Materia system should be streamlined and based on FFVII.

I have to admit that I was a little bit disappointed with how materia was implanted.

It isn't that bad, but it could be much better.

Hmm... how to keep this thread in the front page to get more attention... /think...



bump?

I like the idea of +1 items adding a slot, this encourages gathering of HQ materials, and skilled crafters.
I like the idea of rare dungeon drops having +2 or even +3 slots. This keeps a lot of value in getting those rarer items and encourages adventuring.
I like the idea of rare materia dropping from dungeons encourages adventuring (and discourages repetition if the materia is not going to be lost on meld attempt).
I like the idea of materia progression (which is what I hoped spirit bond was meant to be).

Lots of good ideas that meld nicely between FFVII materia system and the present mechanics of an FFXIV MMORPG.

Let's do it!

I'm not a fan of the current materia system, so I'm all for something like this. Seems a lot more engaging.

I enjoy the current materia system for what it is and does in the MMO setting. Fixed a lot of issues. Made crafting have more of a point.

I think you're asking for serious exploits and balance issues if you make the system more like VII's. Put yourself in the dev's shoes when trying to implement a system like that that's truly fair and balanced.

Not that I hate VII's materia system. It's really enjoyable. But it's not necessarily the best way to go for an MMO.

It may have even been a mistake to name it Materia. Much like it was a mistake to put "Final Fantasy" in the name "Final Fantasy: Spirits Within". All it did was disappoint fans.

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It does but ultimately an MMO is about battle classes.

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Maybe in PSO, Borderlands, or Guild Wars.

I dunno about you, but I like the idea that every other piece of equipment you come across was player-made with time and effort put into them, and not just some drop from some mob that some DRK happened to kill repeatedly.

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Originally Posted by Denmo

I dunno about you, but I like the idea that every other piece of equipment you come across was player-made with time and effort put into them, and not just some drop from some mob that some DRK happened to kill repeatedly.

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I love crafting. and find myself doing it farr more than anything else in the game,
its also made me stay here a lot longer than any other MMO i've played, and i'm still engaged with whats going on.


- the materia system is a gamble, which makes it more difficult, if it was skill, you would have a huuuuge player gap, and guess what, people with less time on their hands (casual gamers) will have no hope of playing with others because they had more time to hone their skills

=this would cause casual gamers not to play an already dangerously dead game. with such huge potentials, gambling is the best way to go. after all, Final Fantasy made a company by luck.

why not take a chance and roll the materia dice. it sounds a lot safer than risking your business over it.

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Originally Posted by Veltaine

I love crafting. and find myself doing it farr more than anything else in the game,
its also made me stay here a lot longer than any other MMO i've played, and i'm still engaged with whats going on.


- the materia system is a gamble, which makes it more difficult, if it was skill, you would have a huuuuge player gap, and guess what, people with less time on their hands (casual gamers) will have no hope of playing with others because they had more time to hone their skills

=this would cause casual gamers not to play an already dangerously dead game. with such huge potentials, gambling is the best way to go. after all, Final Fantasy made a company by luck.

why not take a chance and roll the materia dice. it sounds a lot safer than risking your business over it.

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The current system is not difficult its just random.

Someone can get a triple meld on their first try, others will burn through millions of gils before getting a double, and it already creates a gap between players since the ones with less money/time to make money won't be having the double/triple melded gear which is slowly starting to be the standard for good gear.

A slot system will keep crafting relevant since you need a crafter to stick materia to the slots and gatherers to get the catalyst to stick it and the gap between casuals and hardcores will be something like:

Casual: wears NQ gear with NQ materia (Body 2 slots, HP+55 materia on both)

Hardcore: Wears HQ gear with HQ materia (Body 3 slots, HP+65 on all 3)

And the middle ground like (HQ Body 3 slots, HP+55/HP+60/HP+65)

You can add HQ catalysts too for the ultra hardcore that uses top tier materia (HQ Body 3 slots HP+75/HP+75/HP+75)

For dungeon gear it of course should be good but it should also have stats on it that cant be recreated with materia like Body +50 enmity. (you can't stick enmity on bodies)

That should make everybody happy, crafters are needed to meld and their HQs will be more important and lucrative for them, gatherers will still be farming catalysts AND HQ catalysts for even more dough, Materia farmers will still farm materia but the HQs will be even more voluble.

