Materia System

[Truvy]

To me it reads/sounds like this:

* You wear/use your weapons and armor. While doing so, each piece gains in these "afinity' points. When the points reach 100% you will have the option to <convert> the piece of equipment into a Materia. (Losing the gear > gaining a Materia) This can be done under the class that was using the gear.

* DoH crafters will be able to then <attach> these Materia to a piece of gear, adding whatever stats the Materia has to the gear. This requires a <catalyst> to preform the synth and always will have sucess.

* DoL gatherers will aquire the necessary catalysts for crafter to perform this synth.

* Crafters can also <remove> the Materia from a piece of gear (destroying the Materia in the process) and attach a different one.

THen lastly, the possibility of some forbidden technique with high failure rate to attach multiple materia to a item.

[Ravidrath]

Not sure why people are so concerned about people exp'ing with lower level gear - I think the chances that "low grade" gear are going to have worthwhile inheritable stats to high-level players are roughly zero. If somehow this ends up being the case, I think it's a gear design problem and not a Materia system problem.

Also, I think it's safe to say that it'll take multiple gear repairs' worth of effort to accumulate enough Attachment Points to create a Materia. To ensure this is a boon to crafters, gear repaired by actual players should receive an Attachment Bonus. This bonus should not vary with HQ repairs or anything like that.

I'd personally love it if they removed gear's stat penalties for being damaged, and just made is so that it significantly slows or even eliminates the rate at which you accrue Attachment Points. This basically flips the durability system psychology around so that keeping your stuff repaired is something you want to do because it'll help with future goals. It's also beneficial to the player without being detrimental to the group.

...In fact, I'm going to go suggest that now.

[tachikoma]

Here's a running list of potential problems that would need attention given the info we have. This is made with the idea that the devs want feedback on this system from the players.

1. Matsui's new system focuses on rewarding the effort and innovation of players playing at their best, but this system seems to incentivize equipping low-grade equipment to battle. These focuses seem antagonistic to each other, and a player may be forced to choose between being at their best and getting materia.

2. Jobs that have already hit the level cap sustain massive reductions in the amount of hits they perform on a given weapon or in a given armor set, relegating attachment to gear to a "grinding" activity like levelling or farming, which are either impossible for some or not fun for most.

3. Materia growing appears to be an activity that favors current unaddressed problems in the game: players who farm shards with bots will now have more incentive to continue this activity. Let's not pretend that shard bots don't exist, or allow a system that further rewards that behavior.

4. This system will eventually settle out to what outcome is common and what is rare as a means to distinguish materia on gear. For battlers, that rare event seems to be HQ'ing materia as their mechanism for power. For crafters, it seems to be that rare double materia attach. Where is the power-outcome for gatherers to give them equal weight?

5. The system feels like an archaic MMO farm or grind activity, which this game must avoid if it is to rise above.

1. If you want the best materia you will (HIGHLY LIKELY) have to use the best gear to get it-> you want the HQ3 materia? gotta materialize your +3 crab bow to get it!

2. What if the points you earn are based on the type of mob your fighting? fight high lvl NM's -> get monster AP,
Grind crappy low lvl mobs (think what bots do all day long) -> get little to no AP. This keeps the botters from grinding materia.

3. See #2, pretty easy to prevent bots from grinding materia if they want to

4. Who is to say that the gatherers DOL can't get HQ version of catalysts? And that said HQ catalyst doesn't improve the chances to fuse that "Legendary" 2nd materia onto your weapon/armor of choice?

5. Archaic grind activity? I would call it an excellent way to stimulate the economy, provide a way to help removing item bloat, give fun goals to help ease the burden of grinding to cap. If they incentivise fighting higher level mobs this encourages exploration, group activity, party play, pushing your ability to the max in order to gain more AP quicker.

Sure you can do the leve on 3 stars and get max sp and be done in 10min. OR you could bump up the stars to 5 and really struggle to finish but gain a massive AP boost to your gear? Just speculating here but I don't see any negatives to the entire system yet.

[Peregrine]

1. If you want the best materia you will (HIGHLY LIKELY) have to use the best gear to get it-> you want the HQ3 materia? gotta materialize your +3 crab bow to get it!

