"Greater Materia Sockets" Concept Idea

Hello everyone,
this is my first forumpost here, so i hope i'm posting this in the right section. :)
I'll try my best to explain my thought as good as possible, feel free to share your opinions about this, i would be really interested to see how people would find this.
Please excuse some bad english of mine.


I had the Idea in mind of adding a new variety of Materia sockets for Players.

To be more detailed: Materia sockets that have special abilities like having an x amount of chance to give you a small selfheal, or a small shield, a potency buff for your next attack or increasing your base auto attack speed by x amount % over 10 seconds.

I had this idea in mind, because i would think that this would give players a greater Buildvariety around their character, and would bring lesser used materia back with more importance.
Since the two most used Materia by far are Direct Hit and Crit, i would give these Materia sockets one requirement, and i want to show this by an example i had in mind:


"Greater Materia of [placeholder]
Materia
Effects:
'Give your abilities a chance of 2% to give you a shield that equals 3% of your Maximum HP. More of the same Materia will further increase this effect.
Takes up 2 Materia slots.'
Requirements:
Base Item: Item Level 430
2x Battledance Materia VIII melded."

Of course the stats can differ and this was only a first thought of mine. Melding multiple ones of the same Materia further increases the proc chance by 50% of the base proc chance and the effect by 50% of the base number.
In this case that would mean, a second meld would give you a proc chance of 3% and the amount of hp that gets added as a shield by 4,5%.


The way how players can aquire these new Materia will be through crafting. I still don't know which Job would be most ideal for this, i had the Goldsmith in mind, but i think it also would be a good idea to include that for every crafter to craft at maxlevel.


That was it so far for my post, i'm not sure how this everyone will find this idea.
Thanks for reading till the end! :o
Take care and stay Safe everyone! :)

Ideas like this have been put forward like this over the years - if you do a search in the forums you'll see that while the idea seems "neat" it almost universally gets shot down.

balance is everything to the devs and that's why all gear is cookie cutter and everyone at end game will have the same set up. as well people may think they want "choice" or some kind of build that is "neat" or "unique" where really the most optimal combination will be found and become meta and then everyone must have it. if you don't you will be shunned and not invited to group content because you're not the right build.

the biggest determination of success in the game is based on PLAYER SKILL. if you are bad no amount of special optional skills will save you. this type of thing is more suited to single player/offline JRPGs.

Oh thank you, thats a good point! But then again Itemlevel and Materia in general can and did also trigger the exact same behavior on others. Thats the reason why i kept the Materia bonus minimal, because i had this also in mind and all that it is, is a small neat change on your playstyle, but nothing that greatly affects you or your dps in any shape or form. :)
For me personally in an mmo it's important that everyone can personalize their playstyle, and since it's only a little addition it still has the effect whilst not breaking up the meta.

i'm sorry but that's not how this particular mmo works.

I fail to see your point there, sorry. :(
I doubt that it doesn't work that way. Every mmo has an social aspect to it, and they're all very similar. I haven't seen how this mmo is different compared to something else.
The name "Rpg" already sais that you can express yourself in your role, this idea in my opinion would further increase the possibility in PvE content, and thus would fit in this category. :)

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Originally Posted by Dragon246

I fail to see your point there, sorry. :(
I doubt that it doesn't work that way. Every mmo has an social aspect to it, and they're all very similar. I haven't seen how this mmo is different compared to something else.
The name "Rpg" already sais that you can express yourself in your role, this idea in my opinion would further increase the possibility in PvE content, and thus would fit in this category. :)

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That might be your interpretation of what "RPG" means but RPGs come in a lot of different styles. That's not the design style for this game. If the dev team had any interest in that sort of customization option for players, they would have already added it to the game.

What you describe if implemented would also increase latency issues for players as the game is forced to do more battle calculations to see if the RNG roll succeeded every time an action was taken, apply the effect then communicate that to all other players nearby - and it would have to do it for every single player using the system you describe. I think players would prefer things that cause fewer latency issues, not more. Far better for everyone for gear to have a static set of stats while any variables are left to job skills.

There used to be a bonus points system that you could distribute between your main stats. everyone just dumped all of them into their main stat. where is the customization in that?

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Originally Posted by DrWho2010

There used to be a bonus points system that you could distribute between your main stats. everyone just dumped all of them into their main stat. where is the customization in that?

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That bonus system was a remnant, that they simply couldn't be bothered to remove for a little over a year, from when "all jobs on one character" literally meant Character Levels, rather than Job Levels. At the time it meant specializing in a slant of roles, as all jobs technically used all stats, but only to certain soft caps and at varying efficiencies.

That said, I'd agree that glamour and occasionally Skill Speed breakpoints are the only customization available to this game since Yoshida took the reins, and that doesn't seem likely to change.

My chaotic good tendencies like this idea. That is all. I'm all for giving people stuff to bicker over, especially when it is something as big but small as substats.

Customization within current system seems to just ask for """courage"""/curiousity to do the damn thing. Take it from me. Going strong for max tenacity/determination as PLD this tier and I haven't been publicly ridiculed - yet.

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

That might be your interpretation of what "RPG" means but RPGs come in a lot of different styles. That's not the design style for this game. If the dev team had any interest in that sort of customization option for players, they would have already added it to the game.

What you describe if implemented would also increase latency issues for players as the game is forced to do more battle calculations to see if the RNG roll succeeded every time an action was taken, apply the effect then communicate that to all other players nearby - and it would have to do it for every single player using the system you describe. I think players would prefer things that cause fewer latency issues, not more. Far better for everyone for gear to have a static set of stats while any variables are left to job skills.

