Materia system should be streamlined and based on FFVII.

[Technyze]

I think they should just make all gear going forward have a predetermined number of slots in it and putting materia into those slots has a 100% success rate all the time. Thus gear with more slots = better.

Yay! and have some of those slots linked and can add materias that give skills! and "All" Materias to link with!

[MrKupo]

It all sounds good and dandy to us, but that sounds like an absolute bitch to balance. And knowing the FFXIV fanbase, even the slightest flaw in balance will somehow merit a community outcry to abolish materia altogether. I speak in extremes, but it is sad that it isn't even that extreme.

[Sav]

I, too, was really hoping for something more akin to FFVII's system. That is, materia that grants you unique abilities, not a stat boost. Hopefully, they reconsider this sometime soon.

[Arkine]

I hated the materia system since it was introduced because its entirely based on luck and it out shined gear stats and turned crafted gear into materia housing instead (nothing is good because its good/has good stats... its good because it has materia on it)

I'm 100% with the slots idea.

[Tetsaru]

I hated the materia system since it was introduced because its entirely based on luck and it out shined gear stats and turned crafted gear into materia housing instead (nothing is good because its good/has good stats... its good because it has materia on it)

I'm 100% with the slots idea.

It's kinda funny because PSU's weapon grinding system worked almost exactly the same way: a weapon could be grinded up to 10 times to increase its stats, but if a grind failed, you'd lose your weapon and have wasted your grinder items.

Later on, after enough people bitched about it, it was changed to where if a grind failed, you wouldn't lose your weapon, but your current grind would be reverted back to 0, and your number of maximum grinds for that weapon would go down by 1, so it couldn't reach its full potential. So, if you were trying to max out a weapon (0/10 to 1/10, then 2/10, etc. up to 10/10), and it failed, it would become a 0/9, and you would have to start over. I think now, they even have a cash shop option to where you can undo this damage or even guarantee a grind, lol...

Of course, having a high elemental % (I think 50% was the highest) on a weapon or armor was the most important modifier, so grinding only provided miniscule stat boosts in comparison...

[Neptune]

Totally agree with you. Materia should be completely redone. And having a ridiculous amount of inventory taken up by all the ridiculously complicated materia types is ..ridiculous! That should change too.

[Teakwood]

While I kind of like the suggestion in the OP and a lot of what's been discussed in this thread, and I'm not a huge fan of Materia the way it's currently implemented...

Materia's spec, its purpose in the game, is not really to provide gear customisability in the first place. It's to keep crafting relevant by generating constant demand for goods and preventing sell-back at the wards, and it's to provide people with an alternate (grindy, gil/time-sink) way towards getting gear.

It might be a boring, crappy system, but it /succeeds spectacularly/ at its goals from the designers' perspective, and so I think any replacement system suggestion should try to succeed at the same goals the current Materia system succeeds at, that is, "find a way to keep creating a demand for gear". People (probably people who have played lots of FF games but few MMOs) are seeing "Materia System" and it's triggering FF7 memories for them - which is exactly why the developers were loath to call it Materia in the first place - but what they should really be thinking of are things like the enchantment system in TERA and... I forget what it was called in Aion but there was a similar mechanic of "old gear -> item -> buff to current gear", I don't actually know what MMO introduced that mechanic, but Materia is its clear heir with a few spins put on it; sadly most of said spins are annoying prayers to the random number god.

I don't have any great ideas as to how to adapt the system so that it's both interesting -and- fulfills the design spec of "keep crafters relevant", and frankly I'm sceptical about the Materia system /ever/ not making me rage, but I think it's important when criticising the system to consider why it was set up the way it was set up in the first place, and what the developers will be definitively unwilling to change.

[Arkine]

I don't have any great ideas as to how to adapt the system so that it's both interesting -and- fulfills the design spec of "keep crafters relevant", and frankly I'm sceptical about the Materia system /ever/ not making me rage, but I think it's important when criticising the system to consider why it was set up the way it was set up in the first place, and what the developers will be definitively unwilling to change.

Even if it turns into a sloted luck-free system, you'll still need a crafter to do the slotting for you and maybe make it that there's a chance that a materia can break off your gear if you die (low chance, maybe a crafter can fix the broken materia then reattach it? sounds like a decent death penalty).

Crafters will stay relevant, Gatherers will stay relevant, and the demand for materia will still be decent.

[prymortal]

+1 for this idea

[Guevara]

I totally agree with the OP. Very nice post