Geode's Drop Rate......

[Hayward]

It is really mystifying why Fire weather was designed to occur so rarely in the first place. With these geode trials, there is no excuse for this to still be the case unless this development team is actively pandering to the professional endgamers who don't want their "inferiors" having weapons that come close to or matches the performance of the weapons the "worked so hard" for (i.e. knew the right behinds to kiss, exploited the right gil fountains before they were shut down, etc.).

The drop rate by day needs to be dramatically increased to draw even with weather drop rates. This may at least partially address the needless rarity of Flame Geodes and, in turn, make Fire/STR weapons less expensive to build (Which had never been a consideration for Magian Trials until a certain someone decided that the have-mores aren't special enough post-Abyssea).

[SpankWustler]

Flame Geodes were up to 88,000 a piece on Phoenix for a little while last week.

I can not think of any appropriate words to follow that sentence.

[Lokithor]

So many things would be made better just by a simple fix to the fire weather frequency. Make the Kuzotz region weather have fire frequency to match the frequency of ice weather in Valdeaunia.

[Godofgods]

while the problems with flame is undeniable, breeze geodes are not to far behind. While their are indeed easier places to find wind weather then it is fire, the sheer amount needed is overwhelming. Along with Str+ weapons (flame geode), Eva weapons (breeze) are among the most popular elemental trial weapons.

The issue is that most jobs that would be interested in an Eva weapon are jobs that can use two weapons; such as Nin and Thf. So many of them have to do two separate trial weapons. And that really adds up.

15 geodes + 40 geodes = 55 geodes * 2 weapons = 110 geodes. (Granted thats accurate for any two weapons) But thats still a lot. And for elements like flame or breeze which hover around 50k and 30k each on my server, thats a bit insain from a developmental stand point. (that 5.5M and 3.3M respectively) And since that many are usually not on AH at once, and if someone tries to buy them, ppl will just jack up the price more, your looking at even more gill.
The other sad part about it is with the drop system of them as it is, you only get one every 5 min i believe. So if you tried to farm them, assuming you got one every 5 min exactly, that would still be over 9 straight hours of farming. And since we all no they wont drop so exactly, your looking at quite a long time. ... ... ... And thats just for one job.
That might be acceptable if they were ultimate weapons or something, but considering the time it takes for emp/relic/mystic, we really don't need a fourth super long or expensive weapon.

So an ease of restrictions on these geodes would be of benefit i feel. Be it drop rate, or increase weather conditions/locations.

[RAIST]

So many things would be made better just by a simple fix to the fire weather frequency. Make the Kuzotz region weather have fire frequency to match the frequency of ice weather in Valdeaunia.

Kuzots actually follows a real life desert pattern: wide range of temperatures that can run from as low as near freezing at night in the cooler months to peak temps over 100F during the day in the hotter months, an extremely dry climate that is often windy and is thus prone to frequent dust storms. In this particular model, the peak high temperatures run on a cycle that start ramping up in the Spring and slope off in the Fall, with the hottest part of the cycle running from the end of Spring through to early Fall (Basically, Summer season). This is not to say that you can't have the odd hot days in January or February, they just don't commonly occur with a high frequency like in the Summer months (maybe once a week or so versus every other day or back to back days--not uncommon to catch some cycles in Jan, Feb, March, November...just usually only one cycle in a real-life day here and there, not every day and sometimes multiple cycles in a night's session during the Summer cycle).

And yes, this is an actual pattern for many desert regions. Don't believe me? Google desert climate statistics. You can easily see this trend here in the states (AZ, NV, etc.), but in other desert regions around the globe as well. And, by the way, temperature is not the primary determining factor for designating a desert region---it's more about the water cycle, as in how dry it is. You can have desert regions with icy areas.

This is the pattern I've followed in game for fire weather cycles--start tracking it more aggressively from June through October--I in fact saw a forecast for back to back cycles this morning at 4am in QSC, October 19th/20th. I caught it in roughly the same slot in the last game year on 10/18 on Feb. 29th real life time (in other words, there is a pattern to it...and it's been fairly consistent so far). The past four days, I've farmed roughly 30 flame geodes in weather by checking on just 3 of the zones where fire routinely pops--didn't feel like continually changing jobs to bounce around on WHM to check all the regions. This was roughly the peak window for fire weather for this game year--give it about 10 days and we'll be back in the cycle again. Rinse and repeat. It is cyclical, and thus can be tracked and planned for if you are willing to put the effort into it. Even though the data set is not complete (not all zones show up, and it periodically blanks out for some regions, even all regions for nearly a full RL day at times), the weather reporting at ff11info.com can be a big help in catching these cycles....if you care to farm them yourself.

