Ok...let me level with you here SE...

[Insaniac]

Mythics will be the 2nd easiest just because you will be able to buy the emp items. It may cost you 60 mil but I would much rather farm dynamis for 3 weeks than worry about building 3-10 PW sets. If relic and mythic items came from mobs that people actually killed and there was a chance of them being on the market for less than 20 mil then it would for sure be mythic < relic < emp but the way its set up now its emp < mythic << relic.

[Damane]

The problem is no the number of items needed. The problem is the TRIAL ITSELF!

As it looks now we have from easy to hard: empy ----> mythic -----> relic. This whole trial is a slap into my face after putting 1.5 years back then to get my bravura. The trial is also a fucking slap into the face of mythic holders. Considering through how much shit they have to go through, their weapon should auto ding to lvl 99.

Pls for godsake change the trial to something lowmanable. Noone wants to mollest 17 people just to upgrade 1 weapon for one relic holder its just NOT realistic. Implement lowmanable trials.
Make it 5 normal Dynamis Lord KILLs, but not fuckign ArchDynamisLord items, for Relics.
Make it 1 specific assault cleared for mythic, while wearing the weapon.

The times have changed, people DO NOT have anymore the firepower of a 36+man Linkshell and its never gonna happen again.

[Babygyrl]

The problem is no the number of items needed. The problem is the TRIAL ITSELF!

As it looks now we have from easy to hard: empy ----> mythic -----> relic. This whole trial is a slap into my face after putting 1.5 years back then to get my bravura. The trial is also a fucking slap into the face of mythic holders. Considering through how much shit they have to go through, their weapon should auto ding to lvl 99.

Pls for godsake change the trial to something lowmanable. Noone wants to mollest 17 people just to upgrade 1 weapon for one relic holder its just NOT realistic. Implement lowmanable trials.
Make it 5 normal Dynamis Lord KILLs, but not fuckign ArchDynamisLord items, for Relics.
Make it 1 specific assault cleared for mythic, while wearing the weapon.

The times have changed, people DO NOT have anymore the firepower of a 36+man Linkshell and its never gonna happen again.

And this says it so nicely, i completely agree with it, no more fetch quests for trials!

[Helel]

Ok there are a lot of problems here:

If mythics and relics require PW and ADL drops*, I still believe empyreans will take the cake for the easiest weapon to upgrade 95>99. Yet the devs seem to think they are the hardest? Rift---- items are very easy to get and you have an unlimited amount of attempts at farming them. ADL and PW drops have to be lot on by the other 17 people that are with you. Your whole awesome VW loot system (sarcasm) actually comes through here.

Relic upgrades will require players to sacrifice millions of gil for a chance at an ADL drop. You don't have to sacrifice anything for farming rift---- items; in fact, you might get a cool item that you always wanted in the process. Plus, you can farm dynamis, sell the currency, and buy up the rift---- items easily. Again, empyrean upgrades are a joke compared to relic/mythic.

The final problem is more confusion than anything else: why do you want the empyrean upgrades to be the hardest? Most of them have fallen behind their relic/mythic counterparts (and some of them were always behind) so I'm kind of at a loss here.

[Vold]

Even SE themselves question their decision with wording like "people will likely finish this" That is saying a lot. Nothing I say tops that. If SE feels it's going too far, it probably is. Rethink the trial or rethink ADL. One or the other. Either we can love you or hate you. It's your choice.

But like, are you guys trying to be the Ty Cobb of MMO developers? You've done so well up to this point with the trials and it's now all like... we want to be the Ty Cobb of MMO developers. We've had enough of this Babe Ruth shit for the past two years.

[Coldbrand]

I think now is the appropriate time for the Hachiryu/Shelong/Dorje/Nanatsusaya augments.

[VoiceMemo]

Perhaps SE does not understand the implications/cultural differences of people's ways of thinking.

To elaborate.

Before dynamis changes:
500k-1mil gil fee for the hourglass. Before you could justify/rationalize the help of 18+ people because if not for the funder to pay for the hourglass, the runs might not happen. So you could justify they getting all the currency. Granted yes this is not the way SE intended. Their vision was that every player contribute gil for the cost of the hourglass. The reality of it was that players did not want to do this way, at least in the North American region(as far as I can tell). This is why large dynamis shells existed.

After dynamis changes:
Dynamis is now accessible to anyone that can pay the one time fee of 50k. With this the player mindset has changed, because of this large dynamis shells have basically died. It's now all lowman, small groups. In the players mindset there is no justification of helping out and teaming up so 1 person can get an item.

So basically SE, IMO, brought this series of events on themselves. Because of the changes it only points to lowman groups for the North American/EU region. I believe the issue comes from cultural/upbringing differences between Japan and America/EU. That the Japanese players are more likely to team up vs the America/EU.

Granted now I'm only generalizing and stating my opinion. I for one continue to do dynamis to help those that helped me achieve relic from the days that required you to buy hourglasses. I do dynamis for basically nothing but to help those others that helped me get currency. I know not many share this way of thinking/loyalty but there probably are some out there that do have it.

I for one think that yes the final trial for relic should deal with something about teaming up. The way I've always viewed dynamis as a group of people teaming up for a singular effort. The more that stay with the group the more could complete relic in time. Back in the days of fee dynamis, I calculated with the appropriate numbers to kill we could complete a relic every 7 months. So "Ideally" yes, the final relic upgrade should have a team up aspect. Realistically though, with the way the game is now I don't really see it happening.

[Dekusuta]

Perhaps SE does not understand the implications/cultural differences of people's ways of thinking.

To elaborate.

