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Please simplify the materia system. It's an obnoxious, confusing aspect of the game and a huge gil sink detrimental to new players that can come nowhere close to being able to afford a single one not to mention the confusion measure of going about getting one's armor melded and the differences in the levels.
There's not even an explanation that states the limitations or the importance of the order by which you meld.
This needs to be simplified and addressed.
Simplify the only stable market in the game. Hmm no thanks
It seems pretty straight forward. Individual pieces of materia tell you what level items they can be affixed to already and it's perfectly consistent. The quests detail how to make, affix, and overmeld materia and tell you the direct consequences. I suppose it is up to the player to figure out that you should use your expensive materia for the 100% affix rate slots and not the 8% success rate 5th meld, but really that seems pretty obvious. The UI tells you exactly what stats from the materia will be added if the affix works, turning the numbers red if it's less than the maximum that materia could potentially provide.
It's also not even properly a gil sink since you can't buy materia from an NPC. You could technically spiritbond NPC bought gear to make materia, but people don't really do that. Materia is all traded or consumed and the only place where gil leaves the game is MB tax. I honestly don't see any issues here that should confuse a new player or need to be addressed. There are problems with materia, but you haven't really pointed at any here.
Don't see a problem. When I started playing the game I simply read all the hint/tutorial messages that pop up every time I stumbled upon something new, including materia - they are short and good explanations and can be accessed any time under "System" section I think.
And you can always google search for info if you want to know how materia works. Typing "ff xiv materia guide" in google brings up this: http://www.ffxivinfo.com/materia/guide.php