R/M/E 99 to 119 upgrade info and findings

The congestion for RME items is not in bcnms because the seals have an abysmal drop rate.

The real congestion is at ??? at Mata, Chapuli, Raptor, and to a lesser extent taxet. The easy pop-able delve nms. If the dev team was worried about congestion, they should check out "Johnny Q Dualboxer" hogging the mata ??? for 10 hours straight, who starts to complain when you get in a pop and starts yelling obscenities at you.

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Originally Posted by Stompa

So log-in event wise, we can buy 1 SKC for 100 points, or buy 10 bseals for 100 points, and will soon be able to convert the ten bseals at 3-to-1 into 3 SKCs. So why would anyone buy one SKC from event when they could get three times as many by buying bseals and converting them.
I am farming seals again now , new and old. The problem is that most people doing the SKCNM fights are doing runs in closed LS groups, they don't want to do PUGs and risk wasting their SKCs because of PUG-related mishaps. And most of the smaller LS are nearly empty post SoA, including ours. So the problem isn't so much obtaining seals, it is obtaining people who want to do the bcnms and who have spaces in their group.

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Bold is the other half of the problem....
Which would also be solved with adding the conversion table.

"oh no! this PUG wiped! now I'm down 20 SKC..."
With the conversion available it becomes:
"oh no! this PUG wiped! now I'm down 20 SKC... Oh well... I got xbajillion other seals, I'll just go convert some more."

(also, it's really hard to tell because... Japanese is the devil... but it seems like they might be postponing adding the conversion? Like... there's an implication from this: "こちらは、今後のバージョンアップで対応します。
交換レートやルールは、従来通りにする予定です。" that makes it seem like when they add the conversion... it'll be like the December update... BUT... maybe they'll add it in tomorrow's maintenance... this kind of thing is the programming level of an intern with a spreadsheet... But even if it won't happen until December at the earliest... at least it will be a 3:1 rate... instead of some new stupid rate.)

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Originally Posted by Stompa

Yeah but some of us don't have millions of seals. For example I converted countless thousands of seals into kindred seals to spam ks99 for the sole purpose of helping LS Members obtain their Black Belt items. I lost count of how many times I did this in the last few years. I don't even play monk but I was happy to use my seals to help LS members.

To recap ; the Af1 99 upgrade path is bloody awful. The finished Af1-99 is practically the same as the higher end bayld & skirmish armors which can be obtained in absolutely no time and being AFK too. To have to grind 1000s of bcnm crests to upgrade some af1 sets is bullshit, when you consider they are not that much better than what is available for free with 18k Bayld. Add to that the low server numbers, and the fact that most ppl spamming those bcnms are doing so in statics on their endgame LS, what you have got is a new Af1 upgrade system that penalises solo players and players who are on low-man LS, or simply in LS (like mine) that are nearly empty since SoA arrived and pissed everyone off and made them play Tetris instead.

Even if the spamming bcnm requirement for multiple sets of upgraded af1 were actually just CS trigger soloable bcnms, and not requiring thousands of crests, it would still be a fairly bullshit system compared to storyline reward systems and quest-specific battlefields. But if the upgrading Af1 via solo bcnm option was there I would take it, because nobody on my LS wants to upgrade af1 and ppl arent doing PUGs for it either. So SE designed a brand new brick wall for people to be brought to a dead stop by. Praise Altana.

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Have you done the new BCNM? There have different difficulty levels. Normal was a joke it probably can be beat with 2 or 3 people. Took 6 people and destroyed it on normal the mobs hardly hit for any damage at all. Really only level 4 or 5 are very challenging and require a full group.

I haven't done easy or very easy but I assume they are soloable. There is your solo option.

If you only have a small number of people, do 2 normal mode bcnm instead of going for level 5. You get 3 drops from level 3, 5 drops from level 5, but level 3 is so easy you can easily low man it.

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Originally Posted by Stompa

Yeah but some of us don't have millions of seals. For example I converted countless thousands of seals into kindred seals to spam ks99 for the sole purpose of helping LS Members obtain their Black Belt items. I lost count of how many times I did this in the last few years. I don't even play monk but I was happy to use my seals to help LS members.

To recap ; the Af1 99 upgrade path is bloody awful. The finished Af1-99 is practically the same as the higher end bayld & skirmish armors which can be obtained in absolutely no time and being AFK too. To have to grind 1000s of bcnm crests to upgrade some af1 sets is bullshit, when you consider they are not that much better than what is available for free with 18k Bayld. Add to that the low server numbers, and the fact that most ppl spamming those bcnms are doing so in statics on their endgame LS, what you have got is a new Af1 upgrade system that penalises solo players and players who are on low-man LS, or simply in LS (like mine) that are nearly empty since SoA arrived and pissed everyone off and made them play Tetris instead.

Even if the spamming bcnm requirement for multiple sets of upgraded af1 were actually just CS trigger soloable bcnms, and not requiring thousands of crests, it would still be a fairly bullshit system compared to storyline reward systems and quest-specific battlefields. But if the upgrading Af1 via solo bcnm option was there I would take it, because nobody on my LS wants to upgrade af1 and ppl arent doing PUGs for it either. So SE designed a brand new brick wall for people to be brought to a dead stop by. Praise Altana.

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That's true. Not everyone has the resources I do... but I didn't mean to imply that you did too.
I was just saying that having the conversion option alleviates the need to farm SKCs exclusively. Because even if you don't have a bajillion seals, the "dead seal drops" that you get while farming the SKC can then become SKC and thus aren't dead drops anymore.

The MNKs I know had gotten their BB a long time ago... So the only BCNMs that I have ever needed seals to help someone else has been the Beastmen Seal seals....
But yeah, my point was that having the conversion means that any other seals that drop while farming the SKC will hold the potential to be a SKC too.

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Originally Posted by Zumi

Have you done the new BCNM? There have different difficulty levels. Normal was a joke it probably can be beat with 2 or 3 people. Took 6 people and destroyed it on normal the mobs hardly hit for any damage at all. Really only level 4 or 5 are very challenging and require a full group.

