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

[Kitkat]

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.

That is a pretty big pile of bull if you ask me. Making this change to Stage 1 does not in any way, shape, or form hurt the progression of the trial if anyone has already started on it since the items are still required for Stage 2 upgrades. Unless the Dev team meant to remake both trials, this is just about the lamest excuse I've heard back for not changing Stage 1 requirements.

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.

That is the problem, Camate. The fight requires an alliance worth of individuals to complete meaning, taking current drop rates in consideration, the time to complete 5 relics to stage 1 99 is rather extreme. ADL drops 1 of these currently....1. I acknowledge that you stated the trials are not set in stone on the number needed to complete, but either way this is very hit or miss due to the nature of the fight and what it takes to get to it in a time restricted area. Getting to PW is getting a boost to make it far easier to gain pop sets, VWNM has the fact it drops wanted items to keep players interested, but Neo-dynamis is already outdated on drops. Other than the 100 piece I don't know many that want/desire any drops of ADL. Same can be said for PW still, but at least it isn't restricted to a 2 hour window of farming per day...you can get zeni, do fights, get trophies all day long. ADL you get Rare/ex pop items that can't be bought/traded and have to trek through the whole zone just to have maybe a handful of popsets by the end of the run, and if lucky able to get 1 or 2 fights out of the way, or you get a full alliance all pop items one run, do the lesser nms the next run, and devote the next few runs to just ADL (works for a structured LS, not so much the everyday "appropriately equipped 99 player).

Now to the underlined+bold part. Huh?!?!?! There are two ways to interpret this as it is written. A.) You are saying the Dev team is trying to limit the number of people who complete to lvl 99 relics despite saying that the trial would be completable by average appropriately geared players, or B.) You didn't read over what you just wrote. What number is rising significantly? The number of stage 1 99 weapons, or are did you mix up something between "increasing item drop rate" and "make the trial kills instead" ending up with "increase the drop rate and make the trial kills" or do you mean "with more that completed the kill trials, there would still be players who could not complete this as the interest in doing so would dwindle." (I can still argue against the last assumption since the drops would still be needed for stage 2 unless obliterating the collection trials all together, which is not made clear by your response)

[Arkanethered]

Please tell me the JPs are still pissed and screaming "NO!"....

Items that drop from ADL only in any fashion is unacceptable.

Please let NQ DL drop 1 and ADL drop multiples... This is the only way I will accept these stupid fetch trials.

Oh and you better be adding multiple ???s for any of these. NB4 fighting over ???s in dynamis.

[Karbuncle]

Can you at least ask them if they can

Add the Drop to Shadow Lord (NQ) At a lower rate? (20%~?) - That would be far more reasonable. Or add it to Dynamis lord at 100% but allow Arch Dynamis Lord to drop a "Pouch" instead, giving 5-15 Of them (Allowing multple people to complete the trial with 1 Pop)

Does that sound reasonable?

I know all 3 of the people who already started farming it might be a little upset, But the other 5,997 Relic Holders will thank you.

[Insaniac]

They don't care how many Relics are in circulation, just as they don't care how many Emp 90's are in circulation.

You're right. They don't care and that's why this trial is messed up. It's something a good dev team would consider. People doing this trial as a group of 18 are sentenced to 3 nights of ADL a week for over 7 months to get everyone their 99. Mythics can finish in a week or 2 of lowman NM killing followed by a couple hours of PW. Emps can just lowman dynamis and buy rift items. The only reasonable way for a single person complete the ADL trial is in a PUG group of 17 other people who don't need the item. These might be possible for a week or 2 but that will die out fast and it will be LS only content in which case to not be an assh*le you need to kill ADL 5 times for every relic in your shell which is a number that for most shells is growing by 1-2 per month. Screw it, I could write a 10 page report on the cause and effect of this trial but it wouldn't do a damn thing because you are right. They don't care.

[Creelo]

Why do they insist upon making ADL trial requirements greater than PW?

PW is a pushover now and can definitely be low-manned; this is not the case at all for ADL. I would say it's also much easier to get PW pops than ADL pops with the Zeni adjustment.

So why are more ADL items required than PW items, especially when there are sooo many more Relics than Mythics in circulation?

This is not balanced. SE needs to either...

1. Make ADL drop multiple Umbral Marrows (2-4 I feel would be a good, reasonable number)
2. Make other Bosses Arch and NQ drop Umbral Marrow.
3. Or adjust the stupid ADL fight itself so it's not a luck-based shitfest, at least making ADL's clones drop 1 Umbral Marrow so people don't farm a pop for nothing.

[Karbuncle]

Why do they insist upon making ADL trial requirements greater than PW?

PW is a pushover now and can definitely be low-manned; this is not the case at all for ADL. I would say it's also much easier to get PW pops than ADL pops with the Zeni adjustment.

So why are more ADL items required than PW items, especially when there are sooo many more Relics than Mythics in circulation?

