Materia System

Oh boy they scrapped the idea of materia'd gear being unsellable.
They sure do like to make it difficult on themselves, don't they?

A. Someone permutate how many kinds of jade crooks that'll be on the market if there are 4 qualities of jade crooks and 4 kinds of materia, with up to two materia per jade crook.

B. So crafters not only benefit from forcing their overproduced crap down other people's throats...they get to charge again for it? Hello, that doesn't make sense.

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Originally Posted by Peregrine

Oh boy they scrapped the idea of materia'd gear being unsellable.
They sure do like to make it difficult on themselves, don't they?

A. Someone permutate how many kinds of jade crooks that'll be on the market if there are 4 qualities of jade crooks and 4 kinds of materia, with up to two materia per jade crook.

B. So crafters not only benefit from forcing their overproduced crap down other people's throats...they get to charge again for it? Hello, that doesn't make sense.

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You have a gigantic chip on your shoulder. You should do something about that.

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Originally Posted by Cairdeas

Most likely materia wont activate if your underrank.

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And you base this on?

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Originally Posted by Wynn

And you base this on?

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Augments didn't Activate in FFXI under Levelsync. Its the same premise.

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Originally Posted by Peregrine

Oh boy they scrapped the idea of materia'd gear being unsellable.
They sure do like to make it difficult on themselves, don't they?

A. Someone permutate how many kinds of jade crooks that'll be on the market if there are 4 qualities of jade crooks and 4 kinds of materia, with up to two materia per jade crook.


B. So crafters not only benefit from forcing their overproduced crap down other people's throats...they get to charge again for it? Hello, that doesn't make sense.

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yeah, selling materia makes sense, selling gear with materia on it, ehhh seems like a lot of trouble, without much reward. I guess they were afraid people wouldnt be able to find crafters, i dunno

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Originally Posted by Cairdeas

Augments didn't Activate in FFXI under Levelsync. Its the same premise.

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XI is not relevant to XIV. Come on people, really. This is getting old. Stick to the facts.

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Originally Posted by Wynn

You have a gigantic chip on your shoulder. You should do something about that.

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And you are a...Yup midboss crafter. Expected/10.

This system inherently serves crafters once already. It essentially forces battlers and gatherers to buy multiple sets of gear from you, where originally they only had to buy one. That should be crafters' only reward. Someone actually buying all the **** they spam.

Now, however, not only do battlers and gatherers have to keep giving gil to crafters to buy multiple copies of the gear they spam, now I'm sure at increased prices...but crafters aren't going to inlay the materia for free. Whatever they have to purchase the materia at, they'll pass that cost back onto the battlers who made that materia in the first place, then CHARGE them whatever they feel like for the inlayed tool.

It's ridiculous. No crafter deserves that nonsense.

If you can't see how that system is ridiculously imbalanced to serve crafters, you're blind.

Make any piece of gear that a crafter puts materia into EX. Crafters don't deserve anything but tips for inlaying gear with materia, because they already benefit from scores of battlers and gatherers buying their products.

Hi Frebaut,

If you're referring to this part of the original post

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"During the materia conversion process, there will be fluctuations that result in NQ stat materia, as well as HQ stat materia, even when using the same type of item. However, even the NQ stat material will have beneficial stats."

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That doesn't explicitly answer what I (and others) are asking. Sure, NQ "stat material will have beneficial stats," but that could mean a Crab Bow NQ creates a "Double Attack Materia NQ" or maybe an "HQ1". But it doesn't answer if using a Crab Bow +3 *exclusively* creates a "Double Attack Materia +3" or some "Triple Attack Materia".

Any special difference that an HQ Item generates (other than something like slightly increased chance of HQ'ing perhaps) would lead to people pursuing more of the HQ Item to try and get that elusive Rare Materia, thereby flooding the market with more failed attempts.

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Originally Posted by Peregrine

Oh boy they scrapped the idea of materia'd gear being unsellable.
They sure do like to make it difficult on themselves, don't they?