I haven't done easy or very easy but I assume they are soloable. There is your solo option.

If you only have a small number of people, do 2 normal mode bcnm instead of going for level 5. You get 3 drops from level 3, 5 drops from level 5, but level 3 is so easy you can easily low man it.

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This is very good to hear.... buuuuut... the 1:1 page:BCNM pop requires 1000 SKCs just to 109ify a single set...
while having the solo option is good.
And it's even feasible.... if the conversion was allowable.

Most people do not have all jobs at 99.
But most people DO have 2-3 jobs leveled to 99 that they will want 109ification for.... at least.
So... basically we really need the conversion to let everyone have access.

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Originally Posted by Stompa

Tbh I haven't tried because I'm still farming SKC. Also I wasn't sure if it had entry requirement 6/6. It doesn't say 1-6 players it says requirement 6. On POL, under the "upgrade AF" tab it also says 20 kindred's crests, rather than SKC. Again that confused me. I have a fairly confused factory-setting to begin with (getting old!) so those POL announcements don't help.

I have only heard of people doing it on 6/6. If it is soloable or duoable they should say that on POL. What they said "20 kindreds crests to enter" shouldn't that say 20 SKC? And it says"restrictions : 6 persons" normally it would say "1-6 persons" if it was soloable. Seriously though if it is duoable I have a friend who wants to build the new AF. I'm certainly happy to try, I've been soloing bcnm for a long time. I just wasn't sure if they locked it for 6 person only. Also not sure if it can be done by two people in 30 mins. A lot of solo/low man stuff like this results in the mob on like 2% and you time out, which is ok if its just a mission battlefield but it sucks when you are losing 20 SKC for it.
As it is, a) I'm still farming the SKCs and b) as other have pointed out this system is mega b@ll$, AF should never involve farming thousands of seals, and more so when equally powerful armors can be obtained for like 0.01% of the effort in skirmish or from the Peacekeepers lol. Its just a fail idea, and I realise they are "organic process" and trying stuff out, but I think they made an error on it to use bcnm and crests.
But I will get an orb tomorrow and try to enter on solo or duo. But that doesn't change the fact that its a dumb system really, theres like 100 other ways they could have upgraded af1 without losing any of the work ethic or challenge. And those ways would be more fun too.

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That's all translation "error".
You see... Japanese is... something.
The Japanese you'll learn in a university classroom is nothing like the Japanese people speak...
Every language has dialects... but this isn't a dialectal thing...
The truth is.... Japanese people don't speak in full sentences.
Like... 70% of sentences spoken will be just a verb, or just a noun... nothing else.
And this happens in writing too... though less frequently in text than in rl speech.
The thing is, Japanese is a 100% context based language. Hence why "kindred crests" is in the notes... because Japanese is contextual, makes that mean the Sacred Kindred Crests....
Though it's been almost a week since I looked at the original JP announcement... soooooooo... I could be misremembering and it's just a localization error.
But recall that it was just "demon seal" and not "holy demon seal"... But I could be misremembering.

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Originally Posted by Zarchery

The item collection part doesn't bother me since you can buy the stuff, but the requirement of the Delve win does.

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Well there is the option of clearing one of the new battlefields in “difficult” or “very difficult” setting instead of Menace Inspection.

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Originally Posted by FaeQueenCory

And, Dragoy, while I have not had Eliosha for every long... only a few years now...
Eliosha has about 500ish for every seal.

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I don't have very much playtime either... 698'ish days, but much like Stompa there, I have repeatedly used all of my crests/seals to either try my luck on a Kraken Club or the Black Belt items (from which the latter, especially the behemoth tongue took ages, was for a friend, and we didn't even find one in over 10 battles (but I digress)).

Them seals and crests just don't come my way (not partying for EXP probably isn't helping).

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Originally Posted by Stompa

Also I wasn't sure if it had entry requirement 6/6. It doesn't say 1-6 players it says requirement 6. On POL, under the "upgrade AF" tab it also says 20 kindred's crests, rather than SKC.

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I agree that it could be clearer, though I personally just imagined it meaning 'up to 6'. And yes, the mistake regarding the crests still isn't fixed, even though the matter has been reported on the day of the update...

Tsk.


I'll still wait the alternative options they'll come up with, and if I happen to find enough siegels, I'll go and take a look see.

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Originally Posted by FaeQueenCory

... the 1:1 page:BCNM pop requires 1000 SKCs just to 109ify a single set...

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My impression is that every person at the BC gets 2 pages per completion, and then the BC itself drops 1-5 pages based on the difficulty mode. So if you solo the easiest mode you get 3 drops per orb. If you do the hardest mode (YPYD) in a group of 6, you get 17 pages per orb.

It takes 5 pages to upgrade a +1 piece and 10 pages to upgrade a NQ piece. So really:
Solo - 33 SKCs per +1 upgrade, 67 SKCs per NQ upgrade; 167 SKCs per +1 full set upgraded, 333 SKCs per NQ full set upgraded
Hard Mode Party - 6 SKCs per +1 upgrade, 12 SKCs per NQ upgrade

If you're really going to go about soloing it, I would hope that you can also go solo Limbus (can enter every day now) and upgrade your stuff from NQ to +1.

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Originally Posted by Dragoy

I don't have very much playtime either... 698'ish days, but much like Stompa there, I have repeatedly used all of my crests/seals to either try my luck on a Kraken Club or the Black Belt items (from which the latter, especially the behemoth tongue took ages, was for a friend, and we didn't even find one in over 10 battles (but I digress)).

Them seals and crests just don't come my way (not partying for EXP probably isn't helping).

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Don't get me wrong, I wasn't saying that you should have a lot of seals or anything...
I was just giving my example of a 2yrold character who has >2000 useless seals... But I know a lot of my friends don't have the seals that I have... I, unlike you, have just been lucky...

Ultimately, it's like what I said to Stompa, adding the conversions will help everyone.
For those that don't have many seals: any new seal will be able to be turned into a SKC, making 0 "dead" seal drops.
For those that already have a stockpile: they can now actually use the seals they have saved up for something worthwhile.

