Why No Melds?

Waste of Gil.

Materia is super expensive to buy, and you need a lot more than the weekly options give you since it gets discarded with every upgrade.
Also, if I sell the ones I get for free, it's about 500k per piece, so I have to decide between having 1212 Spellspeed or "only" 1200....OR getting that beautiful new glamour gear/furniture/hairstyle/minion/whatever it is.
The gear is gonna be outdated in a few weeks again already, the glamour gear and furniture and minions stay with me forever and are still useful and nice 3 years later.

Why would I waste it on gear, then? :rolleyes:

(To be honest, I actually do meld my gear though. But decided to only do it to the final pick of the patch, the 270 gear, so no melds on 250 and 260 for now).

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Originally Posted by Zojha

As for the V materia - weren't we talking about how socketing materia instead of selling it is a waste? That was my original point.

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I didn't said to use Vs, i said to sell them and at least meld IVs.

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Originally Posted by Zafrei

If gear lasted us a much longer period of time, I suspect you'd see more player investment in each individual piece.

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Much truth. The investment people would actively put on gear that lasts is worlds different than anything we get here. Honestly, the only thing we have to that is crafting and gathering gear. Unlike most areas of combat, the crafting/gathering scene actually has overall benefits and visible requirements for players to meet to even get access to nodes or crafted tiers. Of course, you'll still see some players not bother, just because that's how it is lol.

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Originally Posted by Atoli

Waste of Gil.

Materia is super expensive to buy

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*Looks at market board and sees grade 3 crit materia for 1000 gil*

Expensive...right.

People really need to realize grade V isn't the only grade that exists. Anything is better than nothing.

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Originally Posted by Theodric

There's a great excuse actually - materia isn't needed for the vast majority of content in this game. Elemental materia is just 'there' and whilst the other stats are more useful unless someone is tackling high end content then no real incentive to add it to gear. Perhaps if dungeons were more along the lines of Pharos Sirius before it was nerfed then there would be more need for people to make use of materia.

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So lazy and cheap then, exactly like I said. :P

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Originally Posted by FoxyAreku

*Looks at market board and sees grade 3 crit materia for 1000 gil*

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You forgot a zero there. 10k. 80k for grade 4.
x 18 for all slots in 250. x18 for the tome gear. x18 for the tome gear after upgrading.

Man, I really wonder why people don't want to waste a bunch of money on something they don't need! :rolleyes:
MUST be the laziness..

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Originally Posted by Atoli

You forgot a zero there. 10k. 80k for grade 4.
x 18 for all slots in 250. x18 for the tome gear. x18 for the tome gear after upgrading.

Man, I really wonder why people don't want to waste a bunch of money on something they don't need! :rolleyes:
MUST be the laziness..

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10k is still pretty damn cheap. I don't know why you would play an RPG and not care about making your character as strong as you can.

I mean, this is like saying "Why would you buy Scripture gear or farm alex normal? You don't need it". Which is another true statement if you're not doing savage. It's just silly and lazy to leave these slots empty when you can easily rectify it. This game doesn't exactly have a lot of gil sinks to begin with.

Doesn't bother me either way though, I just love when people are like this, and then rage when they wipe on something like A12 normal at 5%.

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Originally Posted by FoxyAreku

I don't know why you would play an RPG and not care about making your character as strong as you can.

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In single player RPGs I actually try to keep my character as weak as possible. I don't find them very fun otherwise. Most are way too easy.

Materia prices depend on what server you're on. For instance, There's a lot more people who spirit bond on Balmung so prices are cheaper here. On a lesser populated server there are less spirit bonders so the prices are going to be higher. I'm curious to see what the prices of materia are on other servers.

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Originally Posted by FoxyAreku

10k is still pretty damn cheap. I don't know why you would play an RPG and not care about making your character as strong as you can.

