The current materia system needs to change

[Krausus]

Okay, fair enough, small correction. "Large amounts of gil OR large amounts of time".

(Especially if you're spiritbonding it all yourself, wow!)

people have different ways of going about it, I play maybe every other day, I consider myself casual but it doesn't take a lot of time to farm materials to sell to buy materia. I have never had a lot of money I think the most I have ever had at 1 time (and i been playing since release) is 3 mill, yet I have figured out a way to get a couple of triples and doubles.

[Molly_Millions]

Okay, fair enough, small correction. "Large amounts of gil OR large amounts of time".

(Especially if you're spiritbonding it all yourself, wow!)

two hours of mining + some spritibonding per week isn't bad. You can't expect good gear without working for it. So stop complaining and play the game.

[Darkillumina]

Slots on gear is the way to go. It adds a form of customization so that every character is different even with high-end dropped gear. HQ should offer more slots as should high end drops. In addition certain materia should be dropped as well from difficult fights. This would ensure that skill is a necessity for acquiring the gear and that customization keeps players unique. The current system is ridiculous and forces SE to do a balancing act between rare/ex dropped gear and materia'd gear.

For 1.0 the current system is acceptable as it keeps us grinding but for 2.0 it has to go in favor of something that makes sense.

[Platinumstorm]

I reluctantly thumbed this up with the caveat that crafters must be supported in the game. The materia system is the only reason many crafting classes can certainly make money right now.

[Firon]

Ppl just want free and easy dbl melds, that's all, if you cant afford dbl melds be happy with single melds till you get better Raid gear. They balanced the game around ppl doing stuff with single melds so getting dbl with risk is just fine.

[Hiruke]

I'm unclear why the designers thought it was a good idea to have "tiers within tiers". So, I have this level 41+ or whatever piece of equipment that's fully spiritbonded. When I break it down, it can be anything (it could even be a boat! ...no, that would be better, too good, even), such as:

- A tier II whatever. Junk.
- A tier III whatever. Junk to me, maybe cool for other people.
- A tier IV whatever. Maybe good.

In the case of a tier IV, it could be:

- A useless, or widely undesired (same thing), materia. Junk.
- A good materia.

In the case of a good materia, it could be:

- A perfect materia. Perfect stats. YAY!
- Something less than that. Boo.

Of course, the whole thing is a million times worse when the materia only comes from stuff like primal weapons. So first you have to waste half your life getting a primal weapon to drop, then spiritbond it, then pray you don't get a grade II junk materia for your trouble.

Admittedly, most people don't suffer from a compulsion to x2/x3 meld perfect grade IVs. But for those of us who do, it's really, really annoying. I would strongly urge one of the following happen:

- Don't allow level 41+ gear to break down in grade II or III materia. Period.
- Abolish "tiers within tiers" so grade IV materia (for example) is always perfect stats. No deviation.

Of course, none of this speaks to how ridiculously low the chances are for a successful double meld, much less the LOLOLOL x5 melds the system supports. Obviously a piece of equipment with +100 of a stat is hideously broken, so why even make it an option? Then lock it away behind tons of time wasting gambling? What's even better is that you could potentially make items that are even stronger than a relic if you waste enough time trying to meld materia.

Speaking of useless nonsense, is there really any point to materia lower than grade IV? I mean, besides to get the achievement for Gambler's Crown. I have a hard time believing people would legitimately waste time double or triple melding equipment for levels 1-40, or basically anything that isn't best in slot at level 50, especially considering how much time you need to invest in breaking and remaking everything involved.

I think the idea of making materia more like FFVII has a lot of merit. Just take your materia and plug it into blah item. I understand the comments about how materia as it is now is driving the economy. And that's quite true! Especially because of the relic quest. I doubt quite so many class weapons and their materials would be selling if not for the fact that most of the time you try to double meld them, they blow up! It also helps that due to more terrible luck based factors (materia creation!) the demand of materia wildly exceeds supply.