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Originally Posted by Byrth

My impression is that every person at the BC gets 2 pages per completion, and then the BC itself drops 1-5 pages based on the difficulty mode. So if you solo the easiest mode you get 3 drops per orb. If you do the hardest mode (YPYD) in a group of 6, you get 17 pages per orb.

It takes 5 pages to upgrade a +1 piece and 10 pages to upgrade a NQ piece. So really:
Solo - 33 SKCs per +1 upgrade, 67 SKCs per NQ upgrade; 167 SKCs per +1 full set upgraded, 333 SKCs per NQ full set upgraded
Hard Mode Party - 6 SKCs per +1 upgrade, 12 SKCs per NQ upgrade

If you're really going to go about soloing it, I would hope that you can also go solo Limbus (can enter every day now) and upgrade your stuff from NQ to +1.

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From my understanding.... it's based upon the difficulty of the BCNM.
very easy = 1
very hard = 4

With easy being soloable, that's still 10pgs needed... meaning 10 BCNMs. Meaning 200 SKC just for a single piece of AF... not a whole set, just a hat or a glove.
For the set, that's 5x more... so 1000 SKCs.

I am not sure where you got the idea that they all drop 2 and then a bonus based on difficulty... if that's so... GREAT.
But I don't recall ever seeing that in the notes.
And further... I don't see how you get 13 SKCs... are you fractioning for 2 runs giving you a little more than 5? Cause... that's inherently misleading. You can't do that.
You can't spend 13 SKCs on an orb. It will cost you 40 per +1 upgrade no matter what, assuming you are not mistaken about the base/bonus page drops.
So your SKC numbers are just wrong.
Sure you might end up with "extra" seals...
But you can't fraction the cost of the entry item to be less than the entry item's cost.

And I didn't know Limbus was a daily thing now... I thought it was still 3day cooldown...
Well that's good to know... I guess. (I despise Limbus and the way you +1 the AF1s... too much randomness.... too much... grind without any gain, if that makes any sense...)
So it might very well be advantageous for people to +1 their AF1 first...

But ultimately that's a personal choice. (I hate Limbus so much, I am more than willing to spend some more SKCs on a couple more BCNMs... plus, I just don't have the TIME to Limbus+1 4 AF1s... and that's only when I can actually afford to do so by using my resources... some people have time, others have gil, I just have seals and never enough of the other two.)

So, let me make sure that I'm understanding this. You guys (Square Enix) held off on allowing us to exchange Beastmen seals, Kindred Crests, and High Kindred Crests for Sacred Kindred Crests due to fear of congestion on the instanced servers. Correct? Similarly, you're allowing us to upgrade our reforged AF (iLevel 109) to AF+1 (iLevel 119), in December, at which point you will also presumably be allowing us to exchange for Sacred Kindred Crests.

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While currently the item level is 109, we are planning to increase it to 119 in the December version update.

After this, we would like to add upgrade content in a slightly different fashion for relic and empyrean armor.

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As difficult and time-consuming as it is to farm seals now, and as few people care enough about iLevel 109 gear to put forth the time and effort to farm the seals, not many people have the reforged AF. The desire for the iLevel 119 reforged AF, however (which will presumably require the base reforged AF) will be much higher, leading to much more interest in doing the battlefields, which they will be able to do due to being able to exchange for Sacred Kindred Crests.

My point is this: in delaying the ability to exchange for Sacred Kindred Crests due to fear of server congestion, you've increased the amount of congestion the servers will experience in December past what it would have been otherwise. In my opinion, a viable solution would be to have a maintenance, mini-update, or something similar before the December update (the sooner the better) to allow us to exchange seals for Sacred Kindred Crests so that more people will have the base reforged AF. Think of it as spreading the server load out over time instead of waiting for it to explode when the December update is released.

Just my two cents.

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Originally Posted by FaeQueenCory

Don't get me wrong, I wasn't saying that you should have a lot of seals or anything...
I was just giving my example of a 2yrold character who has >2000 useless seals... But I know a lot of my friends don't have the seals that I have... I, unlike you, have just been lucky...

Ultimately, it's like what I said to Stompa, adding the conversions will help everyone.
For those that don't have many seals: any new seal will be able to be turned into a SKC, making 0 "dead" seal drops.
For those that already have a stockpile: they can now actually use the seals they have saved up for something worthwhile.


From my understanding.... it's based upon the difficulty of the BCNM.
very easy = 1
very hard = 4

With easy being soloable, that's still 10pgs needed... meaning 10 BCNMs. Meaning 200 SKC just for a single piece of AF... not a whole set, just a hat or a glove.
For the set, that's 5x more... so 1000 SKCs.

I am not sure where you got the idea that they all drop 2 and then a bonus based on difficulty... if that's so... GREAT.
But I don't recall ever seeing that in the notes.
And further... I don't see how you get 13 SKCs... are you fractioning for 2 runs giving you a little more than 5? Cause... that's inherently misleading. You can't do that.
You can't spend 13 SKCs on an orb. It will cost you 40 per +1 upgrade no matter what, assuming you are not mistaken about the base/bonus page drops.
So your SKC numbers are just wrong.
Sure you might end up with "extra" seals...
But you can't fraction the cost of the entry item to be less than the entry item's cost.

And I didn't know Limbus was a daily thing now... I thought it was still 3day cooldown...
Well that's good to know... I guess. (I despise Limbus and the way you +1 the AF1s... too much randomness.... too much... grind without any gain, if that makes any sense...)
So it might very well be advantageous for people to +1 their AF1 first...

But ultimately that's a personal choice. (I hate Limbus so much, I am more than willing to spend some more SKCs on a couple more BCNMs... plus, I just don't have the TIME to Limbus+1 4 AF1s... and that's only when I can actually afford to do so by using my resources... some people have time, others have gil, I just have seals and never enough of the other two.)

