Crafting Materia Melds

[JonBigwood]

Well, melds are very expensive, but you don't need all the melds for all the classes at once.

You can make money crafting items that don't need melded gear and do the melds as you get the gil. Having just one class at a nice level alows you to start making money. Accesories and belt are useful for all classes, these ones go first. Forbidden melds are more risky, thoes go the last.

You might need to fully meld or nearly one class to get the artisan's spectacles, but you don't need to meld (you can even save the buy) for the other classes head gear. The Ixali gloves ilvl 70 are not the best in slot but are quite good and serve for all classes too. You might save a lot in hand gear and melding until you need top gear for that class.

Crafting takes a lot of time and getting the best available gear needs a super long grind. To make some money you don't need that, but people who like to have the best gear and be able to craft the best items, do the long grinds for that and spend a lot of money. The question is enjoying while you play.

Probably it's not the cheapest way (taxes etc,) but I usually don't save the materia I get, I sell it, free inventory space, and when I need it, maybe weeks later, I buy the one I need. Exception: the very expensive materia I wil eventually need. The cheap one can be sold unless you'll need it soon.

Each one has his system he likes best. Some gather if possible all the mats, craft if possible everything they need, spiritbond and convert to materia as much as possible, etc. I sometimes am more concerned about time. It may be cheaper to gather or craft but sometimes it's quicker and you have less inventory problems if you buy (except if it's very expensive.) It might be you quickly craft some item that once sold gives you enough money to buy what you need in less time than taking all the time to craft or gather yourself. But gathering and crafting yourself everything may give some added satisfaction.

[Kiara]

I think you all would've hated Forbidden Materia Melds in 1.0:

* The Base Equipment *and* all the Materia you melded previously BLEW UP if you failed, and you lost it all! LOL

I'd say the blowing up of the individual Materia is OK, but only if Yoshi P and the team improve Tier IV Materia generation (the meaningful ones feel too rare still).

[TomTom1968]

^^ ouch that's gambling against the Devil. I really like the Japanese way of challenging players with hard to achieve goals in opposite to Western Games shoving everything into player's a**** straight away with no efforts. But sometimes it seems that the Japanese players are more willing to suffer than I am lol. But I bet, I would have done it also in 1.0 if I would have played it haha. Sometimes I am a masochist too.

Glad it was changed but I still like to complain about it because it is still a (too) long term goal or very cost expensive if you want to speed it up. I needed almost a Year for my melds and that's just a really long time, especially considering that with each update, there is a chance of rendering everything you did obsolete by introducing new items.