Augmented Items Abound! (07/13/2009)

[ringthree]

Not according to what I've heard today.

THIS ENTIRE UPDATE SUCKS WAH WAH WAH

Life sucks too! Mommy doesn't love me.

[evilpaul]

Wow, that is so awesome that I will be able to cook up a new weapon and get it augmented!

Oh wait... >_>

Did anyone check the other language versions yet to find out if "profession" means Crafter or Level 75 Job yet?

It could be something like Nyzul weapons or it could be a big old fuck you to 100 Cooking people. I'm also leaning towards the second one being a 100 Cooking person too.

[ringthree]

Scrap the augment system, replace it with WoW's socketing system, give each craft their own set of gem-like things to make. Allow gems to be replaced and not permanent, because we know SE would make you unable to replace them. Maybe keep the system for how to get augments for putting x number of sockets on a piece of equipment.

Yay, I've fixed both augments and crafting.

Meh, WoW's solution is to not have a real in-game economy. This just goes back to the old horizontal vs. vertical progression question. FFXI is too far to one side and WoW is too far to the other.

The solution too all problems isn't to copy WoW. Your system wouldn't fix what this Augment update is trying to fix (improving crafting for a large number of crafts), it would in fact make it worse, and unbalance the economy even further.

The RNG for Augments is very, very good for crafting even if a little annoying because of the repetition. No MMO is ever going to solve the repetition issue, and if you don't like repetition then MMO's probably aren't for you. I will take a little more repetition for a more vibrant and beneficial economy.

[dejet]

I foresee prices on items that are found to have good augments dropping in price ^^.

If this really does turn out to add something very nice to old weps, even at a bad rate it could help crafting a lot. Yaya it wont help items that go for like 3mil+(habu+1)
But Ice ele(HQ) staff is only 100k, If I really could get 1 INT stacked onto that I might buy 10 of them or more to get it, why the hell not? I spent 500k getting my pants for 1 more int. hell my rings are 600k each for 1 int more each. It be worth it. And this is higher lvl gear, who knows maybe we can get aug's of 4 int on Other ones even. Jupt with +4 int ~_~, or a Earth with 4 MND, Ice with +1 mnd. This could turn out to be a great system. Maybe I am asking for to much but little things like 1 MND to a earth staff or ice staff would even be a BIG thing.

Just test it with NQ's 1st that go for like 9k each lol Get any INT and bam ill be spaming each staff till i get that.

This is just how I think.

edit: The reason the old system sucked is because even though it was random, it had gear that added very little to end game events. End game shit can now be played with. How about some none rare stuff that might be even better for fire builds? lol something with +12 on hands that can add maybe +20 more god knows what we can do now. Its opened now to up to 75 gear(i hope)

things like HQ only add 1 to a state for the most part, maybe lower lvl people can now try and get lucky on a upgrade without having to blow 1mil on that item.

[ronin sparthos]

Meh, WoW's solution is to not have a real in-game economy. This just goes back to the old horizontal vs. vertical progression question. FFXI is too far to one side and WoW is too far to the other.

The solution too all problems isn't to copy WoW. Your system wouldn't fix what this Augment update is trying to fix (improving crafting for a large number of crafts), it would in fact make it worse, and unbalance the economy even further.

The RNG for Augments is very, very good for crafting even if a little annoying because of the repetition. No MMO is ever going to solve the repetition issue, and if you don't like repetition then MMO's probably aren't for you. I will take a little more repetition for a more vibrant and beneficial economy.

The problem goes back to the augments being completely random.

If you had "gems" for each craft that represented an augmentable stat (think Soul Plates) then you'd have a situation where you could buy say an INT gem and then run that through the RNG and get either a positive piece (yay +2 int) or negative result (nooo my gear is ruined, -4 int). This would create a perpetual cycle of people buying gems and vanilla/base gear in order to get their "dream" items.

You'd make farmers (items to make gems), crafters (people making gems) and people running gear through the RNG (i paid 200k for this ACC gem!) happy given that the RNG is no longer completely random. Cooking and Fishing could even be thrown in if they could make items that go into gems. (We know how much SE loves cooking!)

You could even make shitty NMs worthwhile if you gave them gem drops that could be thrown through the RNG with a better chance of positive results.

Current system is meh, ACP had enough random bullshit (yay hi-ether+1 for 3 days now) and ANNM augments are all over the place. It's understandable that SE doesn't want players to have total control over augments but at the least you should be able to influence the RNG in some way and for a price. It's not like they haven't done it before (MMM rune system)

[Achika]

I find most MMO economies to be just as effed up as RL economies. FFXI's is a bit more stable than it used to be, but I've seen items recently double or triple out of nowhere.

The most stable thing a crafter has is consumables, people always need those. Sure, this augment dealie is taking out some of the non-consumables, as people will buy new ones if they get bad augments, but at some point, that item is going to tank again.

