Materia System

[Peregrine]

IOh so the crafter says he has the best gear, well that doesn't matter because it would still be 100% and the crafter doesn't determine if the materia is HQ, I believe HQ is determined by what the wearer of the weapon/armor does to get the AP to 100%. (At least that is how I read it, maybe I read it wrong).

It's not that crafters will expect a lot of gil for one-inlay synths that anyone their level can do and not fail. It's that they won't do them. They will only be interested in whipping up all the good materia and BLOWING it to hell on chances to combine two of them into a HQ endgame piece so they can charge 24 million gil for it. If battlers raise their prices for that materia, crafters will pay it...and then just mark the final products up even more to cover that cost, saying that battlers should have the gil to afford that since the crafter just paid them a lot of money for that materia.

Crafters will run away with this system. Battlers who aren't lucky enough to get the best materia results won't be able to afford it, because that materia will simply be material spam to some bloatedly rich crafter. They won't be able to inlay one good materia into their weapon.

[OMEGA_HACK]

Peregrine makes the point of:

If the warrior does ALL the work to get the materia why does he have to pay a butt load of gil (making the obvious assumption that crafters will overprice as they already do) to infuse the materia into his new weapon.

AND

Said crafters will be able to craft the items that the warrior buys (that is +1 Crafter -1 Warrior) assuming that most crafters will want all the mats to be provided by the warriors, the warrior purchases the catalyst (that is +1 Gatherer -1 Warrior) now the crafter also has a fee for doing this for the warrior (that is +1 Crafter -1 Warrior) Crafter infuses the materia on the new weapon, rinse and repeat.
All in all you have Crafter+2, Gatherer+1, Warrior-3.

His point is a completely valid; the combat people will loose out in the long run and the Crafting classes will end up controlling the markets without any real need for checks and balances.

[Sonic_the_Hedgehog]

Peregrine makes the point of:

If the warrior does ALL the work to get the materia why does he have to pay a butt load of gil (making the obvious assumption that crafters will overprice as they already do) to infuse the materia into his new weapon.

AND

Said crafters will be able to craft the items that the warrior buys (that is +1 Crafter -1 Warrior) assuming that most crafters will want all the mats to be provided by the warriors, the warrior purchases the catalyst (that is +1 Gatherer -1 Warrior) now the crafter also has a fee for doing this for the warrior (that is +1 Crafter -1 Warrior) Crafter infuses the materia on the new weapon, rinse and repeat.
All in all you have Crafter+2, Gatherer+1, Warrior-3.

His point is a completely valid; the combat people will loose out in the long run and the Crafting classes will end up controlling the markets without any real need for checks and balances.

Perhaps, but warriors will be able to get rare/ex gear from NMs or Quests, also you get a ton of gil from levequests, so I think it'll balance out.

[Peregrine]

Compounded to this GROSSLY IMBALANCED accounting, battlers and gatherers are screwed in the steps of the process.
Battlers not only have to pay for the cost of the gear that would have been equipped (the market value now) but they have to pay for the potential that it is now a materia. They will have to pay for something about the gear that they will never be using.

HOWEVER, the results of their materia will probably be garbage. The crafters will not pay this battler for garbage even if it took a while. They will only pay him for the GOOD materia. So he buys ANOTHER overpriced piece of gear from the crafter. And THAT materia is ****. Then he buys ANOTHER piece, and by this time the crafter is swimming in gil and increasingly charging him for each piece because every battler is buying 3 pieces.

FINALLY the battler makes a good materia. BAM charges 5 million gil for it.

Fine, says the crafter. He makes it into a sword.

BAM. Sword is 10 million gil so he can buy two of the same quality of materia.

BAM BAM. Two swords at 10 million gil. He can buy four materia of that quality.
BAM BAM BAM BAM Four swords, 40 million gil. NOw he can buy 8 materia.

CRASH CRASH SUCCESS CRASH. Three failed double synths with that epic materia. One success.

That sword is 120 million gil. And the battlers put 95% of the effort into it, paid 95% of the cost...and got 5% of the profit.

Crafter gets 120 million gil for "best sword on the server"
Buys up all the good materia for prices non-crafters can't afford.
Blows them all on more swords.
Charges more ridiculous profits for those swords.

Eventually battlers and gatherers are forced to work for the crafters, and crafters will start taking materia and catalyst in exchange for new gear from them.

And that, ladies and gents, is how you run a mine employee store.

[Amineri]

Peregrine makes the point of:

If the warrior does ALL the work to get the materia why does he have to pay a butt load of gil (making the obvious assumption that crafters will overprice as they already do) to infuse the materia into his new weapon.

AND

Said crafters will be able to craft the items that the warrior buys (that is +1 Crafter -1 Warrior) assuming that most crafters will want all the mats to be provided by the warriors, the warrior purchases the catalyst (that is +1 Gatherer -1 Warrior) now the crafter also has a fee for doing this for the warrior (that is +1 Crafter -1 Warrior) Crafter infuses the materia on the new weapon, rinse and repeat.
All in all you have Crafter+2, Gatherer+1, Warrior-3.

