[dev 1065] Relic/Mythic/Empyrean 99 step 2 Trails unrealistic

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No one needs to glow that bad

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I agree. That's why these trials should not exist, especially when they're so absurd as this.

The existence of these trials allowed them to make stage 1 doable by a "majority of PCs". I promise you the discussion was:

"We need a long ridiculous trial to keep the hardcores playing but many of them say they will quit if they can't get their 99 weapons with relative ease. How about we make 2 trials. 1 of which is easy and gives them most of the stats so they don't quit and 1 more that is crazy hard and keeps them busy but isn't imperative to the strength of their weapon."

While the Stage 2 trials are insane and should be dialed back to more reasonable numbers this is the smartest, and best way, from the players perspective, to give us what we want but still keep the people who need a hamster wheel interested. I personally wont even touch the stage 2 trial but some people who absolutely need to be working towards something will. They probably won't ever finish but that's not the point. In this era of FFXI development this is the best outcome we could have hoped for.

In 6 months when PW has been killed 8 times per server the devs will probably look at eachother and say "wtf were we thinking". Until then let's just let things play out unless the stage 1 trials are unreasonable.

If the stage 1 path for empyrean is not just lower amount of riftdross then I want my gils back SE. Telling that we should go and collect Riftdross for our empy and then changing it.. would be pretty bad (I want to use other words but I dont want to be banned)

i can see it now, stage 1 will be 1/2 the requirements of the stage 2 99 weapon. but the kicker will be in order to start the stage 2 version, you first have to complete stage 1 lolol. hi2u 4500/1500/750 weapon upgrade items XD

I'm sorry but, that seems to me like another "sign your life away to us on the dotted line....." type thing. Assuming these trials are put into flow, not everyone has the time to do that sort of thing, so say for e.g. 62hrs+ could be tripled., I myself dont have a VW ls, i'd love one, or would love to setup one, but the issue is as its always been, finding 18+ commited people to do VW when majority are free, and have the right jobs for it. otherwise its a waste of time and i feel SE havent taken into account theirs people out there that just cant commit to that sort of requirement, i mean, yes relic used to be bad, still are for some for getting them. But that was just how it was. At least now you can access dynamis more easily. And even when dynamis used to be as it was, you could get stuff done, get currency and carry on to the next run. Here its 18 people for a massive VW NM that has "a chance" of dropping the needed items to upgrade, as it was pointed out unrealistic, i thought their was a message before we logged in to say they have no desire to make an impact to drive you away from your friends family etc to play a game.... If thats the case then why are we getting trials that could take if everything went spot on (which almost never happens) that may take 3 years+ for 1 upgrade? Feels like a little bit of de ja vu to me, when we look at past reports of AV and PW taking 18hrs+ to kill. They stopped that due to it being ridiculous when they say its a gmae, dont let it take over your life. To me this is the sort of thing that if you spend majority of days online non stop, its a life sucker. I like to play ff myself, but theirs a point and with these trials that only VW ls's have access to, seem really farfetched

I think the main issue presented here is that these Afterglow-tier weapons are challenging the current paradigm of hardcore players/'elitists' being able to get and use the very best in the game. It has been made very clear from more recent interviews ("Abyssea was a mistake" epithets, etc.) that the development team wants to pull FFXI back to the Gaussian bell curve hierarchical system that reigned pre-level cap increase.

The reasoning behind this, however, is completely lost on me.

The player base, of my limited observations, has made it quite clear that FFXI flourished while under the Abyssea paradigm - that is, skill-rewarded endeavours that any layperson could undertake and be greatly rewarded for, and top-tier gear that anyone with a short time investment and dedication could acquire. (This actually addresses the issue of Voidwatch more than the issue at hand, but it still applies.)

That's not to say you can't have both paradigms active at once. Which then leads into the second issue:
Nobody is going to complete these trials. This doesn't even need explanation. Find me seventeen people who are going to repeat the exact same activity for months to years on end with no reward in it for themselves.

I see what the development team is trying to pull off, but they're going about it the entirely wrong way, and it doesn't take a game designer to see that.

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Originally Posted by Zadimortis

I think the main issue presented here is that these Afterglow-tier weapons are challenging the current paradigm of hardcore players/'elitists' being able to get and use the very best in the game. It has been made very clear from more recent interviews ("Abyssea was a mistake" epithets, etc.) that the development team wants to pull FFXI back to the Gaussian bell curve hierarchical system that reigned pre-level cap increase.

The reasoning behind this, however, is completely lost on me.

The player base, of my limited observations, has made it quite clear that FFXI flourished while under the Abyssea paradigm - that is, skill-rewarded endeavours that any layperson could undertake and be greatly rewarded for, and top-tier gear that anyone with a short time investment and dedication could acquire. (This actually addresses the issue of Voidwatch more than the issue at hand, but it still applies.)

That's not to say you can't have both paradigms active at once. Which then leads into the second issue:
Nobody is going to complete these trials. This doesn't even need explanation. Find me seventeen people who are going to repeat the exact same activity for months to years on end with no reward in it for themselves.

I see what the development team is trying to pull off, but they're going about it the entirely wrong way, and it doesn't take a game designer to see that.

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This sorry to say is wrong. There is still no proof that the "Abyssea Age" of FF11 was anymore more successful then before it. All Abyssea did was make bad players do good damage with Atmas that made you godly. Abyssea was SE way of saying STFU all you crybabies that cant get good stuff. Its all a gimmick to keep people playing, getting this ridiculous gear with great stats. Then they released VW which goes back to a more pre level 75 environment with alliance based teamwork. Your playing an MMO, the major concept of an MMO is to do things with others. Why do some people even bother playing a game that was clearly designed to play with a massive amount of people just to solo. I'll still never understand that.

This is awesome guys the developers have actually listened. They gave us the hard content you all have been asking for. I am loving these new trials right now. Shouldn't see anymore "game is to easy" topics.

You have a pretty messed up version of what easy is.

The old relic trials were "easy", I mean how hard can it be to do a relic WS killshot...if you can do it once, you can do it 2000 times.

Easy means more than just the 1-10 difficulty scale. Can you do one situp? I hope so, its easy. Do 2000 now...shouldnt be that hard?

Currently, even if I was "hardcore" I wouldn't waste my time on this over doing other content that already takes a great deal of time just to get the drop from and would be far more beneficial to me over an afterglow. The afterglow lasts for 30 seconds no matter what, if another person has an emp/relic/mythic and use the ws for aftermath it becomes obsolete since aftermath effects take priority and don't stack with afterglow, and it causes lag just like conflux do. I wouldn't be surprised if it causes xbox or ps2/ps3 players to crash too (but we won't know that until someone actually has it since only PC users can participate on test server).

So for how useless it is compared to the time required to get it and the overall impact on playability it can end up having on FPS, I honestly don't see the issue. I'll work to get it to the 99 base version, but as far as I'm concerned this glow effect can be shoved where the sun don't shine since it isn't any better than what comes out of there either.