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When you do the new bcnm there is personal drops and chest drops. Difficulty is 1 - 5. If you soloed something on lv1 you would get 2 personal drops, and 1 from the chest for a total of 3. Also update notes are vague and don't give the full story and often have translation errors.

Here is what you have to look forward to. So far as I understand Monsters in Monstrosity will be able to level past 99 somehow, likely involving Infamy, but in either case. The idea I figure is get a monster to 99, once that update hits, level in a PvP uncapped zone so long as those exist, and tada, you win, play Monstrosity, have fun, enjoy yourself, be overpowered as all hell, and you can get SKCs still!

drop rate on SKC is from my own experiments in SoA zones pretty terrible, I spent a couple of hours soloing jagil and crackclaws on my dancer in Foret, and the SKC drop less often than one sees the Zaffre Ygrette Shards.
It seems like they added a minimum time limit before SKC can drop, so I cant get one sooner than 5 minutes since the previous one no matter how many things you kill, kind of like how they slowed us down from mass farming things like flame geodes with AOE burning.

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Originally Posted by Zumi

When you do the new bcnm there is personal drops and chest drops. Difficulty is 1 - 5. If you soloed something on lv1 you would get 2 personal drops, and 1 from the chest for a total of 3. Also update notes are vague and don't give the full story and often have translation errors.

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Ah!
Thank you for clarifying. (and I know better than most how the production notes will have translation "errors" in them... it's why I follow the links to the JP release and read those too.)
This makes getting 10 a lot easier... even if one has to solo it. (I'd rather PUG... cause... I enjoy the social aspects of MMOs.. gasp!)
But that's still a huge mess of seals to get! (though not 1000 at least)

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Originally Posted by Sapphires

drop rate on SKC is from my own experiments in SoA zones pretty terrible, I spent a couple of hours soloing jagil and crackclaws on my dancer in Foret, and the SKC drop less often than one sees the Zaffre Ygrette Shards.
It seems like they added a minimum time limit before SKC can drop, so I cant get one sooner than 5 minutes since the previous one no matter how many things you kill, kind of like how they slowed us down from mass farming things like flame geodes with AOE burning.

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You have to "cheat" to get a bunch... read: zone every time you get a seal/SKC to drop.

I would like to see trial of magians weapon progression upgraded to level 119 as well. I'm sure i'm not alone on this idea. But rather than make it a monster grind to go past 99, there should be some other method to complete the upgrades...

this is a case of something where you "can't win for losing". 1st, with the reives, why bother? 2nd, they deliberately made colonization easier so people could get to battles; great, but it removed most incentive to just fight in the areas. if you put any of that back people will bitch about the need to waste time trying to keep paths open when they only want to get to the battles, like they did when you 1st made the changes. I don't envy you the decision on how to make old school play-regular mobs- relevant when old school partying is dead. but since I preferred that style I hope you can make it happen.

Love you people bunch of dee dees.This is what you all have been asking for really. This is the game you all missed. A massive amount of grinding for something that may or may not be just a side grade or situational piece. Everyone should want a piece or two of the 99 af some of it is best in slot but no harm in only getting those pieces for the jobs you want you don't have to have the whole set.

If they made it the same as run and geo then the content would be dead in a week or two simple as that. Don't like tell you friends to leave 14 and come back....oh wait it was this way for years will 1% drop rates grinding a bunch of NMs with nothing for rewards to fight the big bads that drop the item you and the whole alliance wanted. The game has never delivered content at a reasonable rate so all the content we got took grinding it forever to finish it. People say they are sick of delve what they really mean is no reason since unlike Kirin that getting 18 people W.legs back in the day was a lol goal that everyone knew wasn't going to happen but they kept showing up hoping that it would be their turn before people burned out or left after they got their, worst yet the LS decides that they done enough of sky and it was time to move on.

Box don't seem to come from SKC20 very hard mode, or at least they are not 100%. Got 1 single and one case. Also there were 3 AF-mats in the common pool and 4 in personal pool if anyone cares.

Bleh, did a second run and we got 1 single pluton and a single bouler from the chest... seriously wtf.

at least we got a title : "yagudo coopkeeper"

The issue with what you are saying is the fact we would likely be waiting months still to get the RF for our jobs because to do that they would likely create a story around it too, unlike now where the story is as simple as getting things that tell them how to make our gear better I assume, like the plans for Salvage were. The fact they would have to create new stories on top of characters, animations, new ???s, monsters, quests, and so on, all would make it take much more time than this. While I can agree with you that I would rather have a real quest system to obtain them, I can understand that realistically we would have waited months longer for it, and that time can be better spent, that's why I actually prefer this way in light of everything else.

I am not sure how it is illogical though. They spent a small amount of time redoing fights that no one did anymore to be relevant and threw a reward in them for people, then added a new difficulty system that we have not had before in these kinds of battles on top of it, rather than spending time to make individual battles and/or quests for each job. I mean, if you are talking about having the exact same quest for every job that's 1 thing, but that's also stupid in my opinion as this solution is because then your just spamming battles all the same, just on a different job, or on the same job for a different job's rewards.

Also, if you have some friends or LS-mates to do it with it would not be that bad, the fact that even on Normal, which is not hard at all if you have some well geared people, you can get 2 pages every time, and only need 5 a piece, that's 13 battles at most on normal for a full set. If you win lots or do higher difficulties you can get even more from it.

Its not logical to stay in a LS if the LS is not doing anything and has no members. It sounds like you need a new LS. What I am saying is logical so far as the quests go is the fact of how they developed it, development wise it is logical to do it as they did. The fact they are harder than new jobs really sucks, but its to be expected, they are not the same as the old jobs, the same way that ToAU jobs and WotG jobs worked differently to make their AF. The difference between then and now is the fact that the level increased, and so you can expect even more changes because of that. Am I saying its 100% fair? No, I am not, I do have to work harder for my RDM RF than RUN did for its AF, yes, but that does not change the fact that I can understand that from a development point of view it was smarter to do because it saved a lot of time.