Casuals will be able to catch up and not be put off by asshats/random number generator as much, hardcores will still be ahead of the curve and those in the middle will be moderately satisfied and maybe even strive to be better.

If anybody sees a downside, do let me know.

Agree with the OP, I would have much preferred a FFVII style materia system, something similar to WoW/Diablo III's socketing system would also work.

I can't see it being changed though.

Someone suggested a while ago a system with different shaped materia that would fit into socketed items, I thought that was a great idea.

For example a sword with one square socket and one round socket, and different materia with both different colours and shapes which can be fixed and removed with a small fee so that players can customise their gear more readily.

Yeah.... I know this is probably asking for a lot from the devs with all that they have on their plate but, The ideas outlined here pertaining to gear having materia slots. HQ gear increasing the slots on said gear. This would be much preferred to the system we currently have in place. Please take a hard look at making this change. The more reliance on the RNG gods we can take out of the game the better for everyone IMO.

OP's version of the materia system sounds way better than what is in the game right now.

The problem with materia that grants abilities is that then some clases and jobs would be handcuffed to those and thus have one less option available to them. The same thing would happen if you did traits gained through materia (all melee would be forever shackled to an Auto-Haste, materia, for example).

I personally don't like the fact that the current system is driven by chance, not to mention that the stat stacking will come and bite us in the ass at some point.

That being said, I'm in favor of Airget's suggestion, as it favors variety to a degree. I'd reduce the number of melds per slot to 3 (or 2), and put the luck/chance factor directly on the crafting of the slots themselves. This is more because if we can easily get 5 slots per gear with a crafter buddy, materia is going to get nerfed across the board for balance purposes.

i agree with the op. would be a lot better having that system, would make equipment worthy for a lot longer, as we're going is making the gear obsolete with every patch, i don like that system, if you had a hard time getting something should and must last longer.

i feel the same way. i've never been a fan of the current materia system, the execution rather. why gear is not slotted is beyond me. but can anything be done this late in the game? especially with so many player with 3+ melds. they'd be outraged.

I honestly would MUCH rather prefer if they took Materia and did the following:

- Remove different versions of the same materia. Ex: Heavens' Eye IV has 16/17/18 variants... Let's just leave use one number and call it a day. Current system is cumbersome, confusing and hurts our inventory (when you have 3-4 versions of Bloodthirst III).
- Remove materia melding up to 5. Instead give each piece of gear (dungeon gear and crafted gear) different numbers of slots for socketing materia in it. High end crafted gear would obviously have 1-2 more slots than dungeon gear to keep it comparable.
- Remove failing on melding. It's stupid and very discouraging to a lot of players to see their hard earned gear and money go to waste at the hands of RNG. The same RNG that made them go 0/XX on that gear in the first place.

Congratulations, this is called Jewelcrafting in WoW and while essentially the systems are the same, Blizzard's version is far better executed. Take that and run with it.

^ I don't expect this in 1.X but I seriously hope they are listening and put this in 2.0.

materia as suggested in the OP would make the game for fun and dynamic for sure, and would probably be a major draw simply by virtue of encouraging more players to experience more content to get the materia they want- but it would probably be a nightmare for the devs to balance it all correctly, and certain classes and materia combinations would be completely overpowered and broken for stretches of time while they figured out what to do with it.

maybe that's something they can actually afford to do in 2.0 when the entire dev team is working on the same game... but for now it would just be too much work, i'm sure

I like that the current materia system removes gear from the game. I remember in 11 the elly staffs ending up being pointless to make cause no one wanted to spend a bunch of money on a item that was a loss even if it HQ'd. This happened to a lot of gear in 11.

