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

Frankly, two things some people seem to forget:
1) AH gear is AH gear.
2) Effort:reward ratio.

Anything you can buy and sell on the AH, such as Dusk Gloves, carries with it a sense of impermanence. For most of this game's existence, the viewpoint has been that you can buy your level X gear, use it, and then re-sell it back on the AH once you've outgrown it. Rare/Ex gear, however, was different. That had to be earned, and once you did, it was yours - you couldn't turn around and sell it once you were done with it.

At 75 cap, Relic weapons were the initial pinnacle of dedication to a job. No other items in the game came close to the amount of effort it took to obtain one; the closest comparison was Black Belt. Relics (and BB) were the first items to follow the Trial model, wherein you started with a base item and had to quest it through a series of upgrades. And, at the end, you had the Ultimate Weapon (or Belt). And you knew it. And everyone knew it.

Certain other items were hard to obtain as well, often requiring a LS to obtain, such as sky god drops and relic armor and abjurations - but while even those might require months of farming and building up LS points to buy, they still paled to the amount of effort needed to assemble a relic weapon.

Even during 75 era, sometimes there'd be AH gear that was comparable, or even superior, to a relic - Hagun, for example, was a very potent GKT that was at least comparable to Amano. In the cases where AH weapons were superior to relic weapons, however (eg. elemental staves vs. Claustrum), anyone embarking on the relic weapon's construction already KNEW in advance exactly what he was doing (making a trophy rather than an Ultimate Weapon). Mythics were added as alternate Ultimate Weapons - with even harder requirements than existing Relics and roughly comparable tier stats (with some exceptions, of course. Drg Mythic > Relic, no contest, for example. Regardless, they were at least roughly *comparable*).

75 era passed. Abyssea ushered in new gear. 'Pink and Perle' were everywhere. AH gear (such as Hagun and Dusk Gloves) plummeted in price, and lower-level gear crashed just as hard or even harder thanks to people burning their jobs via Abyssea (no resale market anymore!). Empy armor became the new abj. gear, Abyssea NM drops became the new sky god drops, while Perle and Aurore crashed in price in turn. Meanwhile, Magian Trials introduced new weapons that overshadowed previous weapons, so players complained, and the developers eventually added Magian Trials to upgrade the Relics to keep them top gear. Devs also added synergy recipes to try to keep some older top tier gear relevant, such as via tatters.

And devs added Empy weapons as a 'poor man's Relic'.

No longer did you have to have an entire LS farming currency for you or have to have massive amounts of gil to buy currency from others. Now, ANYONE could have a mini-Relic, simply by getting a handful of friends together and putting in some time. Sure, it was still time-consuming, but you could largely do it at your own pace: hardcore players could grind relatively non-stop (once they figured out how to farm TE's, anyways), while casuals could log in at any time and farm a few pops at a time.

It wasn't as much time and effort as a relic, but it was still a significant investment of time and effort. The other Magian Trial weapons also required a fair degree of time and effort, and gave correspondingly worthwhile rewards (at least, assuming you did a smart weapon path). One of the reasons players complained so much about Flame Geodes was specifically because of STR Magian Weapons. If you didn't feel like making a Relic or Mythic, you could settle for Empy. Didn't feel like making Empy, could settle for Magian. Couldn't be bothered with Magian, you could at least farm up a simple Abyssea drop (like Widowmaker) or comparable AH weapon for a weapon that was at least serviceable against current content (you won't be winning any epeen contests with that Widowmaker, but it's at least good enough for procs). There was a proper effort:reward ratio between the different 'tiers' of weapons.

And you knew exactly what you were getting into. Players don't get mad when they see new, shiny gear - they get mad when their current, shiny gear becomes *obsolete*, when all the time they spent to obtain the item years ago is devalued by someone else obtaining the same or better with a fraction of the time and effort. AH gear is AH gear - it's designed to be replaced, and no one should really feel offended when such gets surpassed. When new Haste gloves came out, sure, some people with Dusk +1 might have felt a bit bummed out that their heavy investment isn't worth as much anymore, but it's understood that it may be surpassed someday - it's AH gear, after all. Someone with a Hagun might be a bit sad that their GKT is now overshadowed by new GKTs with better stats, but again - AH gear. Depreciation of value is a given. Someone with a Relic, however, isn't swinging an AH weapon - he's invested the time and effort into a weapon he has believed all this time will be top-tier. Even if it's not THE best weapon, it's still top-tier.

RME holders wouldn't be so upset if Adoulin introduced a new category of Ultimate Weapon *that required as much or more effort to acquire*, *that didn't invalidate the effort they placed into getting their RME*. Sure, individuals might still be miffed that their particular weapon is no longer THE best, and understandably so - Relic and Mythic are THE epeen item for a job, after all. The real /rage comes from the fact that there are new items being introduced which require far less effort for far greater reward - similar to the rage felt back when Perle etc. came out and made previous drops obsolete, but far greater because Relics and Mythics have always been top tier, and these new weapons overclass them horribly, so they're not even top tier anymore, or even close to top tier, much less THE best weapon for the job.

If the new weapons required MORE effort than existing Relics and Mythics to build, then they'd be new, valid goals to shoot for, but they'd still invalidate all the effort the existing Relics and Mythics require, even today.

Relics and Mythics (and to a lesser degree, Empy) are not AH gear. They were marketed as THE top tier weapons, so players undertook such with that in mind. WoE, Magian, Abyssea drops, and AH gear are the 'eh, good enough' second tier, and correspondingly have lower effort:lower reward.

SE had a very good solution with Relic +2 gear: new people attempting such can jump straight to +2 by using more Forgotten items, while people with existing +1 Relic gear can upgrade for a fraction of the cost. There was no massive /ragestorm over that; it was generally accepted and liked. I am a little surprised SE didn't take a similar approach with these weapons: make a set of new weapons which start out with mediocre stats (easily obtained as a drop or for a token amount of points - like, say, 30k), but can be augmented to massively awesome stats via the investment of more points (hi2u Airlixirs), for a final product that is superior to current 99 RME. Meanwhile, add a parallel path wherein existing RME can be upgraded to comparable stats via investment of *the exact same points*. Could make it so that the new items require, say, 50k points per upgrade, while the RME require a lesser amount, say, 20k per ugprade. It might be faster for someone starting from scratch to buy a new weapon and upgrade it than to make a RME from scratch and upgrade it, but at least current RME holders have something worthwhile to show for their past efforts. Effort:reward ratio remains more-or-less intact, SE achieves their goal of maintaining a timesink, RME users get to keep their current shinies, everyone's happy.

=/