Future Endgame gear vs crafted gear with Materia.

Hey everyone

This actually greatly concerns me because of the current trend of FFXIV as someone that wants to see this game succeed and grow in population to the point that Yoshi-p hopes.

Currently gear fully slotted with materia (or slotted with at least 3)is unrivaled in many occasions. That's fine since the game is unfinished and doesn't really have anything worth mentioning as far as endgame goes, however as the game evolves I do see quite the issue since Yoshi-P plans to add a lot of content as well as pvp.

The major thing that needs to be considered, the vast majority of MMO players do not care about crafting nor do they want to feel forced to do it with the current materia and repair system I kind of feel like I have to or I'll end up spending literally millions on one item that isn't even worth the price.

The major problem here is that when people do endgame raids, when people pvp they want to see rewards directly from those. They want to see gear upgrades that are better then anything they can buy, including crafted items.

The reason this is an issue is a lesson that should have been learned from FFXI seems to have gone ignored and they seem to be overcompensating for the uselessness of most crafting in FFXI by making it almost required or at least feel required.

That lesson is, very few people if any will do an event or kill enemies just to do it if there is no real reward from it.

If materia is made more powerful or endgame/PVP rewards aren't as good as as gear slotted with 4-5 materia, I hate to say it but the majority of the worlds MMO community will just not bother which means content won't be done which means less subscribers.

CoP proves this in the fact that very few people have seen a benefit from Al'tieu in FFXI so it was the least done portion of endgame in FFXI next to HNMs with no real drops. Abyssea further proves it since almost no one went back to older content because it was "useless" Keep in mind most people that play in abyssea couldn't cut it in the older content for the most part.

SE could easily keep crafting very useful by either making new gear for newer content that crafters can make, or by making older ones(at the level cap) dated and allowing every craft to make the same item with upgraded stats. So for example The cobalt tanking set would have higher defense, hp, vit and so on then the one from the patch before.

This is a simple solution and does help keep crafting involved, materia also wouldn't suffer since people would buy these items if they couldn't get the gear from the previous set of content.

Lets all keep in mind they are clearly NOT following the FFXI model since its basically proven to not work in terms of major MMOs go, other MMO developers don't even see SE as a competitor in the MMO industry.

I do want to see FFXIV succeed but they won't if all they do is cater to crafters. The majority of the worlds MMO players want battle-related content, not to sit in the city and hit an anvil or play with a saw.. and in order to do that gear from endgame content and PVP needs to be the best for what its made for, nothing wrong with crafted gear coming close, but it shouldn't be better, even with full materia slots.

Alot of raid gears are BiS, what are you tlking about? Unless you have triple to quad meld which is extremely rare and justifies their strenght..

Primals are still the best after relic...

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Originally Posted by Chardrizard

Alot of raid gears are BiS, what are you tlking about? Unless you have triple to quad meld which is extremely rare and justifies their strenght..

Primals are still the best after relic...

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I'm saying that crafted gear need to always fall second to endgame/pvp content gear(which yoshi-p said he was putting in the game) at all times, like no belt is going to rival a belt with 2 enmity+ materia for a tank, some items can have a lot more of a stat on it due to materia making it better than anything from that slot.

And clearly triple to quad meld isn't THAT rare I see it very often.

This is a concern for the future that may not be seen by the dev team, and it kind of needs to be thrown out there. Its also some stuff in that would help crafters as the current level of items become more useless. More items need to be made or upgraded versions of current items should be released.

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Originally Posted by Chardrizard

Alot of raid gears are BiS, what are you tlking about? Unless you have triple to quad meld which is extremely rare and justifies their strenght..

