Better Materia System

[Shougun]

For a suggestion that I think can help the current system without a huge overhaul; materia needs to be able to be leveled up through the spirit bond system. The problem is that for the most part anything but tier 4 materia is pretty useless and attempt to spirit bond anything but over level 41 gear a waste of time.

They need to allow for a slotted materia to grow to the next tier after a significant amount of spirit bonding is accumulated on the piece of gear its bound to. Getting materia through each tier would take a good amount of time so those that wish to save time can still play the RNG game and get high tier materia instantly from high level conversion but this would also give another avenue for people to gain the materia they want without the need for tremendous luck or gil.

RNG must die.

:P, however the rep post in this thread did say they are going to make melded gear and hq gear give better results when breaking. Though I'd like them to get rid of the whole RNG crutch, its just ugly.

[Reika]

I think for crafters to continue to sell stuff, items must break. But instead, i think they should have a chance to break, and not just break 100% of the time on failure, along the lines of if you are lucky, it wont break.

I hate materia tiering system too. They should get rid of I II III IV tiers and make it 1 tier. We went over things that waste inventory space a long time ago, and materia tiers became one of them. Strength of no-tier materia should depend on the level of the item you converted, and no longer have micro adjustments at lower levels (which also waste inventory space). For example, Strength materia should have:
2 str for lvl1-10 gear conversion
5 str for 11-20 gear
10 str for 21-30 gear
15 str for 31-40 gear
varying 18-20 str for 41-50 gear
To go a long with this, have only one level of matter to, the same tier matter gathered from Grade 1 node to Grade 5, and all materia created can be melded to any level of gear.

As op said gear should have a certain amount of slots based on what it is. Unique/Utradable (I play XIV, not XI xD) Blues should have 1 slot, Unique/Untradeable Greens should have 2, NQ Crafted should have 3 slots, and HQ crafted 5. I also believe the 'Unique' status should be removed from most items because of how gearsets are going to work in ARR, and especially from those that can be traded for seals in ARR. They should all become vendorable as well.

In ARR it was said that one multi-meld piece of equipment will have much less of an impact than it does now. In light of this, they should improve double melding success rates at ARR launch.

[Ksenia]

Read first pageeeee, lol!

You two dont flame over useful gear and patches here XD.

Towards the point of this particular thread: I agree that people dont like to work hard for gear that will then become useless. Thats why I think making materia a more focused system like I have done on page one would be best.

Because new updates will always make gear sad - they have to do this specially when raising the cap (have to add "desirable" content). But we can make materia one of those long term goals that also stick with us - never a waste of time.

As it is now RNG will waste your time without making you feel like you did anything worth while, RNG for most cases deserves to burn a horrible death. There are still things you cant un-RNG though like criticals, not because its impossible but because what would happen is people would "load" their critical and then go do PvP or something and next hit would be a loaded critical on a max weapon skill.

However you can unRNG materia - and you can do some special twists to loot, while maintaining the important difficulty (and hence reward) of the item.

I'm still trying to figure out what the hell he is arguing.
We need more RnG in FF14 because WoW out dates its gear too often?

My OPINION Yes, it's an OPINION - like it's a fucking crime to have one in know it all forums, is that RnG kills games and is a substitute for lack of content, forcing you to repeat the same crap over and over and if you go to any game forum people scream about RnG, not that they leveled in 3 months and have nothing to do. Somehow it became about WoW and how they out date their gear.

[Jynx]

if you go to any game forum people scream about RnG, not that they leveled in 3 months and have nothing to do. Somehow it became about WoW and how they out date their gear.

I must be absolutely bonkers then, because I don't see many people screaming about RNG unless it's here. I see people always asking "When is the next _____" coming though.

Looking at other MMO forums and each one of them has several threads about what to do next, or when is the next update, or when will this be fixed, or when will that be nerfed. Players are instatiable and if you make the content easy to complete "EI handing out rewards for everything with nothing left up to fate (RNG)" You find a world full of worthless content. Christ I bet WoW has like a handfull of raids out of the billions they have that are actually relevant.

