Matsui: "Don't Throw Away Your R/M/E Weapons Yet"

"I know you may be legitimately concerned that we aren't designing this system to be dynamic, so here are some pretty pictures"

Thank god woot my kannagi lives on

Also because XI does not have ilevel restrictions like other games, it's actually possible for you to simply get carried to the higher ilevel from scratch as long as you know the right people, and people are just going to bypass any content that doesn't offer unique rewards.

Yep. They're trying to turn FFXI into something it probably can't be (and that I know I don't want, personally). That's really the worry about the new model for me. REM was just the issue I think that made it readily apparent.

The whole thing is especially disheartening because I firmly believe that the horizontal "ladder" is a large part of XI's staying power. It's harder to get bored with endgame when you've got a buffet of options. Seeing it be tossed aside is concerning, and underscores that Matsui doesn't really understand why XI has lived this long.

The job system is the other big contributor, and it's awesome for the same reason: give the players options, so that if they hate the thing you just released, they don't have to do it.

The job system is also what kinda dooms the vertical ladder as well. It works in other games because to play another class you need to make another character and so climb the ladder again. In FFXI there is no need to reclimb and you can just get gear using your already build jobs.

My absolute favorite example of this was seeing a level 4 PLD or something that had Aegis sitting in their inventory.

Fine by me.

I'm not a pld expert but to be fair in the current setting it seems like pld isn't worth leveling further with out Aegis/Ochain anyways is it?

I also worry in some ways that it's going to harm the job system. Personally, I'm in good shape: I really only play the light armor jobs, so all my stuff tends to bleed over a bit. But what about someone that mains, say, DRK, MNK, and WHM? I'd imagine they'll be hard pressed to complete the ladder on all three jobs before each new content push.

That all depends on how much time there is between tiers, of course, but the haphazard release of Delve just has me so paranoid about all this. I wanna stay on this game for awhile now that I'm back, and I don't wanna see it become something I don't want anymore.

That picture was a while ago, but to your question: PLD is still quite capable with a lesser shield, used properly. Being able to keep up Reprisal (which is pretty easy /SCH, using Celerity to keep the recast low) will keep your block rate high, and that's really the biggest thing about Ochain.

Aegis is awesome for other reasons, but in terms of pure physical tanking, Ochain is still king*, but you can get about 80% of the way there with conventional shields if you know what you're doing.

* = Aegis actually blocks more damage per hit than Ochain does, so if you are capping block rate/using Palisade/Reprisal/etc, Aegis actually reduces more damage overall.

I'm happy they seemed to have listened to the community and backed out on the plans to unlock the WS. I'm confused by this statement though:


Very confused by that statement....

Never was, if you dont have R/E shield you won't be taken seriously for a pld & easily replaceable.

If anything, You will be a back up last resort tank with little to no action and waisted spot as that spot can be filled by any job holding more benefits to the party, or that of someone to hold the mob till pld unweak (if ***hits the fan).

Most pld looking to go to current content all have a R/E. if you don't then save yourself the embarrassment as theres no lack of R/E tanks.
New shields in the right hands could do the job but given the choice who would turn down a R/E pld and place there leadership in the hands of a pld needing improvements? (that's like taking a whm lacking the qualified cure% & FC most recomend)

"We don't feel like having RME weapons be the best. Everyone who spent the time to make these weapons 99, I guess we will make them a side-grade to easier to obtain alternatives. But just to make sure we are clear, they won't be the best anymore."

Basic summary.

Similar to what Kelhor said, really.

A. FFXI isn't going to beat WoW at being WoW. Similarly, it's not going to beat the plethora of modern MMO's who follow the same model. It doesn't have the graphics or battle mechanics to compete in the modern WoW space, and it's hampered by a Ps2 base that makes future development more difficult.

B. FFXI doesn't have the development manpower to play the gear treadmill game for long. They were far behind on a content timeline, supposedly because of SoA, they then released the expansion in a state that made FFXIV look positively content rich. They can't code faster than their players can master content.