I dont know about others but I do........ I wouldnt use that trash Darklight gear for most slots, there are 1 or 2 exceptions though I suppose. Which just means he makes a good point. Its a good thing I do like running the dungeons for fun and challenge. There was never anything wrong with crafting or materia, but SE made a mistake when they made it where materia'd gear can be the best. Common sense is to stick with the norm of dungeon drops always being the best, but seeing as SE didnt learn this obvious lesson (obvious to most every other mmo), we are stuck with it. However, it can be rectified if they start making dungeons drop rare materials used to craft superior gear that can then be melded. Its not what I would have prefered and its a bit sloppy, but it would work better than /poof: "Dur I just crafted/melded my way to the best gear". /upchuck reflex.

Primals are still the best after relic...
This I can agree with. The question is can we trust SE to continue this good trend *cough Darklight cough*..... guess not?

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Anyways, I mostly agree with the OP. But sure why not just humor SE so they think they are doing right, that will help a lot.

I agree.

I'm not a rich player - but I'm slowly in the process of finding cheap, melded gear upgrades for all 3 of my 50s since I don't have a shell that does regular 'endgame' such as CC or AV, thus no access to DL (which I would still very much like to obtain, esp. for DRG and PLD).

I think that most gear obtained from dungeons and things should always be best-in-slot, as opposed to the current trend of most good gear having to be crafted and melded. I hope that this trend will hit some kind of downward spiral after 2.0 takes off. I'd rather work for my gear, than have to farm and spend countless millions on melds that are only worth a fraction of that amount.

Hello,

I'm not sure it is fair to say 'the vast majority' do not care about crafting. Per the player's poll:
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...IX-(06-04-2012)

Only about 31% of players do not care about crafting. A sizable minority, but not a vast majority.

Although the majority of people may want battle related content, that is not to say that they do NOT want non-battle related content. It is reasonable for one to want both, and there to be enough interest in both. Again from the poll:

20.3% of people have a Level 40+ crafting job (therefore a keen interest in crafting)
20.8% of people have a Level 40+ gathering job (therefore a keen interest in gathering)

In fact, only 7.3% of people said they had no interest in gathering. Therefore one could say only 7.3% of people had an interest in battle-related-only content?

But, putting aside the possible mis-proportion of how many people want what, and dig into the premise of your argument:
Yes, people tend to do things only if there is a tangible reward.
Yes, people want more super douper better than tho gear.
Yes, I can see an argument where 'if crafting gear is always better than loot why go through dungeons'.

However, presently that is not the case:
Depending on your setup, sometimes looted gear is better than crafted. Sometimes crafted (3x meld, etc) is better than looted. Also there is a (in my opinion) valid argument: Do you want to pay 20M for gear, or go through the dungeon and get something of equivalent.

There is room for both Crafted and Looted gear (as well as Grand Company gear) as it is now up to you in how you want to get your rewards. Some prefer to do dungeons and get the nice items. Some prefer to do caravan runs and buy it in the store. Some have oodles of Gil (or time to farm) and wish to buy crafted items (or craft it themselves).

There is room for all approaches. There is also, of course, the opportunity to marry all the approaches. For example:
Craft: Souper Douper Blade Of Look At Me
Requires: Rare metal, dropped in dungeon
Requires: Rare metal, farmed from mines by a miner.
Requires: Rare potion, bought from Grand Company for seals.

Combine all three to get your item. Everyone is kept involved, and everything is kept relevant. We already see the hint of this when it comes to Relic Weapon:
Buy item from grand company for 25k seals.
Find rare items in dungeons.
Buy (or make) your own Class Specific double melded weapon.

And it seems to work (ignoring the details of how one has to repeat content to get the individual items, just focusing on the three approaches resulting in one item).

Crafting is a pretty big drawcard to this game too, so they just need to keep both elements of the game relevant. Which is somethign S.E. had already achieved earlier with the Dodore Doublet and Barbarian Bardiche type recipes. With a slight mod to the Request-meld system, then that type of crafter-input could work for untradeable items too (i.e., a request craft system). This way boss-drops and crafting could co-exist with or without materia. But what would I know, I didn't type an unnecessary wall of text like everyone else.

