Level 99 Relic, Mythic, Empyrean, and WoE Weapons

[ThaiChi]

I don't know about how everyone else actually feels, although most of everyone has already vocalized their disdain for the plans. But what was really upsetting to me was the prospect of our weapons with all the work we put in being worth null. I understand that it's not even close to being finalized, but why was it ever an option to invalidate a years worth of work (in my case) or the numerous relics some other people have. I'm still planning on 99ing at least one of my Empyreans in the optimism that they'll eventually bring RMECs up to the standard we expect out of our named legendary weapons. Because while it was a different development team before, Relic owners made similar complaints at the Lv85 cap that Empyreans were too close to power of a relic for significantly less effort. That was eventually remedied, and hopefully the dev team will realize this isn't a path that the playerbase wants. I've sat by and watched while time after time suggestions were shot down because of "balance", wondering what the point of the official forums if our concerns are never addressed or taken into serious consideration. It honestly seems like if we the playerbase seems to find anything that is in our favor in terms of PvE, the dev team immediately finds a way to turn that around. I'm willing to bet that any inkling that ensures us that our legendary weapons aren't going to be aged out, the uproar that was caused this week will settle down and so many of your subscribers will ease up on their threats to cancel their service.

[na2tt300zx]

This is the first time i am ever posting on this forum and the only reason is because of the RAGE this company is making me feel right now. I have been paying you guys $15 a month for over 5 years, and you are pretty much telling me "HAHA JK YOU WASTED ALL YOUR TIME! Start over and deal with it!" Well f this. If the base damage on R/M/E isn't going to be made higher than the new weapons me and almost all relic holders i know(and don't know) will quit. A new weapon skill would be beyond useless, end of story. Step up to the plate and take care of the players who have worked and played hard in this game of yours for so many years

[Fermion]

I don't know about how everyone else actually feels, although most of everyone has already vocalized their disdain for the plans. But what was really upsetting to me was the prospect of our weapons with all the work we put in being worth null. I understand that it's not even close to being finalized, but why was it ever an option to invalidate a years worth of work (in my case) or the numerous relics some other people have. I'm still planning on 99ing at least one of my Empyreans in the optimism that they'll eventually bring RMECs up to the standard we expect out of our named legendary weapons. Because while it was a different development team before, Relic owners made similar complaints at the Lv85 cap that Empyreans were too close to power of a relic for significantly less effort. That was eventually remedied, and hopefully the dev team will realize this isn't a path that the playerbase wants. I've sat by and watched while time after time suggestions were shot down because of "balance", wondering what the point of the official forums if our concerns are never addressed or taken into serious consideration. It honestly seems like if we the playerbase seems to find anything that is in our favor in terms of PvE, the dev team immediately finds a way to turn that around. I'm willing to bet that any inkling that ensures us that our legendary weapons aren't going to be aged out, the uproar that was caused this week will settle down and so many of your subscribers will ease up on their threats to cancel their service.

Although your post is hard on the eyes, I'll try to answer some of your questions.

Relic owners made similar complaints at the Lv85 cap that Empyreans were too close to power of a relic for significantly less effort.

The difference is that none of the content at that time was as exclusionary as it is/was right now.

I've sat by and watched while time after time suggestions were shot down because of "balance", wondering what the point of the official forums if our concerns are never addressed or taken into serious consideration.

First off, you need to understand that the legendary Tanaka quote of "balance" is codeword for "money".
Secondly, these forums are simply another form of data for SE analysts. Think of it as SE "data-mining" us.

I'm willing to bet that any inkling that ensures us that our legendary weapons aren't going to be aged out, the uproar that was caused this week will settle down and so many of your subscribers will ease up on their threats to cancel their service.

The only "uproars" you're experiencing are in your mind, and on these forums. The bottom line will determine where this expansion will take us. Bottom line = money if you still don't get it.