This is not balanced. SE needs to either...

1. Make ADL drop multiple Umbral Marrows (2-4 I feel would be a good, reasonable number)
2. Make other Bosses Arch and NQ drop Umbral Marrow.
3. Or adjust the stupid ADL fight itself so it's not a luck-based shitfest, at least making ADL's clones drop 1 Umbral Marrow so people don't farm a pop for nothing.

Making His Clones drop Umbral Marrow is actually one of the better ideas. So even if you Chose the wrong Door, You still get a prize!

Adding Umbral Marrow to every "Arch" NM would be a great Idea too.

Q: Has anyone checked if anything other than ADL Drops the Marrow?

[Insaniac]

Can you at least ask them if they can

Add the Drop to Shadow Lord (NQ) At a lower rate? (20%~?) - That would be far more reasonable. Or add it to Dynamis lord at 100% but allow Arch Dynamis Lord to drop a "Pouch" instead, giving 5-15 Of them (Allowing multple people to complete the trial with 1 Pop)

Does that sound reasonable?

I know all 3 of the people who already started farming it might be a little upset, But the other 5,997 Relic Holders will thank you.

The problem we run into now is that they want finishing a single mythic to be easier than finishing a single relic. If you could finish multiple relics in a single run that wouldn't be the case. The only way to get them balanced the way they want without creating a gigantic terrible bottleneck for marrows, due to the much larger number of relics in circulation, is to let relics work on their trial in smaller groups but to balance that they would need to up the time sink to re-balance the difficulty with mythics. So I agree with your 20% DL drop rate but ADL couldn't drop more than 2 items.

Q: Has anyone checked if anything other than ADL Drops the Marrow?

People have killed Arch Diabolos on the real servers and not gotten marrow but who knows if they added them to anything else on the tset server. If they did I would hope they would tell us so we could all stfu.

[Karbuncle]

Mmmm, Maybe. How about 3~5 >_>? Chance of finishing 1 Trial per kill. You still need to finish the other 17 peoples.

PW Would need no adjustment considering he's weak level 75 Content any pick up group could likely take out at 99 with some preparation...

[Zhronne]

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.

This is what I've been saying on forums for the past month.
And it's exactely the one and only reason why SE will NEVER change the trial.
Makes no sense to me, but alas it's what's gonna happen.
I really don't see why they have to be so adamant on their stance.
Would it be so hard to change it just for stage1? People who already started collecting would then be able to sell their items to people going for Stage2.
I mean, it's not like the items are "EX" and cannot be traded.

This also reminds me that it makes no sense at all to have the SAME item required for stage1 and stage2.
Not only people will be forced to compete with hundreds of other players going for stage1 creating an incredibly bad scenario for the upgrade items market, but they will also have to compete with people going for stage2!

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.

I'd much rather have to do even 60 or more days of dynamis to upgrade a relic but WORKING TOGETHER rather than to collect 20 items but having to compete with others.

I mean what's the point of all of this? What's the idea, the approach, the goal developers have in mind?
Do they really think it's better for players to constantly fighting each other instead of working together?
Do they really think it's gonna be good for 17 people to do a fight for another single player?

Let's try to imagine I'm a player trying to upgrade a relic, how will I convince 17 other people to help me when they get ABSOLUTELY NOTHING out of it? It's not gonna be a single fight, I'm gonna have to convince them to help me for 20 fights, each of these fights will probably require me 1-2hrs since it's not that fast to gather the pop items for Arch Dynamis Lord.

Now let's try to imagine I'm not doing a relic. Why should I help a friends for a 2hrs event, 20 times, to make him upgrade his item when I get nothing out of it? Ok he's a friend, I won't mind helping him a few times, but how about twenty? How about I have multiple friends doing relics?

Did developers ever thought about the consequence? The amount of time/kills required? The fact that you can only enter dynamis once a day and, realistically, do only one fight per run? The fact that the zone could potentially be overcamped with other alliances trying to fight Dynamis lord since there is only 1 Dynamis - Xarcabard and 1 ??? to pop him?
Did they ever realize how many relics there are out in the markets and how many players are going to be pissed?
Why the complete lack of synergy?
So many players talked about how easier it would have been to have "kills trials" for stage1 and items for stage2, that way stage1 and stage2 players wouldn't have to compete against each other but would be able to WORK TOGETHER, you know the meaning of that? Working together? Should be one of the most important aspect in a MMORPG. People are supposed to be playing each other, this is not a deathmatch in an FPS online.
If players of all ages and all regions can easily understand this, how come developers can't understand it? It's supposed to be their job, their profession! They get paid for it!

If this is not a carrot on a stick, I don't know what is then.
I'd much rather have them create better activities to keep us playing this game and paying the monthly fees, instead that retarded and disappointing tricks like these.

[Insaniac]

It's 5 times now. Lower but still stupid.