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Originally Posted by Xikeroth

I'm saying that crafted gear need to always fall second to endgame/pvp content gear(which yoshi-p said he was putting in the game) at all times, like no belt is going to rival a belt with 2 enmity+ materia for a tank, some items can have a lot more of a stat on it due to materia making it better than anything from that slot.

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I disagree. In fact, I think the current balance between raid/primal gear and melded crafted gear is pretty good. Some slots are skewed more one way or the other, but overall you see people with a mix of crafted and non-crafted gear.

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And clearly triple to quad meld isn't THAT rare I see it very often.

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I don't wander around Uldah examining random people, but I've never seen a quad meld. I have no doubt it's out there, but I bet it's rarer than the rare Darklight pieces. Triple meld is hard enough to deserve its place as some of the best gear in the game.

I feel like you pretty much read what I posted in another section then re-posted here lol.

The discussion is over when OP said triple meld isnt rare, let alone quad meld, those are prolly close to non existent.

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Originally Posted by Chardrizard

The discussion is over when OP said triple meld isnt rare, let alone quad meld, those are prolly close to non existent.

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Triple, quadruple, pentuple Grade I!

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Originally Posted by Chardrizard

The discussion is over when OP said triple meld isnt rare, let alone quad meld, those are prolly close to non existent.

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Triple meld..... isn't rare

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Originally Posted by Eliseus

Triple meld..... isn't rare

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I saw multiple players today, all with multiple triple and quad melds.

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Originally Posted by Xikeroth

And clearly triple to quad meld isn't THAT rare I see it very often.

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I'd just like to point out something about all the "Tipple and Quad melds" that you have been spotting...did you happen to check the tiers of the materia?

It's pretty damn hard to find a tripple Tier IV meld let alone a quad.

I have only seen Triple G-IV a few times. Triple G-III, that's an entirely different story.

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Originally Posted by Asiaine

Hello,

I'm not sure it is fair to say 'the vast majority' do not care about crafting. Per the player's poll:
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...IX-(06-04-2012)

Only about 31% of players do not care about crafting. A sizable minority, but not a vast majority.

Sure for the people that still play. I'm pretty damn sure that number changes if you were to poll something like that to the general MMO community. Most people want Battle content to provide the best gear.
Although the majority of people may want battle related content, that is not to say that they do NOT want non-battle related content. It is reasonable for one to want both, and there to be enough interest in both. Again from the poll:

20.3% of people have a Level 40+ crafting job (therefore a keen interest in crafting)
20.8% of people have a Level 40+ gathering job (therefore a keen interest in gathering)

In fact, only 7.3% of people said they had no interest in gathering. Therefore one could say only 7.3% of people had an interest in battle-related-only content?

But, putting aside the possible mis-proportion of how many people want what, and dig into the premise of your argument:
Yes, people tend to do things only if there is a tangible reward.
Yes, people want more super douper better than tho gear.
Yes, I can see an argument where 'if crafting gear is always better than loot why go through dungeons'.

However, presently that is not the case:
Depending on your setup, sometimes looted gear is better than crafted. Sometimes crafted (3x meld, etc) is better than looted. Also there is a (in my opinion) valid argument: Do you want to pay 20M for gear, or go through the dungeon and get something of equivalent.

There is room for both Crafted and Looted gear (as well as Grand Company gear) as it is now up to you in how you want to get your rewards. Some prefer to do dungeons and get the nice items. Some prefer to do caravan runs and buy it in the store. Some have oodles of Gil (or time to farm) and wish to buy crafted items (or craft it themselves).

There is room for all approaches. There is also, of course, the opportunity to marry all the approaches. For example:
Craft: Souper Douper Blade Of Look At Me
Requires: Rare metal, dropped in dungeon
Requires: Rare metal, farmed from mines by a miner.
Requires: Rare potion, bought from Grand Company for seals.

