Materia: the new Armory System

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Originally Posted by Zantetsuken

Wow. Hate much?

http://desmond.imageshack.us/Himg851...jpg&res=medium

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I... LOVE... Flight of the Conchords

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Originally Posted by Rhomagus

Ya, I was actually one of the people who "liked" it. I just forgot to include it in my response. I wouldn't necessarily say it's better or worse but it does build on them, which I like.

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Awesome...

I'd like to thank the OP for saying what I've been feeling ever since I started playing around with the Materia System; feelings which have only strengthened with my continued experience w/ the Materia System. I've seen a lot of great ideas for how to balance Raid gear w/ crafted gear, but that fails to address the problem presented by materia in this game. Ideas such as having Raids/Bosses drop mats exclusive to that Raid/Boss that can then be used to make better equipment is a great way of keeping the crafter involved (materia is NOT). All materia does is make it harder to balance crafted vs. Raid equips, and cause endless amounts of grinding to Spiritbond equips to get the desired materia, which will likely be lost in a multi-slot attempt. The crafter's skill isn't taken into account, it's all pure LUCK and gil-sink, so any pride the crafter takes in succeeding is hollow, and all the DoW/M had to do to obtain the item is cash in his/her savings. What SE has done by adding the Materia System, is not adding anything unique and customizable or enjoyable (like the Materia System from FFVII), but a simple way to keep people occupied and the market flowing while they crank out new content. We should not become so easily sated; I'm actually offended that SE thought they could dangle this ball of yarn infront of us to make us happy (but apparently it worked for some).

Bumping because I think Materia is still a serious problem as it's currently implemented.

There's still time to change or get rid of the system before 2.0, and I can't stress how important this is to address (in my opinion, of course).

If you agree with my OP, post and say so! If you disagree, post and explain why! I know more people have opinions on this, and with how much this game is centered around Materia currently, now is the time for discussion on it so it can be addressed before it's too late.

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Originally Posted by Sol_Aureus

Bumping because I think Materia is still a serious problem as it's currently implemented.

There's still time to change or get rid of the system before 2.0, and I can't stress how important this is to address (in my opinion, of course).

If you agree with my OP, post and say so! If you disagree, post and explain why! I know more people have opinions on this, and with how much this game is centered around Materia currently, now is the time for discussion on it so it can be addressed before it's too late.

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I think materia is a great idea, just the approach needs to be tweaked a bit.

I (and know many others) loved the way Materia worked in FFVII. If we had a similiar model, that would be great.

If the 'system' worked such that single (or even dual-melded) crafted items weren't typically better than NM/GC/etc dropped items then that would be good as well. A balance has to be made here that rewards the crafting and looting system equally (i.e. loot was never finished weapons, only materials that could be used to make 'rare' weapons, which could then be melded even further).

I think that would be enough to make everyone happy? ^.^;

Actually I don't think that the issue is really about crafted items but more of a problem with the poor itemization on gear in the game. If dropped items had a better itemization (e.g. 3-5% bonus to a given stat on EACH piece of gear, for 2-3 stats minimum on EACH piece of gear) we frankly wouldn't even be having this discussion. The problem is, as has been noted elsewhere, an entire set of gear gives less than 5% bonus to stats in the current setup.

If materia kept the current stats it has now, and drops were just adjusted to have more reasonable stats on it as noted above, it would resolve two serious itemization issues with the game.

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Originally Posted by Orsnoire

Actually I don't think that the issue is really about crafted items but more of a problem with the poor itemization on gear in the game. If dropped items had a better itemization (e.g. 3-5% bonus to a given stat on EACH piece of gear, for 2-3 stats minimum on EACH piece of gear) we frankly wouldn't even be having this discussion. The problem is, as has been noted elsewhere, an entire set of gear gives less than 5% bonus to stats in the current setup.

If materia kept the current stats it has now, and drops were just adjusted to have more reasonable stats on it as noted above, it would resolve two serious itemization issues with the game.

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While the poor allocation of stats to gear is a definite problem, it doesn't solve a lot of the problems with Materia. One of my arguments in my OP, for example:
Specific Materia will almost ALWAYS outperform U/U gear.

Take Healer's Hand for example. As a healer, it's going to be very VERY difficult to convince me to use anything but my double-slotted healer's hand wand and headpiece since healing magic potency is such an important stat. They've already said that they're not going to balance for any more than 1 slotted materia when considering stats for gear, so at max they're considering a crafted piece of gear with +20 healing magic potency from a max tier IV healer's hand when taking materia-slotted gear into account for balance.