And that's fine by me, as long as they are competitive. The sentimental value and the unique skin is what counts. I think in reality, I always hate the fact that something has to be better than something. What I disliked before this adjustment is that the best is clearly the delve boss weapon, and there is no alternative, now at least you have R/E/M that will compete. To me that's gear option and it the best I can hope for.

I tried this after getting adamas way back, but reprisal wears off after blocking enough hits. Maybe viable for tanking 1 mob, but holding a bunch of adds or whatever, not really. You're also giving up a fair amount of survivability going /sch (especially post defense update), not to mention you get tranquil heart trait which you don't want if you're doing anything other than super tanking.

do palisade and reprisal rotation while sentinel in between is a good way to go too.

Yep, as long as there is option to play the game differently. Delve weapons requires good group of ppl, but if you are not into the elite LS thing, you can always do abyssea, dynamis, and farm to make R/E/M to make weapon in similar strength. I don't think one is harder than the other, just different style and different way to enjoy the game, so it is fair that they are equal or competitive of each other.

Fair points. I haven't tried to do anything without a high end shield in a long time. I'm sad to hear it doesn't really work, though.

Problem lies in a pld depending on Reprisal,Sentinel,Palisade timers to survive as a good R/E pld doesn't need to, we use it as enhancement or emergency situations not a crutch. Theres a difference between surviving and struggling to survive.

I wonder how good Steadfast shield is, and wonder what type of augment you can put on it. It looks like it can block for a good amount of damage and has -dt% to help when unblocked.

That's what I thought it may have meant, but was hoping not lol. At least they are adjusting to match. It also looks like they made the base damage for mythic highest, relics second, and emps third. Burtgang beats that new sword by 1 base damage, but the relic and emp are a few points under. But with a scale up in aftermath and adding MORE accuracy/attack while ADDING accuracy/attack....



I would have paid money to be a fly on the wall for that board meeting of panic over negative reactions lol.

You can clearly tell from Matsui statement that he did not have a clue the big attachment people have with REM weapons and that they are considered overall best.

By combining all aspects of this (adjustments to the RME themselves as well *** access to Empyrean weaponskills on any weapon), RME still reign supreme, but Delve boss weapons provide alternatives for those without the resources/resource generation ability to 99 all of their weapons but may instead have a linkshell capable of tackling Delve bosses.

For those of you suggesting "well I can spend 300m or I can go kill a boss for a weapon once ezpz spend point buy off AH...", sorry but no. These bosses aren't pushovers... they've yet to be even legitimately challenged yet and brought down by 10% of their HP. Getting the weapons and synthesis materials that drop by some unknown process that may not even guarantee anything substantial for more than one player at a time (the crafted weapons very likely requiring a 110 crafter with all the trimmings to make reliably) will not by any stretch of the imagination end up being "easy", and most players won't even be capable of doing so.

Think before you speak, weigh all of the variables, consider the fact that what you're saying makes absolutely no sense and that these adjustments are actually highly favorable for we, the players, as a whole: we will now have two avenues of weapon progression to go down rather than one, and they have varying levels of difficulty and cost associated. This is a great system in concept. If you want to target anything as being the anti-christ, target the fundamentally flawed "content level" system that's being pushed instead: that's where the issues are all coming from, not the new method of weapon attainment/progression.

Well sounds great that they plan on doing some upgrade to the R/M/E, but if they not planning on doing some alterations pre-99 versions, sounds like I'm pretty much done doing any trials since I have no real desire to farm the hell out of dyn at the rapidly decaying rate of currency price to get marrows for my 2 lolrelics let alone emps.

Honestly - should have considered the 99 trial before you decided to make 2 relics

If I could make one change to this I'd probably bump Mythic D down a smidge, they have lower base damage than relics/emps for a reason. Having access to empyrean weaponskills will bump up the standing of several mythics considerably, too. COnqueror and Tizona being the biggest ones that I can think of off the top of my head.