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its the equivalent of farming Lv1 mobs for months trying to get a level up, rather than doing what is more efficient with your time.
(which is dependent on what they have available for making gil.) if they run out of gil now, and cant make enough gil for the upgraded gear, they wasted time having to go out and farm more, when they could have just waited for the better gear.
Similar to RPGs who have cheap crap gear, and decent priced/decent gear u can get in a few kills, why waste the money, when u can go straight to the better stuff quicker if u dont waste the money? (Looking at Dragon Quest. After u buy the cheap gear, by the time u afford the expensive gear, you out leveled the boss, so its better to just buy the expensive stuff, to stay within level range, and not waste time on needless grinding)

All content besides Savage can be cleared easily without it. Why waste the money or the effort? Min-maxing certainly can't be noticed when outside of Savage so...once again, why bother? I can personally clear everything without melds and when I don't meld my gear, I don't notice their absence.

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Originally Posted by FoxyAreku

I don't know why you would play an RPG and not care about making your character as strong as you can.

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Because I can? For example, I play Pokemon with the ones I find cute, which are almost always babies, never fully evolved ones.
I'm always amused by people who tell me "THEY ARE SUPPOSED TO EVOLVE, WHY DO YOU KEEP THEM WEAK ON PURPOSE?!" :o
I also try to beat most RPGs with the least amount of grind possible, and NEVER get to level 99 or whatever the max is of that particular game.
Because it is more fun/more of a challenge that way, and because I don't see any reason to spend time on getting any stronger than what I absolutely need to. If I can beat it on a very low level, why would I bother getting stronger than that?
Sounds like nothing but a waste of time to me :rolleyes:

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Originally Posted by FoxyAreku

I mean, this is like saying "Why would you buy Scripture gear or farm alex normal? You don't need it".

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Actually, I've said that on this very forum again and again. To be exact, to everyone who always comes here to complain about the weekly grind for tomes despite not raiding - if you don't enjoy the grind for grinding's sake, AND you don't NEED the gear for savage, just don't bother..^^
I know lots of people who do not care about capping tomes each week. I even know some who do not farm Alex NM at all (only did it once for the story).
They do just fine in normal content, and why wouldn't they, after all, SE makes it pretty clear what ilvl is required for which content..

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Originally Posted by FoxyAreku

I just love when people are like this, and then rage when they wipe on something like A12 normal at 5%.

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Better gear than minimum ilvl has always been nothing but a safety net. It helps to deal with mess-ups, but if you do not mess up, it is not required at all (how common mess-ups are in pug groups is a different topic entirely, though).
My best friend cleared Sophia EX 10 lvl below minimum ilvl, no melds. So what does that make her?

I could get behind a stance of "I get stronger because it is a MMO, since that will make it easier on the other people I play with" but "I get stronger because it is an RPG"? Makes no sense to me at all.

I mostly only meld into "finished" gear, so I most likely won't meld any rank V materia into my 260 gear until I turn it 270. Maybe a few rank IV crit and SS materia here and there.

I only play 2 days a week, sometimes 3...for a handful of hours each day. Having materia melded is not going to make or break anything for me because I lack the time to get them and I lack the time to do the content that would require them.

IV's are free and so easy to get that any reason you can come up with for not using them just seems like an excuse to be lazy. Just try saying it out loud:

"Nope, I'm going to turn down a free upgrade to character strength that only requires a few minutes of my time every few months"

That's what most of the people in this thread sound like to me.

Maybe once upon a time when you could only get good materia through extensive spiritbonding and praying to the RNG gods would not melding make sense, but at this point in the game where IV's are so easy to get that SE may as well cut out the middleman and mail you some once a day I can't fathom why anyone would refuse to at least use them on their main character and class.

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Originally Posted by ElHeggunte

IV's are free and so easy to get that any reason you can come up with for not using them just seems like an excuse to be lazy. Just try saying it out loud:

"Nope, I'm going to turn down a free upgrade to character strength that only requires a few minutes of my time every few months"

That's what most of the people in this thread sound like to me.

