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

[Sidney]

snip

Look, those who work hard for their gear should be rewarded accordingly. That's the point of having content. People saying that well everyone will be wearing the same gear is bulls*ht. First, not everyone is good enough to put forth the effort to actually attach 5 materia to a piece of gear, and I believe there has to be effort if you want the best gear. Right now what they stated is: run dungeon, bypass content, open chests and you will have the best gear... Which is beyond ridiculous. I might as well throw all my crafted gear away.(which I'm not, but I could)

Not everyone is equal and they shouldn't make it as such. Those with more skill should have the best. Just like any other mmo out there. That is not a hard concept. It has nothing to do with being a casual or hardcore, because let's be honest I've seen some hardcore noobs in my day and I consider myself a casual player.

There is absolutely no skill in grinding dungeons, opening chests, and hoping for a rare drop. Sorry... If you have all 50's and you have the right abilities, you're set. Next is just a matter of luck. Yoshi this isn't the first time that I definitely do agree with your direction and I believe it will enhance the game for the more skilled players that like earning their gear through content and not sitting around in some dungeon auto-attacking and spamming weaponskills on the controller/keyboard.

Look! It works both ways!

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You are entitled to your opinion, and I respect that. I just couldn't resist. Sorry.

I agree with the first two sentences of your original post.

"Look, those who work hard for their gear should be rewarded accordingly. That's the point of having content."

Though, running dungeons and attaching materia aren’t all that different in my opinion.

Repeated dungeon runs looking for a particular drop from a boss or chest = grind
Crafting a bunch of gear, making materia, attaching it for success or fail = grind

Getting the super-rare drop loot from said boss/chest = luck
Successfully attaching 2-5 materia to a single item = luck

In both cases, having all 50s (in corresponding classes) with the right set of abilities greatly reduces the difficulty of completing objectives towards the goal, but has no effect on the final outcome which is ultimately luck based.

Personally, I would consider the crafting route to be the harder of the two. The chance for substantial loss is very real when attempting multi-materia attachments. If it is anything like the upgrade systems used in other games, where a failure results in destruction of the item, the investment required to successfully create a 4-5 materia item with be massive. Not only in terms of time but also resources and the skill required to successfully gather, manage, and utilize those resources.

In the future we will probably see dungeons dropping materials for crafted items. Grinding in a dungeon will still raise Spirit Bond towards materia creation. If the devs decide to allow Rare/Ex gear to be materialized (with no bonus to outcome) as is being considered, there will be a very good reason to run dungeon content repeatedly.

The whole system is still unreleased, and seems like it will have a lot of potential for substantial depth and customization. I doubt it will make anything existing completely obsolete. More options is better than less options. Customized crafted gear for elemental/abnormal status resistance seems like a decent use for the system and would help with the dungeon crawling end of things.

I'll be taking a wait and see approach myself.

[DGMart]

Look, those who work hard for their gear should be rewarded accordingly. That's the point of having content. People saying that well everyone will be wearing the same gear is bulls*ht. First, not everyone is good enough to put forth the effort to actually attach 5 materia to a piece of gear, and I believe there has to be effort if you want the best gear. Right now what they stated is: run dungeon, bypass content, open chests and you will have the best gear... Which is beyond ridiculous. I might as well throw all my crafted gear away.(which I'm not, but I could)

Not everyone is equal and they shouldn't make it as such. Those with more skill should have the best. Just like any other mmo out there. That is not a hard concept. It has nothing to do with being a casual or hardcore, because let's be honest I've seen some hardcore noobs in my day and I consider myself a casual player.

There is absolutely no skill in grinding dungeons, opening chests, and hoping for a rare drop. Sorry... If you have all 50's and you have the right abilities, you're set. Next is just a matter of luck. Yoshi this isn't the first time that I definitely do agree with your direction and I believe it will enhance the game for the more skilled players that like earning their gear through content and not sitting around in some dungeon auto-attacking and spamming weaponskills on the controller/keyboard.

Look! It works both ways!

-----

You are entitled to your opinion, and I respect that. I just couldn't resist. Sorry.

I agree with the first two sentences of your original post.

"Look, those who work hard for their gear should be rewarded accordingly. That's the point of having content."

Though, running dungeons and attaching materia aren’t all that different in my opinion.

Repeated dungeon runs looking for a particular drop from a boss or chest = grind
Crafting a bunch of gear, making materia, attaching it for success or fail = grind

Getting the super-rare drop loot from said boss/chest = luck
Successfully attaching 2-5 materia to a single item = luck

In both cases, having all 50s (in corresponding classes) with the right set of abilities greatly reduces the difficulty of completing objectives towards the goal, but has no effect on the final outcome which is ultimately luck based.

Personally, I would consider the crafting route to be the harder of the two. The chance for substantial loss is very real when attempting multi-materia attachments. If it is anything like the upgrade systems used in other games, where a failure results in destruction of the item, the investment required to successfully create a 4-5 materia item with be massive. Not only in terms of time but also resources and the skill required to successfully gather, manage, and utilize those resources.