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Same effects also work in Eureka perfectly fine, thats what brought me to that idea. I think if it works there, where already a higher playercount is, it shouldn't be any difference else. For pvp you can just deactivate the effect for example! :)

Thank you all for your Feedback so far! :)
I talked with a bunch of other Players about that idea since then, and the results were mixed. Which i can completely understand of course. I think there is a reason why this current System is in place, and i'm feeling that all classes throughout the game are currently very well balanced from what i've heard from others and from my own experience. That said, i think of course that the aspects of it shouldn't outweight a normal Materia socket - but moreso be a second optional option to choose from. And since said Materia is just a normal item and it would be too strong / or outweight other options you can still balance the percentages on it. But thats why my idea for it is to keep them weak, but still unique if that makes sense. :)

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Originally Posted by Dragon246

But thats why my idea for it is to keep them weak, but still unique if that makes sense. :)

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"Keep them weak but unique" sounds like a industrial tycoon slogan.

In the context of XIV, it sounds like unrewarding busywork.

I'm usually all for customization, but there has to be sufficient reward, cohesion, convenience, and context for it.

hehe oh yeah it really does sound like a slogan, didn't notice :D

well it's as rewarding as materia should be. You can't make it too much of a reward or else the balance between normal materia and these ones are unbalanced. But don't forget that the effects would get better the more you build into it. In the end it's your choice how rewarding you want it to be for yourself you could say, and i think that on the other Hand is rewarding again.

"In the context of XIV, it sounds like unrewarding busywork." - Then i would say crafted Armor also counts as unrewarding busywork i assume? Because there is also 480 gear already, and now even one with 5 fully meldable Materia slots and people still get that Armor. You can think of the Materia idea as a more smaller version of this, with of course simpler materials to craft for others - which as a neat sideffect could also give less used materia more worth in the end. :)

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Originally Posted by Dragon246

"In the context of XIV, it sounds like unrewarding busywork." - Then i would say crafted Armor also counts as unrewarding busywork i assume?

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Yes, the RNG overmelding part definitely is. To me, anyways. And it's the perfect analogy here. It's a lot of grind (or spending, in the case of overmelds) for a minuscule bit of customization, which would really only amount to +0.5% of a particular stat guides tell you is best with your present secondaries (so... pretty much always Crit).

I would be more of a fan of it if it was, again, rewarding, convenient, cohesive, and contextualized, such as everyone having to and being easily able to make those choices, the main choices being balanced for and around raid content (with other bonuses being separately given as the "fun" choices being given free, universally, or in separate tier of choices), and felt significant. If you averaged what you're going for with FF7's Materia, then I'd take interest. That said, I'd prefer it be sort of the post-cap progression system for a separate (say, Garlemalde) expansion, rather than simply added atop whatever else in this one.

Crafted Armor is not unrewarding busywork. you obviously do not play at a high enough level to appreciate this when new crafted gear is released.

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Originally Posted by DrWho2010

Crafted Armor is not unrewarding busywork. you obviously do not play at a high enough level to appreciate this when new crafted gear is released.

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I made very clear that I was referring only to the overmelds they make possible...

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

I made very clear that I was referring only to the overmelds they make possible...

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I wasn't talking to you on that point.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Yes, the RNG overmelding part definitely is. To me, anyways. And it's the perfect analogy here. It's a lot of grind (or spending, in the case of overmelds) for a minuscule bit of customization, which would really only amount to +0.5% of a particular stat guides tell you is best with your present secondaries (so... pretty much always Crit).

I would be more of a fan of it if it was, again, rewarding, convenient, cohesive, and contextualized, such as everyone having to and being easily able to make those choices, the main choices being balanced for and around raid content (with other bonuses being separately given as the "fun" choices being given free, universally, or in separate tier of choices), and felt significant. If you averaged what you're going for with FF7's Materia, then I'd take interest. That said, I'd prefer it be sort of the post-cap progression system for a separate (say, Garlemalde) expansion, rather than simply added atop whatever else in this one.

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Sorry i don't know how to post only a specific quote out of your post, but thats a fair point i can get! :)
So that might take that whole Materia idea in a bit of a hefty place, since if you make them too strong other materia would be lesser used, and if you let them in the strength of normal materia it doesn't feel like a upgrade at all. Hmm. Maybe i can think of another solution for this, so that you can make them stronger but only place them in your gear once?

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Originally Posted by Dragon246

Sorry i don't know how to post only a specific quote out of your post, but thats a fair point i can get! :)
So that might take that whole Materia idea in a bit of a hefty place, since if you make them too strong other materia would be lesser used, and if you let them in the strength of normal materia it doesn't feel like a upgrade at all. Hmm. Maybe i can think of another solution for this, so that you can make them stronger but only place them in your gear once?

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that would create unnecessary item bloat. we don't need things like "savage might VIII+1" "savage aim VIII+2", etc. etc. materias out there.

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Originally Posted by DrWho2010

that would create unnecessary item bloat. we don't need things like "savage might VIII+1" "savage aim VIII+2", etc. etc. materias out there.

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I wanted HQ versions of materia which you could only get from spiritbonding but not anymore with the new convert.

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Originally Posted by DrWho2010

that would create unnecessary item bloat. we don't need things like "savage might VIII+1" "savage aim VIII+2", etc. etc. materias out there.

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No no, i don't think you got my point there. What i said was that to make this kind of Materia i mentioned in my first post stronger but put a "once per equipment" restriction on it. That wouldn't create a bloat since they're only 4-5 new "big materia" (depending on what exact effects they would have) items in the game in general, and as a nice sideeffect would also increase the worth of lesser used materia again.