Elemental Trials - Fire/Light

I wouldn't be against the MMM option, but the system itself will need some pretty gross overhauls to be new user friendly again. Otherwise, most will basically be at the mercy of someone who decides to maybe put up a fire manticore map at Duplidoc. Nevermind repeating this process for all the fire/light/etc. kills of difficulty/forced syncing.

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Originally Posted by Bhujerba

what ppl are asking is for rarer weathers to be at least in line with other common ones (maybe not as common as lolwind), this will make them more balanced across all trials, and if they cannot for some reason increase the rate of these rare weathers, then they can always reduce number of kill/proc, to balance them out.

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I think the problem is that people, for some reason, expect every elemental weapon path to be as easy as the wind weapons, and it just doesn't work that way.

Real Life doesn't work that way. All tasks are not equal. Nor will they be. Ever.

Weapons on the Fire and Light paths just take longer, that's all. Lightsday still exists. Firesday still exists. There's no mass Rapture of mobs on each and every Firesday and Lightsday. I believe that too many players lack the foresight to understand and plan for these inconvenient trial paths.

It's just not possible for responsible players to catch every single Firesday or Lightsday to work on trials. Real Life responsibilities and in-game activities make it impossible. And that's OK. With preparation and patience, it's so easy to complete these weapons in time. However, many trials simply do not cater to the "OMG OMG OMG I SHOULD HAVE IT NOOOOOOOOOOOOWZ THIS IS BULLCRAP IT TAKES TOO LONG" kind of person. Hell, I'd imagine the real world frustrates the hell out of these kinds of people as well.

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Real Life doesn't work that way. All tasks are not equal. Nor will they be. Ever.

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except this is not real life, its a game, yes believe it or not Vana'diel is actually created by SE and they can control weather too! and can make them very equal!
no one said they wanted to be easy (I've done fire trials) but more in line with other trials, meaning that they need to take into account weather rarity when building elemental trials, I don't think they planned ToM to have HARDCORE weathers and casual weathers...the number of kill/proc/etc objectives is where the difficulty is supposed to be.

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Originally Posted by Bhujerba

except this is not real life, its a game, yes believe it or not Vana'diel is actually created by SE and they can control weather too! and can make them very equal!
no one said they wanted to be easy (I've done fire trials) but more in line with other trials, meaning that they need to take into account weather rarity when building elemental trials, I don't think they planned ToM to have HARDCORE weathers and casual weathers...the number of kill/proc/etc objectives is where the difficulty is supposed to be.

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This was exactly the purpose of my original post.

It's easy to see that SE didn't take into account the rarity of fire/light weather when creating TOTM. While the other elements outside Dark weather all occur with about the same frequency somewhere in Vana'diel, it shouldn't be any different with Fire/Light based trials.

Simply bringing these two elements into line with the other elements would balance TOTM. I can go out and do an ice-path weapon within a day without much issue and even the more annoying water/earth trials can be done around their weathers without problems. So why should fire/light be this epic grind where you must use the day instead of the weather?

The MMM idea is pretty good given the system went obsolete thanks to Abyssea and the one-day limit would force some team cooperation.

If it's the flan trial you're so worried about, try Licorice. My LS mate claimed they're pretty squishy to melee (unlike their Mount Zhayolm counterparts). Also, the majority of monsters needed for trials can be found in Abyssea -- Atmas make trials so much faster!

As long as there is a weather/day trial, I don't feel people have the right to complain. Days are guaranteed to come and easy to pinpoint when they'll occur next. Usually such trials will only take a Vana'diel day or two.

Now trials that require weather and only weather, yes, I think those are unfair and could use some adjustments. :/

Light weather is very common in qufim island don't know what TC is talking about.

I think they did take into account of the rarity. 9 str 20 attack on a weapon is alot and cure pot is also the highest you can get in one slot. They also went (atleast with the polearm) and lowered its delay to mess up X-hit. With weather kills counting for 5 now the hardest part of all the trials have be reduced.

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Originally Posted by Ravenmore

I think they did take into account of the rarity. 9 str 20 attack on a weapon is alot and cure pot is also the highest you can get in one slot.

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9AGI and 20EVA are powerful enchantments also (especially dual wieldable ones). Even if EVA weapons were only worth half as much as the STR weapons should the STR weapons take 5x longer (or 6 or w/e the math is)?

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Originally Posted by Ravenmore

With weather kills counting for 5 now the hardest part of all the trials have be reduced.

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Except fire trials.

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Except fire trials

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the ONLY time you NEED kills in weather for those trials are at the start, and it is either 8 or 4 elements you have to look for, and at least half of all the trials are on the same footing there. The rest of the time for STR/ATT, you can just slaughter them on the appropriate day. Try comparing the STR/ATT line to all the other kills in that element--kill with specific element, kill with particular elemental status in effect on the target, kill with pet only, kill only with a specific pet. Meanwhile, for STR/ATT, all you have to do is kill them on the appropriate day for ALL but the first two trials (again, the same trials for the other 3 elements in the light chain formula). If fire wather happens to be up, you get an extra 5 kill credits--you DON'T get this on the later stages of the other paths, as they don't have a day/weather component, so they have NO WAY to shorten the kill count (ie, 250 kills per stage is going to be 250 kills no matter how you do it--and often times you are soloing or low-manning it because others on straight melee kills don't want to back off on the kill so you can get your criteria met and would rather just run around raping a camp instead).

It is no harder than any other trial when you have to resort to the same method. Case inpoint--the AGL/EVA can at times take JUST AS LONG OR LONGER if you have to resort to killing on day and not weather (ie, DIREMITES STAGES).

