R/M/E 99 to 119 upgrade info and findings

[Dragoy]

I'm just saying that you had to know that the new BC would simply be a harder version of old BC,

Perhaps, had I ever tried the old version. :D

I really used all my crests while helping with black belt items, so I never happened to do that one.

so you would've known before entering that there would be multiple mobs that would need to be dealt with.

You got me there. I did know what there would be, but I guess I had more important things to find out about than actually having a sane plan (or I was too lazy to think about jobs and whatnots).

It just sounds like you didn't even have a plan.

I didn't, really! Given I did not even do the old battlefield, I really had no idea except for the few comments by other people I happeend to see. All I knew was the number of enemies, and their likely patterns in behaviour. What I didn't really have any idea of, was probably the most important part: how hard would they hit me.

We know now, and I can better (I feel) plan on it for the next time I try, whenever that may be. ^^

[Ravenmore]

Ravenmore, detlef,

Simply to see what it is like.

That's the way we do things; experiment with some trial here and error there, while also having some fun. It's quite difficult to gauge from reading only about people doing it with more current equipment. In this scenario, the SAM and WHM have no access to Adōulin at all, which sets its own kind of a challenge to it.
That said, the fight did go pretty much how I expected it to go, and we should have gone with very easy for starters. Perhaps we'll last 30 seconds there!

For what it's worth, I do realise that posting about such experiences might not prove to be useful to many, and that our set-up is what it is, so I apologise to those who might feel offended by it; 'tis certainly not intended. ^^

The intention was to expand upon the view(s) on the battlefield(s) a little bit at least.


Thank you for your input.

Sorry after reading the dribble about how unfair it all is from others, I should have sugar coated that a little better. The ilvl and amount of def skirmish or bayld gear offers you could handle that it if you swapped out the run for a little better DD or just added another dd to it. Geo might be able to handle the crowd control but I wouldn't stake the SKCs on it till you had more practice with the fight.

[detlef]

Perhaps, had I ever tried the old version.

I really used all my crests while helping with black belt items, so I never happened to do that one.



You got me there. I did know what there would be, but I guess I had more important things to find out about than actually having a sane plan (or I was too lazy to think about jobs and whatnots).



I didn't, really! Given I did not even do the old battlefield, I really had no idea except for the few comments by other people I happeend to see. All I knew was the number of enemies, and their likely patterns in behaviour. What I didn't really have any idea of, was probably the most important part: how hard would they hit me.

We know now, and I can better (I feel) plan on it for the next time I try, whenever that may be. ^^

I'm sorry, I shouldn't be so critical. I've never done the old battlefield either. In the future, you can check the wiki for at least a guide to the old, easy version of the BC:

http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Kindred_Spirits

Then at least you'll know how many mobs you'll have to deal with and what types they will be. You'll have an idea of which NMs you should target first. So that's something to keep in mind for the next time.

[Zumi]

Ravenmore, detlef,

Simply to see what it is like.

That's the way we do things; experiment with some trial here and error there, while also having some fun. It's quite difficult to gauge from reading only about people doing it with more current equipment. In this scenario, the SAM and WHM have no access to Adōulin at all, which sets its own kind of a challenge to it.
That said, the fight did go pretty much how I expected it to go, and we should have gone with very easy for starters. Perhaps we'll last 30 seconds there!

For what it's worth, I do realise that posting about such experiences might not prove to be useful to many, and that our set-up is what it is, so I apologise to those who might feel offended by it; 'tis certainly not intended. ^^

The intention was to expand upon the view(s) on the battlefield(s) a little bit at least.


Thank you for your input.

My experience with people who have all delve/delve boss gear, skirmish 2 was that the mobs just missed most of the time and they destroyed them very quickly on normal.

[Demon6324236]

Well that's the thing, I am guessing level wise it goes something close to this...

Very Easy = 99
Easy = 106
Normal = 109
Hard = 113
Very Hard = 119

I think this is how its setup because of them being the most common levels. So since most of that party sounds like it was in Pre-SoA gear, it should have been fighting VE, maybe at most, E, and its no wonder N beat em down so easy.

[Zumi]

Those fools and lazy people are paying subs which are keeping the game online, for geniuses and workaholics like you. You should literally feel sad every time somebody quits FFXI because theres like 400/server, currently enjoying a post-update/ pre-Christmas revival to 700~ per server, its still a fraction of how many people played the game when the game was popular and immersive. If somebody actually makes a new online RPG that doesn't suck, this game will lose a lot more players and you will wish that the "fools and lazy people" were still here paying subs so the game would stay online.
Also its not only fools and lazy ppl quitting the game, about 25% of my JP friends have quit post SoA including some of the most intense high-speed gamers I ever met, and smart professionals, who were happy to farm mountains of baskets in Oztroya[s] 2008~ for a shot at the lol-hat in the BC, but were not happy to run endlessly in a self-immolating SoA ilvl gearwheel. You should really be grateful for all subscribers at this point, especially if SE keep throwing "farm 1000 hours of crests for an AF set" updates at people.

