Quote Originally Posted by Nezerius View Post
This is mostly just arguing semantics.

Of course you can't go around and solo group content, but the only limiting factor when it comes to doing anything as DoW/M is the gear you can obtain. Nothing else is stopping the player from playing all DoW/M jobs to their fullest extent, as it's all available to them.

Unlike the crafting system, where it excludes recipes from even being attempted, if it happens to be tied to one of the specializations that the player hasn't chosen. Essentially, it's limited by gear and the crafter soul chosen by the player, instead of just gear.

There are better ways to encourage interaction between crafters, just like DoW/M in a party aren't limited to the amount of job crystals they have. Can you imagine how players would react if they could only pick a set amount of job crystals?
I already stated that the Specialization system was a terrible way to go about this system, but let's follow this line of discussion a moment. The teamwork of it all is that, while you can't create certain items outside of your specialization, you CAN contribute to those recipes. You can provide the specialist materials to the crafter who eventually ends up doing the actual crafting - and that crafter, in turn, is unable to craft the thing without the ingredients you and other provide. Crafters working together as a team to craft the item, just as DoM/DoW work together to down difficult instances. The assumption you (and many, many others) are standing by is that "I can't make this myself" is equivalent to "I can't make this at all" - that is not the viewpoint SE was hoping to engender.

Your "pick a set amount of job crystals" comparison is not a good metaphor for the situation. There's nothing stopping you from crafting the vast majority of items available to your non-specialist crafting classes - it's only the top-of-the-line stuff that's out of your reach, and there's PLENTY of need for yesterday's crafts. A better comparison would be if you could only get the best equipment for a couple of your DoM/DoW jobs. The jobs you can't gear to max? Well, they can still fulfill their role and be useful, but they'll never be top-of-the-line. Which, as it happens, IS the system we have for DoM/DoW.

While it's not a perfect comparison (undergeared players CAN complete difficult content if they are skillful enough, whereas non-specialists can't even attempt the specialist recipes), but this, I'm sure, is what SE was aiming for, to make crafting a more cooperative endeavor, just as battle classes are. (And it's worth noting that, just as you did with crafting, some battle class players "cheat" this limitation by using alt characters to bypass the gearing restrictions.)

Again, I want to emphasize that I am not defending the Specialist system. I am merely trying to explain why SE did what they did - and why they may do similar things in the future. I hope, instead, that they bolster the abilities of solo-class crafters to bring them up to or near the capabilities of omnicrafters, rather than to stymie the abilities of omnicrafters to try to force dependencies on other crafters.