This is how Materia System should be

[Venat]

My two-bits:
I loved the Materia system in FFVII.

Let's do it that way!

To sum up it would sort of look like this:
- Materia can be rewards from quests, drops from NMs, found in chests, and bought in shops
Obviously the weakest ones bought, and the toughest ones found in NMs etc.


- Armour/Weapons have a fixed number of slots
Something with 5 slots may have weaker stats, but more opportunities to upgrade.
Something with 2 slots may have stronger stats, but less opportunities to upgrade/customize


- Adding/Removing Materia is free -- no risk, no penalty
We can spend time customizing our weapons/armour for the job on hand


- Continued use of a Materia will 'Master' it
Bonus stats when they are mastered. Perhaps loose master stat if you remove it (but it can be re-mastered again and all is same).


This would encourage an approach where we can be more strategic on our choice of customization, have more fun/enjoyment in making unique gear that suits our play styles, and not be penalized (or afraid) of trying any changes.

Presently I'm afraid to use materia (I may loose it and that gear! Or I may not need it on that gear in 6 months when something better comes out!)

First this is basically what im saying.
FF7 has Slots for Weapons/Armor
Using DoL Materia items gains you Materia slots on Armor/Weapons
Then you Equip your Materia which you either buyed or Sprited.
Materia levels up more you use it in battle. Sameway with Spriting. Aka.. AP.
Once Materia reaches AP cap it levels up and stats upgrade. (Materia stats is lowered down to meet that level of armor's cap. Which means if you have a max tier4 Materia on a lv1 Armor it will have same stats as a tier1 Materia unless its changed to another piece of gear thats higher level to suit that Materia.
Only reason why I added a penalty for changing Materia is I think SE doesnt want players to swap materia often.
(Edit: Spirting Armor for AP is a good way for players to earn decent amount of AP and keep crafters creating items. Also make any unless armor/Materia players dont need into something they do like AP.

[Coglin]

Plain and simple, I like the system we have now, and I hate the OPs idea.

[Arik]

Morning.

My 2 Gil.

They should have made all the U/U gear (Darkhold-Ifrit...) automatically turn into the best tier IV materia, and still have the random chance to make a tier IV materia that we do now.
This way, people still run/farm Darkhold gear with a purpose, and will be less likely to balk at the idea of trying to double or triple meld, knowing that they can run the dungeon again, spirit bind the materia, and start their melding process again.

My understanding of the entire materia system was that it was a dual purpose system. It gave players the ability to customize gear the way they see fit, and it effectively removed gear from the game.

Now, because we lvl from 1-40 so fast, there is very little incentive to meld any gear that is lower than lvl 40, so hardly anyone does it. The gear that is getting double and triple melded....and subsequently blown up....is the lvl 40 and higher gear.
No one is going to even attempt double or triple melds with lower tier materia simple because one can gaurantee similar results with a higher tier materia.

Bottom line is, we should be encouraged to blow up as much materia as possible.
We can keep the penalties, but need to have the assurance that we can reasonably get our hands on more materia if/when we fail a meld attempt.

I think that this would also open the door to making job specific gear content much more challenging, and the gear much more powerful.

Thoughts?

[ninesunz]

A system i would like to see is:

Make the gear that can accept a certain number of slots
Crafters while crafting can control the amount of slots they are attempting to make, the more slots the higher risk, with maximum 5 slots.

Materia should be little tougher to create/obtain (SP is far too ez). There should be a system where you can try to get a certain tier of materia along with an associated risk, resulting in a loss of materia upon fail.

Slots are Materia dependent? (str slot, dex slot, atk slot etc) - maybe a bit too complicated

Melding materia should be 100%
slot #1 should take only tier I
slot #2 tier II or tier I
slot #3 tier III or II or I
slot #4 tier IV, or III or II or I
slot #5 tier IV, or III or II or I

Currently I don't like how you can lose gear and materia when attempting to meld. I rather put the loss during creation of multiple slotted gear or creation of materia.

