Materia System

[Peregrine]

Compounded to this GROSSLY IMBALANCED accounting, battlers and gatherers are screwed in the steps of the process.
Battlers not only have to pay for the cost of the gear that would have been equipped (the market value now) but they have to pay for the potential that it is now a materia. They will have to pay for something about the gear that they will never be using.

HOWEVER, the results of their materia will probably be garbage. The crafters will not pay this battler for garbage even if it took a while. They will only pay him for the GOOD materia. So he buys ANOTHER overpriced piece of gear from the crafter. And THAT materia is ****. Then he buys ANOTHER piece, and by this time the crafter is swimming in gil and increasingly charging him for each piece because every battler is buying 3 pieces.

FINALLY the battler makes a good materia. BAM charges 5 million gil for it.

Fine, says the crafter. He makes it into a sword.

BAM. Sword is 10 million gil so he can buy two of the same quality of materia.

BAM BAM. Two swords at 10 million gil. He can buy four materia of that quality.
BAM BAM BAM BAM Four swords, 40 million gil. NOw he can buy 8 materia.

CRASH CRASH SUCCESS CRASH. Three failed double synths with that epic materia. One success.

That sword is 120 million gil. And the battlers put 95% of the effort into it, paid 95% of the cost...and got 5% of the profit.

Crafter gets 120 million gil for "best sword on the server"
Buys up all the good materia for prices non-crafters can't afford.
Blows them all on more swords.
Charges more ridiculous profits for those swords.

Eventually battlers and gatherers are forced to work for the crafters, and crafters will start taking materia and catalyst in exchange for new gear from them.

And that, ladies and gents, is how you run a mine employee store.