I doubt that they're going to make a wand or headpiece that will have any more then +25 Healing magic potency on it for U/U. It's not that hard to get over +25 through Materia (well, it can be hard, or you can also get it on your first try! Throwing money and time at a random number generator does not equal a rewarding experience or a very substantial feeling of accomplishment.) How is it a balanced system if almost every piece of gear in those 2 slots will be obsolete on release for me?

Sure, they could add different stats to the piece of gear, make it more appealing for a specific set, but to be honest gearsets aren't nearly as relevant in this game as they were in, say, FFXI. We don't have efficient gearswaps. Most of the time I'll be going with a set that benefits me the most overall, and as a healer, that's going to be Healing Magic Potency. So while it might be nice to have like +20 enhancing magic potency along with +20 healing magic potency (I doubt that they'd give us something this practical though), I'd probably still go with the +31 healing magic potency over it.

My point is the Materia system as it is now causes way too many problems to not get heavily adjusted. I seriously think this would be a whole lot simpler, better, and easier to balance everything if crafted gear was allowed 1 Materia slot. That's it. Hell, it does't even have to be the 100% bonding chance. It can be the same chance as a double-slot is now. That keeps items and Materia flowing through the market for people who fail. Add in new stats that increase the % chance of success, now crafters have new gear or Materia to go for, AND players feel like they have some semblance of control over the process instead of just hitting the button and hoping it works.

I'm quite aware that implementing this stuff is hardly easy, and it doesn't look good heavily modifying a system that's meant to be a core mechanic of the game, but this NEEDS to be done before Materia gets too integrated into the game.

But my opinion alone means nothing, for the problems with the Materia to even get looked at with any sort of credence more players need to weigh in. So PLEASE reply to this thread and give your opinions, even if it's just an "I agree" or "Materia is fine as it is because _____," this discussion needs to keep going.

@ Sol_Areus

I find it interesting that you dismiss out of hand what is the crux of the issue: itemization.

You state right out that they will never give us anything "this practical" on gear. I turn that statement around on you and state simply this: to fix the current equipment itemization problems and the materia problems, they HAVE to give something "this practical" on gear. Else it's exactly as you describe: gear that doesn't matter, and multi-slotted materia pieces are king.

I don't know if this is their design goal, but if it is it's pretty poor design, and keeping that itemization scheme through 2.0 WILL hurt the game.

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Originally Posted by Orsnoire

@ Sol_Areus

I find it interesting that you dismiss out of hand what is the crux of the issue: itemization.

You state right out that they will never give us anything "this practical" on gear. I turn that statement around on you and state simply this: to fix the current equipment itemization problems and the materia problems, they HAVE to give something "this practical" on gear. Else it's exactly as you describe: gear that doesn't matter, and multi-slotted materia pieces are king.

I don't know if this is their design goal, but if it is it's pretty poor design, and keeping that itemization scheme through 2.0 WILL hurt the game.

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But one of the points I was trying to make was that even if they were to fix the allocation of stats on gear so that it was that practical (which, for the record, I agree is something that should be done), certain pieces of gear will still fall into that category of "gear that doesn't matter, and multi-slotted materia pieces are king."

Like I said, they already have stated that for balance purposes, they're only considering 1-slotted pieces of crafted gear. Because of this, they're not going to release U/U gear that are leagues above those 1-slotted pieces. So when that +25 healing magic potency wand comes out that you have to beat the hard mode dungeon speed run for, I won't have any drive to get it because I already have better stuff which is much easier to obtain by double-slotting.

Funny, I was just talking about this issue earlier today, even before I knew this thread existed. I 100% agree that materia causes too much of an issue now, and I think SE should have waited to implement it (possibly even after 2.0). How is AF going to be significant with 2/3+ slotted materia gear as an alternative? Sure it will look cool, but functionality-wise, they're going to have to add some nifty stats to AF if they want it to compete with what's available now.

AF gear is still what can be considered one groupable, so won't be really comparable to what we really care about: raid gear.

I've said in multiple threads that pure crafted gear should only in very rare cases trump gear obtainable through raids. Crafted should be the stepping stone to harder content. Suggestions have been said over and over on how to integrate the two and I won't rehash it here. Since we won't be seeing raids till 2.0, all we can do is wait.

Self Quote to Bump Thread:

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Originally Posted by Matsume

I'm going to add 2 gils worth:

Gil 1) Make melding like repairing: Adventurer X has Materia Y and Gear Z to which he wants meld. Adventurer X sets up the demand + reward + catalysts (instead of dm, duh) through a UI not ulike the gear repair menu. Random Crafter X performs meld without having to trade gear.

