Dropped Items and Materia

[Brannigan]

Set bonuses would be nice but they don't really solve any of the problems with the materia system, such as:

-Powerful materia and multi-melds making dropped/quested gear from real content unappealing
-Unmeldable gear that is strong enough to stand on its own making materia eventually fall out of use
-Powerful gear being obtained through luck and gil alone, with no need for the player to ever step outside of the city

For the materia system to really work ALL GEAR needs at least 1 meld enabled - no matter what color its name happens to be. This creates a standard set of stats (for example, Paladins will always have access to enmity on their belt and weapon regardless of what the actual stats on their equipment are) and allows for real customization options (in the case of a Warrior picking between enmity, parry, strength, etc. for their weapon).

Having U/U items act only as filler gear until you can manage to multi-meld a generic crafted piece is 100% backwards and completely ridiculous. At the same time, having the entire materia system act only as filler until you can get a good U/U item is a waste of a system and developer effort. What we have now is a system with good intentions (give max level players a reason to go grind via spiritbond and keep crafting somewhat useful by churning out generic gear) but really poor execution (Multi-melds producing insane gear via lottery, Gla/Con/Thm dropped weapons being useless in their main roles, unmeldable gear outside of a select few pieces being garbage, doesn't actually remove any gil from the system)


The other problems with the materia system like the overabundance of Mind III and Manathirst floating around can be dealt with in a number of ways. One idea I've seen tossed around is combining two of the same tier of materia to create one random higher tier materia. For example, you put a Mind III, a Parry III, and 500 gil into a goblin's machine and get a Dexterity IV. For two IVs you could just produce another IV, or maybe have them grind up into a crafting reagent or melding catalyst. Just whatever to get them filtering out of the game.

[Kiara]

Set bonuses would be nice but they don't really solve any of the problems with the materia system, such as:

-Powerful materia and multi-melds making dropped/quested gear from real content unappealing
-Unmeldable gear that is strong enough to stand on its own making materia eventually fall out of use
-Powerful gear being obtained through luck and gil alone, with no need for the player to ever step outside of the city

For the materia system to really work ALL GEAR needs at least 1 meld enabled - no matter what color its name happens to be. This creates a standard set of stats (for example, Paladins will always have access to enmity on their belt and weapon regardless of what the actual stats on their equipment are) and allows for real customization options (in the case of a Warrior picking between enmity, parry, strength, etc. for their weapon).

Having U/U items act only as filler gear until you can manage to multi-meld a generic crafted piece is 100% backwards and completely ridiculous. At the same time, having the entire materia system act only as filler until you can get a good U/U item is a waste of a system and developer effort. What we have now is a system with good intentions (give max level players a reason to go grind via spiritbond and keep crafting somewhat useful by churning out generic gear) but really poor execution (Multi-melds producing insane gear via lottery, Gla/Con/Thm dropped weapons being useless in their main roles, unmeldable gear outside of a select few pieces being garbage, doesn't actually remove any gil from the system)

Well said Brannigan.

Even with Set Bonuses, it would be very hard to compete with 1 regular, crafted piece of equipment that had ~2 - 3 Materia on there. That example you brought up with someone having a Cobalt Belt with 3 Materia (heck, even 2) is a great example of the problems endemic with the Materia System and Unique / Untradeable System the way it is now. As an example, what stats on the new Paladin Belt could top the example you showed us?

* Cobalt Plate Belt: DEF 28, VIT +2, DEX +1, MND +2, Enmity +24 (with 3 Materia Meld)

* Paladin Belt: (Example Only) DEF 30, VIT +5, HP Regen +2%

Sure we get a unique Trait / Bonus that can only be found on the Paladin Belt (HP Regen), but does that really make up for +24 Enmity?

If they make the Unique Bonus super great (e.g., let's say it's HP Regen +20% (extreme example)), then it invalidates the crafting side completely as well, and people will just go for the "Best in Slot" (now found as a Unique / Untradeable Artifact Armor piece).

The best way to "marry" the two systems (Materia System and Raid Drops that are Unique / Untradeable) is to allow Materia melding on the U/U items. You get the best of both worlds that way.

Or as others have mentioned, the old Open World NMs dropping a unique item to be crafted (so Crafters and Adventurers were involved (liked Dodore Doublet)) is a nice compromise as well.

