Materia System

[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.