This has two main benefits:
-No adventurer can be ripped off by random crafters who do not trade back gears or materia
-My next point, which has been brough up by a number of posts:

Gil 2) Make U/U gear meldable. Obviously this con ONLY work synergistically with my first sugggestion.

This will also have several obvious beneficial effects:
-It will give U/U gear the potential to be on par with multi melded crafted gear.
-It will greatly increase the Replay Value of all instances, raids, coffers, NM/HNM/Primal fights that drop U/U gear seeing as multi melded U/U gear will become the desirable end game gear to have, and no doubt countless will be lost in the process- necesitating another visit to said destination.
-It will add uniqueness to peoples garb. This way every mage in town wont be wearing the same multi melded piece of crafter gear.
-Pride and Accomplishment. People will have tales to tell about their trials and tribulations attempting to 2x or 3x that damned Revolutionary's Bliaud or Solid Scale Mail etc.

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http://i.imgur.com/ZvVzo.png

:rolleyes:

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Originally Posted by RemVye

I can't say anything in this thread because it would all be mean.

Well... nice signature.

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Man... They need a thumbs down feature on this website.

On topic: My two cents in the matter is to change the approach to materia completely. This stat inflation-prone-RNG-gil sink feels rushed and poorly implemented. Here's an example of a materia system that I believe would support more thought and choice of customization rather than which stat is best in slot and how much you can afford to gamble.

Just off the top of my head...

Example: Chest slots

-% hp increase materia
-% damage reduction materia
-% chance to gain a short defence boost (20 defence points for 5 seconds)
-% chance to gain small mp regen when hit (10pts over 5 seconds or something with a 5 second cooldown)
-% elemental resistance [an assortment of 1-2% chance to resist a specific element]

Example: Weapon

-% increase of base damage [an example of a common materia]
-% increase of base weapon speed
-% chance to reduce enemy damage output by 2% for a short duration
-% chance to reduce enemy magic damage by 2% for a short duration
-% chance to inflict an effect (very low chance for blind, poison, burn or something)
-% [Rare materia] unlocks an WS of situational usefulness rather than huge amounts of damage. Long cooldown. Drops from bosses.

This is all hypothetical and I am not taking balance into consideration. In theory I think if players only had one materia slot [or maybe two at most for very rare pieces] then players would actually have to consider what materia they would choose from a variety of mutually beneficial materia.

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Originally Posted by Theplatter

Funny, I was just talking about this issue earlier today, even before I knew this thread existed. I 100% agree that materia causes too much of an issue now, and I think SE should have waited to implement it (possibly even after 2.0). How is AF going to be significant with 2/3+ slotted materia gear as an alternative? Sure it will look cool, but functionality-wise, they're going to have to add some nifty stats to AF if they want it to compete with what's available now.

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Yup agree with this, I think its time Yoshida sat down and decided which he wants in this game, Materia or U/U gear because they aren't going to co-exist.

I was really excited for materia when they first suggested it was coming, but they did it so badly, I would much prefer it to work like VII's system where you can put pieces into pre allocated sockets. (pay the goblin to remove them, destroying the materia in the process)

I also agree about itemisation being extremely poor but its not just this, its characters base stats being too high, there is a lack of thought and balance gone into many aspects of the game, hopefully they will be ironed out and rebalanced before 2.0.

Does Yoshida even consider there a problem though ?

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Originally Posted by Madruk

I've said in multiple threads that pure crafted gear should only in very rare cases trump gear obtainable through raids. Crafted should be the stepping stone to harder content. Suggestions have been said over and over on how to integrate the two and I won't rehash it here. Since we won't be seeing raids till 2.0, all we can do is wait.

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People are making a lot of sense today :D

I love materia... Always have, always will.

I think the problem here is NOT the materia. The problem really is in the Loot vs Craft system. Poor Materia is just the victim.

Whether it be a nobler thing to equip an Iffy Blade, or go to the local shop buy one off the shelf, toss a materia or two on it, and be just as good (if not better) equipped.
That is the question. And therein lies the problem.

What to do what to do? How about solving the underlying problem:
You can't get an iffy blade... BUT.. you can get an Iffy Tooth, which can then be crafted into an Iffy blade, and have some materia thrown on it.

Best of both worlds, everyone is happy (except Iffy). Even SE is happy as we have to keep farming Iffy for materials so we can tripple meld the blade!

I posted this in another thread instead of going materia route with U/U gear they should use raw mats from dungeons where equipment dropped from to upgrade it.

