[dev1049] New weapon skills

[Siiri]

Discussion kind of lost focus in the emp weapon stuff. I think most of us agree that these weaponskills should be better than the lvl 60 weapon skills, and it is very sad that most are not. Also, regardless of where SAM currently falls on the food chain of DDs, it has been consistently a favorite of the developers, and many people are kind of mad once again they are one of the only jobs that got a good weaponskill.

[Quetzacoatl]

Would also put forth the motion that if they plan on leaving these weaponskills as useless messes, at least let us merit every single one fully and not just limit us to three weaponskills max.

I agree, something to the likeness of putting a certain amount of bonus into a specific weapon skill.

Here are my ideas on the matter

[Koren]

Would also put forth the motion that if they plan on leaving these weaponskills as useless messes, at least let us merit every single one fully and not just limit us to three weaponskills max.

If these are all useless messes at 5/5 merits, I'd rather just keep it as is and put one merit into each WS. Why should we waste time getting ~1400 merits rather than accumulate only the 170 needed to unlock all 14 WS and be done with it? If it's going to suck regardless, why put forth the effort? Or do we all enjoy Abyssea alliances to that extent?

[Economizer]

If it's going to suck regardless, why put forth the effort?

Not all of them are going to suck, which will encourage a 5/5 in a few. I don't think that the high experience points requirements really bother me, since it is just a matter of time, even if it takes a few months. What bothers me is a limit on them so you can only have so many at a time.

Well, I'd rather have them all be useful, but maybe some won't be damage, but utility WS. And lets face it, when someone has a handful of jobs, they're going to go for damage, not utility if they are forced to choose, so why should we be forced to choose?

[Kalilla]

It's actually very common in the endgame scene...

...I will admit to this: many people actively participating in current endgame have an Empyrean weapon. If it's most I can't say, I believe so, but I don't have exact numbers, so I won't make ridiculous claims like other people so callously do. But people seem to forget that there's a massive number of people who don't even have one full +2 set (there's even people who don't have a single +2 item). Some of them have even started making some weapons, but the game doesn't come as easy to everyone. There's still people wiping to Durinn. There's still people who don't have the Atma of the Razed Ruins. And all of these cases are very likely to be a subset of the people who don't have an Empyrean weapon. This game isn't all as hardcore as you are.

I'm not hardcore, I don't play more than 5-6 hours a week truthfully unless I'm fishing which I don't include for obvious reasons. It wasn't that way before abyssea but then again standing in 1 area for 3 hours and then moving to another area for 3 hours isn't really that different when you add up the time you actually play now is it.

During the past year I abandoned said end-game for a more casual play style where I'm not ruled by spawn timers and event times. I actually enjoyed being able to play when I actually wanted to play instead of being expected to be at some event some where, whatever. There have been times when I teamed back up with my old end-game ls for big events that they invited me to come to, but was nothing more than that.

In the past 12 months, where I have been labeled as hardcore by you, I was never in a party (including myself) more than 4 people (unless I'm leveling... or w/e), but more often than not I was only with my bf helping him make weapons.

Surprisingly, I do understand that not everyone has time to make an empyrean weapon. Really once you get past the NM hunting you're no longer bound by timers and can continue doing the trial in your spare time. Some people might have less time than I have to play, and that's fine. Should they be considered the standard player?

That depends on the average playtime of players really. I think the average is around 8-10 hours a week, and some of the more hardcore players can put that into a single day (why...).

Then your opinion doesn't seem to be very informed. I have both Empyreans and elemental trial weapons and they're worlds apart. Most Empyreans you actually cannot solo, as in, impossible. Try Glavoid solo and see how far you get. I suppose you could pull it to some godforsaken corner of Tahrongi Canyon and zombie it, hoping no one comes by and claims it off you. But that's all you can do. And that's also the bottleneck many people face, not wanting (or getting) to involve others in helping them.

I can already see people responding with "make friends" or "get a WHM mule" or some poor soul will probably even think "suck less". And if you think those are valid suggestions, then I have to seriously doubt your mental capacity and you should leave this discussion now.

I seriously think that the difference isn't as huge as you're making it out to be. Sure, with Empyrean you need a healer, but when it comes to time investment well...

Many people (hardcore unfortunately) can make an Empyrean weapon in a few days. Now an elemental trial is bound by rules to where you can only do it on certain times of the day. More often than not it takes longer to make an elemental weapon than it is possible to make an Empyrean weapon.

I admit my comparison between the two was probably too much and was bound to be controversial, but I still stand by my point. I think it is completely reasonable that if you can make a fully upgraded elemental trial then you can make an Empyrean weapon.

Also: I've helped make 5 Empyrean's other than my own, made club and considering dagger if I get bored enough. And have made 4 fully upgraded elemental trials. Also only play WHM and DNC.

Anyways I'm done talking about Empyreans and trials. They are such a boring topic to talk about...

[Laxedrane]

Anyone know if this update went live on the test server yet so I can see how much they hate white mage melees everywhere? Or we just gonna have to wait and be surprised when it goes live on the main servers?

