Better Materia System

[Shougun]

Subjective. I see nothing wrong with the materia market.

And you just described exactly what is wrong with your proposal. This would require the total rebalancing of all materia to account for the fact that you're guaranteed to be able to 5x-meld anything. Materia are tuned to be on the strong side because it is difficult to get highly melded gear. With your system, materia would have to be nerfed into oblivion since anyone can have it with no risk or effort involved.

Probably caught my post before i edited it some more.

Each item would have determined slots, so no you wouldn't get 5 slots unless SE wanted you to have 5 slots.

Also materia wouldn't be nerfed into oblivion, have you played WoW? The enchanting system isn't nerfed into oblivion its quite powerful and useful. While the difference in enchant and this is you can carry yours over - however to get higher tiers of materia you would need that lower tier materia in a new project or high quality ingredients. I expect under my system materia would be quite expensive (and thus prized) but it would offer you the guarantee and not some random chance to blow 10 gil or 10 million gil.

I'm not talking about the market for materia I'm talking about the market for melded gear - which is bonkers because of the % chance. I dont want everything to be cheap therefore the materia price should/would be high - however it would be consistent.

So little risk? Yes, No effort? Hardly - I envision a tier 4 of a general stat would be a few mil or more to buy.

[Meta]

I had a somewhat similar system in mind, but the like others have stated, Materia needs to remain as an effective gear and gilsink, and making a materia-melding class diminishes the value of the original crafting classes.

Still, I think you can still accomplish this with a hybrid of the current system and your suggestions, along with the suggestions I've seen from others on the forum. We can offload some of the randomness of x-melds to a combined random and progress-based spiritbond system. For example:

Melding
1. Gear cannot be destroyed when melding. Each meld is a 100% guarantee.

2. A piece of equipment will have a certain number of slots, up to 5. "Better"/rarer/+1 gear for its level will have more slots. Slots with materia in them can be overwritten, but the materia occupying the slot is destroyed.

3. Melding still requires the use of catalysts.

Spiritbonding
1. Materia is only created from spiritbonding and converting gear.

2. Materia that is created from converting gear will range in tiers (I~IV) and potency (+1~+20, etc.), as it does in the current system. Higher tiers and higher potency are adjusted to be noticeably rarer than they are in the current system; let's say 10~20% rarer as a placeholder.

3. The type and total potency of Materia attached the equipment you are trying to convert influences the the type, tier, and potency of the resulting materia. For example, a player who converts a pair of Felt Bracers with three Strength II materia will have a higher chance of converting bracers into a higher potency Strength III or IV materia.

In summary, what this tries to accomplish:

1. Preserve materia as a gil and gear sink by maintaining the incentive to acquire and convert gear.
2. Remove randomness from melding gear.
3. Increase value of +1 gear.
4. Increase value and usability of lower tier/potency materia.
5. Increase value and usability of lower level gear or gear with lesser quality melds while still providing an incentive to convert said gear into materia.
6. Could, with just the slightest chance in hell, make Status Resistance melds easier to make, and as a result, make said melds more desirable.


TL;DR: Remove randomness from melds, increase gear-to-materia conversion rates by incentivizing melding of lower tier materia onto gear, do so by allowing melded gear to convert into better materia.

[Shougun]

I had a somewhat similar system in mind, but the like others have stated, Materia needs to remain as an effective gear and gilsink, and making a materia-melding class diminishes the value of the original crafting classes.

....[more quote here]

I was similar to this originally, and I do approve of it.

I only thought having a crafter to make the materia would add an additional cost to the materia while also removing even more RNG (replacing a bit of the gilsink that would be missing from lowering double meld+ prices). I feel it fits in well because of goobuex looks like he is crafting that stuff.

Im still curious why people think my idea takes gil out of the system from other crafters. It only removes it from the random melding - like yours is still maintains the use of gear spirit binding.

Edit: Want to add that this system still has a bit of materia overflow - another thing i wanted to solve with my system - making materia more expensive and rare (though indeed you accounted this for at least the more expensive materia).

[Alhanelem]

Yeah that is apart of what this system does.

But it also does things that would wreck the current economy. So I can't really support it in its present state. I really don't find the materia system to be defective on the whole, it just needs some polish. About the only other thought I have off the top of my head is less specificty in what you can attach a particular materia to. I understand the desire by SE to make certain slots be primary sources of different stats, but this often too-heavily limits the usefulness of some materia that would otherwise be good to have.

[Chardrizard]

I did read your thing, i also do know spiritbonding still breaks gears but people breaks more stuff melding than spiritbonding, people can destroy a matter of 20 felt bracers per-melding session, leaving that out essentially makes things moves twice as slow and only low/cheap gear are being sold because people don't buy the high level/expensive gears to break down for spiritbond.


ex.
People buy stuff like Woolen Halfgloves to spiritbond, this helps with people that are currently grinding on Woolen Mats.

