Dev Tracker - Discussion

My memory thinks they said something along the lines of "we made Emp+3 OP so now have to correct so folks use af/relic again" but that could be a combination of reading between the lines and wishful thinking or straight-up hallucination.

As someone who came back with a level 75, the sparks gear -> bayld gear -> "Intermediate" RoE objectives for some semi-real 119 gear -> solo Ambu V2 pipeline was pretty okay, but definitely needs to be signposted better. There was a guide over on BG and I just followed it step by step because there's zero way to disambiguate "content you can do a little of" (skirmish) from "content you cannot do" (a wildskeeper reive solo) from "content you absolutely cannot do" (omen midbosses)

My hope is that there's some sort of path to avoid the AF119+2 to AF119+3 stage. Don't really like JSE gear upgrades being reliant on purchasing expensive crafted-only items. It's odd that the reforged AF+3 gear remains the most costly upgrade of any of the reforged JSE pieces.

Maybe something like implement different paths to to upgrade existing reforged AF armor to whatever new phase they're making (whether that's AF+4 or some sort of augments to the +3). Similar to what they did with upgrading OG Artifact and Relic armor to the 109 reforged version, with lower requirements if you already have the +1/+2 piece, but a route where you could upgrade even from the base NQ piece directly to reforged with more items from the current content.

I'd like the option to do more Limbus to upgrade an AF+2 piece, and maybe skip the ~5-6mil per piece of crafting items for AF+3. Which requires even finding the crafted items for sale - not a given on many servers. Well, I think I'd probably like that; I guess it depends on how awful the Limbus item requirement "alternative" would be lol.

Could also just make the AF+3 materials purchasable from NPCs (preferably at a lower price). Crafters wouldn't like it, but I would!

I don't like it either but it made a lot of sense and it was a good thing for FFXI's economy back when they added it.
But nowadays it's nowhere nearly as effective as it was then, because of multiple reasons.
Soo... yeah, whatever they do about it I doubt there will be a big impact on the game's economy, so yeah, might as well add a new path to reach +3.
Would be pretty worthless for me but I bet a lot of returning players would enjoy that.

Granted that the number of really good pieces of AF+3 is not as large as it used to be back then.

It's exactly the same as it was, zero.

They don't need alternate paths, they need to be adjusted to be worth the 5m+ they cost.

(neither is happening, but if they make +4 the upgrade needs to be so good that it makes up for how bad +3's are) Cards are easier to get already. Scales are easier to get already. The conditions to make them are easier already.

They could simply lower the raw NPC price for those materials and/or add it as a drop to HTB (or whatever) as having another supply source should at least push AH prices below the NPC (and maybe give reason for people to do content)

Of course some pieces would rarely get upgraded because they're just inv-1.

In the case of some it also doesn't help that the main thing people use the piece stops scaling after a certain portion in the path (in fact I think all the relic ilvl augments are the same as the lvl 90 versions)

The source of those crafted items are one of the few things actually pulling gil out of the economy.

For those who need a reminder: pulling gil from the economy is different from moving gil from one character to another. And those mats were set so expensive to offset the bajillions of gil created from everyone npcing shields/powder.

And yes that is a good thing and is absolutely a necessity as every week each character can generate 2 million gil just on shield/powder. Add whatever they can generate from Odyssey to that, for those who do it. If you have no idea why pulling gil from the economy is a necessity, then you probably have no idea why simply printing a trillion dollars is a bad idea.

Yup, this. This is exactly why I'm very surprised Sortie has no gil sink. Without a gil sink, the amount of gil that enters the economy through Odyssey and other sources would cause inflation. I'm sure you all remember FFXI's Depression of 2006. Bomb Cores and NQ STR Rings were 15M.

A tartaru would require a wheel barrel full of byne bills to buy a loaf of bread, etc etc.

I think they actually are available as a drop... from Trove, which keeps it from driving the price down too much, but I know I've got an azure leaf I can't get rid of because I couldn't get the NPC cost for it on the AH.

You could still pull gil out of the economy by just allowing all players to buy the AF+3 crafted items from an NPC, instead of from a crafter who synths the NPC-able ingredients. And you could set the price for something like a Ruthenium Ingot lower than the ~4.7-5mil AH prices (which never dropped in line with a natural drop in demand over time, due to the price of the needed materials for crafters to make one).

