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

[Kimble]

Do you have to do stage 1 first in order to do stage 2 or can you do stage 2 without having done stage 1?

[Juilan]

If I wasn't 95% certain I'd be banned for coming up with my idea to fix the trial systems for the higher level weapons and various other flaws in this game I'd share. The idea involves things that Stroudsburg's human rights court would lock the people up for the rest of their lives for, I'd share... and SE's dev team seems to have stimulated the thoughts by coming up with ideas I don't even think George Bush Jr. would be stupid enough to be swayed by.

Trial for 99 stage 1:
Relic : Get the title for ADL being killed by an alliance Member, Weapon doesn't need to be equipped.
Mythic : Kill PW 3 times with Weapon equipped.
Empyrean : Talk to moogle 10 times with weapon equipped, reward: 99 empyrean and 5 million gil (because you have loans to pay off)
stage 2:
Relic: Get 3 items from ADL
Mythic: Get 3 items from PW
Empyrean : Trade 15 items from a Jeuno T6

Even then it may not take a REASONABLE amount of time for people who aren't running a sweat shop for their character.

[Alerith]

This isn't really here or there, but it just occurred to me that "Mulcibar's Scoria" sounds like some horrible disease that makes people poop out their pancreases. If a new disease appears in the first poor soul to attempt the afterglow trial, maybe it can be named Mulcibar's Scoria?

Anyway, this made me wonder what the words actually mean. Scoria is a wierd-looking volcanic rock. The only English results that Google provided me for "Mulcibar" other than some FFXI-related stuff were snippets of erotic fan-fiction. Some of it was Harry Potterian in origin, and some based on something else less immediately recognizable.

I hope the development team finds this information useful!

Totally adding this disease to WebMD and Wikipedia. xD

[Maacha]

I was already barely playing anymore, but after hearing what they think is reasonable for the lvl 99 upgrades I am letting my accounts lapse. I didn't add Crysta this month, my mule account is already turned off and my other 2 accounts will be deactivated in a couple days when their billing comes due.

My husband and I made our relics (Mandau and Gjallarhorn) back in the days of 1 mil / 500k hourglasses and a full LS farming for a single weapon. We had a sponsor who would pay for runs and collect currency, members got points to use on lotting armor and freelot on synth items (some of which were actually still valuable). In 5+ years as an LS we made 4 weapons, it might have been more but several people who began sponsoring gave up part way. Our LS survived only weeks after the server merger (Ramuh -> Bahamut) and Dynamis change, luckily our last sponsor was able to finish his weapon only a few weeks before it all happened. Most of my old friends are now gone or have limited playtime and are no longer online when I am able to be online. I joined a new LS native to Bahamut, but it was very difficult for me to make it for their event times and I have been logging on less and less over the last few months. I've done VW 3? times, none of them gaining me any clears, gear, or atmacites. In the last 2+ months pretty much all I've done has been EXPing by myself, 3 boxing my chara, my husband's chara, and our mule account.

Knowing that the final trials will be impossible for me, even the stage 1 trials, has removed pretty much my last reason to keep playing this game. I'll keep reading fansites in case the devs change their minds, but chances are I won't be able to post on the official forums once my accounts go inactive. It just isn't worth my $60 a month for FFXI anymore.

Getting kills on ADL might be plausible, since relic holders could work together on the goals at the same time, but getting items from him means only 1 person will benefit from the work of a full alliance. I don't even know a full alliance worth of people anymore, let alone a full alliance that would help me with a pissy NM that would only drop a single item toward the upgrade of a single weapon...

[Dekusuta]

The real issue here is not just the time and effort, but the IOUs relic and mythic holders will have to place on the community.

I said this in LS, but SE seems to not be aware that the community has changed a lot, and is no longer the same community that they had in the game's heyday in 2004-2006 when a vast majority of players were younger. Those of us who have stuck with the game have grown up, and we can no longer devote 'hardcore' play time, which involves spending 48 hour weekend slots organizing alliances of 18 to fight some NM and farming. It's interesting that while most games reward tenure to MMO with special items accessible only to longtime players, SE seems hell bent of punishing their long time subscriber base. What's worse is this came off a period where they seemed to have understood the needs of the community, with abyssea being a fairly accessible field with good rewards. Maybe a little too easy, but it was the right way to deal with the aging community. The sudden shift in tone since last year was disconcerting.

