General Musings on Community and Causality

[Tamarsamar]

This thread was inspired by looking at Magian Complaint thread #9002. Specifically, the complaint was about weapon trials (in general). I couldn't help but remember, "gosh, these Magian things were hot stuff when they were first introduced." Distinctly, I remember complaints that (barring Relic and Mythic Weapons) previously existing weapons (and later, armor) were not compatible with the system, thus rendering them outdated (and later, utterly obliterated with the advent of Empyrean equipment).

Fast-forward a few updates, you start seeing the average player getting rather tired with "fetch quest number umpteen," with even something as utterly unrelated to weapon and armor augmenting as job-specific emotes! With the advent of the official forums, this leads to, among other things, Magian Complaint thread #9002, as well as the 9001 Magian Complaint threads before it.

Going back to my flashback on the early days of Magian Trials, it occurred to me that the dominant equipment of ages past are finally going to be augmentable after all--randomly through Synergy. I wonder if the community, through gripes of "too many things" being thrown in to the otherwise well-implemented Magian system, unintentionally begot themselves an inferior option, lacking in either choice or control, for upgrading their old, rare equipment . . .

Then again, probably not, since S-E seems to lack enough discretion about player complaints about the Magian system to throw further Adventuring Fellow limit breaks in to it, as well . . .

[Seriha]

My only gripes with trials are the excessive requirements on some phases and, of course, the unreliability of weather and you're SOL if you can play on a specific game day. I'm all for gradually working toward something, but 700 kills of a particular family is far from fun. Sure, it might fly if you can get access to a cleave or manaburn, but for those who maybe kill/pull a mob per minute, that's almost 12 hours of straight playing for a bad phase. Then you get wonky weapons like the 45D DRK scythe when it can't even multi-hit yet, so you're best off syncing to below 30 so you're trying to kill things with a gimp weapon.

So, really, the disconnect boils down to the activity not being fun or being arbitrarily held back by some condition beyond the player's control. In the case of the former, it's why I've advocated people helping someone with a trial while not being on it themselves would award them with some kind of points they could then exchange toward their own progress in trials. When it comes to weather blah, allowing SCH spells to count or implementing some kind of crafted pseudo-weather option (like an Aurora Mantelet that puts anything within 20" range under light weather for 1 point per kill) to help keep people from hanging.

When it comes to seals or other trade-in items, this is, sadly, a side-effect of congestion and suddenly giving a top-heavy game a bunch of the same goals to chase. Adding these drops to other areas might help a little, but until they're all discovered, people will either chase the easier mob or the one that puts out the most. So, things might not change at all.

Otherwise, it's hard to get excited about trials if you're someone with 5+ jobs leveled, which isn't hard to do these days. Sure, there might be some decent stand-in weapons here and there like a Widowmaker for WARs, but if you're a job that relies on their Empyrean WS to gain some steam (PLD and RDM with CDC, for example), it might not be a readily accessible option. So, if you're left feeling like you can't complete it, you won't try, and in turn can be looked down on or feel like you have nothing to do.

[Ravenmore]

Well lets look at it like this before the muti hit paths there was 4 weapons that that were myti hit that any one bothered with 5 if you count O.club. Joytoy was on a 12 hour pop, O.club 24 hour spawn with rite level to use the muti hit, riddle (i know im sp that wrong) which came off a 72 hour spawn and the other other 2 came from BCNM with low drop rates or you had to pay 3 to 5 mil for knife 40 mil for k.club.

The STP path has large kill numbers too but before these weapons the few weapons that had that much STP on the came from odin, AV, and I think the GK from PW had stp on it.

What I'm getting at the paths you don't have to worry bout claiming a NM with 20 other people there to do the same, can team up with other players even on the NMs, and now WS kill shot mobs you can team up on .

Weather trials are a pain if you try to do them out of season but if you take a couple of mins to see what season it is ingame can save you from wasting your time. Then you can do them on the day of week. Can't do the day of the week wait on weather the seasons in game change every 3 half days.

