Follow-up: Level 99 Relic, Mythic, Empyrean, and Walk of Echoes Weapons

[Zohnax]

Greetings everyone,

Thanks for all of your patience while the development team discussed all the feedback in this thread. Below is a very lengthy post from Producer Akihiko Matsui as a follow-up to the plans for relic, mythic, and empyrean weapons.

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Matsui here.

Thank you all so much for the feedback on relic, mythic, empyrean, and Walk of Echoes weapons. It has helped out tremendously.

After reading over all of your feedback, instead of continuing the growth of these weapons by unlocking the weapon skills that are tied to each of the weapons, I feel it would be better to perform a revamp on RME weapons. (Regarding Walk of Echoes weapons, I will talk about this below, but they will be involved with unlocking the specialized weapon skills.)

I've been reworking a lot, and writing it all up, but it seems the post turned out rather lengthy, so once you have been able to read through it all and digest it we'd love to hear your feedback.

Content Level
We've received a lot of questions about the stats on Adoulin equipment, and I'd like to once again explain about growth and content levels in Seekers of Adoulin as this is a critical aspect in order to receive feedback on the revamps for RME weapons.

The content in Adoulin has been designed with a repeating play-cycle where you challenge content that you are able to at that moment in time, gather equipment, become stronger, and then take on higher tier content which will allow you to gather even stronger equipment.

It's through the procurement of equipment that will allow players to grow and level up.

We've established content levels for Adoulin content as a means to objectively display difficulty benchmarks. The below is a concrete illustration of these content levels.

Equipment strength is dependent on the level of the content you need to challenge in order to obtain the equipment, not the level in which it can be equipped. With the gear that is released in Adoulin from here on out, they can be equipped at level 99; however, instead of considering these to be level 99 pieces of equipment, it would be better for you to think of their level in terms of the content level (for example, level 110 or level 120).

The strength of the monsters that will be introduced are matched to that of the content level, but since there is somewhat of a solidified hierarchy between content, it's been setup so that the strength can be felt with even one level difference in content level. Oppositely, the parameters on Adoulin equipment have been calculated and set in order to deal with these monsters.

Fundamentally we will be making it so that the content level for content to come in the future continues to become higher, but there may be cases where we fill in areas where there is a large jump in content level as needed.

Also, in order to make it so there are various types of content sprawled across a single content level, we are supplementing it with content variations. We've also designed plans to enable resting periods where we will expand laterally instead of vertically, because players may get burnt out going full steam ahead.

In the next version update we will be adding content focusing on filling in the gaps as well as supplementing with content variation.

In the above chart, please look at the “Next version update (currently adjusting)” column. For content levels 6-9 (Skirmish/Wildskeeper Reives), we will be adding equipment appropriate for these content levels that can be exchanged for Bayld along with new Colonization and Lair Reives. Additionally, we will be filling in content for levels 13 and 17.

For those players who are already able to take on Skirmish, Wildskeeper Reives, and Delve at this point in time, it will not be absolutely necessary to challenge this content, but we will be making the above adjustments in case you want to increase your success rate, or are feeling that the current situation is still a bit tough.

Also, as a plan to resolve the issue where Skirmish is not really connecting the content as was planned, we will be undergoing maintenance at the end of this week and making it so statue segments can be obtained from Colonization and Lair Reives at a set rate. (These adjustments are separate from the rules associated with obtaining these items via Coalition Assignments, HELM, and Soul Pyres.)

By performing these adjustments we envision the below flow:

1. Challenge Colonization and Lair Reives
2. Obtain statue segments by participating in these reives
3. Challenge Skirmish with the parts you have obtained

Weapon Revamps
Sorry, I got off track for a bit, but now I'd like to return to the topic at hand.

To start off, I still need to discuss the implementation period with the rest of the development team, so it will be a bit difficult to address this immediately in the next version update, and we cannot make any promises as to when this will take place.

In regards to the kind of stats that will be added when we revamp these weapons, fundamentally the afterglow and aftermath effects as well as the other special stats will carry over and we'll be setting damage values, attack, and accuracy stats to coincide with the content level.

While the stats will be quite strong, we do not plan on making it possible to continuously enhance them in short intervals like the original method of enhancing via Trial of the Magians.

