Relics/Mythics/Empy?

[Akutenshi]

I think I'm the only one that agrees with Alhanelem and Theytalk. There hasn't been a game I haven't beta tested. I beta test for Microsoft and most online games that come out. You can take that with a grain of salt or whatever. Doesn't matter to me. They made some really understandable points, as did everyone else. WOE weapons are good enough to test the new weapon skills with. They are the unadulterated form and solely give out the weapon skill. That is more than enough to test for effects, bugs, etc. People complain and say that they should give out empy/relic/mythic weapons as well. Of course these things need to be tested as what Kitkat posted cleared proved lol But people tend to think that they should be on the test server which I personally feel would have more negative consequences then positive. Not that it isn't a bad idea.

Does anyone else but me think that if a gaming company comes out with these new ideas, they are probably thoroughly (normally with other game companies but apparently not SE lol) tested before the public would even know or be able test them on a public test server? Sounds like people that are stating they should be made to test out to the public make it sound like SE has done no testing on them whatsoever and just made the design for them and was like, here you go, done. If they wanted people to test relic/empy/mythic weapons they would of done so from the beginning. This was obviously not their goal and most likely wanted testers to actually test other things then something they "thought" they covered or was good enough not to test.

The fix they did that Kitkat posted sounds like it was a coding issue, not involving balance or any kind of bugs with the weapons themselves. That's just bad quality assurance testing on SE's part. How would you not test that from within the company and not find that? Lol Shoot, give everyone posting here in this forum what those testers make and they would of found that bug out I'm positive. Now from their mistake they are making those weapons obtainable. Not that it's a bad thing, but wasn't really needed.

People can use the argument, well I pay monthly I should be able to test what I want blah blah. That's the same argument as partying with a ninja with sam sub expecting him to tank. Can you do it, yeah, is it needed or viable, not really. People that complain they want to min/max and decide what is best to get, the test server really isn't for that. Has anyone every talked to a GM in FFXI asking about this, or anything in general you don't know the answer too? They always forward you to community forums. There's a reason for that. Chances are with a few days or a week of new gear, items, weapons, and content that people will have already discovered what's best, what works, and how to use it. They also have the option for people with gear to have it carried over for those are really interested about it. Should they waste resources to make everyone be able to obtain any type of gear through means, no. It costs money, time, and effort to do things like that. Granted, it seems simple to us but isn't always easy as it seems. Should the test server be used for this application gear min/maxing? Hell no. I'd rather have bugs be found within content that could potentially ruin my gaming experience then people worrying about gear and setups taking up valuable space on a test server.

It's really too late to be complaining about the weapons on the test server now as it looks like made them available. I feel they would do more bad than good and deter people from actually doing testing. That's not to say people that mess around with them will not go about testing other things, but hopefully people will keep the mindset about testing rather than messing around on the public test server.

[Neisan_Quetz]

What the hell are you talking about, allowing mythics on the test server has let us test effects we couldn't before because no one made them.

[Akutenshi]

While I'm not going to disagree with you, If SE did proper testing (on their own like any other good company) when they first created and came up with the weapons, they shouldn't need to be tested on the test server and could of focused more on whatever else they wanted tested. That's just a poor part on SE. SE shouldn't need to have things like empy/relic/mythic weapons be put on a test server in the first place. They should had their own people doing this, and quadruple check and testing this crap.

If you need the public to test big things like that then you have a problem with your testing and quality assurance / dev team.

[Neisan_Quetz]

It's mostly because most of these weapons (mythics) do not look like they are worth putting in 6+ months or so to make, and most the people who do have the less popular ones either won't talk, or don't use the test server. Aymur for instance was just made for the first time after the last census, and that's across all servers... It doesn't help that SE actually expects its playerbase to test crap themselves and does not tell us what these weapons do, or if any bonuses were added to these weapons especially since no one was even bothering to make them.

SE does their own testing but whatever it involves I really don't know.

[Kitkat]

The point of QA is to ensure the product is working as intended, but as it has been shown in various games over the course of over a couple decades of gaming they simply cannot look at everything. This can be seen with various console games from almost 20 years ago on the PSX that had issues on initial release, but by the time they were "Greatest hits" they had a version change that corrected/changed something that was found to be a bug. I can think of several PS2 and PS3 titles that have this also, and I'm sure 360 titles do as well. Thing with Next gen consoles/PC is they can release patches/updates to these games that are downloaded to the internal hard drives to fix the issue.

