Overmelding is not fun

[Datachanger]

There are many threads talking about how frustrating it is to delete 100 materia. I agree.

I have been thinking on this for quite some time, and I wanted to come up with a solution. I am not 100% sold on it, as it would require 6 more bits of data for every piece of gear stored on the server. So, here's my idea:

Once the player passes the average number of mateira destroyed, the %chance of success goes up, linearly, until twice the average, ending at 100%. Here are a few examples of what this could look like:

6.67% and 16.67% included because I don't know if the 7/17% is rounded.

Pros:

• It is deterministic. If we want to keep randomness involved, lets at least guarantee someone will get it, eventually
• You can't cheese this by intentionally sinking low-tier melds, as the %chance resets after successfully melding a materia. Sure you can gamble with the low-tier materia, but how many of the high tier melds would you realistically save? And since low-tier materia have a higher meld chance, you can't really save that many.
• It's not hard to communicate to players that the chance will increase after many materia have been lost, up to 100%, eventually.
• The algorithm is not complex, and simple enough for those more math-hardened players.
• It works with melding one at a time and bulk-melding.

Cons:

• The algorithm gets a little wonky when the base chance is above 50%, but it works out just the same.
• Since the piece of gear needs to store (internally, probably) how many materia have been lost into it, we need 6 bits of data to store this. I don't know how their data model works. So this could be a deal-breaker. We need 6 bits because, at the moment, the lowest chance is 5%, and 39, the highest number of broken melds, requires 6 bits to represent.

Here's the algorithm in C# for those interested:

float newRate(int numBroken, float baseRate)
{
    float newRate;
    float meanNumMeld;

    if (numBroken <= 0)
    {
        newRate = baseRate;
    }
    else
    {
        meanNumMeld = 1 / baseRate;
        if (numBroken - meanNumMeld <= 0)
        {
            newRate = baseRate;
        }
        else
        {
            newRate = (numBroken - meanNumMeld + 1) * baseRate;

            if (newRate > 1)
            {
                newRate = 1;
            }
        }
    }

    return newRate;
}

[Ransu]

Pretty sure its not supposed to be. You get enough materia slots to rival and even be better than the early raid gear stats. Its a huge advantage so its supposed to be difficult/expensive to do.

[Azuri]

Overmelding is already largely irrelevant for anything outside world first and week 1 last floor clears. You really don't have to interact with the system at all if you dislike it so much.

[Datachanger]

Pretty sure its not supposed to be. You get enough materia slots to rival and even be better than the early raid gear stats. Its a huge advantage so its supposed to be difficult/expensive to do.

I mean, I get it. It is an advantage to have early on, and Crafters need to have a good expense to bar their entry into "endgame" for them, especially with the profits to be made.
My simple point is this: You can have a large expense and also have it not be a soul-sucking, un-fun experience.
I love this game, and I want to see it grow and improve. With the heavy push for "make it fun" from the development team, I think it is valuable to share my opinions about areas I think could use some improvement.

Overmelding is already largely irrelevant for anything outside world first and week 1 last floor clears. You really don't have to interact with the system at all if you dislike it so much.

It is still relevant if you want to craft your own food and pots. ...Which is where it hurts the most, because that is where there is such a large expense.
Also, if I am going to be honest, phrases like "don't interact with that system if you don't like it" is not really conducive to a productive conversation in a feedback-oriented discussion.

[ForteNightshade]

It is still relevant if you want to craft your own food and pots. ...Which is where it hurts the most, because that is where there is such a large expense.
Also, if I am going to be honest, phrases like "don't interact with that system if you don't like it" is not really conducive to a productive conversation in a feedback-oriented discussion.

This is a common misconception. At the beginning of an expansion, yes, prices can get quite high. By this point though, everything has plummeted because getting materia is incredibly easy. With a system as generous as you've purposed, materia would become even less valuable due to there being less people needing it despite the massive volume. In other words, it may as well not even exist because they'd be bordering on 3k a pop if that.