Length of time spent is NOT equivalent to difficulty btw....you are killing EP and DC mobs for heaven's sake. Once I got past my bomb kills for H2H on MNK, had it finished in like 2 days I think--SOLO. SAM, was maybe 3 after I got my weather only kills on Opo Opo's in Ifrit's (again, SOLO). These are in no way difficult to do, just take some time. They already greatly reduced the kill counts on these things to reduce the time frame.

hate to pull this to front from 3 pages back, but thought I'd put this out there just in case some are having trouble finding light weather still.

Just had light weather in Delfukt on firesday (1/17 in game calendar)--was on monsters in light day/weather for a staff.
Magian specs listed it as coming up on Watersday and Windsday too (1/19 and 1/20 on calendar). Enough time to run to Jueno to get bonked on the head and come back for Arcana Killer with weather up.

The weathers all run in cycles according to the Vana'diel seasons is all. I myself am currently waiting for this coming Weds/Thurs for the coming summer months and more frequent fire weather so that I can get to work on my STR dagger. All it takes is a little planning and calculations and you can set aside the right time for you to get your weather/day of choice. Just because the system is time consuming doesn't mean its broken. The whole game is designed to be needlessly excessive. Would I like more frequent weather, sure. But I'm not going to hold my breath on the matter.

Would you rather SE revert the change so that weather kills count as 1 again? That way it's more fair? Then you can't bitch about people suggesting you do the trials on firesday instead of fire weather.

The fire element weapons are generally better than any of the other weapons, why shouldn't they be more difficult?

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Just had light weather in Delfukt on firesday (1/17 in game calendar)--was on monsters in light day/weather for a staff.
Magian specs listed it as coming up on Watersday and Windsday too (1/19 and 1/20 on calendar). Enough time to run to Jueno to get bonked on the head and come back for Arcana Killer with weather up.

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Congrats, you were in the right place at the right time for about 3 hours of the 8760 in a year. Now, what about the other guy who had to sleep, be at work, take care of his family, or otherwise not be near the game? He could just as easily go 8757 hours and not see the same forecast.

8760 hours? That's a little off, and a bit extreme. (Game year is right at 8500 hours iirc). As finalrune just stated...it's cyclical. It's actually just over an 86 hour cycle (window should pop once every 3.6 days)--4 Windows roughly every 2 weeks.

Auroras/Stellar Glare become most prominent roughly every 3 months on a cycle, just like the real life auroras in Alaska (most prominent around the equinoxes). The timing may be off from real life, not sure (one peak is December in RL, I just spotted it in the middle of Jan, but it may have been coming off the peak)--but the pattern is similar.

Once you spot when it is taking place, you can plan for it. Having it pop regularly once every 90 or so game days is hardly hard to shoot for if you have access to some sort of vanadiel calendar app--there are tons of them on the web.

And arguably one should not be forced to look up third-party sites to do something, let alone make a plan they can't even be sure they'll be able to follow. Planning your life around a video game is not A Good Thing(tm). Certain weather just needs to be more common, that's it.

Do all of the Light trial targets spawn in Delkfutt?

Edit: Guess I should include Tu'Lia in here as well since Light pops there also.

It may work for general kill-alls and arcana, but others like MNK hands can ask for vermin, aquans, hpmedes, and so on. I'm sure someone will pipe up with, "Why would anyone ever make those?!" when, frankly, that's none of their concern.

I dunno if anyone suggested this already regarding light weather kills but the best place to get them is doing Nyzul Isle run since light weather is always up there and tons of mobs. Unless you need to kill a specific type of mob then you're screwed and doomed to wait for the weather to pop up

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Originally Posted by Seriha

And arguably one should not be forced to look up third-party sites to do something, let alone make a plan they can't even be sure they'll be able to follow. Planning your life around a video game is not A Good Thing(tm). Certain weather just needs to be more common, that's it.

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make mountains out of mole hills much?

No one is required to use third party tools--it can all be done by simple math. 1 Game day is 57:36 real time, 25 game days to 1 RL day. 30 game days=1 game month, 12 game months = 1 game year (360 game days in a game year).

If you log in, pull up current time (via menu or /clock command) and see it is around the first of March, and you want to hit seasonal weather known to be common starting in July, then you have around 4 game months till that time frame: (30 X 4)/25=4.8 RL days. So, 4 days later, you log in and check current time and adjust accordingly. You see it is 15-24 game days till it hits July, so you know your window is opening within the next 24 hours and you start checking for it. It's not exactly rocket science. It's just that having the calender apps or online calendars make it easier to look it up without crunching the numbers.

As for the question if the targets pop in areas with light weather--that is a moot point. Only certain areas with certain mobs get auroras/glare--changing the frequency of the weather is not going to make trials with other targets any easier to do, they would still have to do it via day kills only.

And that brings up antoher point--I have yet to see any trial that REQUIRES light weather to be present to complete it--they are DAY/WEATHER trials. The only trials restricted to weather only have at LEAST 4 weather types you can use, and have had their kill count reduced drasticly to make them easier to do. As has been stated before, in some cases you actually do better by teaming up and killing on the specific day regardless of weather. I have duoed and tripled 150 kill trials in just one or two day cycles in abyssea. Did a 250 crab via pet kill on the day in Grauberg (A) as a duo in just 4 game day cycles, may have been only 3 but we didn't catch the full day on some of them and only got about 60 kills in.

Again, weather is not REQUIRED to do these trials...all it does is make them easier than they already are--you can put them off and wait for the weather, or you can just head on out and do them by the day only. Time spent is not a factor of difficulty, it is just a matter of time until they are completed. The diffrerent requirements of take down an NM multiple times versus killing 300 EP members of the Beast family in Ice day/weather---THAT is a difference in difficulty, not the difference between if it is done with matching day or matching weather.

Actually, it's SE's official stand point to refer players to community sites for any issue in game that's not directly the fault of a bug or technical mishap. I've had numerous GMs specifically tell me to visit community sites for information about the game.

