Crafting Endgame Balance Idea

[giantslayer]

I have been a very dedicated crafter. I have sunk hundreds of hours into leveling up all my classes and making money to afford to gear up my crafting. At this point, I am 3-star on three classes and 2-star on the others. However, I am not planning on doing 4-star in the near future. My problem is not the difficulty of crafting (I got my LTW book in about 20 minutes with no new equipment or surpas). The issue is the scarcity of resources and the lack of reward in the end.

At this point, with the patch being a couple weeks old, Ehcatl Sealants run 450k and mastercraft demimaterias run 1 million on my server. After spending a fortune on all the crafting equipment, I then have to spend a fortune on materials. I haven't checked these as recently, but Allagan silks were running 300k last time I looked, and it takes several of those plus other materials to make each piece of i110. At the end of the day, we are talking tens of millions of gil to get to 4-star. I understand prices will go down over time, but only by so much before new ways to get materials are introduced in the future.

I don't have that kind of gil. I could eventually make enough money, but it seems a waste to use it on i110. You see, in the time I spent developing my crafting and making i90, everyone else geared up to i110 by doing hunts and other content. By the time I can get to i110 on crafting, everyone else will be i120-130 from Poetics. Why should I work so hard and spend so much gil just to get to the level everyone was at pre-patch and be behind where they are now?


I have an idea for how crafting can be more viable for endgame content. I understand SE does not want people to be able to buy their way to the top. I appreciate that, but I also understand there is a difference between buying your way to the top and crafting your way to the top.

My idea is to create "custom" or "tailored" versions of the new equipment at a higher ilvl (like i120) and make them untradeable. It would work very similarly to the augmented cashmere coats. You make the regular one first, then do an additional craft with that as the base to make the new item. It could be a more difficult craft than the regular i110 4-star.

By making the higher version untradeable, it has to be earned, not bought. Getting it is still no easy feat. Very few crafters have the kind of Gil it takes to gear up quickly. For most, it would still be faster to gear up with Poetics. This doesn't make it easier, just more worthwhile.

[chidarake]

the thing about crafting is the more you risk the more you could gain, get a nice balance and before long you'll be rolling in gil.

now that being said it would be really nice if S.E rewarded master crafters in some way, if not by allowing us to make i120 equivalent untradeable gear then at least a number of unique crafted untradeable glam gear to show how much effort we have put into our crafting. also I would really like the title "master crafter" added as well maybe on recognition of unlocking all the 4 star books or I guess 5 star when they introduce those in probs expansion.

the reason I would like this title added is well we deserve the recognition beyond being "builders of the realm" because 3* upwards crafters are not the same as just hitting 50 in all crafts.

[Kenji1134]

Though the fact remains that it will be easier to gear up with poetics and FCoB, rather than with crafting. So after about a month, you'll have your untradeable crafted gear, which is identical to poetics, while someone who's running and clearing FCoB will likely have Dreadwyrm drops and some upgraded Poetics. So once again, you are behind, having put in more hours than the raiders did.

Still, I am glad that someone brought up the idea of "untradeable" crafted items. As this brings up a simple and effective way to get raiders into crafting, without breaking the "you must do coil to get the best gear" rule. (Will take some coding from SE's side to implement)

Skill: <Name of Coil Set> Attunement
Available to Any Crafting Class (kind of like Melding crossed with Crafting)
Primary Ingredient: Any Coil or Poetic's Weapon, Armor, or Accessory.
Secondary Ingredients: 1 Specific HQ Component from Each Crafting Class, set to a difficulty equal to the previous tiers'. (We have 4 stars now, these would be 3 stars)
Quality: 0/0
Difficulty: 1
Craftsmanship and Control Requirements equal to that of the current tier (ie: 4 stars)

The idea is, you, the dedicated raiding crafter, get every class to 50. Get everything geared. And make an HQ item (using say 20 clusters and a couple gathered resources of the same tier), from EVERY SINGLE CLASS.
Then change to the class which meets the stat requirements, combine your raiding equipment, earned from combat, with your crafting items, and create a soulbound version of the same item you used, which can be upgraded if it's from poetics.
But with 5 materia slots... Now raiders want it, and have to craft to get it.
You worked for it, you got it. 5 materia slots! No RNG! Make the gear YOU WANT!