Matsui's real genius is subtly allowing the playerbase to feel like they're controlling his decisions. ANYONE who is the boss ANYWHERE, will not give up that control so easily. He's simply making the smart business move to pander to the public. Same as American politicians. Give them the illusion of choice, then align the most popular choice with what's best for you. It's really a simple business strategy, but we're so emotionally involved with this game, that he's "whooshing" the entire playerbase.

Look, as I've said before, the best thing we can do at this point is keep our elitist mentality within our linkshells. Stop the R/E/M only shouts, and go back to a LS based game. Let the "casuals" actually experience the "end-game" content. They'll be owned so badly, that they'll have no choice but to farm better gear WITH EACH OTHER. While the "end-game" linkshells will continue to progress without a hiccup.

Meaning those of us in good Ls's will still have the gear advantage over the casuals, but at least they'll (casuals) have something to do. Which I believe was Matsui's plan, but we got too dog on emotional to realize it.

[AllenD]

200 Assault books, 400K Ampoules, 600K Tokens, and 120K Alexandrites down the drain.

[Alerith]

If this is going to be a progressive, old gear will, eventually have to be obsolete, including RMECs.

And halt. Pause. Rewind.

My question to the above quote is: "Why?"

I understand your argument about things needing to be progressive. That's fine. But R/M/E aren't subject to this rule. They are (or were) the best weapons in their class. They were the "Ultimate Weapons" of this game, with requirements that, for the most part, reflected such, and were to be the end all weapon for that type.

Why does what the weapon is (in this case, the Ultimate Weapon) have to change? Just because someone says progression can't happen without them becoming useless?

I don't think so. The trials did exactly what was necessary. They kept the Ultimate Weapons where they should be, which is at the top. Just because someone made their Mandau back in 2005 and eight years have now passed does not mean that the time they spent working on it is suddenly invalid.

People bring up this silly argument all the time. "R/M/E can't be the best forever!".

Why not? They were designed to be.

[ThaiChi]

Although your post is hard on the eyes, I'll try to answer some of your questions.

I didn't actually ask any questions, I was simply making a statement, but ok. I drew a parallel to a similar complaint by the playerbase from a prior situation. The fact of the matter is there's a large number of subscribers that are unhappy with the direction the current development team wants to take us, and as a response the community on this forum (a la said uproar) have threatened to cancel.

I don't particularly see what's so exclusionary about Delve, Nakaauls or any of the content released this week, but again the details of the game content aside, they've given us this official forums seemingly for us to voice what we want. But the players' pleas fall on deaf ears and the devs continue to blindly make adjustments regardless of the direction us the players want to be steered.

I made a mythic and I'm not panicked because you're right, I have a linkshell that does events regularly and a small group of people to do lowman content. The thing that made me a little irked is that legendary weapons seemed to be intended as the feather-in-your-cap for your jobs would be usurped in a single update--without the reassurance that the effort isn't gone to waste.

[Afania]

This is what I think of the whole situation. I believe Matsui had no choice.

First and foremost, Matsui is a businessman. His primary function is to make as much money as possible for the shareholders. That being said, once the "pick-up" or casual paradigm switched to the R/E/M only mentality, those weapons were doomed. 99 R/E/M's are a tiny percentage of the total population. It may seem otherwise, but that's just do to continuous emotional posts (a lot by the same small group of people).

Anyone with a slight understanding of MMO industry would immediately understand why this is bad choice from money making POV.

Casuals in this game are less involved ones, that they often play on and off, not involve in any event/static, and would quit without 2nd thought for any reason. Even if those are in big numbers, it's not a stable customer base. Even if they can get delve weapons and enjoy the content on their jobs, they will still quit without 2nd thought for w/e reason. I've been in a casual LS full of new/returning player for years, and been observing it, that's just how less involved players do.

So this decision doesn't really benefit a customer base that would leave whether R/E/M is required or not.