As for it being the same as the Bayld gear, its not, its attuned to your specific job, including abilities and stats you would never see on another piece, in the case of your PUP, sure, you can pick up that Bayld gear, but you will find no Maneuver bonus, no Automaton Haste, no overload reduction, and when the time comes for the next update, you will be able to upgrade your RF to 119, the highest level in the current game, where as the Bayld gear will not. The advantages are worth more than you give them credit for. I can agree with the fact it is unfair to a point, but I think you exaggerate it to much.

The real issue I have with it is that they tied it to the poor seal system at all, without fixing the seal system itself. The drop rates should not be on a timer, they should not be as low as they are, and there should be a reason to kill normal mobs. If we could get seals off anything we kill in the level range and the highest level enemies dropped it once every 2~4 kills, that would be perfect to me, the lowest level can have a drop rate of once every 8~10 kills. To me, it would be balanced, harder mobs, higher risk, much higher drop rate, and no timer rules to dictate drops, that is a bad idea from the start.

You say I think everything is fine unless it effects my RDM, as though I have never complained about VW, WKs, Reives as a whole, the way content was outdated to the extreme, VNMs, Item levels, NNI's near total luck reliance, and so on. I have had various problems with this game in the past both with RDM and completely ignoring it. To me you seem to look at everything from the worst possible view, or are simply pessimistic with things. I know stunners who do not bot, I myself can stun without a bot, and I know of no linkshells who will force you to use one except one you mentioned, I have never heard of another that I can recall.

I am not here to defend SE nor to attack them, I am here to speak my mind on every subject I feel the need to. Do I understand your complaints? Yes, but I also understand the foolishness of some things you say too. For instance, there is no reason you can not leave the LS your in and all join a new shell, or recruit, or make a new shell and recruit if the shellholder is no longer present. Saying that you do not want to because of the memories or because of what the shell once meant is a bad reason in my opinion, I am in the fourth incarnation of a long standing Linkshell on Phoenix, it was originally ScarletRain when I joined it, becoming Convicts, ConvictsReborn, and now PuntDeTaru. Every time the name and shell changed it was because the leader either left or stepped down, as I did when it became PuntDeTaru, and one of our best members took over the shell.

I see the same pessimism in your talk about other Linkshells as I saw in your talk about Empyrean weapons, where you made it sound as though all Linkshells were ran by people lording over others forcing them to build the leader a weapon against their will in hopes of currying favor with said leader for later on. My point being, you seem unwilling to try what I am saying in fear of things which may not happen, even if they did happen, you found a bad Linkshell, why not look for another. If all Linkshells are that bad, perhaps its not the Linkshells, but rather the server of which they are located.

Another thing is you say I am acting like a cheerleader for SE, yet at the same time, part of what I am defending it seems is the community, since the community is every LS of which you seem to think is bad, and while I do not agree with any of those you have complained about, I know that all Linkshells are not like that, as I said, if they are on that server then its not only a community issue, but a server issue. In this case, I think what they did from a development viewpoint was good, it was fast, got us content we wanted, and they are upgrading it further next update so it can be some of the top gear in the game. On the other hand, from an in game viewpoint it was worse than quests, its a bit unbalanced and unfair, but it at least exists and will again, be upgraded to the point it is top tier gear.

Lastly, so far as the AF being your free option, it changed. Right now your free option is the Bayld gear, the same gear you complain about throwing away and having to buy a new set every month, that's your free gear. The RF gear right now is top tier gear, at this very moment its got some pieces which are the best you can get, and others which are not far off, once the update comes it will be top tier across the board most likely because of how item levels work.

Am I saying its perfect? No, but I do think you over-exaggerate the issue and when told to play with others who want to do it too, use your previous bad experiences with Linkshells as an excuse as to why its not fair.

Why, the fights offer lowman groups the content they been wanting with good rewards for everyone and adjusting difficulty, you know everything the player base has been asking for. Yeah the seal system sucks but guess what there was going to some kind of road block you knew full well was coming. If there was no road block then the content would be dead. Like now you might see a couple of shouts flat out begging for the run and geo af fights but having no rewards that really matter for any one they sit in town for hours. The SCK seal fights do drop gil items plus af upgrade items and the harder fights drop more items for the upgrades so if 6 people got to together you could knock out whole sets in a couple of sittings and unlike the old af, that you were mocked for ever full timing even at the level you first got it, the RF is useful and like I said some of it is best in slot either for macro or full time. From what I have seen you don't need bots to do any of the SKC fights just people knowing how the game works.


Also guess what old endgame was massively flawed to, it wasn't ever that fun fighting the same mobs over and over for crappy drop rates and then hoping you won the lot had the most points or the leader decided it was finally your time to get your reward. It was only fun the first 2 or 3 times then it became a chore that you did cause if you skipped out you would either lose your favor with the overloards or point edge. How many hours did people put in just when it might finally be their time the LS disbanded, the leaders decided it was time to move on or people just stop showing up and the LS went from a event LS to a social.

Addressing the idea of things being outdated in 'five weeks' real quick.

Since the day item levels were introduced, 119 so far has been the highest level gear. SE has shown they understand the players do not want it going higher, they have not made anything higher as of yet. They made the old WKs the same level as the newer WKs, which should indicate that new Delves will be the same level as old Delves. Since Delves have the highest tier of gear the current time, it would stand to reason that until they create all new content past Delve, which is likely months or more away, that level 119 will remain the dominant level. If 119 remains the highest level, RF gear will be level 119 next month, putting it at the top, not to be outdated for a long time.

What I am trying to say is, unlike other gear, this gear is confirmed to be top tier for some time following the update next month, and since the pages are gotten from SKCNMs right now, and next month is the update of which we get the other battlefields updated from the stories, I assume that means we will see the new pages for 119 coming from fights like Divine Might II and Dawn II, though I could be mistaken.

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Originally Posted by Stompa

As I said like five times already, people are doing the new BCNM in closed groups with longtime friends they can trust, and on VT mode for max drops, and they are not doing shout runs for the obvious reason of losing crests. So if you have a LS in which 50% of ppl didn't quit FFXI in protest this year, and that LS is farming the bcnm you are OK. If you don't have that, you're screwed. Theres your fair and logical system that you are waving pompoms about.

