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.

[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.

[Ksenia]

The HQ/ NQ issue is in our head. Get a set of NQ gear together, craft recipes at the level of the tool. Do the same with HQ gear. The differences are minimal.

Now try and craft recipes above the level of your tool with both sets, even if you are at a level above the recipe. Just like you get no benefit from the desynth of HQ, you get no appreciable benefit from HQ. If anything, you might be wasting stats on HQ because you exceed the hidden bonuses. You just can't convince people that NQ is enough when HQ is available.

[TechnoTechie]

The HQ/ NQ issue is in our head. Get a set of NQ gear together, craft recipes at the level of the tool. Do the same with HQ gear. The differences are minimal.

Now try and craft recipes above the level of your tool with both sets, even if you are at a level above the recipe. Just like you get no benefit from the desynth of HQ, you get no appreciable benefit from HQ. If anything, you might be wasting stats on HQ because you exceed the hidden bonuses. You just can't convince people that NQ is enough when HQ is available.

that difference is much greater at the higher levels. Wait until you get to 60 and try that. Anything below 60 is pretty close in level to each other, with the exception of level 59 master-book recipes which are a slight bit more difficult than level 59 non-master-book recipes, and level 60 master-book-recipes another tier above that. Then you get to level 60 1-star, and you're blown out of the water and you start to realize that every point matters when you're close to specific break points in reducing 2-3 steps from the craft which can be essential when you're at 2-star.

[Ksenia]

that difference is much greater at the higher levels. Wait until you get to 60 and try that. Anything below 60 is pretty close in level to each other, with the exception of level 59 master-book recipes which are a slight bit more difficult than level 59 non-master-book recipes, and level 60 master-book-recipes another tier above that. Then you get to level 60 1-star, and you're blown out of the water and you start to realize that every point matters when you're close to specific break points in reducing 2-3 steps from the craft which can be essential when you're at 2-star.

And ever in that case, red script NQ gear will accomplish everything you need to accomplish. Even on the crafted red script sets, the difference between NQ and HQ can be negated by food of the same level.

[Katlyna]

And ever in that case, red script NQ gear will accomplish everything you need to accomplish. Even on the crafted red script sets, the difference between NQ and HQ can be negated by food of the same level.

You are making some assumptions here... one is that negating a difference with food buffs is acceptable. Another is that the NQ item isn't a NQ main/offhand. But again in none of these cases NQ and HQ aren't really comparable. The gap in quality and value is HUGE at the tier two star level.

[TechnoTechie]

You are making some assumptions here... one is that negating a difference with food buffs is acceptable. Another is that the NQ item isn't a NQ main/offhand. But again in none of these cases NQ and HQ aren't really comparable. The gap in quality and value is HUGE at the tier two star level.

She makes a good point -- you're talking about two whole stars worth of quality. Your NQ i170 tool isn't a 170, it's a freakin HQ 150. 20 item levels worth of stats because you NQ'd an item? really?