Don't want to get into a huge quote post thing but when I'm referring to Glamour I'm talking about equipment people choose to purchase for the sole purpose of Glamour such as an
Augmented Saurian Shirt of Striking. It's an iLevel 90 piece of gear so equivalent to Myth-purchased armour and behind Soldiery/ST gear which is freely available now and additionally upgraded Sands of Time armour. It's a purely cosmetic piece and as you can see from the recipe it requires a fair chunk of Demimateria. Again, I didn't craft because I felt it wasn't worth the timesink for subpar equipment. I raised Alchemy to 100 in FFXI and the rest as close to 60 as my sanity would allow and that was more than enough pain for me to last a lifetime.
The only reason I posted/quoted is to keep everything in perspective not as a "Gotcha!". Hope you didn't take it that way.
As extremely, impossibly and utterly moronicly rare a crafted piece as
thatis you listed as an example, it's not the best example to use. Very few people in this entire game on any server (probably less than 5%) will even be able to make that item and even fewer will be able to afford to buy it just to destroy it for a glamour image. It's still Glamour, which means... it didn't take any materia to make as a glamour which you claimed they do. The materia needed was to make the
original shirtpiece so I reiterate; materia is not needed for glamour unlike what you are were incorrectly positing.
You listing that shirt as an example of why materia in crafting is a waste (or glamouring in general) is quite odd. Do you realize the crafting skill that in order to make that piece in the first place, it's going to require:
1. A
fully materia melded3-star Alchemist to make the Terminus putty as a mat, twice
2. A
fully materia melded3-star Leatherworker to finish the shirt
3. A lot of money either way to make/buy it?
Anyone trying to make this piece simply as a skin for another look is fucking stupid... unless he himself is a 3 star crafter which means he's probably rich or buying gold. No adventure/gatherer could even afford this, unless he was desynthesizing to get the Battle materia IIIs (which cost a ton), in which case he probably does have a fully materia melded fisher or something (extremely tough to get any level III demimateria without at least a fully materia melded anything in the first place). Running dungeons hoping for Darklight gear to drop/win/desynth wouldn't be enough to advance them; they'd have to make their own items like Artisan headpieces to desynth, which again... would require them to already have a fully materia melded (or close) Culinarian at the very least (the easiest way to get them) to make the items for turn-ins.
I highly doubt the majority of people in this game are using supremely expensive materia and mats just to make one-time use glamour pieces. Most just PvP or run dungeons to get the rare looking drops, in which case it makes perfect sense to keep the materia system as it fuels the entire economy, not just for crafters but for everyone.
I had two fully maxed crafts in FFXI (cooking/armorsmith) as well as the others to 60 or so; I know the pain of waiting around all day to hope you get a drop from a Crawler Nest mob to make Ambrosia and hopefully gain pitiful .03 skill that day (unless you blow it up). But this game isn't like that at all. The crafting is actually fun (or at least macro easy) and you've deprived yourself of a much better system based on how bad the previous one was.
Regarding that quote you posted, nowhere there do I see mention of the Zodiac Weapons being the best weapon in the game.
Haha, yeah. I doubt I will be able to find any verbatim quote saying they want Relics to be the most powerful weapon in the game just like you won't be able to find any saying they want dungeon drops to be the most powerful in the game. Basically I think that part boils down to common sense given the clues we've seen over the life of the patches. Yoshi saying that the Relics are not finished but they are working towards that is a big clue. It's like FFXI; the most powerful weapons in the game were from Dynamis; you couldn't just walk into Dungeon X or kill World Dragon Y and grab the best weapon in one afternoon on a lucky drop from a dungeon boss. There was still a lengthy and ongoing process to make it that way.. which is what they have planned for this one. You'll keep the same weapon and it will always be for most people doing it, the strongest weapon in the game at any given time (unless you're extremely lucky with a drop and don't have to do all the steps). If you think crafting is worthless in regards to endgame weapons/gear, I respect your opinion but it's wrong for the majority of the base who are doing it and the economy that's tied into it.
Let's look at this for a moment through a fairly cynical pair of glasses.Housing is pretty much fluff content for a female playerbase. Very few male players give two shits about making their houses look anything but functional and the majority of the benefits they offer can be freely obtained in any city. Crafting in FFXI on the other hand was the lifeblood of the game. As a Ninja and Corsair I was dependent on crafters for my tools/ammo and most other classes were equally reliant in differing ways. Crafted gear until the advent of Abyssea was still relevant and required for many endgame encounters even years after its implementation.
I think you're already doing that for the both of us, so no need for me to join you as a Devil's Advocate. Not sure why the default would be strictly a gender based outcome here, lol. If you think only females care about crafting and housing in this game I doubt there's anything I could say to make you see any point, because that's not even remotely fact based.
As a Ninja in FFXI, you were dependant on someone to make sushi, someone to make powders.. that's it. No one made your weapons. That was relic or world drops. Same thing here in FFXIV; someone has to make your DPS food for COILs. There isn't any ninja yet so you don't need powders but you/I don't know if that will be when they launch yet (although unlikely).
Plus, {{citation needed}} about females-only wanting housing?
Btw: if this is too long or rambling, apologizes. Visited a bud in CO for the first time since legalization and he gave me something called "Bruce Banner" or "Hulk" (can't remember what) and I brought it back East and trying it right now.