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Originally Posted by Denmo

I dunno about you, but I like the idea that every other piece of equipment you come across was player-made with time and effort put into them, and not just some drop from some mob that some DRK happened to kill repeatedly.

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Exactly. While I would like to see improvements done to the system (mainly introducing ways to improve extra meld percentages) I wouldn't want it to stray too far from what it is now. It's just cool to see multi-melded gear and the benefits are massive.

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Originally Posted by DarthTaru

Am I the only one who feels like the materia system, while a welcomed addition to FFXIV, has been executed rather poorly? It's Brimstone, Brimstone +1, Brimstone +2, and Brimstone +3 all over again. Instead of producing materia from spiritbonded dated tarred voyager's belts, I feel like Materia should be something special.

What if each item in the game was given a certain number of materia slots like in FFVII, the meld system was abolished, and players would increase their capabilities through attaining materia via various different methods.

When it was announced that the materia system would be introduced to FFXIV I envisioned a sort of system similar to FFVII which I feel would make a lot more sense in an MMO. Imagine a system where some more common forms of materia (HP, for example) could be purchased from certain NPC's or taken from Valkurm Emperor tier NM's through out the game, while other more powerful Materia (Deathblow, Double Attack, Double cast, Ultima, etc) could be attained from HNM class mobs for endgame linkshells to outfit their DD's (or whatever classes) in the same way they would outfit them with uber weapons or body pieces, etc, in FFXI.

DRK's, for example, could first aim to acquire an incredible weapon, with incredible stats and five materia slots, and then set their sights on acquiring five boss shattering materias to turn themselves into the ultimate zerg machines. Materia drops in later endgame fights could give BLM's the ability to cast unique and devastating spells and acquiring them would come with the same level of excitement (for Mage and for linkshell) as Gaiters or a Novio.

This instead of going to the wards or turning a junk item into something decent (a mere stat) in a rather uneventful and uninspiring wolf camp party...

It seems to me that a system more similar to this (more similar to FFVII) would be a much more rewarding one, streamlined and simplified that made Materia more exciting, more unique, easier to build game balanced around, and less aimed towards filling our retainers and the market wards with junk.

I don't mean to add to the endless list of threads saying "I want this, I want that" but I had high hopes for the materia system and so far, while I take part in it as much as the next person, I find it to be rather lacking in its delivery and execution.

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This would actually help keep a balance in 2.0 instead of having to nerf multi-melds.

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Originally Posted by Colino

Exactly. While I would like to see improvements done to the system (mainly introducing ways to improve extra meld percentages) I wouldn't want it to stray too far from what it is now. It's just cool to see multi-melded gear and the benefits are massive.

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Thats just it though... The benefits won't be massive in the future because they are making the bonuses from materia equivalent to the bonuses from gear (lesser effect). No point in keeping it how it currently is.

Has ANYONE seen a 5x melded piece of gear with non-shit materia? No, I didn't think so. So whats the point of having that option if it's not possible.

Thank you for bumping this thread. I was disappointed in how the materia system was implemented. This would open the possibility more things to do trying find rare materia too. would work so much better 99% rng . Make it tough rare materia, use .

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Originally Posted by Madrox

Thank you for bumping this thread. I was disappointed in how the materia system was implemented. This would open the possibility more things to do trying find rare materia too. would work so much better 99% rng . Make it tough rare materia, use .

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Tough to find rare materia, not to use it.

It should be streamlined, but not FFVII-style. Crafters need way more purpose than they have now. Some say that the game is geared towards battle classes, and it is, but only because of the 7th Umbral Era event and the fact that it's battle-focused to stick to the plot and keep players from quitting while they work on Realm Reborn.

