Proposal: Earning a Novus Unlocks Zodiac Quest Dungeon Drops

[MasamuneBranford]

For this reason one cannot simply say cause FF11 did it this way it will be the same here. Think of all the people who raid; every big patch our gear is near obsolete due to the new crafted gear, tome, and coil gear. Who is to say that relic is immune to this?

It's all assumptions at this point. But answer me this:

We can agree that the earliest anybody will earn the 2.51 zodiac upgrade is March, correct? If we are to assume that this is the final upgrade of the Zodiac - that means that even the hardcore grinder will only enjoy their final form of the relic for maybe a month or two (before the expansion). Does that not seem a bit odd? Does it not seem a bit odd that the Zodiac weapons now have the legendary Final Fantasy names (Excalibur, Apocalypse, etc.). Would SE really keep Excalibur as a level 50 weapon when someday players will likely be able to hit level 100?

Two months to enjoy a final version of a long questline would seem a bit strange. And lets be honest - most people won't be able to reach the final form before the expansion is released. If the relic weapons truly are to be final upon the release of the expansion - wouldn't it have been more likely than not that the final quest would have been released at least 6 months prior to the release of the expansion? Would seem like pretty poor planning to me.

[Mardel]

SNIP

The name change does give some weight to the continuity of the quest line. However, the issue lies with the introduction of new jobs. (They could retcon akin to ninja.) With new jobs being released would they get a free pass to the stage we would begin with in the expansion? We could think of the relic quest line to it's final stage as Excalibur or something as a "reward" for playing FF14 through the 2.0 era. With the next set of relic quests being the "reward" for playing through the 3.0 era.

That way the older the game gets people will be like "Oh cool what weapon skin is that? You'd be like oh that's from 2.0 and it's Excalibur!" These are just guesses I have no qualms or real faults with your opinion, I was just stating the counter argument for the sake of debate!

FINAL NOTE:
If the weapons are carried over and SE adds a new set of weapons, why do the new weapon quest line? We can already alter the stats of the old weapons; the new weapons would be somewhat pointless, outside a new skin. Yoshi-P would be setting up the new weapons to be glamour fodder by (which is what people are trying to avoid with these weapons here.) Thus sacrifice the new for the sake of the old? That itself would be a waste of development time as well! (A conundrum one might say.)

[MasamuneBranford]

It's tricky. They've kind of dug themselves into a hole where they can't appease both sides. If they were smart, at the beginning of 2.4 there would have been a "Final" relic quest and SE would make it very clear that it was the final quest and that there would be a new relic coming for 3.0. The final quest would have rewarded an item level 130 weapon. Completing T13 would transform the 130 weapon into 135 (essentially just insuring the player gets an item level 135 without having to lot against others). For those who think the requirements are too strict - you can hang onto your item level 130 weapon and wipe the floor with Bahamut at level 60 to earn your glamour piece upon the release of the expansion (offers a good sense of closure to 2.0).

Now the problem SE is faced with is that half of all servers are pretty much working towards these relics and the quest-line isn't even over yet! There's a new quest at the end of February and the expansion could drop anytime in April / May. If all of a sudden SE announces relics are starting over with 3.0 - everyone is going to feel like they severely wasted their time (didn't have a chance to enjoy their fully finished relic or aren't close to finishing and are better off putting their time elsewhere).

If these aren't FFXI relics that last forever - than the amount of time to earn a Zodiac is wayyyyy too much. As far as I'm concerned - if they don't last forever - they aren't true MMO relic weapons. The stage after nexus should have been the conclusion (at least would have given your average player a shot of completing the questline).

[Sapphic]

They are fine now - i'm referring to down the road content. No change needed now - but soon.

There won't be any more content that needs higher ilvl due to the expansion being around the corner, in which you wont be using lvl 50 gear but the new level 60 gear. Also they will not make having to get ilvl 120+ a requirement to do level 51+ levelling content.

So PArchers statement still stands.

[Bluejay]

Seeing this discussion intimidates the heck out of me considering I just managed to get my i80 bow last week...

One Random Thought: In many MMO's, the developer have either started with at launch or added weapons that were intended to be used as vanity items only (GW2 is mostly based around this, but games like SWTOR and WOW have added them as well).

In some of these games, players will go through very long, sometimes months long, quests just to get a skin for a weapon. I don't see FF14 players think in these terms yet, but it's possible that future weapon releases would be JUST glamour targets and not intended to increase the power level. There are alot of these vanity items in the game already (like the parka recipes in leatherworking and the Emporer's gear in alchemy).

[Aurora-Pendragon]

I'm just starting my novus but the only thing I wish SE could change is the obligation to use the atma weapon while doing books when it's so easy to obtain a 110 weapon with memos and a couple of ST runs. Running all the dungeons books with an atma curtana when the DPS are using nexus weapons and more is pretty scary.

[Tiggy]

Whether or not they will continue this quest line or not doesn't change much about the problem the OP presented. In the end the best fix for the problem presented is to increase the rate at which we obtain lights or to decrease the amount of lights so that the 110-115 phase moves faster. That's the only change required to specifically address the problem presented. Not to nerf the final phase. The light nerf will likely come in 2.5 at some point anyway.