Do some people like it? I don't doubt it because people subscribe and watch content become worthless and wasted a few months past. But guess what lots of people like content that doesn't outdate itself FFXI held a few 100k subscribers and most of it's content was relavent even when you were capped (Most some of it did get outdated and it was a shame when it did) Mainly becasue the game was so fleshed out around the idea of a peak level cap (50 then 75) and every single design choice was made to extend the life of your max level character while still allowing him to grow without needing to make the rest of the game worthless in the process.

You have your preferences and that's fine, this isn't just about WoW it's a good example though of what happens when you "Jump the shark" as it continues to bleed consumers despite just launching a new expansion I allready see grumblings about people allready maxed out (I'm sure it will be a week or two before the biggest bady of the expansion launch is allready dead if he wasn't allready murdered.) You then end up with a game with spike gameplay (Not that Blizzard cares when or how long you log in as long as you siphon your money into them) every update notes a massive spike and then decline in players.

Sure every update on every MMO has it but at least games like EVE and FFXI didn't make everything before that update pointless and require you to entirely retool your character to be competative.

*edit*

To be on point of the OP's message I still believe that the Materia system is crucial to the state of the economic wellbeing of the game (Not that the recent gil exploits hasn't done enough damage) But it keeps a constant demand for items and services from crafters and gatherers. Some games treat crafters like second hand garbage but as it stands in XIV they are a integral part of keeping the game flowing it nobody was crafting you would be out of luck getting your relic, let alone much of anything done.

[Shougun]

*edit*

To be on point of the OP's message I still believe that the Materia system is crucial to the state of the economic wellbeing of the game (Not that the recent gil exploits hasn't done enough damage) But it keeps a constant demand for items and services from crafters and gatherers. Some games treat crafters like second hand garbage but as it stands in XIV they are a integral part of keeping the game flowing it nobody was crafting you would be out of luck getting your relic, let alone much of anything done.

And I agree, its important. Did you read the system? It doesnt remove the gil sink - it moves it around and remove RNG at the same time, that part doesnt make the system any better.

I agree, your gear dying every patch sucks. Thats not in my system.

RNG creates averages, like if you have 10%, every 100 people 10 will get the item. However it also means that you can go 1000 times and still not get it, it doesnt have a base cap or anything. The RNG system -is- bad.

Im not suggesting to give out candy easy. But if you are looking to make someone run 10 times to get one item, then just make it so you will get it in 10 times not.. "maybe". Thats stupid.



(Another RNG is dumb example: if you have a coin, how many times do you have to flip it to get both sides?) The answer is as many times as it takes, there is not set value it could be 2 times or it could be 10,000 times.

[Jynx]

(Another RNG is dumb example: if you have a coin, how many times do you have to flip it to get both sides?) The answer is as many times as it takes, there is not set value it could be 2 times or it could be 10,000 times.

On this tangent that RNG is is utterly evil and needs to be banished from the face of the earth. What then when you have completed everything what is the long term goal?

You kill Ifrit 10 times bam got your axe, screw ever touching him again becasue there is no reason to do so, unless it's to make a rare materia you can't get elsewhere it still puts a finite number on "HOW MANY TIMES I MUST DO ____" It essentially turns the entire god damn game into the essence of "Fetch quests that everyone hates"

Kill the Moogle king 10 times
Kill the Moogle king 20 times to get Shiny materia as well

I don't mind being able to progress while playing the game but I do like to leave some things up to chance, or at least give me a option where taking a chance can yeild better results than just slogging it out. People are so unhappy that there is a chance they might be "That guy" who gets burned by %'s and whatnot while I fear being "That guy" who didn't hop on the update wagon and can't find a single damn person to do X-new mission with because everyone is finished that shit and yelling at SE for the next patch.

[AlaulaTheGreat]

I would like a chance of bonding to fail, and not for total breakage, like 22% chance of bonding materia/44% chance of entire item breaking. It would relieve frustration of those folks who are going for the 3rd materia.
But I'm sure someone mentioned that up there somewhere~

[Shougun]

On this tangent that RNG is is utterly evil and needs to be banished from the face of the earth. What then when you have completed everything what is the long term goal?

