New weapons with higher base damage then relics

[Stan64]

Whatever I say it will add fuel to the fire. But I love this move.

The game have grown stagnant. People grew reluctant to do new events because they had good gear, the new stuff were sidegrades. No one wanted to actual challenge new content. What good are updates to a MMO when 99.9% of the player base don't like new content?

Now there is a new, fresh event with amazing gear. You can farm it low man slowly, even SOLO. Or bring an alliance and get the very best gear after learning theorycrafting strategies and gearing. It's an awesome challenging event with cool gear.

Nope. Then people rather quit.

If you are good at FFXI. You just adapt. Go after the new content, challenge it. And when the new RME adjustments are released you challenge that content. If you sit in a corner with everyone else you will be left behind. That's an MMO for you.


On another note:
I've seen comments that WoW isn't challenging. That their game design sucks. And it's sad to see people so misinformed and hating on another concept that truly works. But that's that and this is this. (For those people who read this comment as "FFXI should be WoW", what is wrong with you?)

[Tamoa]

You say it's not a smart decision, it's understandable being butthurt and crying if you completed a relic and mythic in 2007 for example, but for fucks sake, it takes only a month-2 months tops to complete a relic these days and mere days to complete an empyrean if you're dedicated.

It takes "mere days" to complete an empyrean? Really? Completing an empyrean means doing ALL the trials and making it into the level 99 version (if you want to nitpick it needs afterglow too, to be truly complete) and unless you are sitting on millions and millions of gil there is no way you can complete that empyrean in "mere days". That is assuming the heavy metal plates and riftdross/cinders are plentiful in bazaars too, obviously.

It sure as hell took me a LOT more than "mere days" to complete my 2 level 99 empyrean weapons. It took hours and hours of doing VWNM (especially for the first one, when heavy metal plates were over twice the price they are currently), hoping I'd get heavy metal pouches, and hours and hours of dynamis currency farming etc. to make gil to buy heavy metal plates and riftdross/cinders.

Same goes for relics - a relic weapon is only complete once it's level 99. Again, you need millions of gil for those 5 marrows for the last trial, unless you're lucky enough to have a linkshell or a group of friends to help you with ADL.

And no, I never bitched when Abyssea was released. I never bitched when my 28mil Dusk Gloves +1 were reduced to being worth less than 300k. I never bitched when my 16mil Ares's Cuirass was made worthless by ingot price dropping to a tenth of what I paid. Why? Because level cap kept being raised and I don't think any of us expected every single piece of gear to stay relevant. However, I did expect R/E/Ms to stay relevant at level 99. And by the looks and sounds of it, I'm not alone there.

Also, I don't get why people insist on comparing FFXI to other MMOs. FFXI was never like other MMOs.

[Byrth]

The irony is...none of the R/E/M is hard work. It's just 99% fetch quests. Mythics are stupidly designed and there were a huge topic recently calling for SE to fix it..oh, yeah people forgot about that huh?

Mythic has a portion you need to do Assaults and Salvage, ok that's cool..except you can only do 4-5 assaults a day and you need a constantly supply of assault points in order to do Salvage up to 2 times a day..that's such hard work. Then you need to collect 30,000 alexandrites.

Why? Like..seriously, why? Not even the "story" explains why they need 30,000. People are just exaggerating the "hard work" needed for an REM these days because if it was such hard work why is it that you're spamming easy content or wasting so much gil buying frivolous items when they could actually make content for progressing the weapons that would actually be hard work?

Sorry to say but spamming VW or buying out of bazaars is the least acceptable definition of hard work. Especially when most of the update path requires kill shots on hundreds of monsters (why hundreds of thousands? you already did your "hard work" obtaining the weapon.)

As much as I love FFXI, some people honestly can't see past their own noses.

I guess what you've failed to do is explain how this new system is in any way superior to the old system.

