Level 99 R/M/E and WoE Weapons Follow

Matsui here.

Thank you all so much for the feedback on relic, mythic, empyrean, and Walk of Echoes weapons. It has helped out tremendously.

After reading over all of your feedback, instead of continuing the growth of these weapons by unlocking the weapon skills that are tied to each of the weapons, I feel it would be better to perform a revamp on RME weapons. (Regarding Walk of Echoes weapons, I will talk about this below, but they will be involved with unlocking the specialized weapon skills.)

I've been reworking a lot, and writing it all up, but it seems the post turned out rather lengthy, so once you have been able to read through it all and digest it we'd love to hear your feedback.

Content Level
We've received a lot of questions about the stats on Adoulin equipment, and I'd like to once again explain about growth and content levels in Seekers of Adoulin as this is a critical aspect in order to receive feedback on the revamps for RME weapons.

The content in Adoulin has been designed with a repeating play-cycle where you challenge content that you are able to at that moment in time, gather equipment, become stronger, and then take on higher tier content which will allow you to gather even stronger equipment.

It's through the procurement of equipment that will allow players to grow and level up.

We've established content levels for Adoulin content as a means to objectively display difficulty benchmarks. The below is a concrete illustration of these content levels.

 
Content Level    Up to April 2013 	Next version update (currently adjusting)

Equipment strength is dependent on the level of the content you need to challenge in order to obtain the equipment, not the level in which it can be equipped. With the gear that is released in Adoulin from here on out, they can be equipped at level 99; however, instead of considering these to be level 99 pieces of equipment, it would be better for you to think of their level in terms of the content level (for example, level 110 or level 120).

The strength of the monsters that will be introduced are matched to that of the content level, but since there is somewhat of a solidified hierarchy between content, it's been setup so that the strength can be felt with even one level difference in content level. Oppositely, the parameters on Adoulin equipment have been calculated and set in order to deal with these monsters.

Fundamentally we will be making it so that the content level for content to come in the future continues to become higher, but there may be cases where we fill in areas where there is a large jump in content level as needed.

Also, in order to make it so there are various types of content sprawled across a single content level, we are supplementing it with content variations. We've also designed plans to enable resting periods where we will expand laterally instead of vertically, because players may get burnt out going full steam ahead.

In the next version update we will be adding content focusing on filling in the gaps as well as supplementing with content variation.

In the above chart, please look at the “Next version update (currently adjusting)” column. For content levels 6-9 (Skirmish/Wildskeeper Reives), we will be adding equipment appropriate for these content levels that can be exchanged for Bayld along with new Colonization and Lair Reives. Additionally, we will be filling in content for levels 13 and 17.

For those players who are already able to take on Skirmish, Wildskeeper Reives, and Delve at this point in time, it will not be absolutely necessary to challenge this content, but we will be making the above adjustments in case you want to increase your success rate, or are feeling that the current situation is still a bit tough.

Also, as a plan to resolve the issue where Skirmish is not really connecting the content as was planned, we will be undergoing maintenance at the end of this week and making it so statue segments can be obtained from Colonization and Lair Reives at a set rate. (These adjustments are separate from the rules associated with obtaining these items via Coalition Assignments, HELM, and Soul Pyres.)

By performing these adjustments we envision the below flow:

1. Challenge Colonization and Lair Reives
2. Obtain statue segments by participating in these reives
3. Challenge Skirmish with the parts you have obtained

Weapon Revamps

Sorry, I got off track for a bit, but now I'd like to return to the topic at hand.

To start off, I still need to discuss the implementation period with the rest of the development team, so it will be a bit difficult to address this immediately in the next version update, and we cannot make any promises as to when this will take place.

In regards to the kind of stats that will be added when we revamp these weapons, fundamentally the afterglow and aftermath effects as well as the other special stats will carry over and we'll be setting damage values, attack, and accuracy stats to coincide with the content level.

While the stats will be quite strong, we do not plan on making it possible to continuously enhance them in short intervals like the original method of enhancing via Trial of the Magians.

However, RME weapons have been considered the ultimate weapons up until this point in time, but I feel that this needs to change a bit.

I would like to make a shift so that instead of having it so that other weapons aren't necessary if you have RME weapons, you have a choice. If you are happy with RME, than you can use RME, and for those who want other weapons you can use other weapons.

