A reworked case for the discrepency between REM weapons and A

[wfoley]

I tried posting this on other areas and mostly met with negative feedback from a vocal minority, so I thought to bring it here and hope developers see it.

Bottom line upfront, there is too much of a disparity between ultimate weapons in terms of time to make them and power received.

Over the course of my FF11 career, I have made 3 mythics, 2 empyreans, 2 ergons, and 3 aeonics. I wanted to start with that as a way of saying, I have done the processes and am not just whining.

I really feel like some of the multi-month grinds to make endgame weapons are a bit too much at 15 years into a game. I know they have become easier with time, but some of them are still sooooo time consuming. Not only that, but some of the longer quests create inferior weapons to those that can be done in a week. The reward to time ratio for them just isn’t right.

Additionally, many of these ultimate weapons are needed or at least highly desired to clear endgame (here defined as T3-T4 Reisen, Ambu VD vol1, and Omen). Which means that, if a new player wants to play one of the jobs that needs the weapons, and do endgame content, they can expect a many month delay before they can start content. Weapons I consider in this category are Idris, Relic and Empyrean bard instruments, Aegis for Pld (though I will admit, it is the fastest REM to make to a useful level).

Assumptions I make: On my server, Asura, farming alexandrite in salvage 2 is the most efficient way to make money for new players. I average 85 alex per run and a run takes 20 min. I time it to get 3 runs in an hour every morning. If there is a better way to make money for the average player, please share as this is the limiting step for time for my math/argument. This also means veterans with leveled crafting who make millions in a day are not the people I am aiming this at.

VD Intense Ambu can be more lucrative if 1. It is beatable. 2. It isn’t congested because it is beatable. You need circa 3 VD intense ambu per hour to beat alexandrite farming. I would argue the people that can do more than that per hour are already well geared and thus not a good comparison for new players making their first legendary weapon. The average new player will not clear VD intense ambu 3+ times per hour. Additionally, when VD Intense ambu is beatable, the waits are often 20-30 minutes, making it not profitable.

[wfoley]

Let’s start with the baseline. ** edited in some changes per various player suggestions
Aeonics
Obviously a catch 22 as you need to be well geared to make them, but ignoring that. Pre reqs: 50k beads. Normally I would do 3 dragons an hour (depending on number of people and kill time). That came out to about 17 hours farming beads. I broke that down into smaller chunks and normally over a weekend plus 1-2 weekdays, I would be ready to start. From there, my LS completes the full aeonic clear in about 10 hours over 5 weeks (we take it pretty easy). So as a baseline, an aeonic takes about 24-27 hours of in game time to make but no money is required. It can cost up to 10m to make all pops. Also, incursion bosses must be farmed for coffers for Reisen T2. If done during a campaign, this adds another 2 hours to time. The cost to make the weapon can be split between the group and often is largely offset from selling +2 lixirs, and eschite ore. While not free, Aeonics end up having a very low net cost. Additionally, for many DD jobs, these weapons are up there as the top 3 possible choices for damage dealing weapons. Total time 30 hours with a group that knows what they are doing. As high as 60 hours if forming PUG shout groups has been reported to me.

Mythics
Time to prep for quest:
5 hours to do all assaults to capt rank for me.
Another hour of time for all 9 einherjar clears. I know you can only do 1 per hour, but 6 minutes per run*10 runs= 60 min.
Maybe another hour for all salvage clears.
And about 4 hours for nyzul 100.
We'll say 10 hours to prep.
Cost: 320m to buy all alex and afterglow it, approx.
time to farm that: 469 salvage 2 runs. Approx. 156 hours time.
Nyzul tokens: Averaging 30 min per run and 2k tokens per run = 38 hours
Therion ichor: aprox 13 hours for 52 runs at 15 min per run (includes time to get lamp, run there, and do event)
Bottom line: Mythics cost either 320m + 51 hours after prep or 217 hours if you farm it all yourself including prep. This can be many months for a new player, if not a year. Now, that wouldn’t be as bad, except that some of these weapons are inferior to Aeonics. They can take over 10x as long to make and be worse than a weapon you make for free in a week.

Ergons
It's approximately 6 MONTHS of prep to get legendary in each coalition to start an ergon quest.
While ergons do ask for other materials other than HPB, their cost is rather insignificant for price.
For ergons, you need 13999 HPB. On my server, that's about 250m. Approx. looking at 367 salvage 2 runs or about 122 hours of time. That's why I did both ergon rather than another mythic as it took me about half the time. Neither ergon needs ag in order to be useable by their job. Idris more so than epeolatry is game changing for Geo and pretty much required for top tier hardest fights. The 6 months lead in for starting it are probably the biggest problem as just farming for 122 hours is pretty reasonable for an ultimate weapon, but 6 months of waiting is a bit much.