Maybe once upon a time when you could only get good materia through extensive spiritbonding and praying to the RNG gods would not melding make sense, but at this point in the game where IV's are so easy to get that SE may as well cut out the middleman and mail you some once a day I can't fathom why anyone would refuse to at least use them on their main character and class.

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I only TODAY learned u can get free g4 materia from beastmen tribes. (I have rep in 3.0 beastmen tribes, and ixali only)
So its going to take a lot longer than what u suggest, for someone like me. (plus most of the people I know dont know this, nor have any rep yet in beastmen tribes)

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Originally Posted by Sarynth

Main thing for me is the price of materia. With tier 5s running in the 3-400k per each, melding your gear (even guaranteed slots) is too pricey.

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You don't have to meld Vs. Since I don't raid, I go with IVs. I don't need perfect stats but the extra bonus is still nice. You can easily get IVs for free doing beastman quests.

Or sell Vs you get and use the gil to buy IVs that are 1/5 the price.

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Originally Posted by ElHeggunte

IV's are free and so easy to get that any reason you can come up with for not using them just seems like an excuse to be lazy. Just try saying it out loud:

"Nope, I'm going to turn down a free upgrade to character strength that only requires a few minutes of my time every few months"

That's what most of the people in this thread sound like to me.

Maybe once upon a time when you could only get good materia through extensive spiritbonding and praying to the RNG gods would not melding make sense, but at this point in the game where IV's are so easy to get that SE may as well cut out the middleman and mail you some once a day I can't fathom why anyone would refuse to at least use them on their main character and class.

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There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.

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Originally Posted by SuperZay

Materia in this game is overrated. Full V melds barely give 1.5% dps increase for a dps job. It matters for world first groups, but for people casually running expert dungeons or story mode Alexander it's not important (they can, for example, increase their dps by 30% just by doing optimal rotations and they are not doing it either). So why they should care about 1.5% when they don't care about 30%?

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I'm pretty sure that's a made up statistic. You know every 30 points or so of crit is worth 1 weapon damage. Full melding gives over 120 additional crit. That's 4 points worth of weapon damage. Not melding at all is like using a i230 weapon instead of i250. It's a significant difference.

Also, world first statics manage to bypass gear/dps checks with pentamelded gear in the past, because secondaries you meld are not to be underestimated.

I'd say not melding is more a 6% dps loss rather than 1.5%. You're gimping yourself pretty hard and causing runs to go slower.

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Originally Posted by MomomiMomi

There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.

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And even death costs you your life.

I keep up with ILV and have my sophia weapons on all my 60s but I don't meld bc it's not needed. I just don't see the point. I can clear all the content I want to clear without melding. I can sell materia for money to spend on things I do want to do, like housing for example or crafting. Melding has no benefit for my gameplay or gaming experience so I just don't bother.

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Originally Posted by ElHeggunte

"Nope, I'm going to turn down a free upgrade to character strength that only requires a few minutes of my time every few months"

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You make it sound as if we are not getting the materia.
That is not the case.
Close to everyone who responded to this thread who does not/only selectively meld materia said they do not MELD it.
Not one word about not GETTING it in the first place.
We just choose to sell it instead, to spend the money on things that are more worthwhile to us :)

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Originally Posted by Atoli

"I get stronger because it is an RPG"? Makes no sense to me at all.

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This is how RPG work pretty much since pen&paper roleplaying games were invented. Telling your buddies around the table "no, I don't want this neat sword we found in that cave, I want to remain as weak as possible" is not something you hear in a regular basis during a game of D&D.

You are trying to make a rule out of an exception.

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Originally Posted by Fyce

This is how RPG work pretty much since pen&paper roleplaying games were invented. Telling your buddies around the table "no, I don't want this neat sword we found in that cave, I want to remain as weak as possible" is not something you hear in a regular basis during a game of D&D.
You are trying to make a rule out of an exception.

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Your example isnt comparable to her statement.
You're comparing getting something for free, or already in your possession, that has no penalty for use, to having to go out of your way, stop doing the content/adventure you want to do, or stop trying to get even BETTER gear/stronger, to work on a minor upgrade.
While I like doing every step along the way usually, these are 2 different things.

