Materia: the new Armory System

[Khal_Drogo]

And one other thing.....U/U absolutely MUST be meldable, otherwise we risk turning crafting into the mainline route to "end-game" content, which pretty much, completely underminds the purpose of battle classes.

I understand that crafters want to feel relevant. So, here's a solution:

CRAFTERS get *THEIR* end-game gear via crafting (maybe relying on battle classes to get some of the r/ex materials, to promote cooperation).

BATTLE classes should have to fight to get their end-game gear (with maybe a slight reliance on crafters to obtain the final "product" -like the way SEA/SKY worked in XI).

Examples:
~Enter sky to obtain the r/ex items, then get the cursed gear crafted to make the final product with the NPC

~Enter SEA to fight and obtain the r/ex item and coins, then get the necessary crafted items, and turn them into the NPC

And then of course, there should always be straight armor drops from boss fights as well... but if materia is not kept in check, all the aforementioned ideas are out the window. And crafters will render battle classes "worthless." They'll be glorified errand boys:

"You there! go fetch me this item from <insert boss name here>; I need to craft the best armor in the game for my MRD friend"

[Brannigan]

I liketh the cut of thine jib.

[Coglin]

The materia system definitely needs a LOT of adjusting, though. I absolutely HATE the variation of TIERS (16-20 for single stats, 50-70 for hp, 6-10 for multiple attribute types, etc.). That really needs to go. And the failure thing should go as well. LUCK is the single WORST aspect of gameplay in any platform (MMO, RPG, FPS, or w/e). The more we can do to eliminate luck from the equation, the better.

Whats in green, I absolutly agree with.

The black is where I absolutely disagree with you 100%. Some things need a percentage of success. I don't feel you should get a drop 100% of he time from primals and NMs, and what not.

[Sol_Aureus]

Whats in green, I absolutly agree with.

The black is where I absolutely disagree with you 100%. Some things need a percentage of success. I don't feel you should get a drop 100% of he time from primals and NMs, and what not.

Luck definitely has its place, and I do agree that having 100% drop rates on stuff is not a good idea at all.

However the problem with some of the current systems is that they rely too heavily on luck. There's no skill involved at all with Materia, 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),
is untradable (REALLY bad),
could be a duplicate (bad since you can't trade),
if you get an item it's 1 of 7 (bad because you can't trade)
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).

But the Primal drops are another discussion entirely, and I want to stay on the topic of Materia, and the very heavily luck-based systems which need to go. As long as there's an acceptable amount of skill involved so that players feel like they have to earn their gear as opposed to beating themselves against a random number generator, I'll be happy.

[Coglin]

Luck definitely has its place, and I do agree that having 100% drop rates on stuff is not a good idea at 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.
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)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???)
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.)
could be a duplicate (bad since you can't trade), (again, I agree, but what does this have to do with materia?)
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)
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.)

But the Primal drops are another discussion entirely, and I want to stay on the topic of Materia, and the very heavily luck-based systems which need to go. As long as there's an acceptable amount of skill involved so that players feel like they have to earn their gear as opposed to beating themselves against a random number generator, I'll be happy.

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.

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?

[Rydin]

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.

I get what you are saying but I don't know about that.
In no way am I obligated to offer an alternative if I am unhappy with any particular feature of FFXIV.
You can say "The battle system feels incomplete" or "There is so much lag and latency" and no one is going to hold you to completely redesigning battle or recoding the networking API

That's not what constructive criticism means...
Constructive criticism means giving well thought out reasons why you are unhappy with any particular feature

tl;dr Offering an alternative isn't a prerequisite for discussing a feature you are unhappy with

[BruceyBruceyBangBang]

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.

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?

By you and "the rest of us" do you mean you and the people in your head?

[Coglin]

I get what you are saying but I don't know about that.
In no way am I obligated to offer an alternative if I am unhappy with any particular feature of FFXIV.

By no means did I say you were obligated. What I did say is was that you have no business complaining if they make a change based on this discussion, and you are even less happy. Basically be carefull what you ask for. Posters asked for a great deal of things to change, just to complain afterwords because he change suited them less the the original system.

You mention what constructive criicism means, yet you offer no consructive criicism. What most posters are doing in my opinion is just complaining. My point is, I see no reason to change the current system as it is, because it is better then what anyone else has suggested in my opinion.

tl;dr Offering an alternative isn't a prerequisite for discussing a feature you are unhappy with

I agree. Although in my opinion it is a prerequisite of defining the difference between the pissing and moaning some posters do, and actual constructive criticism.

That being said, do you have a point related to the topc? so far you few post on this thread have only been to complain about me asking a poster or posters for suggestion, a random movie comment based on a pic another poster displayed to ask for constructive feedback, another you comment about how a poster made a comment an hour before you, another post discussing the reply to your post about the "hour before" comment. One post was slightly topic related. thats 4/5 post to include your most recent, that are begining to look like trolling, but I will give you the benifit of the doubt. So, other then complaining about my take on asking posters for there ideas to better the situation versus just complaining about it. Do you have something constructive to add?

By you and "the rest of us" do you mean you and the people in your head?

No, the people in my head, do not play FFXIV, and one of them is threatening to kill 2 of the others, because he despises the color yellow. Do the people in your head tell you to troll post and having nothing topic related to say?

[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.

[BruceyBruceyBangBang]

No, the people in my head, do not play FFXIV, and one of them is threatening to kill 2 of the others, because he despises the color yellow. Do the people in your head tell you to troll post and having nothing topic related to say?

The reason I bring this up is because you often talk about this legendary group of people who support what you're saying, but they are never around.

The materia system is a cock block for future gear that is made u/u and takes out the need for long term goals in gear. If and when using just double melds you can hit your AA and WS DMG modifier caps... you have a problem.