Don't limit this to Fire/Light, there are a few trials that are a pain (phys down great axe with wyverns in earth weather comes to mind) I can't get past this solo, I keep dying soloing the only wyverns with earth weather (Gustav Tunnel) I really think the solution could be a buff to MMM, a low me to set up an MMM for earth weather and the wyverns, solo that would be 12 wyverns in 24hrs (60 to 72 points) out of 200 points, it is by no means over a omg wtf too power buff, it'd just make the life of the people who end up soloing easier... Also bare in mind, I can get over 400 points doing colibri under wind in one wind day if the weather is up there, THAT IS UNBALANCED (but don't change it)

I recall doing the bow trial on flans at 75 on rng.... i had to solo on birds to get my lv back and i teamed up with a couple people on other trials team up... after 3 months... that was a long time >.>

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Originally Posted by Juilan

Don't limit this to Fire/Light, there are a few trials that are a pain (phys down great axe with wyverns in earth weather comes to mind) I can't get past this solo, I keep dying soloing the only wyverns with earth weather (Gustav Tunnel) I really think the solution could be a buff to MMM, a low me to set up an MMM for earth weather and the wyverns, solo that would be 12 wyverns in 24hrs (60 to 72 points) out of 200 points, it is by no means over a omg wtf too power buff, it'd just make the life of the people who end up soloing easier... Also bare in mind, I can get over 400 points doing colibri under wind in one wind day if the weather is up there, THAT IS UNBALANCED (but don't change it)

I recall doing the bow trial on flans at 75 on rng.... i had to solo on birds to get my lv back and i teamed up with a couple people on other trials team up... after 3 months... that was a long time >.>

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This is an example of the problem...people are focusing too much on the weather bonus and burning up time sitting around waiting for weather, when they could just knock them out on the days.

The problem is not so much the way weather works, but more the way people are trying to complete them--in some cases, just making it drag out longer than it needs to (or putting themselves at greater risk trying to get the weather).

Look at my recent any mobs and Arcana killer lists in light day/weather. I can kill at least 25 EP targets with avatars on a single lightsday. I just noticed it was January in the calendar, so I hit the OP warp to check the forecast, and bam it was there--so I did my 50 Any Monster kill points in weather. I could have just as easily done it across two lightsdays if I wasn't able to snake 50 kills in uly range or something--but light was up, I had my key, so ran upstairs and knocked them out. Wasn't able to get the full 50 arcana kill points for next trial during the next light cycle--stupid bat aggro's slowed things down, so I hit arcana in gruaberg to finish them when the day came around later--and got a SAM Body seal and some skillups as well (win-win).

I had to do Wyverns too...250 of them for an ice staff. I did them in Riverne--level 60-ish targets. Fast kills. Granted, they are a bit spread out, but you run them on a loop and by the time you get back to the start, they are repopping. NO WEATHER KILLS. That's 250 kills, one at a time, on ice day--only took a few days to do it...SOLO--and this was before all the level caps were lifted--might have been 80 at the time, forget exactly. Still, was an easy trial, just took some time. Typhoons in Gustav are higher level (80-ish) and have half as many repopswith a longer repop timer if I remember right. It would still take a fair amount of time in Riverne, but you would be killing easy mobs with no fear of death like you are dealing with currently in Gustav (might even find it goes faster in the long run, if you are having to stop so much). Alternatively...again... you could have gone into abyssea with a group--only a handful of pops there, but I think they are also on a faster timer than Gustav.

As for Flans....again, if it's a team up situation, you may have been better of to go to highlands aby and just rip them up there on the day. No waiting for the summer months to get fire weather and timing it with a group--just get your group and say "meet at maw for firesday" and go on a killing spree as many times as you need. Even if it's only one game day per day that you get to work on it, it will only take a few days--versus waiting maybe a week to catch the weather cycles. That's not just speculation--I've seen it in action: 4 days of doing Glen crabs one darksday cycle each day for a 250 crabs via pet kill in dark day/weather for a friend who could only get on for a few hours each night. Did it via abyssea targets--pretty much killing on the day was the way to do it as it was Dark element. Could have done it faster in kuftal, but we wanted the skill ups, chance for seals, as well as the LP and cruor yields (more win-win for us).

Doing the Flans on the day in aby is likely far better than trying to camp the weather in Halvung also--they are fairly close together and on a fast repop, and really easy kills with aby buffs. You have 3 known windows EVERY day where you can plan to team up and knock them out. Even in just a small group, they are a piece of cake if you have someone to nuke or a pet job to eat them up. Heck, even soloing them on WAR/DNC is pretty easy at level 90.

It would seem the problem may be less with the system and more with the players.

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Originally Posted by RAIST

This is an example of the problem...people are focusing too much on the weather bonus and burning up time sitting around waiting for weather, when they could just knock them out on the days.

The problem is not so much the way weather works, but more the way people are trying to complete them--in some cases, just making it drag out longer than it needs to (or putting themselves at greater risk trying to get the weather).

Look at my recent any mobs and Arcana killer lists in light day/weather. I can kill at least 25 EP targets with avatars on a single lightsday. I just noticed it was January in the calendar, so I hit the OP warp to check the forecast, and bam it was there--so I did my 50 Any Monster kill points in weather. I could have just as easily done it across two lightsdays if I wasn't able to snake 50 kills in uly range or something--but light was up, I had my key, so ran upstairs and knocked them out. Wasn't able to get the full 50 arcana kill points for next trial during the next light cycle--stupid bat aggro's slowed things down, so I hit arcana in gruaberg to finish them when the day came around later--and got a SAM Body seal and some skillups as well (win-win).

