Thread: Specialist System in 3.0

Originally Posted by Sibyll

Artisan main hands. Forager Hats and Main hands. My memory is hazy but I'm pretty sure all of this came together in the same patch as Artisan Specs. Only reason that people went the GSM route was because you could do 5 Specs in the amount of effort it would take to make any single artisan tool and with the amount of RNG it'd be more beneficial to try 5 times for a chance at 1 then try 1 time at a chance for 1-3 with no knowledge of hard drop rates.

I won't argue that MCDs were balanced well in terms of how different classes obtained them, but there were more options available than only GSM.

50 turn ins for a single item to desynth that has a good chance to desynth into anything other then a MD?
From the perspective of someone that has made a couple of hundreds such turn in items: that is no viable option.
Even that none-viable ''option'' left any LWR/ARM/CULI/ALC without any option at all to obtain them.


The only realistic option to obtain them was via GSM desynth.
Naturally this created a market of ''specialization'' that ment anyone with GSM desynth made a lot of gil, anyone with BSM or CRP made a little (I wont count WVR, as obtaining Foragers takes many real time hours) and the rest obtained absolutely nothing.


As such it's a pretty good example of what specialization can do to a market.

Originally Posted by Sibyll

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If we wanted to go beyond the MCD, GSM was also master for getting grade I and II FC and BC, as well as BCIII demimateria for a while now. Heck, they even allowed GSM to get access to the trio primal's demimateria since they made the accessories desynable, effectively taking away ALC's former advantage of being the only one capable of getting crags.

Desyn in general was pretty messed up from the moment it was implemented, and it hasn't really changed for the better. Now LTW/WVR are the ideal to go for FCIII, GSM still remains the most efficent way since now it only takes 8 turn ins for the artisan needle (which can possibly yield 3 MCD).

Circumstances and scenarios like this needs to be avoided if they plan to make it limited access for each player; SE has a pretty bad habit of letting things go and not fixing it up.

I don't know that this would have a negative impact on mid tier crafters like me (have 3 crafting Lucis, moderately wealthy, mostly only craft in 1 or 2 markets) and I believe there's many of us. Additionally, I think it may encourage lower end crafters who don't want to challenge the kingpins. Sure some of them will level alts to corner all markets but a lot of them will be dissuaded. This could make it easier for players like me and lower who aren't quite as hardcore to compete in the market. As long as the base items used to craft the specialization items are still craftable without being specialized, I don't think it goes against the spirit of the armoury system.

Originally Posted by Gillionaire

I think it'll be the exact opposite.

Instead of having a conglomerate of kingpins controlling the MB as a whole loosely. You'll have to face just the one kingpin controlling his own little section with an iron grip. Because he can focus his efforts better than a group can.

A couple weeks ago, I noticed a price war between 2 people on the mcD market on Jenova
where the prices just plummeted from 400k earlier that day down to 150k in the course of about 2 hours.
That's probably because those two were "specialized" in that market and didn't have any other diversification and hardly any competition, it was literally just the two people undercutting each other to hell. When all was said and done, prices went back up again to 350k so it didn't really do much for the buyers.. It just made it harder for other sellers.

Do you think you can compete in that kind of hostile market?


Maybe my concerns stem from the size of my server, most end-game items only have 3, 4, or maybe 5 sellers. If there were more crafters, all my concerns may be alleviated.. But I just don't see Jenova's population problem changing any time soon so there's really no point getting into that discussion..


Oh and also,
if you have 3 lucis tools, you're not a mid-tier crafter :P
You may happen to compete in mid-tier products because there's more demand and it's more lucrative.. but you're still pretty high up there

I make 4 star LTW and WVR gear (very little BSM). I guess I consider high end as every craft at 4 star and full retainers all the time. I have 4-8 pieces up at a time and I'm too lazy to play all the markets. Maybe that's why specialization doesn't bother me too much - I already specialize for the most part. The guys who give me the most competition are the omnicrafters who, like you said, look at the market board as endgame or just play the game so much, they can both raid dungeons and the MB. I guess I'm hoping that maybe specialization would give me a reprieve from those sorts because it would make cornering every market more tedious.

I feel like I already compete in that market you describe. A lot of the crafters I mentioned above already do that in EVERY market. I feel like all they do is camp their retainers to undercut. You're right that I could get stuck in the same speciality and they'd be even more relentless, and I concede that would suck.

I think Adamantoise is similar. There's not a ton of big crafters but the ones that are there are pretty dominant. That said, I'm fine with the current system. I'm very rich by most players standards even just getting the scraps of the tycoons. I'm just not particularly scared if it changes.

Originally Posted by Thrustie

snip

I think we're just anticipating opposite things to happen from the change. Myself being more pessimistic.


But at least on Jenova, I've seen some CRAZY crafters in the game so far whose ability to corner the market I do not doubt at all..
I suppose I could include myself in that list, although I opt not to diversify because I can justify my work and profits with a niche market. But if a situation arises where there's a lot of gap to be filled and profits to be made, I will jump at the chance. I just don't see enough money to be made in other crafts atm because it's mostly stable with enough (although I'd like to see more) competition.

But once expansion hits, I think I could take some serious advantage of being a full-time crafter as opposed to others who are more casual.

Hell, I could probably count on my fingers how many active 4 star crafters there are on my server.. I just gotta go to Mor Dhona and see.
What's to stop us from dividing the market into sections and gouge people..

I like the way Gillionaire thinks! Her explanation is accurate. I like to dominate the fc3 market and its offshoots.. wool cloth, hard hippo leather, and spruce lumber by desynthing. (110 ltw). I try not to be too greedy but I won't let others dominate. Once I get into a pricing war with a person, I take the price down to the breakeven line with an aggressive campaign of market flooding forcing my competition to compete or if they wait me out I just keep the price down.I once kept fc3 down to 25k a piece for 4 days to soften up competition. I controlled the prices in the offshoots as well so no one made gil of this markets but me.. barely but I had other markets as well so help offset the costs of breakeven or even at loss.. as long as I controlled the market.. Now imagine what I can do once I make alts and and have even less competition in certain niches to deal with.. Js..

Originally Posted by Sibyll

Make a 4* BSM without leveling any of the other crafters then come back and tell me that the game doesn't twist your arm to level everything to 50.

And specializations will magically make other cross class skill meaningless? Lol to that. They will still need to level other crafts to be effective because they would have to impliment an (auto HQ) skill to compensate for said casual crafting for not picking up skills from the other crafts. That just promotes lazy people that wants hand outs.

Personally I like the more solo side of crafting, I don't much like the idea of group crafting for high end items, unless thats just for the airships.

I'm just glad I've made more than enough gil while I could still be an "omnicrafter".