Magian Trials

[Antipika]

WoW is entirely different. Each time WoW introduces a new patch with new dungeons, they annihilate any gear you acquired previously and negate the gear's existence by introducing new sets much sooner than they actually have to; so basically, WoW results in players constantly grinding through dungeons to get top-tier gear for the duration of that patch, before the next patch destroys all the hard work and effort you put forth, just to have you do it again, and again.

That's just what I said, with different words.

And even so, a new player that just joined said MMO will still have to grind to cap, and work to get gear; that's playing catch-up. What MMO gets rid of that step by giving you an instantly level-capped character with moderate equips?

MMOs will have catch up, one way or another, whether it's leveling or getting gear, or both.

Well, World of Warcraft. That's called scroll of resurrection. Ok you're not capped, just 80. That still makes the grind rather fast.

I never said that you will be 100% instantly leveled and geared like veteran players, this is a MMO after all... I just said that it is moderately quick and I don't call that "playing catch up".

But I think really good gear should be lasting (2-3 yrs min), and if a new player stops playing for awhile it should take them awhile to get the gear.

WoW is a crazy extreme... there is no reward for players to do content now, why spend the time and work to get something if it will be complete crap in a few months. Why spend the months and month gearing your ls, when a newby in 1yr can join and get better gear in 1 week just from doing leveling quest.

That's basically the FF XI pre-Abyssea way of thinking. Drop rate are awful, it takes years to get gear, but the counter part is : your gear doesn't get obsolete quickly and even when a new BiS item is available, usually it's only couple items you need to change (or it's a minor upgrade).

And that's what made me leave when level cap increase was announced after "working" (well it's supposed to be a game and be fun) toward getting geared at 75. Doing Salvage every day, 365 days a year, no exception. Dynamis/Limbus/Ein, every 72 hours, always. 100% attendance. Etc. When you really work hard for your gear, yes you don't want it to become obsolete.

This system have its limit however. It discourages players who left to come back and it discourages new players to join. And that's a big problem for MMOs editors nowadays. We cannot just take XI and say "Well it worked ok with XI, there was new players even if the game was 6-7 years old (talking pre-Aby). The market isn't the same now.

If XI would have stayed the way it was before, without any nerf (meaning you still struggle to just clear things like CoP), the gap between veteran players and new players would be too large and no one could join today unless getting completely carried through the content by several veteran players.

The "modern MMO" approach is just different. Everything is tier'd, progression is highly vertical. You get your gear relatively quick (usually 4~6 months top), but the counter part is, your gear is only good until the next tier comes out.

It's a matter of taste, faster or slower gearing cycle. (Right now XIV has been stagnant, so we cannot even talk about any cycle ) We will see what Yoshida will do with ARR, but since he said that ARR should see a level cap increase after the first big patch, I'd say we can expect the game to take a vertical progression approach. How fast? Depends how fast SE can create content.

[Alhanelem]

Yet another 'copy this FFXI feature' thread....

Let FFXI do what FFXI does and let FFXIV do what FFXIV does.

Besides- magian trials were SE's way of creating more "content" without actually creating more content.

[Elexia]

Yet another 'copy this FFXI feature' thread....

Crystal Tower.

Let FFXI do what FFXI does and let FFXIV do what FFXIV does.

Crystal Tower - FFIII. Magitek - FFVI.

We're well past "Let FF(insert) do what FF(insert) does and let XIV be unique."

[Suirieko]

Final Fantasy games had always taken features from past FF Games. Why should FFXIV be different?

[Vanguard319]

NO NO NO and let me repeat again NO

I HATE the magians system in xi. Kill 300 of this and 300 of that oh and then give us 55 of these geodes that have a drop rate worse than the primal weapons. NO NO NO NO NO

Magians was implimented into xi as a time sync to keep ppl playing while they fix xiv to keep ppls money coming in. They are the biggest pain in the backside xi has to offer and not to mention the most BORING thing that they could have given us. Not only are the kill trials something that makes you want to shoot yourself in the foot, having to farm 1-4 ki than kill the same nm 25-50 times...twice and another 33-75 times on top of the insanely boring camping of the 1 hr respawn lottery nm for empy weapons make you wanna shoot yourself in the other foot.

On the bright side these trials also led me to other games such as TERA, Skyrim, Rift and other such games. I cancelled my xi account due to the aby bomb and the magians nightmare, resubscribed after SoA was announced but am so bored with it will most likely recancel my xi subscription within in the next couple weeks so I can give my focus and money to games that deserve my time.

If they want to put in an upgrade system they need to do it another way. The mythics system in xi was nice aside from the insane amount of alex they wanted you to farm. So let me say this to magians in xiv again...

