Materia on all gear.. Why not?

[Kiara]

Hi Tachi,

It's a good question.

There've been a lot of people discussing the pros and cons of being able to meld Materia on Raid / Dungeon Gear. I personally agree with you that they should allow it.

I can see the pros and cons, of how Crafters prefer to have their crafted armor be the only meldable pieces to allow crafting to be viable, vs. adventurers / DoW / DoM wanting Raid / Dungeon Gear to be worthwhile to go after.

I definitely agree that many Coffer Drops right now can be exceeded by a craftable armor version + single or double meld Materia (relatively easy). And of course Dzemael Darkhold's drops have been pretty much nullified after 1.19.

Thinking back on examples like Sky Drops in Final Fantasy XI (early days)... I remember generally that all the high level players I spoke with (crafters included) were fine with the gameplay involved in trying to get a Kirin's Osode, or Byakko's Haidate.

Or earning the Dryadic Abjuration: Legs to help complete your Shura Haidate pants.

I don't remember people (in the early days) hating these quests and End Game activities. I had a blast with Sky and things like that.

So do Crafters and Adventurers nowadays hate the stuff we had in Sky back then? Is it so bad? I'm puzzled.

[Velhart]

It is both ways for me. I want raid gear the go to gear. I want crafted gear to ultimately be the best under harsh conditions, such as it is now.

The problem with current coffer gear is that most of it has stats that even one materia attachment can dominate. Make it like 3+ materia slots to make the crafted gear better. Make the crafters work hard for the better gear.

The main problem is lousy rare/ex. gear, that is all. Make the stats more worthwhile in rare/ex. gear, and balance will start kicking in. I will see how future rare/ex. gear holds up when more is released to properly criticize it.

[TheFatHousecat]

Well staying on topic with putting materia on ALL gear, Nero from the German forums has put up a thread (http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...are-Ex-Materia) detailing an idea of his which appears to have gotten some positive dev. attention.

I've yet to have a German friend fully translate this for me so please correct me if I'm misunderstanding something that Google Translate told me xD

The basic idea from what I can tell is a U/U tier of materia (called Tier V) which can only drop from NMs, at a reduced drop rate, obv. This materia has stronger stat bonuses than what we have now, and even a suggested Haste-style materia. Since it's U/U, you would obv. need to have a bazaar meld request system put in, which we need anyways.

The special materia would only be able to be melded to U/U items, such as Ifrit's Weapons. Nero even had the % of success for forbidden materia on U/U mapped out (100%, 50%, 25%, 10%, 5%); assuming that it's so forgiving because of the difficulty of obtaining the materia/item in the first place.

I think that this would be a great idea, mainly for the following reasons:

1) It adds relevance to old NMs. You could add the first wave of Tier V materia to current NMs like Dodore, Great Buffalo, and Batraal, who are receiving less attention as of late since Ifrit's taking up the spotlight. New materia can be added to NMs from past patches as new content is released so that there's always a reason to go back and farm Ifrit or Batraal or Uraeus for a couple weeks, depending on what materia you want.

2) Gives U/U weapons/armor from NMs prevalence over crafted gear, but only if people work hard enough for it. HQ gear with forbidden materia will still be better than, say, an Ifrit's Harpoon. But, if someone decided that they're willing to farm certain NMs long and hard enough, they'll be able to add the special materia to their Harpoon, making it better than the crafted piece. This is especially important for NM/coffer U/U armor, which currently isn't better (with VERY few exceptions) than crafted pieces WITHOUT materia.

If you support the idea, I suggest you go to Nero's thread and rate it up!

[NoctisUmbra]

I agree that they should allow Green W gear to be meldable - along with a system to have crafters meld through the bazaar rather than requiring a trade.

Blue W gear should definitely not be meldable and should continue to have stats that put them well above most multi-melded gear - save for high tiered 4 or 5 melds.

[tachikoma]

I agree that they should allow Green W gear to be meldable - along with a system to have crafters meld through the bazaar rather than requiring a trade.

Blue W gear should definitely not be meldable and should continue to have stats that put them well above most multi-melded gear - save for high tiered 4 or 5 melds.

I think this would be fine with me but personally the only items that are strong enough to be blue are the ifrit weapons. Everything else is easily trumped with non U/U melded gear.

[NoctisUmbra]

I think this would be fine with me but personally the only items that are strong enough to be blue are the ifrit weapons. Everything else is easily trumped with non U/U melded gear.

Yep, which I'm hoping is a trend that continues. I would be perfectly content with thematic Blue W gear not being meldable so long as their stats are above that high standard. The Darkhold gear is basically obsolete, unworthy of it's blue-ness :P

[Brannigan]

Dropped gear should be more powerful than crafted gear because it usually requires a pulse to get.

U/U gear should be meldable because it should be the strongest equipment. It shouldn't be the strongest without materia because materia is a good way for crafters to make money and to take equipment out of the economy.

Raid gear can't be overpowered for the simple sake of it being raid gear...you're supposed to balance your game, not purposefully unbalance it.

Forbidden materia melding is literally just playing a slot machine. Raid/dungeon/dropped/whatever gear should be the best because it's the hardest to obtain and player skill is a lot more involved than when melding materia. Dropped gear being the best isn't "overpowered" it's the way things need to be if the game is going to work in the future.

Like Akuun said, if I can get the best gear without leaving town what reason do I have to go do Ifrit or Garuda or whatever more than once?

[Chinook]

I think the best solution would have been to make dungeon drop materials instead of gear. That'd make the content last longer, and the material can still be re-used in later recipes to keep it alive.

Since it isn't the case, I was fan of the idea to be able to meld 1 materia into U/U gear, only allowing forbidden for crafted gear. We'd be able to customize U/U gear, making it more appealing, and comparable to 2-3 materia crafted gear as far as I know.

[Akuun]

I think the best solution would have been to make dungeon drop materials instead of gear. That'd make the content last longer, and the material can still be re-used in later recipes to keep it alive.

Since it isn't the case, I was fan of the idea to be able to meld 1 materia into U/U gear, only allowing forbidden for crafted gear. We'd be able to customize U/U gear, making it more appealing, and comparable to 2-3 materia crafted gear as far as I know.

Would be nice, but from the reactions I received from players on my Ifrit horn crafted into weapon post, well it seems to me a lot of players feel screwed by crafters and want nothing to do with them. I hate to be negative, because I honestly want to see this game get better (if for no other reason than I bought it lol) but I think this game is going to crash and burn when they start charging to play in it's current state.

[NoctisUmbra]

Is it really that difficult to grasp why the horns dropping to have weapons crafted idea is not a good one?

The top gear in this game already comes from crafters. Why do ALL gear have to involve crafters? Plain and simple. Balance.