As a flipside, with items being taken out of the economy due to being made into EX, you're making certain items that people would call "standard equipment" and possibly making it cost more. Remember when dark staves were 100K+? People here are stating that they'd augment their elemental staves. If they don't get a desireable effect, then they'll buy more, putting more money in the hands of crafters, crafters are like "Hey, this item sure is popular. Let me just up that price a little..." The cycle continues until supplies need to be acquired, which means the demand would beat out the supply, causing more price rising.

But I'm not an economist, so I could be entirely wrong. I just hate random number generators.

And I posted this before I saw the post above, but I entirely agree with ronin sparthos's explanation. Give each gem a "Look at me, I'm this stat!" gem, let the RNG decide which way it's going to go, and keep the current augment system to give you a certain criteria for a socket. If you really want the equipment being taken out of the economy because of the RNG, then let the augmenting system decide what color gem you can put into the socket, in addition to the RNG gem itself. Again, let you resocket a gem if you get a bad one. You keep funding crafters with both gems and equipment sales, people keep getting their gems, and people are happy that they get closer to choice.

[dejet]

I find most MMO economies to be just as effed up as RL economies. FFXI's is a bit more stable than it used to be, but I've seen items recently double or triple out of nowhere.

The most stable thing a crafter has is consumables, people always need those. Sure, this augment dealie is taking out some of the non-consumables, as people will buy new ones if they get bad augments, but at some point, that item is going to tank again.

As a flipside, with items being taken out of the economy due to being made into EX, you're making certain items that people would call "standard equipment" and possibly making it cost more. Remember when dark staves were 100K+? People here are stating that they'd augment their elemental staves. If they don't get a desireable effect, then they'll buy more, putting more money in the hands of crafters, crafters are like "Hey, this item sure is popular. Let me just up that price a little..." The cycle continues until supplies need to be acquired, which means the demand would beat out the supply, causing more price rising.

But I'm not an economist, so I could be entirely wrong. I just hate random number generators.

lol so true, My cuz buys shit then resells it. Last thing he told me was he bought some item for 250 each and bought like 10,000 of them and resold them at over 300 each.

the real price of the item, $3 LOL. But the item is needed and they are now very hard to come by.

[Jesifromgaruda]

Unless I'm reading it wrong (and I read it three times just to make sure I'm not crazy) you wont be able to augment weapons of any kind in the FoV augments. So I don't know why people keep using them as examples.

Also, for the pixie augements it sounds like there will be only one item that you can augment. For example, for DRK it will be the Dweomer Scythe. It seems that for each job there will be a fresh new weapon synth that will be the item that you trade for augments from the pixie quest.

Also, I found this little tidbit at the end which I found kind of interesting:

"This quest will offer something for everyone, as each member of the victorious party who has accepted the quest will be eligible to reap the augmented reward. Even players who have not accepted the augmentation quest will be compensated for assisting fellow adventurers with a bounty of their own."

So they are saying that you wont have to do the fight 6 times if 6 of you want an augmented weapon. Also, even if you don't have or want the aug weapon you get something for helping out your friends.

If the aug rewards are along the lines of the rewards for the repeatable quests from ACP this should be pretty cool.

[dejet]

Unless I'm reading it wrong (and I read it three times just to make sure I'm not crazy) you wont be able to augment weapons of any kind in the FoV augments. So I don't know why people keep using them as examples.

Also, for the pixie augements it sounds like there will be only one item that you can augment. For example, for DRK it will be the Dweomer Scythe. It seems that for each job there will be a fresh new weapon synth that will be the item that you trade for augments from the pixie quest.

Also, I found this little tidbit at the end which I found kind of interesting:

"This quest will offer something for everyone, as each member of the victorious party who has accepted the quest will be eligible to reap the augmented reward. Even players who have not accepted the augmentation quest will be compensated for assisting fellow adventurers with a bounty of their own."

So they are saying that you wont have to do the fight 6 times if 6 of you want an augmented weapon. Also, even if you don't have or want the aug weapon you get something for helping out your friends.

If the aug rewards are along the lines of the rewards for the repeatable quests from ACP this should be pretty cool.

Iv done very little outside lulz stuff because of the low lvl crap, am i wrong to say you cant aug items in this new system? A ele staff is a crafted item. what makes you think this might not work?

for all we know its just something you add to a craft and you can aug any item at all. To limit it to one wep is just nuts and would then = crap outside maybe a few jobs.

[BRP]

I just hate random number generators.

That leaves very little of FFXI to like.

[ringthree]

That leaves very little of FFXI to like.

MMOs*

[ringthree]

The problem goes back to the augments being completely random.

If you had "gems" for each craft that represented an augmentable stat (think Soul Plates) then you'd have a situation where you could buy say an INT gem and then run that through the RNG and get either a positive piece (yay +2 int) or negative result (nooo my gear is ruined, -4 int). This would create a perpetual cycle of people buying gems and vanilla/base gear in order to get their "dream" items.