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Originally Posted by LunarEmerald

I'm pretty sure that's a made up statistic. You know every 30 points or so of crit is worth 1 weapon damage. Full melding gives over 120 additional crit. That's 4 points worth of weapon damage. Not melding at all is like using a i230 weapon instead of i250. It's a significant difference.

Also, world first statics manage to bypass gear/dps checks with pentamelded gear in the past, because secondaries you meld are not to be underestimated.

I'd say not melding is more a 6% dps loss rather than 1.5%. You're gimping yourself pretty hard and causing runs to go slower.

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I as well noticed a rather massive difference in my threat generation when I came back in 3.3 getting all my gear melded.
As DRK and undergeared compared to everyone else, I would need to use my threat combo (against those with full melds) roughly 5-6 times to maintain it for weeping city boss fights.
Once I was fully melded, I only needed 2 enmity combos for 99% of runs, and a 3rd for the rare MNK/BLM who were really geared compared to me.

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Originally Posted by Fyce

This is how RPG work pretty much since pen&paper roleplaying games were invented. Telling your buddies around the table "no, I don't want this neat sword we found in that cave, I want to remain as weak as possible" is not something you hear in a regular basis during a game of D&D.

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Yet becoming stronger is not the focus of a pen and paper roleplaying game. So playing an RPG and not caring about making your character as strong as you can makes perfect sense.

There's a word for those players who do focus on that. It's a derogatory term, too.

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Originally Posted by MomomiMomi

Yet becoming stronger is not the focus of a pen and paper roleplaying game. So playing an RPG and not caring about making your character as strong as you can makes perfect sense.

There's a word for those players who do focus on that. It's a derogatory term, too.

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Who said it was "the focus"? I'm just saying it's a core concept of fantasy RPGs since... pretty much forever.
So, yeah. "Your character gains power because it's a RPG" is a completly valid statement. Saying that this idea "doesn't make sense at all" is completly absurd.

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Originally Posted by Claire_Pendragon

Your example isnt comparable to her statement.
You're comparing getting something for free, or already in your possession, that has no penalty for use, to having to go out of your way, stop doing the content/adventure you want to do, or stop trying to get even BETTER gear/stronger, to work on a minor upgrade.
While I like doing every step along the way usually, these are 2 different things.

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This has absolutly nothing to do with what I said. I was specifically answering the very part I quoted, saying that yes, "RPG = character growth" more often that not.
If people don't understand that, then they have no idea what are fundations on which RPGs were built on to begin with.

I sell it all that way I can shove the pile of Gil in other peoples faces >:)

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Originally Posted by Fyce

Who said it was "the focus"?

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The person who started the discussion on the topic.

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Originally Posted by FoxyAreku

I don't know why you would play an RPG and not care about making your character as strong as you can.

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The thing you quoted was saying that this statement makes no sense. Yes, you get stronger over time in an RPG. But that's not the goal. It's a means to an end. You need not get any stronger than required to reach that end.

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Originally Posted by Fyce

This has absolutly nothing to do with what I said.

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Telling your buddies around the table "no, I don't want this neat sword we found in that cave, I want to remain as weak as possible"

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I was specifically answering the very part I quoted, saying that yes, "RPG = character growth" more often that not.
If people don't understand that, then they have no idea what are fundations on which RPGs were built on to begin with.

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I'm pointing out the example used to defend your argument that getting stronger is what most people define as an RPG.

Let me use a counter argument, using your examples logic, that makes your example non applicable.

"Guys, this sword has crazy stats, but if I steal it, the nations most powerful guards will attack us, and perma kill us!"
or
"Guys, this sword has crazy stats, but if I steal it, our neighboring city will be blamed, and cause all kinds of issues within the story we are ROLE PLAYING."

(1) Stats/leveling are one part of a whole for what makes RPGs their own genre.
(2) Sometimes there are RISKs or COSTs that arent worth the effort of upgrading.

