Level 99 Relic, Mythic, Empyrean, and WoE Weapons

So no afterglows for ergon weapons? Will ergon's upgrade path be as hard?

Ergons don't have an Afterglow to begin with, but don't stop asking for it I'd say.
I do find it very interesting that Camate is hinting possibly at even more future adjustments to these weapon lines.

o great, so basically your saying go farm 250 marrows before you can progress while everyone on the sever is going to be doing the same thing!! because SE are too greedy to put another programmer on the team.

No, he's saying that you can complete the quest without afterglow, but it will have a higher amount of items needed or another difficulty modifier, like reforging Artiface/Relic/Empyrean armor has two differnt costs depending on if you do it from a fully +1/+2ed piece or not. Someone that has already done the grind for an afterglow will have an easier quest for the REM upgrade and someone who hasn't, but you won't be required to do the afterglow first. It's a reasonable expectation, rather than them making double the quests so you could add an afterglow at any point, and double the item entries in the database to have aferglow and non-afterglow versions of each intermediate weapon in the new path.

What confuses me is that since Camate is saying that the two ramifications of weapons (with and without afterglow) will end up together at some point, it means that all the final R/E/M weapons version will have afterglow?, or afterglow will be lost when ppl upgrade their weapon?

It's not that confusing.

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Originally Posted by Camate

After enhancing Relic, Mythic, and Empyrean weapons via the new upgrade path, an afterglow effect will be applied to each one.

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Originally Posted by bungiefanNA

No, he's saying that you can complete the quest without afterglow, but it will have a higher amount of items needed or another difficulty modifier, like reforging Artiface/Relic/Empyrean armor has two differnt costs depending on if you do it from a fully +1/+2ed piece or not. Someone that has already done the grind for an afterglow will have an easier quest for the REM upgrade and someone who hasn't, but you won't be required to do the afterglow first. It's a reasonable expectation, rather than them making double the quests so you could add an afterglow at any point, and double the item entries in the database to have aferglow and non-afterglow versions of each intermediate weapon in the new path.

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ok i guess i mis read that then, thanks for clearing it up. it seems fair enough to me that we without the afterglow would have to do more

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Originally Posted by Riggs

ok i guess i mis read that then, thanks for clearing it up. it seems fair enough to me that we without the afterglow would have to do more

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Just wait for what they have planned...might have to give up a first born child...or your soul

I have mixed feelings about the announcement. The prospect of shiny new stats on the weapons through opening the augmenting slot is very interesting, but anybody who has looked into it will know that obtaining an afterglow is an insanely difficult-to-achieve goal. Making it so that any weapons going beyond +242 skill have Afterglow will only result in one of two situations:

1. The difference between the two paths (non-afterglow and afterglow) will be close to or as crazy as the original Trial to obtain an afterglow (which varies greatly in difficulty anyway, because Empyrean afterglows are nearly impossible to obtain), and the vast majority of RME owners will just not bother.

2. The difference between the two paths is large, but not nearly as large as what the original Afterglow trial, and anybody who bothered doing the Afterglow Trial before now will be annoyed.

Afterglow was always a fluff goal, mostly there for obtaining a unique graphical effect on your character nobody else has. I'm aware it has a sphere buff attached to it but I doubt a single Afterglow owner in existence right now obtained it for that buff. I think a vanity item like that being barred behind some crazy grind wall should stay that way- nobody's ever been denied a party because they didn't have an afterglow. This is without mentioning the fact that imagining seeing lots of afterglows running around looks kinda silly.

I think what the dev team is currently planning won't satisfy anyone by the way. The Afterglow trial is so absurdly time consuming that even half of it would seem absurd to most players.

After thinking about it for a while, I have a couple possible ways of dealing with this.

1. Keep both an afterglow and a non-afterglow version of each RME for the future, but untie the non-afterglow version from Trials of the Magian so that the non-afterglow can get whatever expansions in the augmented item stat space the devs were/are planning. In other words, once you upgrade beyond the +242 skill stage, obtaining an afterglow will no longer be possible. I'm pretty sure if someone isn't planning on working on the afterglow trial right now, they will not mind in the least that they won't be able to in the future.

