Level 99 Relic, Mythic, Empyrean, and WoE Weapons

[pretre]

/sigh it makes me really sad to see that SE has managed to really upset the player base that they really needed, by that I mean the people that were loyal to the point that were still here even after all this crap, im totally up for new content being added as in the past each and every time its brought new life to the game. iv been on the game 6 yrs not as long as some I know but I have seen lots of addons in that time all have been great for the game, the diff in my opinion is they broke from the working tradition of bring out new content and a new super weapon to go with it, non of this would of occurred if there was just a fourth super weapon that was of a same lvl an difficulty to obtain. I know its a weird thing to say but I find it very hard to believe that a dev team that works for a company as big in the world of rpg/mmo as SE is could get it so wrong by accident, I don't know why they would do this but I think no one let alone the real pro's would be stupid enough to think that everything in the game prior to this addon should be made pointless and the stupid effort weapons they been pushing us towards since they made dyna solo farm should be /laughed at to. my point is that they must of had a motive that they have not shared with us and was just hopeing that we would all just shut up and follow like good sheep or maybe with the player base dropping like flys there plan is occurring round us and there is some reason were not seeing that they would want us off the game [just a guess I have no reason I can think of why they would want this]. the thing I find most sad is that if intentional or not personally I think this game for most hardcore players is now beyond saving. just in my little FF world I run 3 lses 2 of which are totally gone now due to people leaving and my last ls is mostly people who turn on the game to say hello an do events with people they know and don't care about progression at all and sadly even that lses numbers are starting to drop. in my opinion possible the best game ever ruined by not thinking or not caring about the effort people put in to it. GTA V!!!!! out soon hopefully SE can fix but I don't see me on this underpopulated game much longer as the buzz that I had about this awesome game fof 6 yrs has gone

[Byrth]

Arguments for disposing of RMEs:

1) It limited the Dev team's ability to enact their vertical progression plan in the weapon slots
a - Those slots are determines the majority of any DD's damage.
b - It is a bit of work to maintain 104 weapons (52*2) during vertical progression and add upgrade quests for them, so keeping them relevant and updating them is apparently not feasible for FFXI's dev team.
c - There is a considerable gap between pre-Adoulin second-best weapons and RMEs, but weapons within that gap would still have been seen as second-best to RMEs, which isn't vertical progression.

2) The commonness of RMEs during the Voidwatch days was a substantial barrier to endgame entry for any casual player, which essentially forced these people off melee jobs. There is no reason to believe that this trend would not continue in Adoulin.




Arguments against permanently disposing of RMEs:

1) RMEs rewarded player efforts in a large chunk of content (Dynamis, Abyssea, Voidwatch, Salvage, ZNM, VNM, Einherjar, Nyzul Isle, Assault), which was important for several reasons:
a - Casual players had a good source of income farming whatever currency they were comfortable with.
b - It helped players that missed out on a specific event (like getting Captain in Assault) gather people.
c - It dramatically increased the amount of relevant content for "hardcore" players and gave them many more potential activities, which is important because it kept them playing and stopped things from getting repetitive.
d - It was a major economic drive, and now a large portion of the playerbase that does not care about gil.

2) RMEs are the most interesting weapons in the game both to obtain and to use, so their irrelevance makes FFXI a poorer place.

3) After 8+ years of superiority, RMEs were seen as a permanent reward for massive effort. When they became easier to get, many people underwent a slightly less massive effort and obtained them. A lot of these people were so pissed at the decision to outdate RMEs and the lack of RME updates that they quit. Some might return if RMEs were updated.





Analysis:
I think that SE decided to dispose of RMEs for reason #1 (top) probably while only considering consequence #2 (bottom). It was the simplest solution to a complicated problem, but they got a lot more blowback than they expected.

If I had done it:
I would have added a "weapon damage" stat to equipment and placed substantial boosts there while releasing very competitive sidegrade weapons. Specifically:
* I would have made sidegrade weapons not have hidden effects, but give them higher base damage and higher raw DPS.
* They would be balanced such that things like relic procs, aftermath, etc. would even it out so the "sidegrades" were only minorly superior to RMEs before gear.
* Base damage on equipment would benefit the RMEs more than the sidegrade weapons, because they start with lower base damage, and if you had good enough equipment then your RMEs would remain the best weapons in the game.

