[dev1017] Materia crafting system & Materia: A Matter of Mystery (08/26/2011)

[Jamison]

I've seen a lot of people questioning the decision the devs made to lose the base item if the attempt to slot 2+ materia fails.

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A very well written post, something not often seen around here.

My only problem with a system where the base material is lost on failure is the drama and hurt feelings it can create within linkshells. It takes a lot of responsibility on the part of the players to not recklessly try to socket a rare item and lose it.

I dread the future arguments over one player wanting their 4th or 5th item (be it full weapon or weapon part, however the system plays out) while another member of the linshell wants their 1st. There will be situations where both players feel entitled to the item and will strongly resent someone else receiving it.

Add to that the potential for people to want multiples of item X because the materia it becomes is valuable, and I fear a system that's too much a grind (and a grind for the linkshell as a whole, at that) in getting so many of these drops.

I hope that the system they develop has safeguards in place to prevent this from happening.

[Amineri]

A very well written post, something not often seen around here.

My only problem with a system where the base material is lost on failure is the drama and hurt feelings it can create within linkshells. It takes a lot of responsibility on the part of the players to not recklessly try to socket a rare item and lose it.

I dread the future arguments over one player wanting their 4th or 5th item (be it full weapon or weapon part, however the system plays out) while another member of the linshell wants their 1st. There will be situations where both players feel entitled to the item and will strongly resent someone else receiving it.

Add to that the potential for people to want multiples of item X because the materia it becomes is valuable, and I fear a system that's too much a grind (and a grind for the linkshell as a whole, at that) in getting so many of these drops.

I hope that the system they develop has safeguards in place to prevent this from happening.

I do figure that there will be drama over items, but it's kind of unavoidable. If there are items that people actually want, and it's not so easy to get that everyone easily gets them, then there will be drama.

The only way to prevent it is to not have any difficult-to-obtain or desirable items, I guess.

That said, I hope that SE throws up a lot of splash warning screens clearly letting people know that everything may be destroyed.

[Jamison]

I have to disagree that losing the base item is a good thing for a system like this.

You want there to be progression, and you want there to be challenge, but you also need it to be fair. It does the game no good whatsoever to try and avoid a grind when it comes to SP, only to have excessive grind in slotting weapons and armor. A lot of time and work will go in to the best items in the game, but you also need at least some aspects of it to not continue ad infinitum... and that's where the base item should not be destroyed.

There's already going to be plenty of time and work involved in getting 5 good materia that you want to slot. And supposing you've done all that, only down the road to get 1 materia that's even better yet, and now you want to try to reslot everything again. If the item is not lost in the attempt, then this is just a personal quest that involves your time and gil, but does not put undue imposition on the rest of the linkshell.

That's going to be work enough in and of itself. There's nothing wrong with being able to reach a goal – a good HQ weapon – and being able to rest comfortably knowing that that reward cannot be taken from you. This is doubly true if the game still has being “casual friendly” as one of its goals.

There's no good and fair way to have a system where the work of a linkshell can be completely lost so easily. It will lead to more hurt feelings and an atmosphere of discontent. That only makes a game more frustrating and less fun. Being forced completely back to square one is just too harsh a penalty with no significant advantages. Watching someone else in the LS get an item you want is sometimes a hard pill that needs swallowed. Having them potentially lose that item is unnecessary.

[Amineri]

I've been continuing to think about this system off and on during the day. Hopefully people won't be thinking of me as "white knighting" for SE on this issue. I'm actually rather on the fence, and am trying to understand the rationale behind it. I'm totally sure that I will be raging personally the first time that I try and multi-materia an expensive item and lose it! Maybe my title here should be "Devil's Advocate"... Anyhow, on to the discussion!