2. Add one last stage where getting Afterglow through Trials of the Magians is available, (so no silly upgrade cost gap on this stage) and simultaneously add another quest where the two paths merge with the idea you're planning right now, opening the door for the future augmenting plan. Right now a lot of people are frustrated because they haven't been able to use their RMEs for months, and having a simple upgrade to the next stage so they can use it in Reisenjima for a while can calm peoples' nerves. How effective this idea would work depends on what the dev team has planned for the hypothetical freed augmenting space- if it's going to be stuff like "Attack +5" I don't think people will care that much.

3. Just keep the system the way it was before. It would prevent the addition of new stats, sure, but it's not like you can't make them decent weapons by playing with the stats they already have. (Or by replacing/overhauling useless ones like the Murgleis Convert Augment)

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Originally Posted by Dieth

From today's post: http://www.playonline.com/pcd/topics...20/detail.html



We do not want random augments, we want the straight up damage adjustments as revealed here

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Anyone have a translation of those stats?

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Originally Posted by Ghost2k4

Uhh... I use Physical pacts even on T3s. T1s and T2s I've duoed/Trioed many times w/o ever touching Astral Flow. There is only T1/2 NMs in any of the Escha zones that I refrain from using physical on and that is more of a support and that is the tonberry which I hold out for Thunderspark to wipe his clones. No one hour needed for any of them. The mimic sucks, but still use Volt Strike for stuns and Shock Squall if he is doing Death Trap. On ffxiah I posted a picture of Flaming Crush doing capped damage into a capped damage fragmentation. The only buff going at the time was a beast roll. yes, its only a 119 in Zi'tah, but I've done capped light many times w/ 70-80k FCs in sky on T1s w/ just a SCH with me. No buffs. Astral Flow is not needed.

Anything 132 and below I can use physical pacts w/o support and have capped acc. Once 135 starts I like to have support, it just sucks trying to do it w/o, but it is doable. Again w/o AF. Honestly I can say the only time I ever seem to AF is if I use AC right after or for the random PD/altana's favor.

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With respect, you read through my post more carefully, you'll see we don't disagree. In what was quoted I say without good support OR 1 hours. You claim to use physical pacts using support on 132+. So we don't disagree. Read further in and I clarify CL130 and Reisnejima. CL129 is t1 Reisenjima and t2 is CL135, while sky and zitah t1 are CL119 and t2 are CL125. You say you use physical pacts if you duo/trio or use support. We did 2smn and 2 sch on the t2 harpeia in Reisenjima. One SMN has nirvana the other doesn't. Flaming crush was doing less than 8k and pred claws wasn't performing well either. With the right gear heavenly strike magic bursts were doing 35k, 11k without. If you got say geo and cor, I'm sure you can kill it with nirvana. That becomes less and less true the higher you go though, and it is an uphill battle to show people it is true with as you said pictures of flaming crush 99k to 99k skillchains. You can do that on t1 zitah with minimal support without a nirvana by the way. The truth of it is that on lower level stuff, you can double 99k damage with skillchains and physical pacts, but on higher level stuff that falls off very sharply. Remember when SR came out and it took every support option in the game to make flaming crush perform on a level to compete with other setups? Volt strike takes out the need for lower mdb and magic evasion, but it's not as strong and at some point COR and GEO aren't enough to make you have enough accuracy and attack to compete at best and matter at most, on top of that level correction kicks in more and more (5% for each difference between mobs level and your avatar) until even with nirvana your damage output with physical pacts is very low. On higher level mobs, magic bursting allows you not only to need less support due to its huge increase in magic accuracy, no level correction, and utilize its 3x damage multiplier but it allows sch and geo and blm to burst as well. This is why SMN clear vids of Vir'ava, Kirin, Seiryu and other sky gods, and many other hard fights such as t3 sky when it came out or t3 reisenjima now aren't using Nirvana. Because doing so and winning if possible, is just much harder and in all likeliehood you'll just time out. For the ultimate staff for smn, it shouldn't be put away when the hardest stuff comes out and I hope you can agree. Whether the answer is adding petmab or boosting the amount of bp damage and accuracy/attack enough, it would be good to have this pinnacle staff for smn relevant on these end game mobs and it deserves as much a look at as every other REM, mythic should help you clear such content easier for its time investment, not be put away for something you can obtain in an evening with friends (Espiritus).