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What they should do is for U/U items is make an upgrade system for u/u items. This idea could also make old content have use once more. Take the Blade dancer boots from Darkhold I think its like 3 dex and 3 evasion or something like that.

Basically what they could do is make you use items from the respective dungeon to upgrade U/U item's to make them better than materia items. So Lets take those blade dancer boots from darkhold with 3 Dex and 3 evasion and see what they could look like upgraded.

No upgrade: 3 dex 3 evasion

Lv. 1 6 DEX 6 Evasion

Lv. 2 9 Dex 9 evasion.

Lv. 3 12 Dex 12 evasion

Lv. 4 15 Dex 15 evasion

Lv. 5 18 Dex 18 evasion. ??? bonus stat. (5+ str)

Now the items to upgrade them should drop from the sub or main boss from the instance raid or open world dungeon or HNM. with this system you could make almost all the content in the game right now more desirable than it ever was.

1. This system would make U/U and U gear more worth while.

2. This system could make content last much longer.

3. Add's long term goals to the game.

Some of you might argue I could just dbl meld 2 evasion materia on my shoes but, you can't put dex on that. I feel that are plenty of good items in the game if only they had better stats on them.

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One more example to show an upgrade. Blade dancer boots upgrade from Lv. 3 to 4 you would need 5 Batraal Skins (think i spelled that right) and 1 Batraal horn and 6 batraal wings to make the upgrade.

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Originally Posted by Brannigan

http://i.imgur.com/ZvVzo.png

:rolleyes:

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I dare you to go for 5x

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Originally Posted by Jinko

Yup agree with this, I think its time Yoshida sat down and decided which he wants in this game, Materia or U/U gear because they aren't going to co-exist.

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Jinko, I'm going to stop you right there. I don't see any reason whotsoever why Yoshida and the dev team cannot make U/U gear Meldable. If melding is done in a like fashion as repairs, other players could meld materia from your inventory that you choose onto an item that you've chosen, reap a reward, and no change of hands would need to be made. All SE would have to do is put certain restrictions on these U/U gears. For ex: Green Gear can be melded up to 4x Maximum, Blue Gear up to 3x Maximum, Future Orange Gear up to 2x Maximum, Future Purple Gear only 1x Maximum - given that the base stats on these gears are equivalent to single/multi melded gear.

This generates an incentive for these gears, as well as replay value since people will undoubtedly break many of these in the process of melding (except Purple which should be so hard to obtain that breaking it on single meld would be ludicrous). I don't understand why this would be so hard to implement. Sure it would require looking over each U/U piece o gear individual, but this isn't hard at all considering there aren't thaaaat many.

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Originally Posted by Asiaine

I love materia... Always have, always will.

I think the problem here is NOT the materia. The problem really is in the Loot vs Craft system. Poor Materia is just the victim.

Whether it be a nobler thing to equip an Iffy Blade, or go to the local shop buy one off the shelf, toss a materia or two on it, and be just as good (if not better) equipped.
That is the question. And therein lies the problem.

What to do what to do? How about solving the underlying problem:
You can't get an iffy blade... BUT.. you can get an Iffy Tooth, which can then be crafted into an Iffy blade, and have some materia thrown on it.

Best of both worlds, everyone is happy (except Iffy). Even SE is happy as we have to keep farming Iffy for materials so we can tripple meld the blade!

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Nice shakesperean reference

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Originally Posted by Matsume

Jinko, I'm going to stop you right there. I don't see any reason whotsoever why Yoshida and the dev team cannot make U/U gear Meldable. If melding is done in a like fashion as repairs, other players could meld materia from your inventory that you choose onto an item that you've chosen, reap a reward, and no change of hands would need to be made. All SE would have to do is put certain restrictions on these U/U gears. For ex: Green Gear can be melded up to 4x Maximum, Blue Gear up to 3x Maximum, Future Orange Gear up to 2x Maximum, Future Purple Gear only 1x Maximum - given that the base stats on these gears are equivalent to single/multi melded gear.

This generates an incentive for these gears, as well as replay value since people will undoubtedly break many of these in the process of melding (except Purple which should be so hard to obtain that breaking it on single meld would be ludicrous). I don't understand why this would be so hard to implement. Sure it would require looking over each U/U piece o gear individual, but this isn't hard at all considering there aren't thaaaat many.

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Well he said they are looking into a interface so players can meld their items through the bazaar.

