Please don't gate 3.2 crafted gear behind specialists.

[Mindy_Macready]

Much ado about nothing on topic

Your rant does so much damage to the argument you're making it's kind of funny. The specialist system does absolutely nothing for these new players trying to craft 2-stars without the minimum stats to craft them. They would still need to spend the gil to fully-meld 150 gear, or spend the time farming red-scrips if they wanted to even sniff at crafting the sky pirate gear. Are you sure you even know what the current crafting system looks like? What exactly are you arguing?

The reason there are monopolies on certain specialist crafts is by design, literally. Not because of the supposed difficulty in hitting 2-star crafts.

[keyburz]

No, its literally because its difficult to reach those 2 star crafts. Theres a lot of crafters in game in every server, but most cant do 2 star.

[Mindy_Macready]

No, its literally because its difficult to reach those 2 star crafts. Theres a lot of crafters in game in every server, but most cant do 2 star.

Care to cite a source on that? I have 4 people in my static alone who hit 2-stars so we could work together on specialists. And they did it casually, myself included, because there was no real point in 2-star crafts for the longest time (we did it for housing items), so at this point, going on purely anecdotal evidence, I'll have to disagree with this assertion until I see some numbers.

Besides, your same argument should've held for every patch they introduced higher-difficulty recipes in 2.x. Considering the amount of complaints about undercutting, I'd have to say that argument didn't hold water after the first few weeks. Those with a lot of gil reached the top faster and sold stuff for the most, then the rest of those interested in crafting would catch up.

In short, no. Literally by design.

[OoglieBooglie]

Well, there's your problem. All he does is raiding and relic stuff. Different things require different types of work. For example, erecting a building requires multiple types of engineers and laborers. There's the civil engineer for the foundation and structure, the mechanical engineer for the plumbing, the architect for the overall design, the electricians to install the wiring, the plumbers to install the plumbing designed by the engineer, the hvac guy for the hvac, the labobers for the general stuff like concrete and stuff, and maybe even a welder if some steel i beams need to be welded (I have no idea if they're generally welded or riveted together). One person does only a tiny amount of everything in the building, and it won't get very far without any of the other people. Similarly, raiding is only a tiny piece of this game, although it is a major part. If all you do is raid, you'll miss out on a lot more. If you want to experience everything to the fullest, then you'll need to wear many hats (or in the case of this game, main hands).

[keyburz]

Well maybe on your server you have an abundance of highly geared crafters, but on cactaur, it's always been 5 or so people selling all of the highest crafted stuff at any point in time, now or back then. It was so bad at one point, that with the 4 star gear, the entire 4 star market was dominated by only a single person. Had 1 piece of gear up for every single 4 star piece, and the price was way over priced. And he had so much money, he bought out all of the allagan wootz nuggets, leather, silk and KEPT it at the extremely inflated price on purpose, just so no one at all had any opportunity to start crafting. The second I started putting up pieces of hq kirimu crafted gear, he bought out the hundred or so pieces of kirimu leather left on the market just so I couldnt continue. Spent like 20m just to buy everything out. Keep in mind this is pre heavensward days. And now? Theres more crafters doing sky pirates, but its still not optimal. But its a hell of a lot better then it used to be.

A casual look through our marketboard reveals hundreds of people crafting lower levelled stuff, and only a handful of names at the top. You wouldnt be squabbling over the lowest price on Woolen Whatever if you were able to and could make way more money on sky pirates gear. And yes, these are named gears, this isnt venture gear

[keyburz]

Sorry to break it to you mindy, but there's less people at the top then at the bottom. Thats with every aspect in life, thats just how reality works.
Theres less people with an education then there are without. Less people not living in poverty then there are that do live in poverty. Clean water. Electricity. The majority of the worlds population do not, in fact, play final fantasy!

I wish it was the other way around, believe me. Id love for everyone to be geared the highest in crafting, to enjoy the benefits of experimenting with large rotations. But thats not how anything at all has ever existed. But you seem to think theres more crafters able to craft sky pirates then there are that cant.

[Mindy_Macready]

Everybody knows there are less people on top than on bottom, nobody is arguing this. You're adding absolutely nothing new to the discussion. Your hangup seems to be on the notion that NOBODY can apparently reach this "zenith" and that specialist is doing nothing new in terms of blocking people out because of this. And that is so wildly wrong that it is laughable.

[keyburz]

Yes the specialist is doing -some- hindering in terms of making less people craft the highest level stuff, but I'd argue that the real problem is the fact that you're forced to make a decision every week what to do with the red crafter scrips. You can either continue down the 10 week path to earning a set of gear which, if youre a new crafter starting from nothing, is your realistic option to reach stats to craft sky pirates, or buy/gather gatherer favor materials to buy the mats required to craft crafter gear. That crafter gear would be in turn sold to other crafters to gear up and help everyone else reach the top faster.

The problem is that the scrips are so limiting, forcing you to gear up using the same materials needed for crafting, that no one has any money to pay for those expensive materials. You're forced into a situation to buy the gear from npcs first for 10/20/30 weeks depending on how many specialists you want to gear up first. And then when you finally after weeks reach a point to sell the materials like dryad sap or moonbeam silk, no one has that kind of money to pay for those materials and attempt to make gear hq, because that gear must be hq or its essentially worthless. Why take the risk of failing an hq and throwing away 5 million gil when you could have geared up further? And because of this situation where people dont take the risk, or cant afford the risk, or cant afford to spend 5m per piece on buying the gear, very little progress of other crafters gearing up faster then scrips is happening.

The old method of gathering the 4 star allagan materials from farming coil, compared to this current method of using the same pool of scrips, was a better system. I think it was an ideal system because it lets combat classes gain a source of income, which is what should be happening between combat and crafting classes. More interaction between the two, not less.

[cgbspender]

You're forced into a situation to buy the gear from npcs first for 10/20/30 weeks depending on how many specialists you want to gear up first.

Uh, sure. If you wanna waste your scrips on a complete set, that will happen. Did it happen to you ?
I know of no competent crafter who bought a whole set.
With just the right 2 or 3 pieces, anyone can be fine reaching the treshold for 2-stars. (+ few cheap melds)

[keyburz]

I did in fact buy a complete set, I bought two. Armorer and Blacksmith full left side including main hand, and bought all 170 accessories and belt and offhand hq. Blacksmith getting last piece of gear (gloves) next week. Decided to meld some temporary materia to it to cap on cp, considering I run the market on armorer crafted sky pirates gear and adamantite ingots.

Also did my miner as well complete set!

And im proud of it. Dont care if you think im incompetent, I got the job done.