Artifact / Relic Armor Updates.

I remember this being announced during Vanafest TV. The developers said they had plans to bring Artifact Armor up to the standards of the Rune Fencer and Geomancer level 99 Artifact Armor.

My two main questions is when might we see this take place? And will there be such changes for the Relic Armor dropped from Dynamis as well? I imagine it won't be the BEST gear in the game, but the idea to be able to full time in your Artifact/Relic armor and not be "gimp" really excites me.

I hope the upgrades are done via enjoyable quests, possibly adding on more to the storyline of the jobs and not just more Adoulin Grind Drops...

Chances are the upgrades will be similar to the +1ing of the artifact and relic sets of olden years...
Do this thing: have a chance at getting a drop that you might want for a set you use, get these items (in this case, Bayld... hopefully) and then trade it all to an NPC who makes it shiney.

I just hope we can skip the +1ing the way we can with relic pieces when those became +2able.

I also hope that iLv109 AF and iLv113 relic sets aren't just take what they have an multiply the numbers by 2.
Because... dear god.... smn AF1.... it's so bad.... even the marginal fixing it with AF1+1 was still not great...
(just guessing the iLv of relic sets... but I'm betting they'll be between 113 and 115. With empy+3 being 118 or so.)

I honestly hope that for once it's more quests, even if it needs help to do them. There's so much "Grind for points" and "Hope you get a drop" systems that we're drowning in them, I get sick of it. I loved how with Artifact Armor you were doing fun quests with fights, coffers, treasure hunting. It made it fun.

Please make it like this developers? Make it fun? Not tedious and boring and nerve racking.

i imagine that artifact will be lvl 99, relic 106, and empy 113 with augments that can be done through the new content being released along side the update itself, thats my take on it, like skirmish and the vials of translurry that drop , kinda like that

I agree. It is so easy now to get empy armour & get to Lvl99 now that players are completely skipping over the old AF gear so why not make the AF1 storage slips (normal, not +1 & relic) convertible into AF Lvl99+ storage slips for 100k bayld each.

This will make players go do all those old AF quests & coffers to get the sets for conversion. You also feel you're achieving something after going through it all. The pieces are also reobtainable if you dropped pieces ages ago. Also, I'm expecting a lot of recent players have skipped over these old AF1 quests. The quests gives us more info behind the jobs.

In order to convert them into Lvl99+, we can have extensions to these AF storylines (eg. spoiler alert: The SMN AF Taru who had that dark mana orb. He got carted off to prison. What happened to him? Did he go to Adoulin? Also, what happened to the red mages?, etc.). These extensions can then give us a common conversion KI in order to trade in our old AF1 gear.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Adventurer

I honestly hope that for once it's more quests, even if it needs help to do them. There's so much "Grind for points" and "Hope you get a drop" systems that we're drowning in them, I get sick of it. I loved how with Artifact Armor you were doing fun quests with fights, coffers, treasure hunting. It made it fun.

Please make it like this developers? Make it fun? Not tedious and boring and nerve racking.

---

In regards to older quests, AF etc...

It's tedious and boring now because people don't help each other, they've already passed it or lost interest in doing things related to the event in question.

It's like when everyone as a community was within level 1-30 all area related to the progression of the community had things to do within that area of interest. Now the majority is SoA just there is not enough content to fill the interest of everyone with ilvl 120. And barely anyone interested in going back to older content if everyone is surpassed it.

Kind of like going to a bar at 3:30 am 30 minutes before closing only to be stuck with left over drunk crowd who wants to stay til they are being asked to leave. You can't expect peak hour to happen at that time of morning again.

Meaning you can't expect Salvage, Ein, limbus to become popular again. It's days are gone. Same as REM trials and VW. Also all older content. At least for the time being. In order to bring back interest in these older areas, they will have to add on top of it, not adjust it.

At this point of the game power of the overall community allows everyone to pass areas faster than the DEVs can put out new content. Point system is what's stalling time. Drop rate is what's also stalling time.

Look at WR for example. There is no limit established for groups. Had the limit been set for 18 people to kill 1 boss drop rate wouldn't be so bad compared to allowing 150+ join 1 event.

The more people added to the equation, the worse drop would appear to be. It's because so many people can join this event there is no organized view to see who is getting a rare. Out of 150 people if you can't see who won, everyone without knowing this information will assume the drop rate is horrible for everyone.

Sometimes holding this information from players maybe intended to keep interest lasting longer even at the cost of losing interest at the moment. Eventually people realize "this is it" and will return to the event after things stabilize.

It's because people are use to the DEVs spoiling everyone with the next thing people assume the current event won't last. Until they fulfill the full vision of SoA and stop implementing events that kill off previous ones.

Meaning once the cookie train ends, you will realize all you have left to do is what's available.

When creating an event, developers have to calculate amount of people playing the event, time factor as of how long does this event intend to last, item drop rate based on overall power of the community and how many people can earn items within a set time. Upon adding money rewards must also have placebo and reasons to deflate the economy,

If it takes 3 months to create a new event, DEVs have to figure out how to stall everyone to give them time to make new things.

All of this requires analyzing, feedback, taking notes on how the event is working out and making adjustments according to the overall results. Therefore as I have been saying all this time, submit feedback and have faith in the DEV TEAM.