Empyreans
Let's call all of the nm timed farms up to first abyssea trial the pre-req time. Then you are looking at about 16-20 up to 50 hours of prep time for empyreans, depending on RNG for NM pops.
Farming your 50 empyrean items: Doing this recently, I averaged 1 pop every 5-10 min (let's say 8 average) and 1-2 drops per kill (average 1.2). That’s about 6 hours for this step, but RNG can frown on you, so lets say 8.
75 abyssea items: same math, 10 hours.
The heavy metal plates: using my server prices, 1500 x 90,000k=135m
cinders=1m x 60= 60m
riftborn bolders=10k x 5k=50m
Total cost=245m , 360 salvage 2 runs, 120 hours for buyables+50h for pre-reqs+30h ish for abyssea (per other testimonials from other players) = ~155 200 hours. This is about the same amount of time as Mythics, but these weapons often outclass their mythic counterpart. They also suffer from the problem that some of them are weaker than aeonics, so the same problem as mythics.

Relics
First off, I have never made one, so this section is based purely on numbers and hypothesis.
Average cost to make base weapon, excluding final 30x100 piece loan: 50-60m, depending on weapon. To bring it to 99, 5m. To AG it, 100m. Total: say 160m (60m for horn and shield). That comes to 79 hours of farming for relic weapons (30 hours for shield and horn). Having said all of that, with a few exceptions, relics are probably the weakest of the legendary weapons, so aeonics aside, it makes sense that they are the fastest REM to build as they are often the weakest. But again compared to aeonics, you invest 3x as much time to make an inferior weapon.

[wfoley]

What is all of this to say? Well, Aeonics aside, all of the legendary weapons require either huge time or financial inputs to make. Compared to Aeonic weapons that can literally be built in a week, some of the Legendary weapons can take up to a year to make if you are a new player.


To me, this is a bit extreme. I feel like all of the legendary weapons should be make-able in the same time frame OR their power should be commensurate with the time/money involved. If a mythic is going to take 10x as much time to make, its power or utility should make it 10x as powerful. On the flip side, if developers want them to be sidegrade or alternatives, then the requirements should be lessened.

For example, Alexandrite should be maybe 3k, nyzul token 15k, therion ichor 10k, hmp 150…etc. Except for relics (because I am less familiar with them), I almost feel a 90% reduction on materials is needed for these weapons (maybe 50% for relics). In order to bring them in line with the time it takes to make an Aeonic.

What ultimately drove me to post here is the number of people nay saying my comments with no facts to back up theirs. The common arguments I heard against this were:
1. It doesn't take that long to make them.
Well, if you have the money already it doesn’t take long at all. But I am talking about the average new player. And as I said, if you have better ways to make money, share.
2. You don’t need any of these items for endgame.
Well, by what I defined as endgame, YOU might not NEED any REMAs to clear Reisen T3-4, Omen, and VD vol 1 ambu, if you have 5 other people with REMAs or similar levels of gear. In particular, the support REMAs are rather necessary for most of these content.
3. People would quit once they made a REMA.
No evidence for this at all. Tons of people have made REMAs and we still have people playing. Did some quit, sure. All, not even close.
4. There's no other long term content to do for players.
a. omen card farming
b. master jobs
c. level and gear other jobs
d. craft

[Nyarlko]

The only disagreement I have with your manifesto is that Aeonics are technically not "free". There are pop items involved in the process, some of which are far from cheap. "Practically free compared to REM" might be a better way to put it. XD

The biggest objection I have to the way things are now is the amazingly painful prep time for Ergons. Would it really hurt much of anything to reduce the unavoidable amount of time it currently takes to get all coalitions up to Legendary? I still feel like they just forgot to add a reduction in Imprimatur charge time and/or increased cap to RoV KI bonuses. :/

[detlef]

Your suggestions just make things way too easy. Like ridiculously fall out of bed, make a weapon easy. That'll be the new baseline, where you're essentially expected to have the weapon on your resume and if you don't have it, you're resume is immediately thrown into the trash. And Aeonics aren't THAT easy to make for a casual player. They may be easier on Asura because everybody mercs everything but aren't mercs like 200m? Something in that range with an adjustment might be more in line with what your estimate for Aeonic effort should be because Aeonics require much more player coordination (if you don't conduit them all of course) than all the other legendary weapons combined.

