Just because it has the name "Materia" on it means absolutely nothing.

This system isn't exactly new or inventive or fresh either. TERA's (now scrapped) crafting/upgrade system basically did the same thing. You took gear, any gear whether farmed, boss drops, world drops ect, and broke it down into a craftable mat and then upgraded other gear with it to make +1 to +9 gear. You lost the original piece of gear in the process to upgrade the new piece of gear. To get close to +9 gear (the best in the game) you would need incredibly rare weapons/armor which could take forever to get, just to upgrade another piece of armor.