Defilberating the Dead Horse

[Kabooa]

I want to preface this by stating that I was not a 3+star crafter at 50. I had quit the game at one point shortly after 2.2 and when I came back during 2.4, i saw no reason to get into the crafting game. (I made plenty bashing kneecaps in the X-Ether market for my tastes!)

So here's the issue: There's no crafting end-game apparently. Crafters will only sell to crafters but crafters will be crafting their own stuff so eventually it implodes and then there's no goal. That's what I'm seeing. Let's dissect that. Let's go through what each class currently provides to non-crafter/gathers

Culinarian: Food.
Alchemist: Potions
Everyone else: 180 Left Side.

Well, Cul and Alchemist are apparently still doing their old thing. Alchemist 2star is basically a stepping stone to other two star battlecrafts, so their big bucks depend on other big bucks.

Here's the issue I find with all of the doomsday arguments, that for some reason having i180 being the crafting cap for battle gear is somehow worse than it was before. That once you get your crafting gear, there is no one left to sell to.

You guys do realize that crafting has always been 20 ilevels behind 'poetic' gear, right? The main difference here is that we don't have accessories, but unless -all of you made money by selling accessories- back then, which I doubt just judging by Gilgamesh's old market, losing i180 accesories isn't the end of all time.

When i90 was the cap? i70 was the craft. i110? i90.

i130? You guessed it; i110. You are always losing primary stats in crafting selection for the goal of more substats that make up for it. For Tanking classes this might be a little unacceptable because 'moar defense', but everyone else? You still got a market, especially on belt, boots, pants, and helmet where you're sacrificing less main stats for the same number of materia slots. People are not going to be in full 200 for a while. They won't be in 210 for even longer.

Believe it or not, savage mode 1/2 being cleared the first day -is not the norm, it is the very extreme exception-

And if grade 5 materia is gotten from spiritbinding, could you guess the ilevel of convertable items that will have the highest chance of giving them?

Seriously.

I get it. It does kind of suck, especially if you're a "I MUST BE ALL THE THINGS" kind of person. The system is weighted against you.

But can we stop with the "IT WAS SO MUCH BETTER AT 2.xx!"? It's illogical. People are -already- crafting high quality two star, and it's the first damn week. You are -still an omnicrafter- at this point in time. If you can hq two star one thing now, you can hq two star -all the things- because you share the same set of gear.

I mean, all complaints in basically every area has been responded to with a 'git gud' message. This is literally a pity circlejerk. There are some very valid issues (For instance, there's a culinarian who is only a culinarian, but requires -very expensive fish- to get his redscripts. -That- sucks.) but the rest? Honestly. I thought savage raiders were bad.
-------------------------
TL/DR;

- negative 20 IL has always been the crafter benchmark for combat gear
-No battle accessories does kind of suck, but i150 can work (Xeno senpai so stronk)
-Grade 5 materia has to come from -somewhere- other than stupid face mutamix.
-You're still an omnicrafter.
-Come on, get happy.

[PotatoWafflez]

If I recall correctly the issues are:
- Script gear is pointless at the moment it, has no use to anyone who mainly crafts because they can already HQ 2 Stars - So the rich get richer selling to those who can't
- Scripts are a pain to earn if you don't have mats stock piled a head of time and only get a few hours to play a day and they change so you can't stock pile on Monday and craft on Tuesday with reliability.
- Crafting in general punishes you for not being a omnicrafter except Cul but they have to rely on gathering pretty much 100%
- Specialists don't really bring anything to the table so the separate gear is just a nuisance to most

But as a casual crafter who tries to keep up its just not fun or rewarding and the balance of time investment vs DoW/M per week just makes it seem all the more worse.

Really my main issue now is just how much time I need to sink in each week just to hit the caps but that's just me.

The other issues don't really affect me its mainly the barrier to entry that bugs me and that is pretty much mainly due to how they said this system was meant to make everything more accessible to people who don't 100% focus crafting.

