Poll- Heavy Metal

[mallister]

i bet you can haggle people down to 100k, i doubt there are that many people trying to buy them

150 million is bullshit, sorry, no.

[Septimus]

The whole reason that Heavy Metal makes me rage (and I don't even own an Empyrean) is that you went from a system where you had to work to get things that you want to a buy a whole bunch of rare shit. Making Heavy Metal Plates not Ex was possibly the biggest blunder that Square has made in a long time. If you actually had to do Voidwatch to upgrade an Empyrean weapon to 95 it would have separated the truly dedicated from the people who were just coasting on the easy train to a strong weapon.

Buying shit from a bazaar is not a testament to skill, it just means that you have gil. The 95 Empyrean Weapons could have been the ultimate "look at how big my cyber penis is" item for people to wear in Lower Jeuno and they could have adjusted the rate so that people couldn't get one any faster than once every few months keeping people decently cock-blocked but still moving forward while the skeleton dev team works on their lack of content. I am not going to place the blame on any one person, they just need to put down the fucking crack pipes before they start pitching ideas.

[Churchill]

Well, the other problem that I see is that the weapons from when we were Lv75 to now have become progressively less "team" or "group" oriented.

The weapons started as something you worked on together as a group and everyone got credit, then became "collect x trophies" but you could still work in a group, however due to 30-60m repops on some NM's and single ???'s it created a bottleneck yes, but it also pitted players against each other for the first time in the trial.

Heavy Metal plates not only pits you against all other people who want to upgrade, but the bottleneck is no longer dedication to collecting trophies but dedication to collecting trophies and/or collecting gil AND in terms of items actually available.

The guy who has a 95 almace? I'm nearly certain that there weren't many plates dropped that he didn't acquire. That's one guy. This game doesn't exactly have decades worth of content coming out like when Relics were released. It's just silly lol.

[mercure]

It would be a lot less silly if a pouch dropped from every Zilart boss kill, or at least, if they adjusted the rate.

Prices would drop to something reasonable (10-20K~ish per plate).

For now, there is too much demande, and not enough plates for everyone to buy, even if you had 150M sleeping on your account. And that's a big "if" ^^

[macross]

1-2 pouch does drop per kill pretty much, but the problem is the person who gets it has to give/sell it to you. The chance of it actually being in your box is low. No one in my shell has given away sold any of their plates, cept one. Trial would be easy if you gave all the plates to one person sure, we'd prob be near done with one.

Hardly any NA do VW or can't, I mainly have to ask Jpns to lower the price to 100k, and they all have. Still far from done 154/1500, 10% progress at least. Gonna be 10 months to finish at current rate lol. Just isn't enough doing it to supply plates, that are willin to sell them.

[Mairja]

The whole reason that Heavy Metal makes me rage (and I don't even own an Empyrean) is that you went from a system where you had to work to get things that you want to a buy a whole bunch of rare shit. Making Heavy Metal Plates not Ex was possibly the biggest blunder that Square has made in a long time. If you actually had to do Voidwatch to upgrade an Empyrean weapon to 95 it would have separated the truly dedicated from the people who were just coasting on the easy train to a strong weapon.

Buying shit from a bazaar is not a testament to skill, it just means that you have gil. The 95 Empyrean Weapons could have been the ultimate "look at how big my cyber penis is" item for people to wear in Lower Jeuno and they could have adjusted the rate so that people couldn't get one any faster than once every few months keeping people decently cock-blocked but still moving forward while the skeleton dev team works on their lack of content. I am not going to place the blame on any one person, they just need to put down the fucking crack pipes before they start pitching ideas.

I don't believe the majority of people with an empyrean weapon are able to just buy the plates they need. With the current absolutely shitty droprate on plates/pouches, imagine the frustration if they were /ex on top of that. That would have been the final nail in the coffin for me, my Ukon would stay 90 forever.

[Byrthnoth]

Regardless of what the plate drop rate is, the "Stage 3 Relic" fever is strong with this trial. People who collect their plates when they do voidwatch because they have a 90 empyrean and go turn them in, then report in LS, "25/1500, only 1475 left to go :D" like they aren't right on track to finish it in 2 years... and by that point they'll likely have quit.

[Kalasin]

1-2 pouch does drop per kill pretty much,

You are assuming an 18 people alliance. I know countless of shells including mine who have 12, and that's counting mules. And I don't see why I should be recruiting more people when we can easily cap lights with the numbers we have, just for an extra Heavy Metal Pouch.

[macross]

No way I'm gonna turn in any plates until I make it to 1500 lol. Never know if they will adjust it lower.

Having 18 doesn't hurt you in any way. If you can kill the t3's with just 12, then 18 will let you kill it easier/faster. Even with 18 we can't always cap lights, sometimes there's 4 drg triggers but no dragoon etc.

[Kalasin]

You know, there are people who actually use LSs for this and not random people. We have other events we are doing as well, and more people there will be a pain to use.