Combine all three to get your item. Everyone is kept involved, and everything is kept relevant. We already see the hint of this when it comes to Relic Weapon:
Buy item from grand company for 25k seals.
Find rare items in dungeons.
Buy (or make) your own Class Specific double melded weapon.

And it seems to work (ignoring the details of how one has to repeat content to get the individual items, just focusing on the three approaches resulting in one item).

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You are right, it can work. But to me it cheapens the experience. Why can Joe Blacksmith make Souper Douper Blade Of Look At Me? It just doesnt feel right, and its not just about who puts in the most effort (crafters/GC seals/drops). I just find it silly. Maybe its all all my years of SPRPGs and MMORPGs, but defeating the dragon and saving the princess always got you the best loot, not making it. Meh, whatever, I dont like it, but it is what it is. I can compromise with something like your idea to marry crafting/GC seals/drops. However, I wouldnt want it to be overly complicated system: make sure the drop/gather rates arent too bad, and dont make the seal item retardedly expensive, let crafters craft something thats in your inventory (ra/ex), and after that its up to the individual whether they want to risk anything more than a single meld.

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Originally Posted by Eliseus

Triple meld..... isn't rare

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Triple IVs. Nobody cares about triple IIIs or II II III

With the current difficulty of the content, I'm fine with the way current gear works. However when the true "Hard Mode" that Yoshida said was going to be added in 2.0 arrives, I think that gear should surpass most of the craftable gear.

SE cant make crafted gear suck or no one will level the crafts anymore. right now everything is almost the same dungeon vs crafted vs GC gear. as long as they keep that balance there will be no problems its will also give you more choices to what you can equip vs the heavy cookie cut games.

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With the current difficulty of the content, I'm fine with the way current gear works. However when the true "Hard Mode" that Yoshida said was going to be added in 2.0 arrives, I think that gear should surpass most of the craftable gear.

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dont mean it will be god like the normal mode might not give everything, then hardmode might give the other stuff.

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Originally Posted by Chardrizard

Triple IVs. Nobody cares about triple IIIs or II II III

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O really? Dang, I thought you meant triple 1's because that is what everyone uses end game.

Well srsly, i would like to see a system like in FF 11

I mean, is it so hard to combine both? i dont like it to run arround like a clown... since my Linkshell doin CC und AV runs, i stick with DL. It doesnt matter to me if its the best choice or not ...

My hope is, please SE do it like in FF 11

1 Craftjob on Max. Level all others on Lower for the economy, combine endgame drops with Crafted items

Cursed Equipment FF11:
http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__...sedHarness.png

Endgame Abjuration Drop:
http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__...bjNeptunal.png

Finished Gear:
http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__...ombharness.png

this is the way how Crafter and DoW and DoM classes works together, i srsly dont like the Materia system at all, i mean its okay but for me its not necessary.

All they have to do is create Raid-specific Materia that only drops from there (high % drop if not 100%).

In addition to that, they could make U/U items from the same dungeon meldable WITH the exception that if the meld fails, it doesn't break the armor, but instead just disposes of all the materia attached to it.

Then you would have people spamming endgame content trying to get their 2, 3, 4? melds to endgame gear. This would be greatly beneficial to everyone in the LS who might still need to get the base armor drop.

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Originally Posted by Arkune

Well srsly, i would like to see a system like in FF 11

I mean, is it so hard to combine both? i dont like it to run arround like a clown... since my Linkshell doin CC und AV runs, i stick with DL. It doesnt matter to me if its the best choice or not ...

My hope is, please SE do it like in FF 11

1 Craftjob on Max. Level all others on Lower for the economy, combine endgame drops with Crafted items

Cursed Equipment FF11:
http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__...sedHarness.png

Endgame Abjuration Drop:
http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__...bjNeptunal.png

Finished Gear:
http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__...ombharness.png

this is the way how Crafter and DoW and DoM classes works together, i srsly dont like the Materia system at all, i mean its okay but for me its not necessary.