You'd make farmers (items to make gems), crafters (people making gems) and people running gear through the RNG (i paid 200k for this ACC gem!) happy given that the RNG is no longer completely random. Cooking and Fishing could even be thrown in if they could make items that go into gems. (We know how much SE loves cooking!)

You could even make shitty NMs worthwhile if you gave them gem drops that could be thrown through the RNG with a better chance of positive results.

Current system is meh, ACP had enough random bullshit (yay hi-ether+1 for 3 days now) and ANNM augments are all over the place. It's understandable that SE doesn't want players to have total control over augments but at the least you should be able to influence the RNG in some way and for a price. It's not like they haven't done it before (MMM rune system)

Randomness makes the items that are augmented the focus instead of the gems. If it was just gems (or whatever) then you only effect one craft. If it is the items that are effected then you effect every craft that can be augmented.

Since augmented items can't be resold on the AH, each time you don't get the augment you want you have to get a new item to augment, which means that crafters can make items that people actually want to buy.

Stagnation is what really needs to be avoided, and that is what we currently have. Augments artificially created demand for items that people want to augment. Because of the limitations on Augmented items (non-rare/ex) that means that a lot of crafted items, as well as BCNM and Assault items, will have their demand increased. Increased demand means more profit for crafters/BCNMer/Assaulters.

I understand that people don't like RNG's, but you need to look beyond your personal annoyance and look at the global effect of augments on the economy.

[ringthree]

Iv done very little outside lulz stuff because of the low lvl crap, am i wrong to say you cant aug items in this new system? A ele staff is a crafted item. what makes you think this might not work?

for all we know its just something you add to a craft and you can aug any item at all. To limit it to one wep is just nuts and would then = crap outside maybe a few jobs.

You are conflating FoV and this new Pixie weapon thing. They are two different things.

FoV = trying to Augment any non-rare/ex item up to 75.

Pixie weapon thing = craft a specific item for this event to be Augmented.

[Karbuncle]

Damn, Now i can't wait for this cause i wanna augment my Chiv Chain, dusk gloves, Warwolf Belt... Thats pretty much the only Non R/ex gear i own...

Chainsaw+1, Koenig Shield.. Harmonia's, Sacrifice Torque!?

yay can't wait.

Wonder how badass the new NMs will be though. You know Sky's NM is gunna be a Elemental.

[Achika]

That leaves very little of FFXI to like.

That could be the very reason I play so little FFXI anymore. Only time I get on is for things that are pretty much set on what's going to happen.

[Max™]

Hmmm, could this finally give me a Perdu Voulge replacement without suffering through the dismal hell that is getting people interested in doing non-Nyzul assaults enough to rank up?

Dmg 91 +4 Dly 504 Dweomer Bhuj with Enhances Berserk effect: + x%, Additional Effect: Full Break +7% prz.

[Casey_]

I personally think SE uses one of the worst random number generators i've seen.

The worst one I know about though is in the unreal engine.

Rand(int i) can roll on the same number 3 times in a row, in less than a second, and I know the time used in the engine is a float or double, so it couldn't possibly be because of the same second call. The other random function in unreal is FRand() which I think functions like every other one.

It's minimum value is 0.000000 and max is 1.000000, but the min/max values basically never happen, even though it's obviously supposed to be a 1% chance. Generally though no one ever uses them for extremely small random chance because of the extreme unlikeliness that the random number even GOES that high or low. I've only used it for 15% or greater chances.
ie if (FRand() < .15) or if (Frand() > .85)

tl;dr : se shitsux with random generators without a single fact to base it on

[Casey_]

That could be the very reason I play so little FFXI anymore. Only time I get on is for things that are pretty much set on what's going to happen.

I haven't logged on for weeks because of this, I'm just tired of bs in FFXI after so many years. "hay guys lets go do xxx" then stare at the monitor for 5 hours and do NOTHING. But then again my computer is far too shitty atm to do something like campaign when i'm bored, it just crashes.

[ringthree]

That could be the very reason I play so little FFXI anymore. Only time I get on is for things that are pretty much set on what's going to happen.

I love when people play revisionist historian with the reason they don't play anymore.

Boredom happens, annoyance happens. But the blame always has to be placed somewhere.

[orson]

Has a huge amount potential. If nothing else it should hopefully help crafters and in turn maybe farming certain things will be more profitable now.

I hope to god that they take away the limit on how times you can do the augmented weapon quest. If they mean that you augment the weapon 5 times per weapon then it might be ok especially if it's accumulative. It would suck soooo much if you can only augment a total of 5 weapons only once each. I'd love to see this become like mini relic quest with 5 progressively tougher fights for 6 people that slowly gave you a better augmented weapon but I have hard time believing it.