U/U Gear - A reason why we cannot meld. (long post)

[Junpei]

Firstly I would like to apologize for sitting another topic about u/u gear on the front page of the General Discussion Forum. I understand Firon's thread about making it useful is still going strong, but I don't believe my topic fits in his thread. Apologies also as it is quite long, but I tried to make it well presented and well thought out to get a point across. Thank you in advance for taking the time to read this.

[The Problem]
Firstly we know U/U gear isn't all that special Stat wise, but it is usually quite special to see people wearing it (when the content initially comes out)

The untradeability of it is needed, it is to show you that beat that dungeon with your team, to show that you bested the demons that lurked within. Making it tradeable would ruin that. I believe this is something that affects Sentinel Gear, I dont know the person wearing that Cuirass is hardcore or rich.

So what can you do, as a battle class that farms a dungeon with a great piece of U/U gear that you want melding?

You have to level a crafter specific to that gear, on your own.

And therein, I believe, lies the problem. It is ridiculous to expect a player to level a craft from 1-50 (have to match gear level to meld) to do a few piece of gear (unless its Blacksmith then its only 1 piece of gear) and Yoshi-P and the dev team must be well aware of this. It is unbelievably exclusive and has been stated that they are aware different players have different activities they enjoy, and crafting is certainly not for everyone.

[The Solution]

So the fix? A Materia Meld Request Menu.

You choose a single piece of Materia, a single piece of equipment, your catalyst- and you name your reward, or make it a fixed reward like the recent gear repair feature.

The % chance can be show to you in the menu as it does not change from player to player, give it a warning "gear may be lost" etc and the job is done.

The Result / Conclusion

Double+ Melded U/U gear instantly becomes the most RIDICULOUS gear in the game. Because if you blow up that Sipahi Turban, that Alpine War Jacket, or god forbid, That Moogle Sword.... You gotta farm another one*.

Old content will be in constant demand again! people will be wanting to get this U/U gear over and over at the chance of a double meld, something that can set them apart! All of your content can become validated by this alone!

And people who don't have time to farm the special U/U gear for the double melds aren't totally rubbished by the people who do, the extra stats you get are small, but the difference is noticeable in looks. When you see a player with a double meld Sipahi Turban. You know what he's been through to get that! even if its only a little better than a Rainmakers with the same materia, it shows what he is as player. It gives people something more to strive for!

*Side note : This ability to explode Primal weapons would also justify an increase to the terribly low Charm/Totem rate


And there you have it. My person Ideology as to why we are in the situation we are in, because features we need (and we really do need this either way) are not currently implemented or even not currently implementable(2.0) and the Benefit that it can provide to the community on a whole.

tl:dr materia request menu fixes all my broken dream blablabla

[DoctorMog]

Been saying this for months.

/vote yes for prop 2

[urhryu]

no thks for me

[ArnoMorley]

[The Solution]

So the fix? A Materia Meld Request Menu.

You choose a single piece of Materia, a single piece of equipment, your catalyst- and you name your reward, or make it a fixed reward like the recent gear repair feature.

The % chance can be show to you in the menu as it does not change from player to player, give it a warning "gear may be lost" etc and the job is done.

Yes please, I just asked about a similar idea if you read the dev interview thread. I said we should not only be able to have a crafter meld materia to our gear without trading them. But we should also be able to have crafters craft us something without trading them.

[syntaxlies]

yes to melding of all types of gear. im so sick of discrimination.

[DoctorMog]

yes to melding of all types of gear. im so sick of discrimination.

Racist if you ask me, them not letting us meld all those gears.

THEY HAVE SOULS TOO SE!

[Brannigan]

While I think double melds in general are kind of a dumb thing (too grindy and random - exactly like a crappy korean MMO), we do need meldable u/u gear and a way to do it without having to trade. Right now you have a situation where either you're wearing something that can be produced completely solo or you're wearing something that makes it so you never need materia in that slot again. Dumbbbbbbbbb.

[Ryans]

The reason Yoshida gave for not letting rare/ex gear be meldable is that it eliminates the need for crafted gear. While I want rare/ex gear to be best in the game, this idea goes against what Yoshida has planned to keep crafters relevant. They need to make dropped gear actually comparable to double melds like they said they wanted and make triple+ melds the best but very rare. Also rare/ex gear should have stats that aren't obtainable from materia (ex. Haste, increased combo damage, possibly % based damage increases how magic attack bonus was in ffxi, auto refresh/regen)

[Brannigan]

The reason Yoshida gave for not letting rare/ex gear be meldable is that it eliminates the need for crafted gear.

Can you source this? I don't remember seeing it. Either way that's a fucking stupid reason because 1) you could just make it so only crafted gear is convertible (and materia is random so it's the only stuff that's really convertible en masse) and 2) it makes it so the way to get the best gear is STILL some stupid solo gambling crap instead of, you know, going out and actually doing stuff with a party that takes coordination and thought.

Even if he's given that reason in the past he's been shown to be open to argument on things (hi server merges) so hopefully he'll make the right choice for the game.

[Junpei]

With regards to Crafted gear being un-needed hows this

:example:
Crafted gear has stats directly related to the class it is intended for at say, +10
Whilst U/U gear may have another usefull stat but at a lower amount, say +5

For my example I will say Headgear for Archer
The crafted version has +10 Dex
The U/U drop only has -5 Enmity

So you traded your 10 Dex for something not necessarily better, but otherwise unobtainable in a headgear.

And then maybe the Belt of this U/U set is the other way around, it has +Dex on it, because you can meld -Enmity.

So a pure Dex or a Pure Enmity down set is only possible by mixing and matching?