Level 99 Relic, Mythic, Empyrean, and WoE Weapons

[Raksha]

Since no one is going to be happy either way, just make base RMEs buyable with ~200k plasm like current boss weapons.

People like me who spent months making a relic won't be upset because now i can just go and buy a conqueror to go along with it!

[Soraishin]

you know thats actually not a bad idea, with the declining server populations having the base forms of RME's buyable with 200k or more plasm isn't a bad idea at all, would still take a bit of time to gather the plasm but far more effective than /yelling for hours on end for a duo partner for dynamis or a group to go tackle assault missions for. You sir are pure genius. But at the same time i think all the extra work needed to take that RME to 99 should remain the same. Just getting the base lvl 75 weapons are hell to get with less people actively playing. Well i'd exempt empy weapons from this though as they're already easy as hell to get compared to the Relic and Mythic weapons.

[detlef]

Because X weapon should not be "weapon that takes ages to catch up to endgame in a completely different area when everything else is plasm farming and bayld". Now, if they also did AF +3 the same way, making it a similar long-term goal in such areas? We're all equal then. Equally miserable, but equal. The heavier the burden of getting what's considered "required for endgame", the worse things will become. Look at it.

You mean sitting there and stabbing ADL repeatedly for vials of marrow easy? Again, I'm not talking rendering RME obsolete, I'm talking making RME's useful but not -required- for endgame.

Let those who had them, update them to make them useful again. Let those that didn't NOT have to go through the same song and dance to face top content.

Let me ask you two things. First, regarding the type of player who can’t be bothered to make an RME for his raiding jobs. What’s this player doing now?

-Is he happily swinging around his Upukirex, Tsurumaru, or Oatixurs? If so, that player almost certainly has the means (money, connections, and supporting gear) to make and effectively wield an RME. In addition, that player probably has nothing to do right now outside of Delve and Skirmish and is very likely looking for side projects.
-Or is he getting by with Rigors or Uguisumaru? In this case, that player will be behind no matter what. Making relics or Delve weapons the best will have no impact on him, he's still using something vastly inferior to both.

Secondly, I’m not saying ADL is easy or hard, but on my server, there is a guy who is bazaaring marrows for 7m. Are you saying you can’t make 35m gil over time for a long term project?

My main point is that somebody who can get Delve weapons can make a relic. That same person can also make a Mythic (it's not as hard as you think it is). And that same person can *probably* make an Empyrean but will rightfully complain about the level 95 and 99 stages.

[Rustic]

Let me ask you two things. First, regarding the type of player who can’t be bothered to make an RME for his raiding jobs. What’s this player doing now?

He's me. Regularly help the LS with Abyssea mobs, since even Skirmish armor and weapons makes me a remarkably durable DD compared to the folks that are behind me. And patiently picking up COR gear for the point where there's a Delve call, at which point I'll be picking up one of those fancy new weapons. My Mandau days were pre-update, on another account.

I did plenty of time in Dynamis back when I was an RDM or COR main. 5 years ago. Why the heck should I go through 2008 content to play 2013-era areas? I'd rather spend a few million -buying- a Delve slot with a group than the time (itself worth money) and Gil on a bunch of marrows for a mythic. Or even simply gleefully getting my LS-mates up and running here in Adoulin so they can have a go at it themselves, if they so desire.

-Is he happily swinging around his Upukirex, Tsurumaru, or Oatixurs? If so, that player almost certainly has the means (money, connections, and supporting gear) to make and effectively wield an RME. In addition, that player probably has nothing to do right now outside of Delve and Skirmish and is very likely looking for side projects.

And if he wants to bottom feed instead, more power to him. Heck, I spent an afternoon helping one of the linkshell's RUN farm Ise hearts. And if they put upgrade quests in for RME's, I'll help with those too- but I do NOT want to see the same weapons be "best in class", expansion after expansion. When gear was more sidegrade than literal level-up, that was one thing. Now, having the capacity to actually do endgame be such an ardous, long road is counter to the whole process.