Before dynamis changes:
500k-1mil gil fee for the hourglass. Before you could justify/rationalize the help of 18+ people because if not for the funder to pay for the hourglass, the runs might not happen. So you could justify they getting all the currency. Granted yes this is not the way SE intended. Their vision was that every player contribute gil for the cost of the hourglass. The reality of it was that players did not want to do this way, at least in the North American region(as far as I can tell). This is why large dynamis shells existed.

After dynamis changes:
Dynamis is now accessible to anyone that can pay the one time fee of 50k. With this the player mindset has changed, because of this large dynamis shells have basically died. It's now all lowman, small groups. In the players mindset there is no justification of helping out and teaming up so 1 person can get an item.

So basically SE, IMO, brought this series of events on themselves. Because of the changes it only points to lowman groups for the North American/EU region. I believe the issue comes from cultural/upbringing differences between Japan and America/EU. That the Japanese players are more likely to team up vs the America/EU.

Granted now I'm only generalizing and stating my opinion. I for one continue to do dynamis to help those that helped me achieve relic from the days that required you to buy hourglasses. I do dynamis for basically nothing but to help those others that helped me get currency. I know not many share this way of thinking/loyalty but there probably are some out there that do have it.

I for one think that yes the final trial for relic should deal with something about teaming up. The way I've always viewed dynamis as a group of people teaming up for a singular effort. The more that stay with the group the more could complete relic in time. Back in the days of fee dynamis, I calculated with the appropriate numbers to kill we could complete a relic every 7 months. So "Ideally" yes, the final relic upgrade should have a team up aspect. Realistically though, with the way the game is now I don't really see it happening.

Too much cultural relativism. Japanese players do benefit from all being in the same timezone, but the the NA players had no problem fielding large teams back 3-4 years ago, some still do. But as a rule, most groups are smaller and play less now, and the differing time zones have narrowed the window of large groups playing together to a few hours a day, or even only on weekends now.

The fact of the matter is, the game has changed. People who started playing in 2004-2006 in school or university, graduated, got jobs, got married, had children. Or want to take it easy.

That is pretty much 90% of the message in this thread. Trying to rationalize SE's decisions with cultural relativity does the NA and EU community a disservice. Even assuming the premise you put forward is 100% true, which I don't think it is, We're not any less of a human being as consumers, just because the devs in Japan decided to make events that wouldn't suit us.

I do agree with you that the updates in the past 2 years have pointed towards a very different kind of game and for them to suddenly pull back and say 'oh by the way, you need to do 1,000 of these kills for 1 person's benefit' is callous. That I agree with you. They set themselves up for failure there.

At the end of the day, this game has a global audience and an aging one. SE appears to have not considered all the consequences and I'd hate for them to reconsider it by shaving off 10% off the trial requirements. That would be the worst case.

We need to push for a rethink

[Washburn]

I still haven't bought crysta. Camate, tell them i'll give them fifteen bucks to make the trial reasonable, and kill based, not item based.

[Muras]

Perhaps the Dev team could add multiple trials for us to do that lead to the same result, much like the relic armor +2? For example, they can keep their ridiculous trials that involve Pandemonium Warden/Arch Dynamis Lord/whatever else, but add another trial that's perhaps lowman but equally challenging? Like, maybe make it so that you need x amount of forgotten items equivalent to the other trial (Whatever it may be) to upgrade, say, Apocalypse. Variety and choice is good, didn't you know?

The dev team still seems to be living in the past, and making design choices that worked in the early 2000s. The game itself has changed a lot over the years, and more recently the player base has moved away from huge group content. Some hate this, but I think most like this. Most modern MMOs are going this direction. The reason is because smart game developers are realising most people in the world have a life, and they can't spend hours upon hours doing one little thing. This includes gathering up an army of people. Most people can only log on for an hour or two at most per day, sometimes only a few times a week. So, when you design MMO content, which way will draw in more people and make your company more money? Making stuff that people can do, and do right now and not later and actually ENJOY, or making frustrating, hair pulling, time consuming nonsense?

The devs seriously need to stop and just look at the game through the eyes of the player for once. Most people aren't gonna bother doing these trials. And maybe that's intentional. But I have to ask, why? Do the devs feel good going to bed every day knowing that only a small portion of their customers are doing content they worked on for who knows how long? And I don't just mean Voidwatch. I'm talking about Ballista, Brenner, Chocobo Racing, ANNMs, Walk of Echoes, the new KCNMs.

I remember an interview with one of the devs a long time ago, I can't remember who it was, but they said they don't add rewards to a lot of the events I mentioned because it'd take away from it's "charm". But I have to ask, what charm is there in an event nobody does? Ballista is fun, but I can't enjoy it because nobody else is motivated to do it. And in comparison, is this what they think relics/mythics/empys are too? If too many people have them it takes away from their charm or, as they once put it when adding mythics, the "prestige" of the weapon? Who in their right mind enjoys gawking at a few select people who have something you'll never get to have? How are we to motivate others to help if they too likely want upgrade items? The chance at other, less desirable, low drop rate items? If you ask me, the dev team is planting the seeds of depression, and the motivation to quit.

I've said this in a previous post a long time ago, but... Can't the devs just do what we say for once? Even if it's just on the test server so we can actually see if the game really breaks? They're so worried about "balance" but how can they claim that when they don't even try what we say? As others have mentioned, what is the test server for? Why does it seem like all our feedback is always ignored except for pointless stuff like the order of things in the outpost teleport NPC menus? Games are supposed to be fun, not depressing and frustrating. What on earth is apparently wrong with these game developers?

Get some surveys out to ask and find out if everyone really hates all this crap, but as far as I'm concerned the players have spoken, and the devs need to stop acting like dictators. Let's see some change already.