New gatherer/crafter idea

[Alcimus]

Hey all! Just throwing an idea I had out and wanting to see what people think of it.

Right now we have 3 gatherers that deal specifically with physical substances, and a BUNCH of things that interact with the immaterial, but no way to direct our interaction with much of it outside of vendors.

So here's my idea, what if a new gatherer and crafter are introduced that specialize in the condensation and manipulation of energies?

This gatherer would focus on 3 main parts but could easily be expanded to more. First off the easy layup would be this gatherer would be the king of gathering crystals, dont take it away from other gatherers but make this one VERY efficient at crystal farming. The other side of this would be you would gatherer motes from sources of strong flow, ex: fire motes from a volcano, water motes from ocean zones, motes of magic and war from battlefields, motes of tranquility from serene locations. This gatherer would also be able to "filter" the materia you get to load the dice in the direction of a materia that you would prefer when you extract your gear. For example if you hate piety materia shift its drop chance onto another materia you would prefer or make it so that you only get 2-3 kinds of materia. There has been a LOT of development in the aetherial lore so why not use that character knowledge growth to expand our gathering possibilities!

Onto the crafting front, first off we have had materia hanging around for a LONG while with a very formulaic approach. What if this crafter could play the dice and be more efficient at merging materia? For instance instead of only having a chance to get a tier higher from a merge this crafter could take 5 copies of any materia and merge it to be that same kind of materia but 1 level higher, or 2 levels higher in the case of a masterwork craft! Now onto the more exciting part (in my opinion), let this crafter take the motes that you get from the new gatherer and combine them into new particle affects you can add to your glam. Want to have a glowing dye? want to have an animated starfield hover around your character? This would be your crafter. we could also have this crafter combine motes into materials or crystals for other crafters too.

what do yall think?

[TaleraRistain]

If we were going to get a new DoL or DoH, my first choice would be a gatherer who can gather animal parts. So probably something dealing with trapping. They mitigated this by starting to offer these on the FATE vendors, but it was still hard to get supplies early in ShB and EW when everyone was zerging FATEs and if you didn't get lucky to get a spot in one of the zerg parties, you were SOL.

For a crafter, maybe something dealing with tinkering but produces something with effects that can work hand in hand with things like potions or food. So it wouldn't obsolete Alc or Cul but complement their offerings.

[Alcimus]

Trapper would definitely be welcome! I am leveling my leatherworker right now and kinda just powered my blue mage up to get it skins haha

I was thinking down the lines of the OP cause of the items we learned through the MSQ of ShB and EW, some sorta aether manipulation would fit in with those themes so well

[Shougun]

Back when limited job discussion was more popular, and I blame Talera for me squirreling off to the thought lol, but one might think Beastmaster could be a fun component of it. Was trying to get Blue Mage a limited / normal type design by suggesting a lot of jobs could have greatly enhanced side content. A smaller example would be Bard and their music system.

Then you might say have Chemist and Alchemist be some sort of relationship of content. Even adding in classic things like your own potions have double duration and effect in the open world and unsynced content (balanced against messing up synced content). Puppetmaster allowing you to make customize-able minions, add recipes to crafting at specific intervals (such that you need X puppetmaster ability before you can attempt crafting Y advanced minion puppet), including basic AI scripts and extra goofs (like /poke might cause it to dance). Beastmaster getting shepherd and related care of beast content (reliably can get bones, leathers, etc).

Off that but still on a concept of topic. I really thought Archeologist under the guise of Chocobo Hot and Cold, and related chocobo content, could be really neat. DoH with minigame components and unique progression given chocobo relationship. Not sure it would have to be a job specifically, but it could be (more important that it's fun than it has a job like structure, imo).

Back when materia used to explode your gear (1.0) I thought an engineer like job would be fun, magitek related content. Gun-spear, blade, wrist, etc. Of course in that thread I was also talking about adding in unique effects to items, so materia crafting would be much akin to enchanter in WoW. Where you'd take like Bahamut essence and a bunch of materia and turn it into "dragoon gains Bristled Scales on each jump granting them 10% max hp shield on each jump for 5 seconds". Which you would socket in just like normal materia with perhaps some restrictions on quantity and location of these passive items. Although I understand often it would feel like you're forced into choosing a specific effect, just like you're expected to wear certain gear in hardcore content.. so you win some and lose some. In casual content I always enjoy effects on gear though.... adds a lot of flavor to the item. Like the fiery sword that deals fire damage is just like ... a touch of immersive fun, even if it's pretty much the same damage in most situations lol.

