With your numbers it looks like about a 2% chance to go from basic to fully decked out without it breaking.
Why do they have to make things more complicated than needs be?
I like the ability to enhance gear. I like that this will breath new life into craft-able items that were all but made worthless by similar ranked NM gear. I like that we now have something to do with all that gear dropped form leve's and NMs that no one wants. But why make things so complicated? Why not just have desynth (from xi) create materia which can then be attached to items at normal success failure rates? Why have all these apparatuses and misc items you need to collect and the misc rules like spiritbind and different synth success rates for binding materia?
Granted long time FF players won't have a big issue with this system, but imagine some future potential mmo player looking at the ffxiv for ps3 box in a store... is he/she really going take the time to learn what x apparatus is for, how to get it, why to get it, what effects the success or failure rate of using it. If they still want casual players, they need to learn casual players don't want to take a course on FF mechanics in order to play without being overwhelmed.
Edit: just want to re-emphasize: I do like the addition, i just think it could be simpler
That kind of a risk is a good thing though as it removes materia and gear from the market, forcing people to make/buy more. Plus all those people who like to look down on others for not having 5 materia gear can feel special again, they were crying pretty hard about previous things making gear easier to get :p
Why not have it like XI? Because this isn't XI. The devs can do better than XI, and I personally feel they are in this system. It's not as complicated as you're making it out to be.
1. Use gear until it has 100% spiritbind.
2. Convert gear into materia
3. Attach materia.
4. Rinse/repeat as desired.
Simple.
I hope Unique/Untradable equipment that drops from NMs like Phaia don't produce unique materia.
That's all low ranked players need now, R50's camping these mobs to get those items.
Also, this will probably increase the cost of weapons/equipment even further.
True this alone would increase the cost however also take into account the newly simplified crafting mechanics. This would offset the price raise from materia due to the ease of making new gear. Thus gear may actually be cheaper in some instances but with a lot more of it actually selling.
That's really doubtful. I mean, hell, the price different between a regular iron plate belt and a green one is over 150k on Wutai. And there's only one more part.
Also since they are changing it that now you can dye the armor post production, not pre-production. I also like that new feature they are changing to.