[MiniPrinny]

Honestly, as someone who has enjoyed crafting but got on the boat all too late in A Realm Reborn. The problem I have isn't what is available. I mean, I'd like to have say Draconian Potions and Draconian Ethers, but that's splitting hairs. The problem I have is purely in the acquisition of the materials required to make my gear. I would be fine if you could only get HQ materials through using favors and red scrips. I would be fine if you had to use red scrips to craft the i170 crafting sets. But requiring red scrips from both Disciples of the Land and Disciples of the Hand to have a chance at succeeding in crafting i170 crafting gear is just sickening. This is further complicated by the fact that the i170 gear starts out weaker than a fully melded set of i150 gear, and they're class specific. At this point in time, I'm seeing the i170 gear as more trouble than it is worth because the reward doesn't justify the means. I would rather save up my red scrip tokens and sit on them until 3.2 than actually craft anything with them. And spending 4-5 months of my time sitting on my currencies isn't my idea of "good game design."

[Kabooa]

Gathering scripts are certainly a pain. I found crafting pretty easy but like you said, I had a stock of materials to work with, and my chosen crafts usually pull from the same materials no matter what. (Goldsmith? Better hope I have aurum regis nuggets owaitIhavetoomany)

Script gear is not pointless; It provides a low cost, medium time investment to get gear that is bar none far more cost efficient than full melded patrician2.0. That's like, the definition of casual friendly; People who only really work on one or two crafts, and make a little gil here and there when they find a unique niche they can grab on the market before it's found out and overrun.

The omnicrafter issue hasn't really changed at all; They made an attempt with the Specialist actions but gating them behind lower-chanced 'good' procs was not the best way to go about it. (If they changed anything, my money would be on CP Costs for specialist actions)

[scarebearz]

Tbh it sounds like you don't really know what your talking about, so many inaccuracies with the opening post.

Your also totally missing the point.

[Snugglebutt]

-snip-

Thanks for a reasonable way you made your criticism and level headed approach to the issues, makes a change from the hyperbole and scaremongering going on currently on these forums by some. The one thing I specifically would say though overall in the sense it stood out to me more so was your second paragraph which seemed to rely on gear crafting, potions and food but there are other recipes that have been added that do not fall into only those categories. There are other things I might have a different opinion of than yourself in what you said but what I just said above is what stood out to me more so.

In the end however no matter how few recipes were added less than a week ago, those were just the foundation of a new system and vastly more will be added over the following weeks and months. The new systems will like you said also be further balanced and slight adjustments made over the coming weeks and months such as potential cap raise and lowering of material costs gained through scripts. Such adjustments always come after new content is released.

I also noticed people seem to have forgotten that unspoiled nodes had restrictions too on how often could farm them for the non-marketable and unsellable crafting materials 'especially' ones which required x amount of them to get your foragers, supra and other such gear. There has been a limitation on gearing up DoL/DoH even prior to this new system, a time restriction meant to slow down gearing progress. The new system is just an extension of that pre-existing principle.

SE have also made it know for quite some time they do not want crafters creating BiS DoW/DoM gear which undermines the reward gained from obtaining such gear through raids and they also do not want people buying BiS gear to shortcut their way to highest end raid content, many raiders agreed with this stance and complained about BiS crafting prior to 3.0. So what SE has given crafters is mid range gear which is inline with that, the only current issue with the gear is the price of mats and the current script cap but those only need minor changes to become more balanced.

My opinion is that some people here are making mountains out of molehills, too many here using hyperbolic and extremely melodramatic statements including some posting logical fallacies in an effort to vent their frustrations and puff up their arguments so it is good when someone like yourself comes on with a more reasonable and rational debate on the subject. Yes there are issues with the current system but no they are not in reality major issues that would require scrapping the new systems for example or removal of the caps entirely, SE just needs to make some minor adjustments which they will do over time. As for crafting BiS DoW/DoM gear, sorry but that is just not going to happen and SE have made that pretty clear for quite some time.

[Kabooa]

Tbh it sounds like you don't really know what your talking about, so many inaccuracies with the opening post.

Your also totally missing the point.

If the burden of ignorance is still making gil, being more or less content with the system, and saving money on markers and cardboard for doomsday signs, I'd say one of us is winning.