This last statement worries me. R/M/E weapons have already gone through lengthy trials in order to get where they are now. So as long as we're not talking anything crazy like 1million plasm to upgrade R/M/E, this is good. To further build upon, a majority of R/M/E owners to not want the game to be completely tailored to them entirely, but rather, the fact is they have put in the most effort and time into making Lv99 R/M/E weapons, so for something to come off the auction house or a single drop to be better, and some standards comparable, is still a little insulting.

There is also a lot of concern of how quickly newly implemented gear is getting outdated with the past two updates. Please understand that for a long time, FFXI's standard has not been a treadmill gear-grind, but select pieces of gear have been relevant for long periods of time.

However, RME weapons have been considered the ultimate weapons up until this point in time, but I feel that this needs to change a bit.

Your feelings are incorrect. They are the ultimate weapons because they take a lot of time and effort in order to complete, therefore, should be the best weapons in the game. However, a lot of players believe these weapons from Delve should still be a decent alternative, but still be a level below R/M/E.

I would like to make a shift so that instead of having it so that other weapons aren't necessary if you have RME weapons, you have a choice. If you are happy with RME, then you can use RME, and for those who want other weapons you can use other weapons.

With that said, there may be players who are worried if these weapons will eventually become unusable, but to give an example we had the lead make some calculations for the stats needed to combat the Delve boss monsters, and the below is what the RME swords would look like:

Excalibur

↓

Burtgang

↓

Almace

↓

In regards to Walk of Echoes weapons, these were implemented with the concept of allowing players to use the specialized empyrean weapon skills, so instead of revamping them we felt it more appropriate to have them serve to unlock the weapons skills (planning to have restrictions based on jobs and level). Also, we are looking into adjustments for the method to create Walk of Echoes weapons.

See, this was all R/M/E owners asked for. We put in effort in the new content to further keep our weapons the best because of the effort required, and in turn, it still draws people back to older content in the event they want to build one of these ultimate weapons. Simply focusing the entire game around SoA is a bad idea, especially when you can have people doing all old content as well with simple implementations such as this.

As far as WoE weapons are concerned, I like that idea as well. Considering the greater ease though, perhaps the weapon skill power output could be lowered slightly so that Empyrean weapons are made obsolete as well.

In conclusion…
Apologies that this post is so long, but based on all of the above we would love to hear your feedback on the revamps to level 99 RME weapons and unlocking weapon skills with Walk of Echoes weapons.

I will be sure to read over each and every comment you all post.

My thoughts and ideas have completely turned around the plans that were originally drawn up, and I had to sit and really discuss the idea with the rest of the development team, including the possibilities of making this happen.

As I've said before, I do not mean to be offensive, but I sincerely implore you to analyze your choices or possibilities before you drop something like this on the playerbase. You guys should know that people .dat mine every update where there are new files added and should be more aware of how valuable players efforts really are. It will keep the game going a lot longer if you play it smart. Which if it continues, I will continue to support and I'm sure a lot of other players will too.

[Insaniac]

Of course they wont have the aftermath but it will still be absolutely broken for some combinations.

I meant that if you have any other WSs aftermath active and you use a WoE weaponskill it would remove it. For instance you use King's Justice to put up AM3 and then use Ukko's Fury your KJ aftermath instantly wears off. Making OA3 + Ukko's spam impossible.

[ProjectA2O]

So I was typing up a huge post on my thoughts/feelings on the old thread when I saw this follow up. (all that typing)

After reading Matsuis revised plan for REM I feel much better about this whole thing, but I still have some concerns with a few thing that were said. Well I like the idea of having "options" this will only work if the gear is equal to or better than future additions.

I think most people that play FFXI wont mind new ultimate weapons/gear being added as long as the months/years they put into creating other equipment doesnt feel like a complete waste.

We need more clarification(I do at least) on whether you meant REM weapons will be kept as viable contenders to any new ultimate weapons added or if you mean for them to become the "good enough" options.

[Pretzpretz]

While he stated that this R/E/M buff is a significant departure from his initial plan, it's really just an extension of his original plan, with a delay meant to appease R/E/M holders and quell the recent outrage.

I'm very happy R/E/M are getting a buff, but it's clear to see that this is a one time only deal. He feels that R/E/M shouldn't remain top tier and this method just makes it a slower decline rather than an outright abandonment.

So what about next time an update happens which introduces a higher tier of dropped weapons? Well, our argument of R/E/M being top tier no longer holds the weight that it did this time, and we won't have the force needed to get another R/E/M buff.

