Upgrading AF (lvl40) weapons

[Raydeus]

Has the dev team ever considered giving us the chance to upgrade our AF weapons so they become usable again?

I'm thinking more about a series of quests that continued the story for each job after lvl 60, so the weapons wouldn't need to be stronger than the current high level ones, Eminent level would be more than enough.

For me it would be more about having a new series of quests and being able to not only use AF weapons again but also having a storyline behind them. Since lately all the new weapons added have no interesting quests or cutscenes. Just a grind that personally I'm in no way interested in.

[Marada]

The road block I'm gonna hit you with will have to be the jobs where their AF weapon wasn't really a weapon (i.e. PUP, DNC, SCH I believe). I'm not sure of the states on the Divinator yet, since I haven't tried to get it, but they would have to scale the Eminent down order for the PUP af "weapon" to be stronger than the Eminent but weaker than the Divinator, if the scale from alternator>Eminent>Divinator are proportional

[Raydeus]

The reward item doesn't need to be exactly the same type as the original AF weapon/item though.

It just needs to be useful at ilvl117 and have good story and quests behind it.

[Malithar]

So you want a weaker JSE weapon than what was just offered, that rather than costing gil and content progression, is just an extension of the storylines from the AF quests?

I'm all for job quests and storylines, but realistically, development time wise, and the rewards suggested, make it sound like a pretty meh idea. Job specific stories should be reserved for the next set of AF, or RME quality weapons, to make them worth the development investment, rather than a quest that many prolly wouldn't touch since the reward is of a weaker quality than what is offered from...Skirmish v3, Delve bosses, Delve v2 plasm weapons, AAs and other revamped battlefields, and RMEs.

[Zarchery]

Again? When were the AF weapons ever good? I threw my Beat Cesti into storage minutes after getting it back in 2005.

[Lithera]

Some of them were good for the level you got them at and only one is still used, but that's only because it's a spell.

[Raydeus]

The new JSE weapons were a missed opportunity indeed, but as long as it continued the job lore and had a good storyline and quests the rewards could even be new abilities or weapon skills or something else job specific.

Heck, the new 1 hr abilities were yet another missed opportunity to give us more Job related quests.

Really the only reason I want this is because of how much XI has turned to grinds without story in recent years. Take Relics for instance, once upon a time they had a story behind them when you obtained them... but then to acquire the higher level versions of them you had zero story or quests and only had a huge grind with some generic text (Kupo!)

It may be a budget issue or simply that they only want to appeal to players who only value the grind/reward and care not for the story. But that is not the kind of game I want XI to be.

I can understand making the game more accessible and more convenient, but not moving away from the strong story and quests that make XI what it is at it's core only to replace it with mindless and storyless grinds.

[Marada]

I like the way you think, unfortunately in MMO's now, it's all about the grind and getting the shiniest pair of pants in a dungeon crawl that. Who has the shiniest pants, is he who owns the bragging rights to a virtual world......

[Raydeus]

I like the way you think, unfortunately in MMO's now, it's all about the grind and getting the shiniest pair of pants in a dungeon crawl that. Who has the shiniest pants, is he who owns the bragging rights to a virtual world......

It's sad but true.

Personally I've never had the slightest interest in acquiring gear to brag about it, but you can bet I'll hoard old gear just for the memories alone. I remember how good I felt when I got the Nation flags or my Promise badge. Having those missions/quests gave so much more value to the items than if they had been just the reward of some generic grind.

[Louispv]

I'd settle for being able to replace the 2 crafted weapons in the JSE weapon requirements with your AF weapon. You had to re-get your AF weapon anyway since everyone tossed and then had to re-get their AF armor to reforge.

[Mirage]

It is, as someone's already said, really a missed opportunity. These AF weapon upgrade quests *could* have been implemented long before lv119 weapon started to really proliferate, and perhaps be a lv117 weapon which was a bit stronger than the current sparks weapons are, or perhaps even a lv118 weapon to fill that gap.

[Marada]

It's sad but true.

Personally I've never had the slightest interest in acquiring gear to brag about it, but you can bet I'll hoard old gear just for the memories alone. I remember how good I felt when I got the Nation flags or my Promise badge. Having those missions/quests gave so much more value to the items than if they had been just the reward of some generic grind.

I remember getting all my PUP gear, from frames to armor, the animator.....I tried to imagine that I was really accepting these things like I was living in that world. Which was a minor point to RPGs, to try and make it as you were the one going through it, with all your choices. MMO's just put that on a wider scale, now it's starting to look more like our world with how much people want the newest thing and to have more money than anyone else. Friendship and Community values aren't completely there anymore since everything can be done on your own too,

[Kaiichi]

The only ones I can ever remember using, where BLU, PUP, DNC, and SCH. I can't say I used any of the others. Hey and speaking of witch, did you all ever notice that the Icon for the Paper Knife wasn't the same as it's model?