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Originally Posted by Camate

The second reason is to reduce the time and resources for enhancements. When looking into enhancements for these weapons, we found that if we were to split them into two groups (those with afterglow and those without), it would require a higher amount of resources, which would cause the development time to increase. In order to avoid this from happening, we decided to adopt the current plan that we are moving forward with.

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Heh yeah. I rather you spend that development time on new conten- ....ooooooh. Right.

I think I rather you just take longer and do two paths. I really don't feel like being punished with doing some super expensive and or time consuming quest to upgrade my RMEs yet again because you thought it was a good idea to make people farm 250 marrows for vanity. Seriously, guys. You frickin owe us a bone after all the money and time we've thrown into these weapons that you absolutely insist on not being that great so everyone else can at least try to compete to be able to get party slots. You just remember that before you go and implement a dead quest to everyone but the people that actually did the afterglow trial because they're gluttons for your punishment.

Do not punish me and the vast majority of players because a select few took the time to farm their vanity afterglow. Let us have our easy, semi cheap upgrade path for a change and let aeonics have the spot light as a tradeoff. I don't care, as long as I'm not asked to essentially farm an afterglow because a few people bothered to do it before if I want the best RME possible. That's just BS. I didn't want to do that much farming for a glow effect, and I don't now.

Seriously now, you guys have been "adopting" development paths that best suit you since the start of this game. I just want to point that out. It's never what's best for us, but what's best for you. No one blames you for that, but frankly you owe us a break. Dammit, you owe us for our many years of paying you gobs of money for little dev support in return.

Not to mention the fact that they already did exactly that when they upgraded them all to 119. There are REM weapons at level 99 with and without Afterglow, and there are level 119 REM weapons with and without Afterglow. So obviously they already bypassed the magian trial flag once.

As for the workload, they could have easily made the quests identical simply with differing rewards, instead they made a conscious decision to force players to farm 250 very rare items in order to even start the upgrade to a usable level.

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Originally Posted by Dieth

From today's post: http://www.playonline.com/pcd/topics...20/detail.html



We do not want random augments, we want the straight up damage adjustments as revealed here

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If augments means that claustrum can boost pet stats im up for it!

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Originally Posted by Dieth

We do not want random augments, we want the straight up damage adjustments as revealed here

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Where did you get the idea that there would be random augments?

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Originally Posted by Camate

Greetings,

I have a bit more to add about the upcoming enhancements.

After enhancing Relic, Mythic, and Empyrean weapons via the new upgrade path, an afterglow effect will be applied to each one.

The first reason for this is to enable future expansion of this content. The afterglow effect on weapons is tied to the completion of Trials of the Magians, and the data for these quests are stored directly on the weapon itself. This data record occupies the same space as that of the weapons’ stat expansion, and in the event you haven’t completed Trials of the Magians (i.e. have not obtained an afterglow), it would not be possible to increase the weapon stats or expand on the special properties.

The second reason is to reduce the time and resources for enhancements. When looking into enhancements for these weapons, we found that if we were to split them into two groups (those with afterglow and those without), it would require a higher amount of resources, which would cause the development time to increase. In order to avoid this from happening, we decided to adopt the current plan that we are moving forward with.

If you already have a weapon with an afterglow effect, you will have an advantage as the next phase for enhancement will be easier to accomplish. On the other hand, those that do not have an afterglow will have quite a challenge ahead of them.

The development team is working hard on adjustments so that they can implement this content, so please stay tuned for more details!

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This message is to add my perspective to the conversation. Like so many other adventurers, I have been working hard creating ways to purchase 3000 riftross to add afterglow to my empyrean weapon. I am a solo ffxi gamer, I craft with three fully capped crafting characters, I farm and battle on my three accounts and I do business with High End Linkshells. I meet many hard working solo gamers on the field, many saving up for an afterglow on their weapon. An afterglow would be an ultimate gift to my best friends in battle and also it would help me to get invites in high end battle content easier.

I have worked hard to save 800M and I am closer than ever to my target.

Many solo gamers are unable to battle in static groups because of their personal lives. They have busy professions, they have married lives and are often parents and some gamers might be disabled physically or mentally. My fiancee has multiple sclerosis, I also work. For me to reach the point in ffxi to be close to an afterglow effect has been extremely difficult and time consuming and I have enjoyed every single moment of my quest. I have never made so much gil and it has been amazing rush.