Personally, I would rather have lengthy trials in order to upgrade R/E/M in smaller increments. At least that way we could have some confidence that they won't be abandoned again in the near future.

It's not a nice feeling to be manipulated Matsui. I'm just as happy as everyone else is today, but it doesn't mean I won't be as devastated the next time you try to leave R/E/M behind.

[Luscia]

It's nice to see that you all are thinking of ways to make REM king again, which they should be. However I do have concerns; I myself only have a lvl 95 Gungnir, mainly because my real life doesn't have the time to dedicate to a hardcore endgame shell to fight ADL and I don't have the time to farm 50m+ gil to buy them. My source of income was VW, but on Siren those shouts are few and far between. I know others have farmed Dyna for gil, but sales of currency have slowed way down and prices have also dipped. Alex too has slowed way down and priced dropped; and where as people might suggest crafting to making money, the thing I could make I would take a hit on instead of profit if I have to buy the meat involved. For me at this time, I see no way for me to obtain my lvl 99 relic for my main and favorite job. Please do us a favor and consider an overall scaling of the REM weapons. I would hate to have to put my beloved polearm on my mannequin.

[Calatilla]

Curious question, if SE go along with these plans, would increasing Caladbolg's damage and adding Accuracy/Attack+20 bring it any closer to the top tier weapons for DRK?

[Hawklaser]

This is some good news. Though when the next large vertical content level increase comes, might be a good idea to have the upgrades to RME and whatever else is deemed "upgradeable" to have the new form in the dats, even if not entirely sure how to have the upgrade happen yet.

The big difference between RME and other weapons is the amount of investment that goes into getting one, which is why people want them to continue being top of the line weapons. Just because they are top of the line, does not mean they are going to always be the very best, but they do help set the bar for the best weapons. If you wanted, you could divide most gear in FFXI into categories based on investment taken to get them. For example, Extreme investment(RME weapons), High investment(Rare mat crafted, NM at end of NM chain drop, or HNM), Moderate investment(uncommon mat crafted, or NM drop) and low investment(common crafted, NPC buyable, or random mob drop). Any weapon that ends up in the extreme investment category, should be and stay at top of the line performance, high investment ones can and should be competitive, and sometimes better than the extreme investment ones when around the same content level. Now seeing as some of the plasm weapons from Delve have that new upgrade system for them, they could easily end up a part of the extreme investment category of weapons depending on how extensive that system is and how far it allows them to upgrade.

[AldielQuetz]

I think these are wonderful concepts. I believe that all forms of the final REMs, 99s should all receive the same adjustment across the board to maintain the balance between the weapons. An example, all great axes should receive DMG+100 Accuracy+40 and attack+40 to their stats as well as making all 3 weapon's aftermaths stronger like Bravura keep the Damage reduction and add a regen+20 effect, on Conqueror add a critical hit rate buff and on Ukon add a blink effect. These are only suggestions but I think that the most important part is that every weapon of a specific type receive the same increase in base damage and the same increase in stats and that in the aftermath and other additional effects, you can really get creative

Thank you Producer M

[Zeldar]

Another option for keeping these weapons up to date was touched on a few posts up: after the initial overhaul, make them augmentable like the new gear is. This would also make not every weapon the same....hey nice stats on your Mandau, but I chose a different way. Just a thought.

[AldielQuetz]

And as for my favorite treasure and it's Empyrean and Mythic counterparts, Excalibur, these are my suggestions for making sword relevant. For Almace, add a refresh effect +15 to the aftermath with varying duration based on TP, as well as increasing all 1 handed Empyrean weapons' aftermath to occasionally deals triple damage. As for Burtang add a stoneskin effect to the aftermath proportionate to the amount of TP, 500 damage absorbed at 100, 750 at 200 and 1000 at 300TP. And as for Excalibur, and for all relic weapons, increase the hidden effect that occasionally deals 2x, 2.5x, 3x by 10% across the board, then specifically for Excalibur increase the regen effect to +50HP a tic(seeing as how the meebles Great Axe can have +30) and also make the additional damage proportionate to HP generate enmity like it always was meant to be!

These are my suggestions for sword, I hope you enjoy them. I have treasured my Excalibur since the day it was finally forged May 29th, 2007, after years of work and has been a joy and a prized possess through every trial all the way to 99.

Thank you Producer M for restoring the wonder and enjoyment to this game for me

Aldiel