[Treyd]

Discussion kind of lost focus in the emp weapon stuff. I think most of us agree that these weaponskills should be better than the lvl 60 weapon skills, and it is very sad that most are not. Also, regardless of where SAM currently falls on the food chain of DDs, it has been consistently a favorite of the developers, and many people are kind of mad once again they are one of the only jobs that got a good weaponskill.

This is my sentiments exactly. These WS are not only level 96, but require a large amount of merit points to upgrade them to their fullest potential. In my opinion, they are supposed to represent mastery over a weapon. To make them equal or in some cases lower in power to WS learned over 30 levels ago is a joke and a slap in the face. I'm honestly getting of the Devs using "Balance!" as an excuse for implementing poor gameplay mechanics that continuously receive negative feedback from the playerbase.

This is not even close to balance. Like many others, I'm starting to lose faith that SE will ever listen. The playerbase wants these new WS to be regularly usable and moderately strong for the jobs that can use them. I seriously doubt anyone is looking forward to spending 100 merits on situational toys that may be used rarely for their favorite jobs. I know I'm not.

[Dohati]

Since Requiescat has no element, it’s an effective weapon skill against monsters that are immune to physical attacks. Considering that players can use attack boosts and double attack effects to enhance damage (edited at 12:28pm PST), we decided that an adjustment was unnecessary.

Yeah, because you can build TP on mobs that are immune to physical damage...

[Luvbunny]

Seriously? Hexa Strike is your idea of balancing? Why? This is why your post has no likes Bayohne!

He is just the messenger, don't hate him for that. But do hate and voice your opinion (and wallet) against the Tanakateam so that they understand the URGENCY to look into the future and forget the "craptastic spectacular" that is the past. The current team clearly have no ideas, no visions, or heck, not even a clue on how to create a product that will satisfy the majority of the players. Their idea of a game is a hamster wheel where you run and run and run in it for years.

[kingfury]

After testing, we concluded that there is a need to lower the damage dealt by the club weapon skill Realmrazer. We'll be making adjustments so that Realmrazer is the strongest club weapon skill for jobs that cannot learn Hexa Strike.

We also concluded that there is no need to increase the damage dealt by the H2H weapon skill Shijin Spiral and the sword weapon skill Requiescat. (The adjustments for the katana and great sword weapon skills were made to fix the difficulty of dealing damage against stronger opponents.)

Shijin Spiral has an attack boost effect, so it can effectively deal damage to stronger opponents. Thus, we decided that there was no need for adjustment. Also, please keep in mind that its modifiers are DEX and not STR.

Since Requiescat has no element, it’s an effective weapon skill against monsters that are immune to physical attacks. Considering that players can use attack boosts and double attack effects to enhance damage (edited at 12:28pm PST), we decided that an adjustment was unnecessary.

We’ll make the above adjustments in the next version update and will look into implementing further adjustments following the version update as necessary.

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Please forgive me in advance if this stuff is tough to read (English folks).

I know interpreting/translating what we say so the Devs can understand it is the job of the Community Reps, but in fear that the numerous walls of text posted here could take entirely too long for them to translate in time for the Devs to actually fix things in a satisfactory way, I'm almost forced to try my own hand at posting my own "Ready to Deliver" Feedback (Well I hope it is anyway). Here goes (Google Translate, don't fail me now >< ):

(English) Final Fantasy Developers, Please listen to the fans!
--[translation]--
(Japanese) ファイナルファンタジーの開発者は、ファンに聴いてください！
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(English) Please understand that the new weapon skills look great! I was excited to see them the very first time, but I'm very disappointed in their strength.
--[translation]--
(Japanese) 新しい武器のスキルがきれいに見えることを理解しなさい！私は非常に最初にそれらを見て興奮していたが、私は非常に彼らの強さにがっかりしています。
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(English)
Please hear our requests to change these Skills into very powerful Weapon Skills instead of being Weak Weapon Skills. If they are very powerful, we will put lots of time into unlocking these Weapon Skills.
--[translation]--
(Japanese) 代わりに、弱い武器のスキルというのは非常に強力な武器スキルにこれらのスキルを変更するために私たちの要求を聞いてください。彼らは非常に強力である場合、我々はこれらの武器のスキルをアンロックに多くの時間を配置します。
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(English) If you have plans to increase the strength of these Weapon Skills after this update, please let us know so we can understand your direction.
--[translation]--
(Japanese) このアップデート後にこれらの武器のスキルの強さを増加させる計画を持っている場合、我々はあなたの方向を理解できるように私たちに知らせてください。
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(English) I was happy to test the skills of these weapons on the test server, if you decide to make changes to them, I would be very happy to test them again.
--[translation]--
(Japanese) 私は、テストサーバー上でこれらの武器のスキルをテストするために幸せだった、それらに変更を加えることを決定した場合、私はそれらを再度テストすることが非常に幸せになる。
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(English) Thank you very much for listening to our feedback!
--[translation]--
(Japanese) 私たちのフィードバックを聞くことを本当にありがとう！

I pray that the translation job done by Google translate wasn't too much of a hack job (^.^ I really, REALLY love the animation work and graphic effects of these new Weaponskills, and as some have already posted, I would hate to see them go to waste. /Applause to the animation staff and special effects teams for creating some truly beautiful content! Lets hope the Planners of the actual content can hear our requests to match the masterful work and make these WS's really shine game-wise.