Materia: the new Armory System

[Jinko]

Jinko, I'm going to stop you right there. I don't see any reason whotsoever why Yoshida and the dev team cannot make U/U gear Meldable. If melding is done in a like fashion as repairs, other players could meld materia from your inventory that you choose onto an item that you've chosen, reap a reward, and no change of hands would need to be made. All SE would have to do is put certain restrictions on these U/U gears. For ex: Green Gear can be melded up to 4x Maximum, Blue Gear up to 3x Maximum, Future Orange Gear up to 2x Maximum, Future Purple Gear only 1x Maximum - given that the base stats on these gears are equivalent to single/multi melded gear.

This generates an incentive for these gears, as well as replay value since people will undoubtedly break many of these in the process of melding (except Purple which should be so hard to obtain that breaking it on single meld would be ludicrous). I don't understand why this would be so hard to implement. Sure it would require looking over each U/U piece o gear individual, but this isn't hard at all considering there aren't thaaaat many.

Well he said they are looking into a interface so players can meld their items through the bazaar.

This doesn't change the fact whether he will allow U/U gear to be meld-able and of course you could only have 1 materia without the risk of losing the item. (I doubt many would be happy losing their Ifrit and Mog weapons through some random stranger failing a meld)#

That being said I will never like the materia system as it is, as I said it would have been better as a socketing system similar to FFVII or something like WoW's gemming.

I posted this in another thread instead of going materia route with U/U gear they should use raw mats from dungeons where equipment dropped from to upgrade it.



One more example to show an upgrade. Blade dancer boots upgrade from Lv. 3 to 4 you would need 5 Batraal Skins (think i spelled that right) and 1 Batraal horn and 6 batraal wings to make the upgrade.

Nice idea Firon, that would be the best solution I have seen so far.
Would the process be through an NPC with 100% success or through crafters with a chance of failure ?

Personally I would prefer the former.

[Coglin]

Jinko, I'm going to stop you right there. I don't see any reason whotsoever why Yoshida and the dev team cannot make U/U gear Meldable.

Hey, I am with you on this one. I have never understood why they didn't make u/u gear meldable from the begining. But I fore see the dev team being highly resistant to this one.

[Roaran]

That being said I will never like the materia system as it is, as I said it would have been better as a socketing system similar to FFVII or something like WoW's gemming.

The materia system was implemented in order to keep crafters viable. If there weren't people trying to meld gear right now, there would be hardly any one buying gear.

The conversion of gear into other things and the subsequent destruction of gear and materia keeps the demand of crafted gear pretty high.

On the materia system as it is right now, I think SE slipped up on exactly how beneficial the gear is when you compare the costs. You would have more people attempting melds and destroying more gear if the costs or benefits were adjusted to be closer together.

__________

As for unique untradeable gear... Right now there are two cases. Some U/U gear are superior to crafted and melded gear, while some crafted and melded gear are superior to the U/U gear. All you can say definitively about the system is, at any time one can be better than the other.

Now the community and the development team need to collectively decide, which accomplishment do we value more - The accumulation of gil and overcoming of chance; or, the engaging and defeating of challenging encounters and foes. Whichever we see as a greater accomplishment, there should lie the best rewards.

It doesn't really matter whether the best accomplishment is crafted gear with materia or the U/U gear; but, it does matter that the rewards are tuned to the challenge.

[Zantetsuken]

Well he said they are looking into a interface so players can meld their items through the bazaar.

This doesn't change the fact whether he will allow U/U gear to be meld-able and of course you could only have 1 materia without the risk of losing the item. (I doubt many would be happy losing their Ifrit and Mog weapons through some random stranger failing a meld)#

Something that those calling for U/U melds seem to forget.

Melding success rate is based on DoH level. You can't imagine the drama that will erupt when crafters who have just hit the threshold decide to go out and play the odds by attempting every forbidden meld bazaar option available.

Players who have lost multiple Tier IV materia and their Mog/Ifrit Weapon to a random desperate crafter will be out for blood.

