The crafting grind

[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.

[HakuroDK]

Its not as rare as you make it out to be. The material types have extremely unbalanced spawning locations. For some the distance between [of one pair] nodes is almost as much as the distance between [of different pair] nodes.

''Oh it only happens sometimes'' That's nice. But that doesnt help anything to restore the morale of someone that did just get few items. RNG (and it having extreme outlayers) is one of the main reasons why not many people do favors.


You also can't just take the cheap way out and call it ''set of favors''. No, you do not get items per ''set of favors''. You get them per favor.

Well either I have really really good luck with favors or people try a single favor and complain that they got under the average yield, generalizing the entirety of favors.

...and I'm certainly not taking the cheap way out by using a set of favors. 1 Red Gathering Scrip Token buys 5 favors. That's why I used that logic. On average, you should be getting more than 10 items per set of favors.

If you want to break that down per favor, that's two items per favor that you need to get bare minimum in order to reach the items necessary to get the materials from the splendors vendor. In only one favor out of at least 60-70 favors I have done have I ever gotten only one item out of a single favor. More often than not, I get anywhere between 3-4 items per favor, which is far more than I actually need, so I am able to get as many as three favor-related crafting mats for every two stacks because of that.

People are so afraid of RNG being against them, which is my ultimate point, that the sheer lack of people actually doing favors is causing the entire market to inflate to obscene levels. Because people are too afraid of not getting a full stack of 10 items per stack of favors (or at least 2 items per favor), the price of base materials are in the millions. And I hate that. Even as a crafter/gatherer who takes full advantage of favors, I hate the fact that you can't spend less than 1.5 million on Balmung for a single Adamantite Ingot.

[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.

[Aeyis]

Well either I have really really good luck with favors or people try a single favor and complain that they got under the average yield, generalizing the entirety of favors.

You got below average yield, which leads me to believe your experience isnt that much. (not enough to average out) Average is set around 3.5, altho that does to some extend depend on the type of item you are gathering.

...and I'm certainly not taking the cheap way out by using a set of favors.

Ofcourse you are. 7 might seem like a fine number when you call it a ''set''. But you dont farm these by activating a set. You farm them per single favor. In which case the yield (in my example) would be 2,1,1,1,2. Or 3 yields of 1, and 2 of 2.

In addition, this was obtained with high route efficiency. Someone new to doing favors would more likely have obtained something like 1,0,0,1,1.

If you want to break that down per favor, that's two items per favor that you need to get bare minimum in order to reach the items necessary to get the materials from the splendors vendor.

No. Because you also need to have both mining and botany types. Meaning that you need on average 4 items to break even. (2 red gathering tokens per 2 red crafting tokens)

In only one favor out of at least 60-70 favors I have done have I ever gotten only one item out of a single favor.

They call it RNG.

People are so afraid of RNG being against them, which is my ultimate point, that the sheer lack of people actually doing favors is causing the entire market to inflate to obscene levels.

People are afraid of doing them for good reason. Because it's all too possible to draw the short end stick. And unlike myself most people will not have 50+ red gathering tokens they can use to obtain the materials they need. They will only have 9 if they just started out.

. The melds only cost me 1-2 million

Melds are significantly higher depending on your servers economy. I do not envy anyone that has to meld when Command IVs are selling for 150-180k. Red scrips equipment makes it somewhat easier for anyone that opted to go for those first. With the disadvantage being it only made it easier for one class.

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.

Not hard, but time-consuming. And it is. Not because of favors, not because of red crafting scrips, not because of red gathering scrips, not because of Aethersand, not because gathering materials for red crafting scrips.
But because you need to do all of those. Each week. In addition to your normal activities.
Because of the weekly caps on red scrips you either do the mandatory grind or fall behind.

[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.

[Nyalia]

Melds are significantly higher depending on your servers economy. I do not envy anyone that has to meld when Command IVs are selling for 150-180k. Red scrips equipment makes it somewhat easier for anyone that opted to go for those first. With the disadvantage being it only made it easier for one class.

Not hard, but time-consuming. And it is. Not because of favors, not because of red crafting scrips, not because of red gathering scrips, not because of Aethersand, not because gathering materials for red crafting scrips.
But because you need to do all of those. Each week. In addition to your normal activities.
Because of the weekly caps on red scrips you either do the mandatory grind or fall behind.