Those players get locked out of content, unable to finish lv 85~90 empy(only a few jobs need lv 85~90 empy to perform properly) are the minority. Majority of the casuals have np making 85~90 empy at least. So this move is to please maybe 10%~20% of player base that may likely to leave again due to lack of involvement.

Players with lv 85~90 are the majority, and probably not affected that much. Those ppl often still come and go, just not as bad as casuals without R/E/M.

So this decision hurts players with 95 R/E/M owners the most.

They may be the minority compare with those without 95 R/E/M, but they often have multiple account, rarely take a break nor come and go. And they often develop strategies for content, and actively do newer contents. They're certainly more than 1% in numbers, at least not if you count their mules. And without them everything gets harder. They're the stable customer base that SE doesn't want to piss them off and drive them away.

If 70% of the current 95+ R/E/M owners are gone, you won't find ppl that involved enough in FFXI to do anything to begin with. You'd have to pt with a bunch of come and go players, unable to have a stable static, for newer endgame content such as delve. And the result is that even if you want to get involved, you may end up quitting. The result is player base shrink that hurts everyone.

A healthy MMORPG should have both dedicated customer base(smaller numbers, but won't leave easily), and casuals(come and go easily, play the game to see what's it like, but larger numbers). Just because less involved players are larger in number, doesn't mean you should ditch dedicated player to please them, because they won't increase in numbers and would go leave matter what you do. And if less involved players want to get involved/dedicated for some reason, it'd end up being harder because all the involved players quit. So in the end you get a bunch of come and go players left, and it's not healthy for a MMORPG that requires a static and such to do anything.

If anything, I'd say the mistake started from Abyssea, when SE want to hand out empy to everyone, then made relic realstic obtainable by the most. So now when they want to move away from R/E/M they'd need to piss off their most dedicated customer base, and unlikely to get new customer base anyways. And it's all started by same producer that have no idea how MMORPG works.

It has nothing to do with elitism, stop just calling everyone elitist when this issue is brought up. This is an issue that if they don't fix properly, it will make FFXI die faster and indirectly affects FFXIV.

[Afania]

Look at it this way, the developers are privy to much more data about the playerbase than we are. Once this R/E/M mentality started to get out of hand, I'm sure that SE noticed (probably due to subs. dropping at a curious rate). The thing is, when casuals quit due to being shut out of content they're paying for, they usually just leave (and this is a big one, they probably tend to not come back), unnoticed to us. But en masse, SE's red flags start going off. Think about it from the casual's perspective. Without a R/E/M they are excluded from pretty much everything but Abyssea. But the golden days of Abyssea are in the past. (And be honest with yourself, you know you did a lot of your Abyssea trials by giving out +2s to LS members or randoms). So unless they leveled bst and farmed dynamis for months (/snore), they were stuck at that level.

Basically, what I'm saying is that the R/E/M holders did this to themselves. If you want to make a R/E/M only LS, that's great. Knock yourself out. But the problem is when that mentality crossed over to pick-up events. Matsui had to take action, his hands were tied. It's like a rich kid constantly showing off his money at a bar or something. Don't be surprised when you get robbed. You can't hoard your accomplishments (R/E/M only!) over the general public (casuals in this case) and not expect action to be taken.

Finally, let me pose a question to all the Xbox 360 R/E/M holders. How would you feel if you suddenly started encountering "PC only" shouts (you know what I'm really talking about)? You can get a part time job and pay for a nice new PC in way less hours than it takes to build a 99 R/E/M. But be honest, how would you really feel about being excluded like that?

Another clueless POV about MMO industry. R/E/M only mentality started by nobody else but SE. SE made relic obtainable by the majority, and majority of the player base has it, so they ended up having to adjust content difficulties for it. That's the real reason why R/E/M only. On top of certain DD job can't keep up without R/E/M.

