Melding on tomestone / raid gear

[Ryel]

I don't disagree with you, but until we're at that point, I feel like this change doesn't serve much purpose. I think the "elitism" argument is a little silly. My issue is that the materia don't really provide a very large number of stats under this new proposed system, a few more points on whatever stat and a few more points on some secondaries, it just seems so paltry. With everything being so straightforward as far as stats and gearing goes, my issue is that this change doesn't really do anything right now. Maybe down the line yes, but I really think it's not worth implementing until the materia thing is significant enough to be worth noticing.

Unless 3.2 or beyond adds new types of materia, which is entirely possible. However seeing as we know nothing about this feature other than the fact that they're just adding materia slots to tome / raid gear it seems far too early for the all the negativity being thrown around towards a feature that could quite literally be a game changer on a fundamental level when it comes to gearing and itemization.

Whats to stop them from adding materia with unique stats or stat modifiers to compliment this system as someone else mentioned?

This could very well eventually lead to the return of job specific stats but it has to start somewhere for players to get used to it.