Brace yourselfes, wall of text is coming!
Please reply AFTER reading the full text or leave it be, since I want a nice discussion, ideas and comments for this.
Since the beginning of the game, a lot of stuff happened. But ever since, the customization of stats and anything related to it, was restricted and the attribute system while leveling is nothing more than a "I have to distribute points even though they have no significant effect"-system, which forces you to distribute points, fitting the job. Or in other words, from a bard, who skills STR instead of DEX, I expect nothing in fights.
However, with the introduction of the zodiac-weapons, especially Novus, SE took the right direction. The only bad thing about it: The weapons are not worth the effort and especially not the cost, given the fact that you need at least 75 Materia if every meld is successful.
Sure, the materia-market is booming ever since, but those shiny little stones could be used way better.
Until now, except for crafters and gatherers as well as the Novus weapon, you could only use them for the crafted gear or PvP stuff. That's a waste of potential in every way. However, there would be a way to make a good use of our beloved materias and I will explain the general Idea in some simple blocks.
1. The best crafting gear should always have the same Ilv as the current gear for tomes while the raid gear (coil or what comes next) should be 10 Ilv above.
2. Every piece of gear, crafted or not should have 2 or 3 Materia-slots with the option to penta-meld it to get a total of 5 possible materia per piece of gear. (for my example, we will have 3 materia slots for gear and 2 for jewelry.)
3. The Ilv of melded items should rise based on the provided stats by materia (since lv IV materia grants significantly more than lv I)
4. There should be the option to remove single materia from items instead of all together
- Lv 1 Materia: 500Gil
- Lv 2 Materia: 1000 Gil
- Lv 3 Materia: 4500 Gil
- Lv 4 Materia: 10000 Gil
Example (with old gear, but you will get the idea):
Let's take the Auroral Tabard (soldiery tomes + sands of time, Ilv 110)
Dexterity +39
Vitality +46
Critical Hit Rate +41
Determination +20
Defense: 91
Magical Defense: 91
If we slot it with materia now (let's take lv IV for this), we can get the following for example:
2x Heaven's Eye IV: 2x +9 ACC
2x Savage Aim IV: 2x +9 CRIT
1x Savage Might IV: 1x +6 DET
This makes a total of 42 additional stat-points. Given the fact that all 5 materias are IV's, let's say every materia grants Ilv +1, this makes the following:
Auroral Tabard (Ilv 115):
Dexterity +39
Vitality +46
Critical Hit Rate +59
Determination +26
Accuracy +18
Defense: 91
Magical Defense: 91
So we now have a customized "tome-item" which grants more stats, a higher itemlevel and a good amount of customization. Here's another example:
Kirimu-Coat (crafted, Ilv 110):
Dexterity +35
Vitality +36
Accuracy +33
Determination +16
Defense 91
Magical Defense 91
now we are gonna slot it with the following materia:
2x Savage Aim IV: 2x +9 CRIT
2x Quickarm IV: 2x +9 Skillspeed
1x Savage Might IV: 1x +6 DET
This makes:
Kirimu Coat (Ilv 115)
Dexterity +35
Vitality +36
Accuracy +33
Determination +22
Critical Hit Rate +18
Skillspeed +18
Defense 91
Magical Defense 91
This makes our crafted Item and the tome-gear relatively even and well customized. Since there are lots of different materia, you have several options to slot it according to your playstyle and gives different builds.
As mentioned, raid gear should be 10 Ilv above the tome gear and the crafted pieces. So you are now free to image how it would look like with an item with Ilv 120 and materia.
"But the only change here is the itemlevel and the fact that tome-gear can be slotted!", will some of you say now. Yeah right, in fact, that's what it is now, but since I love materia so much (hey, they paid my 46 Million Gil house <3), I have another concept of even improving the use more.
Since this system will cause a huge demand of materia, I took the system from FFVII and combined it with our current Soulbind system. Beware!
1. Everytime a materia will be melded into an item, the binding will go back to 0.
2. The materia themselfes won't get binding, only the item will
Given those 2 points, we can now start to master our materia. There we go again and here is my example item:
Kirimu Coat (Ilv 115)
Dexterity +35
Vitality +36
Accuracy +33
Determination +22
Critical Hit Rate +18
Skillspeed +18
Defense 91
Magical Defense 91
2x Savage Aim IV: 2x +9 CRIT
2x Quickarm IV: 2x +9 Skillspeed
1x Savage Might IV: 1x +6 DET
We have now melded all materia into the Kirimu-Coat and got the item above. Binding is at 0%. We now start binding it, until it reaches 100% binding. Since we have those shiny little materias in it, the following happens:
We MASTER the materia, which means every materia gets "MASTER"-status. Only melded materias can gain this, since they brake if removed from the item.
Following rules apply to MASTER-materia:
1. The provided stats double or (just insert a random multiplicator here, e.g. 1.5)
2. The provided Ilv bonus doubles
3. Everytime a materia is removed or melded, the binding of the item goes to 0%.
4. If an item has MASTER-materia melded and the binding gets back to 0%, the materia lose their MASTER-status
5. Based on which materia you melded, you get a replication of it. Here is my example:
Savage Aim IV MASTER:
10% Chance of getting Savage Aim IV
20% Chance of getting Savage Aim III
30% Chance of getting Savage Aim II
40% Chance of getting Savage Aim I
Savage Aim III MASTER:
20% Chance of getting Savage Aim III
30% Chance of getting Savage Aim II
50% Chance of getting Savage Aim I
Savage Aim II MASTER:
40% Chance of getting Savage Aim II
60% Chance of getting Savage Aim I
Savage Aim I MASTER:
100% Chance of getting Savage Aim I
The sense behind this is to get more materia into the economy since the demand will rise sky high. Also, you will now have more ammo for materia-gambling
Anyway, to get back to our example, we have now mastered all 5 melded materia in our Kirimu-Coat and so we will finally get:
Kirimu Coat (Ilv 120)
Dexterity +35
Vitality +36
Accuracy +33
Determination +28
Critical Hit Rate +36
Skillspeed +36
Defense 91
Magical Defense 91
2x Savage Aim IV MASTER: 2x +18 CRIT
2x Quickarm IV MASTER: 2x +18 Skillspeed
1x Savage Might IV MASTER: 1x +12 DET
This is a maximum on customization, makes good use of materia, provides good possibilities to gear up another way and simply looks like more fun than the current system. Also, the crafted gear gets a more important role than it does now.
Q&A:
Q: Isn't this going to make all players broke because of the pricing?
A: Since MASTER-materia will replicate themselves, we will get more materia into economy, henceforth the prices should regulate themselfes
Q: Nobody will take me into dungeons if my gear isn't melded! I even got vote-kicked!
A: Seriously? There are always people like that. Since only the endgame-content requires such a good gear, you should be fine with normal duties like 24man raids, PvP or even dungeons.
Q: Aren't your examples totally overpowered?
A: Yeah, they are, but given that those are examples, feel free to imagine a fitting balancing. Also, there will be stat-caps, just like now.
Q: I don't like to spend money on materia and I don't want to be forced to meld my stuff.
A: No one forces you to do so. Just like with Novus, this is optional and except for the hardest content you should be fine with unmelded gear.
Q: I'd love to use this system but I can't afford all those materias!
A: There are tons of opportunities to get money in this game! Just search for them! (or the forums!)
Anyway, there you go! How do like this idea? Any improvements? Suggestions? Let me know![]()