99 Empyrean Trials.

[Atomic_Skull]

Within 30 minutes of servers coming up yesterday there were already people running around with first stage lvl99 relics and emps.


SE: "Working as intended"

[Helel]

60m gil won't buy you jack shit if there is nothing to buy. Find me 60 riftdross within 5 days of this post and I'll buy them off you for 60m. Actually I just need 46 more. In 5 days of dynamis, I can guarantee finishing a 95->99 relic. 60 ogre kills does not guarantee me anywhere near 60 riftdross. Also to find an ally with 60 stones ready to go kill for you will be impossible. Do you understand why empy trial is way harder now? People don't spam ogre and flan no more, there isn't much supply of dross/cinder now. Just like how you cannot go out and buy 5 umbrals on a whim regardless of how much gil you can throw around., it's pretty hard to buy 60 dross/cinder after the initial supply is gone. You can't just shout, buying 30000 alex, paying 300m, and expect to be done in a day.

They have numbers of how many 95's have been upgraded and how much dross/cinder have dropped. Prob going oh 100 riftdross dropped this month, and there's only 3 people with 95s, so 60 it is! What they don't account for is how people stop farming things once they are bored/finished with it.

I'm staring at a taru right now in bismarck in rolanberry fields selling 6 of them. There's at least 3 people in port jeuno selling them that I saw earlier. I honestly have no idea why you're having so much trouble finding 60 of them. I know people that have bought up their 60 in less than a week. I'm considering upgrading armageddon to 95 just so I can do the easier empyrean trial instead of annihilator. It's cheaper as well since I can continue to do dynamis without penalty (yet another reason why empyrean trial is a joke).

[macross]

Killed 4 flans today, got one dross from that. Was given to me by a buddy who was 2 boxing her ninja alt for procs.
That taru is a reseller, not gonna buy from him. Plus I don't want to pay 1m for them. Pretty much gouged price since they use to sell for 100-200k each. Cinder is already 500k in many baz, dross will drop I hope too. Too many dreamers buying the dross, hoping one day they will collect 1500 plates and be able to make 99. I know Ihina did his in a week, at least his shell sold their drops to him. Only a few will in mine, the rest rather hold onto them and dream they will finish one day, or rather sell to non LS just to spite me probably. Guess they rather I don't finish it or something I dunno?

We've already completed 2 relics to 99. Hopefully mine will be done next in the next few days, if I'm next in line to get em. Absolute joke to finish relic trial, dunno why you think empy is so much easier. By the time you buy 1500 plates we'll have finished 10 relics or more to 99. In that time we'll have killed another 60 rex/ogres, and I bet you I'll still have no where near 60 dross, as the stupid drops are too random, and you need too many of them.

[Francisco]

　
Congestion
In regards to relic and mythic trials, we expect decentralization with the steps leading up to the final boss.
We have seen instances of the below comments on the forum, but due to certain reasons we will need to put them off.

Reason #1: You all hurt Tanaka's feelings.

Reason #2: He hates you all.

-Make monsters in steps along the way drop the items
As long as it’s the same route, this will not serve to avoid congestion and will only make collecting the items easier. In this case, it would become necessary to lower the drop rate and/or increase the number of items required.

Tanaka: If the player's diet is.... balanced.... they won't get a cold.... which will serve to... avoid congestion. Balance all the things.

As a result, in addition to the number of fights increasing, there would be foreseeable congestion with the paths that have less steps and quicker to get through.

SE Developer: Mr. Tanaka, if we go through with having one final boss for relic weapons, players will all gather at that one spot...
Tanaka: THOSE LOWLY CURS! SEND THEM TO TOIL IN THE FIELDS!

-Increase the number of ???
There are a lot of parts that were created based on the fact that there is only one ???, so increasing the number of ??? is not easy and was not selected as a method.

Tanaka: "THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!"

Getting sick of this....

Player: *well thought out, reasonable idea"
Dev Team: Yeah, that sounds hard. We're not going to do it.

First, I’d like to once again share the thought behind the status of the stage 2 items.