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I've seen a lot of discussion about people not liking the thought of losing items. I personally think that this is perfectly valid. If a player puts in a lot of time acquiring something in-game, to have that accomplishment taken away is very disheartening. I believe that this is why there is no SP/XP loss in the game. Pretty much everything boils down to "time spent to acquire <X>". Time spent to acquire SP to gain another rank. Time spent to acquire Guild Marks to acquire ability <X>. Time spend running through dungeon to acquire item <X>, etc.

Having said that losing things is not fun, there is a distinction between being unable to avoid losing items, and item-loss that is 100% avoidable.

Example: losing SP/XP on character death is not 100% avoidable. A battle character must go out into the world and fight, must take on the risk of dying in order to have any realistic chance to progress. This is simply the nature of playing the game. So, taking away SP/XP on character death is not perfectly under the players' control. Bad luck (happen to miss 4 times in a row), technical failure (forced disconnection from the game), as well as other situations all conspire to prevent player death from being 100% avoidable. Hence, losing SP/XP on character death was NOT added to the game.

Example: losing an item to convert it to materia IS 100% avoidable. As presented, at no time will the game system force a player to convert an item into materia. The item can gain 100% attachment, but it is purely under the players' control whether to lose the item and receive a materia in exchange. The item can be kept and continued being used, or sold/traded away. In this case, there is a very clear and direct connection between what is lost and what is gained. An item is lost (100% certain) and a materia is gained (100% certain). The value of the materia received, however, is not certain. However, the choice to lose the original item is 100% controlable by the player.

The Forbidden Ritual: now for the crux of the matter. In a literal sense, the choice as to whether to lose an HQ item when attempting to multi-slot it with materia is 100% controllable. That is, the activity that can cause the player to lose the item is not required as a part of game play. In order to lose an item in this manner, the following steps must be taken : (1) crafter must undertake a specific quest in order to obtain a key item that will allow for the possible destruction of an item, (2) said crafter must then attempt to attach a 2nd (or more) materia to an item. This means that this item loss is 100% avoidable. Simply by slotting only a single materia, the item in question will never be lost.

Now, if there is content introduced that cannot be beaten without multi-slotted gear, then the chance of item loss changes from "optional" to required. This is something that the SE development team will hopefully be keeping in the back of their minds when scaling the difficulty of new content. As more and more content is scaled in difficulty according to "players with multi-slotted gear", the loss of items in this manner become more and more "unavoidable". As long as multi-materia gear remains an optional luxury, however, the system is 100% avoidable.

Gambling: one can liken the multi-materia loss system to a gambling / lottery type system. If the Golden Saucer had a daily lottery, in which each player in the lottery had to stake up a valuable item, and only one person could win the prize, it would mechanically work a lot like the Forbidden Ritual. Put up a valuable item as stake, knowing that if you lose, the item will be lost. Gamble and hope that you win, and get a more valuable item as a reward.

At heart, the Forbidden Ritual system is a gambling system. You gamble an existing item in the hopes of getting a better item. At this point it gets down to the risk vs reward, which each player has to assess for herself. Is the reward of getting a 4 slotted HQ item worth the risk of losing a 3 slotted HQ item? For most player, in most situations, probably not. However, the situation is completely 100% avoidable -- until that 4 slotted HQ item is required in order to beat content.

Finally, there are two parts to the concept of "4 slotted HQ item is required to beat content". There is the side that is controlled by the developers, where they develop content and adjust the difficulty. However, there is also the side that consists of the expectations of the playerbase. If parts of the community begin to 'expect' players to have gear that requires risking item loss, tremendous peer pressure can come to bear, changing the balance entirely. This can change a "fun and optional gambling system" into a "painful and frustrating chance-based grind."

[Amsai]

I like the idea of the materia system overall, but I also think the loss of your current progress with a piece of gear is too harsh. Though I am ok with the rareity/gambling aspect of trying to max out materia slots. It should not be easy, but should not be overly punishing. Find a proper ballance SE.

