[Suggestion] Useful Elemental Materia

[Windborne]

First off this is my first forum post here on the FFXIV forums, so if I posted this in the wrong place I'm sorry. If a mod wants to move it to an appropriate sub-forum that's cool.

Now on to my Suggestion!

Currently Elemental Materia aren't used for anything but transmutation in Central Thanalan. As someone who knows quite a bit about game design I know that this isn't an ideal situation.

Anyways here's my idea: Make Elemental Materia a glamour/vanity materia only. They would add a persistent effect around your character that would be appropriate to the corresponding element. Like Greased Lightning or Darkside each materia would add a similar effect.

I have two ideas that don't work well with each other, but could be implemented. The first is more simple, while the second would possibly reduce the graphical intensity that it would cause on lower end systems and the PlayStation 3, although I'd suggest implementing this after dropping PS3 support.

Continued Below!

[Windborne]

The First: Have the varying grades denote the intensity and frequency of the persistent effect. A Fire Grade 3 would be a frequent and average flaming aura, whereas a Fire Grade 1 would be an infrequent and weak aura.

The Second: The various grades could denote specific body parts that would be affected by the materia that was attached and the effects would be tailored to that specific body part. For example: a Fire Grade 3 would denote the same effect as above and would be counted towards the "body" where as Grade 1 would affect only the feet and would leave flaming footprints on the ground. Wind Grade 4 might affect the arms and legs causing you to emit small vortexes around the limbs. Water Grade 2 might affect the head and cause a small rainfall to occur above your head.

Continued below!

[Windborne]

Okay Wind, but how would they implement this without making a huge overhaul of every item?: This is an easily solvable problem! We would add a single materia slot to Job Soulstones. This would give each player the chance to customize the look of their various jobs without a huge overhaul of every in game item. It's a lot easier to change a dozen or so items rather than thousands. In addition it would make each player have to choose between which effect they want for that particular job, and would limit the amount of effects on screen.

If the developers wanted to go the extra thousand miles they could rehaul each and every item, but I think that the above suggestion is the most practical and least time consuming for the developers to have.

Please leave thoughts and comments below, and if you like this thread please say so. The more people who comment the more likely this idea will be implemented because Yoshi-P will have been informed about it.

[ChameleonMS]

Welcome to the forums. Tip, you can exceed the 1000 character limit by editing your post after the initial save.

I like your out of the box idea.
Would you allow over melding on the soulstone to have more than 1 effect at a time? With your body part localization idea, I would definite see the desire to meld more than 1 glamour effect. This would also give a RNG a chance to trash additional materia removing them from the system.

[Nekotee]

I like that idea
But it would kinda kill the primal weapon and maybe lire gear (Does it have effect once upgrade ? But i like the ifrit horn glow even not repaired)

By the way there is 2 use of elemental materia
Transmutation as said
And spiritbonding
=> each melded materia enhance the spiritbonding speed of the item

[Windborne]

Welcome to the forums. Tip, you can exceed the 1000 character limit by editing your post after the initial save.

I like your out of the box idea.
Would you allow over melding on the soulstone to have more than 1 effect at a time? With your body part localization idea, I would definite see the desire to meld more than 1 glamour effect. This would also give a RNG a chance to trash additional materia removing them from the system.

No I wouldn't allow overmelding unless this was added when support of the PlayStation 3 was dropped. That being said, I still think the first idea of mine is better and would preclude the need for overmelding. Like I've said above, making a choice is good game design. Thanks for the tip regarding character limit in posts. I wish that was more obvious.

I like that idea
But it would kinda kill the primal weapon and maybe lire gear (Does it have effect once upgrade ? But i like the ifrit horn glow even not repaired)

By the way there is 2 use of elemental materia
Transmutation as said
And spiritbonding
=> each melded materia enhance the spiritbonding speed of the item

No it wouldn't kill any Primal weapon glamours. In fact it'd only enhance it, and the Lore gear isn't the same nor is it customizable. As for transmutation yes it is useful but again it's not a real choice compared to actually gambling with useful materia. Spiritbonding can be done with any materia, just because Elemental resistance is useless is the only reason people use it currently over any other materia, again it's not good game design.

[Mimilu]

What if the Elemental Material not only boosted your resistance to its respected element but also your proficiency with it?
For Example, a THM/BLM could use Fire Materia to boost the damage from their Fire spells and maybe Flare? Or Ice to boost Blizzard and Freeze?
Or maybe have the Elements effect other stats, like have Water effect Healing Power, another Magic Damage, and so on?

[Windborne]

What if the Elemental Material not only boosted your resistance to its respected element but also your proficiency with it?
For Example, a THM/BLM could use Fire Materia to boost the damage from their Fire spells and maybe Flare? Or Ice to boost Blizzard and Freeze?
Or maybe have the Elements effect other stats, like have Water effect Healing Power, another Magic Damage, and so on?

We could do that, but personally I'd rather it just be for pure vanity sakes.