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So shout yourself for a party of which you do YOYD(Your Orb Your Drop). If you do that, you can get a party, do the event, and no one can complain, you can offer to use your Orb first to assure everyone that in the event of failure, you are the one losing your Crests, not them. If you are not willing to put your own Crests on the line for others, why should they be willing to do it for you? Simple answer, they shouldn't be, so unless you can do this, you can not complain others will not shout for their own either.

This again goes back to the community issue of people wanting to do events but not willing to lead them, like those who complain about RME VW shouts or Oat MNK Delve shouts, but then never make their own parties for it.

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I'm glad you like it now everyone has quit the game and new AF farming excludes anyone that doesn't have a full LS.

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Excludes anyone who doesn't have a full LS? 6 people is a full LS? You said you had 5 right? Well, find 1 more member, your almost filled!

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I hope you continue to enjoy your iLvl progression game with dwindling server numbers, as more and more people quit. Just don't ever question why those ppl are quitting, those people are WRONG because they don't have 5000 posts on a forum means their views are wrong.

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I forgot, where again did my post count come into this discussion as a reason my points are more valid than yours?

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And that SE decisions which exclude everyone who doesn't have a full LS on a server with 400 ppl half of which are mules, SE are right to do that and those players are wrong.

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Ignoring the full LS thing, which was ^ there... SE are right to do that which gives us more content to do when it has been the single largest complaint for this game since SoA because the events went from, well, long list I don't feel like typing, to Reives, Skirmish, and Delve.

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And as for farming bayld sets, wont happen, I will most likely join the thousands of ppl who quit this game since SOA / iLvl arrived, ppl who unlike me are not prepared to make a few comments on a forum to say what is wrong. And to face the relelntless OCD trolls on those forums too.

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And the troll card is played. The normal internet rules, all who oppose me are trolls, no matter their argument or its validity, the only exceptions to this being when someone is either a hater, because they use aggression in their arguments, or a cheerleader, because they do not complain about everything you do. The easiest way to deflect an argument, through the use of over used generalizing statements to attempt making another poster seem bad for their opinion. Love it.

Why do you keep going on about the 1000SKC if you got off you butt and started the shout your self you wouldn't have to do all that leg work of farming all the seal. Only reason it was done with 18 people was the people that needed were also the ones that were under geared to start with. 6 people could down it no problem but they were also the ones that didn't need it either cause they had better or already got it. But really that was endgame 7 years ago. A piece you could use pure gil to obtain was released with Toau. I wouldn't even consider it endgame it was part of midgame.

Sky, sea, limbus, all had crappy drop rates but with the SKC system of pop while not being perfect would let you finish far faster, by you know playing with other people in a MMO. Even lowmaning those events would still take a long time to finish everyone's want list or you could take a few hours of soloing the pop set then another couple of hours DoT kiting mobs or pet swapping and risk losing it at any point to some dick that claims the NM at the last 1%.

People begged SE for the solo option too and even said they wouldn't mind if it took longer so SE game them what they asked for but it is still far faster to do it with a group that at least everyone benefits from. Really I want to see exp of the best gear that didn't involve low drop rates, only thing I can think of is AH gear and W.turban.

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Originally Posted by Stompa

...people are doing the new BCNM in closed groups with longtime friends they can trust, and on VT mode for max drops...

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And that's why it's so brilliant that SE is finally including difficulty level choices with the events. Scalable difficulty. Finally. I've been waiting for years for them to do this because I don't have that many people to play with anymore. Now I can go in solo or in a duo and make progress. Pick the level you think your particular group can handle, get proportionate rewards. This encourages people to group up while at the same time not leaving other people behind. Is it a little slower? Probably, but I'm ok with that. What bugged me was when SE would create an event that said to me, "You want to pick up the game and play then put it down whenever you want? Well, too bad because X event requires you to have connections and give up some sleep here, another sacrifice there. After all, you're not getting anywhere without an alliance large LS backing you up."

Seeing as having +1 halves the cost of the upgrade via pages, you should only need a total of 500 at very most, that's also assuming you do easy or very easy for every single one and none drop from the box at the end of any of the SKCNMs you do though.

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Originally Posted by Stompa

...But the current system is another bunch of roses given to multiboxers and powershells who can spam high lvl mobs and burn the bcnms on VH mode for maximum drops, so its exactly as bad as your worst Tyrant LS memories, solo players and friend-group LS are getting screwed harder than ever in this Version Update.

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Actually, just the opposite. Solo players and Friend group LSs have been given the chance to participate in the battles for their AF1 +2 items. Can powershells do it faster? Yeah, probably. There's more people involved. But as it stands now smaller groups get to participate too.

This system WOULD be a bunch of roses to powershells as well as solo, friend-group unfriendly if it was a system like Legion: No scaling difficulty, all good items RARE/EX or 10s of millions of gil, Alliance mandatory, only best gear allowed.

But this? I'm just not seeing why this event is so hard on solo, friend-group LSs. It's actually quite accommodating.

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Originally Posted by Stompa

But SE made a version update with RME patch materials & with AF99 upgrade path, and instead of making a smart decision to have these two version update contents follow a different path to eachother, they bundled RME and af1-99 items into the same bcnms. Enquiring minds like mine might say that was a LAZY decision on their part, like screw it we'll just make all the Version Update content drop in the same Bcnms.

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I thought that was actually kind of smart of them. Now people from all "walks of life" are feeding the supply of RME mats, giving an economic boon to those who sell them and perhaps encouraging others to start their own RME. And because there are 3 different items to collect for R, M and E respectively, it further encourages trading, buying and selling. Again, the bad thing to do here would have been to make them EX and only drop from Delve fractures or <insert event here>. That would be very friend-group unfriendly.

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Originally Posted by Stompa

Also they made it so a solo player, obtaining 1 piece of AF upgrade item, requires 20 SKC and as you say "pick the easy battle". I have been farming the new new rabbits in the Drifts, and here is my results. 75 kills. 3 SKC. Half the night.