Unless you want to limit U/U to one meld, which won't solve the problem btw.


No, the best suggestion is to make Blue U/U items upgradable (as Firon and others have proposed), make Green U/U items into rare mats that can be crafted into U/U items and melded via a player created leve (craft request) system , and keep normal crafted items the way they are now.

[Jinko]

Roaran I don't why you are bring up relevance of crafting.

If they allowed a system like FFVII where each piece of equipment had unique slots then crafters could still attach items to gear, gear could still be converted to materia, gatherers would still need to farm catalyst.

This way you could have many different situations.

White item
NQ 4 maximum slots
HQ 5 maximum slots

Green Item
3 maximum slots

Blue Item
2 Maximum slots

Orange or Purple
1 Maximum slot

There would be no need for failure to attach materia as the slots would limit you to how many pieces you could put on an item.

All that would be left would be to balance the stats.

Edit, so gear scale up as follows:-
White NQ > Green > White HQ > Blue > Orange/Purple

[Matsume]

Well he said they are looking into a interface so players can meld their items through the bazaar.

This doesn't change the fact whether he will allow U/U gear to be meld-able and of course you could only have 1 materia without the risk of losing the item. (I doubt many would be happy losing their Ifrit and Mog weapons through some random stranger failing a meld)#

Well sure, no one would like to see their ifrit weapon blown to bits, but alas where there is great reward lies great risk.

Alternatively, Firon's Idea could be applied just as well. Instead of making Ifrit or moogle weapons meldable, just make these Priaml fights drop raw materials used to upgrade the item via a synthesis action or a Rowen like npc. This idea has been tossed around in an other thread discussing the likelyhood that Ifrit Super Hard Mode will reward you with a way in which you could upgrade your T1 Ifrit Wep into a super T2 Ifrit weapon, rather than just tossing it aside for an entirely new item.

But, there is a limitation to this concept. It would be difficult to apply this to the lesser NM's U/U Green items unless you make these NMs drop the necessary materials to upgrade the gear they themselves drop. So, would you then make this material required to upgrade Unrtadeable but not Unique? (considering youneed more than one, in the batraal example) Obviously if it is untradeable that will ensure an anti-monopoly market as well as anti-RMT, but if this is the case how o you upgrade it? Certainly not through crafting unless SE allows crafters to make weapons for you in like fashion to the reapir system. Which leaves you with an NPC such as Rowen that will take those materials and upgrade your weapon for you - but that leaves crafters out of the loop.

The same problem appears with the Batraal example. Needless to say SE has implemented a great deal of content with anti-RMT measures in mind - this is the why we don't see craftable raw materials dropped by NMs or Primals. These items such as Behemoth Hides and Horn in FFXI were easy money and targets to RMT and were more often than not monopolized or dominated by certain ls's. This pushed people to use claim bots that, which with a simple 'invisible spell' cast upon ones self, were invisible to other players (remember mee dgee and leaping lizzy?).

On the other hand, I must admit, I always did and always will enjoy the idea of ultra rare NM/HNM/BCNM dropped craftable materials and spells (utsusemi: ni anyone?). It did wonders for the economy (minus gil seller monopolies) and made crafting oh so fun. Just the thought of HQ dusk T0 synths was enough of an incentive to make people camp AH for raw materials and...oh yeah AH house bots...

I really can't think of anything better than my idea about making U/U gear meldable via a repair-like window. It includes the crafters as well as the battle classess, and ensures anti-rmt measures at the same time.

[Roaran]

Roaran I don't why you are bring up relevance of crafting.

Just explaining why the materia system in its current form was implemented over a socketing type system. Yoshi said he was looking at world of warcraft, and no doubt they considered the FF7 system; yet, they went with the current system.

The reason for this was to keep crafters relevant. If there was no risk or chance involved and everyone could simply equip materia with a 100% chance, then the benefits from materia would have been decreased substantially. Instead of being able to get 100 extra strength, you might get 25.