I just saw several BCNM shouts today and they weren't requiring people to have an orb. Which means if you join shout group you get personal drops and you can finish that way.

[Dragoy]

Sorry after reading the dribble about how unfair it all is from others, I should have sugar coated that a little better. The ilvl and amount of def skirmish or bayld gear offers you could handle that it if you swapped out the run for a little better DD or just added another dd to it. Geo might be able to handle the crowd control but I wouldn't stake the SKCs on it till you had more practice with the fight.

I have no doubt the Skirmish and Bayld stuff would help (the black mage demon was dealing around 400-500 points of damage with just melee to the samurai without any defence boost etc.), but they're not an option at this time for the two.

Next time will be different fer sure!

I'm sorry, I shouldn't be so critical. I've never done the old battlefield either. In the future, you can check the wiki for at least a guide to the old, easy version of the BC:

http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Kindred_Spirits

Then at least you'll know how many mobs you'll have to deal with and what types they will be. You'll have an idea of which NMs you should target first. So that's something to keep in mind for the next time.

I don't mind critique. ^^

And that's a great idea indeed. I did mention I knew what to expect in numbers and behaviour of the monsters, just I didn't know how much above us they would be in level, at normal difficulty. I expected it to be around Bayld equipment level perhaps, and I suppose that's not too far off the mark.

Why would we still do it? Well, a friend wanted to try, and so did I, I guess, and the other two are not consulted upon such trifles. D:

I've been editing that Wikia wikki since 2009 or so, though less after the founders left it, but I still know my way around there. I maybe think.

Many thanks for the suggestion(s)! =)

My experience with people who have all delve/delve boss gear, skirmish 2 was that the mobs just missed most of the time and they destroyed them very quickly on normal.

Thanks for following up on that!

Well that's the thing, I am guessing level wise it goes something close to this...

Very Easy = 99
Easy = 106
Normal = 109
Hard = 113
Very Hard = 119

I think this is how its setup because of them being the most common levels. So since most of that party sounds like it was in Pre-SoA gear, it should have been fighting VE, maybe at most, E, and its no wonder N beat em down so easy.

Indeed.


It was a silly test run, poking at a monster the size of a crag with a stick... without any socks on.

[Mefuki]

...but were not happy to run endlessly in a self-immolating SoA ilvl gearwheel.

I notice you keep mentioning iLevel in your posts. I have yet to run into a person who doesn't think iLevel was/is a terrible idea. That's not the sticking point with me. Everyone knows lateral, "sidegrade" gear is what this game needs right now. And based on what one Dev post said, SE seems to be realizing that as well. Good for them because we can all agree that the level of power creep this game as undergone just this year alone is completely unsustainable, long-term.
*Insert obligitory Power Creep Ep of Extra Credits, as it's almost an exact analogy over why FFXI's old system (with it's MUCH better handling of "incomparables") was so effective*
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bxszx60ZwGw

The main problem I'm having is people saying that the RME and AF1 +2 upgrade methods are unreasonable when it's really not. Not if you've already spent time getting a 99 RME or do research and take advantage of said research to get your SKC. Because now we're in a position where FFXI vets like Byrth, Sylow and Jinjo have already completed the trials and, according to one FFXIAH thread, are wondering what to do now, meanwhile other people on the OF want RME mats to be added Colonization Reives...I mean, what do you want here? Because it seems to me that SE just can't win even when they do what we ask them.

We wanted RME to matter both for personal and game heath reasons, that's what we got. And now we complain we want automatic upgrades? When we're already seeing people completing these trials?

We wanted to use our AF again, that's what we got. And now we complain that we can't immediately transfer our Beastmen and Kindred seals into SKC? When the stockpile of BS and KS is so high (I personally have a little over 1000 of each)? Maybe it was a good idea to give us a reason to actually kill all those monsters that they put in Adoulin areas. Plus, if you followed the link I provided a few posts back, apparently there are ways to getting SKC at a somewhat decent pace. Now, if it turns out that what we see as a mechanic is actually a glitch or something, I'd be more willing to bend on this point but given the information we have, it doesn't seem that unreasonable and it's a system where everyone can have a chance to get upgrades and play content, whether you're an alliance sized LS or a solo, lowman group.

