The crafting grind

[Mature]

I think the problem right now with crafting 2 star stuff is very limited per week. If I'm right you can only craft up to 2 or 3 pieces ilvl170 per week (IF you gather everything by yourself. Excluding MB). Depending of what you gonna make. And that is what puts me off from crafting at the moment. If you fail all the recipes you basically stuck until next reset (a week). Unless you wanna blow Astronomicals amounts of money on MB for Mats you can get for free.

My solution for this should making red scrips reset as a daily thing , a bit like ehcanti stuff Ixali quest. This is just to help the MB to flow so they are price accessible for all.

The other solution is to chop by half the amount of items you need to turn in for key mats like purify coke (5 red oodis 5 wyverns warts)

[Nyalia]

Honestly, endgame crafting has NEVER been about making money in FFXIV. The money for crafters has always been in selling materials to endgame crafters, selling glamour items that require rare materials but are easy to craft, or selling mid-level gear in large quantities. You can do 2* crafts with all white gear. (It helps significantly to have HQ Seafood Stew though, but the rotation I have works with NQ.) The requirements are high, but not THAT high. The melds only cost me 1-2 million, and if that's a lot of money for you, you can sell a couple red gathering and red crafting scrip tokens. I could make millions right now for just three red crafting scrips without losing a single red gathering scrip by just buying the HQ two star mats with the random items I've gotten while going for NQ two star mats.

The thing is, endgame crafting in FFXIV has always been aimed at the people who enjoy the crafting minigame. There doesn't need to be a point to the top crafting gear besides having it - it, by itself, is a goal that's fun to work toward. The grind isn't even that hard - people are making it out to be much worse than it is. It takes about an hour one day a week to max red crafting scrips. You wait until there's a starred item worth 40-50 for max quality and then make 9-12 of them. That's like, ~20 aurum regis and ~20 birch lumber, usually, which is only about 330k if you don't gather it yourself. Gathering is a longer grind, but you only need to hit 15 nodes throughout the week to max on average ((2+(0.6-2*(0.3)^2+2*(0.3)^2))*12*15=468). That's a little over seven pairs, which means one per day (takes 6-9 minutes per day) is about enough.

The only part that's a true grind is getting the blue gathering scrips for the tomes. 5,000 blue scrips per tome is kinda absurd. But, really, it's no worse than the lucis grind. That was ~66 nodes per lucis. To get the MIN and BTN lucis, it was ~132 nodes. This is 4950/(2.6*60) = ~32 nodes per book. For every book (MIN+BTN), it's ~192 nodes. But, the nodes come twice as often as the Lucis nodes, but it's hard/expensive to hit both and still get both red scrip nodes. Doing one node a day following your red scrip node pair and without using a cordial, that's one book per month. With a cordial, it's every two weeks. And that's with only hitting one node per day.

The real grind is caused by the sheer number of moving parts, but each part isn't that bad.

But, I do have some issues with the system. My biggest problem is that if you fail the final synth, you lose absurd amounts of time and effort. I dread DCing during one of those synths! And then there's the fact that 3.0 endgame crafting *requires* you to have all crafts and gatherers at 60. I really wish they made it so you didn't have to be an omnicrafter/gatherer, or rewarded not being an omni, but instead, they significantly increased reliance on being able to do everything. You can't turn in BTN favor materials for items without also having MIN favor materials. All endgame BSM synths require endgame CRP or LTW synths. Red gatherer scrip items are useless without red crafter scrips to turn them into materials. While yes, you can find people who are willing to trade you MIN for BTN items or vice versa 1 for 1 if you both don't have the other class, what about people who don't have any endgame gathering but want to do endgame crafting? They're totally SoL. I know plenty of people who hate gathering but love crafting, but no one who hates crafting but loves gathering.

Also, I really hope they don't release any new crafting equipment from now until 4.0, because the grind is so hard, it'll be demoralizing if they release better gear after just a couple months that invalidates it =\ I mean, yes, there eventually will be better gear, but this stuff should last us through 4* level 60 items. I've worked toward the blue gear since 3.0 came out, and just made my first one last night.

[Mature]

But, I do have some issues with the system. My biggest problem is that if you fail the final synth, you lose absurd amounts of time and effort. I dread DCing during one of those synths! And then there's the fact that 3.0 endgame crafting *requires* you to have all crafts and gatherers at 60. I really wish they made it so you didnt have to be an omnicrafter/gatherer, or rewarded not being an omni, but instead, they significantly increased reliance on being able to do everything.

Just bumping this bit cause you completely spot on with issues with crafting. Hope they\\'re actually looking into this. Imagine failing polished adamantite file (2 adamantite ingots and 1 Griffin leather) that will put me off from making more, SPECIALLY having to wait a week to get another one.

[Nyalia]

Also, to the people commenting on the number of items from the favor system - the average is 3. I've had runs of 1. I've also had runs of SIX. Last night, with three favors, I managed to get 14.

A few tricks - if a concealed node appears before the favor runs out, that node will stay. You don't have to mine the item itself before the favor runs out. If there are enemies in the area, watch for them as you fly to a node pair. If they are close to one node and facing the node, go to the other one first. Don't dismount until you are CERTAIN they aren't aggroed on you, and stealth immediately. Always mount immediately following the end of a gather. If an enemy is too close to a normal node and you don't think you can get to it without landing a ways off and slowly stealthing in, forget that node and go on to the next pair. The time to get to the next pair is less than the time it'll take you to deaggro, stealth in, or wait for the enemy to turn around. If you DO aggro, sprint to another node pair (or the other node of the current pair if it is undepleted and far enough away).

