SE enough of the treadmill, please make the game more interesting!

[Avarghaladion]

Do you think the existing Materia system could be put to better use in endgame? I was disappointment by the limited situations Materia could be used in this game, and also the lack of flexibility. Perhaps the disappointment comes from the fact that I was expecting something similar to FFVII's Materia system, where you have a huge variety of options, including stat boosts, spells, skills, and other special affects.

Without requiring additional raids to be released simultaneously, why not give the end game raid gear materia slots, with special raid level materia that also drops from the raids / ex primals. I think the materia would need to be un-tradeable to ensure players aren't able to buy top level gear, however I see no issue with DoH being involved to meld.

If the materia will be special raid class, why not even throw in some interesting options like enhancements to specific job abilities, instead of just secondary stat boosts. I'm thinking along the lines of the options in Lord of the Rings online for enhancing the legendary weapons. Perhaps tomes gear could have the same thing too.

I understand balancing content is harder the more variables you add. For example, we don't want a situation where you're given multiple options for gear enhancements, but not really free to do so - like one particular enhancement makes certain instances too easy to beat cheaply, or not having a particular enhancement gives a massive disadvantage in certain instances. I think this can be achieved however, by allowing each player to achieve the same goal in different ways. For example, to increase dps by a set amount, you could choose to reduce the cooldown of one skill, increase a stat, increase the potency of a particular skill, add an additional effect to a particular skill. Through testing each option should be adjusted so that any combination can achieve a similar dps output. This way the player is truly free to make choices based on their own personal play-style.

I've thrown some pretty tame ideas out in this thread in the past about how they could add gameplay depth with minimal effort but really the addition of any variables whatsoever would be welcome. As rough as 1.0 was before they started fixing it, I never felt this pigeonholed. The materia system was closer to how you've described and you could make choices with your gear to optimize different things for different situations. People do argue that it's harder to balance, which is true, but this isn't a tiny company. We pay a hefty subscription and their current model requires pretty much zero effort to go into maintaining game balance on account of there being only one "correct" way to play any job at any given time. Every job is pretty much a reskin. They axe murdered any concept of situational gear or abilities. Even killed the elemental wheel, a staple of RPGs and JRPGs alike. Kill Ifrit with Fire! Kill Ramuh with Raiton!

[Magis]

They axe murdered any concept of situational gear or abilities. Even killed the elemental wheel, a staple of RPGs and JRPGs alike. Kill Ifrit with Fire! Kill Ramuh with Raiton!

After talking with a FC mate.... "killed" in the sense that it's currently not in used, but after looking through combat logs and various stats, it seems it's all there just not actually doing anything. Spells still say the element type and if it doesn't have an affinity, just there is no... reaction to that info.

Maybe one day it will come back but I won't hold my breath.

[Avarghaladion]

After talking with a FC mate.... "killed" in the sense that it's currently not in used, but after looking through combat logs and various stats, it seems it's all there just not actually doing anything. Spells still say the element type and if it doesn't have an affinity, just there is no... reaction to that info.

Maybe one day it will come back but I won't hold my breath.

Yeh prolly a remnant froom earlier programming. I don't think there'll ever be real changes unless there's a repeat of 1.0's situation where they lose enough customers/share they're forced to react. They seem fine with a revolving door MMO as long as it's profitable. Probably a frustrating project to work on, from a design team perspective.

[Magis]

Yeh prolly a remnant froom earlier programming. I don't think there'll ever be real changes unless there's a repeat of 1.0's situation where they lose enough customers/share they're forced to react. They seem fine with a revolving door MMO as long as it's profitable. Probably a frustrating project to work on, from a design team perspective.

I've been in those situations, a whole system designed and then the lead says to shut it off and leave it in. Wonder if the programmers got annoyed that they spent time building this system and then it just get's deactivated.

[Shurrikhan]

They axe murdered any concept of situational gear or abilities. Even killed the elemental wheel, a staple of RPGs and JRPGs alike. Kill Ifrit with Fire! Kill Ramuh with Raiton!

Probably because in order for situational gear/abilities to not turn into the likeness FFXI gear set bloating and similar choicelessness, or for the elemental wheel to not stack/exclude elementalists, a lot more underlying mechanics (the elemental wheel among the most notable, and weapon types another key example) would have to be more than name-deep.

Personally, I don't see anything wrong with killing a giant fire lizard primal with fire. It should just probably be by melting its scales off with the combined heat rather than by gradually back-smacking him with flames. Wind on Garuda... feed it additional wind damage in the process, but throw off her attacks, unbalance her, etc, and make use of what air magic she throws at you in return--a true Vortex fight, with our side, too, (riskily) making use of a deadly resource rather than merely outlasting its power.