So, I quit WoW,* but this was on my mind so… I’m writing about it.
Prior to me quitting, I remember making a scathing remark that FFXIV’s crafting system sounded “terrible” and that I would “never want that in a video game”. It was “too complicated” I said.
Woo boy was I wrong. The interactive crafting is genius, the professions actually feel like a profession with their own bits of lore, and trying to craft High Quality items (of equal level) every time is a game in itself, like trying to beat your own high score.
It also gives me something interactive and easy to do when I don’t feel like doing any story content or PVE (a boon since I have severe carpal tunnel), and there’s also making Glamours (ie transmogs) for one or each Profession. Sometimes it can be frustrating (accidentally shattering a craft oops), but all-in-all… I was definitely wrong about it, and I stand corrected.
(*Note, since people are going to ask… I am unsubscribed from WoW; heck, even this account is out of game time, but I can still post for some reason. I also still love WoW, so not a diss post.)
There are barely any MMOs that had me stop leveling to try out crafting as that game did, because of its interactivity, getting treated like a class of its own, their own story chain starting from level 1, and crafting the amount of gear that can pass as a mog for a casual appearance.
The last thing I crafted was a pair of shades that ran for almost 2 million gil, though I wanted it for my mog.
It used to be good, but they’ve oversimplified it a lot in shadowbringers, like a lot of the game, and it’s made high level crafting completely not worth it due to all the markets being crashed.
Say what? You can craft gear that becomes the highest ilvl catch-up gear which fresh 80’s just eat up because it opens up end-game content far faster than spamming dungeons or raids. High level crafting is actually very useful there.
Not for the seller. It’s actually more profitable to make low level leveling gear than high end anything.
Back even as soon as last expansion, crafted raid gear sold for a million gil a piece. Now? You don’t even make back the material cost, better off just buying it from someone else it’s so cheap instead of wasting time gearing up your crafters. It’s a sad state of affairs.
Of course, this varies by server, but is generally holding true for any server but the most devout RP servers.