Now I'm left with a dilemma, two choices.
1) Finish my one billion + afterglow before the update
2) wait until after the update and reward high end gamers a few mil to finish this new trial if it is battlefiedl/NM based. . . . .

Square enix have let me down in the past too many times and I simply cant trust them. I gladly reorganized my life around my ffxi aftreglow quest and I at least expect SE to reorganize their lives to come up with a better plan. I am going to hold onto my gil, I'm folding.

They need to create an "Afterglow Moogle" that offers an afterglow quest to any stage of RME.

The creators of Final Fantasy I - X dreamed of a world where people from all cultures could have characters that lived and grew in a fantasy world. Here we are in this apocalyptic - end of game - manipulative hook propaganda.

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Originally Posted by Camate

The second reason is to reduce the time and resources for enhancements.

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I don't think I fully understand. It sounds like you're pushing an upgrade that no-one (Afterglow users and non-Afterglow users) is going to be happy with because it'll be cheaper and quicker?

I know you guys are super-stretched now, but that seems like a pretty awful idea?

Also, it'd be quite nice if the weapons were upgraded so they actually helped the non-melee jobs that can wield them in the role they'll be playing 95% of the time - though, having seen the Aeonic weapons, it seems that something that still doesn't make sense to the developers. Pretty disappointing really.

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Originally Posted by Camate

Greetings,

I have a bit more to add about the upcoming enhancements.

After enhancing Relic, Mythic, and Empyrean weapons via the new upgrade path, an afterglow effect will be applied to each one.

The first reason for this is to enable future expansion of this content. The afterglow effect on weapons is tied to the completion of Trials of the Magians, and the data for these quests are stored directly on the weapon itself. This data record occupies the same space as that of the weapons’ stat expansion, and in the event you haven’t completed Trials of the Magians (i.e. have not obtained an afterglow), it would not be possible to increase the weapon stats or expand on the special properties.

The second reason is to reduce the time and resources for enhancements. When looking into enhancements for these weapons, we found that if we were to split them into two groups (those with afterglow and those without), it would require a higher amount of resources, which would cause the development time to increase. In order to avoid this from happening, we decided to adopt the current plan that we are moving forward with.

If you already have a weapon with an afterglow effect, you will have an advantage as the next phase for enhancement will be easier to accomplish. On the other hand, those that do not have an afterglow will have quite a challenge ahead of them.

The development team is working hard on adjustments so that they can implement this content, so please stay tuned for more details!

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How is all of this going to work with Ergon weapons, which don't have an Afterglow path?

Is there some kind of currency we should try to be saving/gathering as we approach February?

I’d like to answer several of your questions about the upcoming upgrades to Relic/Mythic/Empyrean/Ergon weapons.

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Originally Posted by datbig

Now I'm left with a dilemma, two choices.
1) Finish my one billion + afterglow before the update
2) wait until after the update and reward high end gamers a few mil to finish this new trial if it is battlefiedl/NM based. . . . .

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Ultimately this is up to you to decide. We can’t provide specific details on the new steps at this time, so waiting for the upgrades to be implemented is completely your decision. As stated previously, players that have already obtained weapons with an afterglow will have an easier time upgrading to the next phase.

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Originally Posted by Jerbob

I don't think I fully understand. It sounds like you're pushing an upgrade that no-one (Afterglow users and non-Afterglow users) is going to be happy with because it'll be cheaper and quicker?

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Players that already took the time to complete the afterglow effect on their weapon(s), will be rewarded by being able to upgrade in an easier manner through a quest.

We estimate that players with afterglow weapons will be able to upgrade within one hour of starting the quest. Even if you didn't spend the time to create a weapon with an afterglow, we're still offering a method to obtain an afterglow and continue the upgrade process on these legendary weapons, but you’ll still have a great task ahead of you.

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Originally Posted by Creelo

How is all of this going to work with Ergon weapons, which don't have an Afterglow path?

Is there some kind of currency we should try to be saving/gathering as we approach February?

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As you mention, Ergon weapons do not have an afterglow effect. Players seeking to upgrade their Ergon weapon will have to clear a number of objectives along with the other players who do not possess a weapon with an afterglow.

If we were to provide the methods for upgrading Relic/Mythic/Empyrean/Ergon weapons this would certainly affect player behavior, and as such, we cannot offer this information yet.

