"Interesting Stats" Idea: Sub-Materia Concept

[Toguro]

Ever since we got the ability to put materia in our gear we have gotten 1 small step closer to having more interesting stats and being able to customize our gear. I think there is a way the next step can be taken.

This concept will not involve deep stat customization like Rampart +3% or Full Thrust +5% Crit Rate

This concept was thought up while taking into account how hard it would be for the devs to create such a thing and balance of characters.


So the base of idea: We have elemental materia in this game that is not used in battle at all. These include:
- Ice Materia
- Fire Materia
- Lightning Materia
- Water Materia
- Earth Materia
- Wind Materia

I have heard the elemental resistance stat can effect the damage of attacks when a potion is used. But no one would want to switch out primary materia such as Critical or Determination for an elemental stat. Plus they may need to be stacked.

Now, there are also what I would call.. Hidden Stats. These are stats that are boosted by abilities frequently or have a clear numerical value but do not have an actual visual number. These include:
- Evasion
- Enmity
- Critical Hit Intake
- Healing Recovery
- Healing Restoration
- Vulnerability

I would really like to be able to see the real stat numbers for these. As they most definitely exist. Especially Enmity. I suspect that Enmity is measured as a stat and has a potency on attacks(that much is proven). If we could increase this stat, it should be as simple as putting in Str V materia to increase power and such. We could stack Evasion to dodge attacks or stack Healing Recovery to have more powerful heals on players.

Lastly we have the other side stats that can be made into materia. These stats are in-game, have numbers, but virtually no way to increase. These include:
- Sleep Resistance
- Paralysis Resistance
- Poison Resistance
- Stun Resistance
- Blind Resistance
- Slow Resistance
- Heavy Resistance
- Punt Resistance
- Defense
- Magical Defense

I would really like these to be you know... useful? And It would be quite nice to have the option to manually increase gear defense.


The Concept: Here's how this will work, with the power of Photoshop, I created an example of the gear window.





The previous stats listed may all be categorized as sub-materia. As they are not important enough to switch out Crit/Det/SS etc. So it would be more effective and useful to create a separate category to allow for more freedom. All of these stats are fairly passive and will not effect damage output which is much safer to implement and balance than some other stats/upgrades that include battle attacks.


Usage: It would be great if these materia could be manually placed and removed to avoid hassle. Either that or remove the dang Unique lock on gear, I have no idea why there is a Unique lock on tome gear that cannot be sold or traded anywhere that's not yourself.

And what harm would there be if you could buy 3 chest pieces if it's your decision? It would make for much needed gear presets. "Oh I'm doing Garuda? Let me take off my fire-modded chestpiece and put on the wind-modded chestpiece" for example. This would offer for much deeper planning and customization..

And there would be much less of a fear of the "Illusion of Choice" besides the basic "Ifrit is fire, I should use fire materia!" Or "I don't want to get hit as much. Let me get evasion."

(I almost forgot!)Accessibility: Sub-Materia could be obtained via NPCs who convert your gear. To avoid crowding these guys should be placed in various areas.. Into these materias. With the chances of getting what you want being at random WITH EXCEPTION TO gear that already has resistance stat in it. Like a Ramuh weapon has a higher chance of giving Lightning than a Garuda. Weapons/Armor that lack these stats, have an equal chance to get anything.

ALL materia can be tradeable and sellable...


To be honest I can't see how this concept would be painstakingly hard to create.




What do you guys think!?

[ElHeggunte]

Lastly we have the other side stats that can be made into materia. These stats are in-game, have numbers, but virtually no way to increase. These include:
- Sleep Resistance
- Paralysis Resistance
- Poison Resistance
- Stun Resistance
- Blind Resistance
- Slow Resistance
- Heavy Resistance
- Punt Resistance
- Defense
- Magical Defense

I would really like these to be you know... useful? And It would be quite nice to have the option to manually increase gear defense.

All of these (besides Def and M.Def) already exist as those orange-colored PvP materia. The only difference your suggestion would make is these not taking up "real" slots I guess.

