Dropped Items and Materia

[Jamester]

Your drop rate is 0 if you can't win the fight. Once you're ready to attach a 15 str and 20 str materia to a set of gloves you have nothing to do with the success rate of your meld. To put it another way, you can be a good damage dealer or tank or healer or whatever - you can't be a "good" melder.

Learn how to win the fight and the fight itself is similar in a way to the preparation for materia melding. For a specific ifrit run that focuses on collecting weapons and the group is going to win, does the best player have better chance of obtaining something? They also have to be dedicated and keep doing Ifrit fights over and over to beat the RNG. Melders also have to beat RNG, which requires much less skill & many many more tries. All these are player's effort, primal fights & materia system.

Materia is certainly not a fun end game for people who spend time on playing crafting jobs. Not fun doesn't mean people participate in it should get no reward or get less reward than people who engage in more fun activities. Also, you can make spiritbonding slightly more fun yourself by organizing exp/key parties. There are plenty of reasons to go for contents that drop U/Us (still organize Ifrit runs even though I got all of them) and I am more than happy for U/Us bar primal weapons to be multi-meldable so they are not redundant and I get to play with rare items.

And, once again, the problem with items like Ifrit's Battleaxe being unmeldable is that UPGRADES from that weapon will likely also be unmeldable, meaning that someone with an Ifrit axe can completely ignore marauder weapon materia. This is called a waste of a system.

You can always put on parry for damage mitigations or touch of rage for tanking. So you have 2 axes with different purposes. Before SE comes up with a damage mitigation/tanking thematic weapons that is a very easy way to go. Easy upgrade from Ifrit's battleaxe if you are looking for different things other than DD.

All it rewards is the person with the most time to go out and do a tedious, brainless task over and over again.

hmm...You make Ifrit fights sound like rocket science....

[Chadwick]

The fact that the probability of getting a triple+ meld is low doesn't even matter, and in some ways simply adds to the problems with the materia system. My complaint is that the majority of the BEST items in the game (currently) come from easily obtained materia and mass produced, boring, common, crafted items.

The materia system rendered Darkhold gear obsolete. The vast majority of the newly added Stronghold gear is obsolete. The upcoming job gear will be surpassed by multiple materia melds in quality.

Ignoring achievements and first kills, how often do people do Darkhold? How often do players seriously attempt to kill or farm Stronghold bosses? Rarely. Why? Because in comparison to even a single materia meld, the items these events reward are worthless. If brand new content is instantly rendered obsolete by the materia system, why should we expect future content, about which we know next to nothing, to be any different?

The reason I am posting on these Lodestone forums is not to argue with people who range from argumentative to willfully ignorant; I post here to make my opinion known to the devs in the hopes that they take notice and factor it into their future game changes.

So here's my opinion, as simply as I can put it:

FFXIV would be more fun if we had cool, unique, u/u gear to work towards and endgame events that MATTER, rather than simply churning out materia'd items. If SE can find a balance between the two isolated systems (u/u and materia), great. If SE can, instead, have the two systems be interconnected, even better! Right now, there is neither a balance nor any interplay between the two systems. It is heavily weighted towards materia. I do not like this. I hope that in the future, u/u gear takes on more importance and thus gives players a REASON to do actual challenging events that require planning, strategy, and skill (perhaps even... other people!).

[Kiara]

The fact that the probability of getting a triple+ meld is low doesn't even matter, and in some ways simply adds to the problems with the materia system. My complaint is that the majority of the BEST items in the game (currently) come from easily obtained materia and mass produced, boring, common, crafted items.

The materia system rendered Darkhold gear obsolete. The vast majority of the newly added Stronghold gear is obsolete. The upcoming job gear will be surpassed by multiple materia melds in quality.

Ignoring achievements and first kills, how often do people do Darkhold? How often do players seriously attempt to kill or farm Stronghold bosses? Rarely. Why? Because in comparison to even a single materia meld, the items these events reward are worthless. If brand new content is instantly rendered obsolete by the materia system, why should we expect future content, about which we know next to nothing, to be any different?

The reason I am posting on these Lodestone forums is not to argue with people who range from argumentative to willfully ignorant; I post here to make my opinion known to the devs in the hopes that they take notice and factor it into their future game changes.

So here's my opinion, as simply as I can put it:

FFXIV would be more fun if we had cool, unique, u/u gear to work towards and endgame events that MATTER, rather than simply churning out materia'd items. If SE can find a balance between the two isolated systems (u/u and materia), great. If SE can, instead, have the two systems be interconnected, even better! Right now, there is neither a balance nor any interplay between the two systems. It is heavily weighted towards materia. I do not like this. I hope that in the future, u/u gear takes on more importance and thus gives players a REASON to do actual challenging events that require planning, strategy, and skill (perhaps even... other people!).

Well said.

I hope the Community Reps pass along this post (and sentiments from Chadwick, Brannigan and all of us in favor of some Materia Melding on Unique / Untradeable Raid Items).

I appreciate the Materia System and am glad that Crafted Items are actually selling and being used (to convert into Materia) now. It's better than the stagnant Markets we had before Materia.

But there needs to be balance.

And as some have said, allowing Materia to be melded onto Raid / Dungeon / NM Gear would still make the Materia System *needed*: People will still need to buy crafted Gear to turn into Materia.

And they'll need Crafters to help them meld.

And I'm fine with Yoshida-san going back to having NMs / Dungeons drop *Materials* that Crafters can take to make into some Top Tier Items (like Dodore Doublet, etc.). That would involve both sides and provide some synergy.

