RME upgrading...

[Kensagaku]

On top of all that's said, a Delve weapon is not required for Delve. Yes, some leaders want only the best of the best because they think that's the only way they can win, but that's not all that's required. People had to get the wins back before the weapons, after all; once the mechanics were figured out for each area, it became increasingly easier.

Got DRG? Many Delve groups take you if you've got 5/5 Angon and at least a reasonable gear set. I got to go a few times before my Upuirex with my Qatsunoci. Not +1, the original. People really do like that Def Down. MNK, I got to go with my Ninzas, and if we had known all the mechanics, we probably would have won. No RME there. And even if you don't have a good melee setup (why do you have a 99 RME if you don't though...?), there's plenty of support options, as Phil has listed.

COR, for example, requires only a few essential pieces of gear: things to boost your rolls/JAs, and your AF2+2 boots for a better Wild Card reset. Besides that, your rolls are not gear-based, so get your rolls up and contribute how you can otherwise. SCH isn't bad either, aside from your stun staff, most of it is pretty cheap to gear up. Sure, it helps to optimize with better FC/Haste gear (and a bit of M.acc/dark skill, though the new Magic Accuracy Skill negates most of the need for that), but as long as you have the bare essentials, your job is to mostly stun. BRD requires a little more investment into making sure you have the right instruments to boost your songs as well as gear for duration and the like, but again, wouldn't take an excessively long time. GEO is another good one, as long as you level your skills to their cap. Toss on the bell, cape, and hands and boom, max potency. Helps to have other gear sets, but as you can see, it's not terribly hard to gear for.

Delve weapons are not needed to beat Delve bosses. It's just easier, but there are other options. So having that as a prerequisite for the RME updates, if you choose not to go the route of the orb BCNMs, doesn't really seem all that bad...

[FaeQueenCory]

On top of all that's said, a Delve weapon is not required for Delve. Yes, some leaders want only the best of the best because they think that's the only way they can win, but that's not all that's required. People had to get the wins back before the weapons, after all; once the mechanics were figured out for each area, it became increasingly easier.

Got DRG? Many Delve groups take you if you've got 5/5 Angon and at least a reasonable gear set. I got to go a few times before my Upuirex with my Qatsunoci. Not +1, the original. People really do like that Def Down. MNK, I got to go with my Ninzas, and if we had known all the mechanics, we probably would have won. No RME there. And even if you don't have a good melee setup (why do you have a 99 RME if you don't though...?), there's plenty of support options, as Phil has listed.

COR, for example, requires only a few essential pieces of gear: things to boost your rolls/JAs, and your AF2+2 boots for a better Wild Card reset. Besides that, your rolls are not gear-based, so get your rolls up and contribute how you can otherwise. SCH isn't bad either, aside from your stun staff, most of it is pretty cheap to gear up. Sure, it helps to optimize with better FC/Haste gear (and a bit of M.acc/dark skill, though the new Magic Accuracy Skill negates most of the need for that), but as long as you have the bare essentials, your job is to mostly stun. BRD requires a little more investment into making sure you have the right instruments to boost your songs as well as gear for duration and the like, but again, wouldn't take an excessively long time. GEO is another good one, as long as you level your skills to their cap. Toss on the bell, cape, and hands and boom, max potency. Helps to have other gear sets, but as you can see, it's not terribly hard to gear for.

Delve weapons are not needed to beat Delve bosses. It's just easier, but there are other options. So having that as a prerequisite for the RME updates, if you choose not to go the route of the orb BCNMs, doesn't really seem all that bad...

It's not really about just having to do Delve to upgrade... it's about "why bother when I can just do 1/10000000 of the work and have the delve weapon".
Using Oats as the strawman is what everyone does, so let's run with that.
It's soooooo easy to get Oats.
Painfully easy.
I could have one if I wanted... but I don't cause my monk and pup are only 50.
"evrybdy haz oats"

And what's worse about it is that you don't even have to win the lot for the oats that dropped to be able to get one.

And that's the main problem here.

The REM update was supposed to bring more people to the current endgame: Delve.
People who left because they suddenly became the same as a lv1 character.
People who just haven't been able to get the delve gear but had perfectly good REM and skirmish.
People who are new.

The REMs were healthy at the top because of the multiple ways a person could create a "best weapon".
Requiring Delve to bring them back....
Just funnels the variety back into "go-do-Delve-go-do-Delve-go-do-DELVE!!!"

