Crafting's Current Shortcomings And Imbalances

This is just a general ragepost to vent frustration so I appologize if I'm annoying anyone, but is everyone else (aside from the blacksmiths and goldsmiths) sick to the *** yet about the extraordinary amount of favoring those two crafts see?

Admittedly a lot of this rage on my part stems from being an Alchemist and Corsair/Ranger. I'm just about at the end of my rope spending endless amounts of my plasm on bullets, whilst the craft I leveled specifically to make bullets is worthless because SE thinks they're apparently doing everyone a favor by making ammo that doesn't require gil to obtain and letting a craft rot.

As much as I like being able to make panaceas and hallowed water -- assuming I'm willing to take the time to gather all the base materials myself since they're never on the AH -- maybe a real, useful item or two wouldn't go amiss?

Totally read that as "pancreas".

I mean... as a 110 capped smith, I can say this, smithing is what makes armor. Armor isn't cheap. Goldsmithing has the monopoly on accessories.

Crafts, are just like jobs in this game. Every one of them has a high and low point. Smithing, and I can say this as a smith, is totally worthless. It WAS amazing for armada/Phantasmal. Other than that, it's quite rare. 117 craftable weapons had a good run, and beryllium as well admittedly. but they're few and far between, it's VERY boom and bust, or drought and monsoon.

If anything I'd complain more about the fact that all NQ synthesis is trash, and the only way to make any sort of profit is the HQ system, and it's far too low of a rate (but that's exactly WHY it's so valuable.)

As far as your complaining about plasm bullets, I sorta feel you. But one marjami run buys your bullets for at least a week. So as long as you do a marjami once a week, you'll never run out of ammo or plasm.

If I could make a pancreas I'd be out of this game and making literal billions fixing the diabetics of the world.

I guess the thing is -- and maybe this sounds odd, or outside of the normal realm of thought for FFXI -- I'm not even concerned about making money with my craft.

I just want it to be useful again. If I could rake in cash that'd be awesome, but it's secondary to just...the experience, you know? Like (and I shudder to make this comparison), in WoW you can take up a craft that compliments your class.

That was sort of my thing with Alchemy. I was able to make my bullets, meds, silent oil/prism powder, etc. all at a discount from the AH and maybe even sell some to break even and get them for free.

Now it's just like...I can't make money with it, and the very few good items out there that are worth buying vs. r/ex attainment are so *** expensive that it just makes your head spin (these new ring HQs are going to dominate the market).

Which, yes, makes me agree whole-heartedly with your point about HQs. I liked the xxx-soul rings that didn't have HQs. What you got was what you got; you already had to get the HQ luck on the stones to MAKE the ring. Luckily (I think, anyhow?) the final version rings are synergy, not synthesis, so there's a decent HQ chance on them.

I dunno. Like I said. This is just a general venting. I realize that there are bigger problems than crafting in the game right now and I could easily invest and make a mule to craft these things (I plan to, in fact), but it's just ridiculous at this point the way they've essentially cast off woodworking, alchemy, clothcraft, bonecraft, etc.

If we look at it from a not-money perspective, then Cooking and Alchemy are the only ones that really have a use at all. The whole purpose really of having a capped craft is to make things that other people can't... and to generally sell those things to the people stupid enough to pay exorbitant amounts of money for...

You can make your own things, and keep them, it's just that you lose a lot of potential money (opportunity cost) that way.

I'm just not entirely sure what you were hoping to accomplish? Yeah square really screwed alchemy with plasm bullets. They really screwed every craft, except cooking. I haven't wanted anything from my own smithing skill since.... Armada. Everytime they make something sweet that's craft able, it's always followed/preceded by something r/e that's comparable.

I think that the main thing you're referring to, was maybe the ability to do things like buy beryllium ore and make my own ingots, and save a couple bucks. Which was nice, not worth writing home about, but nice.

Square just doesn't understand or refuses to accept the way we play their game. They make all these things they think people will use, and we don't... it ruins crafting.

got woodworking 108 .... and am a BOW team rng .. cant even make my arrows lol

but we had good run back with the element staffs nd maybe some cursed haidte -1 (sp?) and thats was about it
been foreverr since i touched my craft

Yeah, pretty much I suppose. I think it's an either/or thing. Up until recently (..."recently" being relative, I'm talking over the lifespan of the game), you had either the consumable crafts (cooking, alchemy) where you could supply things everyone needed and make yours for yourself too. And you had the others that had valid items (cursed gear, haubergeons, vermillion/noble's, ele staves, etc.). You could be useful, make money, sometimes both.