That being said find a proper ballance between crafted and NM/dungeon drops should also be important. I definately feel that we should have a choice between progressing via materia or NM/dungeon drops. Some of us dont like crafting and would prefer as little involvement with it as possible. Today it was said that the game will become heavily instanced. I expect that to provide great non-crafted gear that is every bit as relevant as maxed materia crafted gear. NM/dungeon drops being nothing but rare crafting mats would just be insulting to me. All I am saying is that either the two systems of gear aquisition should be at the very least equal, if not be good in their own ways with trade-offs.

My suggestions:
1. Materia system for classes and NM/dungeons being primarily(not exclusively) dropped U/U job specific gear.
2. Materia system being for improving with base stats only(str+5) and
NM/dungeon drops being U/U gear that have some base stats but are primarily provide enhancements to class/jobs skills and traits(haste+5 or ws acc +5 or fastcast+5).

[Reinheart]

I have no problem with materia + equipment getting lost for advanced materia craft. Only problem I have is if it's possible to attach materia onto the ex/rare gear, if the devs are going to make it possible where you can obtain more than one of the ex/rare gear at same time.

Like say 1st materia is 100% anyways so I have regular gear without materia + same gear with materia attached, that way when I attempt the 2nd-5th materia attachment on the gear and the craft fails I don't have to go out and get the gear again. Either way I will spend time getting the 2nd ex/rare gear but would like to wear the same gear right away instead of buying another temporary gear, or going naked to get the 2nd+ ex/rare gear for replacement if materia craft fails. (I don't mind going naked really... as long as I have my subligar I'm fine... but just saying)

[Jamison]

I can potentially get on board with losing a base item if all content can be cleared without gear that is slotted more than once. As several people have said, balance is the key on this one. If 3/4/5 slotted gear becomes required this is a game that will quickly become not fun to play. (I've actually got a good deal of faith in the current dev team in that regards).

I'm also quite surprised that gear can be slotted up to 5 times. It will be interesting to see how powerful the materia will be. Any useful stat (say, STR+3) can potentially be 5 times that (STR+15) which seems like that could be too significant a statistical difference.

[Perrin_Aybarra]

I can potentially get on board with losing a base item if all content can be cleared without gear that is slotted more than once. As several people have said, balance is the key on this one. If 3/4/5 slotted gear becomes required this is a game that will quickly become not fun to play. (I've actually got a good deal of faith in the current dev team in that regards).

I'm also quite surprised that gear can be slotted up to 5 times. It will be interesting to see how powerful the materia will be. Any useful stat (say, STR+3) can potentially be 5 times that (STR+15) which seems like that could be too significant a statistical difference.

yeah except that they said that the value of stats will be less as you level up. +15 str for a level 50 might be peanuts compared to say +5 str to a level 10. So it will come down, like you said, of how powerful the materia will be compared to the actual value of stats.

[DNO]

I think the point you're missing Verence is that slotting more materia is completely optional. If you want to take the safe route then slot one, maybe two materia. If you want to gamble on that truly amazing piece of gear, go for all five. I don't think most people are going to fault someone for not having five materia slotted in all their endgame equipment.

There are people who are okay with a little enhancement, people like me who don't care about HQ stuff as it is these days.

Then there are people who are obsessed with having THE best gear ever. Those will be the ones gambling for that five-slotted gear.

dude can you please stop. Everything is optional. I can go into a raid at rank 45 but will my LS take me? no. i do not have to wear rank 50 gear but is that wise? no. i can use a rank 1 weapon on my rank 50 MRD but is that wise? no.

We understand its optional but soon to do hard end game stuff people are gonna want the most pimped out people. thats how the game works if you ever played a real end game.

Everyone wants the best stuff. Most do not mind a hard road getting there but a HQ item completely lost is pretty stupid.

[DNO]

yeah except that they said that the value of stats will be less as you level up. +15 str for a level 50 might be peanuts compared to say +5 str to a level 10. So it will come down, like you said, of how powerful the materia will be compared to the actual value of stats.

Yup another good point.