Though, I don't know that I'm particularly in love with an economy geared toward the idea that we're all going to waste ridiculous amounts of time doing X thing, which seems to be a running theme in this game. Want militia gear? Do a few hundred Hamlets, you might get lucky. Want darklight gear? Do a few hundred AV/CC, you might get lucky. Want primal weapons? Keep grinding. Want good melded gear? Go grind gil, by farming/mining/crafting/getting lucky on Hamlet drops after you provision/whatever, or spend ludicrous amounts of time spiritbonding all your own stuff and farming/gathering/crafting your own items.

I guess everything is pretty easy, so long as you play religiously (i.e., you don't value your free time, and enjoy your second job in FFXIV).

Wouldn't it be nice if more things were rewards for skill-based actions, instead of just "putting the time in"? Putting the time in doesn't prove anything other than you can hit a button a billion times and not lose your sanity.

Honestly, I don't know or even care what the solution is, so long as it doesn't involve lots of luck and lots of time, because I'm pretty sure they thin the patience of the grand majority of any potential players of this game. I'm more than willing to put in effort, and potentially a lot of it, but I think we should focus more on skill-based objectives than the rampant luck-based objectives which currently litter the game. Otherwise, you have a (way, way) less than 1% chance of people liking your game. I don't think those are good odds.

[Hiruke]

Ppl just want free and easy dbl melds, that's all, if you cant afford dbl melds be happy with single melds till you get better Raid gear. They balanced the game around ppl doing stuff with single melds so getting dbl with risk is just fine.

I enjoy all the folks who think everything is just black and white. If anyone has a problem with anything, it's because "they wanted everything handed to them". There are similar arguments for why the terribad drop rate for primal weapons/darklight/militia/everything items are REALLY GOOD FOR THE GAME, and why anyone who complains "just wants everything handed to them for free".

That's a ridiculous stance to take, because it has no foundation in reality. I struggle to find a good reason why anyone would prefer luck-based to skill-based objectives, or why completing skill-based objectives is "just handing something to someone". I won't bother to debate it, because it's kind of like yelling at a radio that is playing nothing but loud static. You can't reason with it, yeah?

By the way, I'm sure everyone who beats Garuda on a regular basis only uses 1x meld stuff. Clearly it was designed with 1x meld gear in mind, yeah?

[Firon]

I enjoy all the folks who think everything is just black and white. If anyone has a problem with anything, it's because "they wanted everything handed to them". There are similar arguments for why the terribad drop rate for primal weapons/darklight/militia/everything items are REALLY GOOD FOR THE GAME, and why anyone who complains "just wants everything handed to them for free".

That's a ridiculous stance to take, because it has no foundation in reality. I struggle to find a good reason why anyone would prefer luck-based to skill-based objectives, or why completing skill-based objectives is "just handing something to someone". I won't bother to debate it, because it's kind of like yelling at a radio that is playing nothing but loud static. You can't reason with it, yeah?

By the way, I'm sure everyone who beats Garuda on a regular basis only uses 1x meld stuff. Clearly it was designed with 1x meld gear in mind, yeah?

Because its a RISK they said so from the start, You can play the game perfectly fine with single melds, this is another thread where ppl want free dbl and triple melds.

[AmyNeudaiz]

Because its a RISK they said so from the start, You can play the game perfectly fine with single melds, this is another thread where ppl want free dbl and triple melds.

I would love to see where anyone at all says that.

[Hikozaemon]

This is what it should have been in the first place.

Materia should be about learning and equipping to pre determined slots
Cruddy NQ gear could have 1 slot, HQ gear 2 slots, NM/Dungeon drops 3+ slots

Materia should cross combine for various effects or abilities like in FF7

If we could freely equip and deequip materia that would help go some way towards spec'ing our roles out for various events.

that would be way too freaking fun man. Instead we got this wonky korean-grindymmo rng function materia system instead. the materia system in its entirety should have never been introduced into the game. Its far more fitting of a system that would be added to a mmo in/on its last legs. Materia shoulda been added like jewels to be socketed into gear that could further enhance it but instead they added a totally random and gil heavy money sink system to it. its gonna be hard and off-putting to new players of ARR.