A. Someone permutate how many kinds of jade crooks that'll be on the market if there are 4 qualities of jade crooks and 4 kinds of materia, with up to two materia per jade crook.

B. So crafters not only benefit from forcing their overproduced crap down other people's throats...they get to charge again for it? Hello, that doesn't make sense.

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Not sure wheir they said you couldn't sell an item with Materia in it. Can you show me the post? I tried looking for it and couldn't find it.

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Originally Posted by Frebaut

Not sure wheir they said you couldn't sell an item with Materia in it. Can you show me the post? I tried looking for it and couldn't find it.

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The Boss said it himself in his first pitch of materia in the topic Crafting: OMG fix it IIRC.

Y that part. I wish i could answer it but i do hope their are either NQ or HQ not this +1,2,3 crap. keep it simple and easy. I'mnot really a big fan of so many +1,2,3, items just takes so much inventory space. like most i toss/npc all my +1,2.

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Originally Posted by Peregrine

The Boss said it himself in his first pitch of materia in the topic Crafting: OMG fix it IIRC.

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OK thank you. I do agree materia weapons should become Rare EX.

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Originally Posted by Peregrine

This system inherently serves crafters once already. It essentially forces battlers and gatherers to buy multiple sets of gear from you, where originally they only had to buy one. That should be crafters' only reward. Someone actually buying all the **** they spam.

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I'm not sure I understand what you mean here. I'm not sure I've ever played a game where you purchased one set of gear ever for the life of your character. Can you clarify what you mean so that I can fully understand your point?

I will do all materia inlaying for all GS and BS for free. Saying it right now, this just isn't right for crafters to get to double dip on this system.

Battlers now have to pay crafters to start making materia. If they don't pay crafters, they can't make materia. Crafters get to charge whatever they want for the base weapons now. Then if a battler does make a materia and tries to sell it, a crafter will simply pick it up, put it into a weapon, then pass that cost RIGHT back onto a battler with a hefty markup for that crafters' services and combination of materia and quality of weapon. The battler has to pay the crafter twice, and the crafter can pass every last gil's cost of their activity back onto the battler.

NOT ONLY does the battler have to pay the crafter twice, but the battler did 90% of the work and yet the crafter gets 90% of the profits.

It's not right.

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Originally Posted by Wynn

I'm not sure I understand what you mean here. I'm not sure I've ever played a game where you purchased one set of gear ever for the life of your character. Can you clarify what you mean so that I can fully understand your point?

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Instead of buying one Jade crook to use, now you end up buying one to use and five or six just to turn into materia. That is where crafters benefit. The consumption of the gear they make goes up six-tenfold.

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Originally Posted by Peregrine

Battlers now have to pay crafters to start making materia. If they don't pay crafters, they can't make materia. Crafters get to charge whatever they want for the base weapons now. Then if a battler does make a materia and tries to sell it, a crafter will simply pick it up, put it into a weapon, then pass that cost RIGHT back onto a battler with a hefty markup for that crafters' services and combination of materia and quality of weapon. The battler has to pay the crafter twice, and the crafter can pass every last gil's cost of their activity back onto the battler.

It's not right.

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Isn't that how anything works though? If I'm a contractor doing glass work on someone's home, I buy my materials, in this case glass. I then pass that cost on to the customer for whom I'm doing glass work for. Why wouldn't I?

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Originally Posted by Peregrine

Instead of buying one Jade crook to use, now you end up buying one to use and five or six just to turn into materia. That is where crafters benefit. The consumption of the gear they make goes up six-tenfold.

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Ok, gotcha. That sounds like a fair concern to me.

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Originally Posted by Wynn

Isn't that how anything works though? If I'm a contractor doing glass work on someone's home, I buy my materials, in this case glass. I then pass that cost on to the customer for whom I'm doing glass work for. Why wouldn't I?

