Dropped Items and Materia

[Brannigan]

How ridiculous do the stats on a U/U belt have to be to compete with this without using materia?

[Stufoo]

How ridiculous do the stats on a U/U belt have to be to compete with this without using materia?

Enmity: +25

[Jinko]

Enmity: +25

LOL you say that as if its no problem at all /sigh

There is one aspect we are all over looking and its epic (purple) gear, they may have plans later down the road to add such a thing.

Yoshi hinted at making certain items legendary in one of his interviews. (Excaliber etc)

[NoctisUmbra]

Set Bonuses. We need them.

[Viridiana]

Set Bonuses. We need them.

Knowing them, they'll just put the bonuses on the crafted gear, anyway. . .

[Brannigan]

Plus it'd be nice if a set bonus was actually able to be used for a cool/unique bonus instead of trying to make up for a massive stat disparity. Also you'd need 2+ drops from bosses just to compete with one common crafted item with a double meld. Also the other slots needed to complete the set bonus are also meldable meaning the set bonus would have to make up for stats lost there as well.

[NoctisUmbra]

Knowing them, they'll just put the bonuses on the crafted gear, anyway. . .

Idk... I never played XI, so correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't XI have set bonuses mainly on rare/ex gear?

[Stufoo]

Idk... I never played XI, so correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't XI have set bonuses mainly on rare/ex gear?

What does that have to do with anything? It's not like MMO gear has rules carved into stone millions of years ago that people blindly follow or can't break. Set bonuses can go where ever they want and are needed, and that's exactly the thing. Set bonuses shouldn't be restricted to rare/ex drops just like materia shouldn't be restricted to crafted items, and for this game to have an endgame worth caring about all three groups of classes will have to intermingle with bosses and monster drops, rare materials, rare gathers, and multiple types of items that are worth using (Straight EX drops, crafted abjuration style EX items, Unique rare crafted items, etc) or someone is going to be really pissed off. No one wants to see only one type of item be the best, but at the moment we just want a reason to even leave the town to progress our characters. There is a balance that is easily attainable and the devs don't even seem to be reaching for it. I see all this potential, and I see squandering, god damn it.

But like Brannigan said, Sets shouldn't be about making up for 6-12 materia slots worth of stats, it should be for small unique bonuses. It would be extremely boring to collect what are essentially junk pieces until you get the full set, and then after five or however many bosses you are now 'even' with crafted trash gear with materia melds. Yawn. Set bonuses should be smaller, unique things, and I don't even like the "full set" set bonuses, additive bonuses are better (where the set bonus gets better as you have more but it doesn't require them all.) All base items should be competitive, especially if they come from bosses (or their materials do), and hopefully they figure out how to implement item tiers soon.

[Brannigan]

Idk... I never played XI, so correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't XI have set bonuses mainly on rare/ex gear?

If itemization in this game was anything like XI (or any successful MMORPG for that matter) this thread would not exist

[NoctisUmbra]

I didn't mean to say set bonuses should make up for materia melds - though I suppose my timing may have made it come off that way. I just want to see some Set Bonuses come into this game. I agree they should be unique effects.

As for bringing up XI - although they didn't exactly copy that game when making XIV - it would be probable that they refer to it when implementing a design that it also shared.