Overmelding is a Terrible System and Needs to Be Retolled

[ShadowWolf252]

I just spent 3 hours gathering and crafting to overmeld a MH/OH tool and of course this was the result of that outing was losing all the materia I got from that on a single unsuccessful overmeld. This is such a terrible and outdated system.

I get that they need a resource sink but why not just make it so that it takes 6 materia to meld a 17% slot, 10 to meld a 10% slot, 15 to meld a 7% slot, and 20 to meld a 5% slot. When you average over the entire server, the same amount of materia and gil changes hands on the market board, the same amount of gil and resources is removed from the game, and you remove the super bad feeling of randomly losing a ton more resources than you expected.

[Jeeqbit]

MMO developers are big believers in random things, because of the dopamine spike when you win. The failed attempts enable the successful ones to feel good.

However, the issue has always been that the rates have been too low in many cases wasting people's time - time that should be spent doing real life things.

[Supersnow845]

Overmelding is the only thing left in the crafting system that still has somewhat of a floor for crafting, as in if you want the best things from crafting you need to put in the money or effort to overmeld.

If you don’t want to do that you can simply buy what others have crafted

[Arrius]

I'm not sure what the point even is in overmelding if a few months later there will be a new set you have to do it all over again with, seems like a miserable gear treadmill.

For cutting-edge content and maximum efficiency on gatherings and crafts, such grinds are par the course for the dedicated players/raiders.

[MsQi]

Overmelding is the only thing left in the crafting system that still has somewhat of a floor for crafting, as in if you want the best things from crafting you need to put in the money or effort to overmeld.

If you don’t want to do that you can simply buy what others have crafted

It's just random and brainless, Nothing special about it.

"We don't want put effort into a skill based system, let's just make it random."

[Supersnow845]

It's just random and brainless, Nothing special about it.

"We don't want put effort into a skill based system, let's just make it random."

The skill comes from the actual hard crafting

The input comes from the overmelding system

[hydralus]

It's just random and brainless, Nothing special about it.

"We don't want put effort into a skill based system, let's just make it random."

Skill-based upgrades on crafting/gathering gear would definitely be interesting. Perhaps a system where you need to complete several expert crafts in a row in order to 'awaken' stat boosts on a piece of gear. Say 5 expert crafts in a row without failing, just to make it nearly impossible for someone to macro it.

I think people would absolutely hate it but I still like the concept.

As for what will happen to materia, it will become obsolete. Worth less than chicken feed. You'll literally throw it out of your inventory it's so worthless.

[Hastatus]

I had bad luck with batch melding. Losing over 100 materia in one go is terrible. I became superstitious since then and only meld one attempt at a time and the luck has been so much more consistent since.

I wish we would get the option to overmeld more endgame gear. The crafted fighting gear sets that we overmeld seem so short-lived. It would feel better to be able to overmeld BiS raid/tomestone gear and we would have something to use all that extra battle materia most have no use for. Heck turn such overmelds on special gear into an expert recipe type deal so you also need to earn the overmelds...because you can't buy the gear on the MB. XP

[Ankhira]

Overmelding is the only thing left in the crafting system that still has somewhat of a floor for crafting, as in if you want the best things from crafting you need to put in the money or effort to overmeld.

If you don’t want to do that you can simply buy what others have crafted

I see what you're getting at with overmelding being the last real hurdle in crafting, but I wouldn’t call RNG a “floor” it’s more of a coin toss. For most crafters who prep early, it’s just a cycle of stockpiling and repeating.

The real pain of overmelding hits newer players or late joiners. I’ve seen people burn through 90+ materia with no success, which is just...not fun. New players often have little gil and already need to farm: tome mats, scrip mats, timed nodes, and then scrips for materia. It’s not a friendly system unless you’re in from expansion launch.

I doubt any dev wants players to stare down a grind where RNG decides if their effort pays off. That leads to either burnout or disengagement. When I first maxed my crafters, I used scrip gear whichwas good enough. But in the next expansion, I moved into overmelding. For new players, using scrip gear means even more farming before the grind even begins.

Regarding the idea of just buying it, if people do that and want to make their gil back, the return on investment is rough unless they camp the retainer bell to avoid undercuts or flip items aggressively. So 'just buy it' isn’t a realistic option for many players.

Personally, I think the system could use some and even needs changes especially for gatherers. The scrip return vs. time invested is rough compared to crafters.

Add to that the cosmetics and mount tokens they added, and it’s hard to justify SE’s stance on just how many scrips they want us to grind, which seems to be just for the sake of grinding. But that’s a whole other discussion.

[Canadane]

I unironically miss the days when a failed meld would blow up the gear too.
Bring back the danger, or don't bother with it at all, imo.