I had to do Wyverns too...250 of them for an ice staff. I did them in Riverne--level 60-ish targets. Fast kills. Granted, they are a bit spread out, but you run them on a loop and by the time you get back to the start, they are repopping. NO WEATHER KILLS. That's 250 kills, one at a time, on ice day--only took a few days to do it...SOLO--and this was before all the level caps were lifted--might have been 80 at the time, forget exactly. Still, was an easy trial, just took some time. Typhoons in Gustav are higher level (80-ish) and have half as many repopswith a longer repop timer if I remember right. It would still take a fair amount of time in Riverne, but you would be killing easy mobs with no fear of death like you are dealing with currently in Gustav (might even find it goes faster in the long run, if you are having to stop so much). Alternatively...again... you could have gone into abyssea with a group--only a handful of pops there, but I think they are also on a faster timer than Gustav.

As for Flans....again, if it's a team up situation, you may have been better of to go to highlands aby and just rip them up there on the day. No waiting for the summer months to get fire weather and timing it with a group--just get your group and say "meet at maw for firesday" and go on a killing spree as many times as you need. Even if it's only one game day per day that you get to work on it, it will only take a few days--versus waiting maybe a week to catch the weather cycles. That's not just speculation--I've seen it in action: 4 days of doing Glen crabs one darksday cycle each day for a 250 crabs via pet kill in dark day/weather for a friend who could only get on for a few hours each night. Did it via abyssea targets--pretty much killing on the day was the way to do it as it was Dark element. Could have done it faster in kuftal, but we wanted the skill ups, chance for seals, as well as the LP and cruor yields (more win-win for us).

Doing the Flans on the day in aby is likely far better than trying to camp the weather in Halvung also--they are fairly close together and on a fast repop, and really easy kills with aby buffs. You have 3 known windows EVERY day where you can plan to team up and knock them out. Even in just a small group, they are a piece of cake if you have someone to nuke or a pet job to eat them up. Heck, even soloing them on WAR/DNC is pretty easy at level 90.

It would seem the problem may be less with the system and more with the players.

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I think you're missing the point. The point isn't that the trials, in and of themselves, are hard, but that some are a bit more difficult than others. Weather is a good point here. Wouldn't you agree that require blizzard weather/ice day are easier than those that require light weather/light day? That those that require wind weather/wind day are generally easier than those that require fire weather/fire day?

This is the whole point of this post. Are the trials impossible? Of course not, and no one's making that assertion. There is a bit of an imbalance, though, in that there are certain trials that are a bit more difficult, and require more effort. It is this imbalance that some of us feel that Square should be addressing.

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Originally Posted by Nacht

Would you rather SE revert the change so that weather kills count as 1 again? That way it's more fair? Then you can't bitch about people suggesting you do the trials on firesday instead of fire weather.

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No.

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Originally Posted by RAIST

This is an example of the problem...people are focusing too much on the weather bonus and burning up time sitting around waiting for weather, when they could just knock them out on the days.

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Three weeks.
Every day.
After work.
Still not finished.

The reason SE made weather count for 5 kills is because everyone realized how ridiculous it is to kill 200+ mobs in a single game day. (or given your example of 25 kills/day EIGHT FREAKING GAME DAYS on a job like SMN which has a good bit of soloing capability)

If you think STR weapons are soooo much better than the other weapons that they should take 5 times longer then say so.

Elemental paths are by no means DIFFICULT in any way, shape, or form--they are simply time consuming. All the weather bonus does is make them go FASTER. All you need to kill are EP mobs. At 76+, I think that cut off was lik 55/56 or something--ridiculously low levels to slaughter.

Some of those trials ACTUALLY go faster if you DON'T camp for weather. Diremites is a good example. I went to aydeewah one day and weather wasn't popping worth a flip. Teamed up with some NIN's that were there. We waited an hour or so and went to Uly Range aby on windsday and ran my ~150 kills in one run. That was 150+ kills in ONE GAME DAY. One NIN finished his first katana, ported back to Jueno to advance his second katana and came back, and almost finished the second one we were killing them so fast. I've done a similar thing on djinn in Grauberg, and puks in Vunkerl amonst other targets. I've also slaughtered snolls in Uly Present on day in no time flat instead of waiting for weather to pop for arcana kills--just wish they worked for Bomb lists too...but, there is always djinn.

As for the post about hitting the mobs everyday for 3 weeks...maybe it is the particular target you have chosen that is slowing you down. Even if you are only able to kill 20 mobs an hour solo, it would still only be 13 days to get 250 kills in, 15 for 300 killing on the right day. 3 weeks is more likely less a problem with the game mechanic and more the process being used. It sounds like the people complaining about spending hours in a camp and getting no skillups--they need to do something different, either change gear or change target.

As for the high kill counts killing per day without weather bonus versus killing them with only the day bonus.....try doing trials that require a pet kill in particular day/weather. Particularly mobs that can kill themselves, giving no kill credit because your pet didn't get the final blow. Do that for 250 kills by day only because it is not practical (or even possible in some cases) to get weather. And yet, they can still be done in a couple days (even at only one game day per RL day due to real life constraints) if you pick a good balance of mob level and repop time.

In the bigger scheme of things....compare the resources (time, gil, need to make parties for some stages, having to run the missions and kill the NM's and such) required to complete a Relic or Mythic against these trials. These are simply |Too Weak| in comparison to that time sink (or at least |Easy Prey|....

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Originally Posted by RAIST

Elemental paths are by no means DIFFICULT in any way, shape, or form--they are simply time consuming. All the weather bonus does is make them go FASTER. All you need to kill are EP mobs. At 76+, I think that cut off was lik 55/56 or something--ridiculously low levels to slaughter.

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I dont think anyone said they were difficult. Strawman.

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Some of those trials ACTUALLY go faster if you DON'T camp for weather.

