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Crafting - What is the point?
Dragnog
Member UncommonPosts: 48
Can crafted gear compare or actually beat seal gear?
It seems like a great deal of work for something that can just be attained through seals. Am I missing something?
Comments
1) Crafting is fun in and of itself. For a lot of people, they could just craft in this game and not be happier.
2) Materia. It's a gear-sink.
3) Gear for cross-classes. You only get quest gear once, and can only run the quests once, so that leaves dungeon/leve farming and crafters for gear for cross-classes
4) Some of the crafted gear, with HQ components, is pretty nice. It may not be AF2, but it's not bad in it's own right.
5) Supply missions for GC seals
Just a few reasons off the top of my head.
The highest crafted tier in the game currently is ilvl70. Which is the same as the tome of philo stuff. Might sound pointless, but this gear can be enhanced with materia. The ilvl 90 stuff comes from tome of myths, which have a cap of 300 per week. Also crafts are used in making and melding weapons used in the relic reborn quest.Thank you for the feedback and I am enjoying the crafting at the moment. It would have been nice after spending all the time doing to have some amazing gear to show for it especially if it is going to need high quality materials.
It seems a bit odd to put in a set of "classes" that specifically make items and then not make their stuff the best. Sure there should be a way to get relatively good gear, but it seems if you are going to have more than 50% of the classes related to crafting then they should have something spectacular to show for it.
Anyway it won't deter me from my crafting craziness!
Thanks for that clarification - I will keep that in mind.
Crafted gear might not have the highest database values but the stuff that 'beats' it is stuff needed for very specific content and it is obtained doing that very specific content. Crafted gear is the alternative for people who don't want to do that very specific content as it requires you to devote a lot of time to multiplayer raids.
As a hard core crafter, I am happy to make the compromise. If you insist on having gear that has the highest database values, do the raids. I'd rather grind crafts and avoid the LFG system and I have no problem with my gear being a little lower in values as long as it gets the jobs I am doing, done.
I'm pissed at SE over many things, mostly tied to 1017 but the balance of crafted gear is well done. Getting full HQ crafted end gear with 5 materia is going to be a long road. Maybe even longer than just spamming dungeons but if it is character achievement and not zerg achievement I'm happy.
Oh yes, all the level 50 raid gear with empty materia slots is going to need crafters to slot it.
And to get the materia for slotting, you have to 100% spiritbond gear and then deconstruct it.
I think there are going to be people (maybe crafters themselves) that build level 50 gear, sell it, wear what they don't sell and then spiritbond it to 100% running FATE or dungeons etc. and break it down for materia to sell.
As well as selling their services slotting materia to people w/o crafting skills.
This comes back to the argument I hear often. It is about how you reward each of your particular player base niches in an MMORPG. It appears from what you are saying that not having to deal with people is it's own reward. I am not sure that the amount of effort involved is meaningful in comparison to the rewards attained. It seems to be a continual issue in MMORPGs and of course most players will take the route of least resistance and crafting is not that in this game.
Does Raid gear currently have Materia slots?
All of the higher tier gear has materia slots. And having those slots empty results in no BIS gear.
It's like enchantments and gems from the other game, except that each kind of gear needs a specific crafter with a high level to do it for that piece, which creates a big need for high level crafters.
Grinnnnd, i just gotta grind sometimes and nothing better than crafting. Not being sarcastic here anyone, been using Aion as my go to game while locked out of ARR and am running around leveling my gathering and crafting, and it feels good.
Grinding, I like it?
That's good! Crafting / gathering in ARR def seems like a grind - but that is good IMO.
There is nothing in the game forcing people to grind crafting, but just for materia alone crafters are important in ARR.
I'm having a great time with grinding out some mining.
When you get a bit higher in crafting with better crafting skills, you start to focus on quality of combines, because they grant a LOT more XP.
Gathering is a grind, however.
Its an interesting process with dedicated stats, abilities, and resource pool management.
So basically it is its own game.
Aesthetically, its one of the few mmos that has necklaces and rings you can see on your character. The dye system also lends to people wanting to purchase cosmetic gear.
Carpentry, weaver, and leatherworker will all have added furniture and home decor recipes when housing launches.
Culinarian and Alchemist will always have steady business just like most mmos.
Armorsmith and Blacksmith will be constantly busy due to the spirit bond/materia system. People will be buying gear , equipping and grinding fates to 100* spirit bond in order to make materia for their gear sets. That will keep those crafters busy.