This doesn't change the fact whether he will allow U/U gear to be meld-able and of course you could only have 1 materia without the risk of losing the item. (I doubt many would be happy losing their Ifrit and Mog weapons through some random stranger failing a meld)#

That being said I will never like the materia system as it is, as I said it would have been better as a socketing system similar to FFVII or something like WoW's gemming.

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Originally Posted by Firon

I posted this in another thread instead of going materia route with U/U gear they should use raw mats from dungeons where equipment dropped from to upgrade it.



One more example to show an upgrade. Blade dancer boots upgrade from Lv. 3 to 4 you would need 5 Batraal Skins (think i spelled that right) and 1 Batraal horn and 6 batraal wings to make the upgrade.

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Nice idea Firon, that would be the best solution I have seen so far.
Would the process be through an NPC with 100% success or through crafters with a chance of failure ?

Personally I would prefer the former.

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Originally Posted by Matsume

Jinko, I'm going to stop you right there. I don't see any reason whotsoever why Yoshida and the dev team cannot make U/U gear Meldable.

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Hey, I am with you on this one. I have never understood why they didn't make u/u gear meldable from the begining. But I fore see the dev team being highly resistant to this one.

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Originally Posted by Jinko

That being said I will never like the materia system as it is, as I said it would have been better as a socketing system similar to FFVII or something like WoW's gemming.

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The materia system was implemented in order to keep crafters viable. If there weren't people trying to meld gear right now, there would be hardly any one buying gear.

The conversion of gear into other things and the subsequent destruction of gear and materia keeps the demand of crafted gear pretty high.

On the materia system as it is right now, I think SE slipped up on exactly how beneficial the gear is when you compare the costs. You would have more people attempting melds and destroying more gear if the costs or benefits were adjusted to be closer together.

__________

As for unique untradeable gear... Right now there are two cases. Some U/U gear are superior to crafted and melded gear, while some crafted and melded gear are superior to the U/U gear. All you can say definitively about the system is, at any time one can be better than the other.

Now the community and the development team need to collectively decide, which accomplishment do we value more - The accumulation of gil and overcoming of chance; or, the engaging and defeating of challenging encounters and foes. Whichever we see as a greater accomplishment, there should lie the best rewards.

It doesn't really matter whether the best accomplishment is crafted gear with materia or the U/U gear; but, it does matter that the rewards are tuned to the challenge.

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Originally Posted by Jinko

Well he said they are looking into a interface so players can meld their items through the bazaar.

This doesn't change the fact whether he will allow U/U gear to be meld-able and of course you could only have 1 materia without the risk of losing the item. (I doubt many would be happy losing their Ifrit and Mog weapons through some random stranger failing a meld)#

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Something that those calling for U/U melds seem to forget.

Melding success rate is based on DoH level. You can't imagine the drama that will erupt when crafters who have just hit the threshold decide to go out and play the odds by attempting every forbidden meld bazaar option available.

Players who have lost multiple Tier IV materia and their Mog/Ifrit Weapon to a random desperate crafter will be out for blood.

Unless you want to limit U/U to one meld, which won't solve the problem btw.


No, the best suggestion is to make Blue U/U items upgradable (as Firon and others have proposed), make Green U/U items into rare mats that can be crafted into U/U items and melded via a player created leve (craft request) system , and keep normal crafted items the way they are now.

Roaran I don't why you are bring up relevance of crafting.

If they allowed a system like FFVII where each piece of equipment had unique slots then crafters could still attach items to gear, gear could still be converted to materia, gatherers would still need to farm catalyst.

This way you could have many different situations.

White item
NQ 4 maximum slots
HQ 5 maximum slots

Green Item
3 maximum slots

Blue Item
2 Maximum slots

Orange or Purple
1 Maximum slot

There would be no need for failure to attach materia as the slots would limit you to how many pieces you could put on an item.

All that would be left would be to balance the stats.

Edit, so gear scale up as follows:-
White NQ > Green > White HQ > Blue > Orange/Purple

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Originally Posted by Jinko

Well he said they are looking into a interface so players can meld their items through the bazaar.

This doesn't change the fact whether he will allow U/U gear to be meld-able and of course you could only have 1 materia without the risk of losing the item. (I doubt many would be happy losing their Ifrit and Mog weapons through some random stranger failing a meld)#

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Well sure, no one would like to see their ifrit weapon blown to bits, but alas where there is great reward lies great risk.

Alternatively, Firon's Idea could be applied just as well. Instead of making Ifrit or moogle weapons meldable, just make these Priaml fights drop raw materials used to upgrade the item via a synthesis action or a Rowen like npc. This idea has been tossed around in an other thread discussing the likelyhood that Ifrit Super Hard Mode will reward you with a way in which you could upgrade your T1 Ifrit Wep into a super T2 Ifrit weapon, rather than just tossing it aside for an entirely new item.