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Originally Posted by Grekumah

As you mention, Ergon weapons do not have an afterglow effect. Players seeking to upgrade their Ergon weapon will have to clear a number of objectives along with the other players who do not possess a weapon with an afterglow.

If we were to provide the methods for upgrading Relic/Mythic/Empyrean/Ergon weapons this would certainly affect player behavior, and as such, we cannot offer this information yet.

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If ergon users are going to have to go thru a bunch more work like the non glowers are you going give ergon afterglow though?

Frankly I hated the absurd difficulty of afterglows when the originally came out and had hope they would be nerfed. If it's so extreme that you needed 2 upgrade paths to begin with (e.g. being able to upgrade to afterglow either first or after upgrading non-afterglow to max), it was too much. Knowing that I will need to face some kind of super extreme upgrade path because I didn't have a billion gazillion gil (or enough time on my hands to kill arch dynamis lord 78234683274 times) really puts me off. I shouldn't be forced into doing the work of an afterglow to bring the basic stats of the weapon up to snuff- I already put countless hours into making just the non-afterglow weapon.

Make seperate paths for afterglow and non afterglow, or don't do it at all. Or, make the difficulty the same for everyone and when you're done, award the afterglow or nonafterglow version of an item based on whether or not they had one when you started. I don't understand why this can't be a quest variable instead of part of the item data.

I'm sure everyone here would have gladly waited longer for the fairer method. Am I really far off base here?

Exactly. What was the point in providing two paths in the first place if they're going to combine them now? I don't want my weapon to glow, I just want it to be better than a weapon that drops from a mob that costs 50,000 accolades to pop.

Please give us two paths. If I'm going to have to complete a "Great Task" for something I don't actually want then I doubt I'm going to be even remotely motivated to do it.

Appreciate the information updates, Grekumah.

Originally Afterglow was an option that players had the option of partaking in and was considered to be an activity for a very dedicated individual (considering items needed for any of the Ultimate weapons was 1 drop at a time, 2 if lucky). Now with this update, like many have stated, the "option" has been removed due to a convenience factor for developers still set to program an older game. Not only is this being a factor pushed to everyone, the fact that realistically no information on the upgrade process is given which is completely ridiculous due to affecting "player activity" changing is strictly petty as well. You have a player base who for all intents wants to bring an (or more, as some players have multiple ultimate weapons) item up to snuff for current content, but because the means to make such an upgrade path is conceivably already accessible to the player base you won't release a small insight into the process?

For all intents and purposes it could be the need to obtain Job Master status on a job that can use the weapon and then be able to dump x amount of Job Points into a system similar to the Goblin Pot in Reisenjima. If this was the case, this at least gives players direction to use their time AND maximize current limited time campaigns such as the current CP and EXP boost for chains. (On a side note, I completely believe that this to whatever degree is how the upgrade is going to be implemented, add an item to fetch/KI to get from w/e mob, as otherwise there is no reason at this time to not lock CP from being stored after you hit job master. Just my personal thoughts.) If the upgrade involves obtaining a new item that is determined to drop from newer/older content, just say so...doesn't hurt and in facts it helps reassure player base what route your intentions are headed for the future of the game as well.

Also, considering the fact that afterglow is something everyone who invests the time to go through this top secret process to obtain, maybe outside of just re-working aftermath mechanics on some of the weapon skills you can also implement a more realistic update to the afterglow effect. Instead of being a base 30 second effect bubble, maybe tier the effect like aftermath is implemented. This way it's actually beneficial to players/trusts(if even applicable) and would allow you to overwrite lower level afterglows you may set.

Example: Mythic Afterglow 100tp:+15 attack, 30 sec; 200tp: +30 attack, 1min; 300tp: +45 attack, 1:30min

So let me get this straight. You are going to force people who have gone through the trials and tribulations to get their REM to 119 to afterglow them to make them useful? An alliance could create an aeonic for each member 6-10 times, meaning 50-near 200 aeonics created due to alliance all getting one if they all did the trials together (based on time required, and depending on trials after the kill all nm's, as I am not sure if there are any/what they are if so; the time I have is based on time to go through all steps to all nm's defeated) before 1 REM gets afterglow (and that is if that 1 REM holder can get help from others to get the items for 119-119 afterglow), and you find this fair? Players who have a 119 REM deserve a free upgrade, but we are willing to do a quest that is reasonable. Afterglows were never reasonable, but that was the point of them. They have always been a vanity item to show off how rich you were for the most part due to the insane requirements for one. REM's already almost got destroyed before being updated with more quests to 99 and above, and many are still weaker than other much more easily obtained weapons. If afterglow is required, there will be nearly 0 rem's being used, and it would be done to save you time? That is not only a horrible business model, but it is a slap in the face of all players, REM holders or not.

