How to make gear progression non-linear

[lackofwords]

There's really no reason to create new skills when you can just create equippable items that alter the functionality of your current ones enough to make them feel like new abilities altogether. If endgame Materia functioned that way, it would essentially equate to every new drop becoming a new skill for your character, or a possible alteration to your rotation.

What exactly do you have in mind that can alter a skill rotation?

Cause at the moment I can't help but think 'why items and not skills?'
Let's take a look at Cleric Stance, it swaps MND and INT stats around, basically WHM switching to combat while not healing with a small downtime to switch out of Cleric Stance.
This does not necessarily alter skill rotation, but enhances your attack immensely. Such as the same effect as if someone were to change into higher damage dealing gear to perform an attack, before switching back to another gear set.

Now let's say there's a fictional materia that adds HP leech according to the number of enemies you hit, you're trading this off with another materia that could increase your class's base stat.
So let's say this is for a tank, and this materia is only useful while facing large numbers of enemies, since the HP recover rate would be higher than the trade-off of lower defense. Thus, it wouldn't be as useful when tanking a single boss target.
So, why make it an item that you have to carry around, and swap into when the situation occurs?

Why not make this into an ability like Cleric Stance?
It'll serve the same purpose without taking up inventory space, nor the hassle of changing out of gear in between non-combat phases.
(not entirely different weapons though since that changes classes)

An even more interesting application for Materia that enhanced abilities would be Cross-Class abilities. There are plenty of abilities that are cross-class though completely useless on jobs because they lack a combo ability or are eclipsed by your natural skills. This type of system could open up all sorts of possibilities concerning that.

I'm not seeing what you're imagining here. Like, would it allow the cross-class abilities to combo with something else?

Either way, bottom-line, as a materia it is still a slot trade-off, which in turn will make a player carry different sets of equipment around if the trade-off is distinct enough.
And we already have two sets of gear we need to carry, PvP and non-PvP for each class.

The only way I could imagine it working, as I think you would want it, is if the materia was actually like FFVII materia system, where you chain additional abilities and skills onto the weapon as well as support materia that enhances the those abilities and skills. Path of Exile also does something similar. The character has only passive abilities, while all the active abilities are in the gems themselves.

[Edellis]

Now let's say there's a fictional materia that adds HP leech according to the number of enemies you hit, you're trading this off with another materia that could increase your class's base stat.

I'm not seeing what you're imagining here. Like, would it allow the cross-class abilities to combo with something else?

I specifically mentioned not even including materia that boosts your base stat, because that's the opposite of non-linear progression. There would be no rare materia that would provide stat boosts...at least not without some kind of situational catch or drawback. As for allowing cross-class abilities to combo with other moves...yeah, that could definitely be an effect that would be worth equipping.


For instance, Skull Sunder is a completely useless ability on a Paladin. It's the exact same thing as Savage Sword without the combo potency. However if you could meld a Materia to your weapon that, say, caused it to reduce Slashing Resistance by 20% for 5 seconds if combo'd out of Savage Blade, suddenly your paladin has essentially learned a new skill, by increasing the usefulness of another skill. (This would also benefit Warriors, as Both Savage Blade and Skull Sunder are cross-class abilities.)

Or take a skill like Awareness for instance, which nullifies the chance of receiving critical damage. An added Materia effect could be that during the 15s duration, your character gains a proc of Shield Swipe everytime he receives damage. Niche use, but still a new use. That could be built upon with maybe another Armor Materia that adds an effect or increases the potency of Shield Swipe.


Basically, this is the exact same function as the "Class Traits" that already exist, just extended to allow customization. It's no different than Enhanced Barrage significantly increasing the power of Barrage, or Firestarter becoming a significant change to a Black Mage, all without adding any skills to the character.


Something like "Adds HP steal" without anything to supplement it is precisely the type of fail mechanics that MMOs add when they don't seem to put any thought into it. Passive HP steal would be no better than a simple vitality/defense increase for most classes in this game unless it was really high. Slapping HP Steal on a passive skill duration though would be pretty interesting though.

Either way, bottom-line, as a materia it is still a slot trade-off, which in turn will make a player carry different sets of equipment around if the trade-off is distinct enough.
And we already have two sets of gear we need to carry, PvP and non-PvP for each class.

That's the whole point. When gear progression is linear, obtaining a i100 weapon means you can basically discard your i90 one. Non-linear means you're able to keep both your i100 and i90 because although one technically is better stat wise, it may lack some detail that the i90 one provided.

As for inventory space, that really doesnt seem like that big an issue to me. If something like this was implemented, im sure there'd be a new menu that only carried your materia or something.

The only way I could imagine it working, as I think you would want it, is if the materia was actually like FFVII materia system, where you chain additional abilities and skills onto the weapon as well as support materia that enhances the those abilities and skills.

What you imagine and what I imagine are one in the same. It's literally the same thing. The only reason I didn't mention adding skills is because i'm almost 99% positive it's something Square wouldn't do.