Geodes

This seems to be the result of poor planning and foresight. If S-E was planning to require 40 geodes for the next level of elemental Magian trials, would it not have been somewhat considerate to the players to at least improve their drop rates on their corresponding days/weather to the frequency of crystals or other common drops?

Stoking demand without the appropriate supply (see: Mythic Weapons and Alexandrites) is a recipe for disaster and this is no exception.

If you've been saving them for the last year then you have at least 2 stacks.

If you haven't or are new, then buy some from people who have 2 stacks.

Questions, what are they.

Just wait a few weeks .. they will be dirt cheap soon. :)

The supply is fine. Pay the 400k+ already. Or wait and it'll be 40k. Just like before.

And, are you really comparing this to mythic Weapons and alexandrites? It's 40 geodes. 30,000 drites. 40 geodes. 30,000 drites. 40 geodes. 30,000 drites. Good grief. You know, all that gil serves no purpose if all you ever do is save it "just in case something great down the road shows up and I want to buy it" Everyone has access to millions of gil now simply by experiencing their jobs in Abyssea and some leg work. Mages no longer have excuses not to buy expensive stuff. I think you can wing 40 geodes times however many staves you have but if you insist on not doing it, wait a month or so and they'll be right back at the 1k mark for goldsmiths to rape for gems again.

Hell, you can still get them for cheap right now. Someone somewhere is always under charging because they're too lazy to check price or they want to save on AH fees and you can get a 20k geode for 1. It's common enough to bother under bidding on any and all items that are heavy in supply on the AH.

I'm usually all for lessening requirements on standard stuff like magian staff upgrades, but I agree with the people saying this doesn't really need an adjustment. I thought it would take me a while but after just a couple weeks I have all 40 for the three staves I care about at the moment without even really having to worry about it. And I started with a only a couple geodes a piece at update time.

As people have said, you just have to get a little more creative than just looking at the last high AH price and complaining about it. I logged on during my household chore periods and sat next to AH. Every 5 minutes or so I'd grab the keyboard and bid 1-2k on the ones I needed. I was staggered that for whatever reason there were many times this worked and I ended up paying less than 100k for each upgrade, which is not at all bad these days.

Hell, even if you're doing two weapons that need that upgrade (or, even worse, have just decided to start working on a pair of them and so are going to need over a stack worth) it's not that bad.

They don't have that horrible of a drop rate.

*sigh* Seriously? It's 400,000 gil, which is not terribly hard to accrue, or just be patient and it'll be 1/10th the price in a month or two after the demand drops. That's exactly what happened when they were introduced. I remember at the time being thrilled that these geodes were dropping like chicklets, and I didn't need any of them, and they were selling lightning fast for 10,000 gil apiece.

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Originally Posted by Merton9999

As people have said, you just have to get a little more creative than just looking at the last high AH price and complaining about it. I logged on during my household chore periods and sat next to AH. Every 5 minutes or so I'd grab the keyboard and bid 1-2k on the ones I needed. I was staggered that for whatever reason there were many times this worked and I ended up paying less than 100k for each upgrade, which is not at all bad these days.

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I could just kill myself for not thinking of that. I just had to grab something like 200 geodes to upgrade 7 staves (this was in addition to the geodes I already had). Good thing I'm creative at making gil.

Geodes were added to get gil circulating again and give people something they could use to make a little extra gil while doing other things.

They're a source of minor income that anyone can make, anywhere. If the drop rate is increased they'll lose all value. Leave them alone.

Honestly I just saved whatever geodes I got doing random things since they were added if I had done a trial with those particular geodes. With the exception of fire and light, I had well over 40 geodes for the trials I had done come the day of the update. I already have about 50 thunder geodes that I'll be holding on to in case they're used again at 99.

Anyone complaining about 40 geodes didn't have the foresight to save them in the first place. If you can't wait for the price to come down, just go farm them. They drop fairly often if you're in an area with the appropriate weather active. Fire and light path trials are screwed in that regard, but as others have said, the drop rate for the day isn't that bad either.

I needed 80 flame geodes to upgrade 2 shamshirs. Had tons of other geodes I didn't need. Went to Jeuno and did "/shout Flame Geode {Can I have it?} {You can have this} Aqua, Soil, etc. 1/1 trade". had the 80 I needed in like 5 minutes.

Saved all I'd acquired over the past year, which included taking a fair chunk of jobs to 90+ with some only being in subjob range at the start, and the only type that broke 1 stack was Snow, and I'd attribute that largely to doing a few trials in Ule where Ice weather is fairly common. Otherwise getting drops based on day is pitiful and relying on weather patterns for some is erratic at best. Fight, Light, and to a lesser extent Dark geodes are among the hardest to come by solely due to their respective weather issues. Sucks, but at the same time, geodes could be worse to get.

1 stack of 99 breeze geodes is 2mil on my server. And I have no problem farming those, I just go to grauberg [s] on windsday or any day in between and can farm half of what I need in just a couple of hours.

I have two main reasons why 40 geodes for this upgrade annoy me.