Nonetheless, the devs are unlikely to ever change overmelding because materia is among the very few consumables we have in this game. They need something to stuff in Bozja or Deep Dungeon loot boxes.

[Arrhin]

I don't overmeld DoW/M gear much at all, due to me mostly being a crafter/gatherer so I don't have much to add there. But as a crafter/gatherer I can say that no one who is even remotely serious should be paying Gil for materia, and the assumption that you must is just false. The stuff is thrown at us from every direction but mostly from just doing what we do. Spiritbonding and Scrips my loves, that is the way. I haven't spent a single Gil on overmelds since HW I wanna say, nor have I ever sold any. Short term gains and all that. Regardless, I doubt we'll see any changes to the system, imo it is "working as intended". We may not like it but RNG is a big part of the necessary roadblocks that the grind consists of. It's easy and cheap to implement and effective, and also not going anywhere.

[dspguy]

I can empathize with the OP. Years ago, when materia was still expensive, I went through 161 Strength Materia IV on the last slot of an accessory for my tank. Melds that defy the odds do happen and it stinks.

With that said, I don't think they need to change the system. This is the nature of randomness. Melding DoWMHL gear is entirely optional. There are guaranteed slots. When it comes to DoW/M gear - in some cases you can obtain gear better than gear obtained via running dungeons (drops/tomes) by overmelding. There should be a price for that capability. Bear in mind, that price is a lot less than it used to be. Materia comes from many different sources, not just spiritbonding where you lose the piece of gear. For DoH specifically, the cost to meld is very low in comparison to what it used to be. There was a time when you had to meld 4+ slots of every piece in order to just hit the thresholds to even attempt the craft. Those days are gone. Sure, if you want to use the meta-macro to craft, then you'll pentameld. But again, that's entirely optional.

I tracked my materia melding in Google Sheets. I used to sell pentamelded gear on the MB. I had a lot of data points. Remember that 161 attempts at a 5% meld? 14 attempts @ 5% should yield a success 50% of the time. That time it went way over. But over the course of thousands of meld attempts on gear - that 161 was evened out.

In other words, I find the RNG they use to be pretty good over the long term. We always remember the 161 fails. But how many times do we have a 5 or 7% meld succeed on try #3? How many times does a 17% meld succeed on try #1? It all evens out.

[Burmecia]

I have my sad but hilarious overmelding story too, as we all do. But let's not hear it now. Or that time I bought cheap materia upfront by thousands and didn't even need 15% of that haul. Anyway.

I don't really think pentamelding is supposed to be fun. Rather, way to move materia maybe out of the game in skin of a skinner box?

[Kemiko]

Overmelding (and materia in general) has been getting updates as the game ages so its disingenuous to think it won't continue to do so.

Once upon a time a failed overmeld detroyed the item and the materia. Then, it became only the materia was lost.
Once upon a time, materia was obtainable only from spiritbonding and you didn't extract materia from the item, you turned the item into materia, losing the item in the process.
Once upon a time there were elemental and primary stat materia. There was also everyone's favorite "Accuracy" materia.
Once upon a time you had to meld each materia individually. Not "until you succeed or run out".

While I don't think overmelding is going to be removed (at least not anytime soon), I see it continue to get updates and QoL changes as the game continues to age. Biggest thing I'd like to see is an overhaul to the currently available materia. I don't bother overmelding DoH/L so I don't know if this is true for them, but anything beyond the two most recent materia releases for the expansion serves virtually no purpose in the game. A change to make all materia worthwhile at all stages of the game would be good to me, such as making certain materia only usable in certain slot numbers.

[Curisu]

I did a few hunt trains before the Savage fights got released and was able to overmeld my full gear.

Also made a few million Gil by selling everything I don't need.

I can do the same next raid tier without a problem.

Overmelding ist not difficult or expensive.