I just fear what may happen in the next patch (1.21) if they don't do any changes to the systems: Either the Artifact Armor / JSE Sets for Jobs will be invalidated by the Crafted Materia pieces (making the AF for looks only), or the AF Armor is better than most 2 - 3 Materia Builds, which would invalidate the Crafted work (and upset Crafters). Or, they might provide situational pieces that are ~somewhat OK, but only in certain instances, but again, is that really a good solution with No Gear Swapping for combat?

[Brannigan]

Well I doubt we'll be seeing u/u gear be meldable before 2.0 but I really, really hope they do it. If they don't then gear will be boring (every paladin belt and weapon needing enmity, etc) or useless (like it is now!).

At this point I don't think they should be worried about upsetting crafters. Crafting basically controls the entire game and it'd be nice to have some stuff that doesn't completely rely on grinding a bad minigame.

[Zantetsuken]

... old Open World NMs dropping a unique item to be crafted (so Crafters and Adventurers were involved (liked Dodore Doublet)) is a nice compromise as well.

^ I'm all in favor of this. ^

DH, Ifrit, Moogles, etc.. should all drop materials for crafting uber items. And those items could be meldable (perhaps with a slot limit or larger risk)

This fix would help address the current drop rate issues (replace all weapon/totem drops with crafted items and you can have the item/weapon you want crafted) and it would make the endgame content much more popular.

Also, I wonder if the devs underestimated how quick and easy it is for ppl to make materia.

[Yelta_Sumasu]

^ I'm all in favor of this. ^

DH, Ifrit, Moogles, etc.. should all drop materials for crafting uber items. And those items could be meldable (perhaps with a slot limit or larger risk)

This fix would help address the current drop rate issues (replace all weapon/totem drops with crafted items and you can have the item/weapon you want crafted) and it would make the endgame content much more popular.

Also, I wonder if the devs underestimated how quick and easy it is for ppl to make materia.

While think that is a good system for the majority of items I still want a few things that you can only obtain if you earned it yourself. I don't want people having an Moogle weapon when they didn't even win the fight themselves.

[Zantetsuken]

While think that is a good system for the majority of items I still want a few things that you can only obtain if you earned it yourself. I don't want people having an Moogle weapon when they didn't even win the fight themselves.

Agreed.

A Player-Leve system would be ideal for this, as a player can contract their own crafting leve through an NPC - trading mats, leve reward, and insurance cost to the NPC to set up the leve.

A crafter can then browse and accept player leves in the same way they do normal ones - if the crafter fails, the player who created the leve won't lose the mats, but they do lose the insurance on the leve, if they succeed, the crafter gets the reward, and the leve creator gets the item.

It opens up a whole new world for crafting U/U materials and melding U/U items as well.

[Yelta_Sumasu]

Agreed.

A Player-Leve system would be ideal for this, as a player can contract their own crafting leve through an NPC - trading mats, leve reward, and insurance cost to the NPC to set up the leve.

A crafter can then browse and accept player leves in the same way they do normal ones - if the crafter fails, the player who created the leve won't lose the mats, but they do lose the insurance on the leve, if they succeed, the crafter gets the reward, and the leve creator gets the item.

It opens up a whole new world for crafting U/U materials and melding U/U items as well.

That is a truly sexy idea. I love it.

[Brannigan]

Agreed.

A Player-Leve system would be ideal for this, as a player can contract their own crafting leve through an NPC - trading mats, leve reward, and insurance cost to the NPC to set up the leve.

A crafter can then browse and accept player leves in the same way they do normal ones - if the crafter fails, the player who created the leve won't lose the mats, but they do lose the insurance on the leve, if they succeed, the crafter gets the reward, and the leve creator gets the item.

It opens up a whole new world for crafting U/U materials and melding U/U items as well.

Why not just have request-meld through bazaar?

[Chadwick]

Bazaar melding would be great. It would at least give SE the basis for melding u/u in the future if they decide to let us do so.

[Coglin]

While think that is a good system for the majority of items I still want a few things that you can only obtain if you earned it yourself. I don't want people having an Moogle weapon when they didn't even win the fight themselves.

Well then you can still make the items non-tradable. Similar to the way we did repair. Which is also, from what I understand how they are going to change the materia meld system to. You put your items up that are to be synthesised, in the repair/synth window. DoH then access it as they do now with the window to repair items. This allows them to creat items with rare materials, do melds, and not comprimise either party in situations were its possible to dupe, steal, or otherwise create bad situations.