Certain quests causing irreversible damage when completed

[Edyth]

Dear Square-Enix,

Currently, there are six quests that, when completed, punish the player permanently, in a way that can never be undone on that character. They are booby traps, but the only metaphorical "boobies" caught in these "trap" quests are ambitious new players who have not yet made enough good friends in FFXI to have someone deter them from making an irreversible mistake (or six) that will forever punish their FFXI character.
I'm talking about the quests:

Trial-size Trial by Earth
Trial-size Trial by Fire
Trial-size Trial by Ice
Trial-size Trial by Lightning
Trial-size Trial by Water
Trial-size Trial by Wind

When a player completes any of these quests, they receive the avatar of the element respective to the quest's name. These quests were designed to give new players a chance to obtain their avatars early without the help of others, I'm certain. However, what these quests truly grant is an irreversible revocation of a valuable transportation device for Summoners: the "mini-fork warp". This allows players whose current job is Summoner to trade an item to an NPC in order to instantly transport to a Cloister battlefield. If the quests are completed however, that Cloister teleportation is forever lost, and the player's "reward" is an avatar that they could've gotten through a much easier method.

It is far easier for a low-level player to simply have a high-level friend defeat the uncapped versions of the avatars for them. Players fortunate enough to have such good friends do the battles for them are not punished. But lonely players without friends to deter them from the booby traps worked hard to complete six very difficult solo battles with no one except Carbuncle to help them. And now, some of them, years later, look back and groan at their young, foolish, brave, incredibly tough selves, and how they took the hardest path possible, and now are forever left out of the loop as their buddies teleport straight to the Cloister of Flames from Kazham, and they, the ones who became seasoned avatar annihilators at some of the earliest levels of their summoner pilgrimages, have to walk through the jungle and a volcano while everyone else waits. This is especially troublesome for alliances attempting the quest "Waking the Beast".

I am aware that this isn't truly a glitch, but the punishments for completing this quest are currently irreversible and damaging to players. It's extremely rare in FFXI for something to be permanently ruined for your character, even through the game's glitches, and those few things, like dropping the Evoker's Ring, for example, are usually the player's fault. But these "Trial-size" booby traps punish new players who rose up to an incredible challenge and conquered it.

Is there any chance that the reward for never completing these six quests (instant teleportation to the six cloisters) could be extended to players who have completed them as well? Currently, the quests' rewards are more like punishments, considering the avatars can be obtained from far easier quests, and without losing these valuable transportation NPCs.

Regards,
Edyth of Quetzalcoatl
Paragon of Summoner Excellence,
Interrupter of Dreams,
Rainbow Weaver,
and
Heir of the New Moon, the Blessed Radiance, the Blighted Gloom, the Realm of Dreams,
and the Great Fire, Water, Earth, Wind, and Lightning.

[Baccanale]

Greetings, Edyth!
Thank you for posting your concerns about the Trial-size Trials. I understand how tough it can be to get through these quests, so I will make sure to move this thread from "In-Game Bugs" to "Missions & Quests," so that your comments can be properly viewed in the correct forum. Thanks again for your participation!

[Chronofantasy]

Hey Edyth~ I know you from Quetz. ^^ Yes, that would seem like a pain for the summoners who already completed them and I know one of my friends from a long time ago completed them when summoner was his first main. This was back in the day when the game world felt so real to us that I would pretend to be the guardian for his female character's summoner.

I am fortunate that I didn't lvl SMN until a few years later so I already obtained all the avatars through prime fights and I still have these quests remaining which I purposely saved for last. Now that I have Waking of the Beast completed (which those quests came in handy to warp to the avatar crystals fast) I think I got everything I needed out of the prime fights and any other fights based in those cloisters that I will soon face the solo SMN fights to complete the quests since I'm a quest junky.

I still hope SE will fix this though in case I ever need to go to those cloisters in the future for anything and also to help out other players that need them.

