Forbidden Materia

[TheVedis]

lol...0/89 for that queer tonberry, and you think you know what it's like to be on the "poo" end of the stick?? I don't even remember what his pop time was, but try going 0/40ish on Argus -ya, the NM that you could know the pop time for and still end up waiting 12 hours for him to pop. That was one of my friends. I was lucky enough to go like....2/7 or so. And you know the funny thing about it? I actually enjoyed it. And the reason, why, is simple...camping NMs is "a completely different animal" as some hicks like to say. At least w/ NMs you can't "lose" everything you worked for after already putting in a tremendous amount of effort. I don't mind making ppl sink time into something as long as it's always "productive." What's absurd, is that SE has made it where you could spend days, even months, farming enough materia or stuff to make gil, get all the mats you need to make your godly gear, BUST on every single one, and then start from scratch. You lose TIME (like w/ nms); you lose GIL (not like w/ nms): and you lose something you already WORKED your A#$ off for (not like w/ nms). SE needs to find a more innovative way to "take up our time" than simply hitting the "repeat button" for everything.

id like to chime in and say its actualy quite similar to NMs in a way you are not looking at

yes, you only lose time at first glance with NMs compared to materia

BUT when camping those NMs, you are doing literaly nothing, so not only are you losing time, your losing productivity, time you could be spending doing something else

with materia, you are making money to make materia, you are spending your time actualy doing something instead of just sitting there waiting for a pop


so in the end, you can technicaly say you lost a ton of money camping NMs too since you coulda been farming during all that time instead of sitting there twiddling your thumbs


either way, farming NMs or materia, is all pure choice
and with materia, you dont have to do forbidden, you can settle for a nice full set of single slotted materia and be more then ok with it, but those who want to better themselves have chosen to take the bad with the good and that again is their choice

[Jynx]

you lose GIL (not like w/ nms): and you lose something you already WORKED your A#$ off for (not like w/ nms).

So your saying that your time is worthless right? Otherwise you wouldn't just say you are only at a time loss.

Farming NM's costs you time that you could be doing other things "Farming more consistent drops that you could use to just purchase the item" Farming NM's costs you time, money, and effort.

Materia system costs you Time, Money, and effort. Both have the exact same principles in this manner. You take a risk for the reward offered, your willing to invest in the chance to strengthen your weapons beyond their natural limits.

Everything is a risk, it's a matter of balancing the risk to the reward. Personally I like a punishing system, obviously I don't speak for anyone else but myself but I have no qualms with the materia system as it stands. Even with 1 slot in all of your gear you get a very potent boost versus 0 slots (The first slot is still 100% remember) Now you start adding a risk on-top of your characters progression, you are risking your current items to make them even stronger I see no issue with this.

With great rewards come great risk. Of course developers will probably eventually cave and just nerf materia and let people slot for no risk at all making fully slotted materia the norm and thus ruining the entire point of the system.

[Khal_Drogo]

...yes, you only lose time at first glance with NMs compared to materia

BUT when camping those NMs, you are doing literaly nothing, so not only are you losing time, your losing productivity, time you could be spending doing something else

with materia, you are making money to make materia, you are spending your time actualy doing something instead of just sitting there waiting for a pop


so in the end, you can technicaly say you lost a ton of money camping NMs too since you coulda been farming during all that time instead of sitting there twiddling your thumbs

The best thing about NM camping is that, once you know the pop time, you're pretty much set. Argus was one of the worst NMs in XI, b/c even w/ a pop time, you might still be there for 12 hours. However, it was hardly unproductive, because once you DID get your item, it was instant gratification. You get the drop, you're done. Yes, you could have made a lot of gil while farming instead, but the same is true for materia. All the money and time you HAVE to blow to get the additional materia on an item could have been spent doing something much more productive -like twiddling your thumbs, waiting for a pop. What's worse to you:

Farming for days, buying a bunch of gear and materia, "throwing away all the mats you just bought," and then doing it all again? or...


"Twiddling your thumbs," waiting for an NM to pop, having him not drop the item, running off and doing something else, then coming back later to try again?


I don't mind doing something "unproductive." What i DO mind though...is doing something "productive" and then having all of that hard work and effort rendered useless in a matter of minutes. That's what the materia system offers.


Let me break it down, so it makes more sense:

NM Camping: Time, Money, and Effort = "GODLY ITEM"

Materia Acquisition: Time, Money, and Effort = ****ATTEMPT**** at a "GODLY ITEM"

[HoolieWho]

NM Camping: Time, Money, and Effort = ****ATTEMPT**** at a "GODLY ITEM"

Materia Acquisition: Time, Money, and Effort = ****ATTEMPT**** at a "GODLY ITEM"

Fixed that for you.

[weeble]

standing around for hours for nm and crafting almost equal the same thing to me, they both boring. but i'd say it like in ffxi i would take the boat places even though i knew the choco would get me there a little quikcer, why? i got to go afk instead of pay attention to get there. i don't want to camp nm's all day and be afk or waiting for hours for a pop like ffxi, but i surely don't want to craft 24/7 for my best gears. while i'm sure the dungeon drops will be better balanced (or failed game) materia can't be the best made stuff no matter how hard it is, it needs to involve drops from killing. both wait for nm and crafting/dol for materia is both kinda weak for me, i want to be killing stuff all day long, like the strongholds, i can happily farm gear like that all day if the gear was worth it. no more of this afk business.