Your example compared a "Does not come at a cost action" to a "Comes at a cost action", when trying to defend the idea everyone thinks of RPGs as character growth games. (And this statement is only being made to counter the original statement someone doesnt view RPGs as character growth only, which was argued as a reason for not upgrading gear.)

What you needed to say was that everyone imagines an RPG to have "character growth" gameplay mechanics. And only use examples of that would have been applicable to what you said, but then it wouldnt have been applicable to what it's trying to counter.
So then you would need to change it to something along the lines of;

"I would like to get this sword, for its higher stats, but we need the gold to afford enough food to survive the trip through the mountains."

Which would be accurate to the character growth system, but also proving the original person you responded to, as also being correct.
You didn't pick your words at complete random, you picked an example that would try to put ur perspective in a twisted light, to try and win people over to your view of the subject.

You even phrased your counter point back at me in a manner to do the same. (In regards to trying to win people over, not the twisting part.)

the same reason why i watch netflix while i run content, because i can.

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Originally Posted by Claire_Pendragon

-snip-

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You missed an important part of this discussion, making your point almost completly moot:

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Originally Posted by Atoli

You make it sound as if we are not getting the materia.
That is not the case.
Close to everyone who responded to this thread who does not/only selectively meld materia said they do not MELD it.
Not one word about not GETTING it in the first place.
We just choose to sell it instead, to spend the money on things that are more worthwhile to us :)

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There's no "trip in the mountains" involved, the item is already there, in their inventory, they just decided to sell it for personal profit instead of using it to improve their chances of succeeding in combat (not to mention that the "profit" is quite small, which somewhat contradict your idea of cost/reward). Because Atoli thinks that the odds of succeeding doesn't matter if they are at least above zero.

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If I can beat it on a very low level, why would I bother getting stronger than that?

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That's the main point being made.
But as I said in my very first post, this isn't an usual player behavior. RPG players usually don't want to stay at the minimum chances of beating a fight, because that implies failing an awful lot before finally (if ever) succeeding. Players who constraint themselves that much are deviants, they aren't the majority by any stretch, which makes my analogy correct: if a group playing a RPG have access to something which would increase their chances of succeeding, they will use it. That's how RPG are made since the pen&paper ages. And if someone in the group tries to be the greedy and selfish one, it usually backfires quite rapidly.

The issue is that, in multiplayer games, if you aim for the minimum, you drag everyone else in your group down. By purposefully not doing your best to increase the chances of success for the whole party, you are the one who has to be carried through the fight. Others have to make up for your lower performance.

Doing auto-attacks in a dungeon is "enough" to clear it, so, with Atoli's logic, why bother doing more? If I can beat the last boss with a butter knife, even if it takes 30 hours to do so, why bother improving?
Aiming for "the least" forces you to draw limits in order not to fall in such absurd things. But then, they become arbitrary and subjective limits. Which is why, when multiplayer is involved, players usually aim for the best. Especially if the ressources to do so are easily accessible and cheap, which includes Materia IV in FFXIV.

The easy explanation is this.

How often have you had to meld or use materia in the game prior to being capped? The correct answer is never because your gear outdates so fast if you ever melded gear it would be worthless in a matter of hours. Regardless of cost there are also several anoyances within the system that push people away from using materia. So let's break it down to see the key issues with Materia.

1. It's outdated quickly: Why would I spend gil/time upgrading the gear if I will be replacing it in a few weeks? You will see people start to meld up once Ilvl's start hitting their casual caps.(Alex gear and whatnot)

2. There are skill caps and several tiers of useless materia you need to know before even melding: For such minimal gains there are a large number of reasons it's anoying to purchase materia just to find your capped allready or can't efficiently use your materia. So people tend to just sell/avoid using it to not bother with needing a encyclopedic knowledge of materia caps for all their gear. Let alone even knowing what materia is best to use these people aren't going to reddit looking for BIS melding guides they want to know this stuff at a glance.

