Materia System

[Xenor]

Absolutely. Unnnfortunately Xenor then you're boned either way. Catalyst farming will create oversupply of every other stray material. All profits from gathering shunt to materia catalyst. We end up losing...again. Common town crafters make off like bandits with free gold walnut and flax.

Soooo....

Problem
If catalysts are made rare from gathering to give gatherers economic weight in the system, demand will drive overproduction of every other gathering material which is as big a problem as or a BIGGER problem than gear overproduction

Solutions
-Separate catalyst aquisition from primary material aquisition
-Reduce incidental material-gets
-Reduce gathering yields


Effectively the gatherer's got to make a decision if they want to get crafting mats, or get materia catalyst. Not both. Or if both...that's going to have to be one HECK of a material production nerf.

Bah, gathering is dead right now anyway until they add completely new materials and fix the drop rates. People are hammering ore and log prices down to the point where it's not worth gathering even if you want to skill up on the stuff. It's just faster to sit there buying the HQ crap the bad gatherers are selling for the same price as NQs, craft it up, pocket insane amounts and buy more cheap gathered items. I have nearly a stack of +2 walnut logs and I'd sooner NPC it than sell it in the wards for the same price as NQs. After all the buyers are my competitors in the CRP market. I can't thank the BTN enough who sold the dozens of +2/3 oak logs for 1k that helped me make my oak bow +3.

I was going to suggest something similar but then saw your solution. Probably best to just leave the current gathering areas as they are and add new ones for catalyst farming. How about let us mine catalysts in the mines, IE Nanawa and Copperbell! Put the botany ones in the Gridania dungeons and the fishing ones in the LL dungeons. Add some filler stuff to the nodes and cap that at 1 per dig/chop/fish. Give me loads of copper ores in Copperbell while they're at it, HQ copper is hard to find these days.

[OMEGA_HACK]

This is a great idea/concept. I like what it will do to the economy. First off it will promote gear of all types to be created not just the rank50 gear/weapons, also it will encourage continual items to be created, making it easier for lower level crafters to get a foot into the market.

Also think of it this way:
1) Get your level one weapon, rank up to 10 where you can equip a new weapon
2) By now your 1st weapon can be turned into materia, with no other real use for the weapon you turn it into materia
3) Find a crafter and craft your new materia into your new weapon to get a nice bonus
4) rinse and repeat until you get your final weapon

That is how the process would work, I hope.

Also some things to consider:
1) We don't know how long/how many attacks it takes the weapons to reach 100% (reg. weapons might not take long to reach the 100% while the rare/ex weapons might take longer if it is really strong)
2) Rarer weapons are probably going to have much better materia results so the time put into I hope would be equal to the reward


Some things I hope:
1) Let us see the materia result BEFORE committing to the materia conversation proceess
2) Make the materia worthwhile to stimulate the economy like mentioned about

[BruceyBruceyBangBang]

my original post had to do with the materia system not being fresh and inventive, you quoted a secondary reply to Bruce about an ignorant TERA statement.

Who cares. As long as it works well and provides players with enough customization on their own gear to keep them busy and/or satisfied. Could give a crap if TERA uses or used the system. So did Dark Cloud, so did Akia, your point?

All you did was provide something that wasn't constructive. I guess that's just me being ignorant.

[Peregrine]

Haha I am all for high level copper ore-get. Ironically the only thing casual miners should be good for is the one thing they DON'T cough up all over the wards for clearance prices.

[origamikitsune]

Absolutely. Unnnfortunately Xenor then you're boned either way. Catalyst farming will create oversupply of every other stray material. All profits from gathering shunt to materia catalyst. We end up losing...again. Common town crafters make off like bandits with free gold walnut and flax.

Soooo....

Problem
If catalysts are made rare from gathering to give gatherers economic weight in the system, demand will drive overproduction of every other gathering material which is as big a problem as or a BIGGER problem than gear overproduction

Solutions
-Separate catalyst aquisition from primary material aquisition
-Reduce incidental material-gets
-Reduce gathering yields
-Put catalysts in ....*shudders* secondary tool gathering.


