Dropped Items and Materia

[Jamester]

Because it is more difficult (time & gil) to get a tri-meld than getting Ifrit Battleaxe(s). And that tri-meld is inferior hence requires even more effort (time & gil) to surpass that battleaxe. From my experience, getting that fourth meld is much more difficult than getting the 7 ifrit weapons and I don't think I am lucky or unlucky in both case.

Relying on multi-melds to make materia worthwhile is stupid because it's a dumb gambling system with no player input at all.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...209#post447209

You don't have a craft level above 15. Keep your opinions about how materia requires no player input to yourself if you haven't try it by "your own."

If everything gets 1 then it keeps crafters in use.

There are people who leveled crafts in order to play a role in making the best gears in the game. I started out as DOW and cooperated with first generation crafters to make HNM or HQ items. That is how it keeps crafters in "use". Not repairing, melding materias with no risk and making intermediate gears to have pointless gils.

B) Future content drops actual good gear, killing off the materia system.
They're both bad choices, but if I had to choose between the two, I'd go with B since going and getting items with a group is a lot more interesting than playing the materia slot machine.

If you get a class level to R50 you would expect to have some part to play in end game, same applies to DOH/DOL. Currently, materia multi-melding allows that (excluding wrist flick). It helps to come up with suggestions before you keep calling a system retarded and trying to kill it without a replacement.

[Brannigan]

Because it is more difficult (time & gil) to get a tri-meld than getting Ifrit Battleaxe(s). And that tri-meld is inferior hence requires even more effort (time & gil) to surpass that battleaxe. From my experience, getting that fourth meld is much more difficult than getting the 7 ifrit weapons and I don't think I am lucky or unlucky in both case.


http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...209#post447209

You don't have a craft level above 15. Keep your opinions about how materia requires no player input to yourself if you haven't try it by "your own."

Hi,

Brainless grinding and feeding money into a slot machine is not difficult. Multi-melding requires no player input because once you gather the items there is nothing you can do to increase your chance of success. The idea that I couldn't know this because I haven't leveled a craft is laughable - it's a single button press. Ifrit and Moogle (and Darkhold for that matter) may not be extremely hard fights, but they require more player thought and coordination than AOEing down Natalan wolves and then pressing confirm on the meld menu.

I have no problem with items crafted from "HNM" (lol) drops being decent items - killing these mobs, easy as they are, actually requires players to form a small group now and go get them (unlike when a thm could solo most of them). They probably shouldn't be the best items, since they're from pretty simple fights, but whatever. A HQ Winglet shouldn't even approach being the best in the game - everything involving it takes common materials and runs them through a slot machine (RNG for HQ, RNG for materia attachment). Right now, however, it is! Ifrit and Moogle weapons have no tanking stats and their procs are negligible on bosses because of Gla's low autoattack damage. Materia gives tanking stats (enmity, vit, dex) and a single attachment can pull a winglet ahead of any dropped sword.

If a player wants to make great items because they leveled a craft to 50 then good for them. That doesn't mean that they should be able to make great items from common materials just because they can get lucky with the materia slot machine. Great items should require great materials - not great luck.

[NoctisUmbra]

Hi,

Brainless grinding and feeding money into a slot machine is not difficult. Multi-melding requires no player input because once you gather the items there is nothing you can do to increase your chance of success. The idea that I couldn't know this because I haven't leveled a craft is laughable - it's a single button press. Ifrit and Moogle (and Darkhold for that matter) may not be extremely hard fights, but they require more player thought and coordination than AOEing down Natalan wolves and then pressing confirm on the meld menu.

I have no problem with items crafted from "HNM" (lol) drops being decent items - killing these mobs, easy as they are, actually requires players to form a small group now and go get them (unlike when a thm could solo most of them). They probably shouldn't be the best items, since they're from pretty simple fights, but whatever. A HQ Winglet shouldn't even approach being the best in the game - everything involving it takes common materials and runs them through a slot machine (RNG for HQ, RNG for materia attachment).

If a player wants to make great items because they leveled a craft to 50 then good for them. That doesn't mean that they should be able to make great items from common materials just because they can get lucky with the materia slot machine. Great items should require great materials - not great luck.

Luck is a very important aspect of any RPG, especially MMORPGs. While I agree there should be a balance, I also feel like the fundamentals for that balance are in place.

If someone manages to get 5 tier IV materias onto a single weapon, I wouldn't mind at all if that weapon blew every content drop out of the water. It comes down to numbers. The probability of obtaining this result is microscopically low, regardless of the means in which it is achieved.

Dropped loot on the other hand of course deals with strategy and teamwork - aspects not directly present in melding. Due to this the drop rates on the gear based on their value is much more manageable. The probability of obtaining this epic drop loot is proportionally higher due to the process in which you get it not being based entirely on luck.

Let's take a LNC for example. The common weapon used for a LNC is the [item=4080407]Hart Guisarme[/item] or the [item=4080109]Champion's Lance[/item]. Comparing the stats on it to Ifrit's Harpoon one can conclude that the either of the crafted weapons would have to be melded with roughly 4 tier IV materias to surpass the damage dealing ability the Harpoon gives from its higher base damage, Attack Power +30 and the Additional Fire Damage effect proc. Comparing the % chance of obtaining both one can easily conclude the Harpoon is much more accessible - and rightfully so.