My main point is that somebody who can get Delve weapons can make a relic. That same person can also make a Mythic (it's not as hard as you think it is). And that same person can *probably* make an Empyrean but will rightfully complain about the level 95 and 99 stages.

Or they can simply get in on a Delve run for far less time and effort and play in endgame. And that's my point. While I don't feel that outright negating previous efforts is right, I also feel that shoving the entire history of endgame into a player's face and saying "YOU MUST DO EVERYTHING WE DID TO ADVANCE, OR WE SHALL SHUN THEE" is plain ol' wrong.

Can they do it? Sure. Should they HAVE to do it to keep up? F-no.

[detlef]

Are you completely current with Delve gear?

[Return1]

Throwing the RMEs out the window was the equivalent of throwing the meter out in favor of the furlong. It's stupid.

The RMEs served a purpose as a long term goal and a standard that all other gear was compared to. For a game thoroughly rooted in lateral progression for the better part of a decade, it served its purpose perfectly.

Now that the standard has been thrown out, gear has pretty much no meaning. All the gear you have now will be eclipsed in a few months and become 100% useless, as will be the gear that eclipses it. It's the equivalent of a rat running the wheel, there's no accomplishment or long term goal. It's the consequence of adding rapid vertical progression 11 years into the lifespan of a game whose whole existence and identity sprang from it focusing on lateral progression. If the players of FFXI wanted vertical progression they would have been playing playing games that have done it far better for years or they would play Diablo ladders.

So now we have no standard for gear, no stability, and a small dev team that can't support vertical progression by mere fact they're too slow in putting out new content to keep up with players demands. So now every three or for months we get a week's worth of new content. On top of that the pre-existing content that a majority of the players couldn't 100% complete in a span of years, is now virtually obsolete.

If this game dies it won't be because of FFXIV, the game is not built for the same audience and fatigues quickly (but that's another post), the blame for FFXI's condition falls squarely on Matsui's team's lack of intelligence. They clearly didn't see the simple fact that they can't maintain a glacial pace at best, let alone a pace that can support such rapid vertical progression.

[FrankReynolds]

They tried the "Let's make everything come from delve" approach. It didn't work. Diversity yo.

[Glamdring]

They tried the "Let's make everything come from delve" approach. It didn't work. Diversity yo.

Totally agreed. When the game was capped at 75 we had multiple end-game paths-granted thanks to some add-ons like ToAU adding mythics, CoP adding sea, etc. Because of that we had multiple gear paths we could take with large amounts of sidegrade items, i.e. you could use sky, relic, AF+1, etc., it was a gear swappers heaven because options abounded. But from the release of Abyssea onwards those choices have narrowed, and with SoA we were originally pigeon-holed into a single path to the delve stuff, to an extent that is still true, the skirmish stuff-augmented-is excellent, but the delve gear still generally out-classes it, although some jobs-like my bard-really don't see much benefit from anything except a bit more durability. SE needs to keep expanding the options for side-grade stuff; if nothing else it gives us some options that might create something viable for the jobs that really aren't seeing much from current end-game, and that can-done properly-keep all 22 jobs viable. It also keeps the game going for us to have multiple things to work on.

The one thing I DON'T want to see though is a bunch of exclusive paths needed to be followed to obtain end-game gear. Make it ALL purchaseable in some unified way, like letting us get plasm from more than one path, and open up the older content rewards, some are still "required" items even now (aegis, ochain, daurdaubla, etc.) With the general lack of interest in the content those are obtained from they are getting harder to get than when they were the goal items in game. Example, the heavy metal plates for my daurdaubla are rarely for sale, when you can find them they are 100k+ each, and noone is really interested in doing VW anymore, but considering the drop mechanics there you NEED a good-sized group. The same with most of the items along the path, to get multiple colorlous souls needs a proc that a soloer will have trouble hitting. And lets face it, when 12 people in your shell are after delve items but only you are after the harp, doing delve is going to win out as the choice of how to spend the shell's time, even though they do want you to have the harp.