[Satyr]

I didn't even know you could get around this way. Honestly though travel has never been easier in this game. Saying that losing out on a form of SMN only travel that many people probably don't even know about or use is irreversible damabe and player punishment is a little extreme don't you think? The way you were describing it sounded like you were about to say that the millioncorn quests permanently prevents outpost warping. /shrug

[Sonshou]

While it does cause inconvinence to some, this is what it intended to be. It is the players find a way to go around things, like the invention of ninja blink tanking.

As much as I agree that completing those quest give you more inconvinence, I do not think anything should be done about it.

But I would love to see a new reward from defeating a prime avatar.... to teleport to the Cloister with ease. Full Moon Fountain and the battle area for diabolos included.

[Nepharite]

In before they remove the instant tele part of the quest.

[Malamasala]

I don't think they intend on forcing level 20 summoners to walk through temple of ugglepih. Though you could grab those carby mitts on the way!

Though it is actually an abuse of game mechanics, so if SE ever felt like it, they could ban people for using it. Not that I expect them to care about summoners warping around.

[RhysTheExiled]

tbh my opinion of this being "punishment" is retarded. first off those quests were meant to obtain avatars to a low level smn. lazy summoners are prolly because theywouldnt be able to warp to a cloister. (boo who) it wasnt meant as a way to cheat and warp places unintended. get there the way u should like everyone else.
"and thats all i have to say about that"-forrest gump

[HFX7686]

This isn't really a punishment.

[Alhanelem]

You are not being "punished" for completing those quests. They were not originally intended to be used by someone not intending to complete those quests. It's just a side effect / abused bonus. The quests should be changed so that clearing either quest ends the teleport capability.

The only reason that teleport exists is so that a level 20 summoner doesn't have to walk through areas full of level 70+ mobs.

[Kaych]

This topic has been talked about countless of times. I have even talked to a GM about it. He said that "Those quests are function proparly". In light of Horst in Port Jeuno whom has made it very easy to teleport around the place, I think these Trial quests should get a "update" and make it possible to teleport to the trials also. I remember that I enjoyed killing these Avatars over and over, but after a while I got sick of walking all the way to these places...

If they are scared of people abusing this method only for a quick teleport to Altep, Fei Yin etc, then they could implement a "Temp Item" that will dissappear in 5 minutes if you dont enter the trial. When it dissappears you get warped back to the NPC. That should be fair I think :)

[Orenwald]

I liked this just so I could Unlike this. Half the fun of the game is enjoying the JOURNEY. Warping there for free takes that away. I can understand having the abyssea warper because if you're headed to a group in progress then it helps to expedite your travels. . . but for a non-timed event you should just walk and enjoy the trip like god and that Asian kid who programed the game intended

[Daniel_Hatcher]

Better yet, break 'em automatically if the player has that summon already. Lazy people!

[Andevom]

You're not being "punished" by having the method used to warp you to the avatar battle taken away from you. You wanted to fight the avatar as a Lv. 20 SMN, freely made that decision instead of fighting the uncapped versions with a group, and because the quest is over, you lose the key item, just as you do in many other quests. If you don't like that you lose the fork, don't do the Trial Size avatar fights. I know this is kind of a cliched answer, but...it's true.

If you're helping out friends, I don't see what's wrong with spending a little time getting to the prime fight location with them. I don't know, I guess some people are very impatient. Personally, I think waiting on someone to get to the crystal is the perfect time for a drink/bathroom break!

[Cabalabob]

i disagree with all of you saying this isn't a punishment, and i dont think smns who dont want to have to walk to these quests are lazy.

if you want to do the prime fights you have to build up level 7 fame in a certain area and this takes a lot of time and effort especially with some like leviathan and norg fame. if you want to do the mini fights this doesnt require as much fame but it requires just as much effort if not more, first you have to buy all the items for the fight then you have to do the fight which you will probably have to do multiple times if you're unlucky or unprepared.

going through all this trouble of fame or farming you can hardly turn around to them and say "you don't want to walk to the proto-crystal? you just want your avatar? why you lazy *******!"

whichever path you chose mini or prime it's hard work and the only differnece in the end result is one loses the ability to warp to the crystals and one doesn't. And i consider that to be a punishment no matter how you look at it