Effectively the gatherer's got to make a decision if they want to get crafting mats, or get materia catalyst. Not both. Or if both...that's going to have to be one HECK of a material production nerf.

THIS is why it is incredibly hard to get MMOs right the first time if you don't spend a ton of time playing your own product. No one thinks of these things but players. You almost can't think of everything vital to the decision alone.

Uhg. I totally spaced on on seeing the flood of gathered materials this going to create. The way I see it they can allow catalyst to be gained like crystals (automatic), they can be materials themselves that are harvested/mined/fished off of current nodes, or they can add three new types of nodes - one for each class (or I suppose one that is usable by any class of gatherer).

And yet, this is also an opportunity to add entirely new game-play mechanics to DoL jobs which are even more limited than DoH in variety. Use current tools, nodes, etc., but have an option added to DoL that lets you get catalyst instead of your raw mats and introduce a new and separate mini-game different than the hot-cold currently used.

Alternately use existing mechanics with new options like allow the option (occasionally) to turn the gathered materials into catalyst as they are collected (similar to touch up?). Or make it a skill that equips and does it automatically similar to the random proc'ing of the other gather skills.

There's a few ways SE could capitalize on this opportunity that help (or hinder) the DoL to varying degrees on multiple levels. I hope they have taken this into account and planned accordingly.

[Peregrine]

Uhg. I totally spaced on on seeing the flood of gathered materials this going to create.

I did too originally. This is too difficult for one, or ten players to think about. God help a set of devs who don't play the game as much as we do to think of these things before they torpedo their best intentions.

Ideally, THIS is what I think the players actually bring to the table. We can hammer these causes and effects out in like a day and give the devs a solid platform to make a safe, desired, and effective addition to the game without fear of missing something unintended or some massive quality flaw.

So far I've got 10 potential problems that already need solutions the FIRST time materia is implemented to save the devs time and face. We're probably missing like 5 more.

[Mack]

So I got a question: Say I "leveled up" my gear to the point where its ready for materia conversion, when I sell that item or trade it does its "level" reset to 0 or stays the same?

[Amineri]

I did too originally. This is too difficult for one, or ten players to think about. God help a set of devs who don't play the game as much as we do to think of these things before they torpedo their best intentions.

Ideally, THIS is what I think the players actually bring to the table. We can hammer these causes and effects out in like a day and give the devs a solid platform to make a safe, desired, and effective addition to the game without fear of missing something unintended or some massive quality flaw.

I'm concerned that these new Deaspected Crystals are the catalyst mentioned. If so, gatherers have been hung out to dry, unless the drops are changed. I have accumulated 15 such crystals so far, and only 2 from mining. Most of them I got by running around killing sheep as a rank 48 conjurer ...

[Peregrine]

I'm concerned that these new Deaspected Crystals are the catalyst mentioned. If so, gatherers have been hung out to dry, unless the drops are changed. I have accumulated 15 such crystals so far, and only 2 from mining. Most of them I got by running around killing sheep as a rank 48 conjurer ...

Yeah if deaspected crystals are the catalyst, gatherers should go on strike. It really burns me that gatherers have been taken advantage of and shortchanged in the game design thus far.

I have 18 deaspected. None from mining. Primarily because there's no point in mining any more.

[Xenor]

Problem SE have to consider is they aren't going to want to exclude low rank gatherers from the content, as much as I'd like to see it made rare by being grade 6 only. More likely it should go into grade 4 and above. They could balance current areas to fit it in but I'd much rather they use the opportunity to add new areas. It just makes sense to be able to mine in a mine. Who's idea was it to put grade 4 in Nophica instead of Nanawa anyway?

I don't think deaspected crystals will be used as the catalyst since battle classes can get them too. Though it would be interesting if you needed one of these crystals plus a catalyst to create the materia.