[randysquirrel]

I like the idea of sub-stat materia, but the ideas you've proposed I don't find interesting at all. For elemental material, if I use wind materia against garuda I take what, 2% less damage? The amounts would either be so small that it wouldn't make any difference anyway, so high that they were content breaking, or if it fell between these amounts, the content would have to be adjusted to assume everyone had this buff, which would make it mandatory, everyone would have said buff and then it eliminates the whole point of it anyway, if everyone has the same added shield.

Sorry to be negative, but I don't really like the resistance ones either. Firstly if I get hit by a debuff like stun or something, it's usually cos I've messed up a mechanic. and if I wore a sun resist material I would subconsciously expect it to save me from every stun, I mean if I had a stun resist material and you still get stunned anyway, I'd be annoyed and thinking why do I even bother wearing this materia

I'd rather materia that had very low chances of proccing something. So low that it could never be relied on (and so not be one of those things that everyone simply had to have), but on the very rare occasion that it does, it could be fun. As BLM, maybe a materia that gave me a 1% chance on each fire IV cast that I get a "triple" buff for my next cast and it hits three times, or a 5% chance when using a thunder proc I get internal release buff, something I wouldn't normally have access to. idk just example ideas off my head. There could be lots of different types of materia like this, but by making the proc chances very low, it's hard to say which is strictly better, and so hopefully would be more about people picking whichever ones they found more fun, rather that there being one obvious best materia that everyone would have

[TankHunter678]

I actually would not mind seeing this kind of system.

Though I would also not mind seeing the bosses gain elemental defense as well and that elemental materia put in a weapon's sub materia slots would make a portion of the damage inflicted with them into the element of that materia. Though that would be tricky to balance in some cases.

[Toguro]

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To gain a passive advantage would be the point of the materia though. That would be the gimick. Perhaps if you stack full Lightning V you could take alot less damage from A7S lightning or A5S lightning. Or you may choose Evasion which may cause you to dodge a certain attack. Plus if you could replace materia or have multiple unique pieces, you may choose between multiple builds.



I am well aware of the ideas like 5% Thunder proc etc, but as the thread suggests, it's the 2nd step to customization not the final. Also, Yoshida already said none of that. So I was disinclined to base an idea on those kinds of buffs. These would require MUCH more work and balancing than this concept...

[Toguro]

All of these (besides Def and M.Def) already exist as those orange-colored PvP materia. The only difference your suggestion would make is these not taking up "real" slots I guess.

I actually forgot about those 100%.. They put it in PvP though so it's an automatic fail.

This fact just makes it even easier to bring them in to a PvE scenario however

[randysquirrel]

To gain a passive advantage would be the point of the materia though. That would be the gimick.

Understand that, but just saying I would find those quite boring. Taking less damage from lightning in a7s might make it a bit easier for the healers, but they'd either still need to be on point to keep everyone up, unless the advantage is so huge that it's more like a nerf to the fight. Which imo we don't need. the fights already get nerfed enough.

And re evasion, if I dodge 5% more attacks, this is still not something that you could ever measure as coming from the materia or just something you would've dodged anyway, so I don't find it particularly exciting either, more like something you'd just shove in and never really care about "oh im dodging 5% more am I, nice". only ones who might benefit would be tanks, and sounds like it would be as unreliable as parry

[Eloah]

I think I see what you are getting at but I think the placement on gear might not work that well. I think I have a slightly better solution that I will post here when I'm done "finalizing" the idea.

Edit: its not all finalized yet but here us the idea
http://tinyurl.com/ff9customize

[Toguro]

I think I see what you are getting at but I think the placement on gear might not work that well. I think I have a slightly better solution that I will post here when I'm done "finalizing" the idea.

Edit: its not all finalized yet but here us the idea
http://tinyurl.com/ff9customize

With Elemental and Abnormal stat materia it could be like the Monster Hunter jewel system... For example, you, need +15 stun for a stun to actually be reduced by 25% or whatever, you put in 3 Stun Vs and then you get the Stun Resistance 1 skill.

Or Evasion 3 = +45 Evasion.


To be honest I would love attack-specific customization but the Devs don't wanna do it.

[MagiusNecros]

I will accept any stat customization that is something different from "customize secondary stats that buff primary attack stat". Because that isn't customization at all.