Results:
- This solves problem 1a, because equipment can now matter however much people want.
- This solves problem 1b, because RMEs never need to be updated.
- This solves problem 1c, because such sidegrade weapons and new equipment could be scaled such that RMEs are essentially invalidated every patch until the user obtains the best equipment.
- This solves problem 2, because the gap between an RME player and a "sidegrade" player would be small under ideal situations, and would specifically not depend on the weapon slot so it would be harder to discriminate against sidegrade players.

- This still allows old RME-building content to remain viable.
- This maintains the relevance of RMEs.
- This allows players that have put in their time to maintain their investment by doing current content.

[detlef]

He's me. Regularly help the LS with Abyssea mobs, since even Skirmish armor and weapons makes me a remarkably durable DD compared to the folks that are behind me. And patiently picking up COR gear for the point where there's a Delve call, at which point I'll be picking up one of those fancy new weapons. My Mandau days were pre-update, on another account.

I did plenty of time in Dynamis back when I was an RDM or COR main. 5 years ago. Why the heck should I go through 2008 content to play 2013-era areas? I'd rather spend a few million -buying- a Delve slot with a group than the time (itself worth money) and Gil on a bunch of marrows for a mythic. Or even simply gleefully getting my LS-mates up and running here in Adoulin so they can have a go at it themselves, if they so desire.

And if he wants to bottom feed instead, more power to him. Heck, I spent an afternoon helping one of the linkshell's RUN farm Ise hearts. And if they put upgrade quests in for RME's, I'll help with those too- but I do NOT want to see the same weapons be "best in class", expansion after expansion. When gear was more sidegrade than literal level-up, that was one thing. Now, having the capacity to actually do endgame be such an ardous, long road is counter to the whole process.

Or they can simply get in on a Delve run for far less time and effort and play in endgame. And that's my point. While I don't feel that outright negating previous efforts is right, I also feel that shoving the entire history of endgame into a player's face and saying "YOU MUST DO EVERYTHING WE DID TO ADVANCE, OR WE SHALL SHUN THEE" is plain ol' wrong.

Can they do it? Sure. Should they HAVE to do it to keep up? F-no.

Are you completely current with Delve gear?

You didn’t respond to this, so I’ll ask again. Are you completely current with Delve gear? If you’re sporting an Izhiikoh for your THF main, then great. If you aren’t, then you’re telling me that going after the best weapons in the game isn’t actually as important to you as you say. Whether RME weapons or Delve weapons are the best will never matter because you’re not going to get them anyway, and you simply don’t want others to have nice things.

[FaeQueenCory]

Newsflash. When you spend 10 whole years of your life playing one videogame, it is no longer in the 'casual hobby' bracket it goes into the 'your life' bracket, since you might live for 60 years, you spent 1/6 of your life playing FFxi. So it is a major part of your life. If, like me, you spent almost a full year grinding WOE bosses for single coins/lims/dice for your NQ99 empy, and you were very happy with it (even though it was gimp compared to HQ empy and RMs of course, which I didn't mind at all coz I don't have the time or gil to farm those), only to be told your NQ99 empy that you spent a big piece of your life obtaining, is unable to hit or damage lolmobs in rieves, while a cheap pos bayld forefront weapon can damage them just fine, is an insult to me. Yes people are sentimental and attached to their weapons, if they spent years of their lives building it why should they not feel emotionally connected to the weap. That is not the problem, the problem is SoA arrived, and unlike all previous expansions, the new weapons completely dwarfed everything that preceded them, SoA it is not the normal FFxi progression at all.
And then another point, forefront weapons came out and were originally just slightly more powerful than a 99NQ empy (which was wrongheaded in itself), but then a few weeks later SE patched forefronts overnight, making them way more powerful with the skill+ bonuses etc. So if they can add DMG and skill+ to forefronts overnight as they did, why didn't they just do that to all RME's when SoA came out. Why make people run around missing rieve mobs with their empys, we could have had them patched from the SoA launch.