3. Inventory space: Who wants to lug around 10-20 kinds of materia when inventory space is at a premium

4. Melding NPC's are new and not widely known about: You would be amazed at how many people didn't even understand how to meld materia or what it was for when you needed a crafter to meld for you, now that there is a NPC to do it...they still don't know it's an option. Very simple information for us core players tends to sail over the heads of more casual players due to them not being as invested in the mechanics of the game itself.

I mean I could go on for hours about how sloppy the whole system is, it's like allot of things in XIV it's overly complex with no real reward for even managing to understand it. The people who know about it also undsertand it are still marred by the convuleted steps to get the blasted stuff into the gear...and for what it to be wasted investment a few weeks later and be expected to meld again?

When you go to meld gear, it now tells the stat caps. You no longer need a third party source to tell the information.

You're also not gonna be quickly replacing tome gear. Unless you raid, you're gonna be stuck with the piece for several months before they put the upgrade material somewhere else. You've got no excuse not to be melding gear bought with tomes.

Purposely halfassing something because you're too lazy to look up information/do something is a sign of a bad player. It's irrelevant that it's not needed. You don't need to be a competent player period to clear casual content. So arguing that it's not needed is a moot point. What it does do is help speed up the process. Make up whatever excuse you want but by being lazy and purposely not melding gear when it's super simple to do, just shows to others that don't really care about your performance. It makes you look bad.

I certainly don't expect everyone to meld Vs but IVs are another story. You don't have a good excuse for not melding those. When you show up to extreme primals with all unmelded gear, it makes you look like a n00b that doesn't know the importance of secondary stats. And if you raid and still don't meld your gear then you're insulting your group.

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Originally Posted by Atoli

I could get behind a stance of "I get stronger because it is a MMO, since that will make it easier on the other people I play with" but "I get stronger because it is an RPG"? Makes no sense to me at all.

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Originally Posted by Fyce

And if someone in the group tries to be the greedy and selfish one, it usually backfires quite rapidly.
The issue is that, in multiplayer games, if you aim for the minimum, you drag everyone else in your group down. By purposefully not doing your best to increase the chances of success for the whole party, you are the one who has to be carried through the fight. Others have to make up for your lower performance.
Doing auto-attacks in a dungeon is "enough" to clear it, so, with Atoli's logic, why bother doing more? Which is why, when multiplayer is involved, players usually aim for the best.

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Now you just went on to prove my point..:cool:

Also, even in D&D, you don't get stronger because it just naturally happens, you do it for social reasons (since it is multi-player too) or because it is required to achieve the set goal. It is called RPG for a reason, not "GSG" (Growth Simulator Game) or something, no matter how integral some people want to view growth in RPGs when that is NOT the 'goal' but means to an end.
If you look at single-player RPGs, there is literally no reason at all to get stronger than what you need to beat the game other than your own comfort (aka "would I rather grind for hours to have a 100% chance at winning or try the fight for the same amount of time with my current level/gear but with a winning chance below 100%?")

In FFXIV, that is even more true, since a good performance as a player has a much larger role than good gear in terms of what leads to success in combat.
Also, standards are clearly set by SE: do mechanics and you rotation right and wear XXX ilvl gear, and you WILL succeed. That's a pretty straightforward standard.

Anything beyond that is to make it go faster, smoother, not slow others down who just want to rush through, etc., and I can totally understand and support that (although I still have my personal standard of "If my performance is on par/higher than my teammates, it's enough"), but those are reasons that are native to social situations and not native to the RPG system itsself :)

This thread is starting to turn into a conversation with a child that asks a question and continuously asks "why" regardless of how many answers you give. The bottom line is this: people don't want to do it lol. Regardless of how illogical it seems to the people saying they should, its irrelevant because there's no weight to it. Nothing is going to happen to the person if they meld or not assuming they don't do Savage. Sure, melding could shave them a few more seconds off of their roulette if and when they do them, but some people aren't that critical about it. I also understand that the people arguing for melding pretty much want the player base to care, but I see it like this: if people honestly cared about content as much as some people think they do, our Savage clear rate numbers would be higher. Just saying.