At this point there is very little logic for why AF+3 items should cost 5-6mil, when:

* Most Relic+3 cost a fraction of that if you buy all materials. And the relic upgrade items have multiple acquisition methods, from buying on AH (like craft AF+3 mats), to farming the shards/voids in Dyna, or obtaining through AMAN Trove. Hell, give us some alternatives for the AF stuff too - make the pricey AF+3 upgrade items drop from Limbus bosses or be purchasable with some new Limbus currency (Limbus Accolades? lol)

* Empy+3 requires no gil at all, and also gets easier over time to earn the Galli as people learn Sortie or improve their other gear.

* Odyssey gear (e.g., Sakpata set) is another gil sink, and is also a lot cheaper than AF+3s for what are comparatively much better pieces in most cases. Also became cheaper over time BY DESIGN, by decreasing the server price as more people bought the gear and paid that "FIRST" tax.

So why does AF gear have to be the untouchable set where we just can't adjust the biggest roadblock of prices that never decrease and are generally out of touch with the utility of the items? It's not just due to needing a gil sink (which has done very little to impact the overall in-game economy in years, since it's not exactly like there's a massive demand for these items any more), and they could still create a gil sink by just adjusting item acquisition (NPC sale of the +3 items). Hell, you might even remove more overall gil from the economy if they made the pieces cheaper to get. I'm a completionist and made every AF+2 piece for all of my jobs, made some AF+3, but I'd make even more just for the sake of saying I did it, if each piece was less costly.

Perhaps "AF+4" is gonna be so good that people will suffer through the annoying step to make the +3 piece needed and just view that as one part of the total AF+4 cost. But IDK, it just doesn't feel in line with the progression we've seen with other stuff, like the aforementioned multiple paths to upgrade original AF/Relic/Empy to the ilevel reforged versions. IIRC, fairly recent dev comments also talked about wanting to streamline the process to get gear up to current max level for players starting it from scratch. Revisiting AF reforge upgrade requirements would align with that kind of thinking (as does stuff like this update's reduction in the cost of ambuscade armor/weapon upgrade items, which may well be setting up for stuff like +3 armor and beyond at some future point).

As it is now, the AF+3 requirements are only really providing a minor benefit to crafters who make a small profit on the completed synthed items, if they even bother to risk making stuff that doesn't sell all that fast. Kind of annoying that the AH might just be sold out of the item you need, especially on lower population servers.

Artifact 109:
Job Ingredient: ~50k
Slot ingredient: ~35k

AF 119:
Job Ingredient varies: ~20k
Slot ingredient: ~60k

AF 119+2:
Job Ingredient: 1.1m
Slot Ingredient: ~50k (these are a very easy item to farm though)

AF 119+3: Since it varies greatly, lets go by slot
Head: 4 mil (700k profit to crafters, unable to HQ item) + 1.1m from NPC + 500k (67k profit per synth, can HQ for more, applies to all Cyan Orbs) = 5.6m
Body: 5m (600k profit to crafter, unable to HQ item), 1.1m (no profit but can HQ), 750k = 6.85m
Hands: 3.9m (200k profit per synth, cant HQ, cant even use tanning), 1.1m from NPC, 250k = 5.25m
Legs: 4.8m (400k profit to crafter, unable to HQ), 1.1m (no profit but can HQ), 500k = 6.4m
Feet = 3.9m (200k profit per synth, can HQ), 1.1m from NPC, 250k = 5.25
~5.9 mil average

Upgrading a piece of AF from 0 to 119+3 = 7.2m



Relic 109:
Job Ingredient: ~50k
Slot ingredient: ~35k (same as AF)
Currency x2: ~1.05m (900k/1m/1.2m)

Relic 119:
Job Ingred: YMMV greatly here. ie: Pil's Tuille is 100k on Phoenix, on 8 other servers its 300k++, 4 of which its 500k+. So its really hard to put a number here. Lets stick to your servers numbers though: 10k, 700k, 200k, 100k, 10k, 40k = ~177k
Slot Ingred: ~900k

Relic 119+2:
Shards: If your shards are under 50k each, its probably a shitty piece of relic you shouldnt be using. Basic supply and demand. I'm giving this a ~400k value (200k per shard). If you think this is dishonest, note that geo legs are 2m each, rdm hd 1.5m each, rdm hn 1.5m each, sch hd 1.3m, etc etc and a middle ground has to be set somewhere if assessing a general value.
Job Ingred: 1.1m
Slot Ingred = ~2.7 mil

Relic 119+3:
Shard: ~600k (same as above)
Voids: ~600k (again, same thing, there are multiple exceeding 2 mil per void)
Slot ingred: 590k / 120k / 700k / 80k / 750k = 450k avg x3 = ~1.35m

Upgrading a piece of Relic from 0 to 119+3 = 5.1mil

~2 mil difference and it would be closer of I wasnt using Phoenix's dirt cheap voidwatch items.

