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

[Runespider]

Is SE cool with someone like me feeling stuck? Would they like us to see nothing but unreachable goals and decide to leave the game? Would they like us to resort to RMT? Digging 1500 plates and 60 rift whatevers out of the trash dumpster known as Voidwatch is about as realistic a goal as winning rank 1 in the Mog Bonanza. Buying them would require many of us to win said rank 1 Mog Bonanza more than once.

I'm just trying to warn you SE, that the direction you're going in will backfire. Your goal is to keep people around, but you're doing anything but.

This is the problem really, we all want to keep playing FFXI but they are just trying to push us away from it and I don't see why. The goals they are giving are just too much and I can't believe they don't get it. Most people are opting out of upgrading trials because they are too long and stupid, these are wonderful time sinks that would keep many people paying the monthly sub cheaply but they put the carrot too far away.

I know SE of the past made goals that took years, most players don't want that anymore. They want goals that take 4-6 months tops and new goals afterwards. Yeah that's more work for the dev team but FFXI makes more than enough profits to warrant it.

[Runespider]

The problem with kills is that it would be very unbalanced. PLD could equip Excalibur and Aegis, while MNK can only equip Spharai. And don't think you can come RDM/NIN (Excal+Mandau) either, because ADL doesn't strike me as a NM you want to PUG...
Oh, and don't forget you need to be alive for kills to count...

Magian trial could give an all job ranged slot item to record the kills for the particular trial you wanted to do, when completed you trade the weapon and the ranged item to the box to complete it.

[Kristal]

Magian trial could give an all job ranged slot item to record the kills for the particular trial you wanted to do, when completed you trade the weapon and the ranged item to the box to complete it.

I'm sure COR, RNG, PUP and BRD would like to know where to sent the flowers. (COR and PUP would then remark they don't got relics anyway, but joined out of sympathy.)

[Greatguardian]

I'm sure COR, RNG, PUP and BRD would like to know where to sent the flowers. (COR and PUP would then remark they don't got relics anyway, but joined out of sympathy.)

This is only really relevant for Cor. Bard can just macro out their gjallar after songs. No one would bring a Rng or a Pup to a zerg anyways.

[Unctgtg]

I love everyone's logic. Trying to compare this game to 4 years ago. Not going to happen. SE really is driving players away. If they really do require us to get 20 ADLs items, they will hear it even more. They might have gotten the idea, of the number of topics, not just in the NA forums but the rest, we do not want this, and it is frankly stupid for them to even bring this into the game. 20 ADL kills for stage 2 would be sufficient.

[Tinuviel]

Reading several posts, I want to distill 2 very valuable messages that I hope the dev team takes out of this thread.

1. The player landscape has changed dramatically over the past few years. The vast majority of players no long operate in large LS that coordinate their player resources. Most content is done in small groups now... and this is something has SE has encouraged with the LVL cap increase (and abyssea). SE needs to understand that they created this landscape and design future content to FOLLOW THROUGH with it. WoE was redone to require large groups (just try clearing path+10 with 6ppl) and it gets done much less now, and Einherjar wont see anyone until it becomes 6mannable. I think everyone is disappointed with Legion before its even been released because they're anticipating it will require large groups. People love smallgroups because its more efficient, you waste less time waiting around on people to gather or waiting to find people, and you spend more time playing with friends. SE needs to accept that this is the direction the game is going and own it.

Conclusion: Designing ultimate weapon trials (lvl95-99) that require huge time commitments from a large number of people (arch-dynalord or PW) makes SE look severly out of touch with their own game and due to are causing frustration in the player base

2. Stage 1 and Stage 2 ultimate weapon trials shouln't be the same with different numbers, they should be complementary. OK, SE, if you want to get people working together, you should balance the trials and encourage people to work together by design. This is not hard. Make stage 1 of upgrades simple defeating of the target NM, and then make stage 2 of the upgrade to require x number of items from the same NM. This will result in large number of players to work together on defeating these NMs and all get their upgrades. Second, only a small number of these players will care to pursue stage 2, so the NM drops generated by stage 1 players should make it possible for a select few to accomplish stage 2. These drops should be bazaarable.

