There should be an easier way to obtain low-level materia

[Jennah]

Even back in Heavensward when I made my 2nd+ ARR relics, when materia IVs would still show up on the regular, the I-IIIs wound up being more expensive due to this step. I can only imagine things have gotten worse over time.

[Kyuuen]

For the past 4 months, I have been grinding to collect all the ARR relic weapons to get their glamors. I have made it to the novus step, which requires you to meld at least 75 (there is a chance to fail) various combat materia 1/2/3 per weapon, so at least 750 total for them all.

The only way I can find to collect these materia is to intentionally under-ilevel my gear and grind out spiritbinds. On my datacenter, these materia sell for 2k - 10k each, so I would have to drop 2 to 8 million gil on a single relic weapon step to move forward. I believe the reason they are so pricy is that the game has mostly moved past the sub-level 50 content, so players are no longer naturally spiritbonding low-level materia.

I think there ought to be another way to obtain these, such as through a merchant. The Ixal vendor sells low-level DoH/L materia for Oaknots, so something similar could work for the combat materia too. Alternatively, perhaps Mutamix Bubblypots could degrade materia to a lower level (for example if he could exchange one Quickarm materia II for two random materia I).

I realize I am trying to play old content, but I dont think it ought to be completely obsolete.

If you're not doing it already, throw on any stats that it will allow you to. If it permits Skill Speed, throw it on. Spell Speed, sure why not. Piety, might as well. Tenacity, who will know? It's glam gear at this point the stats aren't going to matter in considerations of content. Also server hop/surf to find lowest possible prices on materia, if you stick to just your server you'll be stuck paying those prices.

[ForteNightshade]

I would honestly prefer they crush all existing materia into a new "ancient materia" that essentially serves as a catch all. Then just have two new materia that is relevant for our gear throughout EW. In otherwards, there would only ever be three materia in circulation.

[Ronduwil]

The only way I can find to collect these materia is to intentionally under-ilevel my gear and grind out spiritbinds. On my datacenter, these materia sell for 2k - 10k each, so I would have to drop 2 to 8 million gil on a single relic weapon step to move forward. I believe the reason they are so pricy is that the game has mostly moved past the sub-level 50 content, so players are no longer naturally spiritbonding low-level materia.

Are you sure you didn't just check the board at the wrong time? Did you try all the marketplaces? With the influx of new players, I would expect more low level materia to be available, not less. On my server, I've never seen the materia go above 1.5K or so. For the most part, though, they go somewhere in the range of 25-500. For what it's worth, tenacity materia seems to be valued on the higher end of the range.

I'm not trying to downplay the issue or criticize your suggestions, which sound good to me. I'm just trying to see if there's something you can do in the meantime to expedite your materia gathering.

[Catwho]

A lot of the new players aren't wearing the gear long enough to spirit bond it. When things get replaced every 5 levels and you're leveling up twice in a dungeon, you may never actually hit the point where it hits 100% and can be extracted.

There is also the issue of sprouts not knowing about extract. It gets lost in the massive infodump.

[wereotter]

Can't remember when, but when I did my ARR relic for WAR, (during Stormblood if I remember well), those low level materia were more expensive than the currently used Materias.
They could remove the drops from monsters in dungeon such as skin and other useless things and replace those with materias.

This was definitely when I did mine as well. Was in Heavensward, as I recall, and Grade 3 materia was more expensive at the time than Grade 4.

They really should just adjust this step so it's more like the stat selection step in the Heavensward relic. You have to use Alexandrite along with the materia, so just remove the materia requirement and have using the Alexandrite allow you to select whatever stat you want to add in.

[DPZ2]

Better solution -- start on your relic weapons "at level" on your first job to 50. Collect materia by wearing the same piece of level 1-5 gear for every DoW/DoM class. Rinse. Repeat. Soon you'll have bags full of the low level materia.

Best solution - remove the requirement for materia in the entire game, same as they did for the Carbonized Matter. Then you don't have to worry about min-maxing, or finding and paying for low level materia to obtain what is, essentially, a glamour weapon.

[iVolke]

All you have to do is go to different servers and buy their cheap materia. This step is not an issue