June 2025 Version Update

Even easier, just make it not reduce TP gain.

The content itself is good normie content, the time investment is not. Hopefully we find out how to get points quicker.

Empyrean armor went from ilvl 109 to something clearly above 119, and rivaling Ody gear in some cases. That is a HUGE leap. Current AF and relic is already ~119 so the increase in stats to bring it up to par with empyrean is a much smaller gap.


The difference between the time it takes you to upgrade all the AF and relic you currently use, vs how long until they release +5 update? Obviously this will vary from player to player based on your jobs and needs, but I wouldn't expect to wait long unless you only play a few jobs or you multibox and spread your jobs across multiple accounts.


The question about where you prefer your reward in the chain of upgrades was mostly just picking people's brain to see how they enjoy their content. Sorry if I forgot anyone out there who would prefer an even split, but I did want people to consider the question in the context of this situation. No wrong answers though, just opinions :D

I must have missed the news that +5 is going to happen at all? Wouldn't it be wise to +4 empyrean before +5ing anything else? Also what color is the +5 box frame? Can't recall any +5 gear in the game that exists yet.

There was no announcement, just the expectation based on how SE has done things in the past. History has shown:

• They normally do JSE upgrades in pairs of two (reforged, reforge+1, 109/119, +2/+3)

• They have said they are not done with Limbus, and they are adding NMs later Sometimes they roll things out in phases

• Think Odyssey Sheol rollout, then subsequent Gaol tiers, then tier increases. The generic updates came first, massive rollout later (the gear was OP)

• The +4 gear isn't that much of an upgrade over +3, so the thought is they must be (cope) upgrading it further to justify the effort

It's basically wishful thinking at this point. If they did go to +5, I wouldn't expect that any time before January 2026.

It's not wishful thinking.

There's literally typos in the current upgrades as +5.

They've already said this is the first part of the Limbus changes.

What's more likely, that they add completely new gear or overhaul old armor sets, or take the current AF to +5?

Didn't we already have this conversation with "they never said they're upgrading AF" before?

Honestly, the biggest indicator they're going to +5 is the ugly green for +4. Nobody wants to leave gear on that. +5 gives them an opportunity to make it right.

Ok I missed this, thanks for the correction.

+5 has a chance to be orange. Significantly worse.

Red orange or purple

I think the thread about upgrading before was because they never explicitly said +4, they said the armor was outdated and due for a refresh, but it wasn't until Freshly Picked that they called out both were receiving an update. Prior to that it wasn't even confirmed it was going to +4, some thought it'd just be augments or even a faster path to +3.

I'm not gonna say it's wishful thinking, but it's hardly confirmed either, typos or not. We all know how they are about translations and descriptions. I'd call it more likely than not, but the community tends to get amped up about things that aren't confirmed then get big mad when they don't happen. I'm more in the "I'll believe it when they say it" camp and AFAIK they've not said +5 is coming whereas before, they at least said some form of update was happening.

The only thing we know is they are adding NMs to Limbus, but that could easily just be a way of increasing currency gains - clear the floors, open the chest, get pop item, pop boss and get 10k units or whatever, like in Sortie. I wouldn't immediately assume that adding NMs to Limbus is going to equate to +5.

It PROBABLY is, but the gap between probably and definitely with SE is...large.

Ok let's speculate, what color is the +5 box gonna be? I'm thinking hot pink heh. Wonder if they will just roll them into a whole new set name and the +5 will just be the next tier as an NQ.

I need me some more fuchsia.

It's not pink, it's salmon

Back in the day, I theory crafted a concept to eventually combine all 3 sets into 1 ultimate set that pretty much had everything in one, the idea was that it could relieve gear congestion, and give players a sort of grueling long term gear goal to shoot for similar to remap weapons. But this was before the ilvl stat vomit started happening. Still would be cool, the idea of using current meta gear to fill in the gaps on your way to building a jobs ultimate armor. But once you made your full set, could cold store the other gear until you were ready to take on another job. But meh, don't know if that would be as cool of an idea nowadays.

Considering this may be the final round, I think we're due for animated borders. Something that looks like pulse weapon or afterglow would be fitting.

That'd be cool.

Afterglow your equip menu!

Capping the currency at a relatively low value, or at all, is the biggest indicator that there will be further upgrades/gear rewards using said currency.

They absolutely refuse to allow people to get any sort of headstart on that kind of stuff.