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Then why is everyone complaining about fire/light weather?

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Diremites is a good example. I went to aydeewah one day and weather wasn't popping worth a flip. Teamed up with some NIN's that were there.

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Glad to hear that 2 good solo jobs can kill diremites, Now go try 200 flans and 250 manticores.

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As for the post about hitting the mobs everyday for 3 weeks...maybe it is the particular target you have chosen that is slowing you down.

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It wasnt one trial it was all of them. took 3 weeks to get up to manticore stage. All of the later ones were with a group.

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Even if you are only able to kill 20 mobs an hour solo, it would still only be 13 days to get 250 kills in, 15 for 300 killing on the right day.

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LOL now I know you're trolling. It shouldn't take anywhere close to 13 hours to finish a single trial. Even empyrean trials are faster than that.

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3 weeks is more likely less a problem with the game mechanic and more the process being used. It sounds like the people complaining about spending hours in a camp and getting no skillups--they need to do something different, either change gear or change target.

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At the time there was no abyssea, only flans were in mt z, best spot for vermin were wamouras since there was another trial specific to those, etc.

I'm tired of arguing about this: I gave up on the damn thing as soon as my DNC started out damaging my RNG. If fire weather were more reliable i'd prob go finish that bow since i'm so close, but screw it I'm not gonna spend any more time on it.

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As for the high kill counts killing per day without weather bonus versus killing them with only the day bonus.....try doing trials that require a pet kill in particular day/weather. Particularly mobs that can kill themselves, giving no kill credit because your pet didn't get the final blow. Do that for 250 kills by day only because it is not practical (or even possible in some cases) to get weather. And yet, they can still be done in a couple days (even at only one game day per RL day due to real life constraints) if you pick a good balance of mob level and repop time.

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Those trials should be made easier too. I dont know why you seem to think it has to be a zero sum game. Everyone can feel the love.

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In the bigger scheme of things....compare the resources (time, gil, need to make parties for some stages, having to run the missions and kill the NM's and such) required to complete a Relic or Mythic against these trials. These are simply |Too Weak| in comparison to that time sink (or at least |Easy Prey|....

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Sure and if I had the time to do one of those I would (well actually I wouldn't, SCH mythic/emp is shit).

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Originally Posted by Raksha

I dont think anyone said they were difficult. Strawman.

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lots of crying in various places about how unfair some trials are. This thread alone has used things like unfair, unbalanced, "hardcore weather"--more or less code words for difficulty.

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Then why is everyone complaining about fire/light weather?

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IDK...maybe because zomg it's so hard to find light/fire weather in this game and I can't advance my trial because I don't want to kill 20-100 mobs for one point each in one game day....

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Glad to hear that 2 good solo jobs can kill diremites, Now go try 200 flans and 250 manticores.

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Not just 2 jobs. I was on WAR in that particular example, but I've done it with or on WAR, THF, NIN, DRK, SAM, SMN, BLM....even WHM, psiibly more. Done it so many times for different people I loose track. Flans were always easy to kill if you bring the right job--even pre-abyssea. Ever seen a pudding b urn in action. As for manticore...Cape Terrigan is full of them, and are routinely slaughtered on firesday in groups. I've done these a lot as well for both myself and others. We kill them faster than they can repop.

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It wasnt one trial it was all of them. took 3 weeks to get up to manticore stage. All of the later ones were with a group.

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Granted, this explains it taking a little longer if you were doing it before kill counts were cut to near nothing on some lists and the weather bonuses were added. But 3 weeks is still a bit long in the current scheme of the elemental trials if you are chipping away at it for 1 hour every single day. On average I think it was around 1200-1400 mobs per path, the first 150 of which can easily be done with weather up and cutting their counts down to 30 kills doable in just a couple cours at worst(mostly because of having to run back and forth so much). 20 hours at 60 kills an hour nets you 1200 kills by day alone--assuming you never catch any weather after your first 3 lists, that would come out to roughly 3 weeks at 1 game day per RL day if you were there for the full game day each time. If you are teaming up, you will be getting a considerably higher kill rate at times, making it would be considerable shorter in many cases. If you have to resort to soloing the kill rate would be considerable lower, but that is more an issue with players working together and not the trials themselves.

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LOL now I know you're trolling. It shouldn't take anywhere close to 13 hours to finish a single trial. Even empyrean trials are faster than that.

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not a troll..it's just a statement of the fact. If you are having to kill a pet with an avatar and you are using BP's to get a kill shot, or other things slow you down like having to find/call a new pet because your current one is beat to hell, or you have to go into an hp and/or mp recovery cycle periodically, or you are doing Dominoin ops and running back and forth to get the rewards (like seals)--and your kill rate gets reduced to around 20-25 kills per game day, it can take you up to 13 hours to kill 250-300 mobs.

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At the time there was no abyssea, only flans were in mt z, best spot for vermin were wamouras since there was another trial specific to those, etc.

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um...ever been to attowha, or boyhada tree, or woodlands, or thickets, or crawlers nest. or......
Vermin are all over the place. And FLANS??!! Are you serious? Ever seen a BLM burn in action? Again....this was an issue with the method in use, not the mechanic. Now, granted...back then the kill counts were a nightmare in comparison, but that has been drastically reduced since then.

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I'm tired of arguing about this: I gave up on the damn thing as soon as my DNC started out damaging my RNG. If fire weather were more reliable i'd prob go finish that bow since i'm so close, but screw it I'm not gonna spend any more time on it.

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This just further reinforces my previous post. You can do them quickly by the day with a little help if you get it. An xp'able mob onl the list only has to die within xp range while the weapon is equipped and it is the right elemental day or weather in effect. But if one chooses to only do it while weather is in effect, they may well be choosing to hold themselves back.