They should separate the trials, afterglow and non-afterglow.

From what I understand, not entirely.

In the end, all weapons (unsure about the Ergons) will have afterglow, however it will not be a requirement to start the quest.
People that already own an afterglow weapon will have an easier objective in said quest to upgrade their weapons than those that haven't.
As I see it, there's going to be an alternative path for upgrading to Afterglow, however right now they are not disclosing what this path will entail.

As I fear right now there are two scenarios.
- Afterglow owners are going to be feeling betrayed. (Trust me, I have some nastier words in mind.)
- Non-Afterglow owners are not going to bother.

My current expectation is that there are going to be a lot of angry Afterglow owners.

And personally, while I do understand the reasoning, I too feel more for having two seperate paths.

So basically this is the trial for obtaining ultimate RME:

1)Farm afterglow
2)Take 1 hour to upgrade

or

1)Farm afterglow in alternative fashion
2)Take 1 hour to upgrade

So we're being made to farm an afterglow whether we like it or not. Nice. Look, if I cared about glowing weapons I'd still be playing XIV. Take longer and give us the two paths. It's guaranteed to make both non afterglow and afterglow owners happy. There's no reason we both can't take 1 hour to upgrade.

I just want to point out, we aren't objecting to this "do a ton of work" idea. We're objecting to the idea that the 30 afterglow owners get a free ride while we spend who knows how long to catch up because we didn't care to farm or buy 250 marrows for a glow effect. If everyone had to do a ton of work, afterglow or no afterglow, there wouldn't be a problem besides the whole issue of difficulty in comparison to aeonics. Is this not a problem to your JP base? Because I half expected the next word I would hear about it is how you are reconsidering the decision. Apparently the JP are on board for this. God knows you're not going to reconsider squat based on our objections.

I think it's going to be more like this:

Shiny:
-Bring me 100 [insert whatever SE's planning]

Not shiny:
-Bring me 100.000 [insert whatever SE's planning]

I think however that the "Bring 100.000 [insert whatever SE's planning]" is going to take less than half the effort it takes to do it the intended way.
If SE's going to continue this plan of action they have to, because otherwise the majority will even bother doing it, especially people that own multiple R/E/M weapons.

But I expect that it is going to create some backlash from the people that have an Afterglowed weapon.

There is a reason people do not have afterglow, because it's insanely tedious to get, and allows the... perfectionists something to do for bragging rights.

If the amount of work I am going to have to put in to upgrade my mythic to its 'final form' approaches afterglow, then I think that's it right there. Hanging it up, closing my accounts, finding something new to do with my life.

There needs to be a non-afterglow version.

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Originally Posted by Grekumah

If we were to provide the methods for upgrading Relic/Mythic/Empyrean/Ergon weapons this would certainly affect player behavior, and as such, we cannot offer this information yet.

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This means that the means to upgrade non-afterglow weapons to afterglow weapons is currently collectible in-game. Or, at the very least, we're able to do some steps in preparation for the update at this time. Some ideas about what we can collect NOW to upgrade this include: potpourri(merit points deposited at the goblin), job points, silt, beads, and Tumult's Blood.

Does anyone have any other ideas about what we could be collecting now for this upgrade?

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Originally Posted by machini

If the amount of work I am going to have to put in to upgrade my mythic to its 'final form' approaches afterglow, then I think that's it right there. Hanging it up, closing my accounts, finding something new to do with my life.

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Or, just don't upgrade it if it's too much work, and keep playing as you always have. Think of this final upgrade not as another free REM upgrade, but as an equivalent of an afterglow upgrade, because that's what it is really. This may very well take as much time and effort as it did to make the original afterglows; don't go into this expecting anything less.

