Dunno about that. What we have now are IMO a huge relieve compared to the horror of previous version. Imagine back then after doing dozens of skirmish battles and finally gotten your own giantsgall weapon, then... for only 2nd meld, it shatters, and literally all of it, including the weapon. Now you must farm skirmish again to get it, and do the whole process again.

Or that pre-relic weapon like Astrolabe/Samga/etc which need to have it double melded to proceed to the next quest steps. Not only one of main material came from Hamlet, it only came from specific Hamlet region. And to make it worse, that Hamlet region need to gain at least silver rank to make the materials available for sale (bronze or lower will omit them from sale list), or gold to have 50% discount. Ppl used to hoard these and sell to market for crazy prices, and even so... the demand still quite high, making it could be unavailable for some time. And the cycle between Hamlet region are 1 or 1.5 day real time. And after all the struggle, you still have to make the weapon into HQ version which is what relic quest required. Then at the very last, you try your chance double melding them. It was quite emotional when the double meld fails, forcing ppl to start over again. Or worse, you could quit this maddening quest at all. XD

And the spiritbonding itself? I recall back then it was like twice the effort you need than we have on current version.

If you see someone strolling around with their pentameld, they could be considered a very special player. And I don't mean that lower tier crap either.

Now, in this version, you don't break your gear/weapon when your overmelding failed. And players have been given steady income in form of roulletes/challenge log/etc. Oh... and the relic quest? Now all pre-relic weps are double meld-free. I know majority didn't play 1.0, but for some of us who experience those horrors, this came as huuuuge relief. I break hundreds of materia and it doesn't really felt that hurt. lol

But then again, I do feel your pain if I think of ARR as my 1st MMO. ^^