I'm just not sure what they envision with crafting these days. All I know is that with yet another update, and yet another supply of good items limited to certain crafts, it's really sort of making me grind my teeth.

Seems like they've sort of given up on it, in favor of synergy, which I HATE, but, I assume we have a skill increase coming, soonish. That will be their chance to overhaul. Until then, crafting sort of nothing more than a personal goal to accomplish.

Between them not having a fundamental grasp on how the game is played, and the white-box only mentality... all you can do is shake your head.

A white-box mentality they themselves are not only supporting, but actually pushing with gear such as these new rings, with the "extra" stats on the HQs, not just a +1 boost to stats.

There isn't favoring in any crafts. Goldsmithing may have gotten profitable items this past update but requires synergy.

The only way I see for high crafters to make profit again off low quantity HQ synths is the reintroduction of new cursed gear -1.

Surely you don't think they are favoring Goldsmithing. This is the first update since the 110 cap/hexed armor (hexed gambieras) was released that we have gotten a set of useful synths.

Goldsmithing has always been the favored craft; rightfully so to a degree. It's a *** to level, even now I suspect.

But I'm speaking relative to other crafts and on terms of usefulness, not just making money. Also, your statement is not entirely correct. The HQ stat earrings and xxx-soul rings have perservered as practically "needed" items through and through.

Edit: And again, I'm talking over a long course of time here and relative to the full course of the game. You say "since the 110 cap/hexed armor" set. Alchemy has had nothing worthwhile since synergy came along.

I'm willing to admit that there may be some confirmation bias to my thoughts here relative to who I see making lots of gil, who I see with these crafts, and the general availability of crafters.

But it feels to me like there's a decided lean toward gold/blacksmithing. And I'm not alone in this feeling, even if I'm wrong in the conclusion.

But really, even if there is no favoring, I think we can still agree there's a problem with crafting in general. I'll edit the title here to allow for my own perception perhaps being not entirely accurate.

While I don't think there is a bias towards certain crafts I certainly feel your pain with regards to alchemy, the only thing I can think of that is worth getting that is alchemy synthed is Hexed Coif -1.

You feel that way, while smithers and goldsmithers feel the opposite. Meanwhile, this is what really happens:

Update occurs. Guild X gets a new craft, and they think "Finally, a synth I can make some gil on."
Meanwhile, Guilds A, B, C, and D all think "WTF, Guild X always gets the good synths"
All the while (up till a month ago) Fishers be like "2 Mil per day while afk... U mad bro?"

What and where could you possibly see alchemists having any advantage? O_o;

That said, you're right about the anglers. Screw those jerks.

I don't see why it wouldn't be possible to make different items for the same slots with the same/similar boosts that simply require different crafts.

Goldsmithing suffered a huge drought. For a craft you dump millions of gil compared to other crafts to even 105, little gil is to be made. People were mad when they invested in +6 to be replaced by +7 stat rings. You also need synergy to craft rings and earrings. There is no point and costs the most out of any crafts to go past 105.

Pyrosoul rings and Vulcan Earrings were the last decent profitable items. However after adoulin came out, people are afraid to buy something that gets replaced in a short span of time. Smithing was the armadaberks/valk armors but that quickly diminished when adoulin came out. Next profitbable item for smithing were the sensbaaks. Since then, the profit margin for smithing has decreased.

The only gear that gets preserved are the static ones where def/attack/acc/dmg does not matter. This is why certain refresh/regen items or accessories gets preserved.

Honestly to only way to preserve high level crafting is introducing new cursed gear and preserve synergy by the augmentation system. The rest or newer content will be sidegrades until the next item lvl cap increase. The AF119 items was a partial solution to high lvl crafters but did not apply to all crafts (cooking, fishing, alchemy, and leathercraft were excluded). I believe the next ramp in crafting will be alchemy with the wyrm bloods. Leathercrafting to my understanding people are buying the +1 aeostaur gear.

To sum up my opinions the crafts are pretty much balanced from other another but are suffering of their worthiness. A long time ago SE mention raising the cap to 150. Now there isn't a point to cap to 110 for most crafts. I think SE really needs to evaluate where gil is going. Is it going into crafted/quested goods or clears?

Perhaps. It's an ingredient in the new nodowa though, which is smithing.

Smithing -> torque, belt, bullets
Leathercraft -> Gorget, belt, mantle
Alchemy -> ammo piece, Items used for synergy or similar augmentation process, nin tools
Goldsmithing -> Accessories
Woodworking -> Arrows
Clothcraft -> Obis, capes

As always price of the item will be highly dependent on the cost of the material/avaliability.

