I think it's safe to say that the accrual of Attachment Points to generate Materia will require multiple repairs' worth of effort with a tool or weapon.

After all, the concept is built on emotionally investing in a particular item over time- what better way is there to say "I Love You" to that special blade than to keep it in pristine and polished condition?

This is going to be great for crafters and repairs, but I wanted to make a few requests regarding how Materia, item durability and repairs work together.

1) Getting gear repaired by players should give you a worthwhile bonus to the generation of Attachment Points, preferably until your gear hits its first damage state.

2) Gear repaired by the NPC should still be able to accrue AP at the normal rate.

3) The stat penalties currently applied to damaged gear should be removed completely - instead, the penalty should be that damaged gear have slower AP gain rates, and critically-damaged gear gains no AP at all.

There are two main reasons I think #3 is especially essential.
1) Gear damage no longer has negative impacts on other players in your group.
3) It flips the psychology of gear repair around - instead of making players worry about avoiding penalties, players are excited to actively seek benefits.
Again, #3 is probably the most important thing for the big picture: right now, gear damage is a chore and burden on the game's core feature... multiplayer.