Quote Originally Posted by Porkchop View Post
This is a social game.
Make allies. Form long term working relationships with gatherers (extra mats for gear, bulk purchases etc). Look for crafters to mentor or the ones that arent interested in doing high end crafting for extra tokens.
Yes you need some sort of capital at first till you get the ball rolling but you guys here are high end crafters, you know how to make moolah.
This is excellent advice and it is EXACTLY what I did near the end of my sets, granted almost none of this was possible when Red Scrips first released as almost everyone saved their Scrips for the i180 turn-ins, Gatherers and Crafters alike. Even if you had Crafting Scrips, any Gatherers willing to use theirs for Favors were selling the mats for 150k-200k each and early Crafters without millions of gil were forced to gather themselves, turning Crafting into a solo activity once more. 2 months+ down the road it has been much easier to find Gatherers willing to sell in bulk at a reduced price or Crafters willing to sell their Scrips, but this has been a long time coming.

For those in it for the glamour or personal achievement, if you really want to craft 2-Stars RIGHT NOW then you'll need to either farm the Favor mats yourself or invest gil into them. I despise Gathering as much as the next Crafter but I'd be lying if I said glamour wasn't a BIG motivator for me and my love of Crafting/glamour outweighed my hatred of Gathering by a mile. It's GOING to take a long time, it just boils down to whether it's worth it to you. I'm sure they'll make the grind easier in the future, but how far in the future no one can say.

For those in it for the gil, if you're looking for a profit from 2-Stars the gil is definitely there though it is few and far between and requires a large investment of time/gil in order to reach consistent HQs. If you want a guarantee that all of it will be worth it in the end gil-wise no one can say. I believe it definitely will be and I'm not worried at all about crafting any of the new recipes in 3.1 because of the work I've put into my sets, and I expect to make a pretty penny once they drop. This being said, I highly doubt SE will release anything that isn't craftable by someone in full i180 and overmelded whites since they want Crafting to be more accessible, though as to the reliability of HQs I cannot say.

At the risk of sounding Elitist, it just boils down to how much you want it, whether the grind is worth it to you personally either as a personal achievement, glamour-wise, or for the gil. If neither of these things outweigh your disdain for Gathering or spending gil then there isn't anything that can be done short of another change to the Red Scrip system which I personally don't see happening in 3.1 or at least until the next few floors of Alex are released, though I could be wrong.