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In this example, you are the person that both sells the glass and makes the house. You can thus charge whatever the hell you please for the glass and they have to pay it.

In a balanced system, you would have to purchase the glass from someone who isn't you.

In this case, crafters get to pay themselves with gatherers' and battlers' money.

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Originally Posted by Peregrine

In this example, you are the person that both sells the glass and makes the house. You can thus charge whatever the hell you please for the glass and they have to pay it.

In a balanced system, you would have to purchase the glass from someone who isn't you.

In this case, crafters get to pay themselves with gatherers' and battlers' money.

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Isn't it crafters' goal to make money? That's the real reason most people craft, also if you're worried that crafters will have too much money, there just needs to be a gil sink for them. Also if I feel like someone is charging too much, I'll just go to another crafter, there's always someone willing to sell their services for less.

I would be flabbergasted if a crafter tried to make me pay him a ridiculous amount of gil to add a piece of materia to my weapon. One big thing being that's its a 100% chance to work, there is no failure. So why would I pay you more for your rank when the next joe-schmoe at the required rank can do it just as well as you?

Oh so the crafter says he has the best gear, well that doesn't matter because it would still be 100% and the crafter doesn't determine if the materia is HQ, I believe HQ is determined by what the wearer of the weapon/armor does to get the AP to 100%. (At least that is how I read it, maybe I read it wrong)

I agree with Peregrine on this one, and if anyone on Trabia needs materia infused to something an Armorer or a Blacksmith can do I will do it free of charge; just have the mats.

Also on the note of R/EX-ing the items why not have something like an AUG (Augmented) icon instead: Basically it would restrict the person from being able to put it up for sale in the market wards, but allows them to put it up for sale in their bazaar instead, it can also still be traded obviously. That way the MWards don't get even more convoluted with unnecessary complications like mentioned above.

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Originally Posted by Sonic_the_Hedgehog

Isn't it crafters' goal to make money? That's the real reason most people craft, also if you're worried that crafters will have too much money, there just needs to be a gil sink for them. Also if I feel like someone is charging too much, I'll just go to another crafter, there's always someone willing to sell their services for less.

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It's industry-wide imbalance. Consider crafters, gatherers, and battlers to be three entities-three corporations.
One corporation gets to charge the others twice for their product. Once then each of the other two wishes to start making their products, and then again when these two have to finish their final products.

That one corporation will own the other two within the end of the fiscal year. So will crafters own gatherers and battlers, as a total entity. Taken as a unit, you can't simply go to another crafter. That crafter inherently benefits from his trade's collective advantage over your trade.

It's about global market balance, not individual observations.

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Originally Posted by Peregrine

In this example, you are the person that both sells the glass and makes the house. You can thus charge whatever the hell you please for the glass and they have to pay it.

In a balanced system, you would have to purchase the glass from someone who isn't you.

In this case, crafters get to pay themselves with gatherers' and battlers' money.

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No, actually in my example the glass maker is most certainly someone else, otherwise I wouldn't be buying materials at all. I'd be using my own.

A crafter is buying the materia from battle player A's retainer, purchasing the catalyst from harvester player A's retainer, using both to make an enhanced weapon out of their own crafted weapon, and then putting the result up on his retainer, which is then purchased by battle player B.

Plus if player B doesn't like crafter As price, he can go see crafter B or C.

The only way your example is accurate is if said crafter is also a battle class player, and a harvester, and goes to make his own materia/catalysts. And even if that is the case, I fail to see the problem there. It's his loot that he worked to get, same as you or anyone else. They can do what they want with it. Anyone is free to purchase from another retainer that they feel is priced fairer, or make their own.

I mean look at your sig. You have pretty much all three class archetypes leveled to 50. You'll be making everything yourself. So will a lot of people. And if you are that concerned that greedy crafters are going to band together and rape the masses, fight the good fight and undercut their prices. You of all people have the ability to do just that.