People buy stuff like Felt Bracers to meld, this helps end-level crafters, Boar leather-Undyed Felt etc.

[Shougun]

But it also does things that would wreck the current economy. So I can't really support it in its present state. I really don't find the materia system to be defective on the whole, it just needs some polish. About the only other thought I have off the top of my head is less specificty in what you can attach a particular materia to. I understand the desire by SE to make certain slots be primary sources of different stats, but this often too-heavily limits the usefulness of some materia that would otherwise be good to have.

Yeah, it would crash a segment of the market. But I believe that market shouldnt have existed in the first place.

Since you can go up to five slots in the current system just based on chance you can make some pretty funky and likely unintened (in SE mind) stats on gears. With an numbered 100% slot guarentee on each item it would both limit and let players put stats where they want. So say AF gear has one slot but level 50 crafted gear has 3.

I did read your thing, i also do know spiritbonding still breaks gears but people breaks more stuff melding than spiritbonding, people can destroy a matter of 20 felt bracers per-melding session, leaving that out essentially makes things moves twice as slow and only low/cheap gear are being sold because people don't buy the high level/expensive gears to break down for spiritbond.


ex.
People buy stuff like Woolen Halfgloves to spiritbond, this helps with people that are currently grinding on Woolen Mats.

People buy stuff like Felt Bracers to meld, this helps end-level crafters, Boar leather-Undyed Felt etc.

Yes but that market shouldnt exist, it has never existed before. It is a silly idea - lets break cool items and over on a % chance where I can spend millions and millions and you may get it on your first try. It is both unfair and poorly idealized. Also the higher tier gear would not be wasted as you would want to use higher tiered (unmelded) gear to spirit bound and get better essence for materia crafting.

I can understand people defending it because they already invested in the system, but why continue the bad system if we can change it for 2.0. (If not my idea another one would do)



All in all the biggest problem with the current system is the randomness to get and meld gear (but you can't change either of those in the current system as it would really mess shit up). It is not cool to have a chance to blow millions or get it right the first time. Less chance more skill please.

EDIT: want to add I'm not butt hurt to the current system - as I refuse to invest in it. I've only purchased extremely aggressively priced melded items and have spent less then 2 mil on my gear.

[Alhanelem]

The crux of this is you're trying to fix something that isn't really broken.

The materia system just needs some polish, not a total revamp.

[Shougun]

The crux of this is you're trying to fix something that isn't really broken.

The system is broken. Very broken. SE relies too greatly on RNG (random number generator) and less on effort.

Its all about RNG. And in sick fate the RNG will make you work not at all or too much. No consistency.

Again, the system is broken.

The materia system just needs some polish, not a total revamp.

Subjective. Besides you cant remove the % from the current system without totally wrecking it - I thought of that first, but there isnt a good way to do it without making it a patch job.

With my system things are moved around to maintain flow of crafter items, cost into the system (materia will cost a lot more), while reducing randomness, therefore frustrations, and random prices. It would also make materia interesting (they take time, and money)* while actually balancing out gear (limiting slots to items (disallowing 4 or 3 slots on some, while allowing it on others)).

*right now materia takes time and money but its just random and most people buy cheap SB gear.

[Alhanelem]

The system is broken. Very broken. SE relies too greatly on RNG (random number generator) and less on effort.

It relies on both. Yes, the obtainment of materia is simple enough, but who's to say SE won't add special materia that are obtained in other ways, just like WoW's gems and such? It provides a gilsink that the game honestly needs right now.

So Once again, I'll play the subjective card. You think it's broken, I don't agree.

cost into the system (materia will cost a lot more), while reducing randomness and random prices.

How would materia cost more (the most wanted materia already cost a lot anyway) when there is no risk of loss? The market would be come oversaturated really fast.

[Shougun]

It relies on both. Yes, the obtainment of materia is simple enough, but who's to say SE won't add special materia that are obtained in other ways, just like WoW's gems and such? It provides a gilsink that the game honestly needs right now.

So Once again, I'll play the subjective card. You think it's broken, I don't agree.

How would materia cost more (the most wanted materia already cost a lot anyway) when there is no risk of loss? The market would be come oversaturated really fast.

I've hardly removed the gilsink just moved it around (and made it more consistent, as RNG would have less to do with the gil). I have however required more effort and less random. And it doesnt matter if SE adds unique "gemmy" materia it doesnt replace the extremely boring current materia they have.

Again I point at WoW enchanting - the high stuff takes loads of money. Same point here. As projects go along if you are making a tier 4 materia you may be pumping in 500 K - 1000K ingredients (made and gathered by other classes) PER interval (which you will have to administer multiple times).

The only time a materia would begin to saturate the market is when SE introduces some sort of content that would increase the average level of gil each person has (like expansion packs that add levels). But when they do that they usually increase the tier, so tier 5 would become available.