Elemental Trials - Fire/Light

[blowfin]

If you're going to argue that you should simply wait for Firesday/Lightsday to do the trials at 1pt/kill then you make my point for me that the trials are unfairly balanced and require adjustment.

I'll make the point that these weapons are probably worth the wait. Or this thread wouldn't even exist. I also agree that it's difficult to find fire and light weather.

I dunno though, I work full time and don't play every day and I managed to get my fire trial (with pets dealing killing blow thanks very much) done over a number of weeks. Weeks I said. There's a possibility it even took me over a month to get it done. My Pet -PDT axes can be completed in a couple of days if you put your mind to it.

But you know what, even with groups who didn't understand the fact that I needed pet kills (effectively lengthening my trial) and only being able to operate on Firesday as a general rule, I got it done. I got it done by watching the upcoming days and picking my time to go and do the trials, I put a gadget on my windows 7 desktop JUST FOR TRIALS so I was aware of game days when I wasn't logged in.

Yes, if you have limited time you will suffer if you are trying to push through these trials. However, where do we draw the line with that? At what point will making it easier break trials for the rest of the population? I also question whether the problem is people not having the time to dedicate to FFXI or is it people just not wanting to log in for an hour or so when the conditions will favor their trials? Basically though, I refuse to believe people cannot make progress on these weapons if you play more than a couple of times a week. If you can't log on for more than a couple of hours a week, I honestly don't know why you would bother with this game, as there is satisfaction to be found from many other games, with far less time investment and overhead required.

[Krisan]

blowfin, this isn't as much a matter of patience as you seem to think. I have plenty of patience, I can wait a whole year doing something so long as I am able to make steady progress toward my goal.. That doesn't mean progress whenever I want it, or even progress every single day, just.. steady and reasonable progress.

The weather trials are not steady nor reasonable. I do not like searching potentially weeks at a time for Light or Fire weather and never finding it. I also don't like actually finding it, and the weather ending shortly after arrival. (Fire is especially notorious for fizzling out quickly.) What I'm saying this boils down to, is that the weather trials are not fun in their current state, they're not fun at all. They could be longer and the weather could be more abundant and I'd be perfectly patient waiting them out, but as it is I can potentially be sitting on a single trial for a month without any progress because that specific weather I need is ridiculously scarce in its appearance.

If a trial is meant to require patience and take a long time, extend the trial itself so it takes longer. Do not add some arbitrary element that make all progress impossible and inconveniences the player to go looking for a type of weather that almost never appears.. That's not fun. Things in this game should be fun whenever possible - it's a video game after all - or at the very least they shouldn't be intentionally annoying.

[blowfin]

Which trials are people having trouble with? From what I`m seeing there`s only 2 trials on each elemental path which require weather. Even then it doesn`t force you into one element. After that point you have the option of doing the trials on the appropriate days. That`s where the patience comes in.

Then again, maybe i`ve just been hardened by the game and can`t see the perspective. After the OA2-4 weapon with nearly 4000 mobs to kill, after 50 fistule discharge and 50 bukhis wings, the elemental trials don`t seem that bad at all, even the fire path I took.

[Krisan]

I'm not having any particular problems with trials at the moment myself. I did have issues with the light trials previously, though. Those were quite irritating, and I eventually just gave up trying to do it the normal way and made a Nyzul party and finished it up there.

I dunno, I am perfectly fine being patient, I really am. And doing things like 4000 mobs - as nuts as that is - I'm willing to do, because it's straight forward and it is something I can slowly chip away at and something I know I'm making progress toward. Some of these weather trials though just aren't reasonable to tackle at times. Knowledge of the seasons in Vana'diel helps, but it's not enough when the seasons are short lived and fall on odd hours at times. (It's especially annoying when it happens during an LS Event or when at work.) I'm perfectly okay with the trials taking forever for a shiny item, I just hate missing opportunities to make progress because the game doesn't offer very many opportunities toward the goal to begin with.

Weather isn't my only beef with this game, though.. There are a lot of silly inconveniences that could have just been reworked to take just as long (or almost as long) without the need of frustrating the player. I don't approve of annoyances in video games. Tediousness isn't much fun either admittedly, but it's better of the two evils in my opinion.

[Raksha]

I completed EVA daggers in 1 day. Twice. (2nd one took 1.5 days). However i was doing STR bow trials every day after work for 3 weeks before i finally gave up on manticores. I still have that bow 9 months later on the same exact trial. I finished 2 Eva daggers faster that I finished the Flan trial for bow (and I had parties of 10+ people whenever firesday rolled around).

Not saying they should be as easy as wind trials but ffs something has to be done.

Weather isn't my only beef with this game, though.. There are a lot of silly inconveniences that could have just been reworked to take just as long (or almost as long) without the need of frustrating the player. I don't approve of annoyances in video games.

Like guild shop holidays *grumble grumble*.

