99 Empyrean Trials.

[wish12oz]

The 99 trial for empyreans is garbage. The weapons already cost more than relics after you buy 1500 heavy metal plates, so why were relic and mythic trials reduced in difficulty (though not enough for relics) and the empyrean trial wasn't changed at all? This is an outrage, almost more then expecting people to kill ADL for a year or more.

[Tawnee]

My concern is in the future, with new content coming out like legion and such, people are going to simply stop doing VW. As a result I fear plates will become both more scarce and more expensive, basically putting the trial WAY out of reach. As it stands now I feel there aren't enough plates to go round and the price is a bit high for my tastes.

I also would like to either see the requirement lowered or have more plates put into circulation(bigger pouches, more NMs drop them in some fashion/more frequently).

[Camiie]

Thanks for posting this! I've been trying to get the message out there that the 95-99 Empy trials are such a drastic change from what came before that it's rather unfair to the vast majority of Empy holders. I can't really say it any better than I did in a recent post, so I'll just copy and paste that in here. Hopefully that's not a terrible faux pas.

For the Empy trials, they should have added a new, higher level set of mobs to Abyssea and required 100 items for the 95 stage and 125 for 99.

I know they decided to make the last 2 Empy trials extra difficult to BALANCE!! the relative ease at which one could reach the 90 stage, but that idea was ridiculous from the start. Real balance would have been to keep the difficulty consistently progressive and make the trials realistically obtainable by those who were able to complete the previous ones. (You know, like what they said the 99 Relic trial was supposed to be.)

If Empys hadn't turned out as difficult to complete as they would have liked, they should have accepted that, learned from their "mistake," and applied that knowledge to future content. Instead, they decided to effectively punish Empy owners for THEIR "mistake." While I'm sure that sits well with players who looked down on Empys for being too easy to obtain, I'm not seeing what it does for people who actually own them and enjoyed the process as it was. Aren't those the people that should be taken into account ahead of everyone else?

If anything needs adjustment it's these trials, but I don't know that there's going to be a poopstorm on this as there was on Relics. It's a shame, as I'm sure that will be required to see changes considered at all.

[Tamoa]

I'm tempted to do the same thing you did Camiie, lol. I won't though, mine was a long-ish post, I'll just post a link to it: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/th...l=1#post271609

When Jeuno II path was released, I had hopes that maybe all the tiers would drop heavy metal plates, at least singles. They don't though, so anyone wanting to try for plates are stuck doing Jeuno and Zilart T3s. And with the complete and utter randomness of reward distribution, it'll take you God knows how long to finish your weapon that way.

Ok you can buy the plates. But it'll cost you an arm and a leg to finish! That isn't reasonable at all, no matter how easy it is to obtain an empyrean.

However, with Camate's post in the Voidwatch loot distribution thread: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/th...l=1#post271779, more speficially this part here:

Since there are a lot of rewards items, meaning a large amount of tickets to be created, we will start off by looking into implementing the hard to get items first. Please understand that it will take some time before this is all implemented.

I'm hoping that heavy metal plates (and riftdross/riftcinder) will be included here somehow.

[Tawnee]

I'm hoping that heavy metal plates (and riftdross/riftcinder) will be included here somehow.

This would make me very happy!

[Erics]

This thread is full of win. I'm glad both relics and mythics got a decrease, but no decrease for empy's at all? Wtf.. Heavy Metal Plates fixed how easy it was for empy holders to get 90. At least make 95-99 half of what it is now..

[Kimble]

Empyrean trials didn't get a decrease because likely no one took issue with it. The balk of the issue was(still is) with the relic trial. Mythic trial had a little feed back, and most of that was satisfied by the zeni plate increase. Also due to the fact that Mythic holders are very few, their voice isn't as wide spread.

[Camiie]

This thread is full of win. I'm glad both relics and mythics got a decrease, but no decrease for empy's at all? Wtf.. Heavy Metal Plates fixed how easy it was for empy holders to get 90. At least make 95-99 half of what it is now..

But see there was nothing to "fix" in the first place. There was nothing wrong with the way Empyrean trials worked from 75-90. SE didn't go wrong when they decided to make Empyrean upgrades require 1500 items from VW. They went wrong when they decided to fix a problem that, to me, wasn't a problem at all.

So what if lots of people worked on and "completed" Empyreans? What's so bad about that? To me it's a good thing! It showed that the system they designed worked! It showed that the content was popular! It showed that people were spending time playing the game and perhaps even having fun! They put in time, effort, teamwork, and gil and got something shiny and powerful in return. This was a shining example of how FFXI should work! It was probably one of the most fair systems they ever implemented.

It WAS... up until the 1500 heavy metal plates got dropped on us and crushed many of our hopes flat. What they've actually done is UN-balance things. Adding in a HUGE difficulty spike is not balance. Consistency is balance and this is anything but consistent.

And Erics I'm not picking on you or anything, I know we agree that things need to be changed. I just saw the word "fixed" and... well... FIXated on it... Sorry!

[Damane]

the empy trials are a ticking timebomb, if you dont do them now, the trial might end up like the mythic ones... Impossible to do. Look what happened to the mythic quest. Anyone Up for some Alexandrite?^^

Then again, empys are allready usefull at lvl 90, so its not comparable to mythic or relic weapons that get their real boost at lvl 95 and 99 (especially at 99). Its more of a prestige to get a empy up to 99, not a "necessity" like in the case of relic/mythic to even make them good or comparable to empys.
(Thats not saying that I dont find the trial very stupid by all means, 1500 HMP is just retarded)

[DrStrangelove]

The 99 trial for empyreans is garbage. The weapons already cost more than relics after you buy 1500 heavy metal plates, so why were relic and mythic trials reduced in difficulty (though not enough for relics) and the empyrean trial wasn't changed at all? This is an outrage, almost more then expecting people to kill ADL for a year or more.

I like them the way they are. Empys are excellent weapons and you can get them up to level 90 for free. You shouldn't go any further if you don't want to.

If you like relics better (as you clearly do), then do the 'cheaper' relic.