Tanaka: HAHAHA! I just saw the funniest thing in the news! People in America are protesting the 1%. We need a 1% in Vana'diel. Then the mongrel 99% can occupy their mog house and protest on the forums! And just like real life, none of it will make any difference.

To put the above in a different way, the stage 2 item is a kind of achievement and one that serves to fulfill self-satisfaction.

I can achieve self-satisfaction, on my own, in about 3 minutes. If I wanted the process to take longer and be more painful, I'd use sandpaper and acetone.

By upgrading to the stage 2 item, it will be possible to activate the afterglow effects, but the player who activates the afterglow will not receive the benefits of the effect for themselves, and the reason for this was to make it so this upgrade is not essential.
The same reason applies to why stats are not increased for the stage 2 items.

So the solution is to make it worthless? Here's my feedback. Keep the Stage 1 trials as is, and remove the Stage 2 trials, along with the afterglow weapons. Just delete all that trash. The players will not care. If anything, we'd enjoy it, because Tanaka would probably take it personally and resent us more than he already does.

Also, graphical effects have been added to each item and this was done so players around you would see it and think, “Oh, nice that person upgraded all the way to stage 2.”

Honestly, I'd be more ASHAMED to finish a stage 2 relic/emp/mythic. There's no pride to be had from it... just shame. If I ever won a stage 2 relic/mythic/emp from the mog lotto, I'd make it VERY well known that I won it via lotto, and didn't do it myself.

If I finish a Stage 2 weapon in one year, it basically means "lol, he didn't do anything except play FFXI this year".

If I finish a Stage 2 weapon in five years, it basically means I might make the other guy playing FFXI a little jealous. And I spent five years on a meaningless upgrade. But at least then, I can bust out some champagne, a square of sandpaper and a bottle of acetone and go to town over my afterglow effect.

When gauging a monster’s strength, we do not make balance adjustments on the basis of relic/mythic/empyrean weapons. Furthermore, we have no plans to make adjustments to monster strength based on the possession of stage 2 weapons in the future.

The only one that really makes a difference is Aegis.

We greatly appreciate your understanding of these reasons and intentions.

I think we all under$tand the rea$on$ for the$e lengthy trial$ and adju$tment$.

[DrStrangelove]

A good amount of time will be required to complete this trial. The reason being that since these are items with exceptional stats for high level characters, there needs to be an appropriate difficulty level for obtaining them.
If beginning the trials right after implementation, and without competition, we expect the fastest person to complete the relic/mythic weapon trials in less than a week. However, since this item collection will be done in parties and alliances, along with others that also wish to lot on the items, if trials are worked on continuously, and players complete this trial in order, we expect more than half to complete the trial in roughly 3 months.

On Bismarck, we have about 500 relics. That's assuming the relics from the May 2011 census were distributed evenly across the servers and a very small increase since then. The real number is likely far higher.

To complete 251 relics (a simple majority) would take 1,255 umbrals in the hands of actual level 95 relic owners, each with 5.

To have 1,255 umbrals in the hands of level 95 relic owners EACH WITH 5 would take at least 2,510 umbrals to drop BECAUSE many people with relics will have fewer that 5, plus many people will be holding them with the intention to make a relic. In reality, the number is likely to be much higher than 2,510.

To have 2,510 umbrals, would require around 3,500 ADL fights. This is because the fight is far from easy, and many of the fights will be done by pick up groups.

To have 3,500 ADL fights in 90 days, assumes 39 ADL fights per day, every day. That's 1 fight per 37 minutes every day, non stop, assuming no maintenance, etc.

Assuming 15 people per group can arrange for 1 fight per day, this requires 39 separate groups of 15, or 585 people on Bismarck to be in Xarcabard each day.

Assuming that the same 585 don't go to Xarcabard each day (they don't play every day, they do other in-game events, they do to different dynamis', there will be difficulty in creating 39 separate instances of parties that can reasonably fight ADL, etc.)....

here are some possible distributions of how this would work:

4,095 people on Bismarck go to kill ADL once per week. Is this reasonable? or
2,047 people on Bismarck go to kill ADL 2 times per week. Is this reasonable? or
1,170 people on Bismarck go to kill ADL every other day for 90 days. Is this reasonable?

