Materia: the new Armory System

[Sol_Aureus]

What's really unfortunate is that not many people seem to care about this issue. A lot of the forum-goers seem content complaining about the immediate (OMG WHY ISN'T PATCH 1.21 HERE YET) instead of discussing huge, long term problems that could really hinder the game. If people actually replied and discussed this to the point where it became a large enough thread to warrant attention, the devs could reanalyze the Materia system sooner, which would give them the most time to correct it. Otherwise, it'll become so integrated into the game that they won't modify/remove it, so the problems will persist.

[Brannigan]

Multiple melds are pretty much The Great Satan and are going to have to be phased out/controlled eventually. Otherwise u/u gear is going to have to have retarded stats on it, even if it was allowed 1 meld (because items that come from party play HAVE TO BE BETTER than what you can get with solo gambling otherwise the whole MMO thing falls apart). A slot system or restricting everything in the game to 1 would work fine.

I'm not saying u/u should be statted higher than those retarded triple+ melds, but it has to be able to beat doubles at the very least. Doubles are pretty easy to get and the only thing preventing me from going out and doubling all my gear is that I'd like to actually wear AF

[Khal_Drogo]

Multiple melds are pretty much The Great Satan and are going to have to be phased out/controlled eventually. Otherwise u/u gear is going to have to have retarded stats on it, even if it was allowed 1 meld (because items that come from party play HAVE TO BE BETTER than what you can get with solo gambling otherwise the whole MMO thing falls apart). A slot system or restricting everything in the game to 1 would work fine.

I'm not saying u/u should be statted higher than those retarded triple+ melds, but it has to be able to beat doubles at the very least. Doubles are pretty easy to get and the only thing preventing me from going out and doubling all my gear is that I'd like to actually wear AF

I'm sorry Brannigan, but I don't agree. I think you're letting the "materia advocates" get off way too easy. It is completely ridiculous to make crafting the "mainline" method of obtaining end game gear. We're not playing harvest moon, or rune factory, or legend of mana.

This is an MMO, and we should be relying on MASSIVE amounts of ppl to obtain the best items/gear, not the "skill" and prowess of one insignifcant crafter with a lot of luck....

[Coglin]

What's really unfortunate is that not many people seem to care about this issue. A lot of the forum-goers seem content complaining about the immediate (OMG WHY ISN'T PATCH 1.21 HERE YET) instead of discussing huge, long term problems that could really hinder the game. If people actually replied and discussed this to the point where it became a large enough thread to warrant attention, the devs could reanalyze the Materia system sooner, which would give them the most time to correct it. Otherwise, it'll become so integrated into the game that they won't modify/remove it, so the problems will persist.

I have to disagree based on the fact that there have ben about 8 threads of this discussion in the past 2 weeks.

Although, I have to admit, there havebeen twice as many to discuss (OMG WHY ISN'T PATCH 1.21 HERE YET) .......

Personally, I like the materia system as it "in general". For the most part, I feel the risk vs. reward is set about right with the low percentage of multiple melds set at what it is. I tend to over all, disagree with most of the debate against it.

Only imbalance I see with it at all, is in comparison to alot of the U/U gear, but I believe in the near future as we have more end game added, (I am hoping anyway) that SE and the gang will make the new U/U raid drops in a manner that sets a gap in there value from melded gear.

[Sol_Aureus]

I have to disagree based on the fact that there have ben about 8 threads of this discussion in the past 2 weeks.

Although, I have to admit, there havebeen twice as many to discuss (OMG WHY ISN'T PATCH 1.21 HERE YET) .......

Personally, I like the materia system as it "in general". For the most part, I feel the risk vs. reward is set about right with the low percentage of multiple melds set at what it is. I tend to over all, disagree with most of the debate against it.

Only imbalance I see with it at all, is in comparison to alot of the U/U gear, but I believe in the near future as we have more end game added, (I am hoping anyway) that SE and the gang will make the new U/U raid drops in a manner that sets a gap in there value from melded gear.

I disagree, there really hasn't been a thread like this that discusses the main problems with Materia, most of the threads regarding Materia are the "U/U Gear should be meldable" threads.

Just to be sure though, I looked at the last 240 most recent threads (the 240th one had the last reply in the thread dated at 2-11-12, exactly 2 weeks ago) to see what Materia based threads there were:

• Dropped Items and Materia
  • This is the closest to this thread I could find. Still, it's mostly discussing the fact that U/U gear should be meldable, and that would solve a lot of the problems (which I disagree with. If they made U/U gear single meldable it'd make things bearable and U/U gear would actually get some use, but again the problem is double+ melding certain materia will FAR outperform anything that U/U gear will give.)
  
  
• Upgrading U/U items to make them better
  • A refute to the "make U/U items meldable" argument with a different solution. Seems like an interesting idea, but the thread doesn't address the problems with the Materia system, just a way to work around it, so some of the problems will still persist.
  
  
• Materia stats random
  • Someone with a terrible, terrible suggestion that would only augment the current problems with the Materia system to make it more luck based.
  
  
• Materia Stacking (Inventory Killer)
  • Thread about how Materia should be stackable to save inventory. Doesn't address the problems with the Materia system.
  
  
• U/U Gear A reason why we cannot meld. (long post)
  • Another thread focusing on the "U/U gear being meldable" argument. Again, doesn't address the main problems with the Materia system itself.

So while I can see that it seems like this is just another Materia thread, I did not intend it to be. I intended for this to be a discussion thread about the Materia system in general and the innate problems that it has just by its nature. None of the other threads that I've seen address this in detail, so I made one.

While there are many ways that the Materia system could stay intact but be improved upon to become an "accepted" system within the game, it wouldn't be enjoyable in my opinion. It'd just be something that the FFXIV community would have accepted as a part of the game and will deal with, and players should never have to "deal with" a core mechanic of the game in that manner.

There's time to change it, FFXIV is in a unique situation where we don't have to lie down and accept it like "oh well, this is just how the game was designed." FFXIV is changing, and now is the time to make our voices and opinions heard, before 2.0. Before it is too late.