Why No Melds?

[Atoli]

*Looks at market board and sees grade 3 crit materia for 1000 gil*

You forgot a zero there. 10k. 80k for grade 4.
x 18 for all slots in 250. x18 for the tome gear. x18 for the tome gear after upgrading.

Man, I really wonder why people don't want to waste a bunch of money on something they don't need!
MUST be the laziness..

[FoxyAreku]

You forgot a zero there. 10k. 80k for grade 4.
x 18 for all slots in 250. x18 for the tome gear. x18 for the tome gear after upgrading.

Man, I really wonder why people don't want to waste a bunch of money on something they don't need!
MUST be the laziness..

10k is still pretty damn cheap. I don't know why you would play an RPG and not care about making your character as strong as you can.

I mean, this is like saying "Why would you buy Scripture gear or farm alex normal? You don't need it". Which is another true statement if you're not doing savage. It's just silly and lazy to leave these slots empty when you can easily rectify it. This game doesn't exactly have a lot of gil sinks to begin with.

Doesn't bother me either way though, I just love when people are like this, and then rage when they wipe on something like A12 normal at 5%.

[MomomiMomi]

I don't know why you would play an RPG and not care about making your character as strong as you can.

In single player RPGs I actually try to keep my character as weak as possible. I don't find them very fun otherwise. Most are way too easy.

[ToasterMan]

Materia prices depend on what server you're on. For instance, There's a lot more people who spirit bond on Balmung so prices are cheaper here. On a lesser populated server there are less spirit bonders so the prices are going to be higher. I'm curious to see what the prices of materia are on other servers.

[Claire_Pendragon]

10k is still pretty damn cheap. I don't know why you would play an RPG and not care about making your character as strong as you can.

its the equivalent of farming Lv1 mobs for months trying to get a level up, rather than doing what is more efficient with your time.
(which is dependent on what they have available for making gil.) if they run out of gil now, and cant make enough gil for the upgraded gear, they wasted time having to go out and farm more, when they could have just waited for the better gear.
Similar to RPGs who have cheap crap gear, and decent priced/decent gear u can get in a few kills, why waste the money, when u can go straight to the better stuff quicker if u dont waste the money? (Looking at Dragon Quest. After u buy the cheap gear, by the time u afford the expensive gear, you out leveled the boss, so its better to just buy the expensive stuff, to stay within level range, and not waste time on needless grinding)

[Atoli]

I don't know why you would play an RPG and not care about making your character as strong as you can.

Because I can? For example, I play Pokemon with the ones I find cute, which are almost always babies, never fully evolved ones.
I'm always amused by people who tell me "THEY ARE SUPPOSED TO EVOLVE, WHY DO YOU KEEP THEM WEAK ON PURPOSE?!"
I also try to beat most RPGs with the least amount of grind possible, and NEVER get to level 99 or whatever the max is of that particular game.
Because it is more fun/more of a challenge that way, and because I don't see any reason to spend time on getting any stronger than what I absolutely need to. If I can beat it on a very low level, why would I bother getting stronger than that?
Sounds like nothing but a waste of time to me

I mean, this is like saying "Why would you buy Scripture gear or farm alex normal? You don't need it".

Actually, I've said that on this very forum again and again. To be exact, to everyone who always comes here to complain about the weekly grind for tomes despite not raiding - if you don't enjoy the grind for grinding's sake, AND you don't NEED the gear for savage, just don't bother..^^
I know lots of people who do not care about capping tomes each week. I even know some who do not farm Alex NM at all (only did it once for the story).
They do just fine in normal content, and why wouldn't they, after all, SE makes it pretty clear what ilvl is required for which content..

I just love when people are like this, and then rage when they wipe on something like A12 normal at 5%.

Better gear than minimum ilvl has always been nothing but a safety net. It helps to deal with mess-ups, but if you do not mess up, it is not required at all (how common mess-ups are in pug groups is a different topic entirely, though).
My best friend cleared Sophia EX 10 lvl below minimum ilvl, no melds. So what does that make her?

I could get behind a stance of "I get stronger because it is a MMO, since that will make it easier on the other people I play with" but "I get stronger because it is an RPG"? Makes no sense to me at all.

[Fyce]

"I get stronger because it is an RPG"? Makes no sense to me at all.

This is how RPG work pretty much since pen&paper roleplaying games were invented. Telling your buddies around the table "no, I don't want this neat sword we found in that cave, I want to remain as weak as possible" is not something you hear in a regular basis during a game of D&D.

You are trying to make a rule out of an exception.

[Claire_Pendragon]

This is how RPG work pretty much since pen&paper roleplaying games were invented. Telling your buddies around the table "no, I don't want this neat sword we found in that cave, I want to remain as weak as possible" is not something you hear in a regular basis during a game of D&D.
You are trying to make a rule out of an exception.

Your example isnt comparable to her statement.
You're comparing getting something for free, or already in your possession, that has no penalty for use, to having to go out of your way, stop doing the content/adventure you want to do, or stop trying to get even BETTER gear/stronger, to work on a minor upgrade.
While I like doing every step along the way usually, these are 2 different things.

I'm pretty sure that's a made up statistic. You know every 30 points or so of crit is worth 1 weapon damage. Full melding gives over 120 additional crit. That's 4 points worth of weapon damage. Not melding at all is like using a i230 weapon instead of i250. It's a significant difference.

Also, world first statics manage to bypass gear/dps checks with pentamelded gear in the past, because secondaries you meld are not to be underestimated.

I'd say not melding is more a 6% dps loss rather than 1.5%. You're gimping yourself pretty hard and causing runs to go slower.

I as well noticed a rather massive difference in my threat generation when I came back in 3.3 getting all my gear melded.
As DRK and undergeared compared to everyone else, I would need to use my threat combo (against those with full melds) roughly 5-6 times to maintain it for weeping city boss fights.
Once I was fully melded, I only needed 2 enmity combos for 99% of runs, and a 3rd for the rare MNK/BLM who were really geared compared to me.

[MomomiMomi]

This is how RPG work pretty much since pen&paper roleplaying games were invented. Telling your buddies around the table "no, I don't want this neat sword we found in that cave, I want to remain as weak as possible" is not something you hear in a regular basis during a game of D&D.

Yet becoming stronger is not the focus of a pen and paper roleplaying game. So playing an RPG and not caring about making your character as strong as you can makes perfect sense.

There's a word for those players who do focus on that. It's a derogatory term, too.

[Fyce]

Yet becoming stronger is not the focus of a pen and paper roleplaying game. So playing an RPG and not caring about making your character as strong as you can makes perfect sense.

There's a word for those players who do focus on that. It's a derogatory term, too.

Who said it was "the focus"? I'm just saying it's a core concept of fantasy RPGs since... pretty much forever.
So, yeah. "Your character gains power because it's a RPG" is a completly valid statement. Saying that this idea "doesn't make sense at all" is completly absurd.

Your example isnt comparable to her statement.
You're comparing getting something for free, or already in your possession, that has no penalty for use, to having to go out of your way, stop doing the content/adventure you want to do, or stop trying to get even BETTER gear/stronger, to work on a minor upgrade.
While I like doing every step along the way usually, these are 2 different things.

This has absolutly nothing to do with what I said. I was specifically answering the very part I quoted, saying that yes, "RPG = character growth" more often that not.
If people don't understand that, then they have no idea what are fundations on which RPGs were built on to begin with.