings,

There are currently no plans to add any end-game style content for Disciples of the Hand.

Once free company housing becomes a bit more widespread we expect the demand for furniture to increase, and as the maximum item level is increased, we will of course be introducing new recipes to create higher-level items.

Confirmed with Disciple of the Hand lead

Currently there are no plans to add any new low/mid level crafting recipes.
We designed FFXIV so that gear obtained from dungeons is more effective than crafted items.

For their first class, players can gain equipment from the main quests so we don't think they should face any problems. But we believe there are other chances to use low-level gear, such as creating materia or equipping them when leveling a second class.

From this, it looks as though crafting is dead-in-the-water as dungeon gear is far more plentiful, free, and quickly horded by players for leveling their other classes.



But there is a way to revive the crafting and gathering jobs, and it involves a type of gear that appeared near the end of FFXIV 1.0 (and was subsequently removed in ARR):


Class-Exclusive Gear.



Simply introduce (and/or modify) recipes from iLvl30 - iLvl90 that are meldable with higher stat caps, but are only Class-Exclusive (that is, Jobs cannot equip them).



This accomplishes several things that are sorely needed in the game:

1. The 'Armory System' will regain relevance by giving Classes an actual role in endgame.
2. Players will find more enjoyment experimenting with the cross-class skills sandbox for endgame content.
3. More people will focus on the 1-50 content in order to unlock more cross-class skills.
4. Gatherers and Crafters will have a new market to work within without disrupting the dungeon-based gear progression for jobs.
5. It opens the door for more rare crafting material drops from dungeons, bosses, Treasure Hunts, Beastman Quests, and Gathering (ie 'bloody' items, 'abjurations', etc.)
6. A brand new avenue for the materia market.

Potential issues:

1) Balancing - most content is balanced around the Job system, not Classes.

The classes are likely the baseline for job balancing, so this might not be a real problem.

2) Inventory/Armory chest space - things are already a bit tight.

A real concern for players with most jobs/classes capped and implementation would have to be paired with improved storage space.

3) Players ignoring endgame content in favor of crafted items

This can an be counter-acted by:
A) restraining the designs of Class Exclusive gear to be less flashy/more realistic than Job gear.
B) Using a cursed-abjuration (FFXI) style system for high-level endgame gear (buy the crafted 'cursed' gear, use the abjuration dungeon/primal drop to 'uncurse' it).
C) Class Exclusive recipes are always introduced at -5 vs max iLvl of Job gear. (ie current max iLvl of Job gear is 90 for armor, and 95 for weapons, Max iLvl of Class gear would be 85 for armor and 90 for weapons.)

[TrystWildkey]

LOVE this idea as well!

+1

[Zantetsuken]

The other bonus to this approach is that it would add a larger visual variety to endgame gear as well. I know I'm tired of seeing Darklight/Myth AF everywhere.

BTW, If you look at the class images in the official site, some of that armor has yet to be released, the other is ilvl70 crafted gear






I wonder if something along these lines might be on the cards already.

[Lumiin]

Great idea, but if it's something that's easy to craft (like everything else) it'll just flood the MB. :<

[HumsterMKX]

You guys really want so much new gears and means to min/max our respective jobs/classes?

You guy really want PS3 to die from its limitations???

I say yes. Great idea. I am also sick and tried of looking at the same stuff, and no craftable armour for me to play around using materia.

[Toranja]

This is a "temporary" solution, because it would be exhausted eventually.

A solution would be to remove repair and simply allow gear to disappear or only convert it when it wears out. Substituting gear obtained from dungeons with crafting materials would help alot. Also, making harder to level up would be also help mid-level crafted gear.

Also, I didn't know there was an "crisis" going on. What's the problem exactly? Prices aren't to your liking? So? If you are going to say "Housing", then the problem is in that particular market.

[Gilthas]

I don't believe that making classes comparable to jobs is any kind of solution as you're just shifting the problem around or delaying it for a few more weeks.

If they want to make craftable i90 recipees, the Armoury system isn't what's stopping them. They could easily make them available for jobs.

Making classes competitive with jobs won't suddenly bring more "experimenting with cross-class skills", as the best skills for each role (tank, DPS, healer) are pretty obvious already.

The real solution to crafting is what you suggest at the end or your post:

B) Using a cursed-abjuration (FFXI) style system for high-level endgame gear (buy the crafted 'cursed' gear, use the abjuration dungeon/primal drop to 'uncurse' it).