I, however, think your fears in this instance are a bit more akin to wearing a tin foil hat.

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Originally Posted by Peregrine

In this example, you are the person that both sells the glass and makes the house. You can thus charge whatever the hell you please for the glass and they have to pay it.

In a balanced system, you would have to purchase the glass from someone who isn't you.

In this case, crafters get to pay themselves with gatherers' and battlers' money.

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Crafter still has to purchase raw materials/finished gear + materia + catalyst. We're not selling the same sword twice unless we've bought it back.

What is needed is a mechanism where a crafter can join materia to gear while it is in the owner's possession. Something like the current bazaar repairs ( which also need to be improved as mentioned elswhere so that buyers can provide their own repair materials ).

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Originally Posted by OMEGA_HACK

IOh so the crafter says he has the best gear, well that doesn't matter because it would still be 100% and the crafter doesn't determine if the materia is HQ, I believe HQ is determined by what the wearer of the weapon/armor does to get the AP to 100%. (At least that is how I read it, maybe I read it wrong).

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It's not that crafters will expect a lot of gil for one-inlay synths that anyone their level can do and not fail. It's that they won't do them. They will only be interested in whipping up all the good materia and BLOWING it to hell on chances to combine two of them into a HQ endgame piece so they can charge 24 million gil for it. If battlers raise their prices for that materia, crafters will pay it...and then just mark the final products up even more to cover that cost, saying that battlers should have the gil to afford that since the crafter just paid them a lot of money for that materia.

Crafters will run away with this system. Battlers who aren't lucky enough to get the best materia results won't be able to afford it, because that materia will simply be material spam to some bloatedly rich crafter. They won't be able to inlay one good materia into their weapon.

Peregrine makes the point of:

If the warrior does ALL the work to get the materia why does he have to pay a butt load of gil (making the obvious assumption that crafters will overprice as they already do) to infuse the materia into his new weapon.

AND

Said crafters will be able to craft the items that the warrior buys (that is +1 Crafter -1 Warrior) assuming that most crafters will want all the mats to be provided by the warriors, the warrior purchases the catalyst (that is +1 Gatherer -1 Warrior) now the crafter also has a fee for doing this for the warrior (that is +1 Crafter -1 Warrior) Crafter infuses the materia on the new weapon, rinse and repeat.
All in all you have Crafter+2, Gatherer+1, Warrior-3.

His point is a completely valid; the combat people will loose out in the long run and the Crafting classes will end up controlling the markets without any real need for checks and balances.

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Originally Posted by Lerris

Crafter still has to purchase raw materials/finished gear + materia + catalyst. We're not selling the same sword twice unless we've bought it back.

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And that doesn't matter one bit, because the crafter can turn around and re-charge whoever they sell that materia'd gear to. Again, battlers and gatherers end up paying everything they ever charge crafters, and more.

Crafters have two avenues of profit from this system, and they are the MOST IMPORTANT ONES: the FIRST and the LAST.
You can't START materia unless you buy something from a crafter. HELLO profit.
You can't USE materia unless you get something from a crafter. HELLO profit.

Again, this is absolutely ridiculous. It can't happen.

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Originally Posted by OMEGA_HACK

Peregrine makes the point of:

If the warrior does ALL the work to get the materia why does he have to pay a butt load of gil (making the obvious assumption that crafters will overprice as they already do) to infuse the materia into his new weapon.

AND

Said crafters will be able to craft the items that the warrior buys (that is +1 Crafter -1 Warrior) assuming that most crafters will want all the mats to be provided by the warriors, the warrior purchases the catalyst (that is +1 Gatherer -1 Warrior) now the crafter also has a fee for doing this for the warrior (that is +1 Crafter -1 Warrior) Crafter infuses the materia on the new weapon, rinse and repeat.
All in all you have Crafter+2, Gatherer+1, Warrior-3.

His point is a completely valid; the combat people will loose out in the long run and the Crafting classes will end up controlling the markets without any real need for checks and balances.

