Really starting to get discouraged from playing.

[KleeneOnigiri]

I also agree.

But not just this MMO, but MMOs and other games in general are being "dumb down" or simplified a lot.
You can individualize your character because you can choose stats for him! Nope, you just use one stat or "the best outcome" anyway.
You can have different gear to wear! Nope, BiS.
You can use materia to change your gear stats and play style! Nope, best gear doesn't even have materia slots...
But you can craft gear for yourself!... yeah.. well... no?

You could do so much stuff with materia alone, but materia almost completely useles...

[Seryl199]

I agree with op but sadly I feel this ff14 has come too far along to just change a system. Unless they add a whole new type of content

I don't necessarily want a radical change, but I did expect some of the formula to change with Heavensward. That's exactly what it's become, a formula. Nothing is changing from 2.X, they are offering a supply of fresh-coat-of-paint content alongside fresh-coat-of-paint gear, with a drip feed of content released patch to patch that's actually new. Add to the fact that a lot of 2.X content was invalidated by 3.0 and none of it was incentivized at all for the Heavensward player, and you just end up with a small pool of relevant content that offers fairly uninspiring rewards for an uninspired grind.

It's a double whammy of tired treadmilling conventions mixed with static formulas for level 60 content that makes it hard not to feel the repetition. I understand that there's more to come, but the state of the game right now, immediately following an expansion, has pushed me farther away from the game than I've ever been since starting two years ago.

[TheUltimate3]

<Snip>

My concern was more or less how to get said gear. Using WoD as an example, gear effects on gear that isn't Tier pieces had varying attributes. I could pick of Gauntlets of the Iron Berserker that did +Multistrike and then pick up another pair of Gauntlets of the Iron Beserker that had +Versatility. What ended up happening however was that most if not all those attributes were worthless or really just bad.

If anything I'd rather they expanded on the Materia system to be similar to other FF games. You can add Materia to gear, that gear gains additional stats or procs. Materia can't be removed but it can be replaced (To invent a materia market for more than just relics) and top raid gear has lets say 3 slots instead of 2 or something.

[RozaB]

A merit system would be awesome! I've seen that brought up a lot and even the newer "tweeked" system is XI is great!

Also I think if they are going to continue with the ilevel crap it should at least cap out for an entire expansion. Raise it with a new expansion and higher job levels, is fine. Not every 3 months I have to rebuild my entire character

[Shinsaki]

If anything I'd rather they expanded on the Materia system to be similar to other FF games. You can add Materia to gear, that gear gains additional stats or procs. Materia can't be removed but it can be replaced (To invent a materia market for more than just relics) and top raid gear has lets say 3 slots instead of 2 or something.

Great idea. Spot on.

[KeluBehemoth]

Really, even if you could add materia to gear there would still only be one way of doing it to optimize it, it would cost a crap ton of gil which would force you to make money (the only way is by leveling a crafter/gatherer and investing tons of money into that too). Not saying it wouldn't be a good option to add but it still wouldn't change things up much.

Specialized materia that boosted the effectiveness of traits would be the way to go I think.

Soul Devourer Materia - Increases Soul Devourer HP Drain effect by %2 of damage inflicted.

Enhanced Unmend Materia - Increases the proc chance of Enhanced Unmend by %5.



Coupling trait enhancing materia with stat enhancing materia would allow for a lot more variation.

[TheUltimate3]

SNIP

Better of two evils if the choice was between a good Materia System or dropping somewhere. And as Materia isn't actually that hard to gain access to (Spiritbonding groups existed in 2.0 I believe, or at least that would explain why I kept seeing lvl 50s running around in N Than) a market can be formed but it (logically) shouldn't be so soul crushing for the poor that it would count as a negative. Plus since Materia can be replaced, it's not like one would be punished for using whatever Materia they have at the time. Except for those resistant materia. Those should be replaced.

Also I think if they are going to continue with the ilevel crap it should at least cap out for an entire expansion. Raise it with a new expansion and higher job levels, is fine. Not every 3 months I have to rebuild my entire character

And really my only real issue with this that (as far as I can gather) iLvl by itself is just the budget an item has on stats. iLvl on it's own could probably just straight up be done away with but people need convenient gauge of where their characters are in terms of strength.

If iLvl was hidden and set at such a high level this budget wouldn't matter, then fantastic, so long as getting that gear remains somewhat the same as it is now. I see a lot of people stating they want gear to matter but don't want to keep running the same content, when I for the life of me can't think of any way to make gear hard to get without running the same content. Unless you add like a weekly lookout to it or whatever drops it. (Like Gauntlet of Halone's Judgement that comes a +10 Trait dropped from a mob that only spawns once every week)

[SoloWingMetatron]

The Materia system is a massively missed opportunity! Right now it's nothing more than a gimmick meant as a homage to FF7. All Green, Blue and Purple gear should have Materia slots by default. There should also be a much more comprehensive library of Materia types that offer way more than just simple stat increases like VIT or INT. Specialized Materia for one is a great idea, for example a caster job could meld an Auto-Refresh Materia to a robe, making it work similar to the Yinyang Robe from XI. Other specialized Materia could exist to add similar bonuses for other jobs. This would allow for a great level of customization that would also mean other gear sets could be customized as viable end game gear, rather than just the latest tome/raid set (Eso/Alexander).

[TheUltimate3]

I (personally) wouldn't go crazy and think multiple gear sets would be a thing. Just the materia and the slots on gear. Like Dungeon gear would have 1 Materia slots, Crafted, Law, Eso and Alexander NM would have 2, and AS would have 3.

[KeluBehemoth]

The Materia system is a massively missed opportunity! Right now it's nothing more than a gimmick meant as a homage to FF7. All Green, Blue and Purple gear should have Materia slots by default. There should also be a much more comprehensive library of Materia types that offer way more than just simple stat increases like VIT or INT. Specialized Materia for one is a great idea, for example a caster job could meld an Auto-Refresh Materia to a robe, making it work similar to the Yinyang Robe from XI. Other specialized Materia could exist to add similar bonuses for other jobs. This would allow for a great level of customization that would also mean other gear sets could be customized as viable end game gear, rather than just the latest tome/raid set (Eso/Alexander).

The more I discuss this the more I see that as you, myself and others have said... Materia and Specialized Materia would really solve about 3/4 of the problems I mentioned in the OP.

Thats a good point about the Auto Refresh Materia. It could be made to give say... 30MP/tick (Versus the 60MP/tick of the Bard/MCH?) and have it be canceled out by the BRD/MCH MP regen (So that it wouldn't stack and be over powered).

I think that adding Materia to equipment would probably be an easier route than designing and completely redesigning equipment. Save for say a few in the future that would have their own inherit effects built in.

This would probably keep gear relevant for longer without having to be constantly replaced due to increasing item levels or at the very least, if they added gear to raids with more materia slots over say tomes gear... it would make that old raid gear more viable than the new tomes gear for future content.

Speaking of all this... Why don't we have a Haste spell in game yet.


I personally always felt that tomes gear should only be meant as a way to catch up/begin entering content.

I almost want to start an official materia revamp petition thread now.