Better Materia System

[Scratches]

I haven't read many posts beyond/except Oki's, so forgive me if I regurgitate ideas here...

I think the melding system is interesting as is, in theory (attaching materia becomes increasingly more difficult as you attempt to attach more), but in practice... well, it's never fun losing your gear just because you wanted to improve it. I understand that just losing the materia you're attempting to meld isn't serious enough a consequence, but losing the gear is too much, I think. Why not lose all materia attached to the item upon a meld failure? That's severe enough, no?

And as far as materia procurement goes, like many others, I too feel that the spiritbond system is, well, shit (pardon my French). It props up the gear and crafting markets, sure, but is that really enough justification for encouraging players to mindlessly grind mobs (or, even worse, use less-than-optimal gear in group content) just so they can transmute that gear into some random materia that might not even be one they could use (thus perpetuating the grind)?? I certainly don't think so...

A potentially better alternative to the spiritbond system (and one that possibly makes just as much sense in the game world) would be to have materia gained through DoL gathering -- Botany, Fishing, and Mining -- would it not?
A random chance (5%?) to find a piece of materia in a tree, a rocky outcrop, or inside a fish(??) (level-appropriate, of course... e.g., lvl 1 materia from lvl 1 notes) would work, right? Or maybe even a rare/random chance to find materia on world mobs, too.

Anything but the current system... please...

EDIT: Additionally, I don't have a problem with RNG as long as it's not completely obtuse like the current system of "get gear, use gear, destroy gear, you get what you get" ...the process is way too long/involved for a small chance to get what you want. Not to mention it's nothing but a sink... if you don't get what you want out of it, you have nothing to show -- no gains to show -- for the time/effort you put in.
RNG that's designed more towards the "ooh, a bonus!" kind, however, actually contribute positively to a game, I feel.

[Shougun]

I haven't read many posts beyond/except Oki's, so forgive me if I regurgitate ideas here...

I think the melding system is interesting as is, in theory (attaching materia becomes increasingly more difficult as you attempt to attach more), but in practice... well, it's never fun losing your gear just because you wanted to improve it. I understand that just losing the materia you're attempting to meld isn't serious enough a consequence, but losing the gear is too much, I think. Why not lose all materia attached to the item upon a meld failure? That's severe enough, no?

And as far as materia procurement goes, like many others, I too feel that the spiritbond system is, well, shit (pardon my French). It props up the gear and crafting markets, sure, but is that really enough justification for encouraging players to mindlessly grind mobs (or, even worse, use less-than-optimal gear in group content) just so they can transmute that gear into some random materia that might not even be one they could use (thus perpetuating the grind)?? I certainly don't think so...

A potentially better alternative to the spiritbond system (and one that possibly makes just as much sense in the game world) would be to have materia gained through DoL gathering -- Botany, Fishing, and Mining -- would it not?
A random chance (5%?) to find a piece of materia in a tree, a rocky outcrop, or inside a fish(??) (level-appropriate, of course... e.g., lvl 1 materia from lvl 1 notes) would work, right? Or maybe even a rare/random chance to find materia on world mobs, too.

Anything but the current system... please...

Read the first page and make more comments, .

But Yeah I totally understand the animosty to spirit binding - but its important to keep the economy turning and using the crafters is one way. Problem with gathers (in this version) is that they can be botted to reward infinite resources, while crafting is harder to be botted on as even if you do have infinite resources only so many people will buy the product which forces a maximum / minimum saturation range. In 2.0 apparently gathers will have GP (gathering points- like MP that returns over time) that they can use to increase chance of getting particular items - so changing materia to focus on gathers would be less of an issue but still one. Also it would make more sense that crafters make more money then gathers as crafters need the materials from gathers in order to make anything - so if you lost money crafting.. that would suck.

If you used gathering then botters could effect the economy more easily.

Perhaps its a cost worth taking, I wouldnt know till it happened.

One of the things I thought could happen is that you can turn the gear into essences (or materia) immediately after craft. This would prevent subpar fighting but keep the economy turning. The only thing is that this would reduce the amount of exp parties from 40-50 and so it would be harder to level once players are near max. (Like right now if you want to hit 50 you always join a SB party - if those go away then there needs to be another obvious leveling highway).

Another thing to wonder about is how SB parties will work in 2.0 since exp from monsters will be greatly reduced. Perhaps SE has something about SB hidden from us we will learn later.