I just...don't care anymore.

[Sollux]

On my server, last I checked, there were zero i180 crafted combat items on the market board and none in the sale histories I looked at. In 2.5, I was making good Gil selling crafted gear up until around a month before Heavensward. It wasn't dead in 2.5, but it sure is now.

I gave a very rough explanation of my thoughts which was my fault. My original meaning was focused mainly on Crafting gear and was meant to focus on the difficulty of obtaining high-end Crafting gear translating into omni-crafting being much more difficult to do, allowing (Or rather forcing) most people to take their time gearing out their classes and needing to rely on others for a longer period of time because they won't be able to craft everything themselves for some time. In this way omni-crafting takes longer to achieve, adding a much needed length to Crafting's Endgame for those who enjoy it and the benefit of an active market for a longer period of time.

Crafted Combat gear is a whole other issue by itself, the primary reason you don't see any being that the majority of them can be beaten by gear you can get in a day or week and not worth the millions of gil it currently takes to Craft them. That, along with the decreased impact of secondary stats and limited availability of Favor items/Tokens makes crafting any of the pieces a gamble at best, since there is no guarantee anyone will buy the item, especially considering the cost.

[giantslayer]

I think most of the problem is that mats for combat gear are gated behind all this garbage and incredibly scarce. If the mats for AF2 gear were as is and the mats for i180 equipment were comparable in availability and how they are obtained to i90 or i110 back in the day, then we wouldn't all be sitting around the forums complaining instead of crafting (speaking more for myself than anyone else here lol).

[StillShield]

Its tru@make allies. I usually craft and gather solo, but HW has forced me out of my shell to collaborate with gatherers and other crafters. We work together and to help each other, now im a 11 pieces away from being full Omni i170 crafter. All my gatherers are fully geared save the mainhand tools. Tbh, its been challenging at times to work with others, but its made me a better crafter

[Joronas]

Stillshield: opposite situation. I'm the only crafter and gatherer LEFT in my group. The rest hate the new system and aren't participating in it (well, one will sometimes craft one or two things ... but only sometimes). It's a train wreck. I had been part of a group that worked well together; now I am basically solo on both crafting and gathering.

[MN_14]

Stillshield: opposite situation. I'm the only crafter and gatherer LEFT in my group. The rest hate the new system and aren't participating in it (well, one will sometimes craft one or two things ... but only sometimes). It's a train wreck. I had been part of a group that worked well together; now I am basically solo on both crafting and gathering.

It's the same for me. Not a single crafter that I knew back in ARR has been working on i170 gear. In terms of 2* crafts, the end game crafting scene has been completely decimated, with only a handful of crafters on my server actively working on i170 crafts (I'm kind of slowly working on them). The only scene that really remains would be i150 non star level 60 crafts and below.

A number of things have caused this including a high entry fee to meet 2* requirements and favor grinding. There isn't much interest in i180 gear either since you would still need to get red scrip materials to craft any 2* recipe, which of course involves favor grinding unless you can afford to buy materials off the market board. So there's nothing to offer for dedicated and casual crafters alike.

I think the developers fell into the trap of generalizing all dedicated crafters as players who have hundreds of millions of gil (coincidentally, many non-crafters have come to this conclusion too) and either plenty of time to favor grind (seriously, 6 hours of grinding for a main hand tool prior to the favor nerf?) or are willing to pay for thousands of favor materials (even gatherers won't go after these on my server). Hopefully, the adjustments in 3.1 will lead to a crafting revival.

[Alahra]

Hopefully, the adjustments in 3.1 will lead to a crafting revival.

I'm positive that they will. Just the reintroduction of battle classes contributing to material supplies is going to make a huge difference, and on top of that we're getting another source of materials from Exploratory Missions. The largest problem with the i170/i180 gear in 3.0 was the scarcity of materials, and we should see them become much more readily available.

Looking forward to 3.2, we're going to have meaningful crafted battle gear again (and even better than we used to), so interest will be at an all time high.