New Loot System/End-Game Crafting (Part 1)

[Socratic_Method]

In primal fights, instead of seals, give the option to turn into new unique crafting materials for that primal so that end-game crafters can craft primal themed gear (with materia slots). This will give a bump to primal fights so that people who don't need them for the relic reborn/main quest can still do them to get materials for unique craft-able items that can be worn or sold (+fire resist for Ifrit gear, +wind resist for Garuda, etc..). The craft-able gear would be similar i-lvl to the weapons you could get with that primal (70 - Ifrit(hard), 80- Garuda(hard), etc...). The weapon drop would still be random as it is now, but in this case the player will always at least get a nice weapon for an alt, or a high-grade material for gear

[Socratic_Method]

-Ability to create high-level gear (80-90-100-etc) with materia slots. This will give more incentive to end-game cratfers besides just attach materia and will help the in-game economy (remember we can trade items for money now with the new loot system I mentioned above ).

Imagine this scenario: I keep running dungeons over and over without getting the gear I actually want. If I keep trading the drops I don't need for gil, eventually I may just be able to buy that nice i-lvl 90 chest piece I wanted from the market place (besides also having the option to trade allegan tombstones for other gear). This creates an incentive for crafters to keep crafting new high level gear and also farming the high level mats needed (see primal fights above) to create that gear (or buying the high level mats from the market place, driving the economy and helping gatherers).

[Socratic_Method]

These craft-able items will be different from the ones that can be obtained from allegan tombstone trade and should not be easy to craft but will yield big rewards since they have materia slots to help create specialized builds. For example, The craft-able piece will come with what I consider main stats (strength/vitality for warrior) and also 2 materia slots (or 3 if it's an HQ item) for secondary stats (parry, determination, critical, resistances, etc..). I think this will bring an additional level of excitement into character builds.

[Socratic_Method]

Also, crafters should be required to undertake moderate-to-hard quests to unlock these high-level recipes for these items (after all, it should not be easy obtaining these, driving value a bit). To use as an example, the primal gear I mentioned above, you could just have a quest that requires you to beat said primal and get his unique crafting material (or several of them) to turn in so that the master crafter can teach you how to build that unique gear set with them.

In closing, I think Square-Enix has done an outstanding job with this game. Each major patch opens more options on how to advance in the game and I think these changes I'm suggesting will add even more exciting options into the mix and really pushing into a bit more modern gameplay without taking anything away from the game.