Crafter (and Gatherer) materia

[Kalinas]

I love the way that SE made the battle materia easier to obtain (adding tier 4 from beast tribes and even the tier 5 from running Void Ark), but it seems like crafters (and gatherers) have gotten the shaft when it comes to materia. The prices are pretty reasonable (15k-90k for a tier 4 on my server atm) for battle materia, especially since you can't use forbidden melds on most gear.

Thing is crafters are still stuck with trying to convert sb gear, pray to the RNG for a Mutamix conversion, buy it on the mb (60k-290k for a tier 4 depending on type and 3.8-7.5 mil for a tier 5 on my server), or if you are lucky enough to have an fc to send out airships to collect crafter materia. The kicker is you have to overmeld to be able to craft the highest tier gear (850 Craftsmanship and 820 Control!) and you can't even rely on the red scrip gear since it won't meet requirements on its own.

If you were to buy only the red scrip gear which is supposed to be for those more casually into crafting to avoid melding, then you would be at 811 Craftsmanship and 748 Control, 372 CP. This assumes no Crafter Soul (just add 20 to Craftsmanship and 20 Control, but still doesn't meet the minimum) and no food (even HQ Seafood Stew would only put you at 779 Control and 422 CP). Don't really want to get into the 180 basically being stepping stone gear down to the better 170 crafted versions...point of this was that melding for crafters (and gatherers to an extent) is unavoidable if you want to make nice things. :P

I would love for at least Ixali quests/oaknots (maybe Vanu and Vath too) to at least give out crafter/gatherer materia and have the option of Void Ark Mhachi Matter trade ins for crafter/gatherer materia too. Give us the option of a personal airship from Ishgard or a personal house to send out for Exploratory Voyages. Anything to bring the cost down.