Upgrading U/U items to make them better.

[Firon]

Ya my examples weren't meant to be "balanced" or w/e. I just typed them up quick.

My point was that U/U can/tends to have unique stats that no materia can provide. Adding "special materia" on top of that could help keep it relevant & add more drops to dungeons.

Yeah i understand but my idea gives the same thing U/U items with unique stats that can be powered up by enhancing them. I know the boots i use was not a good example but its the first item i could think from DH. Just imagine my idea with the Saphai Turban having upgrading that it could have 30+ str on that head piece.

[Razor]

Honestly part of the issue was that Materia is so powerful it is obnoxious to balance. One of the core problems we had pre-stat fix was that stats contributed so little to calculations that it was hard to notice any change. Then Materia came and did the exact same thing. Before materia U/U gear was good because it gave that edge over crafted gear (much like it was in XI. The difference wasn't always striking, but it was just a hair better). Now... its hard to even do anything about it when you can sit on Attack Power +150 on a single pair of gloves.

That's like and extra 25% on a single item; although granted we will likely never actually see a quintuple melded T4 pair of gloves, but still. It is very plausible to have Attack Power +50 or STR+40 for a reasonable amount of money. In order to make U/U gear anywhere near comparable it would have to be so overpowered it would need to look something like this: "STR+25 Attack Power+40" And this is only at lv50! What happens when the cap raises and we're at 75? Oh, derp, heres your 100 points of STR on a single item, have a good day.

EDIT: And yes there is always the window for special materia that gives added benefits. But if the enhancements are anywhere near as laughable as previous U/U gear, it won't be worth it. Haste +3% won't be worth forgoing an obnoxious amount of STR/Attack. In order to make these "special materia" enhancements worth getting, they would have to be as equally broken. Pretty soon it's going to be XI's "haste cap" all over again; except this time it'll be with like... you know... an item and a half.

[syntaxlies]

Honestly part of the issue was that Materia is so powerful it is obnoxious to balance. One of the core problems we had pre-stat fix was that stats contributed so little to calculations that it was hard to notice any change. Then Materia came and did the exact same thing. Before materia U/U gear was good because it gave that edge over crafted gear (much like it was in XI. The difference wasn't always striking, but it was just a hair better). Now... its hard to even do anything about it when you can sit on Attack Power +150 on a single pair of gloves.

That's like and extra 25% on a single item; although granted we will likely never actually see a quintuple melded T4 pair of gloves, but still. It is very plausible to have Attack Power +50 or STR+40 for a reasonable amount of money. In order to make U/U gear anywhere near comparable it would have to be so overpowered it would need to look something like this: "STR+25 Attack Power+40" And this is only at lv50! What happens when the cap raises and we're at 75? Oh, derp, heres your 100 points of STR on a single item, have a good day.

i wouldn't say materia is very powerful, the high numbers are just obnoxious.

[Razor]

i wouldn't say materia is very powerful, the high numbers are just obnoxious.

It's because SE had to substantially water down the effect of 1 point in any given value to make it not insane. Look at Magic Attack Potency in XI vs XIV. Magic Attack Bonus +1 equaled a solid 1% damage increase. As such MAB wasn't typically available in large quantities and there was an expected difficulty in acquiring a MAB+3 item vs a MAB+5. In XIV since any given mage can wander around with Attack Magic Potency +1~80(or higher?), that 1% increase withered away to something much less noticeable. Unless SE lets stats cap at 9999 instead of 999, we're going to feel like we're on Primeval Brew 24/7 lol

[Klive]

Now... its hard to even do anything about it when you can sit on Attack Power +150 on a single pair of gloves.

Because getting a five lvl4 materia bind is easy. From start to finish you have is less than a 0.05% to make such an item. I will take you about 2000 tries, yes I did the math, to even get that item. Plus lets forget the 4000+ level 4 materia you would need. Good luck making those gloves, if you made those you earned them.

[Razor]

Because getting a five lvl4 materia bind is easy. From start to finish you have is less than a 0.05% to make such an item. I will take you about 2000 tries, yes I did the math, to even get that item. Plus lets forget the 4000+ level 4 materia you would need. Good luck making those gloves, if you made those you earned them.