The other idea might be advanced jobs for crafters, which

On the suggestion of the aethercrafter I had a twist, to see what you think of it. What if it was both DoH/DoL in the sense that you went to locations for the essence (aether to collect) and on site you'd make those crafts. Materia might be something more directly functional the job could manipulate, but a lot of component crafts might be available to the job. Materia being do-able anywhere. Meanwhile if you needed to make a shimmering ifrit core you'd go to the bowl of embers with materials you needed on hand, and craft it right there fusing the essence found with the materials on hand.

I do wonder for some systems though if all the general concepts of crafting are covered such that adding more is just as well as adding in recipes elsewhere.

I can imagine a lot of magitek like engineer content, there are a few already under other crafts too, but if one wanted... probably could make a whole job on that. Yet perhaps another system that might be far easier on the game's structure is adding the idea of engineering but under something like a "beast tribe" (like) crafting system.

For example... you work with the Garlond Ironworks, as you gain ranks you gain recipes throughout your jobs. Even in the crafting menu might be advanced crafting category for things like aether-smithy or engineering, and maybe some recipes allow multiple crafts (like other beast-tribe crafts). For special recipes and more crafting content you might have to buy certain recipes rather than a generic hit rank x get y recipes. So for example you might unlock advanced magitek materia slot craftable by goldsmith and alchemist. An effect idea for that by the way is the slot takes two materia slots to install but incorporates new dimensions to the materia system like FF7 does where you have 'connected' materia sometimes. So you could start to create polarity slots, linked slots, etc. Yet you didn't need to add a whole bunch of tools and such, because the current crafting jobs can kind of represent most concepts fairly well.

So... I think there might be really neat ways to add onto the crafting ideas as layers without having to actually add onto them as separate jobs. Not that I'm entirely opposed to that, but also I'm not sure if the game needs it. But I am sold on the general idea more progression stuff to do for fun- like the crystarium and such is fun.

[Alcimus]

Shougun, you are so right when it comes to being careful to not stomp on the crafting space of another DoH, that's why I was thinking about the materia melding and aura/animated dye cosmetic front cause while I'm still green I haven't seen any other crafters trying to really fill that role.

Something that might be interesting is if the aether crafter would be able to craft upgraded soulstones that have been infused with the power of events past for each expansion, pulling in your idea for location bound crafting. To prevent power creep these soulstones could simply change the color or animations for some or all of your abilities (think Warlock green fire from WoW). I was thinking this new crafter would be entirely utility/cosmetic, cause we have plenty of crafters that give power, and as we all know how you look is the real end game

[Berteaux_Braumegain]

I was mulling over the idea of new crafters and gatherers, though I wonder if the reason new ones haven't been incorporated is because they'd have to start at Level 1 like the others, which would discourage putting it in a later zone, or they'd make it start with buffed levels, which would probably be a concern that it'd make it too easy to get into crafting?

Not sure, though. That's just supposition on my part.

[TaleraRistain]

I was mulling over the idea of new crafters and gatherers, though I wonder if the reason new ones haven't been incorporated is because they'd have to start at Level 1 like the others, which would discourage putting it in a later zone, or they'd make it start with buffed levels, which would probably be a concern that it'd make it too easy to get into crafting?

Not sure, though. That's just supposition on my part.

I'm sure that's a factor. I'm okay if it started at level 1 but then they would have to go back and add things to the old zones as needed. So I could see that being a blocker.

[Eraden]

I believe one of the foci of the developers was to gatekeep certain types of crafting by making materials obtained from creatures hard to get. It also encourages people to make heavy use of the Fate system which appears to be another focal point for the developers. I tend to bypass all of this by sending out my level 90 combat retainer to gather 15 of anything I might want. Currently she is being heavily used to gather Ovibos milk.

[KageTokage]

I had a thought that entomology could be an interesting DoL job as we know decidedly little about the insect life of Etheriys...aside from the over-sized ones that try to murder us, that is.