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Those trials should be made easier too. I dont know why you seem to think it has to be a zero sum game. Everyone can feel the love.

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Just like the current state of the game post 75, these things are already on easy mode--I just don't think it really warrants putting it in beginners mode. People are just spoiled by how easy things were recently made, and there is a new crop of players that are used to having their hand held and things being spoon fed to them...that is not how this game was designed. Also, there is already a rising number of people complaining empy gears are too EASY as it is.....but that is another debate.

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Sure and if I had the time to do one of those I would (well actually I wouldn't, SCH mythic/emp is shit).

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Again...some feel the effort/time is not worth the rewards sometimes. Elemental paths are well worth the time spent, and there are ways to dramatically reduce the time--it just seems like some are making it harder on themselves by choosing to only do them while weather is up. Solo 10-20 kills with weather up to get 50-100 kill points is nice... but if you have to wait days to do it, versus running out with some friends (or just teaming up with people already there for the same trial) and doing 200+ kills on the matching days during the same time they spent waiting for the weather to pop....just seems like a simple choice to me if your goal is to get it done as quickly as possible....

The whole "there's still the game day!" angle is just a variant of weather. Again, if you're someone who can only manage maybe 2-3 hours a day, you may only see that specific day once every three days. Now, if we run with that 25 kills a day number, trials that require 200 kills would take 8 of these sessions, roughly 16-24 RL days for that trial alone. I'm sorry, but elemental path weapons aren't THAT good to warrant someone needing months to finish one if they can't reliably catch the weather, day, or get stuck with the ones where weather isn't even an option. We're past the days where everyone's starting at the same time so help for a trial is easy to find. No, now it's basically dumb luck, or if you're really unlucky, people will be killing where you go and not invite you for whatever reason.

As was said, they're imbalanced. If you figure Fire is 1/8 is as common as, say, Earth, then Fire kills either need to be 1/8 the amount or Earth's kills 8x more. This isn't the case, though, so we're left with basically 3 weather patterns being far less frequent than others, seasons or not. And the people who are realizing this imbalance either want a fix or more options like letting SCH weather buffs count for 1 kill regardless of day or as I've suggested before, a sort of portable weather mantelet where anything in range is subjected to that specific weather aura and again count for only 1 kill. One way or the other, they'd still be doing the kills, and if they got lucky with natural weather? Great. None of this, "Sorry, come back next RL week!" crap.

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Originally Posted by RAIST

lots of crying in various places about how unfair some trials are. This thread alone has used things like unfair, unbalanced, "hardcore weather"--more or less code words for difficulty.

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Fair enough

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IDK...maybe because zomg it's so hard to find light/fire weather in this game and I can't advance my trial because I don't want to kill 20-100 mobs for one point each in one game day....

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Luckily we found you, the one person who thinks 13 hour trials are a good thing, to set us straight (yes this is sarcasm)

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Not just 2 jobs. I was on WAR in that particular example, but I've done it with or on WAR, THF, NIN, DRK, SAM, SMN, BLM....even WHM, psiibly more. Done it so many times for different people I loose track. Flans were always easy to kill if you bring the right job--even pre-abyssea. Ever seen a pudding b urn in action. As for manticore...Cape Terrigan is full of them, and are routinely slaughtered on firesday in groups. I've done these a lot as well for both myself and others. We kill them faster than they can repop.

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I was on RNG, a job which couldnt solo dirt. I was in a group with plenty of other ppl, sometimes a full alliance and flans still took ~3-4 days iirc

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Granted, this explains it taking a little longer if you were doing it before kill counts were cut to near nothing on some lists and the weather bonuses were added. But 3 weeks is still a bit long in the current scheme of the elemental trials if you are chipping away at it for 1 hour every single day. On average I think it was around 1200-1400 mobs per path, the first 150 of which can easily be done with weather up and cutting their counts down to 30 kills doable in just a couple cours at worst(mostly because of having to run back and forth so much). 20 hours at 60 kills an hour nets you 1200 kills by day alone--assuming you never catch any weather after your first 3 lists, that would come out to roughly 3 weeks at 1 game day per RL day if you were there for the full game day each time. If you are teaming up, you will be getting a considerably higher kill rate at times, making it would be considerable shorter in many cases. If you have to resort to soloing the kill rate would be considerable lower, but that is more an issue with players working together and not the trials themselves.

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I'm fuzzy on the timeline, but I'm pretty sure it was AFTER they cut the kill count down

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not a troll..it's just a statement of the fact. If you are having to kill a pet with an avatar and you are using BP's to get a kill shot, or other things slow you down like having to find/call a new pet because your current one is beat to hell, or you have to go into an hp and/or mp recovery cycle periodically, or you are doing Dominoin ops and running back and forth to get the rewards (like seals)--and your kill rate gets reduced to around 20-25 kills per game day, it can take you up to 13 hours to kill 250-300 mobs.

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My bad thought we were still talking about fire trials, not pet kill trials. Must've misread.

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um...ever been to attowha, or boyhada tree, or woodlands, or thickets, or crawlers nest. or......
Vermin are all over the place. And FLANS??!! Are you serious? Ever seen a BLM burn in action? Again....this was an issue with the method in use, not the mechanic. Now, granted...back then the kill counts were a nightmare in comparison, but that has been drastically reduced since then.

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Like I said there were frequent shouts in wg for wamouras since there was a wamoura specific trial later. And as for flans, i've solo'd my fair share of flans on SCH, I know how easy a manaburn is. I'm pretty sure when I did flans everyone was already lvl 80+ so pudding burns were already non-existant. Even if they weren't, I'm pretty sure all the BLMs cleared out when firesday rolled around because alliance xp = no thanks. I think this was the early days of abyssea when no one knew anything and nobody had atmas or furtherances. Anyway doesnt really matter since RNG still cant solo shit. And that's not the point anyway, waiting til firesday and joining a shout group shouldn't be the only way to do a trial.