First of all, you don't need to overmeld any IVs. You don't even need to pentameld everything. My melds have only a CP 3 and a CP 1 in the primary and offhand tools and nothing else. Heck, my melds have 30 more CP than the rotation I was using recommends, and that's with all white HQ and no overmelded IVs.

Second, if you get one red scrip item for the correct class/classes, you can use it to make a crafted item for another class that makes it easier, and so on, so none of your crafts have to be with all white if you don't want to. It doesn't help much since the most useful item is craftable-only (the offhand), but you can do it.

And lastly, you don't need to do any of those. How could you possibly "fall behind"? Are you competing with someone for the first person to get max gear? As was said, there's no money in it. There's nothing worth making that's two star, you can already make them with pure white, and even if they do release stuff that does require the new crafted items, it won't be profitable. Endgame crafts never are. There's so much to do every week as you said, so you shouldn't hit the caps anyway. If the caps are slowing you down, that's one thing, but that's not what you're saying. You're saying that you can't go fast enough to keep up with the caps. That means that if the caps weren't present, you'd still do exactly the same amount of stuff as you're currently doing. In fact, if the caps weren't there, I'd bet most people wouldn't feel pressure to hit cap and thus would do a ton less and be less far along.

Either the caps are a problem because they're too low, or the caps aren't a factor because they're too high. You can't complain about both at the same time.

[Synestra]

These mats and this gear is just not sold on my server. There is no history for it, it never was.

Materials sells decently but the items made from those not so much, most players are rather poor so its no wonder your 14mil+ items wont sell even tho that is more than resonable price for said item when you count in the mat cost.

[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.

[Aeyis]

First of all, you don't need to overmeld any IVs. You don't even need to pentameld everything. My melds have only a CP 3 and a CP 1 in the primary and offhand tools and nothing else. Heck, my melds have 30 more CP than the rotation I was using recommends, and that's with all white HQ and no overmelded IVs.

You must have some pretty amazing melds then. I was fully melded apart from tools and I was still missing some control. I'm going to assume you used control/craftmanship food and/or buffs then.

Second, if you get one red scrip item for the correct class/classes, you can use it to make a crafted item for another class that makes it easier, and so on, so none of your crafts have to be with all white if you don't want to. It doesn't help much since the most useful item is craftable-only (the offhand), but you can do it.

One item will barely make a difference if you are just into 2* crafting range.
In addition, not everyone has all 8 crafting classes, or cares to make 2* items in the order of: BSM;CRP;WVR

And lastly, you don't need to do any of those. How could you possibly "fall behind"?

Now you are just arguing for the sake of it. If you want the gear, it's really as simple as ''you dont get scrips a week, it takes you a week longer''. There is a weekly cap. If you dont hit that cap you fall behind. Period.
Friend of mine didnt get her mining tool this week, I asked her why:
-Because she was just short of the cap one week so she has to wait another week now.

Because having weekly caps means you cant catch up. Period.


Are you competing with someone for the first person to get max gear? As was said, there's no money in it. [/quote]
I let it pass before, but very well. There has always been money in ''endgame crafting''. Big money, perhaps even the most. I have no idea how you believe this wasnt the case.

There's so much to do every week as you said, so you shouldn't hit the caps anyway. If the caps are slowing you down, that's one thing, but that's not what you're saying.

No, that's exactly what I am saying.

You're saying that you can't go fast enough to keep up with the caps. That means that if the caps weren't present, you'd still do exactly the same amount of stuff as you're currently doing. In fact, if the caps weren't there, I'd bet most people wouldn't feel pressure to hit cap and thus would do a ton less and be less far along.

If the caps werent there it would be possible to catch up, and thus making it impossible to fall behind. There would be no pressure, and no limit for those that want to invest the time.
If the caps werent here I might actually bother to play, so no I wouldnt be ''doing the exact same amount of stuff''

Either the caps are a problem because they're too low, or the caps aren't a factor because they're too high. You can't complain about both at the same time.

Ofcourse I can. Perhaps you just don't understand, but it's like this:


-Not enough red scrips per week, limiting what you can do.
-The amount of red scrips that we do get requires high time investment each week.
-The amount of red scrips have to be obtained or you fall behind. There is no catching up. There is no way to decrease the [amount of weeks needed]


It's that simple.

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

That is correct. After the reduction in favor time/faster spawn rate on concealed nodes, it became pretty easy to test that.