There's also nothing -objectively- wrong with what I said.
-Battle gear was always capped at i20 below current weekly tome gear.
-You're still a 2-star omnicrafter now and no red scrip gear will change that. It just means all your scrips can be used on materials. More money for you to make rich-person AF gear.
-If you're not? A low barrier of entry (but high timesink admittedly) for gathering lets you sell materials to get 2-star omnicraftable gear.
-If grade 5 materia spiritbinds from anything, it is well known that ilvl (or perhaps 'star' level) gives a better chance for higher grade materia.

[scarebearz]

There's also nothing -objectively- wrong with what I said.

Well lets see:

You guys do realize that crafting has always been 20 ilevels behind 'poetic' gear, right?

It is now 30ilvl behind, before it was 20ilvl.

2.0: i70 craft - i90 tome gear. (20ilvl difference)
2.2: i90 craft - i100 tome gear, upgradedable to i110. (20ilvl difference)
2.4: i110 craft - i120 tome gear, upgradedable to i130. (20ilvl difference)
3.05: i180 craft - i200 tome gear, upgradeable to i210. (30ilvl difference)

The main difference here is that we don't have accessories, but unless -all of you made money by selling accessories- back then, which I doubt just judging by Gilgamesh's old market, losing i180 accesories isn't the end of all time.

Accessories were only released at the same time as armour in 2.0, from 2.2 onwards we only got left side and accessories added at a later date. (just like now)

I get it. It does kind of suck, especially if you're a "I MUST BE ALL THE THINGS" kind of person. The system is weighted against you.

Actually with current skills and gears, you can still in theory (I.e. if you could get the mats) be an "omnicrafter", as the specailist skills are not required.

But can we stop with the "IT WAS SO MUCH BETTER AT 2.xx!"? It's illogical. People are -already- crafting high quality two star, and it's the first damn week. You are -still an omnicrafter- at this point in time. If you can hq two star one thing now, you can hq two star -all the things- because you share the same set of gear.

2.x was far better.

Mats were farmable (meaning DoH/DoM/DoW classes could make some gil) with no lockout, they did take a while to get, but those who wanted to make gil farming them could do so.

Craft gears in 2.4 were locked behind sealants, but these could be gotten by lower lvl players, so far more freely avaliable, even though they were expencive at the time.

Current mats require players to have a lvl 58+ main class, lvl 60 geared crafter, lvl 60 geared gatherer. I.e. very few people able to even make use of their weekly cap.

A few people have made 1 or 2 items this week, they are now stuck untill next week to craft 1 or 2 more items. (e.g. a robe would require 300/450 scrips to have just 1 attempt to craft it HQ)

The mats are also shared between DoM/DoW gears and DoH/DoL gears, so players who want to gear up their crafters/gatherers, cannot make any DoW/DoM gear and vice versa.


The problem is not the ilvl of crafted gear, it's fine.

It's not grade 5 materia being hard to get, but would be nice if it was easier.

It's not because people want to remain "omni-crafters", as for 2* at least we pretty much can be.

The problem is the weekly cap on mats/scrips that have shared useage between battle classes, crafters and gatherers.

[Kenji1134]

The best analogy would be that this is the crafter equivalent of Alex Savage, but with more grinding.

As someone else has already put it, the Red Scrip Crafting System, if converted to an Combat Equivalent, would be that you had to grind out some specific dungeon 20 times to have the privilege of stepping into Alex Savage.
However there is a small caveat, your Alex Savage Entry Privilege is only good for 1 wipe... One. You can stay in the zone as long as you want, no 90 minute timer, but if everyone in the party dies, you are booted out of the zone.
Oh yeah, and you are only allowed 1.5 Alex Savage Entry Privileges per week.

Do you see how this can seem un-fun?

[Aeyis]

Tbh it sounds like you don't really know what your talking about, so many inaccuracies with the opening post.

Your also totally missing the point.

Yeah I dont know about you, but personally im getting real tired seeing these kinds of posts pop up.
Maybe I should write a fool proof (is there truly such a thing?) explaination and just copy paste that every time...

Starting with the disclaimer: ''This is the 101 guide to red scrips and 2* crafting for those that did not do the research''