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This just further reinforces my previous post. You can do them quickly by the day with a little help if you get it. An xp'able mob onl the list only has to die within xp range while the weapon is equipped and it is the right elemental day or weather in effect. But if one chooses to only do it while weather is in effect, they may well be choosing to hold themselves back.

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It's not like someone waits for fire weather, kills mobs, then logs out when firesday rolls around. That would be asinine. I camped fire weather when firesday wasnt even close, this is a bizarre comment. Also 3-4 sessions on firesday to finish flans/wamoura isn't 'doing them quickly'.

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Just like the current state of the game post 75, these things are already on easy mode--I just don't think it really warrants putting it in beginners mode. People are just spoiled by how easy things were recently made, and there is a new crop of players that are used to having their hand held and things being spoon fed to them...that is not how this game was designed. Also, there is already a rising number of people complaining empy gears are too EASY as it is.....but that is another debate.

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So if weather isnt necessary for any of the trials (barring the first few easy ones) why did SE change weather kills to 5 per? You saying we should revert back to the old system because "Just like the current state of the game post 75, these things are already on easy mode--I just don't think it really warrants putting it in beginners mode."?

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Again...some feel the effort/time is not worth the rewards sometimes. Elemental paths are well worth the time spent, and there are ways to dramatically reduce the time

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Except fire trials (and, according to other posters in this thread, light)

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--it just seems like some are making it harder on themselves by choosing to only do them while weather is up.

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I'm not gonna go re-read the thread, but I dont think anyone actually does this.

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Solo 10-20 kills with weather up to get 50-100 kill points is nice... but if you have to wait days to do it, versus running out with some friends (or just teaming up with people already there for the same trial) and doing 200+ kills on the matching days during the same time they spent waiting for the weather to pop....just seems like a simple choice to me if your goal is to get it done as quickly as possible....

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So why can't I do both? (answer: cause fire weather is non-existant)

So...you're saying someone who has less game time per day is more entitled to complete an event that requires setting aside a certain slice of focused effort on a recurring schedule than someone who has more game time per day to focus on that event?

If you add up all the time spent (getting to camp, resting, waiting on pops, etc) and it comes to an average of say 2 minutes a kill--it will still take 2550 minutes to kill 1275 monsters to complete that line under the same setup and condtiions. That is the same amount of gametime spent on those trials, regardless if it is broken down into 3 hours a week, or 12. That is not an issue with the trials themselves, but more a disparity in the players' lives and playing style.

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Weather bonus was added as a means to help speed things up--most likely specifically to facilitate the begining trials, as they were weather ONLY trials...if you happen to catch it up on the remaining trials it's just a little boost. It wasn't meant to be the be-all-end-all way of doing the rest of them. And fire/light weather is NOT non-existent. I have done several weapons that I used fire weather for and only had to wait on one of them because it was an odd mix of Opo's in fire/wind/thunder/light weather ONLY. I waited a week to get those 10 kills, then ripped through the rest of it, the majority of it via day--after that one trial, if the weather happened to pop, I benefitted from it, but it wasn't something that held me back except that one time. I am on my 28th weapon for myself, and have assisted countless others with theirs simply because I've known the better camps for completing them so they asked for my help. Weather is not the holy grail for completing these things, it is just something that CAN speed them up if you happen to catch it.

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If you add up all the time spent (getting to camp, resting, waiting on pops, etc) and it comes to an average of say 2 minutes a kill--it will still take 2550 minutes to kill 1275 monsters to complete that line under the same setup and condtiions.

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Now, let me ask you this, at 42.5 hours per weapon under your numbers, as someone who might have 2-3 hours a day every other day, does the prospect of spending 30-44 days over time toward a single weapon strike you as both productive and entertaining? Especially in a game with so many other odds and ends to chase? That 30-44 also only works if they happen to be on for the specific elemental days for trials where weather simply isn't an option.

See, magian trials are a pretty important part of the game right now. If a player feels so desperately overwhelmed by an endeavor, then they'll be less inclined to undertake it, which can lead to less interest in the game, and eventually a loss of a customer to SE. Brush it off as me making a mountain out of molehill or how that's simply their problem, but keep in mind the MMO genre walks a fine line between entertainment and feeling like a job with crappy pay. When this happens enough, we find ourselves with fewer people to play with, the need and hassle of server merges, and so on. Day/Weather restrictions are just one part of the Magian blah, but still an important branch. Hopefully the hinted adjustments in the coming patch might address some of this, but if not, I still don't think it's an issue to ignore.

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Originally Posted by Seriha

Now, let me ask you this, at 42.5 hours per weapon under your numbers, as someone who might have 2-3 hours a day every other day, does the prospect of spending 30-44 days over time toward a single weapon strike you as both productive and entertaining? Especially in a game with so many other odds and ends to chase? That 30-44 also only works if they happen to be on for the specific elemental days for trials where weather simply isn't an option.

See, magian trials are a pretty important part of the game right now. If a player feels so desperately overwhelmed by an endeavor, then they'll be less inclined to undertake it, which can lead to less interest in the game, and eventually a loss of a customer to SE. Brush it off as me making a mountain out of molehill or how that's simply their problem, but keep in mind the MMO genre walks a fine line between entertainment and feeling like a job with crappy pay. When this happens enough, we find ourselves with fewer people to play with, the need and hassle of server merges, and so on. Day/Weather restrictions are just one part of the Magian blah, but still an important branch. Hopefully the hinted adjustments in the coming patch might address some of this, but if not, I still don't think it's an issue to ignore.