[WolfMoonstrike]

A system i would like to see is:

Make the gear that can accept a certain number of slots
Crafters while crafting can control the amount of slots they are attempting to make, the more slots the higher risk, with maximum 5 slots.

Materia should be little tougher to create/obtain (SP is far too ez). There should be a system where you can try to get a certain tier of materia along with an associated risk, resulting in a loss of materia upon fail.

Slots are Materia dependent? (str slot, dex slot, atk slot etc) - maybe a bit too complicated

Melding materia should be 100%
slot #1 should take only tier I
slot #2 tier II or tier I
slot #3 tier III or II or I
slot #4 tier IV, or III or II or I
slot #5 tier IV, or III or II or I

Currently I don't like how you can lose gear and materia when attempting to meld. I rather put the loss during creation of multiple slotted gear or creation of materia.

This is a bad idea, at least where the economy is concerned. What you'll end up with is Gear being destroyed but no way for materia to be taken out of the game. So in the end you have these shiny worthless rocks. With the current system both gear and materia taken out of the equation. Not that you won't lose materia during the fusion, but I just don't see it being as effective.

Two things though I think this thread has had in it though that I would enjoy. An ability to make tougher materia through fusing them (with hopefully an associated risk) and the ability for Materia to level once equipped. I think it would be pretty bad-ass to see your weapons grow with you through materia.

[ninesunz]

This is a bad idea, at least where the economy is concerned. What you'll end up with is Gear being destroyed but no way for materia to be taken out of the game. So in the end you have these shiny worthless rocks. With the current system both gear and materia taken out of the equation. Not that you won't lose materia during the fusion, but I just don't see it being as effective.

Two things though I think this thread has had in it though that I would enjoy. An ability to make tougher materia through fusing them (with hopefully an associated risk) and the ability for Materia to level once equipped. I think it would be pretty bad-ass to see your weapons grow with you through materia.

Good point, no materia destruction balance...
I just don't like the gear being destroyed with the materia, it's really a pain. I'd like it better if SE could separate the loss of gear and materia and not put it at the single point of melding.

I like the leveling materia idea if some sort of quest line with boss battle or gather keyitems from NMs or something to level the materia up. If its based on xp gained it'll be boring -_-

[Radav]

I suggested they do something like this in another thread. I agree the materia system we have now is a good platform to build on but we could have something much more fun then this RNG type system. I thing the idea of allowing crafters to try and attach a certain number of slots to gear is a very good one.

I also would welcome a system where materia could grow. I would suggest some kind of system that could be similar to achievements except it centered around a "new" adventuring guild tasking you with killing NMs. The harder the NM taken down the more points you get to put toward the materia growth with primal fights or darkhold being the largest rewards. I'm just trying to think of something new contentwise we can add to the game that might not be too much work for the devs. They could add a few new HNM that roam around to spice it up and then have the guild give out daily quests that rotate through a variety of the game's current content. ( I know this is directly based off WoW but maybe someone smarter and more creative then myself can spruce it up even more and make it worthy of the Final Fantasy name.) I thought the monster hunting guild in FFXII was something that would be a good basis for this idea.

[WolfMoonstrike]

Good point, no materia destruction balance...
I just don't like the gear being destroyed with the materia, it's really a pain. I'd like it better if SE could separate the loss of gear and materia and not put it at the single point of melding.

I like the leveling materia idea if some sort of quest line with boss battle or gather keyitems from NMs or something to level the materia up. If its based on xp gained it'll be boring -_-

To tell the truth I would like to see two new types of Materia. Unique materia that give stats you can't get elsewhere or can be melded to atypical slots (the kinds you can only get from HNM's or crafted gear that used HNM mats that you have to spiritbond) and Job/class specific materia that really only has a benefit for a particuler class/job (so stuff like cooldown reduction for a skill or a trait boost).

Of course you'd still need a crafter to get involved, hopefully they would also have melding similar to repairs if they came out with something like this.

[WiiSam]

Although the current system is pretty cool, I love the OP's idea A LOT more. Thumbs up!