Why would you expect something like Ruthenium ingot to drop in price? Its not like its a field-farmable item whos supply can exceed demand.

Or allow the AF cards to be purchased, or a KI that gives 2x cards per run

Let's remove one of the extremely few things that a non-shield crafter can make a pittance on, because i don't feel like buying something off another human being?

I disagree. They're great for skillups and can be really handy ways (for some crafts) for crafters to make a little gil for taking the time to level a craft. If you don't like that they sell for "a profit" (don't forget you can break the niobium ingot synth and lose millions), then go level a craft or 7. If you don't want to do that, then you see why they sell for a profit.

edit: Also, I know I keep saying this in every thread but...talk to other human beings. In my LS's Discord we've had a "rent-a-crafter" pinned message in our crafting channel for YEARS (it was posted 12/19/2021) with a list of people who have 110 crafts, so you can ask them for help with a synth.

I'm just really hoping the new limbus isn't a daily 30~60 min event. I'm so damn tired of daily FOMO crap I could puke.

Yes, and not everyone is in your helpful Discord with a list of 110 crafters. You're obviously blind to the fact that FFXI is a very different game for more casual players than you and your friends and the people who are hardcore enough about this game to talk about it on message boards. It's obnoxious that your response to that is that these players should "go level a craft or 7".

This isn't gear that is making crafters the big bucks anyway, as you said yourself. But if we're going by the dev comments that they want to make it easier to upgrade items, this one looks kinda obvious to me.

Do you really think it makes sense that you can buy a whole 5/5 set of Sakpata armor for less than the cost of upgrading a single piece of AF+2 to +3 (not to mention all the stages before that)?

I'm not saying "oh these damn crafters, always making a profit". I'm saying it's stupid that the price of this upgrade for outdated gear is so high, and will remain high due to the bottleneck of needing expensive NPC purchased items to even do the synth. Hell, cut the costs for crafters too, just drop the cost of the base materials a bit and that's another way you can reduce the out of whack cost of the item, while still letting crafters apply a fair markup and make some money on the synths.

Making a Discord server is free and a Linkshell costs 6,000 gil, what's stopping you from making a helpful Discord?


I think it's obnoxious that people complain about Cyan Orbs costing 220k and then saying they can't be arsed to level Bonecraft.


I think the Sakpata armor is probably undervalued, but to rephrase your question: do I think that upgrading a piece of AF+2 to +3 should cost 4~5m gil? Yes. That amount of gil takes (at worst) like...2-4 hours to farm? Do I think that spending 4 hours to get a best-in-slot piece of endgame gear for a job is overly burdensome? Um, no, I don't. Sorry.


I'm not saying they couldn't reduce the cost of the NPC mats, though I don't actually think they need to and I think the gil drain is an extremely necessary one for the reasons Nynja mentioned above. I'm talking solely about the fact that these items are crafted which is apparently, to some, a massive barrier. It's not.

These items are available on the AH.
If you think they're too expensive on the AH, you can craft it yourself.
If you're too lazy to level a craft, you can talk to another human being who can make it for you.
If you're too lazy to craft, and too lazy to make friends, and too casual to join a linkshell, then IDK what to tell you, Ruthenium ingots cost 5m because you're too *** lazy. The ~500k is what you paid for your laziness, welcome to capitalism.

I didn't even look for a lot of pieces, but something like RNG relic head? Still the BiS ranged TP piece for many common shooting sets. 30k per headshard, 50k per voidhead. AF+3 was basically made obsolete by later gear, but still a decent WS option for people who don't have Nyame ranked up.

So by your numbers:
~5.6mil for upgrading from AF+2 to AF+3 stage
~1.6mil for upgrading from Relic+2 to Relic+3 stage

I don't think that makes much sense. And relic shards/voids will only get cheaper and cheaper over time as there are fewer people who need it and still a steady supply of materials from Dyna or Trove. AF won't get cheaper, since it uses fixed price NPC materials as ingredients for the upgrade or for the other synthed items that are also ingredients.