But don't forget that crafts make up a good half of the classes in the game. By focusing on battle classes only, you're literally filling the cup half-full and purposely keeping it half-empty.

when they first mentioned adding a materia system i was so hyped thinking of vii and how much i loved the system. i personally feel the way it was put in and the pure luck factors in the melding process were poorly thought out and executed even worse.

keep stat-related materia as it is, introduce new 2 new equip slot (or we can use rings as placeholder) to attach enhancing-effect/abilities materia

lvl 1 - 30 , has 1 slot each (total 2)
lvl 31-cap , has 2 slot each (total 4)

those kind of materia should be easily customised (can slotted/removed at will) and not stackable on same piece

eg:
ring 1: -enhance fire magic (3% added damage on fire-based spell)
- beastmen slayer (3% added damage on beastmen-type enemies)

ring 2:- enhance fire magic (3% added damage on fire-based spell)
- mana shield (active abilities,on 10 seconds damage to hp converted to mp reduction)

This thread needs more replies if it wants to be noticed. So please help by sharing some of your thoughts.

I don't really care if it's implemented in a way that's like FFVII's. However, I would like to see a more interesting use of the system. Going back to the OPs concept, I do like the idea of each equipment having a default set of materia slots. That would alone make the system head and shoulders more balanced and more enjoyable. (maybe not for the few with 5 or more materia in one gear) Another interesting concept is unique materia being dropped from NMs or obtainable in dungeons. Materia like this could be Double Attack, or Haste. This kind of materia would be limited to 1 per gear while abolishing type requirements for all materia to be melded to certain gear slots. I don't think that it would feel right on the other hand to have materia that grants access to new abilities such as Ultima as you mentioned. It's one thing to have the advantage over others by the time spent getting better gear, but it's another having an advantage because you have an overpowered ability that someone else with the same job doesn't. But of course that opinion is just percpective as well.

Oh and unique materia unlike regular materia gained through spiritbond would be removable without being destroyed. Others of course would remain the same.

I didn't play FFVII too much, but the Materia system was always something extremely overwhelming to me. I would love more of a system like FFIX had. Train skills until you memorize them through battle and experience. To me, Materia just means "buff", nothing more.

How about a materia that can only be melded to a piece once but it's so good, you wouldn't need to dbl meld. This can come from an HNM or something.

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Originally Posted by Kasathar

I didn't play FFVII too much, but the Materia system was always something extremely overwhelming to me. I would love more of a system like FFIX had. Train skills until you memorize them through battle and experience. To me, Materia just means "buff", nothing more.

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that's what materia was in vii to an extent. say for example when you got a materia it would be tier i, but after you use it it would become stronger the more you used it. say you put a fire materia on your gear. as it got higher level it became more potent(basically fire 2 after enough usage). each piece of gear was also different.

some would have higher base stats, but less materia slots possible. some would have lower stats, but have more slots to attach materia to. the difference was in xi it was skills and in vii it was abilities. both got better after usage.

Just give us slots. Done deal

The OP has an amazing idea. How awesome would it be if instead of beating let's say... Odin, You get a bunch of weapons but instead get a materia that has like +100 Attack on it. You could affix it to weapons, they would also have to make it to where Materia can be taken off items and transfered onto other items at will. This is an amazing Idea cause I hate the current materia system, It's all based off stupid luck which I greatly lack ; ;

The dev team should revamp the materia system.



Add more interesting materia similar like in FFVII

Add Materia slots. Number of slots available depends on the equipment level, and rarity.

Should have a cost value for equipping certain materia as well. Like if its a materia that boost your magic attack potency, it should lower your HP by a reasonable amount.

Like many others, I agree and like your ideas. But this is an MMORPG and so in order to keep players paying every month they must continue with random materia created with a gamble to ensure it takes the maximum possible time to get "the best" items

Id like to see something similar to FF7's materia, definitely. The materia system in XIV kinda alienates me and a lot of people i know, i generally get the feeling that i just dont want to involve myself with it.

Although im sure im in the minority here, what i would love to see is this;

1: Abolish the creation of tier 2,3 and 4 materia. Make all newly converted materia tier 1, with the stats dependant on the converted items level and quality. (and static, not randomly generated, so all lv 10 harness produce strength +1, all lv 50 harness produce strength +6/HQ +7) The rarest materia should come from items crafted with primal/HNM mats.