As for the issue with the pricing on the AH....you may not necessarily have to pay the 80k prices. These prices have only recently ramped up like this on our server. The odd thing is, the price has gone up while the supply has INCREASED (Garudite is real bad about this...seen it jump from 40k to 70k each while the stock ramped up from ~50 to over 100). Obviously people are getting a lot of them....some players periodically buy nearly 2 dozen flame in one day at peak pricing (75-80k, presumably crafters as they get stacks of wind crystals too--last one I noted doing this was Devilsaint the other day). This will quickly drain the stock down into the teens, and a short while later the stock is right back up to 50+. I have seen our supply break 80--it will hover above 50 for days, dip down under 20, then go right back up to 50 within a couple hours. You can sometimes see the same player selling chunks of Ifritite/flame repeatedly--sometimes a run of 12+ in each pass. This happens often, regardless of the history routinely showing people nabbing the flames below the 50k mark--not uncommon for me to see some slip by for 10k here and there. And yet, people keep paying the jacked up prices, regardless of the price history. This happens routinely on roughly a 2 week cycle...roughly one year in game time. Things that make you go "hmmm....."

It may simply be more an issue with impatience driving the price up then a supply/demand issue. Perhaps if SE could just remove the cool-down restriction on the drops some of this market anxiety would go away because more people might be inclined to farm them instead of a smaller group doing so and raking in the rewards of their efforts on the AH--which could eventually drive the price back down again.

[Trumpy]

it feels to me that geodes were droppin much better originally. then after some update it felt like i was gettin far fewer than before. and now there are the avatites. my question is are geodes and avatites on the same drop timer? cause that would be horrible. ive been growing tired of how slow i been collectin breeze geodes so i was goin to go farm some but i couldnt find wind weather that day. i was gonna try to be mindful and figure if they dropped on same timer and all that.

[Aana]

Flame geodes will be expensive so long as they are needed to be HQ3ed to make pyrosoul rings and only a CHANCE to make a vulcan's pearl.

Crafters have to blow through tons of them to get the HQ3 flame gem, then use that to TRY to HQ a vulcans with it.

Also, I wouldnt get to used to using avatar-tites as a reason they should be cheaper. Dat mining found stat+5 HQ earrings crafted (NQ +4). My bet is on the avatar-tites in the same method as the geodes for making +3/4HQ earrings. If thats the case those are going to spike to hell and never come down because it is likely the 'last' upgrade we will get and never be replaced by something higher.

On the upside, the +5 earrings will drop the demand for +4s so geode prices will simmer down some as they wouldnt be worth wasting time to HQ +4 stat earrings when you can make +5s.

[RAIST]

haven't actually bothered timing the drop rates to be certain, but it kinda feels like they share the same timer. When going after the Garudites, it feels like at least 3 minutes between each drop of either Breeze/Garudite (and these are mobs consistenly granting 105/111 xp to 99, think that's around 81/82 now). Might have to actually start timing them out of curiosity.

[Zinato]

it feels to me that geodes were droppin much better originally. then after some update it felt like i was gettin far fewer than before. and now there are the avatites. my question is are geodes and avatites on the same drop timer? cause that would be horrible.

Common theory is they do, in fact, drop on the same timer. From what little testing I've done that seems to be the case. (Provided after 2 hours of seeing mostly rites I left the area for a lower level one.) Another theory states if a rite can drop it will drop first, In other words once one drops you have 5 minutes to find a geode or the rite will overwrite it. This can be bothersome on the bigger monsters outside abyssea (It's usually a bad idea to farm in there anyway) It can take much longer to kill high level monsters for that drop. Bottomline is in either case go to low level areas unless you are intentionally farming both.

The rate geodes drop haven't been an issue for me, its the stupid timer which eats up all my time. Provided I'm sure in the name of the great balance god, should the timer be removed the drop rate even in weather will have to be cut to 1/5. One final note, rites have 0 crafting value so for the most part they are nice and cheap (breeze excluded), I think the reason geodes haven't followed suit is Pyrosoul type rings have gone up in price, and these new trials take roughly 3x the previous amount meaning the trial weapon creators have likely not finished yet.

[Lokithor]

Kuzots actually follows a real life desert pattern:

I'm not disputing the fact the desert climates actually refer to precipitation or that deserts can be cold. Last I checked, FFXI was not set on earth. I mentioned Kuzotz because it was one of the only places in the game that gets fire weather at all. I wouldn't mind a bit less "realism" and a bit better game BALANCE.