It shouldn't be 4.5m in materials, that's my point. The 500k markup on top of the fixed costs is not that big of a deal, it's the base cost to get the mats for a synth.

I am also apparently a bit more aware of what less hardcore players care about, especially since I've been getting a new perspective from seeing some friends on another gaming related Discord who mostly played XIV and have been checking out XI for the past half a year or so. I've also seen some returning players in my LS, some who are just more average players (and fine not doing the top tier content), etc. These people aren't leveling crafts to 110. They aren't in elite linkshells. They aren't comfortable shouting to strangers to try to get a hookup who can craft items for 5 year old gear. They still pay a subscription fee, and that benefits us all. And I don't really care to gatekeep and tell them they are lazy and need to just level multiple crafts (or, a maximum of one craft per character to max level since we're talking about level 115+ synths).

S-E seems to understand this, by doing stuff like giving away progressively better gear through RoE tutorial missions, reducing prices of stuff like Ambuscade armor/weapon upgrade items, giving upgrade items with monthly login points, designing Odyssey purchasable items so their cost will decrease over time as the stragglers come on board and buy the now older gear.

You're stuck in a vision of thinking everyone is like forum posters, 20+ year veterans, and your Discord crew. But you do you, don't worry about trying to make the game more accessible and fun for people who aren't on your level.

Oh, and serious question. If gil sinks are so important to the economy not going crazy, why isn't that happening now?

It's not like guild items for AF reforged updates are taking anywhere near the amount of gil out of the economy that Odyssey gil reward and monthly Ambu rewards are putting in. So help me understand how keeping AF upgrade items at the same prices they've been for years is the thing holding the economy together.

You forgot the 3.5m for relic+1 to relic+2, where the AF+1 to AF+2 is only 1.2m. This makes the difference a whole hell of a lot closer.


This isn't really an important point but they're level 105 synths, not 115.


What in the world is an elite linkshell? My linkshell is 100% open invite to anyone. We have linkpearls on the concierge and literally anyone who yells looking for a linkpearl is invited. There isn't an interview for an invite or a testing process to make sure you're good enough. Any jackass with a functioning keyboard can get into the shell.

Again...Discord servers are free. You can create a channel called "crafting" and then pin a post with people's craft levels. Make a community, you don't have to be "elite" to make friends in an online game and then create a linkshell/discord with them. We're not talking about V25 clears with minutes to spare, we're talking about socializing.

I also wouldn't call having 5m gil elite either, as I said earlier anyone in ambu gear (or worse) can comfortably farm millions of gil/hr.

If you don't want to spend time farming gil to improve your character's gear then you're entirely too casual for an MMORPG. The whole point of an MMO is spending your free time to improve your character. "it takes a few hours to get the best gear" is a silly accusation to throw at FFXI, IMO.

OK, let me help you then. Let's say they lower the cost of Khoma Thread from 1,126,125 to 250k.

Have you looked at the list of things that use Khoma Thread before? You might want to, because that list is a whole shitload longer than "WHM AF to +2".

I've used HUNDREDS of Khoma Threads on crafted items. These items make up the bedrock of hundreds of useful endgame items. Changing the price of these materials would dramatically drop the largest gil sink in the game.

edit: I looked it up, just to use Khoma Thread as an example. Between all my crafts, I've used 3,159 Khoma Threads in synthesis. This is 3,557,428,875 gil. If these were 250k each, that would be 789,750,000 and the economy would have 2,767,678,875 more gil in it. Just from my personal synths, just from Khoma Thread. Now do Cyan Corals, Ruthenium Ores, etc. Plus I'm only one crafter, there are tons more crafters, plus all the JSE.

second edit: ambu rewards aren't actually putting any gil into the game, they're just replacing gil going between players. Gil sinks vs gil income are only for actual gil being given to players by the system and actual gil being given to the system by players. Getting 3k free alexandrite doesn't actually change the cash flow of the FFXI economy.

Re: impact on other synths, make a different alternate item for AF upgrades then. Give out some Kupon or Artifact Token or something, maybe related to new Limbus.

I just don’t understand why anyone thinks keeping old AF+3 at the same relatively high cost for the performance (and significantly more than other JSE or modern gear) is a bridge too far. What is it about this particular gear that makes you think it can’t be changed, when we get plenty of examples of other gear usually becoming cheaper over time.