Back to the subject of FFXI, it has already been made clear in past articles that the development team, and I would wager this extends to the QA personnel too, has been stripped to bare essential people to keep it going while the rest have moved on to FFXIV or other titles in development. I would guess that this is the prime reason the test servers were introduced in the first place, so that the QA team could focus on more critical changes, while the general public was given access to general changes to ensure that is maintained the balance they wanted. The reason behind this is generally to get feedback or to see just how the marketed players will use the content provided to them, and more importantly if there is a significant exploit/abuse possibility with the content. I can't speak for QA or the developers, but I doubt they spend all their free time on FFXI and play in the same manner as we do day to day.

Drawing board mechanics placed in motion is the easiest way to find flaws, bugs, exploits. Significant changes have been made to a vast majority of relic/mythic line since the 75 cap. The general population of FFXI works almost tirelessly to find the easiest and most rewarding path to progress, thus when even the simplest changes are made they will eventually find a flaw with it. My point was that with all the changes to these weapons occurring with each new cap the possibility for them to break increased, while the population to test the possibility of a break was nearly non-existant. Most relic holders, like myself, will not spend more time than necessary on a test server because we are possibly held to obligations with linkshells that still do events (I know I am), and those with a vast majority more time to test would be able to find these than the rest of us.

This most recent break went a long way in proving that. I would also hope that when the time comes SE allows us to test the 99 versions also to ensure that what ever this "Afterglow" effect is that it can't be exploited in a fashion what wasn't intended. I would also hope that the forum reps not only keep a closer eye on the feedback forums, but also take the time to look at other feedback that relates to possible changes to the end-line weapons too. SE is almost obsessed with balance to a frightening extent, but at the same time they don't seem to be quite obsessed in making sure that balance is properly relayed via community updates or takes into consideration how other things are grossly unbalanced in general practice compared to their respective drawing board theories.

Giving access to these weapons allows them to get far greater input on changes they have made to the weapons to date. While it also gives a lot of data to the playerbase also, the primary point was to ensure that the data relayed to the developers was of a proportion great enough to show if the weapons truely need any other adjusting, if they my need to be adjusted lower, or if there is a possible coding bug that is otherwise being overlooked that is making the weapon far stronger/weaker than intended. Personally, I know of only a handful of Mythic owners, but I see relics/emps daily on the server I play on. Out of those I know only 1 other is actually on the test server and even he didn't notice the change to relic working in offhand at the time (Personally I thought it was intended since only the +att was working, and I think it should anyway). However, I didn't know of any mythic owners on the test server, more importantly the 1handed type owners which had the biggest flaw out of both weapons (if I recall correctly even "augments XXX ability" was working in offhand) and no one knew until after the update was live. That is disturbing given the fact I even posted feedback in this very forum hoping to find out from a rep if this was intentional or not. This was the primary point of the entire thread in the "yay vs nay" argument that was constantly dismissed with half truths that the server would then become over flooded. It hasn't, infact the population is still rather low, but it is much better than it was prior since there is more content to test and gather data on that also goes hand in hand with the intended content changes.

[hiko]

The catch is in the latent. You have to perform a number of other weapon skills, and after doing so, the relic weaponskill is activated for one use (then you have to charge it up again). However, these are easy drops off of various NMs in abyssea (Get them on the live server and then re-copy your character, if you can't solo them)

because fake relic have aftermath, hidden proc, WS dmg bonus.
nobody care to test relic WS, they want to test if weapon get some "hidden" boost (like higher hidden proc rate, higher ws boost...)

[FrankReynolds]

Didn't they add them already? Why is this being debated still?

[Nightfyre]

I don't know, but the debate against granting access was appallingly short-sighted to begin with. There is quite a bit of useful information to be gleaned from having access to these weapons on the test server (especially mythics), and it also helps people who are considering various weapons make informed decisions.

[Dfoley]

If you are refering to them adding mythic/relic/empy weapons to test....they are there already. Go to the trial moogle and view the weapon you want, and it will ask if you want to obtain it. It was even posted in this thread...

[Nightfyre]

You do know the thread is almost three months old, right? Obviously it's moot now.