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I would love for FFXI style cursed gear to be implemented. I've already noticed some crafted items(weapons) are garbage compared to relic/GC/primal. My biggest interest in leveling crafting classes is making my own HQ & equipping materia for the rarest of the rare.

It's a complete waste if everything I can synth becomes obsolete at Lv 50. Leves have already given me duplicates of every XP piece I've made for my WAR.

If nothing else, I would at least like to see the ability to attach materia to someone else's "Unique" equipment. Preferably without the risk of blowing it up.

Honestly, there needs to be a healthy mix of boss/dungeon drops, GC gear, and crafted equipment all vying for BiS. XIV is balanced around progressing multiple jobs, some of which have multiple roles. When leveling a second, third, or forth job, gearing each one the same way would get dull rather quickly. If you need to raid to gear your DPS, craft and meld to gear your mage, seal farm to gear your tank, and perhaps hamlet for your crafting classes, well, that keeps all varieties of content relevant, while cycling players through each one.

Over-emphasizing crafting/gathering gave us a bad main story, boring item drops, and really awful hamlet defense. Hopefully this is about as powerful as materia gets and future dungeons give us better stuff than you can get from turboing a craft to 50 and then spiritbonding a bunch of crap gear in Natalan.

I thought the same way when materia was fairly new and there wasn't any rare/ex gear that could compete. I've recently changed my mind now with some updates to Grand Company gear, Darklight and even some AF. Rare/ex gear is starting to get varied stats on a single piece of gear, often times stats that you can't materia into that specific slot, that can make it BiS for a particular job when compared to double melds.

As for triple tier IV being common, I don't think a 7% chance of success is common. I think that would be considered in the rare category.

wut the fuk did i just read. its a reason why darklight body for mnk is BiS because of all the stats you can get a on a body that materia cant achieve While some materia gear is good not all of it. only class that has bad U/U drops is THM/BLM, but its gotten a little better with the drops from hamlet..

I'm going to agree with waht a couple of people have said.
Bring in Abj's.

For a long time in xi things like heca, shura, dalmaticas & zenith were incredibly sought after pieces. and they required buying a cursed dalmatica and then going out to kill odin or I forget which hnm to get the abjuration to purify it. required high level crafters and a decent group of people to do the fights. in many ways the perfect system.

Other examples included things like the scorpion harnesses and haubies etc. considered incribly strong pieces and required drops from various hnm/ksnm kinda stuff. all crafted items and for along time amoung the best available. still crafted but often required a fight somewhere to obtain the materials

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Originally Posted by Asiaine

Hello,

I'm not sure it is fair to say 'the vast majority' do not care about crafting. Per the player's poll:
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...IX-(06-04-2012)

Only about 31% of players do not care about crafting. A sizable minority, but not a vast majority.

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You also need to realize the players currently playing are only a small number of MMO players worldwide, I don't think we even break 70,000 where as MILLIONS upon MILLIONS play MMOs. We don't even cover 2% of the overall MMO population. In the world even with FFXI I don't think we break 5% of them

SE cares a LOT about those people returning or buying the game so they will need to look at that more. What the players playing now want does mean something, however its a terrible example since SE wants to draw in players of every kind.

Our players poll only shows them what current players want, however if they don't appeal the the vast majority of MMO gamers worldwide the game will never grow unless they appeal to them as well and Yoshi-P's overall goal is to make this game as successful if not more successful then Final Fantasy VII(which sold over 10 million copies worldwide)

In order to do that they have to realize the numbers on the players poll is a poor representation of MMO players opinion and only really apply to the people currently playing.

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Originally Posted by Chardrizard

The discussion is over when OP said triple meld isnt rare, let alone quad meld, those are prolly close to non existent.

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You clearly have no idea what you're talking about. Almost every player I see wearing materia gear has at least 3 materia melded onto it. Often 4, rarely 2...

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Originally Posted by Dzian

I'm going to agree with waht a couple of people have said.
Bring in Abj's.