[Stihllodeing]

Still, I am glad that someone brought up the idea of "untradeable" crafted items.

As am I. In addition, if they decided to do something like this I hope the gear would be convertible as well.

[Katchoo]

I think it's a great idea, i am also glad other people think the same about untreatable gear.

I don't mind the idea of it taking longer because, i am sure there are more people who are like me out there, that actually HATE running Coil and grinding dungeons over and cover. It makes sense for it to take longer too so that people don't INSTANTLY have some of the best gear as soon as a patch comes out.

[Kiara]

Hi giant,

Good points. I also agree. While I consider myself more of an "Adventurer" (Combat) rather than "Crafter," I still enjoy Crafting a lot. It's really unfortunate that Yoshi P has made Crafting marginalized in 2.0 compared to 1.0 or XI.

I think there can be a compromise, but it depends on a few things:

1. There need to be More Meaningful Statistics for each Job. With More Stats to play with, there can be more Alternate Builds / Gear Sets that achieve different results.

2. With More Meaningful Stats, it means at least one "end game set" of gear could be made by Crafters.

3. Or take a lesson from an older Final Fantasy game, and have something like Cursed Gear. With Cursed Gear you needed a "Dungeon Drop" (Abjuration) which Uncursed it, *and* you needed a Crafter to craft the rest of it.

Or like in 1.0, when we had to kill Uraeus (it was a real Notorious Monster in the world, LOL), and it had a chance to drop "Uraeus Skin" which Crafters could THEN use to craft stuff (that was important at the time).

There was nothing wrong with that system. It involved both Adventurers and Crafters and they made meaningful Gear that many players really wanted.

Hopefully 3.0 changes things.

[giantslayer]

There was nothing wrong with that system. It involved both Adventurers and Crafters and they made meaningful Gear that many players really wanted.

Hopefully 3.0 changes things.

I agree that there is a good dynamic where adventurers get valuable materials that crafters can use to make stuff. We already have a lot of that in place, but crafting is more of a second class type of gear, rather than an alternative to doing repeated dungeon runs. We crafters get to take the scraps of Allagan material that drop on SCOB runs and make last generation equipment with it. I'd like to be able to make something in the current tier. Doesn't have to be the best, just better than the last tier. I think making that top level crafted stuff untradeable will alleviate many of the developers' concerns with allowing more powerful equipment to be crafted.

[giantslayer]

Then change to the class which meets the stat requirements, combine your raiding equipment, earned from combat, with your crafting items, and create a soulbound version of the same item you used, which can be upgraded if it's from poetics.
But with 5 materia slots... Now raiders want it, and have to craft to get it.

In my experience, few people are both hardcore raiders and hardcore crafters. I think it is ok for them to be separate and specialized. In an MMORPG, people should be able to have a niche where they contribute something of value to the community which others can benefit from without having to do it for themselves. I wouldn't want raiders to feel forced into crafting anymore than I would want crafters forced into raiding. Imagine if they made all the crafting materials that dropped in dungeons/raids Untradeable. We crafters wouldn't like that.

[SirTaint]

11s Abjuration system was really what made endgame crafting worth it.

Raiders raided for different abjurations and then had to purchase a cursed item which was crafted.

Crafting HQs also wasn't 70% plus for new items it was 1-3% so even a new crafter could get lucky. (1-3 is too low but it's better then 70-100)

When NQ gear is not desired and HQ gear requires huge gil/gear/time sinks you'll have a great divide between career crafters and the rest of the player base.

[Millen1]

I agree with Chida Rake on this. I don't know what he has given up to be one of a handful of master crafters on Behemoth server but being able to make untradable gear, Master crafter title would be nice. The time used on getting to 4 star crafting is long and crafting item for others leaves little time. In trying to have some balance of playing the game and crafting, I run about a day back log. I craft when the server is slow and less to do. It doesn't leave us with the raid time others get, yes it is a choice. After 2 star macros of nq to hq are gone. 3 star has risk, 4 star has much more and the mats are not cheap to toy with. I have a binder full of my DoH/DoL notes on crafting, good rotations and failed ones and much more.