His point is a completely valid; the combat people will loose out in the long run and the Crafting classes will end up controlling the markets without any real need for checks and balances.

This analysis assumes that the flow of goods only ends up with the combat classes being the only consumer.

This can be broken in a couple of ways:

1. Crafters and Gatherers will likely be users of materia-enhanced gear also.
2. Crafters and Gatherers can presumably add AP to items as well as the Combat classes.

If Crafters are also consumers of materia, it means that they will be paying a cost for materia that does NOT get directly passed on to the end-consumer, because they are the end-consumer.

In addition, this whole chain of logic rests on the assumption that crafters can indiscriminately set their prices however they want. This would be true, except for the fact of COMPETITION. Yes, there is competition amongst crafters.

Look at this scenario:
Crafter buys semi-rare materia for 5M, adds to item, lists for 6M. Before someone buys it, another crafter buys the same materia for 4M and lists it for 5M. Before that sells, another crafter buys the same materia for 4M and lists it for 4.5M. Now, the original crafter cannot even make a profit on the original 5M purchase. This risk is in part why the markups are so high. The person selling the materia is guaranteed 5M. The crafter purchasing it is not.

Crafters are no greedier than battlers or gatherers. Everyone wants to sell their goods for as much as they can. However, the system should be a little bit more balanced.

Suggestion:
If crafters cannot create their own materia (for their own uses), then they will be an end-product user of crafter-oriented materia.

Then the battle classes can mark-up such materia as much as desired, since the cost will not be passed back to them. Further, since crafters "have so much gil", the competition amongst crafters for rare crafter-oriented materia will be fierce, and prices will be high.

The situation then partially reverses, where battlers (say), purchase gear from crafters, turn said gear into crafter materia, and sell said drastically marked-up materia back to the crafters.

[Wynn]

This is the shards argument all over again.

Crafter: "Why are you charging so much for shards?!"

Battler: "You can afford it, you make tons of money. Stop complaining!"

Next Day

Battler: "WTF?! Why is your stuff so expensive!?"

Crafter: "You can afford it, you just raped me yesterday on shard prices and I need to make back my costs somehow..."

Battler: "Greedy crafter!"

Crafter: "Greedy battler!"

[LateReg]

Consider this...

The point of gathering, in it's simplest form, is to collect materials (to sell, or to convert into whatever items by yourself or a friend). Above all, at this point, to make money.

The point of crafting is to use materials (gathered or purchased) to create equipment to use or sell, your choice entirely. Again, above all, usually to make money in the end.

The point of combat classes is to fight cool mobs and bosses and raid whatever dungeons come up in the future, as well as to progress through the story (when more of that comes) with other cool fights, etc. Given that both DoH and DoL are left out of all the "coolness" so to speak, they make up for it in their own ways. Combat classes shouldn't be allowed to have all the fun (fight cool stuff, AND make a ton of money), so why are you guys complaining about that?

Morever, I think many people will level at least one crafting or gathering class to the cap (or close to it) in their time playing this game, so it'd be easy to just balance out whatever craft you don't have leveled with the one that you do. i.e.: make money on Blacksmithing to pay for a craft you can't do on your rank 20 Goldsmith.

Put it this way, if combat classes could: make money, fight awesome stuff, progress through story in a party setting with friends, wear all the cool armor, get cool abilities, etc, etc - what would be the point of ever touching crafts or gathering? (inb4 "some people like to play Farmville")

[Peregrine]

Here are the schematics of what this system will do to the balance between crafters, gatherers, and battlers.

Right off the bat, crafters benefit. The first step of making a materia'd gear is to purchase something from a crafter to start turning into materia. Battlers and gatherers start off by buying multiple things from crafters.

Battlers -1. Gatherers -1. Crafters +2.
Battlers finish their materia and sell it to crafters.
Battlers 0. Gatherers -1. Crafters+1
Gatherers gain catalyst and sell it to crafters.
Battlers 0. Gathererrs 0. Crafters 0.

Now. Crafters by the books now own:
All the gear.
All the materia.
All the catalyst.

AND THEY ARE EVEN WITH GATHERERS AND BATTLERS.

Crafter combines the cost they incurred by buying the catalyst and materia from players and use that as their base selling price for just straight gear.

Battlers -1. Gatherers -1. Crafters +2.

They mark gear up for rarer combinations.

Battlers -2. Gatherers -2. Crafters +4.

They charge 1000% return on epic pieces.

Battlers -???. Gatherers -????. Crafters +???

Crafters essentially own this entire market the second it starts, and cannot ever. EVER. Not come out ridiculously on top.

[Wynn]

You forgot the part where crafter purchased their starting mats from battle and harvesting classes to make said stuff they initially bought. It isn't like the mats just fell out of the sky.

[Peregrine]

You forgot the part where crafter purchased their starting mats from battle and harvesting classes to make said stuff they initially bought. It isn't like the mats just fell out of the sky.

Oh come on, don't be that dense. What, they paid 12k in mats cost to make a sword they'd sell for 120k if it DIDN'T have the potential to be materia?

Fail. Startup costs are NOTHING.