In the future we will probably see dungeons dropping materials for crafted items. Grinding in a dungeon will still raise Spirit Bond towards materia creation. If the devs decide to allow Rare/Ex gear to be materialized (with no bonus to outcome) as is being considered, there will be a very good reason to run dungeon content repeatedly.

The whole system is still unreleased, and seems like it will have a lot of potential for substantial depth and customization. I doubt it will make anything existing completely obsolete. More options is better than less options. Customized crafted gear for elemental/abnormal status resistance seems like a decent use for the system and would help with the dungeon crawling end of things.

I'll be taking a wait and see approach myself.

Let's be honest with each other here, crafting, gathering, and doing exp pts is not difficult. Doing raids, NM's, etc is more difficult. I'll be damned if some guy that purchases Gil buys all his epic loots off the wards. So to fix this problem they either need to give a boost to NM, Dungeon gear or give them slots for materia. I don't know about your server but RMT can't do dungeons, NM's yet. Which is why they should allow materia for rare/exc gear. I agree that rare/exc shouldn't turn into materia though.

I realize it's not finalized yet but it's close enough. They got 1 week. So I doubt many things will change. This will be the first time I've been disappointed with a new system if it stays the way it was stated. But that's just my feelings on it.

[Raagnar]

Let's be honest with each other here, crafting, gathering, and doing exp pts is not difficult. Doing raids, NM's, etc is more difficult. I'll be damned if some guy that purchases Gil buys all his epic loots off the wards. So to fix this problem they either need to give a boost to NM, Dungeon gear or give them slots for materia. I don't know about your server but RMT can't do dungeons, NM's yet. Which is why they should allow materia for rare/exc gear. I agree that rare/exc shouldn't turn into materia though.

I realize it's not finalized yet but it's close enough. They got 1 week. So I doubt many things will change. This will be the first time I've been disappointed with a new system if it stays the way it was stated. But that's just my feelings on it.

so you would rather be forced to lvl crafts AND do raids for the best gear? to slot R/E gear you would have to lvl the craft yourself. This system is supposed to be about compromise. Not everyone likes repeating the same shitty raid with random groups. Your gear will be good, and so will mine, and i dont have to do the same thing as you.

[DGMart]

so you would rather be forced to lvl crafts AND do raids for the best gear? to slot R/E gear you would have to lvl the craft yourself. This system is supposed to be about compromise. Not everyone likes repeating the same shitty raid with random groups. Your gear will be good, and so will mine, and i dont have to do the same thing as you.

That's not what I said at all. Please read my two posts. There shouldn't be a compromise at all. This game is a mmo not a solo rpg. Crafting is a solo activity. People who craft all day everyday that dont participate in any kind of Dow/Dom are no better than rmt IMO. Now if they added activities that involve gathering crafting and Dow/Dom like guildwars 2 then that's another story. If you want to make things fair like you suggested then all gear should be able to add material to it. Everyone knows that some HQ gear is already better than to NM Dungeon gear so why even have dungeons in the first place? All I'm asking for is make stats of gear worth it from NM's if we are not allowed to add material or let us add material to already mediocre dungeon gear. I don't see what's so hard to understand about that.

[akumutensai]

That's not what I said at all. Please read my two posts. There shouldn't be a compromise at all. This game is a mmo not a solo rpg. Crafting is a solo activity. People who craft all day everyday that dont participate in any kind of Dow/Dom are no better than rmt IMO. Now if they added activities that involve gathering crafting and Dow/Dom like guildwars 2 then that's another story. If you want to make things fair like you suggested then all gear should be able to add material to it. Everyone knows that some HQ gear is already better than to NM Dungeon gear so why even have dungeons in the first place? All I'm asking for is make stats of gear worth it from NM's if we are not allowed to add material or let us add material to already mediocre dungeon gear. I don't see what's so hard to understand about that.

It's a good point if I understand correctly. You are concerned that since anyone can buy/sell gear with materia, people buying gil or making mad loot from craftin/gathering are going to have best gear. Which will encourage rmt and discourage people from doing raids for weaker gear. i think thats what you mean? so you suggest that Ra/ex gear be capable of attaching materia. i dont see what the big deal is about that, but i think HQ forbidden would still be stronger thus making your suggestion worthless unless they balance HQ gear to be weaker than raid gear

edit: but then i guess you suggested that at the end. i think simply that you should not be able to obtain the best gear in the game from your wallet. you should have to earn it.

[DGMart]

It's a good point if I understand correctly. You are concerned that since anyone can buy/sell gear with materia, people buying gil or making mad loot from craftin/gathering are going to have best gear. Which will encourage rmt and discourage people from doing raids for weaker gear. i think thats what you mean? so you suggest that Ra/ex gear be capable of attaching materia. i dont see what the big deal is about that, but i think HQ forbidden would still be stronger thus making your suggestion worthless unless they balance HQ gear to be weaker than raid gear

edit: but then i guess you suggested that at the end. i think simply that you should not be able to obtain the best gear in the game from your wallet. you should have to earn it.

Exactly, now we are on the same track... I mean if you want to risk putting materia on rare/exc gear that should be your choice. If it breaks it breaks, that's something you'll have to live with. But at least give us the option to do so.