Honestly part of the issue was that Materia is so powerful it is obnoxious to balance. One of the core problems we had pre-stat fix was that stats contributed so little to calculations that it was hard to notice any change. Then Materia came and did the exact same thing. Before materia U/U gear was good because it gave that edge over crafted gear (much like it was in XI. The difference wasn't always striking, but it was just a hair better). Now... its hard to even do anything about it when you can sit on Attack Power +150 on a single pair of gloves.

That's like and extra 25% on a single item; although granted we will likely never actually see a quintuple melded T4 pair of gloves, but still. It is very plausible to have Attack Power +50 or STR+40 for a reasonable amount of money. In order to make U/U gear anywhere near comparable it would have to be so overpowered it would need to look something like this: "STR+25 Attack Power+40" And this is only at lv50! What happens when the cap raises and we're at 75? Oh, derp, heres your 100 points of STR on a single item, have a good day.

Bolded to help you read. If you actually continued reading my post, which you must not have to simply replied the way you did, you'd see my point. +150 is an extreme, but the point was that if a single item can potentially have that much, then it makes balancing very difficult. Like I said in the rest of my post, Because you can still get +50 Attack or +40 STR relatively easily, in order to make U/U gear worth using it would need to exceed or somehow become superior to those large double digit numbers. The end result is that in a few years we're all going to running around with gear that has obnoxious stats on it.

[Elexia]

I don't see what would be so bad about allowing us to meld U/U gear, if people don't want to risk breaking it then they don't have to.

Probably because meldable gear has very vanilla stats compared to dropped/raid gear, so melding already powerful gear will make it even more powerful (keep in mind they're thinking long term with the game, compared to players who are only thinking of the short term) so in due time there will be weapons and gear that beat out melded gear but nothing will be out 4+ meld gear as they stated the balance of it is the fact it's near impossible (read: high risk) to make and if you make it you deserve it.

So in the end it's already balanced. They could always adapt this system http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Trial_of_the_Magians since people say XIV has to "compete with rivals", what better way to compete than throwing in more kill/fetch quests? (Don't kid yourselves, every new MMO is full of em lol.)

[Klive]

Yoshi put out that stats from materia is capped at 10*(Max lvl4) materia. So str from materia is capped at 200. Now lets look at mana, because it can be easily be seen. Highest materia for mana is 35MP from materia, so capped at 350 Mp. So if I stack my mana as a THM, which as about 3.5k mana. I get a 10% increase to my max mana. 10% is a huge increase, but not game breaking. There are limits and most stats are going to follow that same pattern. The only way you can hit this cap, for most of the stats, is maxing two pieces of gear with maxlvl4 materia. STR, for example, can ONLY go in weapons and gloves.

Does the game need to provide higher stats to make an U/U better, no. They just need to put stats on them other than the materia can be crafted for that slot.
Example, body can only bind the following materia:
VIT - PIE - Phy.Crit - Def - Eva - M.Resist

As a mage player, any chest U/U with casting stats in it is an improvement.

As for the +40 STR or +60 Att PWR. Those can only be put in two slots with materia, just two. STR is in body and melee weapons. Att. Power is in MRD, LNC, and gloves. This is hardly a problem. If you could double bind this in any slot, you would have a fine point. Lets say you double bind them in these both slots. You now have 80 str, still not ground breaking. Lets stay you tripled them, 120 str. Still the game isn't broken and you had to not bind other possiblely useful materia there.

The materia system is balanced by the fact you can only put certain materia in certain slot. You can't go crazy and put str or att in every slot.

If I want to stack INT. I can only stack, materia wise, in the head and my arm. But wait thats the only places I can put M.Acc too! So I have to choose between M.acc and Int. Plus I have to use U/U gear for any other INT gains.

[Felis]

Because to most people it is broken, if they just let us put materia in U/U gear, crafted items would still be valuable because people would be more willing to risk them than a U/U piece. It's like the sentinel's body it's a great piece but you're never going to see one with 4 materia on it. However a crafted piece we probably will because they're much cheaper and easier to come by.

Hmm, maybe if SE make U/U gear more rare. 0,1% drop? ^^

[Jinko]

Another one of these again? (like the 3rd time now...)

Yup yup, if there are enough complaints Yoshida has no choice but to re-evaluate the system.