NO

lol, you think relic or mythic quests were better? You know the quests that could take YEARS (in real time) to complete? (if ever) At least with the magian trials, you could at least wind up with a decent enough weapon, so you were actually rewarded for the amount of time you put into it. In additon, the Empyrean weapons weren't nigh impossible to get, (was halfway to a Kannagi when I left XI) I don't mind putting effort into my pursuit of a rare or powerful weapon, but I'd rather not spend a considerable portion of my life on getting endgame gear.

[Yucie]

That's just what I said, with different words.

Well, World of Warcraft. That's called scroll of resurrection. Ok you're not capped, just 80. That still makes the grind rather fast.

I never said that you will be 100% instantly leveled and geared like veteran players, this is a MMO after all... I just said that it is moderately quick and I don't call that "playing catch up".

At one point, Blizzard was giving out this:
- Buy the game now, get a free upgrade to Cataclysm, a free 80 or 85 of your choice, and already geared with moderate equipment, all for pretty much nothing.

Being geared like a veteran player from such a thing is far beside the point - the point is that WoW is so ridiculously easymode with all of the stupid offers for free this or that Blizzard gives, there's literally no grind, aside from 85-90.. or whatever Kung-Fu Pandaria made the new cap.

[Elexia]

lol, you think relic or mythic quests were better? You know the quests that could take YEARS (in real time) to complete? (if ever) At least with the magian trials, you could at least wind up with a decent enough weapon, so you were actually rewarded for the amount of time you put into it. In additon, the Empyrean weapons weren't nigh impossible to get, (was halfway to a Kannagi when I left XI) I don't mind putting effort into my pursuit of a rare or powerful weapon, but I'd rather not spend a considerable portion of my life on getting endgame gear.

Uh yeah lol. You can get most Empyrean weapons stage 1 in a day or two if you're really dedicated and don't have shitty NM prereqa (like Hovering Hotpot). Kannagi and Almace is barely a few days work compared to Relic and Mythic which is at minimum 5 months work (Mythic) and at least a month (Relic) if you don't buy every bit of your currency.

People just really hate on anything XI related on these forums honestly, even if they're essentially the same systems found in other MMOs in a different skin.

[Alhanelem]

Final Fantasy games had always taken features from past FF Games. Why should FFXIV be different?

The only things that are more or less common to all FFs are the bestiary and the magic spells.
I don't mind fanservice like this in some cases- but a lot of people seem to want to turn FFXIV into FFXI- In which case, you should just go play FFXI and let FFXIV take its own direction. Other games I'm fine with borrowing from, because those aren't FF MMORPGs that are still running that you could still play instead of demanding they make this game more like that one.

This is not FFXI and it should not try to emulate it any more than it already has- especially not by adding terrible features like the magian trials- Nice end result, terrible implementation- All the magian trials do is have you repeat existing content- they took the easy way out (yes, partially due to ps2 limitations, but still) instead of creating new actual content.

Way this thread could have been much better:

"Quests to upgrade equipment"

"It would be cool if we could have a series of interesting quest lines designed to let us upgrade and enhance our existing equipment instead of pursuing completely new ones."

This example post doesn't mention FFXI at all, doesn't mention the proper name of a feature from FFXI, and is a bit different from what magian trials are (which are just a mess of kill random enemies or fetch random item quests with literally zero flavor or story to them- just a moogle says "oh, you want to upgrade this? Well go collect 28 monkey butts.") If these upgrade processes had distinct quests with storylines and cutscenes that FF is known for, then I would call it worthwhile content, and it also wouldn't be a rip from FFXI, an MMO that's already running that you can still play.

Uh yeah lol. You can get most Empyrean weapons stage 1 in a day or two if you're really dedicated and don't have shitty NM prereqa (like Hovering Hotpot)

All of the NMs leading up to the magican weapon trials are lotto NMs that can take anywhere from a few minutes to several hours to pop (it's random). It would take an extraordinary amount of luck to reach the stage 1 empy trial in one day.

[Vanguard319]

Uh yeah lol. You can get most Empyrean weapons stage 1 in a day or two if you're really dedicated and don't have shitty NM prereqa (like Hovering Hotpot). Kannagi and Almace is barely a few days work compared to Relic and Mythic which is at minimum 5 months work (Mythic) and at least a month (Relic) if you don't buy every bit of your currency.

People just really hate on anything XI related on these forums honestly, even if they're essentially the same systems found in other MMOs in a different skin.

yeah, like I said, you're reward is directly proportional to how much work you put into it, which is how it should be. I don't think it's so much hate for XI as it is apathy towards anything that requires you to actually work for something, whether it be an infinity +1 sword or gathering, or crafting, or whatever.