[DEV] Materia mistake ? ?!

[Matsume]

I just went to meld some materia to a lvl 28 item and it turns out that

Tier I is 1+
Tier II is 31+.
Tier III is 41+
Tier IV is 41+

Is this a mistake ?

It makes more sense the way it is as far as the game is in my opinion. Your suggestion only makes sense from a purely numerical correlation standpoint.

Levels between 1 and 30 are very fast and gear isn't worth much investment, thus low level materia is all that's needed and still unused.

Levels from 31-40 are like a transition, and worth a bit better materia.

Levels 41+ are meant to take the most time and thus get a higher grade of materia that people do actively invest in for gear.

Tier IV is meant to be a pure tier, the best quality of materia, and thus isn't limited to it's own level zone but treated as essentially being powerful even to single meld.

A lot of the stats on various uncommon drops are balanced around single tier III melds.

Noctis, pardon the expression but, what you wrote looks good on paper.

The problem is due to the current disproportion in player's class' levels, mainly skewed towards the post 40 range, players in the lvl 1-30 range have a harder time finding exp pts than do the post lvl 40s.

Lvl 41+ are indeed meant to take the most time but the truth is with the speed of the exp chains and the exp per chain as compared to the lower 30 levels, the time ends up being the quickest process.

I remember going from 40-50 in one or two days without materia whereas the first 30 took a lot longer, mostly doing leves due to the lack of lower lvl players.

At this point I might point out this is in part Power Leveling's fault to which I am certain Jinko will bring up lvl sync and co...

In the end I agree with thinko as far as the lvl spread of Materia. I think it would be much better if each grade corresponded numerically to ever 10/11 lvls. Although, I must admit, I am biased since I would like to see PvP level cap/sync brackets corresponding to the same materia levels spread.

If this were the case, lvl 1-10 bracket PvP would be able to use Grade I materia.
lvl 11-20 bracket PvP would be able to use Grade II materia...
lvl 21-30 bracket PvP would be able to use Grade III materia, and
lvl 31-40 bracket PvP would, in turn, be able to use Grade IV materia.

This would not only creat a competitve environment between various players syncs at various lvls due to the ability/spell limitations of those levels. It would also create a competitive economic market insofar as low grade materia are concerned.

Currently these low grade materia are barely used by players in the lvl 1-30 range. On top of that, they only increase your stats by a fraction of the Grade III and IV stats making them useless to higher lvl players. For those reasons these go for pennies on the dollar and are mostly used for grinding out materia achievements.

To sum it up: The changes that I and Jinko have mentioned would work in synergy to produce a whole greater than the sum of it's parts. Not only would it help the economy, and create a more compettive pvp environment, but also help redistribute the wealth of the richest to the new player base most in need of funding for new gear that would presumablyt be crafted by the richest...