And I don't think you have a realistic perspective on the difference between top quality crafted and top quality reward gear. We aren't talking hundreds of percent better.
End game raid gear might be 5% better than end game crafted gear and the only times you will see that 5% as anything but overkill is if you are doing end game raid dungeons. You are saying crafting sucks, you would rather do the raids and get the reward gear? Do it. That's why the option is there. Have fun, happy farming. I don't envy you because your gear will be 5% better than mine on paper. What's the problem here again?
I love crafting but I don't think crafting should be involved with creating the best gear at endgame. Doing the hard/harder/hardest endgame content should be the way to get the best gear at endgame. It would be silly to get gear doing something unrelated. Just like you should never get really remarkable gear from soloing (doing stuff that's next to no challenge).
Now, it would be nice, as it is in many systems, if you could make a FEW pieces of at least entry level endgame gear via crafting, and I think that'll be possible with late/final HQ crafted. I'd imagine that as with most systems you'll need mats from high end content to make high end items too.
For me the bigger bummer with crafting is this. It's amazingly time consuming to keep a production skill (say armorer) up with your adventurer level (say my paladin) AND keep the gathering up, AND somehow obtain cross class mats you need (even harder to get them in HQ). With quest, vendor, and crafted all being the exact same gear, the only thing that differentiates crafting is HQ pieces, which are exceptionally difficult to make at level. Being able to make stuff worth using while leveling would be nice but it's such a hassle, especially when you also mix in seal-based gear and instance gear.
My main motivation for crafting right now is to make gear to sell via market (especially HQ pieces) and I've pretty much given up on keeping it up with my paladin's level.
For me it's much less fun to pound my paladin to 50 THEN go back and level up a craft that could've been useful.
My paladin levels fast - everything you do gives you tons of xp. You can do mindless stuff like fate zergs and drown in xp without using one brain cell (which is moronic but that's another issue). It takes me WAY longer to level crafting or gathering and to craft takes way more effort. I wish leveling combat classes required even half as much effort as it does to level production crafting classes. It's just not reasonable to keep the crafts up with the adventure class unless you're totally solo.
Premium MMORPGs do not feature built-in cheating via cash for gold pay 2 win. PLAY to win or don't play.
I created a thread here explaining how crafting stays relevant to end game progression and how it all ties into the game's economy.
In short, its integral to all ongoing progression.
Ridiculous. There should definitely be more than one way to get viable gear than just raiding. Do I mean the WoW daily mindless grind approach for badges? No, but crafting is a good way to make gil, to do something other than run dungeons 24/7 for some gear, and the more things to do in game, the longer people will play the game. Believe it or not, some people are playing this game -just- to become high level crafters. There were many such in EQ2 and I can see it being the same way in this game. FFXI had a very robust crafting system (if very very time consuming, expensive and complex), and some of the best gear could only be had from crafters. Not all of it, but some of it.
As it should be.
Raiding should not be the only way to get some nice stuff, and an economy where crafters matter is a much healthier economy than most MMOs can boast.
Playing - EQ2 - Waiting for - FFXIV 2.0 !!
I craft because:
I want better items that most other players
I want more money to buy what I don't make
I like the challenge of a game with great crafting
I want my characters to perform better than others who don't have my items
Yes you are missing something, there is a lot of false information from people that have no idea about crafting. Seals gear is great and it's for you to level and not spend a lot of money. It's a good option but there are not all pieces available and not at all levels.
Crafted gear is the best gear in the game. HQ crafted gear + Melded Materia beats all drops/seal gear.
For example:
Crafted HQ Heavy Darksteel Armour has the same stats as Heavy Darklight Armour you can get for dungeon tokens. However, you have 4 Materia slots on the HQ Darksteel and ZERO on the Darklight. It's pretty obvious which is better.
http://xivdb.com/?item/3250/Heavy-Darklight-Armor
http://xivdb.com/?item/3256/Heavy-Darksteel-Armor (This is the NQ version the HQ has the exact same stats as Darklight except this one has Determination and Darklight has Critical hit rate)
The new Vanya Set is crafted. You get the raw materials as drops from dungeons, but a crafter can make them and if good enough even HQ them.
Crafting is an essential part without it you can not beat the high end content at all.
Great read. I never thought of it that way, but it's actually a pretty great system.
Also, I'd like to add that this is only launch and who knows what they will add or modify to the current crafting system down the line.