Which has nothing to do with the the class/job system.

Though I'd add more things to fix crafting:

- all equipment should be meldable. Why on earth endgame dungeon drops can't be melded is simply beyond me (though you'd obviously have to adjust their stats to account for this).
- add new affixes to drops. Some of these new affixes should boost specific abilities. You see those abilities that no one uses because they're complete crap? Imagine if we had affixes on equipment that actually made these abilities desirable?
- some (if not all) endgame equipment should be convertible into materia.
- new materia should be added to the game. This new materia should have the above-mentioned new affixes and these new materia should only be obtainable by converting equipment that have those affixes. Some of the endgame drops that are now convertible should also give materia with special affixes.
- specific fix for potions: give each type of potion an individual timer. Make potion effects last longer, 15 seconds is simply too short, needs to be at least 30-60 seconds (can't be much more than that or they'll just be food).

I think these suggestions would do more for crafting, because at the very least it would be used for melding equipment.

Now, would all this lead to how in FFXI some pieces of equipment were worth millions? No. Because the only way to achieve something like that is to make endgame drops a hell of a lot more rare and have materials also be a lot more rare (or just make overmelding a lot more difficult). So should FFXIV implement something like this? In my opinion, no it shouldn't. I personally don't give a rat's ass if having all crafts at 50 doesn't make you millions of gil. These complaints about the "economy being in ruins" don't mean much to me. I do have a problem with crafting being virtually useless at endgame though. I just want that to be solved.

I say yes. Great idea. I am also sick and tried of looking at the same stuff

The only ways to prevent people from all looking the same:

- vanity slots (though I get the feeling that people won't be satisfied by this).
- making builds that require specific pieces of equipment (which would only last until the definitive builds are found and everyone flocked to those).
- making gear rare and take a very long time to acquire, a la FFXI (oh boy, the ****storm something like this would cause).

The only one that would truly fix the problem is the last one, and it wouldn't be a popular thing to implement (I'm completely against it).

Ran out of posts for the day:

Except they won't. It's been stated that by design, the devs want people to get the best drops from dungeons.

By moving endgame crafted gear to Class-exclusive, it neatly side-steps the issue. It allows the devs to have their cake, and us to eat some too.

As I stated in my OP, the devs had already started down this road in 1.x -- all the crafted iLvl70 weapons were Class-exclusive. Is it merely a coincidence that all the Class profile art and pics feature those crafted iLvl70 weapons in them?

I have no idea why the devs reversed course in ARR. But they need to go back.


A two-tiered system is what is needed, it fits the original design, it adds variety to gear and play-styles, and most importantly, it creates a real end-game market for crafters and gatherers into the future.

And it's been stated that by design that they want Jobs to be more powerful than classes too. So there's not going to be any i85/i90 class specific gear either.

If we're going to be making conjectures, lets try to actually solve the problem instead of just shifting it around.

[Zantetsuken]

I don't believe that making classes comparable to jobs is any kind of solution as you're just shifting the problem around or delaying it for a few more weeks.

If they want to make craftable i90 recipees, the Armoury system isn't what's stopping them. They could easily make them available for jobs.

Except they won't. It's been stated that by design, the devs want people to get the best drops from dungeons.

By moving endgame crafted gear to Class-exclusive, it neatly side-steps the issue. It allows the devs to have their cake, and us to eat some too.

As I stated in my OP, the devs had already started down this road in 1.x -- all the crafted iLvl70 weapons were Class-exclusive. Is it merely a coincidence that all the Class profile art and pics feature those crafted iLvl70 weapons in them?

I have no idea why the devs reversed course in ARR. But they need to go back.


A two-tiered system is what is needed, it fits the original design, it adds variety to gear and play-styles, and most importantly, it creates a real end-game market for crafters and gatherers into the future.

[deekapowski]

I think all three of these posts are of similar vein.

this plus

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...he-hand...pt-1

and

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...ems-to-be-dead

Namely that those who are crafting seem to be doing it as a quick check in the box and then stopping. They are not "endlessly enjoying" crafting, the way people are enjoying war and magic. Less crafting means less gathering (although they added the treasure maps to help account for this). So why not fix the problem at the source and now that the game is not so under the 1.0 stigma, work on bringing the balance to the three so you really can enjoy all aspects of the game.

[Zantetsuken]

True, and it shows the need for a fix.

It always seemed to me that Materia was better suited for classes anyways..