Thoughts On Live Letter Crafting Changes

[Alahra]

but I also hope they include some form of progression that I can really sink my teeth into.

I basically fall into the group of those who "want to meet the challenge but can't justify the sacrifice of time/gil." Combat progression is cyclical already, and so when I look to crafting, I'm looking for a different sort of reward structure, in part to keep things from getting too monotonous. With the investment not really tracking to the reward, as it were, I've had trouble motivating myself to craft all through HW thus far.

There are honestly a lot of aspects of the current structure that I *do* like, so I don't want to see the longer aspect of the progression go by the wayside either. I think by and large, they struck about the right balance with the i180 vs. i170 sets for instance. Both sets are attractive for various reasons, and they'll appeal to different sorts of crafters. I think they can iron things out a bit (as we've discussed elsewhere, it's not exactly clear how progression throughout the expansion is going to work just yet, especially with regard to those who have the fully pentamelded stuff). They also got the time balance about right between them (though I think the Gathering requirements for the crafted versions are a bit too high).

I've always rather enjoyed figuring out rotations and the like as well, but given my abhorrence towards Gathering, I haven't actually done anything with 2-stars in HW yet. If there had been a more reasonable way to get the materials without gathering (and omni-crafting, which I've also never particularly enjoyed--sadly, the specialization system didn't deliver the sort of ability to focus on 3 crafts as I had hoped it would), I probably would have been making my own sets as well, at least for my three main crafts. That's another reason I'm excited for 3.1, as the mats should become more readily available for those of us that don't want to go all in.

And yes, one of the things I enjoyed most about crafting in ARR was making gearsets and the like for friends. That hit its peak in 2.4, with the highly desirable i110 gear (as well as the Artisan's set). I look forward to being able to make that kind of stuff for my FC and Linkshells again. I'm already far more excited and finally started spending my Red Scrip tokens again today in anticipation of what looks to be a much more enjoyable state for crafting soon.