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

[Camate]

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.

20		Delve (Boss monsters)
19
18
17				New Additions to Wildskeeper Reives
16
15
14		Delve (NM group 2)
13				New additions to Skirmish
12
11		Delve (NM group 1)
10
9				New additions to Colonization/Lair Reives
8
7		Wildskeeper Reives
6		Skirmish
5		Colonization/Lair Reives
4
3
2
1
Content Level		Up to April 2013		Next version update (currently adjusting)

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.

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.

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

DMG: 73 Delay: 233 Attack+40 "Knights of Round" Additional effect: Damage varies with HP

↓

DMG: 121 Delay: 233 Attack+60 Accuracy+20 "Knights of Round" Additional effect: Damage varies with HP

Burtgang

DMG: 73 Delay: 264 Enmity+18 Physical damage taken -18% Reduces Enmity decrease when taking damage. "Atonement" Aftermath: Increases Acc./Atk./Occ. Attacks twice or thrice

↓

DMG: 131 Delay: 264 Attack+20 Accuracy+20 Enmity+18 Physical damage taken -18% Reduces Enmity decrease when taking damage. "Atonement" Aftermath: Increases Acc./Atk./Occ. Attacks twice or thrice

Almace

DMG: 70 Delay: 224 DEX+20 "Chant du Cygne" Aftermath: Occ. deals double damage

↓

DMG: 114 Delay: 224 Attack+20 Accuracy+20 DEX+20 "Chant du Cygne" Aftermath: Occ. deals double damage

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.


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.

I apologize that this response was late and that I made you all wait.

Thank you all very much.
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[FrankReynolds]

Greetings everyone....
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WoW! This all sounds a million times more promising than what was originally discussed and makes far more sense as well.

Props to you sir.

[Sfchakan]

So far, so good. Continue with this plan!

[Unctgtg]

I will go along with this as something promising. Since this is a just a stepping stone and probably 4-5 months out, I would like to see what you have planned.

[Eijii]

This sounds really good Matsui..... keep it up brother man!

[Byrth]

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.

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.

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, than you can use RME, and for those who want other weapons you can use other weapons.

I would like some clarification on the bolded and underlined phrases:

* Bold - So there will not be small incremental jumps in performance. That's okay. Will there be regular jumps in performance, though, or will RMEs be outdated in the future?

* Underlined - The type of players that make RMEs aren't going to be happy unless they're using one of the best weapons for their job. Are you going to keep RMEs among the best weapons for the respective jobs?


I personally do not mind if there are competitive alternatives to my RMEs from Delve/etc., but I would like to know that the effort I invested in making them was not wasted. I would like to always be able to use Terpsichore, for instance. Is this going to be the case?

[Seyomeyo]

This sounds like what should actually be happening. Thank you Camate and Matsui-san

[Gakaroth]

From what I'm seeing here, these weapons still don't warrant the effort that we put into them over the years, May I instead propose this:

2handed model -

lv75 Relic/Mythic: +10 dmg
lv80 relic/mythic: +15 dmg
Lv85 R/M/E: +15 dmg
lv90 R/M/E: +15 dmg +5 acc/att
lv95 R/M/E: +15 dmg +5 acc/att
lv99 R/M/E: +20 dmg +10 acc/att

(+90 dmg +20 acc/att using Ukonosvra 99 as example, would be 246 dmg 20 acc 20 att 20 str occ deals double dmg putting it just above the delve weaponry in sheer damage power)

1handed model -

lv75 Relic/Mythic: +5 dmg
lv80 relic/mythic: +5 dmg
Lv85 R/M/E: +10 dmg
lv90 R/M/E: +10 dmg +5 acc/att
lv95 R/M/E: +10 dmg +5 acc/att
lv99 R/M/E: +15 dmg +10 acc/att

(+55 dmg +20 acc/att total which is close to the proposed model, using your almace as an example, would be 125 dmg 20 acc 20 att and 20 dex occasionally deals double dmg putting it much closer to any other sword recently released)


This puts them on par with the far more easily obtainable weapons from delve, and is also reasonably easy to code, you'd just need to change base dmg in the calculations etc... I think my proposed model is not brokenly overpowered, or going to destroy the game at all, but instead revive the weaponry we've worked so hard to obtain over the years, and providing the info in a format like this makes it easy for people to understand what boosts to expect level by level.

[Zhronne]

So RME will be good but not "ultimate" anymore. Just a good alternative.
Not uber, not shit.
And Empy WS unlocked via WoE, making WoE weapons interesting, finally.

What can I say? I'm happy. Thanks Matsui

[Areayea]

well that's the awesomest thing you guys have said as of late (I did read it a little earlier on the JP forums >.>) anyway, I would hope that you are sticking to your word that this damage increase will be for lvl 99 R/E/Ms only, the reason why I say this is because I agree with it, wa wa you can farm a zone boss 25~50 times, I don't think that warrants auto 99 stats, now paying for plates, that might, it shows more dedication, I've already seen in other forums people saying that they want the upgrades included in the lvl 85~95 weapons as well, I disagree with that, simply because it leads back to the "pick which one you really want to upgrade". as for the "Option" I think that's perfect, especially since that leaves us with an additional R/E/M weapon, so I guess will soon spell out Dream? lol all we need is an A weapon... sorry off topic, anyway looking at the stats on the Delve weapons it does seem plausable if the other weapons were boosted, it could definetly JOIN the ranks of a R/E/M, not render them useless (which is what this new plan looks like it is going to do); which in that case, I think that Relics still are just great for the attack, mess with various AMs, Mythics are still going to be very job specific (although I would hope that you still are going to put the various mage buffs into those as well, as they will be difficult to implement with the new weapons having x5 the stats), of course I'd hope that Empys still are being built for their AM and the Double damage, and now these new Delve weapons are probably just going to be used for the pure stats on them. So now we have D/R/E/M weapons. I'm intrigued.