And VW might have had terribad drops.... but those drops were ALWAYS YOURS.
Without the option to buy these using plasm...
This is just the same as not having updated them.

Personally, I think that +30%dmg will make the HUGE "totes not a magian trial" effort be worth it...
But I, and a vast majority of the REM ppl I imagine, just don't have the time right now.
It's school season.
Making a REM was a summer "event" of sort...
And demanding pretty much the same dedication that takes a whole summer to just make the 75... during the fall/winter...
Ain't nobody got time for that.

One of the things that was the problem with the REM outdate was the fact that it takes a whole summer to just make the base... but 45min-1hr to win a random lot for a weapon of "the same" quality.
And here again we find distaste in "I have to go through hell AGAIN just to make this the same as something that took me a single hour to do"...
Not having the stupid items be buyable with Plasm was a horrible idea.

At least there's a BCNM that can be done in place of a Delve win.

(and as to your "just crap gear certain jobs"... that might work on Valefor... but on Odin, if you don't have the best of the best... You will probably not get any delve wins unless you luck on one of the 3 nice ppl organizing Delve.)

EDIT STORY TIME:
Why do I think this ungodly, stupidly huge demand of effort will be worth it?
I was in a PUG skirmish group one time... there was a DRG who was sporting the 113 skirmish polearm. (I don't know if it even had augments... I don't recall)
And I think she was testing Stardiver and Drakesbane with the iLv gear because she'd alternate...
And what the log told us about her dmg was terrifying. (or at least it was to me! Mages are happy if a WS hits 1k)
With only a 113 polearm, her stardivers were averaging about 2500 (2450-2550).
But her Drakesbane were averaging 2600 (2550-2650)...
Which might not sound all that different... Until you factor in the +30% from using drakesbane with the mythic.
That's popping out 3380 on average. (obviously it'll actually be MORE than that because REMs are 119 not 113... but for an easy comparison the number holds.)
That bonus is what made the REMs the top.
It's what I feared about making them 119.
Because... I don't think the other 119 drops can compete with that.

[detlef]

I'm a little lost. Are you arguing that you shouldn't have to set foot in Delve to start the quest? Or are you saying that you shouldn't have to set foot in Delve to farm upgrade items for the quest? Or is it just a that Delve and RME upgrades shouldn't be related in any way?

[FaeQueenCory]

I'm a little lost. Are you arguing that you shouldn't have to set foot in Delve to start the quest? Or are you saying that you shouldn't have to set foot in Delve to farm upgrade items for the quest? Or is it just a that Delve and RME upgrades shouldn't be related in any way?

I was arguing that what was healthy before was that there were viable and equal alternatives to get you to "the best weapon in the game."

Don't like Dynamis? Make an Empy.
Don't like NM camping? Make a relic.
Alexandrite? Relics and Empys exist.

All three were functionally interchangeable... and thusly, more people had access to "being teh best" by the virtue of alternatives.
Obviously there are exceptions... Like Gungnir... Or Claustrum.... Poor super-crappy relics...
But now.... It's all funneled into Delve.
Which is an event that excludes just over half the playable jobs in the game. (mnk, sch, drk&sam, drg, whm, brd, cor, geo... that's pretty much it... 9/22)

Sure, one can argue that there's a BCNM that you can farm too... but unless you're seeing the comparable drop rates to 6NMs dropping 1+ per kill....
Then that's not a real viable alternative.

It's not an argument over which gives you more money base or dreamworld dynamis...
It's an argument for the NM camping to make an Empy over being forced into any dynamis area to make a Relic.

THAT's what had contributed so much to FFXI's longevity... Or at least a part of it anyways. (and Hater's gonna hate... but Abyssea didn't kill off server populations.)
Funneling the REM update through delve is exactly like not updating the REMs in the first place... because it tells you "go-play-delve-NOW!"

Some people don't like Delve.
Some people (this is me) don't like the people who play Delve. (I've met too many dbags and not enough nice ppl in Delve, endgame has always brought out the worst in ppl... but not like Delve.)
And then there are those that just don't have access to the means to get to Delve.

Making the drops be sellable is good... but, again, not all of us have 400M to blow on these items.

