Thread: Why is Crafting still in the game?

Fellow players,

I pose a question to you, hoping that there is an answer that I've missed. I admit, when I get frustrated with something, I end up having tunnel vision and may miss some important things.

Currently, I am frustrated with crafting in ARR.

The entire crafting system was re-done. I am assuming that this took a lot of development time. The new crafting system is one of the things I really appreciate about ARR. When I first logged in and searched through my crafting logs, I was impressed.

The way it was structured made me feel like they appreciated crafters and had given us a sort of end-game equivalent path. this is what I saw when I looked at the crafting logs:

Go through your logs, creating things, level up and do the higher level crafts. One-star recipes lead to 2-star recipes. You craft your first set of AF, and work on one-star crafts until you spiritbond those. You turn them into materia and craft another set of AF to meld with. Using the melded AF, you create HQ AF, spiritbond it, create another set and meld it.

To my eyes, this seemed to indicate that we would have a neat sort of end-game-esque gear grind. The reality wasn't exactly how I saw it, since it takes way longer than I assumed it would to spiritbond your crafting AF, and since you could HQ and meld a set of Patrician's gear to suit your crafting needs.

Then, I realized that crafted gear for War/Magic classes required the same tomestones that were used to buy darklight. In some cases, the crafted gear needed more of them. That made crafting gear for War/Magic classes completely obsolete. Who in their right mind would collect an equivalent or higher number of tomestones and spend it on crafted gear instead of Darklight?

Still, I'm an optimist at heart, and hoped that the patches would help crafters.

Many recent dev postings have disabused me of this notion.

Originally Posted by Camate

Greetings,

Also, in regards to the Disciples of the Hand repair system, the development team is concerned that even if they make adjustments to the system that it would not be used as much as mender NPCs; however, they would still like to make further adjustments. At the moment they are currently working on other elements that are higher in priority and the time period for this adjustment is undecided.

Originally Posted by Hvinire

We designed FFXIV so that gear obtained from dungeons is more effective than crafted items.

Originally Posted by Hvinire

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

So, I pose the question: Why do the crafting professions still exist?


NOTE: If you're coming in this thread with the sole intent of being the first person to post a snarky reply, (as this seems to be a pattern lately) I feel sorry for you. Go hug a Lalafell and smile instead.

Originally Posted by Musashidon

depends on how you see it, crafting is good from alts or helping lower lvl friends with gear. that or things like food which is very good end game.

i love that i am not required to craft end game gear or have someone craft me end game gear because personally i hate crafting.

now i am not saying i hate it so it should suck for everyone else, just saying how the crafting system is now suits how i like to play, that is where crafting is completely optional.

I have crafted gear for my other jobs. And it is useful up to a point, but, they throw SO MUCH GEAR at you through the game, and you level SO QUICKLY, that crafted gear for alts isn't as useful as some might think.

I do agree with you that crafting should not be required. No one wants to play a class that they're not interested in, and the game shouldn't force you. But, crafted gear should still be a viable option.

It comes down to finding a correct balance. You should be able to gear your character either through dungeon runs, or through crafting. Each method of obtaining gear should be viable, even for end-game content. They don't have to be exactly the same, dungeon gear has every right to be a bit stronger. However, crafted gear should be an acceptable way to fully gear your character and be able to hold your own in end-game content.

On the opposite side of your preference, I prefer to not have to dungeon grind for my gear. Which is why I leveled all crafts. Then, I found out that even if I wanted to craft my high level gear, I would be required to run dungeons to get tomestones. And if I'm running dungeons, I might as well just get darklight. Which is what led me to my current frustration

Originally Posted by TrystWildkey

On the opposite side of your preference, I prefer to not have to dungeon grind for my gear. Which is why I leveled all crafts. Then, I found out that even if I wanted to craft my high level gear, I would be required to run dungeons to get tomestones. And if I'm running dungeons, I might as well just get darklight. Which is what led me to my current frustration

you don't need tomestones for the high level mats. You can also get them from treasure hunting or in the MB (the prices have fallen since treasure hunting)

Originally Posted by TrystWildkey

EDIT: I should also add, that earning gil is really not one of my goals. I craft because I enjoy it, and because originally, with 1.0 and 1.23, it was a great way for me to be able to contribute to my ls since I'm not one of the better players with regard to dungeons and raids.

Unless they put the new tomestones and the new highlevel mats also in treasure hunting.

Originally Posted by Musashidon

depends on how you see it... just saying how the crafting system is now suits how i like to play, THAT IS WHERE CRAFTING IS COMPLETELY OPTIONAL.

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You MIGHT think from the pre/promotional comments made by SE personnel about FFXIV ARR that Crafting was going to be fairly relevant through endgame, you know not BIS perhaps, but have a reason to be at least through cap.

How very mistaken I was.

Course' -- they did throw us that bone with everyone needing us ONE TIME just nearly close to cap for the weapon...*sadly smiles...

Originally Posted by Zumi

You do know that come 2.2 they are putting in ilvl 90 crafted items, which will be better then all coil and myth gear because they can be melded. Hardcore people who are chasing world/server firsts will be making these and penta melding them to get an advantage till they are able to get the 110+ gear from coil 6-9.

If it is your goal to make gil with crafting you can make a lot at the start of 2.2.

Is this confirmed? If so, then perhaps it's a good thing that I haven't run out of subscription time yet.

However, if the i90 crafted items follow the same pattern, and require tomestones, then I'm still in the same boat.

EDIT: I should also add, that earning gil is really not one of my goals. I craft because I enjoy it, and because originally, with 1.0 and 1.23, it was a great way for me to be able to contribute to my ls since I'm not one of the better players with regard to dungeons and raids.

Originally Posted by Zumi

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

Yeah, then I'm still in the same boat. I'm still going to be required to run dungeons to get the tomestones. And unless the crafted gear is better than the gear you can get via myth tomes, then nothing has changed.