But, there is a limitation to this concept. It would be difficult to apply this to the lesser NM's U/U Green items unless you make these NMs drop the necessary materials to upgrade the gear they themselves drop. So, would you then make this material required to upgrade Unrtadeable but not Unique? (considering youneed more than one, in the batraal example) Obviously if it is untradeable that will ensure an anti-monopoly market as well as anti-RMT, but if this is the case how o you upgrade it? Certainly not through crafting unless SE allows crafters to make weapons for you in like fashion to the reapir system. Which leaves you with an NPC such as Rowen that will take those materials and upgrade your weapon for you - but that leaves crafters out of the loop.

The same problem appears with the Batraal example. Needless to say SE has implemented a great deal of content with anti-RMT measures in mind - this is the why we don't see craftable raw materials dropped by NMs or Primals. These items such as Behemoth Hides and Horn in FFXI were easy money and targets to RMT and were more often than not monopolized or dominated by certain ls's. This pushed people to use claim bots that, which with a simple 'invisible spell' cast upon ones self, were invisible to other players (remember mee dgee and leaping lizzy?).

On the other hand, I must admit, I always did and always will enjoy the idea of ultra rare NM/HNM/BCNM dropped craftable materials and spells (utsusemi: ni anyone?). It did wonders for the economy (minus gil seller monopolies) and made crafting oh so fun. Just the thought of HQ dusk T0 synths was enough of an incentive to make people camp AH for raw materials and...oh yeah AH house bots...

I really can't think of anything better than my idea about making U/U gear meldable via a repair-like window. It includes the crafters as well as the battle classess, and ensures anti-rmt measures at the same time.

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Originally Posted by Jinko

Roaran I don't why you are bring up relevance of crafting.

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Just explaining why the materia system in its current form was implemented over a socketing type system. Yoshi said he was looking at world of warcraft, and no doubt they considered the FF7 system; yet, they went with the current system.

The reason for this was to keep crafters relevant. If there was no risk or chance involved and everyone could simply equip materia with a 100% chance, then the benefits from materia would have been decreased substantially. Instead of being able to get 100 extra strength, you might get 25.

Then, without the destruction of the gear and materia all together, there would not nearly be anywhere as much demand for crafted gear. There's many other ways you could accomplish this though while avoiding the destruction. You could make valuable materia extremely rare for example.

I'm not trying to argue this point, as it's just an arbitrary decision of the developers. The decision to make U/U meldable is another arbitrary decision, and if they decide to make them meldable they can make another arbitrary decision to increase droprates.

I was just trying to explain why they went with the current system. I already made a suggestion in this thread, and I personally don't see a better solution with respect to U/U gear.

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Nice idea Firon, that would be the best solution I have seen so far.
Would the process be through an NPC with 100% success or through crafters with a chance of failure ?

Personally I would prefer the former.

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It would be 100% since you are gathering the mats.

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Originally Posted by Jinko

Roaran I don't why you are bring up relevance of crafting.

If they allowed a system like FFVII where each piece of equipment had unique slots then crafters could still attach items to gear, gear could still be converted to materia, gatherers would still need to farm catalyst.

This way you could have many different situations.

White item
NQ 4 maximum slots
HQ 5 maximum slots

Green Item
3 maximum slots

Blue Item
2 Maximum slots

Orange or Purple
1 Maximum slot

There would be no need for failure to attach materia as the slots would limit you to how many pieces you could put on an item.

All that would be left would be to balance the stats.

Edit, so gear scale up as follows:-
White NQ > Green > White HQ > Blue > Orange/Purple

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This was my idea exactly, except I will yet again disagree on two points:

1) White gear has a max of 5 slots, maybe HQ with a max of 6.

I think a Green should have the value of a White item +2 Melds (max 4 slot)

A Blue would then have +1 more than a Green. (max 3 slot)

An Orange would have +1 more than a Blue (max 2 slot)

and a Purple would have +1 more than an Orange. (max 1 slot)

So that in the end an Orange's base stats would be equivalent to a White 4x meld, with the option of 1 slot 100% success meld. So that a single slotted Orange Item = 5 slotted White Item (each 5 slots being HQ3 perfect Grade IV materia).

2) The items must be destroyed upon failure. This is what keeps people going back for more. It's called replay value. If the item is 100% Guarentee multi meld, then people would have no reason to go back to that dungeon and do it again, and the crafters themselves would all be selling 5x melded Grade IV gear on the cheap risk free. This just cannot happen and never will.