For a long time in xi things like heca, shura, dalmaticas & zenith were incredibly sought after pieces. and they required buying a cursed dalmatica and then going out to kill odin or I forget which hnm to get the abjuration to purify it. required high level crafters and a decent group of people to do the fights. in many ways the perfect system.

Other examples included things like the scorpion harnesses and haubies etc. considered incribly strong pieces and required drops from various hnm/ksnm kinda stuff. all crafted items and for along time amoung the best available. still crafted but often required a fight somewhere to obtain the materials

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The major problems with crafting gear for top performance is that other game content gets left out since "oh well this enemy doesn't drop an upgrade" idea comes into peoples minds so they tend not bother with any of that content. Which is the problem, like not ALL slots will get replaced but only allowing endgame gear to count for 2-3 of your gear slots out of EVERY PIECE is a terrible policy to follow.

Ajbs were a decent idea but imo if they allow that sort of thing it needs to be world NMs nothing inside of a raid. and it should at least balance things out a little since you need to go to endgame as well as as get crafted items, however don't forget that out of everyone that played FFXI very few people even got to see full sets of that stuff out of the entire population.

I do like the whole system of sky from FFXI some of my fondest memories of FFXI endgame were there and I won't argue against that concept and I do like it but at the same time we do need a lot more options to keep things fresh to help everyone tell the difference between FFXI endgame and FFXIV endgame. We can't just clone it.

They need to get rid of the RNG in the game. That includes the stupid melding rates as well. Right now the luckiest person can be the best geared. That's not the way it should. Skill should be rewarded not luck. There's ways of involving both crafted gear and content gear in the game at the same time without having it based all of horrible RNG.

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Originally Posted by Jocko

Honestly, there needs to be a healthy mix of boss/dungeon drops, GC gear, and crafted equipment all vying for BiS. XIV is balanced around progressing multiple jobs, some of which have multiple roles. When leveling a second, third, or forth job, gearing each one the same way would get dull rather quickly. If you need to raid to gear your DPS, craft and meld to gear your mage, seal farm to gear your tank, and perhaps hamlet for your crafting classes, well, that keeps all varieties of content relevant, while cycling players through each one.

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The thing with my post is that SE has said multiple times they want to bring in a huge population of players and in order to properly do that they need to realize very few people in the global MMO population even care about crafting or gathering, they want to fight endgame bosses, raid and PvP more then craft and gather. They want to fight big NMs or do raids(no time limit that is actually something that stops people from wanting to bother with raids) or beat the crap out of each other in pvp, they don't want to spend half of their time crafting. Crafting is actually something people mostly don't want to do and its what SE needs to pick up and notice.

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Originally Posted by morpheus

They need to get rid of the RNG in the game. That includes the stupid melding rates as well. Right now the luckiest person can be the best geared. That's not the way it should. Skill should be rewarded not luck. There's ways of involving both crafted gear and content gear in the game at the same time without having it based all of horrible RNG.

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Crafted items should really only help people get up to speed to the point they are able to do endgame content it shouldn't exceed endgame rewards. Lets face it, SE isn't in the position to try anything new. They did and it almost completely killed this game.

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Originally Posted by Tezz_Xivectro

All they have to do is create Raid-specific Materia that only drops from there (high % drop if not 100%).

In addition to that, they could make U/U items from the same dungeon meldable WITH the exception that if the meld fails, it doesn't break the armor, but instead just disposes of all the materia attached to it.

Then you would have people spamming endgame content trying to get their 2, 3, 4? melds to endgame gear. This would be greatly beneficial to everyone in the LS who might still need to get the base armor drop.

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Materia melding isn't the answer its still going to make people feel forced to level a craft when they shouldn't have to.

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Originally Posted by indira

SE cant make crafted gear suck or no one will level the crafts anymore. right now everything is almost the same dungeon vs crafted vs GC gear. as long as they keep that balance there will be no problems its will also give you more choices to what you can equip vs the heavy cookie cut games.


dont mean it will be god like the normal mode might not give everything, then hardmode might give the other stuff.

