Melding issue with specific items

[Dirich]

I bought a full set of ilvl180 gathering gear and had the LaNoscea materia melder meld for me Perception Materia IV in both slots of each of the pieces I bought.

Unexplicably, the Gaganaskin Gloves of Gathering second slot said the item level was not high enough and it would be reducing the materia effectiveness, so I proceeded to put in a Materia II instead, and I still got the same issue.

Even worse with the Bloodhempen Trousers of Gathering (which, btw, is a naming bug since everything else in the set is named Gaganaskin), since even the first materia slot could not accept the full power of the Materia IV.
Another difference of this piece of gear with the rest of the set is that just under the materia melding there's a tailor icon followed by number 53, while all the other items (gloves included) have a leatherworker icon and number 54.

In short, for what concerns materia melding, those two items are currently set, internally, to a lower level than they should be.

Date & Time: Anytime
Frequency: Always
World name: Omega
Character name: Shard Baneshyr (equip my fishing gear set)
Class/Level: Fisher lvl 61 (but it's not class/level specific, it's gear specific)
Steps: Detailed explaination at the beginning of the post. Just try to un-meld and re-meld materia IV in the two objects (or look at the currently melded materia bonus).


PC/Connection specs and browser info: not related to the issue.
Retainer name: none involved in the issue
NPC name: I melded at a materia melder, if it makes any difference
Monster name: none involved
Party or solo: I was solo
In-game time: not dependent on time
Area and coordinates: I used the Limsa Lominsa materia melder
Housing: none involved in the issue

[Hasrat]

Each piece of equipment has a maximum value for any stat that may be applied to it. Higher grade materia that may raise these stats above their maximum will be capped, reducing the effectiveness of the materia.

[HyoMinPark]

All pieces of gear have caps in terms of their stats. With regards to the gear you’ve listed, the stats are listed as follows (HQ gear values are listed in parentheses; max values allowed for each stat per piece of gear are listed after the given values):

Gaganaskin Gloves of Gathering:
—GP: 4; max: 5
—Gathering: 97 (110); max: 129
—Perception: 0; max: 9

A Perception IV Materia offers +6 Perception, and a Perception II offers +4. Since you can only meld up to 9 points of Perception, the gear will be unable to fully accept any materia in the second slot except for Perception I materia, which offers +3 Perception. The Perception IV and II will cap the gear at over +9 Perception, resulting in you losing points (you will lose 1 point with the Perception II, since 6 + 4 = 10). Trying to meld +12 Perception (i.e., two Perception IVs) will result in the loss of 3 stat points (6 + 6 = 12), hence why you were receiving the message saying that the full value of the materia cannot be accepted into the gear.

Bloodhempen Trousers of Gathering (this is not a naming bug, by the way—this piece of gear is a WVR recipe, where as the Gaganaskin pieces are all LTW recipes; not all pieces in a gear set always share the same name, and it’s fairly common for a couple pieces to be from different crafters):
—GP: 0; max: 5
—Gathering: 65 (73); max: 86
—Perception: 6 (7); max: 9

With this piece of gear, you will be unable to attach any Perception materia without losing at least some of the point value of the materia, unless the piece of gear is NQ, then you can meld a Perception I materia without losing any points off the materia. However, if the gear is HQ, you will still lose at least 1 point of Perception (more if you’re attempting to meld anything higher than a Perception I), since the gear caps out at +9 Perception (Perception I materia offers +3 Perception). I’m guessing you were attempting to meld Perception IV and then Perception II again; with both materia, since their values are higher than what the gear can accept, you will lose out on some of the stat points.


As for the numbers you see at the bottom next to the different crafter icons, these are the minimum level required to perform self repairs on the gear. So, for the pants, you would need a Level 53 WVR in order to repair your own gear. For the other pieces, you need a Level 54 LTW.

[Dirich]

Thanks for the explaination, I did not know of the max values per stat.
Regarding number near the icon, I just realized that is my current level in the profession.

Still, both the LTW and the WVR items have the same ilvl, which means that the weighted sum of the attributes (both current and max) must be the same, otherwise ilvl loses all its meaning as two items of different power can have the same ilvl.
If the numbers for max stats HyoMinPark wrote are correct, then there is a bug in the allocation of the maxima, as GP and Perception max are the same for the pieces in his example, but the Gathering max is strongly different, meaning "Gaganaskin Gloves of Gathering" is stronger than "Bloodhempen Trousers of Gathering", even though they have the same ilvl.
I know that the gear slot in many games applies a scaling to the bonuses, so a "glove ilvl180" may have lower stats than a "chestpiece ilvl180", but here the gloves are stronger than the trousers, which is counterintuitive considering what games in average do (which is to weight the ilvl bonuses via the "size" of the item on the model - that is, chestpiece and leggins are the stronger pieces, followed by helm, gloves and boots (not necessarily in this order).

In conclusion, maybe it's not a bug but a weird choice of weighting the ilvl of gloves more than that of leggings, but being in doubt I think it's best to leave the bug report open, for the devs to evaluate it.

[HyoMinPark]

Sometimes the stats on gear are going to be vastly different from one another, the displayed stats, and the maximum values of stats allowed for a piece of gear. Like you noted with the difference in the Gathering stat on the Gaganaskin Gloves of Gathering” versus the “Bloodhempen Trousers of Gathering”, if we look at the current end-game crafted gathering gear (i320 Ala Mhigan gathering set), we see the following values on those gloves versus the legs:

Ala Mhigan Gloves of Gathering:
GP: 5; max: 6
Gathering: 163 (185); max: 218
Perception: 0; max: 15

Ala Mhigan Bottoms of Gathering:
GP: 5; max: 6
Gathering: 109 (123); max 145
Perception: 11 (12); max 15

There’s a vast difference in the maximum gathering allowed for the gloves and the pants, but the maximum amount of GP and perception allowed per piece is the same. This is just the way the gear is designed and implemented in the system. Sometimes the weight of a piece varies between the different jobs; it’s my understanding that DoW/DoM place a lot of emphasis on body/legs for gear, but that may not always be the case for the DoH/DoL since they function differently in the game.

I’ve also heard that the developers use a sort of randomizer when determining the stats of pieces of gear, but I cannot attest to how accurate that statement is.