I'd also like to hear your thoughts on why radically changing the game reward design is a good idea when subscribers were apparently comfortable enough with the old system to stay subscribed for 11 years. Specifically, we've moved from a fairly unique "any gear you make will be useful for years" reward system to a Warcraft-esque "new dungeon came out. Time to ditch all your old gear and get the new stuff" system. How is this alternative superior in a game that does not really have the potential to attract new subscribers but was very good at retaining old ones?

[CrystalWeapon]

Watch they piss off more people by making the fix to the r/m/e situation random synergy augments.

[Karbuncle]

That's an MMO for you.

I Agree, That may be what most crap MMO's do, but that's never what FFXI was, and is why the core of these people are upset. I honestly don't know who's been arguing in this thread, if they're crying cause their gear is outdated and their epeen is broke, well sucks to be them. But for the reasnoable lot of us, Its about this design not being the FFXI we've all liked.

I don't think a single event outside of Legion introduced a horde of "Mediocre sidegrades", VW, Meebles, NNI, they introduced some top peices, even Neo_salvage introduced a good chunk of "best" set items, for THF i know for sure, and Reive armor offered amazing easy to obtain upgrades.

But Reives are not fun, and they're 90% of the content right now. Skirmish? I really had fun with Skirmish actually, it was exciting and quick, and I even got a Scythe out of it... But that's cool. I worked on that gear because I liked the idea of having a good weapon for my jobs I don't want RME for... Its just i mean is no one seeing the absurdity of D:108 Daggers? I mean downright BONKERS.

I like some of these events, I like some of the ideas they're throwing out, Its not that I completely hate it, I just don't think this is the FFXI I grow to love in 10 years. Its got nothing to do with "being good and you will adapt", no, If you like laying back and taking whatever they shove up your a**, i mean, all to you, kinda kinky, but its not me. I liked FFXI, not World Of GrearGrinder: Rift Wars XI.

Watch they piss off more people by making the fix to the r/m/e situation random synergy augments.

Gilfinder +1 On Mandau, HQ Augment will be Treasure Hunter +1.

I'd also like to hear your thoughts on why radically changing the game reward design is a good idea when subscribers were apparently comfortable enough with the old system to stay subscribed for 11 years. Specifically, we've moved from a fairly unique "any gear you make will be useful for years" reward system to a Warcraft-esque "new dungeon came out. Time to ditch all your old gear and get the new stuff" system. How is this alternative superior in a game that does not really have the potential to attract new subscribers but was very good at retaining old ones?

And can someone answer this for me? Seriously, Honest request. I want someone to explain to me why this is a good design choice for FFXI, and please provide answers to each one of Byrth's points. Hell, if you have a few for us, We'd be happy to answer them, me specifically.

[Byrth]

Beyond that, bruised egos isn't even the problem here. The problem is that melees, which have long been the most efficient damage source, just received a 20-50% DPS boost depending on the job and access to the HQ Delve weapons. The NQ R/Ex Delve weapons can be purchased with plasma, the Delve equivalent of Cruor/etc., so they're not an unknown. They will be obtained by everyone that wants them.

These "NQ" Delve weaponsweapons are: http://wiki.bluegartr.com/bg/April_2...hanges#Weapons