The fact that player behavior may change is a poor excuse. Aeonics can already be made, so giving a hint as to what trial is needed for rem's for an update 2 months away would most likely help. It would put people's minds at ease about what the trial will be (or cause people to quit, as I and others will most likely do if its stupidly difficult - I am sadly betting on this one being what the player behavior comment was about), but it would allow rem's to catch up to aeonic power more quickly when the update comes out. The last "great challenges" - as the devs have said non-afterglow holders will have - we were given were relics at lvl 75, mythics in general, pandemonium warden when it came out before it was nerfed, etc. That is not a good track record for making people think it will be an accomplishable goal. Giving a hint as to item needed or a quantity needed would most likely calm a lot of the enmity from the player base.

As to the previous post saying to just not upgrade the weapon if it is too difficult, we worked for the weapons and put more blood and sweat into making them than any Aeonic user will most likely know. We were then forced to upgrade them. We were fine with this, even if it wasn't free (which the prior post seems to insinuate). The part we didn't like was the near impossible goal after what we had done of Afterglow. Before it was nerfed, the time requirement was so high it was laughable. That alone sets doubts in the minds of REM holders as to what the last trial is. I sometimes feel that the trials aren't even tested well based on the factor of time. So many trials come out or fights get created where the player base goes, "Did they even test this? What where they thinking?" and then creates a backlash at the devs (and sometimes news stories) until it is "nerfed" (AKA fixed to a reasonable level - although even current afterglow requirements are still not reasonable for the boost they give).

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Originally Posted by Cblade

As to the previous post saying to just not upgrade the weapon if it is too difficult, we worked for the weapons and put more blood and sweat into making them than any Aeonic user will most likely know. We were then forced to upgrade them.

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My point is, that if the afterglow upgrade was too difficult for you, then you didn't do it. You weren't forced to upgrade your weapon to the afterglow version. Applying that same logic to this situation: if this new upgrade is too difficult for you, simply don't do it. No one's forcing you to do this new upgrade. You don't have to quit the game if this new upgrade is too difficult, just simply do what you did when the afterglow upgrade came out: use the weapon you currently have, and don't upgrade it.

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Originally Posted by Cblade

We were fine with this, even if it wasn't free (which the prior post seems to insinuate).

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My mistake, not all upgrades were free. When I said this I had the ilvl 119 version upgrades in mind, which are extremely cheap to make.

Your point makes no sense, Rakshaka. The reason we didn't do the afterglow upgrade is because there is no difference between our non-afterglow weapons an afterglow weapons except a practically useless buff that we don't even receive.

With the update to 119, there were separate paths for Afterglow and non-Afterglow mythics. I don't have afterglow, not because it's too hard, but simply because it was not worth the effort involved for effectively nothing but bragging rights.

I won't even begin to address what else is wrong.

So, correct me if I'm wrong, but your point is that you evaluate whether or not the benefit of the upgrade is worth the time spent doing the upgrade, then decide whether or not to do the upgrade based on that. In the case of the original afterglow weapons, you thought that the time spent on the upgrade wasn't worth the benefit involved, so you didn't do the upgrade. But, what if the original afterglow upgrade was a substantial buff to the weapon that still required as much work as the afterglow upgrade? Would you have quit at that point in time?

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Originally Posted by machini

If the amount of work I am going to have to put in to upgrade my mythic to its 'final form' approaches afterglow, then I think that's it right there. Hanging it up, closing my accounts, finding something new to do with my life.

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It sounds like maybe you would have quit? I can't answer that for you, but it's something to keep in mind. In any case, since your method of determining whether or not to upgrade the weapon is based on difficulty vs. reward, then apply that same logic to the upgrades that are coming out in Feb: see how good the upgrades are to your weapon, weigh them against the tasks that you need to perform in order to get the weapon, then make the decision whether or not to upgrade it. I don't understand where the "I'll quit the game if I deem that the upgrade is substantial, but the tasks to get it are too difficult" logic comes from.

Please feel free to address what else is wrong. I like healthy discussions.

