Leveling a Crafting Class: Is it simpler now?

[Surian]

The problem with crafting at the moment isnt so much the cost, or the time investment.

With a little research and planning ahead you can make most leve items very cheaply. Even more so when you gather your own items. And you can bridge other levels simply by mass crafting something that takes one or two ingredients.

No, the real problem with crafting is, there's nothing to work towards.

I present to you situation A:
- "I want to level Carpenter to 50 because i want to make furniture for my FC!"

This is a noble goal, but with todays economy, you're spending immense amounts of time and gil in order for you to make something that can be purchased from the market boards for a mere 300 gil in most cases.

Infact for most things, it's cheaper to just buy them from the market boards, or to have someone make it for you than to level it up yourself.

Even in cases such as Situation B:
- "The three star items are way too expensive, i'm going to level X to 50 myself and get up to 3-star crafting levels!"

Again, a noble goal, but the amounts of materia (and it's current prices) will make you put in 1-2 mil of gil easily just for the final upgrades already, especially with all the failures you will endure melding them in. Not to mention the time and money spend leveling up.

Which, besides the point, the current highest level craftable gear is ilvl90. Why would you make something with horribly expensive materials that (outside of visual looks) you can obtain with the amount of Myth tomes 3-4 dungeons will get you? And even if you absolutely must have that single piece of crafted stuff over everything else, it's infinitely cheaper to just buy it or let someone else make it. And again, you're settling for something that's not even all that great stat-wise.

You dont level crafts to make stuff, or to make immense amounts of money. Those times are long behind you.

You should only level up a crafter if you enjoy crafting for the sake of being able to craft stuff. But if you did, you would have leveled one already despite the time and gil costs, wouldnt you? :/

[lololink]

Again, a noble goal, but the amounts of materia (and it's current prices) will make you put in 1-2 mil of gil easily just for the final upgrades already, especially with all the failures you will endure melding them in. Not to mention the time and money spend leveling up.

Or you can farm the materias and the materials to lvl up and then it's free and you can even make some gils by selling some items.

[muwa]

Or you can farm the materias and the materials to lvl up and then it's free and you can even make some gils by selling some items.

It's only "free" if you don't have anything else to do of your ingame time and don't care about the opportunity cost...

[Failia]

Which, besides the point, the current highest level craftable gear is ilvl90. Why would you make something with horribly expensive materials that (outside of visual looks) you can obtain with the amount of Myth tomes 3-4 dungeons will get you? And even if you absolutely must have that single piece of crafted stuff over everything else, it's infinitely cheaper to just buy it or let someone else make it. And again, you're settling for something that's not even all that great stat-wise.

You dont level crafts to make stuff, or to make immense amounts of money. Those times are long behind you.

to slightly disagree with you here. With the coming of novus weapons, the demand on Type 3 and 4 materia has gone up considerably in the past 2 weeks. Those are only attainable from the ilvl 70 and 90 crafted gear and there's quite a market for those. Depending on the materia that you obtain from spirit bonding, you can get 200-400k per materia.

[Welsper59]

No, the real problem with crafting is, there's nothing to work towards.

As someone who has spent tons of time dedicated to crafting in every single MMORPG that I've played, I mostly agree with what you said except the quoted part.

Crafting is something that always has the same generic result in mind, for those who correctly aim to use it. It's a long-term commitment for beneficial use (more accurately, it's an investment). That's what you work for. Crafting will always have some part of the game, and depending on what your immediate goal is, your hard work will nearly always pay off in huge ways IF you're dedicated enough for it. If you're looking for immediate satisfaction, you're setting yourself up for failure (as you've pointed out in the example situations you provided).