The bottom line (and I was conservative in many areas) is that 90 days is far from a reasonable estimate. People will want to work on empys and mythics. There will be new content. There will be congestion. People will get burned out going to Xarcabard to do the same content dozens of times

Reducing the ability to farm and pop ADL does solve the congestion issue: it conversely makes the 90 day estimate even more erroneous. If you have to fight ADL every 37 minutes, non stop for 2,160 hours, then any added delay makes it less feasible.

The likely estimate is at least 6, but more likely 9 months.

It's reasonable to expect that after 4-5 months, many people will give up on the idea as pick up groups dwindle and as the 'market' for umbrals declines.

This is really in need of being more accurate now than later. If we operate on a false premise (it will take 90 days), when the answer is 9 months, it will cause people to delay correcting the problem.

[Randnum]

With regard to the trials and the intended completion rates, I have nothing to say or complain about, however I of course have no relic to care about.

However I would like to ask, Camate, that, provided enough players agree with what I am about to bring up, that it is passed on to the developers.

Requiring the exact same item for both Stage 1 and stage 2 means, as many have said, that the achievement is, in at least one sense, depriving many other players of their progression.

In short, even if someone were to upgrade to Stage 2, the reaction to their achievement would not be good, because they used up 50 Stage 1 relics worth of items. This would imply that IF someone were to go that far as to complete it somehow, that everyone they went with who desired such a Stage 1 Relic would have had to do theirs first. This inflates the time taken for the Stage 2 trial, or causes players to possibly behave in unseemly ways.

I believe that if it is possible to change at least the Stage 2 to 'number of kills' or use another item (I understand that this would involve adding yet another drop to the loot pool for ADL), this would be preferable both in the way people who achieve this are perceived, and in teamwork levels.

It would allow people who are interested in Stage 2, to have a reason to help people with stage 1, without being their competition while doing so.

[Geabrielle]

Why do relics keep coming up in an Empyrean thread?

That out of the way; I can understand the upgrade to 99 weapons are supposed to be an epic undertaking. I'm alright with that. But I still have beef about even making it to 95 with that glaring 1500 plate beast of a trial and the lack of circulation of said items. The fact that are expected to purchase the items as well as work towards them in the event is also understandable, but when said items are not being put into circulation because lack of interest in certain mobs, many have gotten the drops they wanted, etc and keeping such a massively glaring requirement for 95 that's pretty much shoving the 8 balls up the poop shoot.

THERE WILL BE ABYSMALLY FEW 99 EMPYREANS BECAUSE 95 ARE A CRAP SHOOT PIPE DREAM.

I'll repeat. I'm alright with the freaking 60 dross, it's been finalized. FINE. 99 weapon. Challenge. Got it.

The 95 however, is butt-plugging the progression and unless you're a gillionaire with nothing better to spend it on, or are incredibly lucky on pouches (IF people even bother with Hahava, Aello or Qilin anymore) everything's fine. But since this isn't the case, at least on Valefor recently, we need an intervention or you just wasted our time and yours.

[wish12oz]

Why do relics keep coming up in an Empyrean thread?

Good question, but then we got the special Olympics veteran dslove posting again, so it's not surprising.

[Randnum]

Sorry, I was essentially responding to Camate, who covered all the upgrades in the post that was made at the time.

[Erics]

Yeah, I love how Camate covered NOTHING we was asking about. CIRCULATION of HMP.

These forums were a great idea....

SE-"WE MAKE TEH FORUMS! GIVE US FEEDS BACK! KAY?"
Player base-"omfgwtfbbq 1,500 HMP!?! Circulation {Can I have it?}"
SE-"Okay well, the point of the trials is too feel satisfied... blah blah blah blah...."
Player base-"Okay? No shit, we heard that before.. Back to the main question please?"