[TheVedis]

Fixed that for you.

lol yeah, you didnt get 100% drops thats for damn sure

and lets not forget the gimped version of the items that came around when they rare/exd everything the NMs dropped

[Khal_Drogo]

Fixed that for you.

Well, if you want to be a smart a#@ about it, I'll explain it further...

When you camp an NM for hours, you *always get a pop, and you *always get a chance to claim/kill it. You don't have to go farm something for hours, to make gil, to buy items, to get the nm to pop or anything absurd like that....you just CAMP.

When you try to meld additional materia, you HAVE to either farm to make gil, so you can buy materia, or go and spiritbond gear for hours, pray you get the type you want, then you finally manage to get to a point where you can take all that time you've ALREADY wasted, and gamble it on the item.

With an NM, I already meet the requirements to "obtain my godly item" -i have space in my inventory. I don't need a s!#$load of gil; I don't need to exp, so I can get some stupid item that allows me an "attempt" at the claim; I just sit there, and wait for a pop. So, you're essentially asking someone to farm for hours in order to make their "NM pop." I don't know how to be any clearer. Do you understand the difference?

NM= time sitting, effort claiming, and a loss of gil incurred by wasting the time camping instead* of farming.

Materia Melding= time farming, effort succeeding w/ a meld, and a loss of gil incurred by wasting time getting the materia and/or farming to make gil and then the loss of all that gil by **attempting** to get your item

Imagine that the NM is the Materia Melding attempt: the NM has a poor drop rate; the Meld has a poor success rate. I didn't have to do a thing to get a chance at my drop. You had to farm for hours; and w/o gil you will NEVER get your item. Without a party to help you and other ppl spritbond their gear to make materia, you will NEVER get your material for your item. Without crafters making the gear you keep blowing up, you will NEVER even have a all the pieces of gear you want to meld materia to, and so on...

[grandm]

You know why I think, virtually, everything you said is moot? Because it has nothing to do with hard work half the time. I've seen 100s of ppl try to get the same item for years, putting the same time, effort, hard work, and gil into it as the next guy. Wanna know the difference? There's always that poor soul who gets completely shafted. And, clearly, those who align themselves w/ your biased logic have never been on the s@!# end of the stick when pushing for items like this. Well, here's a thought: do away with the BULL S!#@ luck aspect (a.k.a horribly calculated algorithms), and embrace some sort of system that *truly rewards hard work. Why not make materia EXTREMELY difficult to obtain, or leave hand/land ppl out of the mix, and make it where players have to complete some insanely difficult "Divine Might-like" fight in XI to gain access to an npc that will meld items for you. There are numerous ways to bring about the same results without this ridiculous system that rewards the "charmed" and punishes the "unlucky."

is it not the same when you fight ifrit? you have lets say : lancer a) and lancer b) they both spend as much on there gear and both fight ifrit together all the time, after 10 battles lancer a) has won a lancer and sword. but lancer b) has won nothing. both have put in the same effort, but luck can be a bitch, stop crying, get over it, this is the way games work

[Kiara]

Everything is a risk, it's a matter of balancing the risk to the reward. Personally I like a punishing system, obviously I don't speak for anyone else but myself but I have no qualms with the materia system as it stands. Even with 1 slot in all of your gear you get a very potent boost versus 0 slots (The first slot is still 100% remember) Now you start adding a risk on-top of your characters progression, you are risking your current items to make them even stronger I see no issue with this.

With great rewards come great risk. Of course developers will probably eventually cave and just nerf materia and let people slot for no risk at all making fully slotted materia the norm and thus ruining the entire point of the system.

Hi Jynx,

I usually agree with your sentiments on most topics. Here's a question for you and everyone:

* What about the long-term goals that always allows a positive increment for player progress? Specifically, like Relic Weapons in FF XI?

I agree with Khal in that the Materia System feels like far too much is left to a Random Number Generator and Chance (just rolling the dice).

What about long-term goals like Relic Weapons from FF XI, where at least *every step of the way* it's rewarding Player Effort, Time and Skill (battling in Dynamis every chance you get, to earn more Currency to work towards the long term goal of getting different Stages of your Relic Weapon).

As insane as the requirements were for Relic Weapons (at least the early days of FF XI, I'm not sure how much easier it got later), at least every minute you put towards it as a player (fighting through Dynamis for Currency, fighting to beat NMs for the Attestation of Might, Attestation of Bravery, Glory, etc.), the game was rewarding your effort.

I understand the Risk vs. Reward scenario as well, but I'd love to see a system that rewarded Player Effort and Skill (e.g., overcome a series of challenging Quests around Eorzea and defeat a brutal NM to gain a "blessing" by one of the Twelve that increases your chances to Meld a 2nd or 3rd Materia, etc.).

Thanks~

[Royal]

I understand the Risk vs. Reward scenario as well, but I'd love to see a system that rewarded Player Effort and Skill (e.g., overcome a series of challenging Quests around Eorzea and defeat a brutal NM to gain a "blessing" by one of the Twelve that increases your chances to Meld a 2nd or 3rd Materia, etc.).

Amazing idea. That would actually make sense. If they make it too easy, then multiple materia will be the norm and content will be tuned around it. Gotta keep that in mind.