[SIZE="5"]Trail Reassessment,[/SIZE]
Suggestion Concept
To clarify, this thread is for ideas about the adjustment of trials, hitting key points such as "Time Conception" and "Burdensome Waiting." Now what defines these two between the limits of difficulty and just absurd draw a thin line. Please lend your ear and allow me to explain.
In FFXI, a trial is done to prove proficiency and dedication with a certain weapon to gain access to a incredible and vast superior version of that weapon. So as such, no one should expect a trial to be easy or relaxed. I Understand this, and trials should in No way be simple. Trials take weeks to months to complete, due to the vast amount of time it requires to unlock stronger weapons.
To begin, I will cover the two topics in terms of Pros/Cons. This is to be fair to the current system in place. I will try my best to go into detail about these trials, and give examples with links. For the sake of argument, I will use the "Scythe" Trail as my example in the following topics.
Time Conception"
When it comes to trials, they take up a massive amount of time to complete. By massive, I mean in some cases months. In the broad retrospect of it, this is fine. The cost is well worth the award. So then what do I mean? I'm talking Conditions. By conditions, I mean in the way a trial must be completed to achieve your next version weapon. Such as killing a NM (Notorious Monster) or farming certain mobs in certain weather/days.
When it comes to the early versions of trials, such as [Trial 513] for Scythe, were a weapon must be used to kill a NM 3 or 4 times, the conditions for getting the kill are almost insane. Note this is for the "Early Stage" of your weapon, not the end trials before you get your final version of that weapon. For example, Ah Puch in [Trial 513] is a lottery spawn NM that has a window respawn time of 1-3 hours. After that, it is a lottery spawn by killing ghouls for Ah Puch to eventually be the placeholder of a ghoul. Oh by the way, it can take up to "six hours" for him to spawn. Now, whats wrong with that? Its an incredibly long time of continuous killing and waiting for Ah Puch to spawn "Once." Now you must do this "Three" more times in order to achieve the Scythe "stigma +3 attack." By all means, this may be acceptable for someone who can spend most of there day on FFXI, but for those of us who cannot be on for more than a few hours a day, even worse a few days a week, this is insane. I honestly don't believe anyone would rather camp for hours doing a repetitive mob kill for a Stigma + 3 than doing missions, quests, LS events, etc.
Ideas For Readjusting.
{Change the spawn time or lottery spawn of low level trials.}-
By this I mean changing the frequency that the NM will spawn, making it quicker or slightly faster.
{Change spawn conditions}-
By adjusting spawn conditions, such as # of mobs killed + respawn time of mobs = new mobs / possible NM pop, players would be more engaged to finish the trial, rather than sit there bored.
{Change Number of times mob must be killed}
Pros and Cons
{Pros}-
-For "Low Level Trials", making the conditions above change would help ease stress and boredom. Remember, this is a game, not work.
-People would be more engaged and camping the mob would become less of a problem. Although most people are nice and will let you join there party for the mob kill, there are some who will not invite you and its a race to see who gets to pop the mob first. Case in point, not very fun nor productive to the "team based" work that FFXI acquires.
{Cons}-
-Making the mob to easy to Pop would defeat the purpose of the Trial, so adjustments should very toward a approach of "difficult but not insane"
-Mob might be camped for its drop, and sold or overused. Although I doubt this would be a problem due to this would only apply to Low Level Trials.
Burdensome Waiting
When it comes to the sheer conditions of the pop, many of them are the standard "rinse and repeat" approach. Meaning, kill mobs, sit and wait for repop, repeat. This is unimaginably boring, and creates a dull environment. This isn't a very fun way of "increasing your limits" in final fantasy. To be honest, most people don't have the time of day to sit around waiting for a mob to pop over and over.
Some Ideas
{Change Pop times, or difficulty of the Pop.}
{Possibly engage the one doing the trial more, such as reducing amount of mobs it takes to spawn the pop. This in turn would help more people to join you in your quest for unwavering and absolute power!}
These were just a few of my ideas for helping the ease of trials while adding difficulty. A trial was ment to be hard, just not so hard it bores the user's to death. Especially when its one of the starting trials. Thanks for taking the time to read my thread, and please discuss! If you dont agree, please tell why. Finally, a final word in. Understand that this applies for mostly begging trials, not end trials aka (near your final version of the weapon.)