[detlef]

The main problem I'm having is people saying that the RME and AF1 +2 upgrade methods are unreasonable when it's really not. Not if you've already spent time getting a 99 RME or do research and take advantage of said research to get your SKC. Because now we're in a position where FFXI vets like Byrth, Sylow and Jinjo have already completed the trials and, according to one FFXIAH thread, are wondering what to do now, meanwhile other people on the OF want RME mats to be added Colonization Reives...I mean, what do you want here? Because it seems to me that SE just can't win even when they do what we ask them.

Yeah, I posted that. And it's not for the reason you think.

It's not that I think the RME trial should be easier. I just think that the healthiest situation is for RME items to be accessible to anyone. Adding them to reives (as in my example) would give even the most casual players another thing to sell. Likewise, I think that the drop rate in WKR should be carefully considered such that they are plentiful enough to keep players coming back even if they are the sole incentive to participate.

Basically I'm saying that these items should be used as an incentive to do events, especially server-wide events that anybody can participate in.

[Zumi]

The double-negative at the start of that post confuses me a bit, "have yet to meet a person who doesn't think ilvl is a terrible idea" <paraphrased> so you are saying you haven't met a person who thinks ilvl was a good idea.
Assuming you meant the opposite, that everyone you meet loves iLvl, which would chime with the rest of your post, obviously two factors ; A) this forum has had hundreds of posters saying iLvl is a terrible idea, B) a lot of people quit the game without posting their reasons on Forums or going around ingame chatting to people about it.
The RME patch doesn't affect me at all, as I don't own a RME, because I spent most of the last 9 years helping thousands of LS members with mundane Cinderella chore type stuff over and over and over, using my time and gil for LS events, and obviously when you build RME you need to devote your time and money to that. I was able to build around 25 magian99s and four Woepath empys, because those take less time/no money compared to RME's. All of the magian 99 which SE decided to not included in their iLvl game, or offer upgrade paths for. So we have the laughable situation where SoA bayld/conquest points weaps are more powerful than magians/woepaths that took months of farming to build. So the ilvl system you are so happy with doesn't apply to existing lvl99 weapons that people worked hard for as recently as last year. As I said 100x I would have been happy if I could just hit mobs in SoA with my magians and woepaths. Sadly SE ignored those requests and instead nerfed the hard-earned woepaths into a trial weapon, while continuing to hand out lvl 115 weapons in WKR for just hanging around and hitting NQ mobs for a few hours, not even needing to touch the Boss NM. A lot of magian/woepath owners have quit ffxi over this situation where their magians have been put in the trashcan by SE and immensely powerful weaps have been given 115 lvl and can be obtained in an hour or two.
Re; what did I want etc. well from SoA I was hoping for new areas, quests missions battlefields etc., Campaign/Besieged style events with NPC Soldiers/Generals/Hero Mercenaries who are involved in the actual regional storyline and who join you in battlefields, and for the enemies in those events to be actual enemy soldiers / generals / NMs like in Campaign, as opposed to lots of base template rabbit mobs from 2003 and some base chapulis etc. I was hoping for pop NM's. And free-roaming NM's. SoA has nothing like that, the NM's are all locked into alliance based lagfests like WKR, which go on for hours and are extremely dull and unmotivating.
I think af1 could have gone up to lvl90, available via a quest/storyline/pop-NM process, to use as situational swapout pieces to use with existing relic+2/af3+2 and new SoA armors. But that the gear cap would have remained 99. And for new armors weaps to drop in Soa, which were say 10% more powerful than exisitng pre-Soa gear. And a new RME-type weapon building system in SoA, to give an alternative to ppl who couldnt get on the mythic bus in time etc. a new form of power weapon. And for those weapons to take the same amount of time etc. as RME's.
I think iLvl was pointless, as lvl 90-99 gear plus new 99 stuff from SoA was fine, we just needed new battlefields and areas to use the existing gear in.

^^
The problem is your in the minority. Most people did to r/m/e weapons because they weren't that hard to do after all the nerfs to dynamis and how easy abyssea became after the 99 cap.

And Since they added skill to ilvl weapons this was a huge nerf to delve let the casual players able to kill bosses. It sounds like you want to sit around with your old gear not wanting to do anything but wanting SE to automatically make it the BiS. Personally I didn't know anyone that did a bunch of magian weapons because they weren't the best. A lot of WoE or Magian took longer then making a empyrean.

The old stuff was good for the old content. Now we have new content and its time to upgrade your gear.