[RAIST]

Light is common in Delkfut, maybe not so much in qufim. Never really tracked it much--but when it was up I farmed clusters off them for leveling alchemy and WW when I was at a stage to take advantage of them (holy water, fishing rod repair, etc.) And light DOES in fact happen a lot in sky when it is in season. I was killing birds, pots, and dolls up there breaking WS latents and doing trials up there just before the servers went down. Had hours of light that week--hollered for some LS mates waiting for it to come out if they needed the mobs for trials because it was popping at least every other game day one weekend.

Fire DOES happen a lot in meriph also when it is in season--even more so in the past. Running bird kills for my Ifrit staff just the other night in Merip [S] and had fire up each day I was there for about 3 hours or so.

As for bees and water---Ifrit's Cauldron. Yes, water is dominant there (kinda bassackwards for a Volcano, but that's SE for you)--but when fire is in season it pops there pretty steady. Did two weapons there (GK and H2H) and dind't have any troble getting fire WHEN IT WAS IN SEASON. Same goes for Atlep and Terigan connection. Needed birds/fire for MNK and did them out there--it was up when I tele'ed there (/WHM) to check pattern and ran to kill the giant birds rq--got the 3 pops and while waiting on repops I ran to OP to job change and came right back and knocked them out. Forgot what the main total was on that trial, but did them on the giant birds.

Again....it all comes down to tracking when it is most likely to pop and being there for it. Case in point--Garlaige Citadel in the past. Earth is common, but in short bursts--often only long enough to get a few kills in when solo. Just hit it last night (while in season) long enough to do my 50 slimes and 50 any monster there back to back on the slimes (8 spawns, 16 minute repops--killed 10, got bonked on my head, went back and did 10 more).

And as for TOTM being designed for the "Casual Player".....whut? over 1000 mobs need to be killed to complete some elemental lines--most of which require a specific condition on the kill and DON'T GET A DAY/WEATHER BONUS. And have you looked at the WS trials and NM hunting you have to do on some of them?

These are designed more to be a time sink if anything else. A lot of them had the kill counts reduced a while back because it was consuming too much time when they originally came out. Just like the class of gears that came before them (mythics and such when we were at 75 caps) these are not supposed to be easily obtained--they are very potent weapons and SHOULD require time and dedication to complete. Granted, some are arguably a bit overboard (some of the clubs/staves for WHM come to mind)...but it just makes you appreciate them more when you finish.

Edit: btw... it is currently the 6th month in the game. Summer season is kicking off just before we come into the weekend--first firesday of 7th month will be at 5am Friday on the East Coast and summer will run through the weekend until Monday morning:
http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Time

[Raksha]

Fire DOES happen a lot in meriph also when it is in season--even more so in the past. Running bird kills for my Ifrit staff just the other night in Merip [S] and had fire up each day I was there for about 3 hours or so.

Cool let me go kill some manticores and flans rq..... oh wait.

[Khajit]

Cool let me go kill some manticores and flans rq..... oh wait.

Fell cleave says hi.

[Eeek]

I've completed about 10 Magian weapons over the course of the past year, and I've had no problems getting them done.

Want to know why? Patience.

Like many other players, I'm not so naive as to believe that I can (and should!) finish any weapon within a day or two. Waiting for the right seasons/weather/days is just part of the process, and so are asinine trial requirements. It's easily surmounted by effort. A little progress here and there added together over enough time will yield a complete trial.

After two weeks, my Cure Potency staff is a little less than halfway done, and I'm perfectly OK with that. I work on it when I have time, and just like my Thunder and Ice Damage staves, I'll complete it eventually. My Daka +2 (WoE Empyrean Dagger) also took about a month to complete. No big deal. Consistent effort over time yields results, but not enough people realize this - they simply cannot look past obstacles in the short term.

[Seriha]

I've completed about 10 Magian weapons over the course of the past year, and I've had no problems getting them done.

Want to know why? Patience.

Like many other players, I'm not so naive as to believe that I can (and should!) finish any weapon within a day or two. Waiting for the right seasons/weather/days is just part of the process, and so are asinine trial requirements. It's easily surmounted by effort. A little progress here and there added together over enough time will yield a complete trial.

After two weeks, my Cure Potency staff is a little less than halfway done, and I'm perfectly OK with that. I work on it when I have time, and just like my Thunder and Ice Damage staves, I'll complete it eventually. My Daka +2 (WoE Empyrean Dagger) also took about a month to complete. No big deal. Consistent effort over time yields results, but not enough people realize this - they simply cannot look past obstacles in the short term.

And nobody's asking for the abolition of a little effort here and there and otherwise do prefer reasonable trials over camping against a bunch of botters. However, you simply can't say all trials are created equal when mob variance is bad enough, but then you can add sparse weather requirements on top to artificially slow the process. People who have to kill Soulflayers, Peistes, and Hippogryphs get my sympathy, in part because of the mobs and all associated with them while the other is the strength of the weapon itself at the time. Not everyone has a Cleave Party on demand, nor are the listed mobs regularly chosen for that.

So, just because you might be okay with something doesn't exactly make it fine, or the other person speaking against it a mouthbreathing whiner. Fairness and fun in a game we pay to play should be a given, not tedium and hassle.