[Afania]

See here's the thing, with this player base you have 2 options, Make RMEs the best, people will make RMEs, or do not make RMEs the best, and no one bothers. If you make them slightly better, just barely better than everything else, you will have a few people do them but not that many, and at the same time, we all know that people will exclude others based on it, just like people do now with Oats, Senbaak, and so on. You cant make them not the best and expect anyone to ever make a RME again besides the special use ones like Apoc or Yagrush.

There's a difference between best weapon being 1% ahead of 2nd best, or best weapon being 30% ahead of 2nd best.

Make REM 30% ahead of 2nd best option, the game would be REM only or don't play that job.

Make REM 1% ahead of 2nd best option, players using 2nd best weapon still perfectly capable of playing the job and do the content.

Making REM 1% ahead of 2nd best is the best way to keep everyone happy, those who likes REM has incentive to build one, and other players without REM can play the job too.

This game will NEVER become REM only if REM is 1% ahead of 2nd best. Not everyone want everything totally best of the best only to be 1% ahead, when you don't NEED to be 1% stronger to beat the content.

But if best weapon is 30% ahead, and dev balanced the content based on that fact, then that's how current game is, best weapon or don't come.

Now the game really isn't much better than REM only era, if you're new/returning player, you still can't make progress cuz you don't have a delve boss weapon, and you can't get one without a delve pt.

Ppl are over reacting about REM issues, it's ass easy to solve the problem if dev bother to try.

[Afania]

Newsflash. When you spend 10 whole years of your life playing one videogame, it is no longer in the 'casual hobby' bracket it goes into the 'your life' bracket, since you might live for 60 years, you spent 1/6 of your life playing FFxi. So it is a major part of your life. If, like me, you spent almost a full year grinding WOE bosses for single coins/lims/dice for your NQ99 empy, and you were very happy with it (even though it was gimp compared to HQ empy and RMs of course, which I didn't mind at all coz I don't have the time or gil to farm those), only to be told your NQ99 empy that you spent a big piece of your life obtaining, is unable to hit or damage lolmobs in rieves, while a cheap pos bayld forefront weapon can damage them just fine, is an insult to me. Yes people are sentimental and attached to their weapons, if they spent years of their lives building it why should they not feel emotionally connected to the weap. That is not the problem, the problem is SoA arrived, and unlike all previous expansions, the new weapons completely dwarfed everything that preceded them, SoA it is not the normal FFxi progression at all.
And then another point, forefront weapons came out and were originally just slightly more powerful than a 99NQ empy (which was wrongheaded in itself), but then a few weeks later SE patched forefronts overnight, making them way more powerful with the skill+ bonuses etc. So if they can add DMG and skill+ to forefronts overnight as they did, why didn't they just do that to all RME's when SoA came out. Why make people run around missing rieve mobs with their empys, we could have had them patched from the SoA launch.

REM is more than just "I spent 10 years grinding them, and I love it cuz it took so much time" sort of thing for me. I feel sad for those who can't understand it and have to insult others about it. For me it's an item with personality and background story, which makes this game more attractive overall. Without it FFXI is tasteless and I'd better spend my time/money on another video game title.

Difficulty is how hard something is, I can kill level 75 and 95 mobs with my eyes closed, Tojil however will rip my ass apart in less than 30 seconds.

Time taking is simply how long something takes to complete, I can do a Tojil in 30 minutes, but a Relic would take me months to farm.

Very different things. If you want more difficult things to be stronger, then they need to make RMECs harder than Delve weapons, at the same time, if you want more time taking things to be stronger, then they should simply upgrade RMECs, yes. What you should really be saying is you want whatever takes the most investment to be best.

Killing tojil is easier than finding enough ppl to do salvage/VW for empy/mythic. That makes empy/mythic harder to get than Oatixur. Difficulty is more than how hard the NM actually is, but how hard to accomplish them. Killing tojil is, well, just 100x easier than building a 99 empy or Mythic.