2: Make materia equippable/unequippable by anyone, at the cost of one catalyst to equip an orb, and no penalty or loss when unequipping one. Get rid of meld risks and allow materia to be equipped on any piece of equipment, but with less slots. ie, white/common: 3 slots, green/uncommon: 2 slots, blue/rare: 2 slots, gold/legendary: 1 slot. And probably only let tier 4's be equipped to rare and legendary equipment, so common/uncommon can only stack tier 3 at lv 50.

3: Allow materia to level up as you fight with it. Each level up adding a static amount to its base stat + bonus random amount (could be an amazingly high bonus, could be okay, could be 0.) Let it level up with the player at lv 10, 30 and 45 (tier 2,3,4) so a new player can get their first materia at lv 10 and it can grow with them through the game.

4: Instead of losing gear to melding with those low success rates, enable the fusing of materia via crafters. Id love it if we could fuse two tier 4's in to a new tier 1 with the originals combined stats, then level it up. (or if the best materia could only be made via fusion recipes.) The amount added to the materia from its static level ups would have to be reduced a bit but they could let you fuse it with another orb up to 3 times. They just need to use the current double, triple and quad meld success rates for this respectively, so people can still work hard to build godly materia, but every attempt has the chance to destroy both the orbs theyre trying to fuse. And if you fuse something amazing, you might get even luckier with a good random bonus to its level ups. =D

This discussion apparently has been done to death, but what the hell, I'll thrown in my personal opinions just in case SE reads this thread. The materia system has a couple specific things that irk me about it right now:

1. The stat budget of materia is extremely high compared to the stat budget granted to the base gear stats themselves. It feels odd to have the materia be almost the only thing that matters when determining the total stats of an item.

2. Double melds seem to be becoming the "expected" norm for all players to achieve. Coupled with the top-to-bottom RNG-based nature of the materia system, this can become frustrating for players who aren't rolling in gil and can't afford to lose millions on failed melds. Could there be some way to reduce or eliminate the RNG aspect, but to increase the cost of materia acquisition and melding to compensate? (Perhaps something like increased spiritbond time, increased rarity of melding catalysts, introducing some other sort of cost to the melding process, etc.)

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Originally Posted by Orca

Id like to see something similar to FF7's materia, definitely. The materia system in XIV kinda alienates me and a lot of people i know, i generally get the feeling that i just dont want to involve myself with it.

Although im sure im in the minority here, what i would love to see is this;

1: Abolish the creation of tier 2,3 and 4 materia. Make all newly converted materia tier 1, with the stats dependant on the converted items level and quality. (and static, not randomly generated, so all lv 10 harness produce strength +1, all lv 50 harness produce strength +6/HQ +7) The rarest materia should come from items crafted with primal/HNM mats.

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I agree with this. but we don't' necessarily have to do away with tiers.

a Tier 1 materia can grow from +1 STR to +10 STR as you spirit bond it. fill the gauge once, +1 becomes +2. fill it again +2 becomes +3. etc. etc.

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Originally Posted by Orca

2: Make materia equippable/unequippable by anyone, at the cost of one catalyst to equip an orb, and no penalty or loss when unequipping one. Get rid of meld risks and allow materia to be equipped on any piece of equipment, but with less slots. ie, white/common: 3 slots, green/uncommon: 2 slots, blue/rare: 2 slots, gold/legendary: 1 slot. And probably only let tier 4's be equipped to rare and legendary equipment, so common/uncommon can only stack tier 3 at lv 50.

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This i do not agree with. I do like the idea of a set number of slots per item, though. +1 stuff could come with an additional materia slot in some cases.

I despise with a passion the 'gamble' system of melding right now. losing both the materia and the item is just too harsh. I myself will not go past a single meld and opt for gearing up with GC equipment and buying a double melds for stat caps.

