Crafted Items Vs Dropped items

[ARytheart]

This thread hits it right on the head! After the initial implementation of materia I seldom play. And the core problem is the same thing that is at the heart of the failure of this game Imo. Crafting classes never should have been considered as important as battle classes. PERIOD. WOW had a great idea imo for, and example of how to fuel player crafting by adding battle related bonuses or abilites generated by lvln certain crafts. Ex.- skinners got +crit bonus from lvln it up. Hell that woulda worked well with the old trait system pre 1.20 wouldn't it. +crit bonus trait BAMM!
I agree with jinkos idea. Materia shoulda been slotted just like ff7. And even where Shosa explained certain amounts of slots per item type. Say one for U/U etc. I personally would have liked to see the process of the number of materia on a piece and the materia placed in it seperated into two process'. Have the same system we have with high risk when tryn to add extra slot to weapon and gear. BUT make adding materia after the fact 100% As long at the materia grade matches the slot grade. Its one thing to lose the gear. Its another thing to blow up the materia and all. So keep materia in circulation. When you remove materia it is lost. I mean look what SE tryed with accesory points. Can they apply a materia point system per peice of gear. I for one am sorely disappointed to see a guy running around with a peice of gear with 241+ hp. Thats two tier 3 and two tier 4. thats completely OP. I can see several tier 1 2 and 3 on a single peice but two tier 3 and two tier 4! How can you possibly balance anything content wise around such a system.
Crafting classes should have never been considered mains! Yes its cool to be famous cause your one of the best crafters on the server but Devs, you keep taking all the things that showed real crafting excellence out. I think most of the community understands the need to remove +2 and +3 items. Again i cant wait to see 2.0.
I personally can't wait to see what Af gear stats look like not to mention their "hotness" effect.
What are the Jp forums saying about materia? And how about a dev responce on this. Seem to be several topics about it. Whats materia gona look like 2.0?