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

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Originally Posted by Camate/Matsui

[Camate] Matsui here...

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It's nice to hear a relatively quick update on this previously discouraging matter, thank you. I think I'll feel more comfortable visiting Vana'diel now. I hope you haven’t had any ulcers!

Some strong recommendations for you and your team summarized from the community. Please find this with good intentions:

Make sure R/M/E stay on top of all other weapons (and to be specific I mean base damage foremost). This is priority one. These items are a key legacy and the champions of FFXI, and should be until Vana'diel dies. This has been justified throughout the related R/M/E threads (and not just on this forum either). To sum a few popular rationales: most importantly they require the longest amount of time by far among any reward (cost). They also were always indicated to the players (by the FFXI team) be top tier, even after the game passed 75. Some players like the cool weapon model/art or the lore; others are after the unique effects these weapons offer. Many players posted ‘FFXI is not (insert other MMO title here)’, and that’s a good thing. There are too many reasons to list, but most R/M/E holders agree the first is I mentioned is enough alone.

Keep plans in place for future expansions to make priority one, stay priority one.

Make sure Empyrean, Coin [WoE], and Relic all gain the weapon skill unlock (in other words, not just the coin weapons).

Mythic owners (having already unlocked a weaponskill) should be considered to get an added perk, for example a merit-able option to enhance the Mythic WS (only if you obtained the weapon).

Do not introduce excessive additional ToM (such as killing 10,000 enemies). Any trial/quest should be reasonable and or none at all, there’s a lot of work put into R/M/E by the time they hit 95/99.

Consider giving owners of the 95 version of R/M/E a partial or complete damage increment, but not the added ATK/ACC (or in the case of the other jobs, +MACC,+MATK, etc) until 99.

Make sure the scale of weapons remains consistent among R/M/E. For example, you’re showing Burtgang with more damage than Excalibur (and I realize you were only showing those numbers as an example) but at 75 Excalibur was ahead, and then became even with Burtgang at 99. It would make most sense to at least keep them even for base damage (and yes I know Burtgang has more delay).

Know that these weapons are woven into the fabric of FFXI, and give you (Square Enix) a head start for new content: Dynamis, Abyssea, and ToAU are needed for these weapons, and open access to a lot of content opportunity for both these areas (such as making Sea II or Sky II) and for the weapons (special new upgrades or augments for R/M/E after SoA). This is more of a business reminder to help keep us players around longer: you have a ton of existing content that could be re-purposed into harder stuff.

Know that we love this game and that’s why we give this feedback :)


PS -I have many non-R/M/E fully upgraded ToM weapons completed (everything from 2-4 attack Greatsword to –PDT% sword). These took a lot of work, and it’d be sad to see them get replaced, but I don’t know if I’d trade one of my relics for 20 ToM weapons. Some gear get’s replaced, we're OK with that, just not R/M/E. I'm not saying trash standard ToM items either - because those are a great design option for casual players - just that there needs to be some priority.


--------- edit May 15,2013

Please also understand, that AH weapons are not a bad thing (a nice option for new players catching up with end content). They just should only ever be a close 2nd to R/M/E.

No. Epic Fail. I loved the new expansion, because it looked as though a clean sweep were coming, making everything pre-abyssea obsolete, including relics, mythics, and empyereans. Don't revamp them, that's old stuff. Tell all the people who cried and moaned and QQ'd over it to suck it up, they're done. It's a level 99 world. I liked the synergy augs and relic+2 armor and such at first, but then I realized that if you make everything upgradable to lvl 99 standards, there will be WAY TOO MUCH content, it's already way overwhelming. The majority of players aren't the same demographic they were 10 years ago, we don't have the time the kids have (kids by the way mostly don't play ffxi, its not in HD) to play all day, we have families and jobs. If you're going to do ANYTHING regarding relic,mythic,empyrean, give the existing relics to the jobs from toau, wotg, and soa, that don't get one, add new mythics for the new jobs that don't have one, and give runefencer and geomancer existing empyrean weapons.

This is the only MMO on the market where we still use gear from 8 years ago. The upgrades to the Zilart and Dynamis gear are cool, for nostalgia's sake, as it's the original endgame content from 10 years ago, but all the rest is just too much. Wipe the slate clean and start fresh. Sure some people will be pissed off that the weapons they spent years making aren't the best anymore, but who cares, they're still good for their special and hidden effects, its not all about base damage. And so what if the new weapons are better? They bloody should be! Cmon guys, out with the old and in with the new.

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Originally Posted by bobthetaru

This is the only MMO on the market where we still use gear from 8 years ago. The upgrades to the Zilart and Dynamis gear are cool, for nostalgia's sake, as it's the original endgame content from 10 years ago, but all the rest is just too much. Wipe the slate clean and start fresh. Sure some people will be pissed off that the weapons they spent years making aren't the best anymore, but who cares, they're still good for their special and hidden effects, its not all about base damage. And so what if the new weapons are better? They bloody should be! Cmon guys, out with the old and in with the new.