*Rigor Baghnakhs (H2H) - DMG:+101 Delay:+60 Accuracy+15 Automaton: Accuracy+20 Ranged Accuracy+20 Magic Accuracy+20 - (Spharai D+52 Delay+86)
* Aphotic Kukri (Dagger) - DMG:91 Delay:200 STR+6 Accuracy+18 Evasion+10 - (Mandau D55/176)
* Halachuinic Sword (Sword) - DMG:104 Delay:228 Accuracy+16 Attack+15
* Bereaver (GS) - DMG:209 Delay:456 Accuracy+18 Attack+18
* Brethren Axe (Axe) - DMG:132 Delay:288 Accuracy+16 Enmity-4 Pet: Accuracy+20
* Bloodbath Axe (GA) - DMG:231 Delay:504 Accuracy+18 "Double Attack"+2%
* Dimmet Scythe (Scythe) - DMG:242 Delay:528 Accuracy+13 Attack+20
* Ophidian Trident (Polearm) - DMG:181 Delay:396 DEX+8 VIT+8 Accuracy+8 Wyvern: Increases accuracy
* Kiji (Katana) - DMG:87 Delay:190 Accuracy+16 Evasion+13 - (Kikoku D64/210)
* Uguisumaru (GKT) - DMG:192 Delay:420 STR+7 Accuracy+17
* Soothsayer Staff (Staff) - DMG:145 Delay:366 MP+50 INT+10 Magic Accuracy+15 "Magic Atk. Bonus"+52
* Yaskomo's Pole (Staff) - DMG:150 Delay:402 MP+100 Avatar: Magic Accuracy+18 "Magic Atk. Bonus"+42
* Mondaha's Cudgel (Staff) - DMG:130 Delay:340 MP+30 MND+10 Accuracy+17
* Speleogen Bow (Bow) - DMG:221 Delay:600 Ranged Accuracy+18 Ranged Attack+15
* Surefire Arquebus (Gun) - DMG:96 Delay:600 Ranged Accuracy+18 Ranged Attack+10 Enmity-4

Italicized ones have not been confirmed, but probably drop off/are given access to by killing the low Tier NMs. These are the worst weapons added in this patch and they still utterly crush the 99 R/M/E alternatives across the board.


Now, on to the real issue. If everyone has these weapons (and anyone that wants to will) then they will become the new DD standard. Other sources of damage (like Magic, Ranged, or Pet) were already not competitive with a buffed melee, and now they're not going to be competitive with an unbuffed melee. If you examine the above weapons, you'll notice that mages got kind of stiffed on the easy-version. The nuking staff isn't as good as a ToM/Skirmish staff and the Avatar MAB staff is worse than the Skirmish staff. The Ranged weapons are okay but lack access to Coronach/Namas Arrow/Wildfire which means that they're strategically crappy.

Melee jobs were buffed hard and other sources of damage didn't improve much. This is not moving us towards being able to use different types of damage strategically as the situation calls for them. This is reinforcing the dominant strategy of meleeing everything to death.

Edit: Additionally, SE screwed 1H jobs by making one incredibly-high DPS weapon that's easily obtainable for each weapon type. 2H jobs will obviously use that weapon and gain the full effects of its DPS boost, but 1H jobs will probably still have to Dual Wield and thus will be using one lower DPS weapon, which decreases their overall DPS. SE took a lot of steps backwards along the path that they seemed to be traversing with this update. Maybe it's necessary to go where they want to be, but I used to think that I could see where we were headed and now I don't know.

[Lotto]

Any feedbacks from the JP community? I'm curious how they react to those new weapons.

[Byrth]

Any feedbacks from the JP community? I'm curious how they react to those new weapons.

They're threatening to quit en masse / making "goodbye" posts and the mods are working overtime deleting their posts.

[Stan64]

I Agree, That may be what most crap MMO's do

Good work quoting me out of context and missing the point.

To clarify. Challenge new content. That's an MMO for you.

And yes. You, me and the other 1% of the players actually challenge the new content.

And to your second question. There are very very few players left that played for straight 11 years and is content with the game. This whole decision probably came from higher up in SE. "Make FFXI better so new players actually stays in the game and play as the user base is dwindling already."

[Lotto]

"My weapon I worked "so hard for" is outdone by a stronger weapon and I refuse to go and get the better option."

That's definitely not Epeen, that's just whining.

You don't seem to understand why R/E/Ms are complaining. I don't mind that some weapons are close or a bit higher than my R/E/Ms 99 but when a weapon that you can buy at the AH just destroy a weapon I needed months to build, there's a problem. Another thing is they don't even offer a solution right now, the "we'll look into it" isn't acceptable. Right now I feel cheated, this is just an insult from SE to every R/E/Ms 99 holders.

When I check the stats on all those new weapons I only see the message from SE to some his players : ┌∩┐(◣_◢)┌∩┐