Edit:

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Originally Posted by Roaran

Just explaining why the materia system in its current form was implemented over a socketing type system. Yoshi said he was looking at world of warcraft, and no doubt they considered the FF7 system; yet, they went with the current system.

The reason for this was to keep crafters relevant. If there was no risk or chance involved and everyone could simply equip materia with a 100% chance, then the benefits from materia would have been decreased substantially. Instead of being able to get 100 extra strength, you might get 25.

Then, without the destruction of the gear and materia all together, there would not nearly be anywhere as much demand for crafted gear. There's many other ways you could accomplish this though while avoiding the destruction. You could make valuable materia extremely rare for example.

I'm not trying to argue this point, as it's just an arbitrary decision of the developers. The decision to make U/U meldable is another arbitrary decision, and if they decide to make them meldable they can make another arbitrary decision to increase droprates.

I was just trying to explain why they went with the current system. I already made a suggestion in this thread, and I personally don't see a better solution with respect to U/U gear.

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Edit 2: Catalysts of the appropriate rarity and color needed to meld U/U items.

Green catalysts to meld green items, blue catalysts to meld blue items, etc.

I still think they should go with my idea because of 1 reason. Makes All content last longer outside of just getting drops. Also I think it would make the game more enjoyable.

Also even if we could meld U/U ppl would still flock to crafted gear cause its less risk with crafted gear cause you can easily buy and get it again really fast, and try to meld and make armor better than U/U. The problem i see with Blue U/U gear from Matsu example is this. Why meld an Blue U/U item with one slot when i can easily get an 3 materia crafted item item with better stats faster and with less risk.

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Originally Posted by Firon

The problem i see with Blue U/U gear from Matsu example is this. Why meld an Blue U/U item with one slot when i can easily get an 3 materia crafted item item with better stats faster and with less risk.

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Because in my Example the BASE STAT VALUES on a Blue item would be equivalent to a 3x Grade 4 HQ3 melded Craftable White item. Adding a single 100% meld to that blue would make it the equivalent of a 4x white item, then attempting a 2x (as risky as it would be to lose your ifrits or moogle gear) would give you an item = to 5x white.

Edit: If this sounds way too overpowered, then simply subtract 1 from the aforementioned equations (green base stat item = white+1 meld with option of 4 meld slots; blue base stat item = white+2melds with option to meld 3 slots; orange base stat item = white+3 melds with 2 meldable slots; and orange = white+4 melds with option of 1 slot meldable)

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Originally Posted by Matsume

Because in my Example the BASE STAT VALUES on a Blue item would be equivalent to a 3x Grade 4 HQ3 melded Craftable White item. Adding a single 100% meld to that blue would make it the equivalent of a 4x white item, then attempting a 2x (as risky as it would be to lose your ifrits or moogle gear) would give you an item = to 5x white.

Edit: If this sounds way too overpowered, then simply subtract 1 from the aforementioned equations (green base stat item = white+1 meld with option of 4 meld slots; blue base stat item = white+2melds with option to meld 3 slots; orange base stat item = white+3 melds with 2 meldable slots; and orange = white+4 melds with option of 1 slot meldable)

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While this idea is sound, I still prefer just giving every piece of craftable gear one slot for materia, and not allowing slotting on U/U stuff. This will allow them to keep crafted gear relevent until something U/U comes along that outperforms that crafted piece (since they only have to worry about 1 slotted gear for balancing they can easily give the U/U stuff you get from endgame content stats that are better than crafted pieces).

You can still keep crafters relevent by having specific material be really good, for example healer's hand, so I won't replace my headpiece until they release a U/U piece of gear that gives more healing magic potency than I can get with materia.

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Originally Posted by Sol_Aureus

While this idea is sound, I still prefer just giving every piece of craftable gear one slot for materia, and not allowing slotting on U/U stuff. This will allow them to keep crafted gear relevent until something U/U comes along that outperforms that crafted piece (since they only have to worry about 1 slotted gear for balancing they can easily give the U/U stuff you get from endgame content stats that are better than crafted pieces).

You can still keep crafters relevent by having specific material be really good, for example healer's hand, so I won't replace my headpiece until they release a U/U piece of gear that gives more healing magic potency than I can get with materia.