And it's... almost adorable... this update for the REMs... because I can see why the devs did it like this instead of just adding to the translurry table.
It's part of the critical failure that they have at understanding the human emotional attachment to the REMs...
They discarded them because they didn't understand that humans create an emotional bond with something that they spend a lot of time with (see GLaDOS and the Companion Cube).
But what the Devs saw when they saw ppl wanting their friends back... was the timesink.
It seems that a lot of ppl are taking this update as a slap in the face...
But I'm sure it wasn't meant as such...

In fact I'm pretty sure... No. I am 100% sure that they Powers that Be thought that this 300 BS item farm was JUST what people were asking for...
TBH, I don't think there'd have been much backlash had the number been something "big but reasonable" like 50 or even 100.
Sure there'd be bitching and moaning... but there'd be a BUNCH of support for it.... at least more than there seems to be now.

And if the 300 BS item were to be maintained... Had these items been "the new geodes/-ites" that drop off of any Adoulin mob but drop in troves in Delve...
Then I don't think there'd be as much resentment either. (That'd be a dreamworld vs normal Dynamis debate/choice.)

One of the reasons for the backlash against requiring to do delve is the ease in which the delve 119 weapons can be gotten.
A "why spend a month getting 300 thingies when I can just spend an hour and have a w/e"...
Other reasons are what I've already mentioned above this "paragraph."

On that note... I actually think the effort might be worth it... all REMs have that +30% damage... so... theoretically... 119 REMs might just blow all the current 119 weapons out of the water...
We won't know for a bit.
But I suspect that the 119REMs will out perform the 119 MegaBoss drops.

It's sadly adorable imo that the Devs thought that the grind is what people missed from the REMs...
But then again...
It seems like the REMs are also the "red headed stepchild".

Let us look at the "legitimate children" who got their iLvs boosted: the skirmish weapons.
IMO, I say that they Yorcia skirmish was probably the BEST thing to happen to Adoulin.
Because it turned these crappy 105 weapons into weapons that were comparable to Delve 113 weapons. (This is also an example of alternative variety. You don't have to Delve to have a 113 weapon anymore.)
And the process of upgrading them was a simple: Trade <item>; check KI: 1/0; if;then spawn <item+1>

And what's even better, is that due to the augments... a skirmish 113 weapon or a 113 delve weapon can be used based upon a player's gear and playstyle.
Some setups the Delve will be superior, others, the skirmish...
But for all intents and purposes... the difference between them is negligible.
(Again, player agency comes to bear here. For instance, I prefer the straight +10str and +acc from a rank15 Bereaver over a comparably augmented Crobaci+1. But I'm Elvaan so... a higher acc from more "fake" skill and augments is more important to me than that sweet +2% DA that comes with the trade offs of higher base dmg and longer delay... There are strengths and weaknesses to using each of these 113 GSs... but it's ultimately up to playstyle and player agency to pick which to use.)

I could argue that the reason why REMs didn't use the simple updater of the translurry is because they are the "redheaded stepchild"...
But that would be wrong I think... I mean... maybe that is why they did it the way they did...
But I honestly believe that they believed they were giving the people what they wanted: a 300 BS item grind.

Because I honestly think that the Powers that Be believed that the complaints against the REM-outdate was a lack of magian trial grinding in Adoulin.





Last thing: Is anyone else worried about Afterglow? I don't even actually think I've seen one... But... I think we might have broken things... Or at least I hope the devs realized this too...
What happens when I make my 99REM a 119REM... and then want to Afterglow it?
Can... that even be done anymore using a 119 version?
Someone needs to find that out because....
That's kinda a big thing to no longer be able to do... >_>

[Okipuit]

What happens when I make my 99REM a 119REM... and then want to Afterglow it?
Can... that even be done anymore using a 119 version?

Even if you have upgraded your weapon up to ilvl 119, you will still be able to perform the upgrade to receive the afterglow effect.

[FaeQueenCory]

Even if you have upgraded your weapon up to ilvl 119, you will still be able to perform the upgrade to receive the afterglow effect.

A little more elaboration: Will that revert the 119 back to the base 99 and have to be 119ified again?
Or is there some new magian trial that... I haven't looked for.... >_> (That's a lot to dig through.)
Or is the upgrade from 119 to 119afterglow something entirely different like the 99>>>119 upgrade??
Thank you for the response about that.