Um.... Rude?
Especially because... what you're describing... is exactly what I said.
0_0
(and in which case you were quoting me to bring attention to your agreement... I apologize for my misunderstanding.)
You no longer have a "this is a freetime thing" concept tied to your REM... Because you spent such a long time building it (which is classically shown to make a human give more value to something they make over something they just buy) you then have ascribed value to it.
This ascribed value is the source of the REM being just tossed aside backlash.
And that is valid.
With the obsolescence of these items which by their very nature cultivate a sense of worth to those that build them from nothing. (even Relics, which IMO are the least player-invested building until you start bringing the lv75 up to 99)
It was a severe oversight to not have these be upgraded to match (ala the example of the rieve gear) or by introducing a few more trials to boost them to current end-game standards (ala the way they were updated with the level cap being raised to 99).

Personally, I'd prefer an iLv adjustment to make the "99-2"s be like 103-106 and then a trial for 109 and then another for 115 or whatever.
Or even have the 99-2s be 109 (cause AF1 weaps are 109.... so... yeah....) and then add more from there.
I think that would be a better way of handling things than making them iLv 110 now.... and then two months down the road introducing iLv128 weapons.
(cause then you can add another trial when you introduce those new iLv weapons that would instantly trash the iLv110REMs.)
Also: any post 99-2 trials would need to be something not dumb. none of this 30000 item shenanigans. >:|

[Rustic]

You didn’t respond to this, so I’ll ask again. Are you completely current with Delve gear? If you’re sporting an Izhiikoh for your THF main, then great. If you aren’t, then you’re telling me that going after the best weapons in the game isn’t actually as important to you as you say. Whether RME weapons or Delve weapons are the best will never matter because you’re not going to get them anyway, and you simply don’t want others to have nice things.

Nope. I already did the RME rat race on my first account (Mandau) and have a linkshell in which fully 50%+ of the players aren't through Abyssea yet. What's important to me at this point is getting the Adoulin newbies through to the point where I can enjoy slapping Naks around with them. If for some reason that doesn't work out, I've got a standing offer to be KI'd through on Delve runs for a few million Gil, at which point I can kit myself out after a few plasm-farming runs. I've got a full set of Skirmish +1/+2 gear at the moment, since that's where my linkshell's up to and frankly, I enjoy doing things with them rather than mostly strangers. Heck, I'm helping someone with an 85-90 Masamune in the LS right now, just like we did Isgebinds till I started getting simulated snowblindness.

I've already DONE the endgame for years. I can drop some Gil and get into it again when I please, but frankly I'm waiting to see if I'm going to have to do another damned RME to be in it to the top. If I don't have to spend the inordinate amount of time and sweat making one because S-E doesn't simply put them back on the top of the chart again, I won't.

[detlef]

So you don't have your Delve wins, but you can pay some gil for a merc group to carry you through it at some point in the future. And you think it's best for the game if the most powerful weapons can be obtained this way. Well, I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on that one.

[Demon6324236]

Well when you think about it, for a Relic you can pay some gil for the currency, do some minor annoying work to get it finished & to 95, then pay some more gil for Marrows, then your at 99, and will probably be able to pay people to do whatever your 120 trial is for you too. In the end, gil can buy both things, if that's the problem you see.

[detlef]

That's a fair point, but 10m to leech Tojil is hardly on the same scale as making an RME (even if you didn't farm a single thing). It's just too easy.

[Demon6324236]

I think RME need to be upgraded, I mean the amount of work they take even if paid for with gil is far higher than that of any other weapon or item in the game.

[Rustic]

So you don't have your Delve wins, but you can pay some gil for a merc group to carry you through it at some point in the future. And you think it's best for the game if the most powerful weapons can be obtained this way. Well, I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on that one.

That's correct, I can. The reason I'm not packing Delve gear right now is I'd rather do it with friends. But the option is available.

And yep. Because the other option for newbies is to pay, and pay, and pay some more- oh, and pay again if they want to have an endgame-appropriate weapon that matches up with their fellows as rather than going through one step of that process, they get to deal with it six, seven, ten times as much instead just so they can contribute with their friends. In content that is only accessed specifically to grind through said gear.

This needs to stop. A process that requires you to chew through ancient, outdated content to gain gear appropriate to the current expansion is inappropriate, especially in an age where item level literally IS your effective level. Giving players the option to upgrade old gear, absolutely wonderful. Requiring them to go back multiple expansions to be effective in the current one no longer is.