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You and most people have a misconception. Empy weapons are only as old as VW. So two years old at max. And they will make Aby and VW obsyete with unlocking on WoE and not a 99 Empy.

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Originally Posted by bobthetaru

This is the only MMO on the market where we still use gear from 8 years ago. The upgrades to the Zilart and Dynamis gear are cool, for nostalgia's sake, as it's the original endgame content from 10 years ago, but all the rest is just too much. Wipe the slate clean and start fresh. Sure some people will be pissed off that the weapons they spent years making aren't the best anymore, but who cares, they're still good for their special and hidden effects, its not all about base damage. And so what if the new weapons are better? They bloody should be! Cmon guys, out with the old and in with the new.

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That's part of the appeal for a lot of people. Shit in FFXI is not nearly as easy to get as it is in other MMOs, and never has been, and the devs have always understood that making players work their asses off for some small sidegrade and then the next time an update comes out, making it worthless, is not something that appeals to everyone. On top of that, FFXI's inventory system cannot possible support that kind of gameplay. The hell are we supposed to do with all of this old gear that we've spent years building up and making use of? Throw away our hard work and memories like their some cheap candy wrapper? Yea, no thanks. FFXI's gradual replacement of gear has always been a drawing point, and that they seem so set on just throwing that out the window really bothers a lot of us.

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Originally Posted by bobthetaru

This is the only MMO on the market where we still use gear from 8 years ago. The upgrades to the Zilart and Dynamis gear are cool, for nostalgia's sake, as it's the original endgame content from 10 years ago, but all the rest is just too much. Wipe the slate clean and start fresh. Sure some people will be pissed off that the weapons they spent years making aren't the best anymore, but who cares, they're still good for their special and hidden effects, its not all about base damage. And so what if the new weapons are better? They bloody should be! Cmon guys, out with the old and in with the new.

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Ah yes, and how many of those many many many mmos who followed such a pattern have died? The only one that manages to live is WoW and thats because it has the means to support that sort of system. FFXI is no where near that level and with SE constantly redlining I doubt they have the funds to do such a thing without constantly releasing boring content with tons of limitations (hi to you Skirmish). Also such a change may draw in a few new players but ultimately won't change it's current position on the market. Ever.

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Originally Posted by pretre

if only 99 empy weps getting a boost they may aswell erase abyssea cos it will kill it. why not give all stages of r/e/m weps a boost, I mean why make such a big part of the game pointless

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The road to a 99 still goes through Abyssea. Also Abyssea is still the go-to place for XP.

i think it's time SE loot again at the empyreans 90+ trials.
with Voidwatch dead, it is now impossible to get theses trials done.
so either :
-make the trials items rain there(instead of logs/ores) so if you even get a party, you'll at least progress instead of having 1% chance to have a single item
-make it drop somewhere else (and to keep it even with empy/relics, stuff that can mostly be soloed)
-and/or reduce the trials quantity items.

I havent read many other the other posts so forgive me if this repeats what has already been stated, but anyway.

The fact that weapons will have to be 99 is kinda upsetting, an upsetting number of people i know saying something to the effect of "If i have to get my RME to 99 for it to be considered for deserving to be on par with this new weapons i am quitting. The amount of effort put into then doesnt deserve a spit in the face like this" Its hard enough getting these weapons so them being so substantially outclassed by these new weapons unless they are 99 is on pace to offend many people.

However my main concern is the idea of making WoE weapons give full access to the Empyrean line of weapon skills to be unlocked for use by any weapon, why would anyone make an actual Empyrean weapon if they can simply unlock the WS via WoE weapon and then get one of the new content weapons and not have to get their empyrean through getting to 99 to be on the same level of damage. So if the unlock able versions are not watered down to a large degree many Empyrean owners will feel cheated, mythic weapons are still awesome because they are (or were) on par with the strongest weapons in the game and gave an increase to the mythic weapon skills. So even if you do give everyone fulltime access to empyrean weapon skills give them like 30 or maybe even 40% stat mods instead of 60% so empy owners will feel like atleast it was worth something



The idea of Challenge, Effort, Reward in the minds of people is not so that their reward will be belittled, the reason RME were considered the "Ultimate weapons" is because we worked hard for them and expected them to be the best on at least one of the best regardless of 85, 90, 95 or 99 we put in the effort when we thought the reward was worth the challenge, but if you give the reward to everyone and they can use stronger weapons with the same WS for less effort then what was our effort for then?

So in short my requests are this:
1:Consider making level 90 and on Weapons closer to on par with the new equipment and content

2:Please don't give full time access of Empyrean weapon skills via WoE weapons regardless of the difficulty planned for doing so as it will Belittle empy owners, unless the unlocked WSs are weakened without having the corresponding Empyrean/WoE weapon equipped

This is kind of a good idea if HMP becomes relatively common drops in Adoulin.