Hey man...them tier 4 materias are expensive

Because we picked up the habit back in 2.0 when any materia worth using was like 300k at least. Yeah it's cheaper now, but old habits die hard, and we survived then and we'll survive now. Yeah it'll help boost kill speed by a little bit, but it's hard to suddenly tell people to start taking an expense they never needed to pay before just because it won't ruin them now.

A better question is why so many people don't use food. Far cheaper than materia's ever been, even the cheap stuff's a decent bonus, boosts vit that's likely already at the cap, and there's even incentive for folks to use it while leveling with the xp bonus.

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Originally Posted by Zumi

I find it a bit puzzling myself on why people would not use melds. Why would you not want to make your character stronger? Bottom line is you should use melds it does increase your dps.

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It was a fairly hot topic recently that players do want to make there characters stronger. but Yoshi p responded and said he doesn't want that to happen. he wants players to focus on gear instead. the problem with this is that the gear is so short lived. Melding then doesn't make your character stronger at all. what it does is just make your gear stronger. that same piece of gear you will be throwing away in a couple of weeks because you've got some thing better. so there's no point in melding it.

it's kind of connected to why people don't raid because the rewards aren't worth it. the 240 midangear people got form clearing it was tossed for 250 crafted stuff soon as 3.4 hit. so seriously what value does gear hold? holds no value at all. and as a result it's not worth investing in. which is simply why people don't bother. glamour is a bigger motivator than strength.

would you invest in customising your car if you were gonna get a new one next month?

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Originally Posted by Urthdigger

A better question is why so many people don't use food. Far cheaper than materia's ever been, even the cheap stuff's a decent bonus, boosts vit that's likely already at the cap, and there's even incentive for folks to use it while leveling with the xp bonus.

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I don't use food either, because I never miss so I don't need accuracy. and my gear was 30 levels above the expert dungeons and 10 levels above creator before the patch was even installed. basically already out gearing everything.

the only time I've ever used food on a battle class was back in arr for coils.

as for the 3% exp bonus. it's negligible at best. whats that 1 maybe 2 extra trash kills in a dungeon. if it was that important i'd just kill the mobs everyone usually skips and get the extra 3% exp that way.

The problem for both food and materia is they simply aren't needed at all for what is something like 99% of the games content. because players out gear so much of the content even before it's implemented.

I don't raid, so I don't bother melding gear I'll be switching out in a few months anyway.

I had 12 Mhachi Matters saved up from VA runs that I never spent because materia is such a non-issue to me I literally did not know what the Mhachi matters were for. Lo and behold they give you grade V materia.

Now I have 12 grade V materia on the MB.

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Originally Posted by Urthdigger

A better question is why so many people don't use food. Far cheaper than materia's ever been, even the cheap stuff's a decent bonus, boosts vit that's likely already at the cap, and there's even incentive for folks to use it while leveling with the xp bonus.

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Same reason really, food can get expensive. I only really see it used in savage raids. Plus no one cares in pugs if you aren't using food since most likely no one else is either.

To get the exp bonus you can buy some grapes from a vendor for pennies.

Anyways, I try to keep my stuff melded because I would feel dirty if I was playing a job that had empty slots. Don't bother with jobs I don't play.

You can get Tier IV's really easily from beast tribes but some people find that a chore and you have to actually get them to max rank first. Even if they do them they might just turn around and sell it for gil since housing/glamours/bardings/useful crafted gear in this game costs a lot.

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Originally Posted by FudoMyoo

I think upgrading gear every 3 months is too fast. Maybe every 6 months would be perfect.

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For the most part, gear is upgraded every 6 months. 3.2 released a gear range of 220-240 which was the gear range until 3.4 came out 6 months later. Now the gear range is 250-270 until the expansion which we know won't be until Spring at the earliest.