Magian trial rewards imbalanced

[Dais]

I have had this on my mind for a while now and think I need to get it out in writing. There are many magian trial reward weapons which feel very disproportionate to the effort that must be put in for the trials. I can't list all of the examples here, but hopefully I can make my case well enough for some of these to be reexamined by the dev team. I can understand trials need to become progressively more difficult for scaling rewards, but I am not sure the rewards scale adequately for many of these weapons.

- Empyrean weapons have some of the most disproportional trials at 95 compared to not only previous trials but also other weapons. A single item for all weapons is incongruous with the previous trials which grouped them by weapon types and the task of gathering 1500 of an item everyone wants for just a single weapon is rather daunting for a mere damage increase. These weapons have been accused as being too easy to acquire at earlier levels, but It dose feel almost as if someone added a 0 at the end of this trial just to make the completed 99 weapons equally difficult to complete as 99 relics (mythics are still far more difficult but that has nothing to do with magian trials and that discussion belongs in a different thread). I know this has been discussed before but I felt it would be best to be comprehensive in my post.
- Walk of echoes based weapons with the empyrean weapon skill require much more work to build up to 95 than they did 85 or 90 with no notable jump in power over what was gained the previous trials. In many cases the base damage upgrade for obtaining 100 very rare devious dice is inferior to the upgrade for obtaining 20 relatively common kindred crests. The changes made to walk of echoes treasure distribution make the earlier trials much more difficult as well, true empyreans may be easier up until level 90.
- The "occasionally attacks twice" weapons have all been laughably bad since level 80 and saw minimal upgrades from 90 to 95 yet still require a huge time investment obtaining 150 silver mirrors. Even if you want to pursue one of these trials you have to compete with the superior double attack weapon to obtain the mirrors. These are probably the least rewarding trial series available with no sign of improvement. Compare the 95 trials of these with their multiattack siblings which get a small upgrade for a simple trial.
- The double attack weapons themselves also get a marginal base damage upgrade for their own silver mirror trial, requiring 200 rather than 150. Simply too much effort for the reward.
- Elemental weapons only get a base damage and attribute increase for a trial 166% more difficult than their previous trials which, with the exception of elemental attack staffs, all improved their special effects as well. Greater difficulty AND depreciated rewards together make these trials feel somewhat disappointing.

[Ihnako]

On the whole I agree with you, but there is a slight logical mistake in your reasoning.
It's right that the upgrades from Lv90 to Lv95 don't bring a significant boost for most of the allready powerfull weapons.
But why should the elemental Trial 166% more difficult? Just cause you have to trade 40 geodes of the corresponding element?
I have to disagree with you at this point cause I made millions cause people are too lazy to farm them or wait to get enough over time.

Also the "Double Attack +X" weapons are a point of flavour. Since you get a passive trait and most player use them offhand it's fair that it will take more effort to upgrade. We'r not talking about the ammount of silver mirrors, cause that's a different matter and concerns all trials.

[Michae]

honestly if you didnt toss/sell the geodes you got while doing the original series of elemental trials you shouldnt be hurting too bad for the 40 of em you need for the last one. After +3 3 of these weapons and working on a couple more, I have not really hurt much for geodes, only have to farm a few of em usually for the last trial.

As for the empy weapons I am hoping its the crap before the gold. As in when we hit 99 and we get the 'final' trial that these weapons will get a big ol boost for the work that needs done.

[scaevola]

Hey, man; don't dog the OAT weapons. The two-handers are really generally quite good and are overlooked because an Empyrean weapon skill is usually much more useful. The Polearm's the best weapon available for DRG outside Ryunohige, as I understand it.

As it is, ramping up the demands of the 95 Magian weapons isn't a problem to me because the 90 weapons are still really powerful and will remain perfectly viable. It's a decent compromise: prevent people from getting stuck with terrible weapons in general while making the final trials meaningful accomplishments to work towards, as well as keeping drop weapons from being totally obsolete.

Besides that, the weapon skill trials are still easy and will probably remain so.

EDIT: Looking at the roadmap, the last Magian phase is going on to the Test Server next month along with 99, so at that point we'll know if the mountains of HMPs, SMs, and DDs will be worth the trouble. Personally, I would sell for now.