Comments from the Devs

[Hyan]

And? Gatherers will obviously just hand you the HQ mats (the only mats that will sell, the mats that are rarer, the mats that will be in big demand by crafters who don't want to buy NQ anymore) because there's just soo much supply to be had (especially when gear will become exponentially more important with the stat changes and demand will go up as the result). Maybe there was more than enough supply before (or just not enough demand) but see, that's about to change when you can't bikini through the darkhold anymore.

The economy won't stay alive if the devs don't stimulate it constantly with new recipes and stuff like Materia (that create even more new possibilities for crafters). and that trend should and will continue now that the groundwork has been completed.

[Spider-Dan]

And if you think crafters are going to sell products for the same price they buy the materials then you're living in a different world. That has never happened and will never happen.

When HQ materials guarantee HQ finished result (regardless of rank, traits, support gear, etc.), it means that HQ finished items are not the exclusive property of the high-rank, specialized crafters with lots of sub-crafts, quality-improving abilities, or what have you. It means that HQ finished items are being sold by anyone with the minimum skill necessary to complete the synth.

In such a system, the person that simply assembles the final finished product is not of much value, and will not be able to extract as much profit from their portion. The real money will be made selling HQ mats.

Put another way, if I know that the current price of an HQ Crab Bow is 5m, and I have all the HQ mats necessary to guarantee an HQ Crab Bow, why would I sell them for much less than the cost of the bow?

It's practically the same dynamic you would see between Uraeus skin and Silver Tricorne if there were only one possible crafting result.

[dfdfpp]

Only a few people do the "500,001/2/3" pricing system to indicate HQs and I don't even think most people realize that's what those numbers mean.

Oohhhhhh so that's what it meant. >_>

[Sephiroth]

Pointless continuing this HQ result vs HQ mat debate now lol. It seems the real money is going to be in stacking materia on the item rather than a finished item. HQ items with 5 tier 4 materia attached will probably be much rarer than even current +3s.

I wonder how the market wards will function with all these different combinations of materia. They will have to make big changes to the way items are listed or it's going to cause way more people to be pissed off than the way it currently works. We'll probably see changes to the item search with 1.19 but of course the main complaint will still be that it's not an AH.

[Hyan]

Oh, and we didn't even touch the subject of turning equipment into materia which will effectively remove items from circulation, raising demand and balancing out the (currently) overwhelming supply. Now if HQ equipment can turn into a higher quality materia more easily...

The pressure from synthing the 5th materia into an XIV Mandau is going to be insane.

I hope its 80/60/40/20% chance.

[Hiroishime]

20% is so high lol.
i will bet its 100/80/50/20/5

[Gulkeeva]

Being a crafter will be pretty profitable it seems, especially with a DOL thats high lvl too... dam guess i should login and lvl my miner a bit...

[Hyan]

20% is so high lol.
i will bet its 100/80/50/20/5

I'm not at all confident that it'll be 20% but think about what 5% means:

50% chance to get 3 materias attached so every second item can proceed to stage 4.

Out of 5 stage 3 items (after 10 stage 3 tries) one will have 4 materias attached.

And out of 20 stage 4 materias, one will have all 5 attached. 20x5 =100 stage 3's to get one stage 5. Stage 3 and below taken into account, less than 1% chance. So 200+ materias to farm... And lots of HQ items (if that's what you aim for).

[Jamison]

I may be really far off, but I was thinking that a stage 1 materia gets put on gear, then *that* gear eventually becomes a stage 2, then that stage 2 gear becomes a stage 3 materia, and so on. I didn't see anywhere they suggested 5 different materias can be put onto one piece?

Maybe I'm just missing something

(I've seen them reference with the forbidden craft that a second piece can be added, but that's it.. not 5...)

[Hyan]

Players who have met certain requirements can obtain the more advanced ”augmented materia melder,” which allows the attachment of up to five pieces of materia per item.

Yep, you are missing something because the thread only includes the lore-bit of the update when there's a forum post regarding it as well. i also had to look it up after Seph's post.

[miokomioko]

It's most likely going to involve a mini-game, so it probably won't just be a dice-roll to figure out whether you get that 5th materia or just lost your item and 5 pieces of materia. Hopefully, the difficulty will just steadily go up (not exponentially).

[Arximiro]

This is a translation from a German Dev. found here:

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...german+transla

Your wish is my command! You will no doubt be delighted to hear that the (accessory) slot-costs will be done away with.

[miokomioko]

It's gonna' be weird with full access to 9 different accessory slots... They are going to have to dumb down all their stats across the board pretty significantly to balance that out. Possibly even remove the index finger ring slots...

[Gokulo]

A price most are probably willing to pay easily.

[Sephiroth]

They need to change something with the way inventory works for gear because it's getting ridiculous. I already carry 3 Amethyst rings for GLD, 3 Heliodor rings for CRP, 3 Goshenite rings for CON, 3 Electrum rings for ARC and a Mythril Choker which I sometimes swap with a ring on battle classes. It must be horrible for those with all classes ranked up, they'll have to carry all kinds of rings. And that's just 4 slots I've talked about. If I could have earrings, an extra ring and wristlets too and then need different ones for those classes again I could be looking at over 30 accessories for 4 classes.

I'm sure they mentioned they are working on something to fix this problem but UI improvements seem to be low priority right now.

[Niiro]

Crafting and obsolete items: He would like to confirm that the list of items that will become obsolete will be made available once the patch 1.19 is released. However he cannot give more information regarding the future uses of treatises.

Er, it would be nice if they told us what materials are going the way of the dod- nvm I've already used that joke, before they become obsolete. If I've got 180 brass nuggets sitting around I'd like to know if they're going to be NPC junk beforehand so I can make them into something useful.

[Kurokikaze]

They need to change something with the way inventory works for gear because it's getting ridiculous. I already carry 3 Amethyst rings for GLD, 3 Heliodor rings for CRP, 3 Goshenite rings for CON, 3 Electrum rings for ARC and a Mythril Choker which I sometimes swap with a ring on battle classes. It must be horrible for those with all classes ranked up, they'll have to carry all kinds of rings. And that's just 4 slots I've talked about. If I could have earrings, an extra ring and wristlets too and then need different ones for those classes again I could be looking at over 30 accessories for 4 classes.

I'm sure they mentioned they are working on something to fix this problem but UI improvements seem to be low priority right now.

I think they are making it so that equipped gear doesn't take inventory. Least I remember Yoshi-P saying that somewhere. It's definitely a step forward.

They'll probably go full steam ahead with UI once Battle Changes are done and done. I hope its complete before PS3 release or it'll be same shit all over again. UI is still not where it should be. I could still go through each and every menu in the game and pick out where theres corners to be cut or overly redundant menus.

[Hyan]

Er, it would be nice if they told us what materials are going the way of the dod- nvm I've already used that joke, before they become obsolete. If I've got 180 brass nuggets sitting around I'd like to know if they're going to be NPC junk beforehand so I can make them into something useful.

They're not going obsolete before 1.20? Should be plenty of time.

I am pretty optimistic about the PS3 release not coming "too soon". The new genders must be ready, the area redesign to have taken place, and the server rework as well. It all sounds like latter half of 2012 for PS3 to me in all honesty. That's plenty of time to work on the UI.

[Niiro]

Ah, I had thought the crafting streamlining was coming with .19.

[Hyan]

Well, ya, but the old recipes will be kept around for a while still too.

Nuggets will not be used with the new recipes, we know that much however!