Better Materia System

[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held a few 100k subscribers and most of it's content was relavent even when you were capped (Most some of it did get outdated and it was a shame when it did) Mainly becasue the game was so fleshed out around the idea of a peak level cap (50 then 75) and every single design choice was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.