It's not like this is the first video game they've ever developed and to be sitting at the helm of SE and be the top DEV of any final fantasy game I'm sure Matsui knows what he is doing. It's routine and this is not the first time he has made events.

Certain events are implemented at certain times of the year on purpose. This is to ensure specific events are successful or certain areas of interest stay popular. It doesn't make sense to implement WR, Delve, skirmish and then kill those areas off for REM, ToAu, Abyssea, Salvage, Assault etc.

Which is why they probably haven't implemented REM upgrades yet.

To be even more sophisticated in explanation. Gaps are unavoidable due to the fact of level progression. The higher level they make players become, the further, wider, bigger gaps will happen. It's like playing tug-o-war.

There is only 2 sides of a rope. Make things good on one side and the other side will be worse. There just is no in between. People still don't get that.

Evidence is seen through auction house. Speed up level progression to 99 in 1 day and all gear 1-98 becomes irrelevant. They make a good change for the majority, there will always be some sacrifice according to that change regardless.

Everything implemented now is based on close level range of the majority which is 99- ilvl 120. Imagine 99-190? Impossible because If the majority was level 190 the majority would be passed all content 99-175. Which is a perfect example of how gaps happen.

That's why when DEVs make an adjustment for the better interest of the majority, I fear the consequences that follow that adjustment.

Once new AF upgrades come out people will all be doing these quests together so it won't be hard to find groups because everyone will be sharing the same interest. But once everyone passes it, the issue will happen again. Tedious and boring figuring out how to do these on your own.

Everything the DEV team does is like a Chef serving you food. Once you finish your plate its gone. It's not the Chef's fault if you ate too fast.

Interest is always evolving every moment of the game and every new piece of content makes the entire game change. This is why yearly road maps didn't work. Upon implementing something, it's bound to become irrelevant as the moment passes.

That's why DEVs can only inform us at the moment.

Video game development is about adding, taking things away, shifting the crowd from 1 area to another. In order to adjust something requires sacrificing something in return. They must analyze everything throughout a period of time before making adjustments. As progression reaches at higher level, balance becomes harder and mistakes can have greater effects felt across the entire game.

So I leave you with this.

If you can understand all of the things in this one reply then you can understand the entire game.

Personally, I'm just praying my artifact armor becomes relevant again, idgaf how they do it, but returning players to the old school look will gives old players an enormous nostalgia feel, and might bring some people back since you can wear your -af- and not be called a noob for it.

(Went into an abyssea worm party once with PLD af, got laughed at. Went back on my MNK and killed all of their damn mobs)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Anjou

Personally, I'm just praying my artifact armor becomes relevant again, idgaf how they do it, but returning players to the old school look will gives old players an enormous nostalgia feel, and might bring some people back since you can wear your -af- and not be called a noob for it.

(Went into an abyssea worm party once with PLD af, got laughed at. Went back on my MNK and killed all of their damn mobs)

---

You get laughed at for doing that?
I get checked a whole bunch and get a whole mess of /tells asking me where I got that "sweet JS armor"... >_>

And I would not just like quests... but I would like those quests to continue where the first quests left off.
Especially for jobs like THF... That ended VERY open endedly without any resolution.... which was annoying b/c CoP let you GO to Tavnazia, but was there every a quest to see how those THF dudes were doing? nope.
This is the perfect opportunity to fix this...

But I know it won't happen.

It's gonna be just like +1ing the AF set: random drops from something (Yorcia skirmish probably) and then you trade the piece to an inventor's NPC and they 109ify it. (though props to them if they just use the trans slurry used for +1ing the skirmish weapons.... you get that KI like 99% of the time. or at least I have.)

If they do something like that I don't think a lot of people will like it. We want content, not grind fests.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by FaeQueenCory

Especially for jobs like THF... That ended VERY open endedly without any resolution.... which was annoying b/c CoP let you GO to Tavnazia, but was there every a quest to see how those THF dudes were doing? nope.

---

Goto this page and go look under the spoiler area, it will explain the part of the story you missed.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Anjou

If they do something like that I don't think a lot of people will like it. We want content, not grind fests.

---

Second.

http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__...70/Scruffy.gif

I can see Artifact weapons being upgraded via +1> +2> +3> I-109 (I-Level) to make them on par with Run and Geo. considering nobody has used Af weapons in ages. It shouldn't be insaine to get it upgraded as a work around to folks who are late to adoulin. Af bodies already go to +1 so I'm not sure if they will just add continuing paths for them to I-106 like Geo and Run. They could make a bypass like with relec to get them from base to +2 then continue the path of upgrades.

With Relec I'm almost cirtain they would need augments to go to +3 (lv 99) then to I-112 ish (between Delve and skirmish).
Otherwise they might do the same split path as with upgrading relec directly to +2. So taking Relec +2 to a base of lv 99 will take more farming than Relec +2A. I'd would make the augment permanent at lv 99 with emp stats. Then the final step would upgrade the stats to make them around the Delve or Skirmish I level range but more job centered.

I would love if SE allowed us to pick 1 attribute from AF or Relic and put on AF3. Like Rdm hat with fast cast, enfeebing magic, magic accuracy and refresh+2.

And put each piece with a new set of job related quests, continuing where AF quests stopped. Better yet, let us do them in old areas like before.


Just for the LOVE OF GOD, don't make them random augments like skirmish. Its cost prohibitive for non millionaire players (the majority).