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Perhaps, but warriors will be able to get rare/ex gear from NMs or Quests, also you get a ton of gil from levequests, so I think it'll balance out.

This is the shards argument all over again.

Crafter: "Why are you charging so much for shards?!"

Battler: "You can afford it, you make tons of money. Stop complaining!"

Next Day

Battler: "WTF?! Why is your stuff so expensive!?"

Crafter: "You can afford it, you just raped me yesterday on shard prices and I need to make back my costs somehow..."

Battler: "Greedy crafter!"

Crafter: "Greedy battler!"

Consider this...

The point of gathering, in it's simplest form, is to collect materials (to sell, or to convert into whatever items by yourself or a friend). Above all, at this point, to make money.

The point of crafting is to use materials (gathered or purchased) to create equipment to use or sell, your choice entirely. Again, above all, usually to make money in the end.

The point of combat classes is to fight cool mobs and bosses and raid whatever dungeons come up in the future, as well as to progress through the story (when more of that comes) with other cool fights, etc. Given that both DoH and DoL are left out of all the "coolness" so to speak, they make up for it in their own ways. Combat classes shouldn't be allowed to have all the fun (fight cool stuff, AND make a ton of money), so why are you guys complaining about that?

Morever, I think many people will level at least one crafting or gathering class to the cap (or close to it) in their time playing this game, so it'd be easy to just balance out whatever craft you don't have leveled with the one that you do. i.e.: make money on Blacksmithing to pay for a craft you can't do on your rank 20 Goldsmith.

Put it this way, if combat classes could: make money, fight awesome stuff, progress through story in a party setting with friends, wear all the cool armor, get cool abilities, etc, etc - what would be the point of ever touching crafts or gathering? (inb4 "some people like to play Farmville")

Here are the schematics of what this system will do to the balance between crafters, gatherers, and battlers.

Right off the bat, crafters benefit. The first step of making a materia'd gear is to purchase something from a crafter to start turning into materia. Battlers and gatherers start off by buying multiple things from crafters.

Battlers -1. Gatherers -1. Crafters +2.
Battlers finish their materia and sell it to crafters.
Battlers 0. Gatherers -1. Crafters+1
Gatherers gain catalyst and sell it to crafters.
Battlers 0. Gathererrs 0. Crafters 0.

Now. Crafters by the books now own:
All the gear.
All the materia.
All the catalyst.

AND THEY ARE EVEN WITH GATHERERS AND BATTLERS.

Crafter combines the cost they incurred by buying the catalyst and materia from players and use that as their base selling price for just straight gear.

Battlers -1. Gatherers -1. Crafters +2.

They mark gear up for rarer combinations.

Battlers -2. Gatherers -2. Crafters +4.

They charge 1000% return on epic pieces.

Battlers -???. Gatherers -????. Crafters +???

Crafters essentially own this entire market the second it starts, and cannot ever. EVER. Not come out ridiculously on top.

You forgot the part where crafter purchased their starting mats from battle and harvesting classes to make said stuff they initially bought. It isn't like the mats just fell out of the sky.

but now there is no +1 coming from the warriors for this particular system, there is only the raping that the Crafters will be doing for their own profits, something that came to me just now, to ease the system why not, instead of having the crafters infuse the materia, make an NPC (it can be a mystical tree, an actually character, whatever) that infuses the materia for a FAIR price (or hell for free but this is prolly asking to much from SE).

That way you have two things happening:
1) Crafters are double dipping anymore
2) Gil is getting removed from the system, something that need to happen to promote a healthy market balance

Compounded to this GROSSLY IMBALANCED accounting, battlers and gatherers are screwed in the steps of the process.
Battlers not only have to pay for the cost of the gear that would have been equipped (the market value now) but they have to pay for the potential that it is now a materia. They will have to pay for something about the gear that they will never be using.