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I presume by this statement that you haven't been reading about the info found about these dropping. BG users are reporting a drop rate of greater than 20% and very rarely as many as 5 dropping from one monster. Check out the AF Upgrades thread on BG Forums for more information.

In that case I agree, they could have done more, and I do not like the Seal system as a whole so you will get no complaint from me in saying they should not have used it specifically, the only thing I have been trying to say the entire time is that from a development standpoint it does make sense, and it was a good choice, they used content they already were implementing in order to fulfill the need for a way to upgrade our AF/+1 into our RF.

I can definitely say I do not like that it is though X-NM battlefields, but I do like that they are at least trying to make that system better, such as right now trying to increase the drop rate. During the event going right now the drop rate is increased, the timer removed or lowered to 1 minute, that is unsure, and the amount of drops possible is determined by the number of people in your party, from 1~6 per drop depending on the amount. To me, these are amazing ideas that can help get people not only to play together to farm but help people get people together to fight the SKCNMs themselves.

Its not perfect, but it is something, and if nothing else, like RME items, they can always add them to other things later or maybe even make more permanent adjustments to the Seal system in the future, which is why I am being a bit more patient with it, if it were not for adjustments and the event they have made, I would be with you complaining about it, but I am trying to give them a bit of time with this, they already said they plan to adjust it, and they have plans for more battlefields next update, and that the RF will be going to level 119, all of which causes me to have at least some hope, enough so that I spent 3 hours on my RDM thread explaining why at that time I think some changes should be made, and why I have been trying to defend them a bit here.

But as I said, I do agree with you that the SKCNM idea as the exclusive way to upgrade these was a bad choice.

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Originally Posted by Mefuki

I presume by this statement that you haven't been reading about the info found about these dropping. BG users are reporting a drop rate of greater than 20% and very rarely as many as 5 dropping from one monster. Check out the AF Upgrades thread on BG Forums.

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Admittedly if that was in a party, it counts for very little, the event increases the rate and drop cap depending on the number of people in the party from what I understand, which is why solo I get a max of 1, but in a party with 4 friends yesterday I was getting 1~4. I could be wrong though, and have been just getting unlucky.

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Originally Posted by Stompa

Re; starting shouts. People are doing the bcnm in closed groups on VT mode for max drops. Nobody with enough SKC is going to waste it on /sh runs.

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This assumes no one else is in your situation besides you, which I think is false, and if you say you will use your own before others pop their own, it can give others a sense of security and safety when using their own, because the first run, which you supply the orb for, can allow them to see the difficulty, and chances of success. For instance if I make a group and we fail, I lost my orb, and while it sucks, at least we tried, and we learn, if others will stay we can try again, but the fact I used mine originally helped get them to come with me because I was willing to risk my own SKCs to show how we would do. I think it should work, if you try it and it doesn't, well, I am sorry, but if it does work, you have found a way to get through it easier.

I am sure others are in the same position as you are, looking for a way to get it done, but if you never shout for people and ask them you will never know, and if nothing else you could also shout for a party to farm the SKCs, making your kills faster, easier, and potentially more beneficial because of the event.

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Originally Posted by Stompa

That's great for multiboxers. Who are paying extra fees to SE every month. What a happy coincidence!

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This is one of the times I say you are being a pessimist... you could take your friends with you to farm and get more done, or team up with others to farm and then do the battles, rather than think of this or focus on it, you are busy complaining about how its easier for players playing multiple characters, do you see what I am getting at?

I'm referring to the zoning thing:

http://www.bluegartr.com/threads/118...=1#post5949089

http://www.bluegartr.com/threads/118...=1#post5946541

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Originally Posted by Stompa

That's great for multiboxers. Who are paying extra fees to SE every month. What a happy coincidence!

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I think it's more like, "That's a great incentive to encourage people to party up but it's not mandatory to make progress."

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Originally Posted by Stompa

TBH I gonna wait until you are all farming iLvl 150 gear this time next year, and the af1-99 sets are being given away for free in log-in event.

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I am a bit disappointed, I really did try to help and suggest things for you to try I think would work, and instead you ignored them and chose to be pessimistic about it once more.

Sometimes a person is just convinced that the situation is hopeless and isn't willing to listen to reason.

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Originally Posted by Stompa

Re; starting shouts. People are doing the bcnm in closed groups on VT mode for max drops. Nobody with enough SKC is going to waste it on /sh runs.

Re; farming the SKC. I am. It will take me till 2016 to complete like 3 armor sets at this rate.

Re; old areas endgame content, we have a difference of opinion. I went the path of avoiding the big LS's, and did lowman path. Because the simpering /dancefortheLSleader path to get some drops eventually didn't interest me. I also consider farming your own haku pop, and killing that mob on 3 ppl, was endgame, it was not easy at all in 2005. And the item was relevant for five years so it can't have been junk can it. We also duo'd Xol for the Zoolater hat, after waiting for the big LS alliances to wipe horribly to him.
And yes on solo sometimes ppl tried to steal the mob on 1%, but that doesn't mean it wasn't fun to solo those hard mobs, if you like challenge and excitement. <EDIT: in 2006 January I claimed Alkyoneus on solo BST, the RMT were late to arrive as it had overlapped with another high value time pop, and their mages were still in QI running to the tower, the NM was on like 6% after absolutely ages of mad kiting and me being on like 30hp half the time, the RMT stole the NM from me, but they lacked mage support and their seven members died in less than a minute after which I got the NM back and killed it, he dropped and ice crystal btw and after he died the RMT sent me a /tell asking for a raise. I have screenshots of the battle timestamped with SE 2006 at the bottom. Gear used was bst af1 and a light staff.>
Certainly those old days endgame offered a lot more fun than farming SKC's off rabbits or watching Yumcax die slowly again for hours, if that is what you call end game then I despair.

