Synergy Reborn: Revisit Evolith System?

[Nala]

the evolith system is already dead, hence the suggestion to have a rebirth, its an abandoned system with as previously state less then marginal buffs that have a limited range to what they can be applied to.

i wanted to try and inspire a conversation on making well generally synergy more relevant, considering they keep wanting to add useless random augment systems.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/th...162#post168162

The players have spoke and they want a static system, the evolith system was just that, but the dev team was too affraid of making items overpowered, i think thats not as much an issiue now looking at af3+2 and various other new peices they've added.

so why not instead revamp and improve on an idea that was abandoned but still has potential, the back bone of the system is there and if they arent going to do more with it then take it out completely.

that said anyone have any ideas how to further improve synergy, take it in a sensible direction or actually see anything in revamping evoliths other then me and leolionheart? if not just let this thread die.

[Alhanelem]

the evolith system is already dead, hence the suggestion to have a rebirth

Which is why I said they should leave it dead. The dev team has a mentality where anything that isn't totally random can't be as good as something that is random. Thus, any kind of pickable stat generally will be purposely made inferior just because you can pick it- unless the time investment required is very high- Hence why synergy augmenting can produce better results than evolith socketing.

[kingfury]

Good stuff Leon.

Just to support, just because a system was trash it doesn't mean that it can't be revived with some good planning. I tried to stir up the same pot of ideas with my Evolith post, but got no response from the Reps yet. Some ideas for new Evoliths:

• New Evoliths

The system still has great potential to be the next TotM for gear and weapons, it just needs some creative minds around it to bring it to that level.

[Nala]

wow didnt realize there was a thread on this already, like the attachment style system for evoliths, its a bit annoying how people just keep poping in here say "OMG EVOLITHSUXOR" yes... were agreeing and its obvious that SE wants to spend time and energy on improving/implementing a synergy system that the players will accept.

That said instead of them wasting energy coming up with new systems that are questionably useful why not discuss how we can make an older system worthwhile, it always had potential but as been stated in Kingfury's thread they were too afraid to make it overpowered, given af3+2 i think their fear has been somewhat abated. Personally im not talking about adding new Ebur/Ebon type gear either, im saying lets make a system that applies to all gear.

Either introduce the remaining 4 evolith types and make them good, or just forget the whole system and let it die a fast death.

Even the best bonuses are too small and not worth hunting for.

Point missed... we're talking a complete revamp of the original idea, no more hunts, exchangeable evoliths, new shapes that make sense, new evoliths, no more WS only/vs x family bs.

[Suirieko]

The Evolith system had great idea, but sure did screwed the pooch with crappy augments option, that made it even impossible to even try to justify the effort to do the Synergy. In order to even justify reviving the evolith system (and believe me, I'd love to ssee this revived, because I have one of the synergy weapon, Machismo the dagger.), they need to completely overhaul the original system, and actually add stats that would make the gears USEFUL.

The weapon augments were useful but were such a pain in the ass to get even the stats you want. Personally, I'd like them to bring back the system, but please, get rid of the crap like "X stat if fought against Y family".

[Alhanelem]

Point missed... we're talking a complete revamp of the original idea,

I didn't miss the point, I don't agree with it. I don't see it to be worth a revamp. The dev team has a certain mentality about how strong bonuses can be based on whether they're pickable or not. Basically, it either has to be random or it has to take forever for it to be any good. For evoliths to work, the bonuses have to be better than they are now, and I don't see that happening without *increasing* the level of hassle.

Basically, the idea presented here is good, but it's probably too good to be considered. Yeah, negative nancy I know, but I kind of lost confidence after the staff post on relic armor +2.

[Urthdigger]

I agree that improving evolith would be very good. I know it's not quite dead, even as far as abyssea they added new evolith types (some quests give evoliths, even with abyssea-exclusive mods like martello recast time), but they really need to realize that these bonuses need to be stronger, especially since we cannot put them in our favorite gear.

Right now, empyrean +1 is what I would consider "baseline". I don't care how much of a noob you are, even if you can't get anyone to help you, it's still possible to quest your seals and grab a +1 (Well, barring a few quests. I'm looking at you Malachite in Attohwa Chasm!). For evolith to be worthwhile, it would have to either approach the power of +1 empyrean while being less difficult, be more powerful than +1, or have a situational use that's useful enough to justify macroing it in.

