Why is Crafting still in the game?

[Sessurea]

I take it you've never seen a game with entirely player based economies have you?

/pullsUpSuspenders Young people. /shakesCaneAtComputerInAnger

Yes I have. And people just buy in-game currency with irl money and "win".

[TheUltimate3]

Yes I have. And people just buy in-game currency with irl money and "win".

Titans what games have you been playing then?

Every game I've had with entirely player based economies ended up far functional and sustained themselves. If RMT were an issue, the company making the game dealt with them, as they should.

The entirety of crafting shouldn't be tossed out on it's tuchus because of such an irrational fear. (And yes I consider it irrational when a company has the power to limit/stop it but chooses to drag their feet).

[Sotek]

Yes I have. And people just buy in-game currency with irl money and "win".

And how would that work in XIV? Best gear doesn't save you from Landslide.

[L-D-Omlette]

The way I have understood it from what Dev responses/community rep posts is this:

I can spend time running dungeons to get tomes to get my i70 gear, or I can speed that process up by buying i70 crafted pieces from other players. At present since these are the highest crafted pieces that's the best I can do.

With 2.2, i90 crafts will be introduced. This will mean that the fastest way for me to get i90 (assuming I'm not already there from the last 6 months of myth grinding/coil drops) would be to buy it from the community in the form of crafted gear.

This creates a viable system to get to the same baseline.

For the sake of argument, let's say the new max iLvL is 110. Would the community be ok with someone buying all i110 gear from the MB and being at the top gear level without running any content? Would it be more responsible to allow that player to only buy their way into i90 and make them earn the next 20 item levels?

Don't get me wrong, I am all for having crafts contribute to endgame. Personally, I think the best way for this to occur is for dungeons to drop materials (or for tomes to be able to purchase mats) that can't be traded or sold, but can be prompted to have another player craft, just like melding. The crafted gear from said materials can also not be traded or sold. These crafted pieces would be on par with the gear drops from the dungeons, or the tome equivalent.

[Felis]

To make sure that RMT (and legal crafters) don't sell best gear ingame in MB for very high prices and to make sure that a rich person can not just buy the gear, SE can also just bring in a craft request feature like the meld request.

the dungeon player do Coil 6-9. He can find ilevel 110 gear (as examle) or mats for ilevel 105 gear. The mats would be untradeable and bound to the character like the gears in coil (you need to do the dungeon to get the mats). With a craft request feature the player then don't need to level up a crafting class to get his gear. All what he need to do would be farming all the other mats, put them into the request craft UI window, maybe also a reward for HQ (and a penalty for NQ) and ask a crafter to craft it for him.

The dungeon player get his gear, the crafter feel himself usefull for endgame again and the game is a social feature richer.

[Niroken]

Why not allow crafters to craft an item that allows Rare and Relic weapons/equipment to allow materia to meld on to them. The craft would be 60-70% success rate at best. It should use high level gathering materials, low-mid level dungeon items and crafted weapons/gear. An example would be for the item to add materia on an Allagan Cane, you would need:

30x Gold Ore
1-3x Unique dungeon drops (something like the Bloody Bardiche Head in Wanderers Palace that are unique to that dungeon but in lower levels)
1x Alkalurops
10-20x Clusters
=============
Healing Crystal

Then you would take the item you just crafted and bring it to Gerolt along with some philo items. If your crafted item (healing crystal) is HQ then your Allagan Cane would have two materia slots, if it was normal then you would have one slot (the slots that grant a 100% success rate). For the higher weapons from the new patch you would need the new gathering items, higher level dungeon drops, the new higher level crafting gear and the new myth items to create the materia enhanced i10x items. You can give the new items a low materia cap to make it valuable to have but not an overwhelming must have.

This way you allow gatherers, crafters and lower leveled players to be able to get some money. Philo tomes will still be valuable when the new tomes come out, crafted items will be wanted and used in low and high end games and materia will be useful even when you are decked out in full allagan gear.

[lackofwords]

Crafting has limited services to provide in the game.

• Crafting consumables items Food and Potions
• Crafting gear to convert into materia
• Crafting for leves or supply missions
• Crafting consumables furniture
• Crafting their class quest items
• Crafting their own crafting gear
• Crafting intermediate gears, which serves as a stepping stone for next gear set, this includes PvP gear
  which Nekodar already mentioned this a few times.

The problem is most of these are not sustainable crafts.
Such as most furniture are purchased once, and does not need to be replenished.
Class quest items, will eventually dwindle away as more people complete their quest.
Similarly, the intermediate gear levels vanishes as more people reaches level 50.
And of course crafting their own gear set is only a one time investment.

The only few sustainable crafts I see are Food, SB items, and leves/supply missions.

Even supply missions are a bit iffy, since there isn't much to buy from the Grand Company.
Grand Company gear serves as a stepping stone as well, and any of the vanity items are a one time purchase. The only sustainable item there is the one that resets your stats, The keeper's Hymn

[Sessurea]

And how would that work in XIV? Best gear doesn't save you from Landslide.

Nicely brought off topic there. Who said gear helps you avoid a landslide? But if people can just buy their gears, there will be significantly less people able to avoid landslides.

Do note I said "win" and not win. I think gearing is a formality in a game, I think achieving BIS useless, and feel that if I can complete content with w/e gear I have then I'm happy and consider the game beaten.

I t doesn't take rocket science to see how buyable endgame standard gear will have a very negative effect on the game. As someone said, untradeable craftable gear that still required running endgame content would be ok.

[Mitty_Tsuyoi]

They said lvl90 crafted items come from mythology which will be uncapped in 2.2.

can i get a citation on this one please, i cannot seem to find when or where did the dev mentioned this. all i know is more recipes for 2.2, didnt specificaly said i90 where you need mythology points for materials.

p.s. nice hair /wink

[Gilthas]

can i get a citation on this one please, i cannot seem to find when or where did the dev mentioned this. all i know is more recipes for 2.2, didnt specificaly said i90 where you need mythology points for materials.

p.s. nice hair /wink

Looking at some of the fixes for patch 2.16 and SE's statements, my interpretation is rather that the materials for the new crafting recipees will come from the new unspoiled gathering nodes and items you buy with the new tomestones. But I guess it could be mythology items.