The cost to benefit ratio is something done with all things in the game. The issue is that the afterglow was something that was purposely too difficult to be done by 99% of the player base. It not only was near impossibly hard, but it gave little to no benefit: a glow effect and such a minimal buff it almost can't be detected to party members. This buff is even smaller at 119, but it was something we just laughed at for the absurdity because we could still use our weapons without it. The new update would make our weapons we currently use obsolete compared to Aeonics, despite the fact we have already put more effort into them than it takes to create an Aeonic, unless we do this absurd (or similar) task. If you could create an REM from scratch and it be Aeonic level with the afterglow requirements as the ONLY quest, then it might be more reasonable, but we have had to do quests for years to slowly upgrade them to keep them more useful than newly implemented ah or nm weapons. We have done enough, but are still willing to do a reasonable quest. We are not happy with having to put 3-50x the effort we have put into making the rem all the way to 119 (already multiple times the effort of creating an Aeonic for an entire alliance) again into our rem's in order to have them on par with Aeonics. It is clearly weighted against people using anything other than reisen jse (some better than 119 rem's already) and Aeonic weapons. A slight irony in making rem's take, when taking into account an entire alliance can get an aeonic for every aeonic questline completed, 80-200x the time for completion with the afterglow quest is that the devs said they wanted more weapons to be used. This was one of their reasons behind not upgrading rem's to 119 until so much backlash got them to change their minds. REM's were already almost destroyed despite all the effort, and that alone caused people to quit; however, forcing rem users to do even more quests that alone take 50-150x as long as it takes to get an aeonic from scratch will reduce the number of different weapons being used as rem players will not upgrade. You can't say you want more weapons to be used and then say that the original best weapons must do an originally joke quest due to its absurdity to stay current in order to save time.

The point is that the afterglow quest is already not worth the benefit compared to the difficulty of Aeonics even if it was the only quest. It is, however, not the only quest rem's have had to do. There is also the issue of the excuse for why rem's are being forced into this: "save time and resources." Saving time and resources is never a good excuse to force a player base to do things they quite reasonably should not have to do in order to keep their gear current. The entire issue could be nullified if they would just split the quests as they have in the past. This would not only take little time to do, but even if it took extra time, we would be willing to wait for a finished product. This is most likely the exact thinking that has led the last FF games to be met with such criticism: rush the product through to save time.

We can’t provide exact details other than letting you know that the hurdle to upgrade these weapons will be high. You’ll be able to complete the upgrade process by steadily working on your goal over the course of time. Also, not only will you be able to make progress through battle content, it will also be possible to use gil as a way to complete these upgrades.

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Originally Posted by Grekumah

We can’t provide exact details other than letting you know that the hurdle to upgrade these weapons will be high. You’ll be able to complete the upgrade process by steadily working on your goal over the course of time. Also, not only will you be able to make progress through battle content, it will also be possible to use gil as a way to complete these upgrades.

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sound good. :/

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Originally Posted by Grekumah

We can’t provide exact details other than letting you know that the hurdle to upgrade these weapons will be high. You’ll be able to complete the upgrade process by steadily working on your goal over the course of time. Also, not only will you be able to make progress through battle content, it will also be possible to use gil as a way to complete these upgrades.

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To Bad not all of us can gil afford it as I'm betting I'm not the only one always broke on gils :(or near nil gils all of the time in the game with all the way things are these days and those shouting back in the opposite direction at me for mentioning this can be expected by a few here. I'm lucky if I reach 200,000 or 300,000 gils or a lot of times just barely 100,000 gils even here, Just saying it Grekumah. :p :o :D :cool:

Although winning first place mog bonanza gils in just the thought of it would be nice.....but any-who's.

If you can only reach 300k you aren't doing things correctly. Just using your sparks alone you can get 1m from capped sparks and you can get that an endless amount of ways. Not trying to defend how they are doing this but to say you only have around 300k at most times is kinda sad given how this game throws gil at you in practically everything you can think of.

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Originally Posted by Angemon

If you can only reach 300k you aren't doing things correctly. Just using your sparks alone you can get 1m from capped sparks and you can get that an endless amount of ways. Not trying to defend how they are doing this but to say you only have around 300k at most times is kinda sad given how this game throws gil at you in practically everything you can think of.

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Then more in details please? What/what item and where or how in what way/methods carried out to reach that end gil goal, plus thanks Ange!

Edit: Also Note a path for that same goals in that amount of gil that can be done in a very short hour or maybe 2 in the very same day, if its possible even too!?

2nd Edit: Well I always save my RoE sparks for only using them on skill up books and tomes but after I always use those sparks on the skillups books/tomes they're gone quickly, Sorry!