With that said, there may be players who are worried if these weapons will eventually become unusable, but to give an example we had the lead make some calculations for the stats needed to combat the Delve boss monsters, and the below is what the RME swords would look like:

Excalibur



↓


Burtgang

↓


Almace

↓


In regards to Walk of Echoes weapons, these were implemented with the concept of allowing players to use the specialized empyrean weapon skills, so instead of revamping them we felt it more appropriate to have them serve to unlock the weapons skills (planning to have restrictions based on jobs and level). Also, we are looking into adjustments for the method to create Walk of Echoes weapons.

In conclusion…

Apologies that this post is so long, but based on all of the above we would love to hear your feedback on the revamps to level 99 RME weapons and unlocking weapon skills with Walk of Echoes weapons.

I will be sure to read over each and every comment you all post.

My thoughts and ideas have completely turned around the plans that were originally drawn up, and I had to sit and really discuss the idea with the rest of the development team, including the possibilities of making this happen.

I apologize that this response was late and that I made you all wait.

Thank you all very much.

I'm fine with this, my relic and empyrean weapons still have their place and I firmly believed people misinterpreted what was said originally anyhow.

People who have a problem with this are whining complainers that need to learn this is an MMO and the game is changing. They need to change with it.

Edited, Apr 26th 2013 2:30pm by FUJILIVES

Matsui here.

I have some follow-up information regarding how we plan to build on relic, mythic, empyrean, and Walk of Echoes ("coin") weapons (I'll refer to them as RMEC below. Apologies that I left out coin weapons in my last post).

There are many who feel upset and uneasy regarding the recently introduced weapons, as well as the information that has been conveyed until now. So while this information is still not finalized, I would like to give a bit more insight into our plans.

We are planning to unlock the special weapon skills that are granted from RMEC weapons when you have upgraded them to their level 99 form (this includes non-afterglow weapons, and shield/instruments will not be included in this). However, we plan on adding some conditions that fall in line with the jobs that can equip the respective RMEC weapons.

As we have yet to finish all the testing as to whether or not we can do this, please let me again reiterate that this is not yet finalized.

Due to the nature of this topic, we definitely need to proceed carefully, so despite the fact that I'm only mentioning this at the idea level, I understand that the level of disappointment will be quite great if I say that it is too difficult to accomplish this after all, and I was thinking it would be best to let you all know once it took a bit more shape.

You're probably thinking "if that’s the case, then don’t announce anything," but because I thought it wouldn't be good to not let you know anything until plans were finalized I decided to make this post. (I've been under so much stress I feel like I'm going to get an ulcer >< But I know I shouldn't be complaining.)

While the memories you made and the stats on your equipment cannot always be proportionate, we are trying our best to see if we can keep all of the effort spent on earning these weapons intact.

We plan to do all that we can, but please give us some time for this.

I was thinking this question would pop up.

I apologize, but unfortunately I am unable to answer anything at this point in time. One of the reasons I felt I should not have mentioned anything during a stage where various things have not been finalized yet, despite prefacing it that this is non-finalized information, was following up on individual specific questions based on supposition.

Being silent because it's not possible to answer right now would remove the whole purpose of why I posted, but on the other hand, continuing to entertain suppositions would cause expectations to grow even more wild. As a result of this, things that I didn't promise would turn into promises, and I would like to avoid making it seem like we are breaking promises.

With that said, the answer for the moment for many things will be "Sorry, but I cannot answer that right now."

Once the content has been fleshed out and confirmed I will be sure to let you all know the details, but please give me some time.

Being able to keep Ukko's Fury does make me feel a bit better, but that's the only one I'd be able to hold onto without starting and 99-ing a whole new weapon.

Still, why should I, a mere WoE weapon holder get to keep Ukko's whereas someone with a 90 Ukon has to either make a Shamash as well or get 1500 plates and riftthingies. I don't wanna shoot myself in the foot here, but still... it seems odd.

Being able to keep Ukko's Fury does make me feel a bit better, but that's the only one I'd be able to hold onto without starting and 99-ing a whole new weapon.

Still, why should I, a mere WoE weapon holder get to keep Ukko's whereas someone with a 90 Ukon has to either make a Shamash as well or get 1500 plates and riftthingies. I don't wanna shoot myself in the foot here, but still... it seems odd.