[MarkovChain]

It's not really about just having to do Delve to upgrade... it's about "why bother when I can just do 1/10000000 of the work and have the delve weapon".
Using Oats as the strawman is what everyone does, so let's run with that.
It's soooooo easy to get Oats.
Painfully easy.
I could have one if I wanted... but I don't cause my monk and pup are only 50.
"evrybdy haz oats"

Well then why complaining if you are ok with a weapon that is slighly worse than RME ? The main avantage I see with the current game is that new players are not left out while old players are not left out either. At the same time there is still a hierarchy between weapons, which is necessary in an MMO. Math say for instance that spharai and vere are roughly 5% better damage than oat. For some it's too little to be worth it. Ok. For other more dedicated people, they will have to upgrade it through a process that is not really tedious unlike what has been said (I'm already 113/300 after 6-7 hours of doing delve 6-man style, someone that plays serisouly every day will probably need 2 to 3 weeks only).
The only thing I regret is that there is a gap for empy between the level 90 ones and 119 ones, because only a couple of players per server can make it to 95 and 99 due to the supply of voidwatch mats.

[Dragoy]

A little more elaboration: Will that revert the 119 back to the base 99 and have to be 119ified again?

Nay.

Or is there some new magian trial that...

Indeed.

(That's a lot to dig through.)

Not really:

1. Find the “orange” Magian Moogle.
2. List available trials.
3. Select any weapon type.
4. Check the trials in the bottom of the list.

=)

[Malthar]

I'm going to use the opportunity to address the afterglow situation.
In addition to the afterglow, can you make it worth the wielder's time? When afterglow is active increase the rate at which the multi-damage effect occurs.
Do this and we will love you forever!

[FaeQueenCory]

Well then why complaining if you are ok with a weapon that is slighly worse than RME ? The main avantage I see with the current game is that new players are not left out while old players are not left out either. At the same time there is still a hierarchy between weapons, which is necessary in an MMO. Math say for instance that spharai and vere are roughly 5% better damage than oat. For some it's too little to be worth it. Ok. For other more dedicated people, they will have to upgrade it through a process that is not really tedious unlike what has been said (I'm already 113/300 after 6-7 hours of doing delve 6-man style, someone that plays serisouly every day will probably need 2 to 3 weeks only).
The only thing I regret is that there is a gap for empy between the level 90 ones and 119 ones, because only a couple of players per server can make it to 95 and 99 due to the supply of voidwatch mats.

My MNK is 50.
0_0
I have no Oats.

And I think the WS bonus alone is worth the work it takes to 99->119 a REM.

But it's just as you said.
It's not just this one thing that needs to be done.
There's more to the REMs than just this 99->119 totes-not-a-magian-trial.

I'm not really complaining... Because the difference between Oats and the H2H REMs doesn't affect me in the slightest.

Though I suppose I am complaining about one thing... The virtual requirement to do Delve with this.
The beauty of the REMs is that there were multiple paths that suited the player's tastes to a "best weapon."
And having other 119 weapons opens up more people to being able to play with "the best."

But I do not like the funneling everything through Delve... which, is the only feasible, realistic way to get these items.
At least until they add more ways or even drastically lower the 300 requirement.

I do not enjoy Delve.
It is not a fun endgame event for me.
For others it is.
But those same other who enjoy Delve may hate Dynamis, which I love.
And the way the REMs were before was that Mythics and Empys didn't require you to ever even look at Dynamis.
And that's what I would like here.
Instead it's currently the difference between farming in Dreamworld Dynamis or farming in regular dynamis... "farm them in WKRs if you don't like Delve"... Except you'd have to be really dumb to think that those are two equally viable farm outlets.
It's why you, Markovchain, have achieved so much so quickly.

If they lessen the #: "well you have to do more Delve... but at least you don't have to do a LOT more... good."
If they add more to other places: "good. now I don't have to do more Delve."
Heck, even emulating the previous model by making the relic stone drop in Dynamis areas, the Mythic drop off of VNMs, and the empy drop off of Abbyssea/VW NMs...
Where it might be fastest to grind delve... but there are other viable alternates...
That's all I'm wanting.
More options to make it so that more people can get to the same standing in more ways.

1. Find the “orange” Magian Moogle.
2. List available trials.
3. Select any weapon type.
4. Check the trials in the bottom of the list.

=)

Bluh... XP
I hate trudging through those menus... Was hoping for a quick and easy "yes, they are there #s X-X" or w/e.