Having your choco out in tank stance is a double-edged gunblade. One the one hand, your choco can distract something that aggros on you, allowing you to harvest safely. On the other hand, you can't mount until your choco gets out of combat, so you're probably better off immediately deaggroing anyway, and deaggroing can be hard if your choco is in combat.

Also, for the Hinterlands BTN spot, when you're doing the node pairs near the raised platform, land on the platform above the node, stealth, and drop down. That way, you never have to worry about which way the enemies are facing, and while you mine, you can look around and see if you need to remain stealthed to get to the second node of the pair, or if you can destealth safely.

I've heard of people pre-depleting nodes so they are all one hit from being depleted before activating the favor. I tried this a bit, but I've NEVER found an item this way. Unless someone has successfully done this, I'm going to assume that if you access a node before activating the favor, that node won't count.

[MN_14]

I've heard of people pre-depleting nodes so they are all one hit from being depleted before activating the favor. I tried this a bit, but I've NEVER found an item this way. Unless someone has successfully done this, I'm going to assume that if you access a node before activating the favor, that node won't count.

I do this and can confirm that it definitely works. I've even gotten 4 concealed nodes in a row once.

[LineageRazor]

I've heard of people pre-depleting nodes so they are all one hit from being depleted before activating the favor. I tried this a bit, but I've NEVER found an item this way. Unless someone has successfully done this, I'm going to assume that if you access a node before activating the favor, that node won't count.

While I've not attempted depleting ALL the nodes before I get started, I routinely start by finding the "gathering attempts +1" node, working it down to the last hit, and then popping my favor. I can guarantee you that this can successfully produce a concealed node, as it has done so for me several times.

Now that you mention the idea, though, maybe I SHOULD pre-deplete more than just that one node; at the very least, I should do the other node in the pairing.

[Nyalia]

Thank you both for the confirmation! After it didn't work for me ~six times in a row, I gave up because it seemed like a waste of time. But, if that works, that's a great plan. Remember you can't do all six because the first two will reset when you hit the third pair. So, you can pre-deplete one pair, go to the next pair, pre-deplete them, pop your favor, deplete that pair, fly back to the first pair you pre-depleted, and go from there.



Aeyis: http://ffxiv.ariyala.com/RLGQ

Those are the melds I used. And yes, it does use HQ Seafood Stew.

And this is the rotation I used: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...Materials-Gear


EDIT: Also, if you're having trouble hitting the cap every week on red scrips, why are you doing favor item gathering? The only weekly stuff is the red scrips themselves. Using them isn't capped. You can just stockpile red scrip tokens until you have the time to spend them later. If you're having trouble keeping up and want to make up the time later, just do the red scrip stuff, which takes about 10 minutes a day for gathering, plus an hour a week for crafting. Capping Eso is just half an hour a day, six days a week, and capping Alex Normal is just an hour once a week. All told, that's not very much time. We're talking ~6.5 hours a week, so like, an hour a day. I'll bet you play significantly more than that....

[Aeyis]

Thank you both for the confirmation! After it didn't work for me ~six times in a row, I gave up because it seemed like a waste of time. But, if that works, that's a great plan. Remember you can't do all six because the first two will reset when you hit the third pair. So, you can pre-deplete one pair, go to the next pair, pre-deplete them, pop your favor, deplete that pair, fly back to the first pair you pre-depleted, and go from there.

Personally I only do it on certain node spawns (the ones that are particular far away). That said, I have the benefit of 50~ odd tokens left so I'm not very worried about being short on materials. It's definately a good idea to do this.

Aeyis: http://ffxiv.ariyala.com/RLGQ

Those are the melds I used. And yes, it does use HQ Seafood Stew.

And this is the rotation I used: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...Materials-Gear

Yeah I expected it would be easier to do now. So I suppose it's become somewhat easier to reach comfortable levels for crafting if you know the CP requirements.

EDIT: Also, if you're having trouble hitting the cap every week on red scrips, why are you doing favor item gathering? The only weekly stuff is the red scrips themselves.

I don't, as I have a lot of spare time. That said, I can see how people that also want to do battle content like raiding or leveling, and/or don't spend that much time on the game might have an issue with doing all that's required for 2* crafting.
That said, even for those with the time; if you are forced to do something on a daily or weekly basis it becomes a chore and as a result harder to do.

Using them isn't capped. You can just stockpile red scrip tokens until you have the time to spend them later.

It's possible to catch up on favors if you collected the red scrips, yes. Altho it's just transfering the time investment, but yes. Not using them this week just means you have to spend all that time later. The time adds up, untill round and round it goes and you got a wormhole.
I'm bit a special case with my 50 tokens. Since I won't be spending any of them on myself there's zero need for me to use them all.
And that's a good thing too. Even with the new favor duration 250 favors would still take about 20 hours to complete.



If you're having trouble keeping up and want to make up the time later, just do the red scrip stuff, which takes about 10 minutes a day for gathering, plus an hour a week for crafting. Capping Eso is just half an hour a day, six days a week, and capping Alex Normal is just an hour once a week. All told, that's not very much time. We're talking ~6.5 hours a week, so like, an hour a day. I'll bet you play significantly more than that....[/QUOTE]

I do. But then I also don't do esoterics, or Alex. Running all 4 parts of Alex is probably a bit longer then an hour (depending on drops and roll), but I can't say I'm that experienced with it. Red scrips gathering isnt as simple as ''x hours investment'' due to the time windows. As well as available classes.

But let's say it's indeed 6.5 hours per week.

If my experience in wow teaches me anything, it's that people really, really hate doing things daily/weekly. Would they do it less if they didnt have to? Perhaps. But they would also enjoy it more.


Lets say someone only has an hour to play on one day. But then they would have to do that hour of mandatory ''work''. I think most would rather do something fun instead, no?