I already post this example somewhere but I'll just copy and paste again.
If only 1% of player has R/E/M, it's ok to make mob HP 1000 Def 300, so avg players can beat it and content won't be too hard. You can't make mob HP 3000 Def 500 if only 1% of ppl has R/E/M, or else it'd be too hard for the majority.

If 80% of players has R/E/M, then you have to make every mob HP 3000 Def 500, if you still keep mob HP 1000 Def 300, the game would be too easy and you don't want that either.

And the result is, if you don't have R/E/M, mob HP 1000 Def 300 would be too hard for you.

Another reason is because certain job is too weak compare with other jobs. Before SoA DRK with a trial weapon or Ig-Alima GS has np doing reasonable dmg, while jobs like DRG was sooooo far behind and must need a Mythic to keep up.

If DRG MNK SAM WAR can do as much dmg as a DRK with an AH weapon, nobody would be R/E/M only.

The fact is, if you do VW with a bunch of DRG MNK WAR without R/E/M, you WILL notice it gets quite hard.....anything T6 or prov would suffer from much higher wipe rate.

And since you can get ppl with those weapon easy, why don't you do it? Would you rather spending 2hr making an ally to do event to wipe? I highly doubt you would.

All that R/E/M mentality wouldn't happen if SE keep top weapon 1% of player base, or if they keep the gap between job/weapons smaller. Because players would aim for most efficient setup no matter what.

As for PC only no Xbox, once again, blame SE for making Xbox shit and shit user interface. Why are you blaming the players? It's only human nature to take as much advantage as possible in a MMORPG. So dev shouldn't even create the gap to begin with.

[Kiyara]

Here is a suggestion that would compliment SE's idea and the player satisfaction for the R/M/E issue.

Make it where the R/M/E weapon can be transmigrated into a player stat/skill. If the weapon is either a 99 or 99 afterglow weapon, you would have 2 additional trials accordingly :

1) 99 weapon - complete said trial (maybe make it where you kill a string of different NMs, let's say 5-10, ranging from Fafnir to Genbu to normal Dynamis Lord etc) and once the trial is complete, you would be able to "absorb the weapon's properties" into your character which would reflect on any weapon you have. (i.e. Mandau - player absorbs the traits of the weapon's +35 attack, triple dmg 13% proc rate, unique WS, add effect poison, and WS's aftermath when used and these stats become part of your character permanently)

2) Same as above but you would get the afterglow as a permanent trait as well

This way the weapons become extremely valuable still by carrying over into your character and getting new weapons will greater benefit the player than just someone who only has the base new weapon, which would please R/M/E holders and SE's direction of having players do the new content for the better weapons.

Also, please make Umbral Marrow a bit more accessible >.> Needs more sources than just Arch Dynamis Lord (increase the number of marrows ADL drops from 1 to guaranteed 2 up to 3 and have all Arch Bosses capable of dropping the item along with normal DL being able to drop at a 10% drop rate). Along with the Mythic 99 item, make it drop from the Tier 4 VNMs (at a lower rate) along with Pandemonium Warden.

[Zirael]

I understand the delicacy of this discussion and everyone's feelings on the matter; however, please keep in mind that Producer Matsui has indicated that all of this is no where near finalized at this point and they are still in the early discussion phase.

With that said, there have been quite a few posts that we have had to remove due to inappropriate language, so please keep this in mind when making a reply to this thread.

As always, I will be doing all that I can so that your opinions are delivered to the development team and rest assured that your voice is being heard.

You should go and deliver those deleted posts to Matsui, because that's exactly what we're thinking at the moment.

If I wanted to play the WoW's "wipe everyone's achievements every six months", I'd go play WoW. You are disrespectful to everyone, who is in the process of making, I don't know, let's say a 30000 alexandrite mythic, or who has finished one last week after months or YEARS of puking boredom you call Slavage and Dienamis and expect them to dig it and be cheerful?
How about Producer Matsui finishes leveling his character, makes a Mythic weapon and THEN tells me how I should be feeling about all of this?