First off, a lot of the upgrades are not worth 40 geodes. The perpetuation staves come screaming to mind. You trade in 40 geodes to get -2 Blood Pact ability delay. No extra perp, no special effects for the pet. Just -2 Blood Pact ability delay which you are already capped on. It would be different if this was a special BP delay that went beyond the -15 cap, but it does not. And the funny thing is that perp cost went up by one between level 90 and 95, so even upgrading won't break even with the current perp costs.

Secondly, how much is the next upgrade going to cost? Going from 15 to 40 is a 266% increase. If they did a similar increase for level 99, it would cost 107 geodes. Hopefully it won't be that bad, but even if they double it the cost is still going to be fairly ridiculous.

It annoys me that Magians started with "go out and put in a bunch of work to improve your character" but is finishing up with "buy a bunch of stuff". It just seems like lazy game design to me.

And before someone says anything, I can afford to buy geodes, that quite obviously isn't the point.

Shame on SE for making us have to work for anything anymore >.>

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Originally Posted by Septimus

It annoys me that Magians started with "go out and put in a bunch of work to improve your character" but is finishing up with "buy a bunch of stuff".

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Originally Posted by Unleashhell

Shame on SE for making us have to work for anything anymore >.>

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Brilliance at its finest.

While I agree most of the trial upgrades were pretty lack-luster, 40 geodes really isn't a big deal to get it. Septimus you said the perp - staves didn't get much this update and I agree. However, did you already forget the trials were you only got 1 base damage and nothing else for killing 200 mobs with the avatar? The trials aren't really "finished" till 99 so I'll reserve judgment until then. If 40 geodes isn't worth getting to upgrade a particular trial just don't bother with it then. It's not like they asked for 1500 items that only drop from one event in the game and didn't exist for a full year before hand for elemental path weapons...

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Originally Posted by Kysaiana

While I agree most of the trial upgrades were pretty lack-luster, 40 geodes really isn't a big deal to get it. Septimus you said the perp - staves didn't get much this update and I agree. However, did you already forget the trials were you only got 1 base damage and nothing else for killing 200 mobs with the avatar? The trials aren't really "finished" till 99 so I'll reserve judgment until then. If 40 geodes isn't worth getting to upgrade a particular trial just don't bother with it then. It's not like they asked for 1500 items that only drop from one event in the game and didn't exist for a full year before hand for elemental path weapons...

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Yes, I do remember that. The time when the base damage of Teiwaz went from +4 to +5 was when there were two sets of upgrades given in one update, the second upgrade reduced avatar perp by one. (That was the level 80 cap update.)

Yes, the perp staves are not done, this is why you are going to have to upgrade them now; otherwise when the level 99 versions come out you are going to have to plunk down the 40 geodes for this upgrade along with however many more it is going to cost for the next one which probably have one extra perp on it. So SMNs are going to have to have one upgrade for the price of two when all is said and done.

But let me reiterate, the problem isn't with the geodes themselves, the problem is that it is incredibly lazy game design.

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Originally Posted by Rearden

Brilliance at its finest.

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It simple ... SE sells gil they need to make revenue for ffxiv ... throw in a timesink that will be a gil buying extravaganza ... put up sleezy gilselling website under diffrent company name .. sell gil to other gil selling sites... etc.

Geodes arent THAT hard to farm if you know the secret...though some are more annoying than others (weather)

I have some spare cash to buy geodes, what I dont have is free time to go get more dark damage killshots. Geodes are fine with me.

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Originally Posted by Raksha

I have some spare cash to buy geodes, what I dont have is free time to go get more dark damage killshots. Geodes are fine with me.

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Or you can get a few friends together and Cataclysm burn through the trial in one or two hours. Getting a damage Yama's Staff was the most fun that I ever had doing a staff.

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Originally Posted by Septimus

Or you can get a few friends together and Cataclysm burn through the trial in one or two hours. Getting a damage Yama's Staff was the most fun that I ever had doing a staff.

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Every time I tried that I came up empty. Maybe you have better friends than me.

Saw a Sch/war self cataclysm cleaving the other day in Kon ><

Dunno how he managed it without phalanx unless he was using fanatics. Whenever I tried melee > cataclysm stuff I ended up getting my ass beat.

Yeah, even if rocking 50% PDT, Abyssea mobs (I'm assuming leeches in the mentioned case) would still be doing enough to eventually whittle down a SCH/WAR. Though, with 3 regen atma and the eventual regen/light arts change, I can see this becoming much more feasible with 95/tic possible, more if using TR and Embrava with restore chests. The Catas wouldn't be too hot on their own, but as long as you could live, that wouldn't matter much. The leeches seemed kinda scattered when I tried self-whiskering on BLU for a refresh pin, though. Might be a close call at times depending on how long it takes to gather/kill.

Well he'd have to be cata'ing with earth staff to cap -PDT. and if he switched to the magian staff for killshot he'd lose all of his tp. And with those atmas he would indeed be doing terrible damage.

It could be possible i guess, but my way was a lot easier. (bizz5 > drain/noctohelix)