Specialist Compromise

[Zigabar]

I will say that on Hyperion, it is not uncommon to see t3 materia going for a fraction of the price of t1 or t2, at least in regards to crafting and gathering materia. t3 materia have by and large been produced by the boatload from people mass spiritbonding to try and get t4 for the lowest cost possible.

T3 also rain down from airships (T4 to a marginally lesser extent too). I have at least 2 stacks of every DoH/DoL T3 and T4 materia in my FC chest from that alone. Would have more, but I sell for space.

[lulunami]

It is pretty apparent the game designers do not actually play the game. Specialist system was intended to help casual crafters compete on the market board. In reality, Specialist gave more power to the dedicated hardcore omnicrafter that levels 3 characters to cover all specializations. It is hard to compete against someone who can make it cheaper by having all specialists versus having to purchase items from a middle man.

Crafting is really just for the hardcore crafters even more than before. The barrier of entry for new crafters is really high and favors "old money" crafters.

[Fife_Muggins]

I think going forward, the specialist system should be fixed to do what it was initially intended to do: help those who just want to level a couple classes. Based on the hints about the 4.0 battle system, it seems that the devs do not want to force people to level other classes for cross-class abilities. Let the specialists take cross-class abilities from the "pool" of crafter abilities without leveling them. This allows people to have 3 crafters guaranteed to be on the same level as the omnicrafters, but doesn't put gates and hindrances on the people who want to focus on all the crafters. Omnicrafters would have the advantage of being able to make all their base-mats, but it would allow someone to level a cul, for example, to be able to compete without needing to level everything for BB, CSII, etc.

[Ostwar]

Specialist system was intended to help casual crafters compete on the market board. In reality, Specialist gave more power to the dedicated hardcore omnicrafter that levels 3 characters to cover all specializations. It is hard to compete against someone who can make it cheaper by having all specialists versus having to purchase items from a middle man.

Crafting is really just for the hardcore crafters even more than before. The barrier of entry for new crafters is really high and favors "old money" crafters.

Not so sure about that. Most of the 3 & 4 star lvl 60 crafts still require several 4 star lvl 50 mats (Wolfram Ingot/Square, Saurian Leather, Gold & Platinum Ingots, etc...). These items help lower lvl casual crafters make Gill all day long. No need to omni craft if you want to support your battle classes with cash. All it takes is a little research and a handful of crafting classes to reach that level.

[Roth_Trailfinder]

Those items are so easy for a 4 star level 60 crafter to produce though, the only reason there would be any market for them at all would be a lack of on hand materials on the level 60's part.

I'm not much for macro crafting, but those old refined mats are the perfect candidate for it.

[Ostwar]

Those items are so easy for a 4 star level 60 crafter to produce though, the only reason there would be any market for them at all would be a lack of on hand materials on the level 60's part.

I'm not much for macro crafting, but those old refined mats are the perfect candidate for it.

You forgot "lazy" crafters that simply find it faster to buy off the MB then gather the mats and hit the macro button, I see that all the time.

[magnanimousCynic]

You forgot "lazy" crafters that simply find it faster to buy off the MB then gather the mats and hit the macro button, I see that all the time.

You have to consider Opportunity Cost, which is the time spent gathering and making the crafting materials which may need to be made into more crafting materials against the money spent buying the materials and making the item.

Sure I can make Aurum Regis Nuggets for basically free if I spend the time to gather everything, but I'd rather spend the 2-4k for the HQ Nugget instead of spending however long it takes to gather and create the item. The Opportunity Cost is further increased if I need to make multiple items or an item needs many items to make.

I fight Opportunity Cost often when doing my weekly Red Scrip items. Sometimes I buy the materials if I think they're cheap enough, and sometimes if I feel that the market is overpricing something I'll either buy the materials that makes that item for cheaper or manually gather it and buy any items from vendors if possible.

The example I'll use is 10 Noble's Codexes (when starred) to get my 450 Red Scrips. Here's the list of materials to make ten books if you bought the items that make the book itself from the MB or vendors.

• 10x Lightning Clusters
• 20x Water Clusters
• 20x Aurum Regis Nuggets (can be bought from the Vath)
• 20x Hardsilver Ingots
• 10x Chrysolite
• 10x Dragon Leathers
• 10x Enchanted Aurum Regis Ink

Crafting the 10 books will take about 10-12 minutes if you craft all 10 in one go and whatever amount of Gil it would take on your server to buy the items.

Now here's the list of ingredients to make the same ten books, but this time you want to gathering everything yourself and make the materials that makes the items that make the book.

• 10x Lightning Clusters
• 20x Water Clusters
• 310x Wind Crystals
• 50x Earth Crystals
• 50x Water Crystals
• 20x Hardsilver Nuggets (bought from Vath Beast Tribe)
• 80x Hardsilver Ores
• 20x Gold Ores
• 140x Aurum Regis Sands
• 30x Raw Chrysolite
• 30x Cloud Mica
• 30x Dragon Skins
• 10x Dark Chestnut Logs
• 20x Dragon Blood
• 10x Abalathian Spring Water

Depending on how much time you have to wait to mine the Gold Ore and Lightning/Water Clusters, gathering all of this will easily take up to an hour or possibly more. After you've gathered all of this, you then have to spend another hour+ to make the items which become the 10 books. Even then you're still buying Hardsilver Nuggets from the Vath.

The Opportunity Cost here is the ~2 hours spent gathering and crafting the materials and then crafting THOSE into the 10 books VS about 10-12 minutes + how much Gil you need to buy the materials to make into the books. Another aspect of the Opportunity Cost is that the two hours you spent gathering and crafting those materials could've been spent doing other things, like beast tribe dailies for G4 Materia or grinding tomestone for Lore mats/Anima Step.

TL;DR: We're not lazy buying materials off the Market Board to save X amount of gil, we're making the most of our time we're saving by buying items and using that time saved to do other things.

[Roth_Trailfinder]

stuff and example of not keeping materials on hand

Meh .. I just take stuff off of my retainers. I send them out for materials while I'm crafting or running dungeons or whatever else I'm doing. This converts the cost of materials from time or gil into ventures, which take little enough time to obtain (craft GC hand ins for a day, get enough GC Seals to get ventures for several days).

Opportunity cost is a thing, but lets face it - if you consider opportunity cost at all, making scrip hand in items is a waste of time and money. You would be better off selling the hq stuff you craft, or possibly just the materials for that stuff, and buying the finished stuff you want to make that involve bcs materials. That suggests that opportunity cost is not the deciding factor here.

[Gemina]

You don't have to do that, you never did. Just buy the stuff off the marketboard, using the money you made selling your own stuff there.

This^

I can't even begin to tell you how many maps I have bought using the money I make from the stuff I sell. So I literally pay nothing for rare mats other than time and prayers to RNJesus.