[macross]

Of course I know this, my LS brings 18 to do VW. I don't go with random pickups, not like there are any except for jpn shouts.

[Byrthnoth]

I typically go with a core of ~8 players and 10 shout recruits. It still works. The worst they can do is stay dead the whole time and still get a body armor, then /dance around your linkshell members wearing it.

[Ivve]

Well, the other problem that I see is that the weapons from when we were Lv75 to now have become progressively less "team" or "group" oriented.

[...]

The guy who has a 95 almace? I'm nearly certain that there weren't many plates dropped that he didn't acquire. That's one guy. This game doesn't exactly have decades worth of content coming out like when Relics were released. It's just silly lol.

These two things.
- Collecting 1500 of them would be enough challenge without competing against every other 90 empyrean-holder on your server. This is the item to upgrade every single weapon to 95. That does not seem like a good idea to me.

- People are just not interested in doing stuff as a huge group just to get one person a thing. Back in the day, I bailed on 90% of LSes who invested all the currency into one person, and I would do it again. That's a sure way to get fucked over. How many tales were there of relics completed in this manner, and then that account was deactivated or sold? Absolutely fucking not. There is no way I'm showing up to your event so you can sell your account later and buy a living room suit, fuck you. To me, this is as stupid as giving out your account information. At least an account I could recover. My time is lost forever.

- Most of these upgrades are not that significant. I thought we were past the days where +4 damage and +2 stat were truly valued. I thought we'd all agreed at this point that we don't like teeny tiny rewards for disproportionately large time investments. Best option be damned, shit's still not leaps and bounds of an improvement over the previous stage and this is definitely a leaps and bounds time/money investment.

[Benihana]

It seems obvious that empyreans are taking the role of old age relics. The final form might truly be amazing, but if it isn't, than SE did a great job at trolling everyone. I even think they will increase the drop rate, but people who think that everyone should basically be able to upgrade their empyrean weapon in 1-2 months is ridiculous, which is what would happen if it were lowered to 150 like a lot of you suggest it should be. Not everyone should have a fully upgraded empyrean weapon, just like only those who worked for it got a relic back when 75. I don't care if the person used a ls for it or if they just farmed long enough to buy all the currency. Relics in this game are not only great weapons but a status symbol. You can lol all you want about it, but it has been in ffxi ever since the beginning. There will be lots of people abandoning empyrean weapons as they realize they wont be able to finish it, and I think people are holding onto plates because they are praying SE drops the amount required to upgrade. If SE doesn't drop it, I bet a lot of people will start selling them.

[Kalasin]

I'm not even sure why people are complaining still, everything they have added lately seems incredibly hard and tedious to finish at first, then after a few months they add new methods of obtaining items, raise drop rate or make the old ways easier and suddenly it doesn't seem as bad anymore. Relic trials were at 1.5k-2k mobs per trial, after some months they dropped it to 200-400 a trial. Obtaining Empyrean mats seemed very hard when Visions came out, now you can duo any Emp you want in no time. Just wait and see what happens and stop complaining.

[Fereydoon]

I'm not even sure why people are complaining still, everything they have added lately seems incredibly hard and tedious to finish at first, then after a few months they add new methods of obtaining items, raise drop rate or make the old ways easier and suddenly it doesn't seem as bad anymore. Relic trials were at 1.5k-2k mobs per trial, after some months they dropped it to 200-400 a trial. Obtaining Empyrean mats seemed very hard when Visions came out, now you can duo any Emp you want in no time. Just wait and see what happens and stop complaining.

That was because people bitched, much like they are now. 1500 for what amounts to some damage and a couple base stats is not worth the time spent on the weapon. If it got any sort of other upgrade, it might, but we haven't seen any reports of anything other than what was expected.

[Slycer]

It's unlikely that they're going to change the 1500 requirement. Sooner or later they will likely do something to make them easier to get, be it increasing the drop rates in these Voidwatches or adding new ones that have them with higher drop rates. Or not, and no one will care anyway since the upgrades are pretty craptacular. I've done something like 20 T3 Jeuno fights and 20 T3 Zilart fights and my personal accumulation so far is a whopping three single plates from Jeuno areas (never got a pouch). If they do go back and change the requirement it'll probably just be something modest (like dropping 1500 to 1000), not something ridiculous like dropping it to 150.

[Kalasin]

That was because people bitched, much like they are now. 1500 for what amounts to some damage and a couple base stats is not worth the time spent on the weapon. If it got any sort of other upgrade, it might, but we haven't seen any reports of anything other than what was expected.

People bitched, yes. We will never know however if they changed it because of that or if they had planned to lower it after a while from the start.

[Ivve]

People bitched, yes. We will never know however if they changed it because of that or if they had planned to lower it after a while from the start.

Are you suggesting that they intentionally introduced content as much more difficult, with the express intent to scale back the difficulty? That's what it sounds like.

[Kalasin]

Yes, they need to keep people busy until they have more content people actually want to play. That's their way of doing it.