RNG is also not a popular job. How many roles does it fill in 2025 endgame? A handful, at best. Again, supply vs demand. Congrats though, you found one of the few exceptions to a useful relic piece that doesnt cost an arm and a leg in shards.

Now lets look at all the void/shards that are in excess of 500k, 1.5x the 200k value I used in my calculation:
Legshard: BLU 1,000,000
Voidfoot: BLU 900,000
Voidleg: BLU 850,000
Legshard: BRD 600,000
Torsoshard: BRD 500,000
Voidfoot: COR 3,855,500
Headshard: COR 3,000,000
Handshard: COR 2,800,000
Voidhead: COR 2,300,000
Footshard: COR 1,900,000
Voidhand: COR 1,900,000
Torsoshard: COR 1,000,000
Legshard: GEO 3,000,000
Voidleg: GEO 1,250,000
Handshard: PLD 2,900,000
Voidhand: PLD 2,000,000
Voidfoot: PLD 800,000
Headshard: PLD 725,000
Legshard: PLD 500,000
Voidhead: RDM 3,200,000
Headshard: RDM 3,000,000
Handshard: RDM 2,875,000
Footshard: RDM 2,400,000
Voidhand: RDM 2,300,000
Torsoshard: RDM 750,000
Voidleg: RDM 700,000
Legshard: RDM 670,000
Voidfoot: RDM 650,000
Headshard: RUN 795,000
Voidhead: RUN 510,000
Handshard: SAM 1,400,000
Voidhead: SCH 3,200,000
Headshard: SCH 1,800,000
Handshard: SCH 800,000
Legshard: SCH 625,555
Torsoshard: SCH 625,000
Handshard: THF 2,900,000
Voidhand: THF 900,000
Voidleg: THF 700,000
Legshard: THF 500,000
Voidhead: WAR 3,200,000
Headshard: WAR 1,500,000
Legshard: WHM 825,500

(re-sorting by slot after sorting by job was a bit too tedious, sorry)

I initially gave shard/voids a generous 200k value, and you need 8. That's 1.6 of the 5.1 mil. Lets subtract that, now its 3.5 mil + whatever the shards and voids cost. Lets make a pair of relic pld +3:
using the same averaged 3.5m base value of currencies & materials + (5 handhsards @ 14.5m ) + (3 voidhands @ 6m). Total cost: twenty-four million gil

RDM HD +3 is 24.6 in voidshards.

Remember when I said this:

I guess Capuchin doesnt understand the difference between moving gil thats already in the economy and adding gil to / removing gil from the economy.

I don't have any issue with the concept of making it easier.

I don't think it's necessary and disagree with the portrayal of how onerous it is to get AF+3 for a new player.

I think the idea of lowering the synth mats is foolish.

I think the idea of replacing the synth mats with something else is a downgrade for the community.

Taking another opportunity for people to talk to each other and replacing it with a solo friendly option for people to avoid having to interact, while giving crafters fewer opportunities to skillup/make profit, is a bad idea.

This is the pity patch. We don't need more of that in the next one for content that might be expensive, but they've already had them water down both Omen and Dyna D.

5m is grossly overvaluing all but like 5 pieces. it's too bad they can't figure out how to make pieces have proper value instead of just making them all cost the same.

It's also too bad that they can't dynamically price it cause 5m is nothing to some and everything to others.

AF+3 does not and did not work as a "gil sink" as intended. it only served to hamper the casuals, like everything they do about gil.

Of note though, you can just ignore AF+3 entirely. Easy enough. I would tell anyone that thinks they need it to just skip it (unless +4 happens, but that's not a problem in the now)

Eiryl as ever manages to be so incredibly wrong about everything. There are very few, if any, jobs that don't benefit from 1-5 pieces of their AF set. Telling people not to make AF+3 is the shitiest of ***takes.

AF+3 factually removes tens of millions of gil from the economy per set (barring gobbie spin)

SE making calls about which pieces are "valuable" vs the ones that aren't is a terribad idea, as is the idea of scaling the price "dynamically", whatever that means.

If they're struggling to afford it, they aren't whiteknuckling their dps. They won't miss it.

Eiryl: Why cant SE make each piece of AF+2/3 cost its value in utility?

Also Eiryl: "SE doesnt know the value of anything, you want Beitetsu but you get Pluton planned misery"