Hello everyone, I wish to present an idea for consideration of the forum, an Alternative Materia System, the rules of such system will be as follows:
1. Materia don’t gain AP, grow or reproduce in any way.
2. Multiple copies of the same Materia equipped in the same Weapon or Armor stack up creating greater effects.
3. For Magic Materia equipping more copies of the same Materia allows the character to cast more spells, i.e. equipping one Fire Materia allows your character to cast “Fire 1” equipping two Fire Materias allows your character to cast both “Fire 1” and “Fire 2”.
4. For Independent Materia equipping more copies of the same Materia increases the potency of the effect, i.e. equipping one “HP Plus” Materia gives your character 20% more HP, equipping two “HP Plus” Materia gives your character 40% more HP.
5. For Command Materia, equipping more copies improves the effect of the command. i.e. equipping one Steal Materia gives you the command “Steal”, equipping two Steal Materias gives you the command “Mug”.
6. Summon Materias are unique, but they gain more power the more of them you equip together, i.e. equipping Shiva Materia alone allows your character to summon Shiva at standard 100% power, equipping Shiva and Infrit Materias together allows your character to summon any of the two of them at 110% power, equipping Shiva, Infrit and Ramuh Materias together allows your character to summon any of the three of them at 120% power and so on, also each eidolon could be Summoned only one time per battle, but each consecutive summon receives and additional power boost of 10%, so for example if your character as a weapon with three slots and equips Shiva, Infrit and Ramuh Materias, and summons the three of them in three consecutive turns, the results will be: 1st turn: Shiva at 120% power, 2nd turn: Infrit at 130% power, 3rd Turn: Ramuh at 140% power. The “consecutive” power boost is lost if the character uses a command different to “Summon” or is knocked out (K.O. status).
7. Support Materia is a little tricky since its effects are more varied than the other types, but it follows two principles, 1° It will no longer be paired with a specific Materia, the effect applies to either all Materias equipped in the same garment (For Elemental & Status Attack / Defenses), or to a random one each time the effect activates (For Magic or Command Counters). 2° The effect becomes more potent with each copy of the same Support Materia equipped in the same garment. For example, in an Armor with three slots, if you equip one Elemental Materia (Support), One Fire Materia (Magic) and one Ice Materia (Magic), your character acquires a 50% resistance to both Fire and Ice attacks, and can cast “Fire 1” and “Ice 1” but if in the same Armor you instead equip two Elemental Materias (Support) and one Fire Materia (Magic), your character acquires a 100% resistance to Fire, what is to say immunity to Fire, and can cast only “Fire 1”.
¿What would be the use of this Alternative Materia System? Well I think it could make the game more fun if applied correctly, the current Materia system is too easy to abuse, with some light grinding all the characters could be “masters” of everything at the same time, (Hit hard, resist heavy punishment and cast a big variety both offensive and defensive spells) making them easily interchangeable between them (You could literally just switch all the equipped Materia from one character to another and barely note the difference in battle), also there is no much incentive to have more than one copy of each Materia since every new Materia starts at the minimum level; with this new system you will be force to make hard choices, because you will need more Materia to access the stronger spells and skills, so with limited slots you may have to choose between Cure 3 or Fire 3, but at the same time the game becomes more versatile, as you no longer need to grind AP to learn Fire 3, you just buy three Fire Materias and equip them together and you have an attack mage ready for action, that way there is more reason to “tailor” each character for a specific battle role and try different party combinations.
Of course to make the best use of this system, Materia should become much more plentiful, sold cheaper at the stores and in more variety, and “Rare” Materias that are usually only available near the end of the game should be obtainable from treasure chests, or from stealing, morphing and killing enemies, (Steal, Morph and Item drop should have higher success rates to incentivize the use of these abilities).
Well that is all, sorry for the extra-long post, and hope you have liked some of the ideas posted here.