Conclusion: Requiring an item for stage 1 trials to accomplish LVL99 ultimate weapons is an enormous increase in difficulty for accomplishing the trial. Players do not want to be forced into begging friends to sacrifice time/money to help them for extended periods of time (50+ hours, etc). The challenge of the game shouldn't be to see who can impose on their friends the most, or who can take advantage of a LS's manpower the most. See message #1 if you dont understand!!

[Kimble]

1) When did RNG become bad for zergs?

2) You can be dead when you kill VNM for empy trials and get credit.

[Camate]

Greetings!

I asked the development team about the possibility of changing the trial requirements from collecting specific items to straight up kills of the specific notorious monster, since there were quite a lot of comments regarding this topic.

The development team had looked into changing the trial requirements in this way; however, for a variety of reasons they decided it would be better to not make this change. The biggest reason for this decision is that it was explained previously on the forum that the basis for stage 1 enhancements would be item collection and their thinking is that as long as there are people who have already started collecting these items, it would be best not to change the trial.

Also, there is quite a difference in between item collection and kills. For item trials, in an 18 person fight, one person will receive an item. Whereas for a trial requirement involving a specific number of kills, in an 18 person fight, all 18 people would receive the kill credit. While it’s not really as simple as multiplying it 18 times, since the basic thinking would be that the kill count should be greater than the number of items, in the event that we were to change the trial requirements from item collection to kills, there is a high possibility that the number would rise significantly.

Currently since we are only looking into devising the appropriate number of items to collect, I am not going to be able to tell you an estimate of how many kills it would take, but please know that there would most likely be a huge gap between the numbers.

[saevel]

Greetings!

I asked the development team about the possibility of changing the trial requirements from collecting specific items to straight up kills of the specific notorious monster, since there were quite a lot of comments regarding this topic.

The development team had looked into changing the trial requirements in this way; however, for a variety of reasons they decided it would be better to not make this change. The biggest reason for this decision is that it was explained previously on the forum that the basis for stage 1 enhancements would be item collection and their thinking is that as long as there are people who have already started collecting these items, it would be best not to change the trial.

Also, there is quite a difference in between item collection and kills. For item trials, in an 18 person fight, one person will receive an item. Whereas for a trial requirement involving a specific number of kills, in an 18 person fight, all 18 people would receive the kill credit. While it’s not really as simple as multiplying it 18 times, since the basic thinking would be that the kill count should be greater than the number of items, in the event that we were to change the trial requirements from item collection to kills, there is a high possibility that the number would rise significantly.

Currently since we are only looking into devising the appropriate number of items to collect, I am not going to be able to tell you an estimate of how many kills it would take, but please know that there would most likely be a huge gap between the numbers.

Ok could the Dev's look into making the NM's drop more then one of that particular item then?

18 people fighting for one person's upgrade isn't going to work. There have been many relics / emp's created and most likely any group will have six or more people needing the item.

[FrankReynolds]

Greetings!

I asked the development team about the possibility of changing the trial requirements from collecting specific items to straight up kills of the specific notorious monster, since there were quite a lot of comments regarding this topic.

The development team had looked into changing the trial requirements in this way; however, for a variety of reasons they decided it would be better to not make this change. The biggest reason for this decision is that it was explained previously on the forum that the basis for stage 1 enhancements would be item collection and their thinking is that as long as there are people who have already started collecting these items, it would be best not to change the trial.

Also, there is quite a difference in between item collection and kills. For item trials, in an 18 person fight, one person will receive an item. Whereas for a trial requirement involving a specific number of kills, in an 18 person fight, all 18 people would receive the kill credit. While it’s not really as simple as multiplying it 18 times, since the basic thinking would be that the kill count should be greater than the number of items, in the event that we were to change the trial requirements from item collection to kills, there is a high possibility that the number would rise significantly.

Currently since we are only looking into devising the appropriate number of items to collect, I am not going to be able to tell you an estimate of how many kills it would take, but please know that there would most likely be a huge gap between the numbers.

The correct number of items is 1.