We just need a real change with the current system before it gets too late.

Thanks.

[Brannigan]

If the u/u gear that comes from future dungeons is better than what you can reasonably get with materia then that's great for the game but it kind of sucks because it devalues the materia system for those slots. If all items were meldable then this would not be a problem.

[Stufoo]

If the u/u gear that comes from future dungeons is better than what you can reasonably get with materia then that's great for the game but it kind of sucks because it devalues the materia system for those slots. If all items were meldable then this would not be a problem.

Yeah, it's a circular problem, and allowing one meld on rare/ex items would fix it. No matter what they add to a new belt or a sword, it will never beat enmity materia. How boring would it be if every rare/ex belt from now on needed enmity on it just to function? Those two slots alone add so much utility to the tank, and as a result, freedom to the damage dealers, that they are mandatory. Anyone who thinks otherwise is wrong. Instead, let us meld it. Don't let us forbidden it, and don't let us convert it into materia. With the need and greed system coming out, that would just make a whole new group of cunts in the game, breaking their rare/ex items before others get their chance for it.

Also, Noctis, I feel you are gravely overestimating their ability to properly implement a tiered system for items, and that's all you ever seem to talk about is the future of blues and greens as if it's some unbreakable law of logic just because names are tinted. They simply don't know how to do it, they just add colors to things. It's not unrealistic at all to expect bad, or worse colored items in the future.

[Jinko]

Thinking about it, it's too bad materia doesn't drop from monsters, it could solve some of the issues at least farming rare materia in Darkhold and such.

[Brannigan]

A Good System

this same person had a hat with +50 int on it lol

[NoctisUmbra]

A Good System

this same person had a hat with +50 int on it lol

Nicely done. Considering what the % was on that and the hat, he deserves it quite well. Now all the game needs are dropped items that are about as powerful as that, preferably even better, and it needs them for all slots. Also gear sets bonuses for dropped items would be great.

Heck, even some dropped items that are equivalent to a 5 meld that take very, very long to get by means of very tough content would be nice too. So long as the difficulty/drop rate/success rate is balanced then it's all fair game.

The lack of other very rare gear-rewarding content does not mean the materia system is bad. It means the materia system is currently the best means in getting most gear.

[Stufoo]

Now all the game needs are dropped items that are about as powerful as that, preferably even better, and it needs them for all slots. Also gear sets bonuses for dropped items would be great.

If dropped gear is as powerful as, or better than that, then what is the point of the materia system? These two can never coexist in their current states. You can soften the effect of ridiculous forbidden stacking, allow differences in gear, with customization, and retain a bit of crafter's relevance by letting us have a single meld on Rare/ex gear.

Do you have any idea what it would take to replace materia slots, and what that'll do to the items? From now on, every single pair of dropped LNC hands need STR, every single belt and sword needs +enmity just to simply function, to even be considered for use. Hey, warrior is a tank too, so they need enmity on their belts as well; but not all warriors tank, so that'd make them unable to use their artifact belt because a DD would not want +enmity, but hey with materia he could even put -enmity on it, and if they were a solo player, +HP. Isn't the materia system wonderful, you can use it to tailor your gear to your needs. How about letting us fucking use it instead of only allowing it on stupid white-named trash gear made from materials that shoot out of the ground?

How much INT and AMP would it take to beat that weapon? It's pretty clear, the numbers are right on it. You can dance around the issue all you want by adding useless shit like "Occasionally restores MP" but the truth is that you will either have to clone it and beat it with higher numbers, or it will be useless. Period. There are no alternatives. That is a very boring system and actually takes away from the "thematic gear" system you liked. No one will ever be optimal with Ifrit's sword, or Moogle's sword ever. Even if Titan's sword has 30 DEF, it will fall short of a single +enmity meld.

SE, let us use the materia system you added. We don't want to forbidden it, we just want the utility and customization that it adds to items, for the items that we worked for.

How you believe that adding a single materia to any of the current items would make them overpowered is beyond me. What's wrong with an Ifrit's Blade with enmity? You'd finally be able to use it and not be godawful. Do you seriously consider +20 DEX on an Ifrit's Bow gamebreaking? You can get 100 DEX on hands if you really cared, what's the difference? Did you cry when they added in point allotment merits? They broke the game, you can get an extra +23 of a stat boo hoo, ban all archers.

The lack of other very rare gear-rewarding content does not mean the materia system is bad. It means the materia system is currently the best means in getting most gear.

And what you are suggesting will happen will render the materia system useless just like dropped gear is now. At least letting one meld on rare/ex would be best for everyone, crafters included. If dropped gear becomes "as good" people will do that and crafters will be lonely and useless because actually playing a game and doing content fights is better and more fun than craft spamming lv. 40 cloth armor and going to play with the wolves for three hours and hope you don't get screwed over by stupid randomly generated numbers.

Sure materia spamming won't be as popular as it is now but you'll still need really good IVs to place into your armors, and replacements as you get new armors. How is this less appealing than not needing materia at all? A system that SE worked towards going to waste, great.

[Jinko]

If dropped gear is as powerful as, or better than that, then what is the point of the materia system? These two can never coexist in their current states. You can soften the effect of ridiculous forbidden stacking, allow differences in gear, with customizability, and retain a bit of crafter's relavance by letting a single meld on Rare/ex gear.

And the rest of it

Agree with this post 100%

Just make materia socketable and allow it to be used on all gear, crafters will still be fine as you need to convert gear to materia anyway.