The way items work as of now...

[Physic]

You're confusing yourself. +3 items = more chance to slot materia. EVEN IF you add in slots to u/u items it wont matter unless they make the percent as high as a +3 item. Idk what you're rambling on about. The whole gear system as it is right now is lame, they need to add in gear swaps, stat mods for weapon skills, and make ACC ACTUALLY MEAN SOMETHING and as mentioned before allow materia with same % to meld as +3 items or higher on U/U items. By doing that you will increase the number of players out in SH's and increase the materia market and overall fun in playing

uhhh, +3 is higher base stats, IE more dmg and acc on a weapon, more defense on armor. Compating it to the best rare ex stuff, a regular crafted item usually has lower base stats.

so take an ifrit knuckle

131 dmg 20 attack 15 fire resistance and fire damage chance
the best craftable weapon for pug
117 dmg
there is no dmg + materia so in order to come close to ifrit you would need a +3 knuckle
it would probably be like
126 dmg or so (just guessing i think +1 adds 3 for this weap)
then best you could do to similate 20 attack is put 20 strength on it (pug doesnt have access to att materia on its weapon)
no way to similate the fire resistance or additional effect, but if you could use a elemental def materia it would be +15

so basicallly dropped gear is around equal to a +3 3xmateria gear, so why you complaining?


btw gear swaps suck, ACC matters for high level monsters, but even so they said they may lower it back to before though everyone complained. And no one really has any idea if stats mod weapon skills right now, it may infact do so, so what are you complaining about again?