Please Fix Materia.

[LanceSummers]

You all know it. You do a piece of fun content only to be rewarded with Materia... We've all been there.
But why is everyone prone to feeling this way? I would say because as it is, the Materia system is extremely boring and getting them as a reward just feels like a slap in the face.
The materia system should be overhauled to be a fun gameplay mechanic instead of just feeling like a grind. Allow Materia to be unique and have unique functions!

[ChrysOCE]

I was thinking this was gonna be a comment about Materia DC and was going to be ready to show my support.

They can't really do anything with Materia. Like, there's hardly any viable melding configurations, in content where it actually matters. Outside of that content, materia is irrelevant. And yes, you could meld outside of that configuration but, really, does it actually give you any visible self expression? So, what purpose does it actually serve?

If they did change it, so that you could have resistances or extra elemental affinity/immunity, then they would start designing fights around that. But you would just really end up in the same place. It would end up with a set fit out being the one that is used for that encounter, with no variation. And then it would need to be something that could be dropped in and extracted with ease.

i think, at this point, just remove it. What does it really add?

[Daralii]

Reworking stats or materia in some capacity to actually make them interesting would mean that "wrong" choices would exist, even if it was only by a few percentage points, and we all know how averse the devs are to that concept.

[Aidorouge]

Reworking stats or materia in some capacity to actually make them interesting would mean that "wrong" choices would exist, even if it was only by a few percentage points, and we all know how averse the devs are to that concept.

To be fair, players are even more adverse to "wrong" choices and would be quick to kick anyone using a "unique" build instead of the "BIS" one. It's the same reason this community can't be trusted with talent trees (or cross skills when they existed).

[LanceSummers]

Reworking stats or materia in some capacity to actually make them interesting would mean that "wrong" choices would exist, even if it was only by a few percentage points, and we all know how averse the devs are to that concept.

My whole idea is to remove them being essentially stat cookies entirely and instead try and implement them in a way more similar to Final Fantasy VII, where Materia does things that are more unique
Keeping the whole stat cookie idea means there will always be a BiS meld loadout

Imagine something like materia granting permanent buffs you could already get elsewhere, or something even more unique

[Jaltaer]

My whole idea is to remove them being essentially stat cookies entirely and instead try and implement them in a way more similar to Final Fantasy VII, where Materia does things that are more unique
Keeping the whole stat cookie idea means there will always be a BiS meld loadout

Imagine something like materia granting permanent buffs you could already get elsewhere, or something even more unique

Still doesn't solve the problem of "players will figure out the most min-max/optimal combos and insist on only using that".
The game used to have more variety in its materia - there were elemental resistance ones as well as others that boosted stats like Vitality. The problem with the latter kind is that everyone is just going to meld as much VIT as possible to max out their HP vs trying other combos, and now we're back to square one again. And elemental resistances aren't really a "thing" in the game any more nor have they been for a long while (outside of extremely specific things like Eureka or BLU masked carnivale) - even if they were, imagine having to extract and re-meld your materia for every single fight depending on what element the boss uses. No thanks.

[Jeeqbit]

The main issues are that they have to make it interesting without making it require a massive grind just to prepare for Savage. Preach just made a good video that sums up why gear has to be simple. He has kids and can't do WoW raiding anymore because he doesn't have that sort of time. Nevertheless, they could still make things a little more interesting, without going too far, and hopefully they will - they plan to address jobs and "skill expression" in 8.0 so we will see what they announce in April. It's literally just 1 month and then we should get at least a vague, vague idea of what they are doing.

The other issue is of course there being a wrong choice, and by wrong choice I mean melding Intelligence on a tank or Strength on a healer, which used to be possible!

Still doesn't solve the problem of "players will figure out the most min-max/optimal combos and insist on only using that"

I don't think that's really an issue. Because nobody really checks. Not really. I don't. I've melded entirely Skill Speed and then cleared a Savage tier in PF. Nobody cares as long as you can do mechanics and get the clear.

The issue is just most materia options in the past have been such junk as melding Piety on a Warrior, or Parry on a tank against magic bosses. Just poor implementation in the past, that's all.

[LanceSummers]

The main issues are that they have to make it interesting without making it require a massive grind just to prepare for Savage. Preach just made a good video that sums up why gear has to be simple. He has kids and can't do WoW raiding anymore because he doesn't have that sort of time. Nevertheless, they could still make things a little more interesting, without going too far, and hopefully they will - they plan to address jobs and "skill expression" in 8.0 so we will see what they announce in April. It's literally just 1 month and then we should get at least a vague, vague idea of what they are doing.

The other issue is of course there being a wrong choice, and by wrong choice I mean melding Intelligence on a tank or Strength on a healer, which used to be possible!
I don't think that's really an issue. Because nobody really checks. Not really. I don't. I've melded entirely Skill Speed and then cleared a Savage tier in PF. Nobody cares as long as you can do mechanics and get the clear.

The issue is just most materia options in the past have been such junk as melding Piety on a Warrior, or Parry on a tank against magic bosses. Just poor implementation in the past, that's all.

Maybe at this point it'd be best to remove materia altogether or completely unlink it from how your job performs in combat. Is the system really worth keeping?

[GraceHorizon]

Maybe at this point it'd be best to remove materia altogether or completely unlink it from how your job performs in combat. Is the system really worth keeping?

I would go for it. You were commenting on crafting in another thread, and grinding for materia was one of my least favorite parts of master crafting. At least ditch overmelding.

[Jeeqbit]

Maybe at this point it'd be best to remove materia altogether or completely unlink it from how your job performs in combat. Is the system really worth keeping?

For the sake of Skill/Spell speed and that's really it, to be honest. People meld a different amount depending on ping or speed preference.

Someone suggested to Yoshi-P about the issue of having to reapply materia upon upgrading gear. I think that should be addressed for sure. We should just have materia slots under our gear slots, and apply the materia to our character rather than the gear itself.

Hopefully addressing materia in some way will be part of their Fan Fest announcements, but we will need to see. Hopefully just a month to get some idea of their plans.