Keep in mind that while it'll become vastly easier to crank out weapon after weapon for a lot more players, there will still be players who can't keep up with the content in that way who will be even more SOL.

And yes, it will really hurt a lot of players who put a lot of effort into their weapons. I was paying 200k per Beitetsu when they first introduced the unified Afterglow weapon. They're about 7k each now and that's okay. Everything gets easier over time. I paid 35k for HPB, often only being able to buy 1-2 at a time. And that too is okay. But what's not okay would be for someone else to come along and only need 1000 HPB compared to the 13,099 I needed at 20k (and falling) for an Idris. Can't lie, that'll hurt.

[Urmom]

I'd like to add that there are other ways of farming beads. With a couple of people you can kill t1 reisin in seconds. Forget just how much it was per kill but pretty sure was over 100. So can be decently faster than dragons. Also you'd be surprised how much you get over time just cping in escha areas

[wfoley]

And yes, it will really hurt a lot of players who put a lot of effort into their weapons. I was paying 200k per Beitetsu when they first introduced the unified Afterglow weapon. They're about 7k each now and that's okay. Everything gets easier over time. I paid 35k for HPB, often only being able to buy 1-2 at a time. And that too is okay. But what's not okay would be for someone else to come along and only need 1000 HPB compared to the 13,099 I needed at 20k (and falling) for an Idris. Can't lie, that'll hurt.

I'm sorry, but the "it was hard for me so it should be hard for other people too" doesn't hold. Wanting others to suffer because you suffered or "because it is the way it has always been done" are hurtful to a society as a whole. Wanting to keep a hard requirement because it serves a purpose is one thing, but wanting others to suffer because you did isn't the right mindset.

[wfoley]

The only disagreement I have with your manifesto is that Aeonics are technically not "free". There are pop items involved in the process, some of which are far from cheap. "Practically free compared to REM" might be a better way to put it. XD
:/

That's a fair point. I never built the pops with my LS so I honestly didn't consider them in the 'cost' for aeonics. Anyone who has made them, about what does an average aeonic run cost?

[detlef]

I'm sorry, but the "it was hard for me so it should be hard for other people too" doesn't hold. Wanting others to suffer because you suffered or "because it is the way it has always been done" are hurtful to a society as a whole. Wanting to keep a hard requirement because it serves a purpose is one thing, but wanting others to suffer because you did isn't the right mindset.

I said I don't mind things becoming easier for people over time. I literally said that I didn't have a problem with it twice in the part of my post that you quoted. What you're suggesting is far too extreme and would rightfully hurt players who have put the effort in.

And is that the only part of my post you're going to reply to? What about the other stuff I wrote? I think you're using a faulty baseline for Aeonics which is the basis for your entire argument. You need the following:
1) To surround yourself with a competent group of players who can tackle all WoC and the T4s;
2) To save up 200m or whatever the going rate is to merc an Aeonic; or
3) Make a SMN group and cheese it.

You're saying all legendary weapons should be able to be made in the same time frame as an Aeonic, but the estimate you're using for the Aeonic process really is the best-case scenario: 27 hours for a well-geared player with multiple useful raid jobs with strong player connections and a good play schedule.

I do agree with two things you said: Mythics should be stronger and the Ergon prereq process is excessive.

[wfoley]

Well, you said you don't mind it getting easier, then said it would hurt a lot of people's feelings. Why is a price drop due to new content adding the currency ok, but a cost drop due to decreased requirements? By your numbers, it was a 96% price drop as beitetsu supply increased...I suggest the same thing but on SEs side.

I can reply to the rest, I didn't see it as asking for a response before, but ok.
Sure Aeonics can take longer to make. So can farming to make gil for other weapons. I based my numbers off a group that goes slowly, but knows every fight. I know numerous people have quoted the time it takes them to merc a clear as 4 hours so 10 is well outside of the best of the best.
1. I concede this point at the beginning, admitting that it is a catch 22 saying you need to be geared in order to do it. A new player could easily fill 4 slots in our group and no one would notice as long as they do their job (sch making skill chains, whm, or 2 cors that buff only) so it isn't unreasonable to say that 10 hours for a new player to make a weapon.
2. I was basing it off making the weapon as a new player, not buying one.
3. A smn group cheesing it for fast wins is still a legitimate method to win if you want to do it that way. I based my estimates off what an average new player would do. Could they opt for smn burning all things? Sure. They could do shout groups, make their own, get their wins even faster than I suggested. That's why I felt my estimate was a reasonable middle ground.

I didn't just say they should all take the same time. I said if they are sidegrades they should, if one is supposed to be more powerful, then it is ok for it to take longer.