[Nepharite]

i disagree with all of you saying this isn't a punishment, and i dont think smns who dont want to have to walk to these quests are lazy.

if you want to do the prime fights you have to build up level 7 fame in a certain area and this takes a lot of time and effort especially with some like leviathan and norg fame. if you want to do the mini fights this doesnt require as much fame but it requires just as much effort if not more, first you have to buy all the items for the fight then you have to do the fight which you will probably have to do multiple times if you're unlucky or unprepared.

going through all this trouble of fame or farming you can hardly turn around to them and say "you don't want to walk to the proto-crystal? you just want your avatar? why you lazy *******!"

whichever path you chose mini or prime it's hard work and the only differnece in the end result is one loses the ability to warp to the crystals and one doesn't. And i consider that to be a punishment no matter how you look at it


It wasn't designed to be used that way to begin with. Your lucky they don't change it, in fact the more its talked about the more of a chance it'll be removed as a fast warp.

Building fame isn't hard, quit acting like it is. Norg is probably the most annoying fame to build up, but everyone builds norg fame for utsusemi anyways.

[Cabalabob]

it's been 7 years...I'm fairly confident SE won't suddenly say "no more!" at this point, and it should be re-designed so that it does work that way if every time a new smn came up 2 me asking 2 help with ther prime garuda i had to then walk to rabao then walk to gustav tunnel then walk BACK to rabao because i culdnt do tht walk while /blm (i assume its still tht way havent done them since 75) all for a mere 10k reward i'd say screw the new smn's they can fend for themselves.

Sure about Orenwald's point that you should enjoy the journey, but yeah...after the 10000th time ive had to walk through the boyhada tree the journey isn't quite as fun.... I'd much prefer to be able to warp there again, ive got the ability to warp to all my cloisters except ramuh and levithan yet at some point or another i've walked to all of them for some reason, so even with the warps the journey still has to get done at some point.

And fame isn't that hard... you're right it's not.... i mean it's not like every other (non-blue) mage can take all of 10 seconds to walk into a shop and buy their basic spells without any fame requirements being met beforehand.

[Eiyoko]

So, basically you're upset because when you complete the quest properly, you can't exploit the instant warp to the cloister anymore? The whole point of the NPC warping you there is so you can get there without running through high-level monsters...and let's keep in mind that this quest was meant for low-level summoners who need to fight their avatars, not lazy high-level ones that want to get to the cloister RIGHT @#$%ING NOW for whatever reason. Level 20 SMN gets their avatar, why would they NEED to go back there unless they intend to leech off of a group doing the full avatar or waking the beast?

This isn't punishment or irreversible damage. If you're that worried about warping to the cloister and exploiting that function of the quest, then just don't complete it ever. "Problem" solved.

[Malamasala]

Anyone who can't see that this is just another of SE's major failures regarding Summoners are just lost cases.

They made you unable to teleport again after doing level 20 battles to prevent you from getting a free teleport, and people exploited this by not doing them. There is no reason people who did level 20 avatar battles shouldn't be able to teleport, that doesn't at the same time mean people who didn't do them shouldn't be able to teleport and enter the level 60 fields or exit the cloister.

Ironically if they did fix this exploit so every Summoner can teleport when they want, they'd increase the content available to players and make old content and old zones more populated... But why would SE want us to leave Abyssea?

[Forevergogo]

I think it would be fair to allow players who have chosen the avatar reward or completed the level 20 fight to be allowed the warp to the cloister. One of the biggest conveniences in the game of late has been all these npcs available to warp you around for a fee, why can't we have ways of unlocking that gift to less-used areas, such as the cloisters or the burning circles?
It sure might get more people to help obtain avatars for fellow players. And get some of those rewards themselves.

[Retsujo]

You know... they only implemented those avatar battles as a means for lower level SMNs to get their avatars early enough to have fun with the job early on. The original higher-level battles used to be the only way to get the avatars.

To this day, I'm still amazed they allowed Summoners to insta-port to the cloister for these quests. You should feel lucky you were even able to exploit the feature more than once. Most other insta-port quest events (Maat fights, for instance) only happened once.