Nope. They're smarter than that. Crab bow +3s are the reason there are too many crab bows. You can't give people incentive to destroy them, or you make the problem worse. Quality of materia should dominantly depend on the item's rank, with a minor increase in chance for the rarer materia with +1 and +2. Little to no point in burning a +3.

Thus, you pay for a weapon's Quality because you plan to make use of its damage. Not because it has a better potential to turn into epic materia. Burning a +3 tool weapon or armor for a chance at materia SHOULD be a foolish move.

For the rest you just assume that these are problems and that this system is final. These are problems which only need attention before the system is released. Whether they already have those problems covered and didn't mention, I don't care. I also don't care how they do it, or if they even use the solutions mentioned, so long as they pay attention to the problems.

[Kiara]

Hi tachikoma,

I agree with Peregrine here that using a +3 Item to get the best version of a Materia is *not* the way to go.

That'd lead to DOUBLE the amount of NQ and +1, +2 items flooding the market right now, because the hardcore would try twice as hard to get TWO of every +3 item. A few people suggested a better solution in that the +3 Item (and any HQ version) would just give you a slight % chance increase to get an HQ, but a NQ would also give you that chance.

That way, NQ and HQ items are roughly equal in Materia Conversion and you don't have people flooding the market even worse than it is now.

But I love your idea about Gaining Attachment Points based on Monster Rank. I think is a good solution to add to Peregrine's running list:

2. What if the points you earn are based on the type of mob your fighting? fight high lvl NM's -> get monster AP,
Grind crappy low lvl mobs (think what bots do all day long) -> get little to no AP. This keeps the botters from grinding materia.

I think this is one possible solution to prevent RMT / Botters from exploiting it too much. For the real players fighting Rank-Appropriate Mobs (R55 Raptors, NMs, etc.) they'll get way more Attachment Points vs. an RMT Botter who is grinding R1 Star Marmots all day.

[tachikoma]

The materia catalyst is for attaching materia to gear, not creating the materia from the gear. I expect an NPC who charges a fee (much needed gil sink) to turn your gear into materia.

[KumaAkuma]

Honestly I couldn't care less about this whole materia system if there isn't a noticeable difference with socketed items in actual combat.

I'm not going to skill up weapons to get better stats from the resulting materia if the only thing it does is adjust some numbers in the status menu.

This whole thing better not be a "barbie doll set" Do-Over! (And by barbie doll sets I'm referring to the 400 faction sets that only allowed you to play dress up with your character)

[Kirith]

So in the end this is the best desperate measure they could come with to remove gear from the economy? Gear transforming in stat bonus for other gear? It doesn't make sense to me as part of the game world and in the long run will probably become just another annoying factor to consider when balancing economy and battle.
I'd rather have stuff break from use than this...

If it were me i'd make material drops much more rare and make some of the materials used in making certain gear be recoverable when it breaks. Furthermore i'd make gathering materials from monsters an action you have to select and execute instead of it happening automatically. This way people who only care for fighting won't bother with low level materials and won't gather them from monsters they kill, which also solves inventory cluttering and removes some of the materials sold in the wards. To complete this i'd increase the skill points from a single craft so people don't need to craft so many items of the same tier et voilà, there are less useless items in people's inventories and less gear in circulation.
Regulating wear/break rate and drop rate to adjust economy as needed would be easy then. With the materia system it just becomes harder.

[BlaiseLallaise]

I'm calling tl;dr on the entire thread, so it's entirely possible that my thoughts have been brought up at least once. Please forgive me.

First, who is to say that the Materia system is supposed to be a grind-fest? Perhaps it is instead intended to be done in parallel to every-day activities, such as leves, dungeons or NM hunting. Maybe I use the gear I have until it is time to upgrade, then at that point I convert my old gear, go about the process of getting it attached to my new gear, then away I go adventuring again. Then again, maybe it doesn't take that long to get gear to the point of materia conversion, tempting us to go ahead and convert one piece of gear and buying/crafting and identical piece to continue ranking up towards the aforementioned upgrade rank.

Secondly, We already know that gear can be converted into materia which can then be attached to other gear. But what comes of the gear to which the materia was attached? Can it then go through the same process and eventually be converted into materia also? In other words, can gear that has an attached materia also be converted into materia at a later time? And is the effect cumulative?

[Elexia]

Mostly because anything that requires any form of work, no matter how light or heavy the load people call a grind.