HQ and NQ stat gap needs to close (Both should allow max stats with materia):

[Katlyna]

One thing which has been bothering me this expansion was development said they wanted to remove the massive punishment for NQ vs HQ. Right now this just isn't true with the stats on the new crafting gear and materia availability. And infact due to materia V nonavailability this problem has gotten worse.

Simply put what I would like to see is HQ equipment should be relatively trivial to max the stats with materia, it should be cheep and easy representing the true time and craftsmanship put in by the crafter to reach such an awesome item. Likewise with NQ equipment it should be reasonable to max the stats with materia, but notably more costly (similar to how difficult HQ gear is to max now minus this mess with V crafting/gathering materia). This would allow NQ equipment to still have value, but require additional post effort to make it "usable". If I were to implement the above change... I would also moderately increase the difficulty curve to reach HQ! This would seam perfectly reasonable if both qualities are truly usable.

Doing the above would GREATLY alleviate hatred toward crafting token systems where pinnacle items are earned. It would suddenly make HQs feel rewarding, while NQ something you can accept. Likewise if the difficulty for HQ was increased properly, suddenly HQ items would really seem special.

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Such a system could even evolve farther to have a grade of PQ (perfect quality) only achievable if you were to hit something like 20-40% excess quality, creating an item which requires no materia. While I recognize something like this would require notable additional programming, one should immediately recognize the rewards of such a system. Players crafting would feel less risk, and instead be rewarded with more FUN. Likewise crafters with less gear and equipment would feel more functional and less scared to enter crafting... but on the other hand crafters with incredible gear would have the fun of chasing after Perfect Quality items each week.

Anyway just something I've been thinking about lately in regards to what is a terrible NQ/HQ system right now (which only punishes users, rather than grants fun rewards for doing well). What do you all think?

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Side thought which was occurring me as I was dozing off to sleep. They could greatly simplify the system and make it so that NQ, HQ (and a lovely PQ) all had the same stats... but higher qualities had more guaranteed meld slots. One could easily envision NQ items always having 1-2 meld slots, HQ having 3-4, while PQ would always have 5. This would simplify the stats for everyone (the optimal melds would be the same for all qualities), but the melding experience would be greatly easier for higher quality items. This would make buying/selling NQ vs HQ (and other quality) stupid trivial for buyers and sellers. Anyone at a glance could tell the difference between something sold and if the melds were competitive with other listings (regardless of quality). And again higher quality would be a reward to the crafter since less required melds makes your item worth more.

[RiceisNice]

I'm pretty sure they said they were gonna reduce the stat difference so that NQ items wouldn't be useless, let alone worth less than the mats used to create it. They said something about reducing the stat difference from 20% to 10% or something, but didn't account for the fact that there's stat inflation, or at least the difference is still very, very significant...that a NQ master's mainhand is equal stats to an HQ'd adamantite mainhand.

[Katlyna]

They did which is why I have no idea how they got into this place. It's really weird because they wanted to: Make crafting more accessible, reduce the need for cross-class skills, reduce the gap between NQ and HQ items, and improve the value of gathered goods. They basically failed 3 out of 4 of their goals... and didn't just fail but made them notably worse. I feel SE needs a reminder and some alternate recommendations lol.

[cgbspender]

It's really weird because they wanted to: Make crafting more accessible, reduce the need for cross-class skills

And that's a great success ! You can craft top-end gear without using a single post-50 skill. They're all junk.

[Silverbane]

You can craft top-end gear without using a single post-50 skill. They're all junk.

Precise Touch is hardly "junk."

[Ksenia]

Precise Touch is hardly "junk."

I can see why people feel it is though. It's basic touch but it procs with only a condition change. They are both 18 cp, 100% efficiency, 70% success.

Like Byregot's Brow I think there is something more to it though. Math on Byregot's Blessing says it's better but I've used both with good proc finish and Brow produces more results.

[Caimie_Tsukino]

I can see why people feel it is though. It's basic touch but it procs with only a condition change. They are both 18 cp, 100% efficiency, 70% success.

I hope you do realize how strong Precise Touch is comparing to Basic Touch, right? The real power comes from that additional IQ stack... Even if the skill cost 25 CP, it'll still be vastly stronger than a Basic Touch! 1 extra IQ stack sometimes can be a difference between Heaven and Hell!

Usually about 2 Precise Touches is a reasonable amount of CP investment that will send your IQ stack sky high when added to your existing IQ stack was built up from those hated hasties.

Like Byregot's Brow I think there is something more to it though. Math on Byregot's Blessing says it's better but I've used both with good proc finish and Brow produces more results.

Brow produces more results when your IQ stack is below 6. However, the problem with Brow is that you can't plan it since it has to land on a "Good". For Byregot's Blessing, we ALWAYS plan at least a Great Strides before it. We never use Byregot's Blessing alone. That 56 CP (32 on GS, 24 on Blessing) at the end is essential. For Brow, you just can't activate a Great Strides, and hope the Brow to pop. It's a 32 CP investment on the GS. Anyway, any level 60+ items will likely require at least IQ9 with i150 gear. Thus, Brow is completely useless.

[Caimie_Tsukino]

And that's a great success ! You can craft top-end gear without using a single post-50 skill. They're all junk.

Well, I think you meant "specialist skills" instead of "post-50 skills". After all, we have all been using Muscle Mem / Maker's Mark & Precise Touch for pretty much everything 1 star or above. But I get your point, apart from these few skills, all those specialist skills so far seem unnecessary.

I am pretty confident that S-E will somehow make them more useful in future patches though. We'll see.

[Ragnvard]

By having more guaranteed melding slots though (or enough "enough % bonus to make HQ worthwhile"), the price of materia will crash horribly. No longer do you need 30 materia for that last meld, you only need 1.

I think Desynth is supposed to be a way to recover goods with NQ, maybe they can work on that a bit. Say, desynthing will always return the 2 star crafting mat for example.

> improve the value of gathered goods
by increasing the value of gathered goods to unaffordable levels, they are making crafting much less accessible.

[Irisviel-]

By having more guaranteed melding slots though (or enough "enough % bonus to make HQ worthwhile"), the price of materia will crash horribly. No longer do you need 30 materia for that last meld, you only need 1.

I'm not sure if that's a bad thing. It brings it more in line with say, a gem or enchant system from other successful MMORPGs. In those games, there is still a massive, constant demand for those items, despite only ever requiring a few (or less) per item.