[Seriha]

Just because the old systems were screwed up doesn't really justify faults in later game additions.

As is, a good BLM, SCH, and RDM will probably want to work on the 6 nuking element staves, thunder and blizzard having priority. BLM and SCH would have more motivation to go for a Dark on top of this. SCHs and RDMs would be more inclined to chase the cure potency staff, too. That's thousands of kills alone just to basically keep yourself up to speed on 3 jobs. SMNs will also likely be looking into perpetuation variants. Hell, on its own, this is an inventory nightmare and heralds back to the days of people wanting rainbow/prism staves.

Melee jobs have it a little easier, but you can expect dual-wield jobs to have to work on at least 2 weapons. Still, with the game built around the concept of playing multiple jobs, these combined tasks can be overwhelming.

[Rambus]

Just because the old systems were screwed up doesn't really justify faults in later game additions.

As is, a good BLM, SCH, and RDM will probably want to work on the 6 nuking element staves, thunder and blizzard having priority. BLM and SCH would have more motivation to go for a Dark on top of this. SCHs and RDMs would be more inclined to chase the cure potency staff, too. That's thousands of kills alone just to basically keep yourself up to speed on 3 jobs. SMNs will also likely be looking into perpetuation variants. Hell, on its own, this is an inventory nightmare and heralds back to the days of people wanting rainbow/prism staves.

Melee jobs have it a little easier, but you can expect dual-wield jobs to have to work on at least 2 weapons. Still, with the game built around the concept of playing multiple jobs, these combined tasks can be overwhelming.

yep, why i am not bothering with those staffs, i need 25 because i am al mage job and duel wield mab swords...

not fun at all and the added effect of inv -27

I am fine with HQ staffs i really do not care about all this e-peen damage anymore. I have back injury and i just can't do it.

I am all for letting there be hard core gamer contant but common weapon trails is not the place for it

[Karbuncle]

Well lets look at it like this before the muti hit paths there was 4 weapons that that were myti hit that any one bothered with 5 if you count O.club. Joytoy was on a 12 hour pop, O.club 24 hour spawn with rite level to use the muti hit, riddle (i know im sp that wrong) which came off a 72 hour spawn and the other other 2 came from BCNM with low drop rates or you had to pay 3 to 5 mil for knife 40 mil for k.club.

The STP path has large kill numbers too but before these weapons the few weapons that had that much STP on the came from odin, AV, and I think the GK from PW had stp on it.

What I'm getting at the paths you don't have to worry bout claiming a NM with 20 other people there to do the same, can team up with other players even on the NMs, and now WS kill shot mobs you can team up on .

Weather trials are a pain if you try to do them out of season but if you take a couple of mins to see what season it is ingame can save you from wasting your time. Then you can do them on the day of week. Can't do the day of the week wait on weather the seasons in game change every 3 half days.

Small Correcition, Ridill dropped from Fafnir, He was only 21-24 hour!

Outside of that, Yah Magian weapons are a pain, But truthfully I prefer systems like Trial of the Magians where i can steadily work toward a goal.

IN the old days, People were always complaining there weren't enough Systems like Assault (Do Assaults, Gain points > Get Armor through points), or that everything was too luck based (Salvage), etc. I remembering hearing whats for a progressive improvement system.

Now we got one, and as expected, the old saying "The grass is always greener..." comes to play. Now people complain about the progressive-reward system.

I envy SE cause its hard to give players what they want, mostly because players have no idea What the F*** they want. They'll ask for A, get A, and then whine for B, once they get B, they'll whine they want A back.

Yup.

[Rambus]

Small Correcition, Ridill dropped from Fafnir, He was only 21-24 hour!

Outside of that, Yah Magian weapons are a pain, But truthfully I prefer systems like Trial of the Magians where i can steadily work toward a goal.

