High Materia: A concept to allow for some player agency, without destroying balance

[Deceptus]

In the central Thanalan there is a place that you visit early in the game and after a few quests you can gamble your materia for a chance at better materia. Myself I just take them to the vendor and bank the gil as before endgame you won't need proper melds to complete most duties.

But then you see people with zero melds on their gear at all (even the bargain bin rank VIII's in their slots) and are missing out on easily 10%-15% of their substats.