Here's a compromise, make T1 for relics,mythics killshots w/ weapon equipped. They can do whatever they want with Tier2. 10,000 Tanakites or whatever. I won't be doing that trial.

[Helel]

I just don't understand why relics can't be "earn a crap ton of exp in x zone" or "kill Dynamis Lord 20 times" instead of this Arch Dynamis Lord non sense. Everyone's busy being dedicated to bargaining a compromise for ADL but I say screw that noise. Relic trials have a pattern up to level 95 involving Dynamis. Instead of doing the next logical trial of taking on the DL himself, they skip him for the Arch version. What the eff.

Did we learn NOTHING with augments and the playerbase? We WANT to work for our rewards. We WANT crap not handed to us on a silver platter. What we do NOT want is to never be able to achieve our frickin' goals. Make us do 200,000 exp in Xarc. Make us do 20 DLs. Make us do SOMETHING that is feasible with work. The days of little reward for our invested time is over. Accept it, or risk getting left behind by your customers for greener pastures. It really is that. damn. simple.

And I'm sorry for anyone who does not understand that and wants to applaud such content design decisions. But the fact is when a game reaches a certain point in it's life span, namely when the dev company cuts support for their flagship MMO to try to make a new MMO the new flagship MMO or customers beat you to the punch and start looking elsewhere for their dollars, you have to change your strategy up to maintain current customers. This is not maintaining customers. This is giving the middle finger to them. You might not intend for it to happen, but that's exactly what it is in our view.

We are an aging playerbase. We don't have what it takes anymore to be doing what we did years ago. We want to work for stuff. We just don't want it to be nigh impossible. There are already a select few who owns these weapons, relics, mythics AND Empyreans. Compared to the entire population yes it's a select few. We already paid our dues and then some. We really don't need to have level 99 trials on any ultimate weapons to be the most devastating trials ever. Not even Empyrean after the lv95 trials. I can see that regret with the fairly minor lv99 trial of x60 items. This was understood some time ago when, for example, relic weapon trails to start were seriously dialed the hell back from what they were originally. So, what up? Did you forget those trials? 2,000 kills? What's changed since then?

Ah well, I hope the JP are fussing a storm because I know this deal is in their hands.

I definitely agree with you here. Where is the logic behind: attestation mob kills (lol) > fragment kills (lol) > arch dynamis lord (uh... shit?). What the hell sort of transition is that. Regular DL was definitely the expected and logical route to go, but of course we're talking about SE here.

Regardless, the item for stage 1-2 (which should NOT be an item for stage 1) needs to be dropped by mobs other than ADL. Nobody fights ADL, and nobody is going to fight ADL 1000 times. You seriously have to make this item obtainable from other mobs or you've completely ruined these weapons.

[Karbuncle]

They clearly want us to do 1000 ADL so that when every Relic holder in the game gets the trial, it will put 1 more Sagasinger into the game.

[Unctgtg]

SE just give us 10000 WS kills as a second option instead of 20 Marrows. That would solve all our problems. Those that want to go the route of 20 marrows can, but let us have the option of either.

[Arkanethered]

Hey... Square.

You know why you are having to dumb down the level 99 cap fight for people?

It's because they missed the first wave of people doing it.

This will happen with relics if you do this.

Thanks.

[Atomic_Skull]

Seeing as how Atomic_Troll things Trashtar rapes Mandau, I'll lead to believe one of two things:
1-they dont have either weapon
2-they have a Trashtar and upset that its one of the few Emps that was never really more powerful than the relic counterpart (unless you're a dnc)

You can repeat that all you want but the fact remains I have been arguing for the past year that relics should be stronger than emps so your argument makes no sense.

Also you calling someone else a troll is highly ironic given your history on BG.