Forbidden Materia, meant for the hardcore or just the lucky?

[Molly_Millions]

No comments on the success rate, as I think it's awesome that we've now got a chance (however small) of making some super rare, super awesome gear. I just had a comment on your approach, OP. Instead of going for gold right off the bat with a single set of gloves with 5 materia, why don't you slowly increase the number of melds across all your armor/weapons? For example, start with 2 materia on everything, since that isn't too tough, then go for the same pieces but with 3 melds, then increasing to 4, etc. That approach seems much more reasonable because you'll slowly be increasing your stats (due to the higher meld success rates until you get close to the goal) rather than just loosing more gloves initially.

[Abauge_Goga]

in short the reason not so many ppl are, "up in arms" as you put it. is because as new content is released, it is released with new and better gear, new content bring better gear that makes old gear obsolete, there is no reason to believe what is to come in the future won't be better than materia. materia came after the dungeons that are out so it is better. but 1.21 will have newer stuff that will be better again. if not then complain

They will not release gear that is better than gear with materia. If they do, noone will meld anymore. They will add more rare/ex gear for sure, but they will also come up with new normal gear that, when melded with 2 or so tiers of materia will become better.

The system is broken right now, there is no skill involved, only luck and gil. Like someone already said, the only way to have the best gear in the game right now is if you have lots of gil, which is RMT heaven.

I hope they either change this to something Meowie or someone else suggested, quest or HNM which drop certain key items that give you a materia slot, or something else that removes this gil sink out of the equation and replaces it with a time sink.

[Frein]

I hope they either change this to something Meowie or someone else suggested, quest or HNM which drop certain key items that give you a materia slot, or something else that removes this gil sink out of the equation and replaces it with a time sink.

It's not even a gil sink because the gil goes to other players rather than disappearing from circulation. Still, it's incredibly pro-RMT.

[syntaxlies]

It's not even a gil sink because the gil goes to other players rather than disappearing from circulation. Still, it's incredibly pro-RMT.

it is a gil sink because of the taxing. the market wards tax system is one big gil sink.

[tymora]

It's not even a gil sink because the gil goes to other players rather than disappearing from circulation. Still, it's incredibly pro-RMT.

Suggest something that can make you gil in game and drive the economy without being incredibly pro-RMT. I doubt you can. I doubt anyone else can either.

[Frein]

Why the community isn't more up in arms about this is puzzling to me. I guess most people aren't looking at the materia system in a broad picture.

If it makes you feel any better, I was up in arms as soon as the system was announced. Forbidden Materia Melding seemed awful on paper and it's just as awful in-game. It's a complete crapshoot with abysmal success rates, unnecessary complexity (I believe we have 20 tiers of each materia) and no skill whatsoever involved.

[MeowyWowie]

Just two things I wanna clear up real quick.

The comparison between the materia system (the way it is now) and relics (when I still played XI) is very similar. I don't mean stat-wise, because frankly, M5 gear pales in comparison and really isn't worth the effort. The similarity is that both take/took forever to complete because of the low supply of materia/currency. The only real difference, at the moment, is that materia is luck based, while relics were guaranteed after accumulating all the required currency and r/ex items. I'm well aware that the materia system will change as time goes on, I said it in the OP. It's one of the reasons I started this thread, for suggestions on how it could be changed.

Yoshi P himself said that forbidden materia was meant for the more hardcore players. I wish I could find the quote right now but I can't remember where it was mentioned and I really don't feel like digging through past dev posts to find it. As the title of the thread suggests, I believe that forbidden materia is for the lucky few, not hardcore players as we were told. I would prefer if it was more skill/dedication based than the way it is now. I'm not a big fan of the RNG, this system was made for people who like to gamble, not hardcore players that are willing to spend a lot of time working on a goal.

So to recap real quick on the whole point of my OP..

• The forbidden materia system is meant for the lucky, not for the hardcore as Yoshi P said.

While this can be fixed in many ways, it very likely needs a complete overhaul to do so. Chances are, SE will not be willing to go this route. Regardless, suggestions on how it could be fixed are always welcome, I'm sure.

• The average amount of time and gil needed to create an M5 piece of gear is not worth the gear itself, and as time spent working on this equipment passes, the finished gear will be worth even less.

This can also be fixed in many ways, and seems to be the more likely approach SE will take to do so. Spirit Bond rate adjustments in 1.20 are a good example.

Overall, the process either needs to be shortened or the benefits of creating items like these needs to increase. Possible solutions have already been posted in this thread and there is no need to repeat them.

[Madruk]

It doesn't really take a hardcore player to get double materia, which is already better than pretty much anything else.

I'm in a wait and see mode, since pretty much all of this content means nothing until 2.0. We can voice our opinions till then and see what happens. Since currently nothing is really what I'd deem a real raid, content like the upcoming Crystal Tower multiple alliance raid might have gear worth the incentive to work for. Also ifrit weapons give me slight hope, as some of them are better than what you can get with materia (barring 4 slot materia Tier IV).

[MeowyWowie]

Oh, I'm still set on finishing it. But I'm no fool, the actual stats on the finished gear are really not worth the time, gil and effort required to make them. Regardless, I love large time sinks like these, although I'd prefer the rewards to be a bit better than they currently are.

If I decide to sell them when they're finished, I'd be lucky to even ask for 50% of the gil I spent on making them, and would likely only get offers for 30% of it. And that's just gil spent, alone. Time and effort spent should also be profitable, but in this case they won't be. The only people who can profit off of these are the extremely lucky who happen to get a 5th meld within only a few attempts. Like I said, this system rewards the lucky, not the hardcore.

Still, I don't really care, for me it's a personal achievement type of thing and I'll have fun doing it. I'd love it if the risk vs reward was balanced better, but whatever. It'll keep me busy while I wait for 2.0.

[Claire_Pendragon]

Threads such as this are only HALF as useful as they should be, in convincing anything from the Devs.
(No stabs at anyone here.)

You need to remember WHY Materia exists in the 1st place.

It's solely here to help crafters make money.

In most MMOs, gear they make is either crappier than what comes from drops, or better, and so everyone and their mom takes up crafting.

In the end, we will have too many weapons/armor going around, lowering the value of said gear.

So what did Yoshida create? a system that removes excess gear from the system.
The chances to fail, and blow up, are not there solely to make it hard, as mentioned before, multi-socket gear could have replaced it.
The gear blows up, to remove it from circulation.

So if we are to ever remove this annoying system, we need to come up with alternative that will allow for similar results.
(And to avoid just changing the name/method of the system, where we are still annoyed, we might need to make 2 separate systems.)

The best I could offer in suggestion, after doing some math, is to lower the chance of blowing up gear.
Lose the materia, but have a chance of losing the gear it's attached to, or similar.

(I'm still a fan of attaching materia to u/u gear, ONLY by yourself, so crafters get an edge, simply by having taking up crafting high enough to attach it to their own u/u gear.)