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They could use my idea or the simple idea which is basically increasing the base stats on all U/U gear like making Saphi Turban have 20+ str on it. Like if they had some U/U gloves with 15 str and 15 int i would be all over that for my pgl cause those 2 stats increase damage in two area's opposed to one with str materia on gloves.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sol_Aureus

While this idea is sound, I still prefer just giving every piece of craftable gear one slot for materia, and not allowing slotting on U/U stuff. This will allow them to keep crafted gear relevent until something U/U comes along that outperforms that crafted piece (since they only have to worry about 1 slotted gear for balancing they can easily give the U/U stuff you get from endgame content stats that are better than crafted pieces).

You can still keep crafters relevent by having specific material be really good, for example healer's hand, so I won't replace my headpiece until they release a U/U piece of gear that gives more healing magic potency than I can get with materia.

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I really hope they adopt a system like the one you describe, or balanced in a similar matter. I'm worried about what the game will be like if the materia system is left as it is.

Terah is dumb and the materia system is bad...

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Originally Posted by Aviny

Terah is dumb and the materia system is bad...

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*Pushes Aviny down a spiral staircase*

BE NICE!

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Originally Posted by Aviny

Terah is dumb...

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:O
Oh yeah? So's your face!

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Originally Posted by RemVye

I can't say anything in this thread because it would all be mean.

Well... nice signature.

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Gotta say...<3 Remvye -if everyone else would "turn the other cheek" like this, when they come across a thread they don't like, I think we'd all be a lot happier lol

Haven't gotten through the entire thread, but I hope you do/did decide to "jump in." I feel almost EXACTLY the same way as the OP. However, I do want to know what ppl's objections would be. I don't see why anyone would want to center their character's gear, ENTIRELY, around crafting.

If crafting took actual, tangible skill, then maybe I wouldn't mind. But I watched hundreds of ppl grind for hq gear in XI, and 9 times out of 10, there are the ppl who get insanely lucky w/ their crafting and have enough hq gear to fund any endeavor they may have; and you have the crafters who get completely shafted every time they push for something good.

They have the same gear, the same lvls, the same food, crafting on the same days, at the same times, pointing the same damn direction, and NADA. Meanwhile, their divinely-blessed, fellow crafter hits hq synth after hq synth. It's ridiculous. I don't know how to fix this kind of problem; but until it IS fixed, crafting should be waaaaaaaaaaaay down on the list of "must have" gear.

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Originally Posted by Allistar

New idea for Materia...
I love the whole materia idea, although I do think that possibly scaling down the materia to just 3 tiers instead of IV is a system that could work better when it comes to U/U gear and rare gear drops from NM or dungeons, this way it still gives gear the ability to be almost on par with U/U and doesn’t take away the power of U/U gear. I also think some materia orbs could be rewards from chest found during guild leves, rewards from side quest or even rewards from behest, the orbs would be scaled according to level/rank of the quest or mission or leve.
Thoughts…

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I do like the idea of getting "special" materia rewards from chests/quests/missions/leves/dungeons or w/e. Also, though, I think what might help balance things out (made a thread for this like 4 months ago) is Materia for U/U gear. Materia for U/U gear would work the same way as it does for normal gear, BUT with one really enticing quality. U/U gear cannot "explode." You can lose all the materia you put into it, but the gear stays every time. It's simple; and shouldn't be too hard to implement.

P.S. I don't like the idea of making U/U gear convertable, cuz then you'll have lots of ppl getting the gear, converting it, and wanting it again later on another run...not that you're the one who mentioned it, but just to put that out there.

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Originally Posted by Roaran

....Make all gear crafted. No more exclusive items. Instead of dropping items directly, bosses will drop an abundance of materials. For example, Batraal, instead of dropping 1-3 items from a chest, his death will produce various pieces of hide and bone, even possibly a broken blade that can be refurnished into a sword for paladins. The abundance of items will allow people to get drops reliably, and then allow them to reliably turn them into gear and meld over and over. Thus, those who complete the dungeons the quickest and with the most ease are able to acquire the most materials and most chances for success in melding materia.

This system would actually impose skill into getting the best gear melded with multiple materia, it would keep crafters necessary and make the materia system more interesting. In addition, it would allow the current problem of terrible droprates to be eliminated, favoring players to get drops quickly and reliably each time, so they can then attempt multiple melds.

It would also allow groups of players to earn gil by selling these items to crafters and players who wish to meld themselves.

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Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuude, just the thought of phasing out U/U gear makes me want to shelve my game forever xD

I don't even know how to respond Roaran...that cut deep T.T

Crafting is based way too much on luck to ever be mainlined for gear "acquisition." I can't believe you would even say that, dude lol... "don't you put that evil on me, Roaran!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2mCMF222IQ