Dropped Items and Materia

[Brannigan]

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.

Yeppppppp. Hell, if they're worried about not taking materia out of the game (due to people not being able to forbidden U/U or whatever) they can add a damn NPC who will grind up materia and give you items or potions or something. You could even have the 'materia dust' or whatever be used as a crafting component! woah!!!!!

[NoctisUmbra]

Keep in mind I said very long term goal. A 5 meld item can he considered as such as well, except one can get lucky and get it early.

[Viridiana]

Y'know what I'm starting to think would've been great? If they'd actually made the forbidden system feel like you're doing something "forbidden." Seriously, they had a chance to be like, "Attempting to take an item already bearing both its own memories and those of another item, and infusing the memories of a third item into it, leaves you physically and mentally drained. Such attempts can only be made every several days, and are not always successful. It is not uncommon for a crafter to find the item he is working with utterly destroyed." I mean, really, does anything feel "forbidden" about gathering an armload of gear and trying to brute force your way into a triple-meld?

Of course, it's far too late for them to change this, but the system I'm picturing is just making me sadder and sadder about the system we did get. . .

[Xatsh]

Make all endgame drops subpar to 3+ stacked crafted items = all endgame is negated more or less. Why do it when you can camp the wards for better items.

Make crafted weapons subpar, crafters still have to make the items to get materia and people still need to materia them so there for there is little impact. Se just needs to make say only X materia drop from X type of item better, so for say Crit + people have to buy weapons and such.

So make endgame weapons meldable... keep all the content alive. Materia as it stands is a very flawed system. Good system idea wise but poorly executed due to it hurting endgame drops.

[Chadwick]

It seems like I remember Yoshi or a dev mentioning eventually adding melding via bazaar. Does anyone else remember this, or know where this was said (if it was said)?

[Stufoo]

It seems like I remember Yoshi or a dev mentioning eventually adding melding via bazaar. Does anyone else remember this, or know where this was said (if it was said)?

We're very happy to see that you are enjoying the new repair feature!

We let the dev. team know that you would like materia requests to resemble a system like the repair feature and they informed us that they are currently looking into a system that will make materia melding requests easier to do.

It's coming, but still no attention on this thread.

Not giving them full access to the materia system is just going to lead to the same thing down the road.

While I know what you're saying I will also disagree, because it is true that dropped items are higher quality, they will be more complete pieces stat wise in their base form, or instead of just fighting stat vs. stat, rare/ex items will use more exotic attributes, and ideally one materia meld to level the playing field. I am fine with four and five melds being better than rare/ex items with one meld, but two and three melds are a joke to obtain.

Let's consider lancer hands again, for the sake of argument. Currently, they are using Cobalt Mitt Gauntlets, and the relevant stat on there is STR+3. This is very weak for a base item, but due to forbidden materia, you could theoretically get upwards of 80~103 STR. I can postulate the implementation of a "blue quality" drop piece of rare/ex hand gear, with the base stats of 15 STR, 5% double attack rate. Due to no risk involved, you would likely use perfect IV materia on these items, so let's assume +20 for that one meld. This would bring the item to a total of 35 STR, 5% double attack. That's a very hefty piece of gear, and although a double perfect IV meld on the Cobalt Mitt Gauntlets will bring you to 43 STR, I believe damage-dealing performance favors the theoretical "blue gear". It's only until you add a third do you equalize, or a fourth and fifth STR materia to the Cobalt mitts that you will surpass it, and for that effort I believe it is okay. People who want rare/ex drops can do their thing, people who want to materia spam do theirs, and there's a mild balance in the middle.

As I've said before though, materia is not so clear cut, and adds a lot of versatility and choice to items, and makes things adaptable to certain situations. Positive and negative enmity stats are useless in solo situations, or harmful in dual role classes, such as Marauder/Warrior, so adding these stats as the main focus of all items just to retain their relevance to the current state of gear and materia is bad. Having choice in gear selection for different situations lets you optimally adjust performance and use different rare/ex gear within their element (which means varied drop items, instead of the WoW style upgrade-every-patch + every-item-has-every-stat-and-mastery system.)

[Brigandier]

I can postulate the implementation of a "blue quality" drop piece...

Hopefully your postulation becomes a reality, and if it does I will most certainly agree with you; however, SE is going to have to create some insanely good pieces to create that "okay, you don't get to meld it (or only meld it once), but you get alllllll this" effect that makes it seem like a worthy exchange. As a thaum I can say without a doubt that Ifrit's Cudgel isn't giving this effect, but I could handle U/U or meld once items if the incentives were right.

[Brigandier]

Hi,

the materia system is a cool way to get crafted items out of the game and keep crafters making items. The big problem with it, though, is that because Unique/Untradeable items cannot be melded, they are basically (with a few exceptions) worthless.

Some might point to the Ifrit Lancer, Marauder, and Archer weapons for an example of dropped items that are better than their crafted/materia equivalent. Unfortunately under the current system items like these eventually make the materia system useless.

Basically, with the materia system the way it is now, I see two possibilities in the future. Either A) Materia remains king outside of a few pieces of gear, giving a lot less incentive to do actual content when it's easier to just buy cheap crafted gear in town and gamble on forbidden materia or B) Future content drops actual good gear, killing off the materia system.

They're both bad choices, but if I had to choose between the two, I'd go with B since going and getting items with a group is a lot more interesting than playing the materia slot machine.

There is another way, though! If U/U gear is allowed to meld materia, both situations are avoided. The materia system stays useful since people will need new materia every time they upgrade their gear, and dropped gear is actually worth getting. Crafted gear can remain a cheap, quick option for leveling up and fresh 50s and it can still be converted into materia. If you want good gear, you'll need to go fight some bosses and clear some dungeons and buy/convert some materia.

Of course, a system to meld another person's gear through the bazaar will be needed, but that was going to be needed eventually anyway.

I really hope that the devs take this into consideration for 2.0.

This, a million times this. +1 OP.

If they just make the greens meldable, it will be perfect. Granted you probably wouldn't want to have a chance to break these pieces, so they'll need to come up with something there (like removing base gear breaking altogether, just make the materia disappear, perhaps lower the success rate?).

[Jinko]

Granted you probably wouldn't want to have a chance to break these pieces, so they'll need to come up with something there (like removing base gear breaking altogether, just make the materia disappear, perhaps lower the success rate?).

Agree, I duno why you have to lose the item when you fail anyway, it would make much more sense to lose the materia and the catalyst.

[Stufoo]

Agree, I duno why you have to lose the item when you fail anyway, it would make much more sense to lose the materia and the catalyst.

Yeah but forbidden stacking is already ridiculously rewarding, simple, and accessible, that would trivialize it even further. Rare/ex gear doesn't need forbidden but they need access to a materia slot to get the bare functionality, and utility of the system. Some materia you can't just overpower with another stat, like enmity, or huge numbers of STR, and even one meld is enough to level the field, not only in terms of viability but customization as well.

Has this still not received even a single nod from the devs or mods? The materia system is neat and adds a lot to items, and we really just want to use it. Forgive the lack of faith in your itemization, but you really haven't shown much to be hopeful for. It's awful to know that an entire patch is devoted to artifact gear when it's either going to be completely terrible and there's no reason to use it, or it will invalidate every materia slot in the entire game.