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That's why as content gets released SE releases either upgraded versions of the items or makes new items for crafters to make Most MMOs do that Its VERY EASY for the MMO developer to keep crafting involved. Tanaka was a terrible producer as far as crafting balance(even job balance) comes into play. I do believe that Yoshi-P will be able to keep up since he actually looked into other MMOs before diving into it blind without knowing whats going on.

Most MMO devs upgrade crafted gear or release new ones that can rival old endgame content so that people can get into the newer stuff easier or replace slots they didn't have a chance to finish.

It might be a strange concept to people that only touched SE MMOs but those that played others have seen this often and it works.

IF crafting became useless its the dev team being lazy. It still should never exceed top endgame content.

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Originally Posted by HoolieWho

I disagree. In fact, I think the current balance between raid/primal gear and melded crafted gear is pretty good. Some slots are skewed more one way or the other, but overall you see people with a mix of crafted and non-crafted gear.



I don't wander around Uldah examining random people, but I've never seen a quad meld. I have no doubt it's out there, but I bet it's rarer than the rare Darklight pieces. Triple meld is hard enough to deserve its place as some of the best gear in the game.

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Its fine you disagree, however keep in mind that the majority of MMO players don't want to only get half-rewarded for their efforts in endgame by having a lot of the items they get replaced by crafted stuff with materia.

The global MMO community would disagree with crafted items getting a top slot, gotta remember when it comes to 10 thousand subscribers and 1 million subscribers its down to what the rewards from content, not from what some guy can make when he never leaves the city walls.

The MMO community that vastly outnumbered the FFXIV community (the one that basically kicked SE in the jaw when the huge amounts of account cancellations began after launch) wants to see top rewards from difficult bosses, not from someone that never leaves Ul'dah. They want to see more combat-related content. Lets face it, how many people only have gatherers and crafters leveled and nothing else? They can pull out a weapon once in a while.

I am NOT saying crafters should have NO slots they excel at making items for. However endgame content needs to hold some sort of value for drops and dictate the majority of equipment slots. No one wants to raid for belts or bracelets or stuff like that however the major slots should ALWAYS be endgame drops.

There is something seriously wrong with the game when crafting plays one of the top key roles. It should always be a supporting role much like gathering.

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Originally Posted by Xikeroth

You clearly have no idea what you're talking about. Almost every player I see wearing materia gear has at least 3 materia melded onto it. Often 4, rarely 2...

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Everyone, do we need to go further?

I am reading far too much whining in this thread. Most endgame and the majority of AF gear has stats abilities that cannot be modded on. Materia excels in only a few slots if you happen to be very lucky ~5% for Quad meld, on anything decent you deserve to have that top something you walked into a raid for 30min of your time and lucked out to find in a chest. Take the feet slot for example, the only things you can add worthwhile to a DD is HP. Darklight boots, most AF and even the Explorer's Boots are far better options. The current balance is pretty good as far as I'm concerned.
Technically dungeon/NM gear is crafted gear, perhaps by some talented blacksmith from the previous era with access to some ancient materia we have yet to come across.
If 2.0 brings back a sizable increase in the population the % of crafters/gatherers to the general population will be marginalized. The only reason we have so many currently was due to the dearth of content early on in the game. But there needs to remain a balance, so quit whining if someone can make an item better than what you happened across in a chest.

As for those that want to be able to meld U/U items, they better be able to break. No risk, no reward. No one got to be the best by playing it safe.

Sidenote: Crafting is still the only thing that serves the needs of crafting/gathering jobs with the exception of the few new items that come in Hamlet defense.

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Originally Posted by Xikeroth

You clearly have no idea what you're talking about. Almost every player I see wearing materia gear has at least 3 materia melded onto it. Often 4, rarely 2...

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Pic's or it didnt happen.