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In 2005 a group 6 good 75s could take it out and 12 75s would run it over like a pinto getting hit by a train. As for alky lol I know dozens of bst and thfs that where soloing it in 2006 wasn't that hard just like everything else that was old endgame(not like either of those mobs were considered endgame by the rest of the player base). Killing that mob solo was nothing new in fact was done all the time. Just like Avesta never being that impressive when you see another rdm do every one of his solos in half the time. Not like DoT kite is impressive, it was well known and exploited by many more then him. As soon as ToAU(well the truth was when Omega was released) came out Ohat was pretty much junk to anyone that know how to gear and hit acc cap with out it and knew to use food. It was useful from 70 to 75 after that it was replaced.

Stompa is right on this whole thing, and if you guys weren't looking through rosy colored glasses because wow SE just brought back RME and AF, you'd realize that there is no reason for the revamped AF or RMEs to be so insanely time consuming to get, especially considering the RMEs aren't really much stronger than Delves, and the AF is the same as Run and GEO as far as item levels. The AF should have been a forced pop nm using your old AF as the trigger, if you lost the fight you lost the AF piece, (which isn't really a big deal because they can be re-quested easy enough at 99), but if you won you get a shiny new AF piece to match Run and Geo. Well now guess what? You didn't really get any new content, but you sure got another time sink. Way to go SE rah rah rah. And you guys that are cheerleading SE on this should pull your heads out of your asses, (I think the lack of oxygen is really killing your brain cells), and think about how fucked up this really is.

Give 'em hell Stompa you are 100% on the money, don't let a few retards stop you from letting SE know just how badly they messed up

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Originally Posted by predatory

there is no reason for the revamped AF or RMEs to be so insanely time consuming to get

You didn't really get any new content, but you sure got another time sink.

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Yes, they should have given us all free upgrades on our 99 RMEs instantly and then on top of that made easy NMs to kill for quests that take less than a day to do so we have our full RF and our RMEs a day or two after the update. Then for the next month we can stand around in Adoulin complaining about how we have no new content. Totally agree, awesome idea, why didn't I think of it sooner!

People could say your making all of your stories up too ya know.

http://narwhaler.com/original/b6/3/a...man-b63rXW.jpg

On a more serious note however, I think that the grind is a little better than just being handed out to us. Gotta work for your meals as they say.

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Originally Posted by Stompa

Hi yeah. Just stop and rewind that. You are lying. "Dozens of bst and thf were soloing alky in 2006". LIE. Thief couldn't solo Alky until SE transformed it into a pop-spawn mob, and THF/DNC was available. Old version Alky hit like a truck full of obese people, and did AOE that wiped shadows and NO amount of THF bloody bolts would keep them alive without at least some support.
I even saw several Nins and Thfs dying on that occasion when they stole the mob at 6% and they couldnt even solo it down past 4% because it hit really hard back then. You are probably confusing it with the super easy pop Alky that everyone knows from recent years.
Also you say you know dozens of Bst that solo'd it. I call BS on that too. Number one ; RMT had that mob locked down continuously, occasionally it was claimed by other LS, but normally solo players didnt stand a chance at claiming it because the gloves were 30m on the AH. You never saw BST soloing it. And if THF could solo that NM, every THF on the server would be camped in Upper Delkfutt's tower, on solo-mode, waiting for the chance to solo a 30m gil drop. The reason you never saw solo BST or solo THF hanging around UDT waiting for the mob to pop is that it was not a solo mob at all. You saw the server's biggest LS hanging round there, and the RMT shells were there all the time and they usually got the claim because of their 'enhanced claim products.' Either way, you never saw solo THF standing round UDT waiting for Alky to pop, which you certainly would seen have if any solo player with TH4 could grab Alky and solo it np. My friend Non was a premier JP thief and he would never have gone anywhere near that place on solo.
Only reason it happened to me is that I was skilling up sword (for lols) on the Jotunns and Alky popped right ontop of my head pretty much, and the RMT were downstairs hurrying up. And back then all BST were uniform-gear, AF/relic charm sets, light staves. Forget melee that NM, we didn't have snarl ability back then. Was a straight charm fight. So my experience is uniform for what any other BST would have experienced, ie. winning by sheer luck and getting PTSD and being on like 10hp half the time. Thats not a strat that people can use as a regular tecnique. Old version alky was taking out Courrier Carrie jugpets in 4-5 hits. He was taking out the bats I charmed in like 6~ hits too. I beat him by pure luck as it happens, it is not possible to cast cure often up there because of the magic jugs, so I was kiting him on like 10% of my hp most of the time. It is not an orthodox BST vs. NM fight and on my LS (a BST LS) I was the only person that did it and I freely admit that I won by luck. The RMT who wiped 7/7 (including several THF and nin) actually said it was a big achievement, coz they watched me kiting him for the last 8%~. Anyway I never met another BST that solo'd him back then, and technically THF would have been impossible back then just because of the damage output and you not having /dnc even. Anyway, say what you want, we know you're making it up as you go along now.
Also re; Avesta, its really easy to look back in hindsight and say "oh anyone could do that stuff" but in truth most people really couldn't, and if they had been able to f.ex solo ODS on Blm75 you would have seen videos of them doing it online. Avesta was a true & very humble legend and was my great honour to even meet him on Remora. But now that everyone is 99 with ilvl-w/e gear and millions of stats on everything, they can talk about how easy it was to do stuff back then, even though mysteriously only Avesta and a few others actually put out videos of them doing that stuff, which is surprising because if everyone was doing that stuff you'd expect to have seen the thousands of videos online.

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LOL guess some one never freaking heard Bloody bolts. Thfs have fairly good marksmanship and high enough to land status bolts easy. Thfs have really high eva then stack eva gear on top of it with /nin and bolts and it was done a lot.

People did what he did all the time and faster at that. He was nothing special. No you wouldn't expect it since it wasn't all that impressive. Tickling a mob to death over a couple hours was a sure fire way to P** off every sky/hnm LS on your server and make you a target of griefing so why would anyone put them selves out there like that. You forget the server was a small play ground and people knew you and you couldn't run away yet to a new server unless you started over.