HOWEVER, the results of their materia will probably be garbage. The crafters will not pay this battler for garbage even if it took a while. They will only pay him for the GOOD materia. So he buys ANOTHER overpriced piece of gear from the crafter. And THAT materia is ****. Then he buys ANOTHER piece, and by this time the crafter is swimming in gil and increasingly charging him for each piece because every battler is buying 3 pieces.

FINALLY the battler makes a good materia. BAM charges 5 million gil for it.

Fine, says the crafter. He makes it into a sword.

BAM. Sword is 10 million gil so he can buy two of the same quality of materia.

BAM BAM. Two swords at 10 million gil. He can buy four materia of that quality.
BAM BAM BAM BAM Four swords, 40 million gil. NOw he can buy 8 materia.

CRASH CRASH SUCCESS CRASH. Three failed double synths with that epic materia. One success.

That sword is 120 million gil. And the battlers put 95% of the effort into it, paid 95% of the cost...and got 5% of the profit.

Crafter gets 120 million gil for "best sword on the server"
Buys up all the good materia for prices non-crafters can't afford.
Blows them all on more swords.
Charges more ridiculous profits for those swords.

Eventually battlers and gatherers are forced to work for the crafters, and crafters will start taking materia and catalyst in exchange for new gear from them.

And that, ladies and gents, is how you run a mine employee store.

I don't know why you guys are getting up set over crafters making money, they're supposed to in control of the market. Hell even Yoshi-P said he wanted the crafters to have a more active role in the economy. If you're worried about crafters having too much money just add items that require advanced synthesis to be made, also have it where you fail every time unless you have have synthesis access.

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Originally Posted by Wynn

You forgot the part where crafter purchased their starting mats from battle and harvesting classes to make said stuff they initially bought. It isn't like the mats just fell out of the sky.

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Oh come on, don't be that dense. What, they paid 12k in mats cost to make a sword they'd sell for 120k if it DIDN'T have the potential to be materia?

Fail. Startup costs are NOTHING.

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Originally Posted by Sonic_the_Hedgehog

I don't know why you guys are getting up set over crafters making money, they're supposed to in control of the market. Hell even Yoshi-P said he wanted the crafters to have a more active role in the economy. If you're worried about crafters having too much money just add items that require advanced synthesis to be made, also have it where you fail every time unless you have have synthesis access.

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It's not that crafters have money. It's that the battlers will end up doing 90% of the work, but crafters will retain 90% of the profit from this new economic activity and that is not right.

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Originally Posted by Peregrine

Oh come on, don't be that dense. What, they paid 12k in mats cost to make a sword they'd sell for 120k if it DIDN'T have the potential to be materia?

Fail. Startup costs are NOTHING.

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I'm not being dense, it is a very valid point. And one you don't have a counter argument for which is why you are now calling me dense instead.

Any crafter charging 120k for an item that cost 12k to make needs to be shot. I think we can both agree with that. But you are assuming all crafters would do such a thing, which isn't true. Free markets ensure people like that never make a profit.

What work exactly are the battle classes really going to be doing? Wearing a piece of gear until it goes: "Ding, I'm cooked. You can now make me materia!"

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Originally Posted by Peregrine

It's not that crafters have money. It's that the battlers will end up doing 90% of the work, but crafters will retain 90% of the profit from this new economic activity and that is not right.

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We don't know how it'll actually work though, for all we know you just gain affinity points by wearing armor and standing in one area for 128 hours. Also if we gained affinity points by battling, most battlers wouldn't see it as work because they're either doing leves to level up or going through dungeons to get Rare/EX gear, so they see it as something they normally do, nothing extra.

Also by your logic, a gatherer can charge 120 million gil because they're the only ones who can collect the catalyst. Which may or may not take a lot of time to do, so they could end up doing less than the crafters and battlers. Also the gear that battlers may get in the dungeons may be way better than any thing the crafters can make, so why not let them have a little power? Most of their money is probably going to come from the materia system anyway.