This same argument can be made for a number of classes at the moment, however as mentioned before we've only had 2 sets of weapons drop thus far and therefore some classes are yet to see a looted rare weapon that appeals to them so profoundly.

Although forbidden materia-melding is a process almost entirely based on luck, so long as the probabilities remain balanced with its potential, there is no problem. If anyone has an weapon melded with 5 tier IV materia, they earned it just as much as I earned my Ifrit's Harpoon that I got on my second kill while a comrade of mine got it on their 100th.

[Jamester]

>> Brannigan

Multi-melding requires no player input because once you gather the items there is nothing you can do to increase your chance of success.

Actually you can, at least by altering combinations. There are several other ways people do to increase their success rate tho. It varies from people to people and not really proven...XD

So can you affect primal weapons drop rate? Not being able to affect the drop rate = "requires no player input"?

Gathering items is not easy as you make it sound to be. Say a tri-meld is 1 in 100. You have to prepare the materials, craft the bloody items (you can botch some if you just standard all the time), get materia & catalysts. Requires time & inventory management = Player Input. Materia system does have process like primal fights, just more effort consuming & less dynamic. And unfortunately, its the only end game for people who spend time on crafting now.

The idea that I couldn't know this because I haven't leveled a craft is laughable - it's a single button press.

You will be surprised by what some people spend a lot of time on materia do before they press that single button.
It is laughable because you are calling something retarded before you even try it yourself. In fact, you are so far off from been able to even try it.

If a player wants to make great items because they leveled a craft to 50 then good for them. That doesn't mean that they should be able to make great items from common materials just because they can get lucky with the materia slot machine. Great items should require great materials - not great luck.

Underpowered primal weapons aside, how many good tri or fourth melds that surpasses primal weapons have you seen on the street? And compare it with how many people with Ifrit weapons and how many each have now. It is not great luck that get people to have multiple good melds, it is dedication/obsession.

Right now there is no primal weapons for tanking. I would love to have tanking primal axes as well. Like Noctis said, primal weapons are thematic. You just have to wait and bear with them in the meanwhile.

[Brannigan]

So can you affect primal weapons drop rate? Not being able to affect the drop rate = "requires no player input"?

Your drop rate is 0 if you can't win the fight. Once you're ready to attach a 15 str and 20 str materia to a set of gloves you have nothing to do with the success rate of your meld. To put it another way, you can be a good damage dealer or tank or healer or whatever - you can't be a "good" melder.

This post from a while back pretty much sums up this whole problem with materia'd crafted stuff being the best

Turning a zillion cheap linen 40+ armor pieces into materia every 20 minutes in a party of 8 getting 280k SP an hour AOE nuking wolves on THM and then putting those materia into a slot machine on crafted items to achieve the best gear in the game is not a fun endgame. It is however, the most efficient thing a hardcore LS can do to gear themselves. This is an issue. After a while, people are going to give up logging in every day, if all they have to look forward to is slaughtering wolves and crafting items. We need to be able to attach to U/U, so there's a reason to go get U/U, to increase the variety of worthwhile things to do in this game.

And, once again, the problem with items like Ifrit's Battleaxe being unmeldable is that UPGRADES from that weapon will likely also be unmeldable, meaning that someone with an Ifrit axe can completely ignore marauder weapon materia. This is called a waste of a system.


Forbidden/Multi-melding is such a Korean grind MMO idea and doesn't really feel like it should fit. All it rewards is the person with the most time to go out and do a tedious, brainless task over and over again.

[Jamester]

>>Chadwick

The focus is of course on battle classes and again and again, I am more than happy if SE gives more incentive for people to do contents via making materia multi-melding available & underpowered primal weapons stronger. But before any end game content is up for DOH. I am against melding of primal weapons.

Sure, why not award players with very good combat skills with best weapons? Afterall they know their battle class better than others. And why players that have been making weaps/equips from early levels can't participate in making the best weapons in the game too? They know how to make good weaps/equips better than others.

Owning an Electrum Scepter with 3 Hell's Eye IV materia on it shows... you had a lot of gil, time, and luck.

Luck aside, why a player who likes a certain piece of gear, got that piece of gear stronger than primal gears by spends lots of gils & time, sounds not like an achievement from you?

You can argue the semantics of "player-input" and "difficulty" all you want, but the fact remains that a player's ability to effectively play his or her combat class is meaningless in the current materia system.

I am not here to downplay battle classes significance or overstating DOH's inputs. That is why I agree with making darkhold/stronghold gears meldable and making underpowered primal weapons stronger in the first place.

And certainly a system that invalidates gear dropped from the hardest fights would be "the worst".

I have stated many times materia system need some change via allow more melding & stats change. Never support everything of the current system and it is far from optimal. A system that making a Disciple redundant also not the best. Anyway, like what you said Yoshi might already have a plan to address our concerns.

[Chadwick]

Luck aside, why a player who likes a certain piece of gear, got that piece of gear stronger than primal gears by spends lots of gils & time, sounds not like an achievement from you?

I agree that it is an "achievement" in the same sense that crafting 3000 times is an achievement. It's a milestone of time and effort, but not of skill. I just feel that killing bosses is a better achievement and thus should be more rewarding than grinding out simple materia and mass producing items.

When did I say anything about battle?

I believe Brannigan's point is that while RNG is at play in both loot drops and melding, player skill is completely absent from the latter. They are both "slot machines", but materia is nothing but a slot machine, while a battle is so much more.