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That is a hypothetical worst case secenario sort of thing...assuming you are completely soloing at a slow pace, never getting weather bonus, etc. I seriously doubt someone is going to be in that bad of a jam unless they are complete @$$hats and have alienated every person on their server. I have killed as many as 40 mobs in one game day while watching TV on some trials. Ran the 150 kills by light damage for Carby's staff while watching the Warehouse 13 marathon tonight in about 3 hours--in uly range. Even though that 2550 number is a theoretical example not likely to really happen, still compare it to previous gears like Dynamis, Relic, Mythic...I have heard tales of people taking a whole YEAR just to get ONE piece done, and it wasn't for a lack of effort either. Gotta put it in perspective.

By your own admission, these weapons are very important items that carry a high value and impact to the game. Shouldn't they require some level of serious commitment to complete them? Especially if they are (for some) superceding items that people spent months or even years trying to acquire via older content?

I am on my 8th SMN staff at the moment (again, my 28th magian trial weapon). I did 2 complete SMN staves from start to +2 stage in about a week and a half. Started Ifrit's two weeks ago on Sunday, finished it and ran Titan's through by this past Wednesday. That was 1275 kill points x 2. Granted, there is no weather bonus or day requirement as it is kill by avatar once you get the affinity +1 staff done, but I did this very casually--stopping a lot to help others with stuff, killing NM's and getting seals and such. I even took some nights off for LS events. I did NOT spend 85 hours doing these things... maybe 40 tops including all the running around I had to do.

Ages ago, before all these wonderful level caps and abyssea options were available, I ran Fenrir's staff and my thunder and Ice staves through their top stages at the time with little to no effort. I spent roughly about 4 weeks doing all three of those--at level 90 now I could probably run them all in half that time, or less. I know a player who is still in the middle of helping his wife start up a new business and is hardly on at all during the week, and even on the weekends only gets on mostly at night--and he ran a cure potency staff through in just under 2 weeks. These things just simply are not the time sink you guys are making them out to be (or at least they SHOULDN'T be--perhaps it is time to rethink HOW you guys are doing them).

You can't compare these to Relic or Mythic these are not the same. If you want to compare it to the abyssean weapons sure. That is not the case with these they are supposed to be the easier to get as they are alot weaker.

The point is the fire and light path should be no harder than the other elements.

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Originally Posted by RAIST

not a troll..it's just a statement of the fact. If you are having to kill a pet with an avatar and you are using BP's to get a kill shot, or other things slow you down like having to find/call a new pet because your current one is beat to hell, or you have to go into an hp and/or mp recovery cycle periodically, or you are doing Dominoin ops and running back and forth to get the rewards (like seals)--and your kill rate gets reduced to around 20-25 kills per game day, it can take you up to 13 hours to kill 250-300 mobs.

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If you hit that elemental day every day (assuming once a day because most people cannot play for 9+ hours at once), then it will take 13 days (nearly 2 full weeks) to complete one trial.

So in essence, when he said it could take 3 weeks, he wasn't really stretching it. Add to the fact that if a person can only play one to three hours a day (pretty casual/moderate), the odds are they won't hit the same elemental day every day.

Not comparing these to the weapons themselves, comparing them to the importance of the weapon for their time and the process to obtain them. They both were considered top tier, end-game items that were higly coveted by those who went after them when they were introduced. Neither should simply be given to the players--they required a higher level of dedication and patience to obtain.

Fire and light paths are no harder than earth, wind, ice, water, thunder, or dark. They may prove more time consuming at certain stages, but by no means harder to the point that they create a gross imbalance by design. EVERY weapon has at least one stage where it is an absolute grind to complete--whether it is physical, WS, or elemental. If it is a matter of hitting slimes only in weather on the dark side of the path then the issue is timing it right while the right weather is in effect in the mire or GC in the past, or setting up a level synch to catch the weather elsewhere. If it is a matter of Diremites or vermin in wind day/weather and the weather is not in season, then you need to do them by day--where you chooose to do them by day will determine just how long it takes to complete that leg. Or, they could simply put it off until the weather is in season and come back later--that is a CHOICE the player makes that causes them to delay the objective.

Again...that is not a factor of difficulty to complete them (beating down EP mobs or one-shotting gob pets is by no means difficult)--it is a TIME issue and nothing else.

A player that can only play 1 hour a day has low probablility to hit ANYTHING that is timed or random in the game--that includes both day or weather. Such a player would need to be even more mindful of when things are likely to be coming up so they could plan their time for the efficiency factor. These people are less likely to be getting into many NM runs for AF3, less likely to get there zone wins done, etc. without some serious planning and help from others, requiring a high level of dedication to the task in question. The same would apply to the dedication for completing ANY magian weapon--whether it is an elemental line, a physical line, or a WS line...less game time per day translates to more RL days to complete, plain and simple.

This all is more an issue with the player's personal life and playing style as a whole and not necessarily the weather frequency itself. If they have less time in game per day, than it simply will take them more days to do anything in the game--whether it is completing mission tracks, acguiring quested/BCNM/NM items, breaking a latent, or simply leveling a job up. The player OPTING to not kill by day and instead hunting for weather is less an issue with the game's design, but more an issue with that player's personal choice in the matter. Just like one choosing to quest for seals or solo NM's (well, solo ANYTHING for that matter) instead of teaming up to hunt the seals from NM's causes them to take longer to accomplish that goal. It is the player's chosen method creating the problem, not the game design itself.

Why wait around for weather to do fire path weapons? Just go to abyssea get pumped up with atmas and slaughter mobs for 1 hour on Firesday. I did 180 manticores on DRG/SAM in one hour that way solo. With 2 or 3 people you could complete the trial in one game day.

As much as I don't mind planning out my kill cycles for my trials, I'm disappointed to see no mention in the update notes about any changes to the weather patterns for fire and light.