2.2 Prep Starts Now

[Buckles]

Hi folks,

I went through an overview of the recent LIVE letter from the Producer and saw the tidbit about "new advanced crafting recipe"(s)?

My knee-jerk thought was these would maybe be 3-star recipes which got me wondering ... if we master crafters are currently using X-stats and a rotation to HQ i70's from SQ materials then that won't hold up against tougher recipes.

Has anyone else considered preparing themselves for what may be recipes that need higher craft/control/CP pools to pull off?

I myself have begun stockpiling my crafting IV materias, as well as stacks of HQ items that I usually never use or have (darksteel, spruce etc) My thoughts behind keeping these was that I didn't see mention of new gathering items so perhaps they will use the usual suspects of ingredients + maybe dungeon or vendor/tome materials.

Anyone got their own thoughts?

[Cymoril]

I prepared myself with the cancel subscription option.

[Ed_N_Ants]

They already added new materials into the world... I am assuming that they are mainly for housing bennifits however they could be related to the crafting aspect... Personally I have been stock piling materia every chance I get because I knew they were gonna make more crafting levels... Not to mention if you ever need quick money you can always sell a few pieces real quick...

[Kenji1134]

If they add lvl 80 "3 star" recipes, then they will probably add a new tier of crafting gear as well.

Right now there are a few "designs" that involve mass melding AND HQ food in order to get a 100% HQ on a 2 star. Frankly there are rather few materia slots available in these designs, and even then, we would likely hit the stat caps anyway.

Think of it this way, we're wearing I55 "1 star" gear and with amazing melds, cranking out I70 "2 star" items. We have no more room to improve due to the natural stats, stat caps, and materia slots on our gear.
So IF they are going to release lvl 80 recipes, then odds are they will also release I70 "2 star" recipes to make the next tier of crafting gear, so we can use that gear, and maybe some upgrade recipes on our main and offhand tools, to make "3 star" recipes.

That said... I wonder what will happen to the materia market if/when they do this. Everyone's overmelded gear would quickly become obsolete, and we would suddenly need mountains of materia to overmeld the new stuff. This will be ugly...

[Lyrinn]

Ugly, maybe, but it'll re-stimulate the economy if only temporarily. Fortunately, I have stores of crafting materia from saving them to give to friends who might ask later, so I'll be ready if it turns out I need to use them instead.

To be honest, I find that being able to 100% at no risk with all NQ materials is silly. Crafting was fun in August but as soon as people discovered surefire ways to HQ everything, it not only reduced the value of HQ items but it also sucked all the excitement out of it. Maybe I'm the only one, but I had fun trying to figure out what the optimal rotations were. It was one of the few things that actually required thinking in this game. Anyways, sentiments aside, if they introduce higher level crafts without increasing caps, people will actually be forced to use HQ materials or revert back to using Hasty Touch. I see both as a benefit to the overall economy.

[HEC]

Frankly - introducing the higher level recipies (preferably without introducing higher crating gear) will separate the "robots" 100% macro-ing everything in top melded gears from those who do stuff manually without need for fully melded gears and food - I've maxed all crafts as well as gatherers and I'm still hapilly in Patrician's set only way from max stats and easilly HQ anything I want even from NQ mats - because I don't rely on macros for that.

[Highlanderx]

The only prep work I see as realistic is stockpiling my crafting materias. Since most likely with the Higher level recipes will be higher level crafting gear. Also the new items, will probably require new mats(just like all the new 2.1 items) so stocking current mats probably useless.

[ToodlesMcGiggityGoo]

I plan on getting all 8 of my crafters to level 50 and adequately geared. Which means a lot of quick synths and a lot of spirit binding.

[Githiun]

So far i've been 100% on the money with my predictions on what to expect in 2.2. So i'm going to keep going and say that "preparing" is a waste of time.

Like all of you, I was thinking to myself...I should stockpile materials so that when when 2.2 comes out I can just start hammering the crafting gear...but then I got to thinking.

With the introduction of new ilvl recipes most likely it'll require better gear. Well..my gear is already pretty tapped so how would I get better gear? Going to require them to add new recipes for crafted gear. I'm banking that the new crafted gear (well all gear) is going to completely use a whole new set of materials. There's no point in stocking current Twinthread, hypogrpyh leather etc because it's not going to be used.

If you're going to stock anything I would stock Myth tomes. My prediction is they're going to add a new form of tome material into the Myth tome selection since Myth gear is more or less going to become obsolete and unneeded.

I would stock Materia if anything for dropped or created items. Stock up on your IV's because the demand is going to spike for them both on the crafted and battle side. With the introduction of new Battle 3star presumably i80 or...(my guess), i90 gear people will want to be able to meld it and get them into battle quickly. As soon as more information is released..i'm betting next developer letter the economy is going to react and start buying up the materia.

Better get in early if you don't want to be paying the 100-200k per item. (oh yeah they'll add lvl 5 materia as well)

The new crafted gear will be on par or better than current Myth/Allagan gear. That is my big prodiction that hasn't been confirmed.

[StouterTaru]

Frankly - introducing the higher level recipies (preferably without introducing higher crating gear) will separate the "robots" 100% macro-ing everything in top melded gears from those who do stuff manually without need for fully melded gears and food - I've maxed all crafts as well as gatherers and I'm still hapilly in Patrician's set only way from max stats and easilly HQ anything I want even from NQ mats - because I don't rely on macros for that.

The step up from 1-star to 2-star is small, and I don't see anything changing in the current state unless they make a huge step up to 3-stars.

They can't boost the minimum requirements to attempt by very much without giving us new gear, so all that really leaves is stretching out the progress bar. They would have to make the "difficulty" 330+ or the quality bar 3500+ to change things in any meaningful way. Even at that point, it's just a matter of HQ'ing a couple trivial materials, and doing an easy synth.