Materia: the new Armory System

[Sol_Aureus]

I kind of wanted to keep on topic which is why I didn't launch into a huge post about this, but since you're calling me out and all...

However the problem with some of the current systems is that they rely too heavily on luck. Thata a matter of opinion, and I for one disagree in general.

I apologize for not clarifying, but yes, everything I post is a matter of my opinion. I never meant for my posts to imply that these are facts.

There's no skill involved at all with Materia, (Okay, how do you propose they make materia melding skillfull. Personally, I feel thetime and energy I invested in leveling the DoH, and the skill I used in aquiring the items and materials, a great deal more skill then luck)

As I said in my initial post, I think removing multi-slotting alltogether would be a simple and easy to balance solution to the problems that I see with the Materia system as it is now. In terms of making Materia melding a skillful process, there are many many many ways it could be done, and many people have made suggestions but I have found that most developers don't like to be told "you should do ______" to fix a problem. As long as they know it's a problem, then they can take steps to fix it. They're the professionals, not the playerbase.

But for the sake of argument, fine. I'll make solutions.

Let's look at obtaining materia first. As I said the problem as I see it is that this system is one of many that rely too heavily on luck. The only manner of "skill" involved in obtaining Materia is the small semblance of understanding specific mechanics such as what type of gear gives what type of Materia, but even then it's random from the possible types of Materia, possible tiers (granted you almost always get III or IV with higher level stuff), and random values within those tiers. So what ends up happening? Buying and making a bunch of a specific slot of gear of the right level and grinding spiritbond then breaking it and hoping it turns into the right Materia of the right tier of the right value to make it worthwhile.

Random solution off the top of my head: When a piece of gear is broken it turns into one of a few types of "[Color] Deaspected Materia" corresponding to the colors of materia we have now. While Deaspected Materia is in your inventory, it will slowly charge depending on your actions and you could convert it into proper Materia at any time. Depending on its charge level, it would turn into specific tiers. So, say, a fully charged Blue Deaspected Materia that has been held by someone who does a lot of curing would have a chance to turn into a tier IV Healing Magic Potency or Magic Crit Potency Materia. You can keep the variance in the tier (tier IVs can have +16 to +20 Healing Magic potency) since having a bit of luck is fine, keeps things interesting, but at least this way players have more control over what they're getting, they can clearly work toward a specific type of Materia they want and have much more control over it. In addition, since the Materia charged depending on what actions were taken, the materia provided should suit the player's playstyle.

Moving on, the melding process. Once you obtain the Materia, you find a piece of gear, click the materia, click meld, and hope it works. How is that fulfilling? Like I said in my initial post, there's a little bit of a feeling of accomplishment there, but it doesn't compare to how I felt when my LS first conquered Darkhold for example. And yet the rewards from it are outdone by Materia really easily, which soured the experience for me. What's the point of clearing this content if it's just downgrades?

Getting on to solutions: like I said in my initial post (wherein I totally offered a solution and I'm not quite sure why you think I didn't offer a solution) I think removing multi-slotting would be a simple solution that's easy to balance gear with in the future. It keeps the current system so there's still no skill involved with Materia melding, however because it removes the luck factor of multi-slotting and the imbalance in gear that heavily multi-slotted gear brings, it doesn't need to be a skill based system. It can just be a nice little thing tacked on to the crafting process to add some customization without causing the imbalance it currently causes.

As for your comment about the skill involved with leveling crafting to 50, that's not what I was discussing. I was discussing the lack of skill involved with Materia Slotting, which I just addressed.

and the Primal weapons are a mess of:
Having to overcome the challenging fights (good)
so you have a chance of getting an item (acceptable, and good if designed correctly)
which directly drops to your inventory (bad), (Okay, I can agree with that, but how on gods green earth is that relavent to how this discussion relates to materia???)

It doesn't, really. I was responding to the post that was talking about luck-based factors, so I brought up the primal weapons which are a good example of one that's currently implemented.

is untradable (REALLY bad), (This is where you idealology turns flawed from where I stand. High end loot needs to be untradeable. Primal gear needs to be earned, not capable of being purchased.)

I didn't explain my point clearly enough here, I apologize. I should have said "is unable to be distributed to party members who participated in the fight". The biggest problem I have with the way primal loot is distributed is that there's no way to give your friends gear they could use but you couldn't. You get a lance but are a CNJ and your LNC buddy gets a wand in the same run? Too bad, you're both stuck with weapons the other person wants. What's wrong with having them drop into a party loot list? or your personal loot list like Darkhold did? I want to help out my friends, and it's frustrating when I get my 4th bow when someone in my LS has wanted one and ARC is his main, but he's gotten unlucky. Luck.

With the primal loot system as it is now, it's much more frustrating for everyone, I'd much rather see a system where it's party loot so the gear can go to someone who can use it. At least then I can feel like something was accomplished during the run.

could be a duplicate (bad since you can't trade), (again, I agree, but what does this have to do with materia?)

It doesn't, really. I was responding to the post that was talking about luck-based factors.

if you get an item it's 1 of 7 (bad because you can't trade) (gee, we get it, we get it, you want, not to be stuch with items you don't need dropped in your inventory, but good lord, whats that got to do with the discussion at hand)

It doesn't, really. I was responding to the post that was talking about luck-based factors.

and even though it drops straight to your inventory from instanced chests, it's not smart to what classes you have leveled so you could get an item you can't even equip (bad). (again, a bit off the topic.)

It doesn't, really. I was responding-you know what, you know.

I ask, how do you propose they create a "skill level" if you are going to complain about the current system, It would often be wise to actual have a constructive idea. What I am saying is, if your going to endlessly complain about the system, perhaps you should offer a suggested fix. Alot of systems in game now that everyone complains about, were added to change from a system that was complained about previously. Yet they ofered no alternative solutions, just to go on and complain about the exact change they asked for.

Did you read my initial post? Or any of my other posts in this thread? The point of this thread is to bring the issues up so the developers know that there are some problems. I'm not here to interject my solutions. It's their game, not mine. They're much more qualified then I or anyone else on these forums to come up with solutions themselves.

But I already posted my solutions, and I could come up with many more.

My point being, I like thesystem, as alot of us do. If you have issues with it, you will meet heavy resistance, unless you can offer an idea of equavilent or better value to the rest of us. Clearly you agree we can not have 100% rate on all of these issues, Yet you do not wat a solid % of chance either. I fail to see any solution if 100% rate is not a logical option, and clearly you disaprove of any of the other options like .01%-99.9%, so what else is there?

It's asinine to assume that I disapprove of .01-100% drop rates just because I said I dislike entirely luck-based systems and having 100% drop rates wouldn't be ideal either. Be reasonable. Like I said, having some luck is fine, in fact it's welcome, however having core systems rely almost entirely on luck with minimal skill involved is bad design. It doesn't keep people playing, the novelty wears off real fast. Having a good balance of both skill and luck is ideal, but this goes beyond just dealing with one system of the game.