I think certain materia going on certain gear is fine. This keeps things more balanced IMO.

My understanding is SE wanted crafting to be it's own class. and not just something you do on the side. This is one reason they play such a big role in hamlet. it's possible that they will continue to play big roles in other content such as PvP.

I have no problem with them being heavily tied to the materia system.

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Originally Posted by Orca

3: Allow materia to level up as you fight with it. Each level up adding a static amount to its base stat + bonus random amount (could be an amazingly high bonus, could be okay, could be 0.) Let it level up with the player at lv 10, 30 and 45 (tier 2,3,4) so a new player can get their first materia at lv 10 and it can grow with them through the game.

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I like this idea. it makes spirit bonding more worthwhile.

I do not like the 'random amount' I'd prefer to set it by tiers. IE: Tier 1 materia grows slower than Tier IV materia. so the level 20 or so sword you put a Tier 1 on can hold you over till you get rid of it. but gearing for end-game can require that Tier IV materia you really want to grow with.

This would also open up materia that can enhance abilities. it can start with a small bonus and increase over time as you work on it. similar to meriting in FFXI.

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Originally Posted by Orca

4: Instead of losing gear to melding with those low success rates, enable the fusing of materia via crafters. Id love it if we could fuse two tier 4's in to a new tier 1 with the originals combined stats, then level it up. (or if the best materia could only be made via fusion recipes.) The amount added to the materia from its static level ups would have to be reduced a bit but they could let you fuse it with another orb up to 3 times. They just need to use the current double, triple and quad meld success rates for this respectively, so people can still work hard to build godly materia, but every attempt has the chance to destroy both the orbs theyre trying to fuse. And if you fuse something amazing, you might get even luckier with a good random bonus to its level ups. =D

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if they did this i'd like to see a new crafting class. or maybe tie it to alchemy and require the two materia and a catalyst (maybe something rare like philosophers stones for the highest level of materia)

when combining materia the bonuses shoudl be lower. IE a pure STR should grow higher than a STR/VIT. and a STR/VIT shoudl grow higher than a STR/MND/ENM+

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Originally Posted by TimonLoon

Thats just it though... The benefits won't be massive in the future because they are making the bonuses from materia equivalent to the bonuses from gear (lesser effect). No point in keeping it how it currently is.

Has ANYONE seen a 5x melded piece of gear with non-shit materia? No, I didn't think so. So whats the point of having that option if it's not possible.

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Well I sort of agree with you. I think the crafter's skill or stats should influence extra meld chances to some extent rather than being completely RNG.

In 2.0 they are pretty much making Materia useless, and no, I'm not happy about it.

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Originally Posted by Camate

Snurble here in your thread~!

I wanted to give you some details on what's being planned for stats in A Realm Reborn.

In regards to battle-related stats, it is currently possible to receive large boosts from stats on equipment, while character stats do not have as much of an effect. For example, equipping items with multiple materia melded to it will allow players to become quite powerful. In A Realm Reborn, we are planning to make adjustments so that the ratio of influence from character stats and from gear stats is 1:1. With this, having 5 materia melded onto a single item won’t elicit as large of a difference like it does currently.

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Melding is not fun for me. I'm one of the unlucky people who have no luck with melding at all. Took over 1200 materia to get my gamblers crown and spent over 20 mil just trying to get a double meld heavens fist on felt bracers, ended up having to buy them. Any time i sit down to do a double tier 4 meld it always takes least 15+ tries and generally some where in the mid 20's i will get a double meld. At the same time i watch people get back to back double melds and triple melds with really no gil investment at all. The melding system imo is WAY to much rng. SE could do better than this if they sat down and tried.

Getting the money to buy the materia / or getting lucky on a convert should be the only RNG in this entire process.

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Originally Posted by Mijin

In 2.0 they are pretty much making Materia useless, and no, I'm not happy about it.

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they are making it gimper- but without it it means you're gimp C.c..
what's better then 0???--->>>> +1