You kill Ifrit 10 times bam got your axe, screw ever touching him again becasue there is no reason to do so, unless it's to make a rare materia you can't get elsewhere it still puts a finite number on "HOW MANY TIMES I MUST DO ____" It essentially turns the entire god damn game into the essence of "Fetch quests that everyone hates"

Kill the Moogle king 10 times
Kill the Moogle king 20 times to get Shiny materia as well

I don't mind being able to progress while playing the game but I do like to leave some things up to chance, or at least give me a option where taking a chance can yeild better results than just slogging it out. People are so unhappy that there is a chance they might be "That guy" who gets burned by %'s and whatnot while I fear being "That guy" who didn't hop on the update wagon and can't find a single damn person to do X-new mission with because everyone is finished that shit and yelling at SE for the next patch.

That is a matter of perspective, yes doing token 100% systems darkens it. But the sad truth with % is that you can legitamitely be screwed 1000 times in a row.

For items its one of the reasons why I suggested progressive percentages. Everytime you fail you get a exponetial bonus %.
What this would do is create a range of attempts that may feel more natural then a fetch quest but less dreadfully annoying then the full on RNG.

However for materia and items melding rng needs to gtfo lol. Its why I removed breaking gear from materia, but kept the spirit binding aspect and changed them from rewarding materia to essences. The essences makes it so you have to bind more then one equipment to make a materia , which makes up for the loss of breaking the gear on melds.

I thought about where the economy would be lost and tried to replace it as smooth as possible while removing all randomization and stupid unfairness. You may take two or three months to make the epic materia but it is so worth it (and everyone else had to work that hard to get the materia as well, so its not like O MY GAWD IT TOOK ME SO LONG U GOT IT FIRST TRY). Dont be afraid when I said two or three months, I think tiers are being underrated right now so making each tier more useful and having a greater bracket of time used would make the end tiers the end goal awesomes. How materia are stored is another discussion probably worth having along with talking about HQ/ NQ items.

[Ksenia]

You kill Ifrit 10 times bam got your axe, screw ever touching him again

That's what kills it for me.
Killing Ifrit has no meaning. He becomes a farm tool, no different than killing a deer on the road because you are forced to grind kill him 2000 times. The reason 90% of content gets turned to trash content IS RnG. You are obligated to min/max every dungeon to look for that one you can clear the quickest because the RnG has you doing it in the thousands of times.

It's no longer about the Dungeon, it's about the grind and beating the RnG.

To the OP: I want Materia revamped but I want it all revamped. Remember the Stat PuPs you could morph in the FF7 Submarine? That wasn't materia but that's what was given to us as Materia. How we get materia? Quests, the way it was always done. In chains, with content tied to the chain and not the ability to crawl the same 30 minutes over and over.

[Shougun]

That's what kills it for me.
Killing Ifrit has no meaning. He becomes a farm tool, no different than killing a deer on the road because you are forced to grind kill him 2000 times. The reason 90% of content gets turned to trash content IS RnG. You are obligated to min/max every dungeon to look for that one you can clear the quickest because the RnG has you doing it in the thousands of times.

It's no longer about the Dungeon, it's about the grind and beating the RnG.

To the OP: I want Materia revamped but I want it all revamped. Remember the Stat PuPs you could morph in the FF7 Submarine? That wasn't materia but that's what was given to us as Materia. How we get materia? Quests, the way it was always done. In chains, with content tied to the chain and not the ability to crawl the same 30 minutes over and over.

I think with the system I suggested you could still have some quest materias as well and it wouldnt hurt the system. Specially if a lot of the rewarded materias are rare/ex (not tradeable or duplicated). So maybe one big quest line or main story gets you a Dalamud Materia that grants you a complex passive called heavenly momentum (each successful action increases damage sources by 5% and tp store/refresh +1 [up to a cap]). Just a random example materia.

I think some entry level tradeable materia should be questable or obtained from monsters - thats ok. Later on you can get materia materials for recipies but to make those higher powered materias coveted, rare, and awesome (like in 7) you cant make them easy to get. And like I said you can get awesome materias as boss rewards or quest rewards and thats cool too - but like the relic quest they have to be hard or and rare/ex.

You have to keep materia as a part of the player economy as well as it is a core piece of it. Removing it would really slow down the trade of hands of money in the economy - since players cant "create" new items like in a real world you have to keep a demand of an item to make sure that even when nothing new is coming in that at least something is coming and leaving.