Materia System

[Focant]

I like how it sounds so far, though I still have a few nagging worries. As some others have mentioned, there needs to be some sort of limiting factor to prevent people from turning a single weapon or piece of armor into a materia factory. Whether the item is consumed, the stats are stripped from the item giving a weaker materia or none at all subsequent times, or if there's a counter system much like enchantments in XI, something needs to be in place to promote the use of several armors and weapons as well as prevent spamming materia creation. To balance it out perhaps allow people to erase their built up materia, resetting their attachment points, to try again for a better one, though ultimately yielding only one or two actual materia.

There's obviously more that needs to be detailed about the system, but given proper implementation I bet it'll be a really fun system. Especially if there are tons of materia types and tons of factors that attribute to materia creation perhaps including job, enemy types defeated, types of attacks, etc. Making that perfect materia should be an event in and of itself!

[Lerris]

It doesn't make perfect sense. People are reading too much into this.

"By using the armor and weapons that you equip yourself with, you will generate "attachment points"* and when your attachment points reach 100% you will be able to convert them("them" means the points you've earned, not the gear) into "materia." This is known as "materia conversion." "Materia" is a crystallized form of the weapon and armor’s stats (Stats from the weapon, not the weapon itself) that the player has used and formed an attachment to. "

Actually, in this case the antecedent to the preposition "them" is ambiguous and can either refer to the points, or to the "armor and weapons".

If you read the original Japanese post, it's a little clearer that you turn the actual item into materia.

Either way, I tend to wonder what happens if I were to create materia from a sword to which I had already attached a materia. There's a possibility for an extended chain of upgrades here.

[Ravidrath]

Got some new tidbits regarding the upcoming Materia system implementation to share with you straight from the dev. team!


We're looking forward to hearing feedback on this!

*Rep note: Similar to "affection" not "attaching" something.
(Please note that some terms may not be final and may be subject to change in the future.)

The term "fluctuations" concerns me and makes me think of the completely random nature of XI's Augments and the general uselessness of most Evoliths.

I think you need to establish a general baseline benefit from these (i.e. half of all stat values) and the fluctuations are positive bonuses above and beyond that.

If later on we're talking about traits ala Bird Killer, etc. those can be HQ and harder to obtain as long as there is still some benefit from the NQ one.

[Rubicon]

This reminds me of FF9. You equip a weapon or armor and you fight with it equipped. AP is gained and a little bar is filled. When the bar fills you get a stone with a stat corresponding with the equipped weapon/armor. I see it as random materia output, like a Silver Scepter can create MP+1% or Water+2 Materia.

[Bayohne]

I'm sorry for the vague comment that's sparked the debate, so I'll clarify. I'll also edit the original post with the following.

By using the armor and weapons that you equip yourself with, you will generate "attachment points"* and when your attachment points reach 100% you will be able to convert that weapon or armor into "materia."

[Xeno]

I'm sorry for the vague comment that's sparked the debate, so I'll clarify. I'll also edit the original post with the following.

Your updated post is messed up but thanks for clarifying.

[Amineri]

Thank you for the excellent clarification!

It still leaves me wondering whether "weapons" is also literal, or whether it includes tools. In other words, is this system only for the combat classes, or do crafters and gatherers create materia as well?

edit: I understand that crafters attach materia, and that gatherers harvest the catalyst that allows the materia to be attached. My reference to "this system" was referring to the system of creating materia, not the entire materia system.

[Hikozaemon]

I am curious to know which crafting class will be creating Materia. I hope it is Alch.. only because I spent alot of time doing Alch so i am biased in hopes of having a strong head start with this new feature I can't wait, and honestly think that this feature will push me back into playing the game. Thank you for the good news Bayohne!!

seems u need to read the post again materia is not crafted its gained by using gear .... accumulating points on gear then converting it. then a crafting job attaches it to gear w/ a chance of nq or hq added effects and it even hints at an even more powerful added effect chance at the expense of possibly losing your materia if it fails.

[Focant]

Thank you for the excellent clarification!

It still leaves me wondering whether "weapons" is also literal, or whether it includes tools. In other words, is this system only for the combat classes, or do crafters and gatherers create materia as well?

edit: I understand that crafters attach materia, and that gatherers harvest the catalyst that allows the materia to be attached. My reference to "this system" was referring to the system of creating materia, not the entire materia system.

I can't really point you to the exact statement but I'm fairly sure it was mentioned that only DoW and DoM classes are responsible for the creation of materia. I could be wrong but as far as I understand it that's the way it'll work.

Also thanks for the clarification and that kind of addresses the issues I mentioned in my last post. I still would love to see a lot of variety amongst the materia to avoid people just spitting out tons of armor X to get materia Y that gives the best stat sets. Adding in several factors to make crafting materia almost an art would be wonderful imo.

[Sparker]

I don't know, I think its lame that you have to convert the gear. People work hard to get their gear, and what happens when we are all decked out in the job/class specific gear we are expecting? Hopefully they make those quests repeatable... and hope they are not like AF in ffxi...

Now I will have to go buy a bunch of NQ gear to run around in and hope for good materia to augment my HQ gear which I don't want to lose. I know its a good time sink, but its backwards... at least it sounds backwards, we will see how it works.