Then, without the destruction of the gear and materia all together, there would not nearly be anywhere as much demand for crafted gear. There's many other ways you could accomplish this though while avoiding the destruction. You could make valuable materia extremely rare for example.

I'm not trying to argue this point, as it's just an arbitrary decision of the developers. The decision to make U/U meldable is another arbitrary decision, and if they decide to make them meldable they can make another arbitrary decision to increase droprates.

I was just trying to explain why they went with the current system. I already made a suggestion in this thread, and I personally don't see a better solution with respect to U/U gear.

[Firon]

Nice idea Firon, that would be the best solution I have seen so far.
Would the process be through an NPC with 100% success or through crafters with a chance of failure ?

Personally I would prefer the former.

It would be 100% since you are gathering the mats.

[Matsume]

Roaran I don't why you are bring up relevance of crafting.

If they allowed a system like FFVII where each piece of equipment had unique slots then crafters could still attach items to gear, gear could still be converted to materia, gatherers would still need to farm catalyst.

This way you could have many different situations.

White item
NQ 4 maximum slots
HQ 5 maximum slots

Green Item
3 maximum slots

Blue Item
2 Maximum slots

Orange or Purple
1 Maximum slot

There would be no need for failure to attach materia as the slots would limit you to how many pieces you could put on an item.

All that would be left would be to balance the stats.

Edit, so gear scale up as follows:-
White NQ > Green > White HQ > Blue > Orange/Purple

This was my idea exactly, except I will yet again disagree on two points:

1) White gear has a max of 5 slots, maybe HQ with a max of 6.

I think a Green should have the value of a White item +2 Melds (max 4 slot)

A Blue would then have +1 more than a Green. (max 3 slot)

An Orange would have +1 more than a Blue (max 2 slot)

and a Purple would have +1 more than an Orange. (max 1 slot)

So that in the end an Orange's base stats would be equivalent to a White 4x meld, with the option of 1 slot 100% success meld. So that a single slotted Orange Item = 5 slotted White Item (each 5 slots being HQ3 perfect Grade IV materia).

2) The items must be destroyed upon failure. This is what keeps people going back for more. It's called replay value. If the item is 100% Guarentee multi meld, then people would have no reason to go back to that dungeon and do it again, and the crafters themselves would all be selling 5x melded Grade IV gear on the cheap risk free. This just cannot happen and never will.

Edit:

Just explaining why the materia system in its current form was implemented over a socketing type system. Yoshi said he was looking at world of warcraft, and no doubt they considered the FF7 system; yet, they went with the current system.

The reason for this was to keep crafters relevant. If there was no risk or chance involved and everyone could simply equip materia with a 100% chance, then the benefits from materia would have been decreased substantially. Instead of being able to get 100 extra strength, you might get 25.

Then, without the destruction of the gear and materia all together, there would not nearly be anywhere as much demand for crafted gear. There's many other ways you could accomplish this though while avoiding the destruction. You could make valuable materia extremely rare for example.

I'm not trying to argue this point, as it's just an arbitrary decision of the developers. The decision to make U/U meldable is another arbitrary decision, and if they decide to make them meldable they can make another arbitrary decision to increase droprates.

I was just trying to explain why they went with the current system. I already made a suggestion in this thread, and I personally don't see a better solution with respect to U/U gear.

Edit 2: Catalysts of the appropriate rarity and color needed to meld U/U items.

Green catalysts to meld green items, blue catalysts to meld blue items, etc.

[Firon]

I still think they should go with my idea because of 1 reason. Makes All content last longer outside of just getting drops. Also I think it would make the game more enjoyable.

Also even if we could meld U/U ppl would still flock to crafted gear cause its less risk with crafted gear cause you can easily buy and get it again really fast, and try to meld and make armor better than U/U. The problem i see with Blue U/U gear from Matsu example is this. Why meld an Blue U/U item with one slot when i can easily get an 3 materia crafted item item with better stats faster and with less risk.