In my opinion, they should re-examine the drops from the old NMs, and remove all the restrictions on what it works on. From the looks of things, they balanced the stats so that it wouldn't be OP if you had the strongest evolith of the right type on, then failed to realize that if you're gonna restrict it to only working on one mob, it better be damn effective.

Though, one thing I'd like to add, is that if you look at lower level gear, it actually works. Most gear people use at low levels, it does work on, and being able to add an extra +6 attack at level 30 (say, empty bonuses for ENM30s if I get bored). I believe the idea behind the gear is that as someone levelled up they'd get new gear, hunt down NMs with hunt registries, and attach evolith to their new gear. Make level 10 gear with aquan bonuses for crabs, 20 gear with amorph bonuses for worms, 60 gear with avian bonuses for colibri. But people don't level like that anymore, they hit level 30 and keywhore to 90, or they do FoV/GoV where they're attacking many different families of mobs (not to mention going up a whole 10 levels in less than a day). For evolith to survive, it has to be viable on the high end, and the low end stuff has to be versatile enough that it's worth what little advantage it'll give.

[kingfury]

I didn't miss the point, I don't agree with it. I don't see it to be worth a revamp. The dev team has a certain mentality about how strong bonuses can be based on whether they're pickable or not. Basically, it either has to be random or it has to take forever for it to be any good. For evoliths to work, the bonuses have to be better than they are now, and I don't see that happening without *increasing* the level of hassle.

Basically, the idea presented here is good, but it's probably too good to be considered. Yeah, negative nancy I know, but I kind of lost confidence after the staff post on relic armor +2.

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Don't lose total confidence in the Devs just yet ^^ after all, even with their announcement about what they're planning with the Relic +2 stuff, they are starting to ask for our feedback more and more which is basically giving us the chance to change the game little by little. Though they still have their stubborn areas from time to time, it's a huge leap in the right direction vs what use to happen years ago:

•The Dev team releases new content, and the players rage about how much they don't like it.

If players could shake off the terrible taste that the old Evolith system left in their mouths, and just rally strategically to present valid improvements together for the Devs to digest, we might just get the system changed in the future. Though they still seem to be very careful of giving the system the ability to be really powerful (which I say is misplaced), with enough great ideas put together, it just might happen.

The Evoliths I proposed with my thread are aimed at areas(stats) that will never go under the "useless" pile in terms of stats that a player could benefit from. There are dozens more that can be proposed that fall in line with that same idea, the players just have to open their mouths and suggest them.

Something that I thought about while reading the COR manifesto posted recently, where players were irritated about the Devs lack of interest in dealing with the issues of Ammo creation, was a new type of Evolith that once combined with a newly equipped item could create ammo over a specified duration of time.

• The player would equip some sort of new ammo specific device in their Ammo gear slot. Perhaps an "Ammo Mold" type of device that specifies which type of ammo would be desired (ex: Silver bullet Ammo Mold).
• The player would need to have the new ammo oriented Evolith attached to one or more pieces of gear equipped in order to activate the ammo creation process. Perhaps the more Evoliths attached could yield ammo for a longer duration of time.
• To respect game balance, the process would NOT create stacks of ammo at once, but rather ONLY create the desired ammo at the point in which the weapon is being fired. This would mean the player could fire the weapon for a duration of time without ever checking his/her ammo reserves and yet produce ammo as needed.
• Again, to respect game balance, the "Ammo Mold" could have a limited number of active charges that once spent, would have to be discarded and replaced. The Molds themselves could be created by Synergy.

Is it drastic? Yep. Would it make folks respect Synergy & Evoliths a bit more? Most likely. I say solve valid issues with the system and the possibilities could be endless.

[Alhanelem]

Don't lose total confidence in the Devs just yet ^^

Not with everything, just with their mentality on risk/reward/time consumed.

[kingfury]

I feel ya, but lets hope with the player's voice coming through loud and clear as we move forward in this game, their mentality begins to change on such topics