IN the old days, People were always complaining there weren't enough Systems like Assault (Do Assaults, Gain points > Get Armor through points), or that everything was too luck based (Salvage), etc. I remembering hearing whats for a progressive improvement system.

Now we got one, and as expected, the old saying "The grass is always greener..." comes to play. Now people complain about the progressive-reward system.

I envy SE cause its hard to give players what they want, mostly because players have no idea What the F*** they want. They'll ask for A, get A, and then whine for B, once they get B, they'll whine they want A back.

Yup.

I would rather camp NMs then killing 3 NM> 3 NM> 3 NM> 400 mob> 300 mob>500 mob> 600 mob >400 mob >600 mob >450 mob >700 mob> 700 mob

wayyyy too much

SE does not know what causal means, look how ffxiv started.

Some hard core contant is fine, just not on stuff that should be "common"

25 stafffs to replace 8? and all the time to do that? no

most trails are fine as is, like earth sword to replace khim drop lol.

but some are over the top like that path i listed.

[Karbuncle]

I would rather camp NMs then killing 3 NM> 3 NM> 3 NM> 400 mob> 300 mob>500 mob> 600 mob >400 mob >600 mob >450 mob >700 mob> 700 mob

wayyyy too much

While Trial of the magians does get boring after a while, and i wish it wasn't so time consuming, I'd take "Progressive Goal System" over "Dumb Luck" any day. I'm not saying Trial of the Magians is perfect. Truthfully its far from perfect. but again, I'd take a Progressive goal system over dumb luck.

I enjoy being able to pick up my weapon and go work on it when i have the time. The "Day/Weather" Trials need to be adjusted in some way cause those are suckingly-restricting. But say, the Oa2-4x Weapon paths aren't that bad. Most of them are actually quite easy, just time consuming.

But I understand not everyone feels the same. I just personally prefer any system where I'm not forced to bot if i ever want to see gear.

So, I wouldn't object to Systems like Salvage where it was something you had to figure out (minus shitty drop rates), Einherjar (Random drops + Progressive Goal), Nyzul (Random-ness Element), or Assault (battlefields with different goals/Rewards, Progressive Point System).

just sayin, if we get another system like Salvage, With Drop rates as bad as old-Salvage, We'll be missing Trial of the Magians.

[Rambus]

"Dumb luck" to get gear would not be an issue if it wasn't .0001% chance. i stopped doing savage cuz of that.

Take wow for example, There may be 2 things i found that had too rare drop rate and that stuff is not really needed.

Progressive is nice but it is still way to excessive in some cases for magains.

I did earth sword and thunder dagger and i would do those ( weather then day/weather) then the path i stated.

well maybe not some parts, back when I did it was easy to find others working on them. a big problem now is people do not do them as much

[Karbuncle]

"Dumb luck" to get gear would not be an issue if it wasn't .0001% chance. i stopped doing savage cuz of that.

Take wow for example, There may be 2 things i found that had too rare drop rate and that stuff is not really needed.

Progressive is nice but it is still way to excessive in some cases for magains.

I did earth sword and thunder dagger and i would do those ( weather then day/weather) then the path i stated.

well maybe not some parts, back when I did it was easy to find others working on them. a big problem now is people do not do them as much

Currently Abyssea gives you exactly what you described. Drop rates that aren't 0.0001%. Casual Content that you can log on, get some friends, and accomplish something.

And people still complain about that.

SO like i said... Grass is always greener. Drop rates are higher, We have progressive Goal Systems (ToTM), and people still complain.

And i never claim Magians wasn't too hard for some classes (Especially when it comes to staves, Needing 8 for Nuking, and 8 For Avatars, essentially doubling whats needed). I did say it was far from perfect.

But if you told me to pick between Old Salvage, and Trial of the Magians, I'd chose magians every time.

Edit: Also, I think SE did say they were looking into the multiple staff issue. I hope i remember reading that.