Hey man you should level your alchemy to 106 to make spurrina coifs for people. Has been BiS for like two years now. You might even call that useful, or profitable.

Just think of your crafts as another lvl 99 abyssea job. When you need it use it.

Boozerr - 102 Alchemy
Boozerjr - 102 clothcraft
Boozers - 107 bonecraft

well...after reading these posts, i come to agree and disagree with ya. I completely agree about Alchemy being not very profitable. I actually rarely use it these days. Infact i only levelled it to 100 waaaayy back in the day to make clusters for ohat runs lol.

As for bone and cloth... both still profitable if your only crafting to make money. cloth is very good gil under certain conditions: make threads and cloths...sell as singles.. have many mules to do so with. Its not huge profit per sale, but its good gil over time. Just stock pile karakul threads, twill damasks, sifs (if your high enough), plat. and gold threads, wam cocoons, water spider webs, spider webs...all flip into profitable threads..etc. cloth was very nice for the AF upgrades. Stockpile everything and sell was low on AH. (thats the stock market approach for those looking to make money).

As for bone...its slowing down, but skilling to 110 is profitable with huge profit margins. Slow sales at times, but look towards Ej necklaces, nanti knives, budliqa, tati earrings etc. there all average to slow sales but always net a nice profit. you never lose on these while skilling up. Just gotta take your time doing it. if you stock pile 5-10 of any of these.. u will lose gil due to price changes in mats as they slowly drop. Stay with the market, dont go overboard and you will make gil.

on a side note...been wanting a smithing or goldsmithing mule based on the same thinking as most.

want to make gil?? supply the crafters.....thats how.

With having every craft over 100 except Alchemy... I'd say right now the best things to be making is hexed gear. There is at least 1 piece of hexed gear in each craft department, I'm sure this is the same with Alchemy as well, that will generate a decent profit. No, it won't make you 15M profits like you're used to from back in the day, but it's really all you have at this point until SE does something else about crafting.

At this point, I'm leveling all my crafts as high as possible, capping all my subcrafts, and hoping when they release Authority level (120 cap) that they make some ***that won't be outdated in a month or the very next update.

Get your torques, collect those GP, get all your KI's, and get to crafting.

Cooking is pretty lame. Out of the 400 food recipes maybe 3 are ever used, sushi, rcb and tacos. Maybe mochi but those cost like 500g to synth. SE needs to diversify foods. Give them job specific bonuses, Counter +5%, Jump damage +10%, Sentinel Duration +10sec, Cure potency+8%, etc. needs more m.acc and mdmg/mab food too.

I'd like to see more potent drinks for regen/refresh and maybe tp regain drinks as well.

50k per ifritite
64 ifritite per tear
10 min~ per synergy, assuming you want perfect alignment
~8 tears per ring+1

a batch of 7 NQ and a HQ(expected, anyway) costs about 26M and takes over 5 hours to make, resulting in a profit of under 10m once market balances, there's also high variance on top of that due to the low rate tears come up

it's high investment, huge time sink, huge variance, and reward doesn't even beat farming, don't know how you figure it as this super profit craft

and as others have stated, gold had 0 marketable synths for months, alchemy is consistant profit per synth and i'd wager it's actually more per synth than these rings when you factor in all the sytnhs required to make tears

Honestly, Cooking probably makes me more gil than any of the other crafts at this moment. With the other crafts, it's more of a big one time payment or bigger amounts over a period of time. With cooking, you have to constantly check your auction sales and replace them cause if you're making the right things, it'll fly off the shelves. If you're only using 1 character to distribute your cooking goods, you might need to invest in a mule to help.

Odd, I feel like Bonecraft is by far my worst craft at the moment. I have Bonecraft/Alchemy/Cooking of varying levels above 100. With your examples of ways to make money off Bonecraft, Ej Necklaces will eventually make a profit with the rare HQ but until then you are kinda stuck with an extremely hard to sell and expensive NQ, and the NQ isn't profitable alone on my server. The other items you list can be profitable but sell extremely slow and generally have high competition. Hell some markets are just silly at the moment, like Hajduk Rings are almost certainly a loss to synth on Asura.

Alchemy still has a few pretty high profit T1 HQ synths that sell at a not terrible rate. Cooking will always have RCBs which are pretty amazing profit wise but getting the Dragon Meat is always a chore. Other cooking synths can vary with usefulness, but do generally make money. Right now I'd say I tier my crafts profit wise as Alchemy > Cooking > Bonecraft, but that is probably because people don't actually compete much in Alchemy synths.