Hoping red or even purple for border color, this green is awful to look at.

Biggest sign they aren't done with upgrading these sets is that they didn't add large amounts of DT to each piece, which is something they clearly consider baseline now.

For the past decade, the game's worked on a pretty consistent cycle where a new major event is intended to be "fresh" for a year and a half to two years and is built out accordingly to keep player interest focused on it. We saw this with Omen, then Dynamis-D, then Odyssey, and finally Sortie. There's no way they're done with Limbus.

Huh? AF and Relic gear were already at 119 with the +1 versions that released when they implemented Rem's Tales and HTBFs. Those 119 pieces got outdated and started to fall by the wayside, and got a massive refresh when they got around to updating them to the 119 +2/+3 version with Omen (AF) and Divergence (Relic). It wasn't just Empy that got a big boost with +2/+3 upgrades.

And the Empy gear before Sortie was also already 119, from the reforge to 109 and 119 (+1) that came with Vagary (which rejuvenated a lot of pre-99 Empy armor). Then that gear naturally fell off in usefulness over time, but it was already 119 gear when Sortie hit and brought the big improvements that came with Reforged Empy +2/+3.


Yeah I don't actually mind the content itself. Not the most exciting thing in the universe, but OK I'm fine with grinding out some points in the Limbus zones - and some unique mechanics, flexible party/alliance size, some not insignificant Exemplar Points (even if not optimal)... I'm actually pretty cool with all of that as an event.

It's just that the rewards, at least for this initial phase, are SO mediocre. That absolutely can and has killed interest in FFXI events in the past: SCNMs, lv99 Limbus and Einherjar, etc.

The only thing that gives me some hope was that Odyssey also started out with little discernable reason to care, but over time with multiple new phases we got fantastic items. So many people actually complained that they were behind because they ignored the content when the rewards were crap, but then once there was an appropriate carrot people returned. Limbus could indeed turn around if future rewards are good: Ultima/Omega drops, new accessories, +5 gear with something other than one good WSD piece and some tiny stat bumps to the handful of other pieces that were still getting some use in their +3 form.

+5 is Red

+6 is Purple

Yall heard it here first folks.



For real though, Tarage got it right here on 1st page of this thread. If you check your equipment and see the wardrobe color number. 1 is blue, 2 is yellow, 3 is green, 4 is red and last is purple. No colors exist after purple.

I thought that they considered it baseline too, but the +4 pieces make me doubt that. I'm looking intently to the inevitable +5s to see if they do add those defensive stats at that step.

Kind of shocking that we didn't see it with +4 though, after good defensive stats on basically all of the new armor rollouts of the past few years (Ody T3 armor, Nyame, Empy+2/+3, even stuff like HTBF drops).

I'd have been totally cool with the modest offensive stat increases if they had decided to bump the generic defensive stats (DEF/Meva/MDB) up to a level on par with all this other stuff of the past few years, maybe slap a new chunk of DT- on a piece or two similar to what they did with the last Empy armor upgrades. Like you said, maybe that's coming in a future stage - but there is now reason to doubt that.

Disappointing, because it has been such a BRILLIANT addition that they did put good defensive stats on all this gear for the past few years and now even casual players who are utterly clueless as to what the stats on gear mean start getting the new stuff and suddenly become much more capable of survival. Doesn't matter whether it's unaugmented Nyame or Sakpata, 5/5ing whatever job's Empy +2 set, etc. That's a good thing to me, and makes the game more inclusive.

This illustrates the point.

Empyrean +3 = AF/Relic +5

109 is just reference for how many steps we've taken and how gear has grown apart in level. Empyrean made bigger gains in fewer steps, so the AF and relic steps will be smaller by comparison.

I agree that it's not wishful thinking. It's probably been said to death elsewhere, but SE added...

1. JSE KIs for Empy +2/+3 upgrades
   

2. JSE KIs for Artifact/Relic armor (under the radar and shortly after Empy+2)
   

3. ...An ugly-*** green border
   

4. Massive amounts of typos and largely poor roll-out of +4 upgrades
   

5. Marginally useful and extremely minimal upgrades to +4.
   

Yes, #3/4 are copium. But for 1/2/5, it is extremely like that this is a pre-cursor TO SOMETHING.

However, it is extremely unlikely for SE to update something very central to game (like Artifact/Quested JSE armor) ...and just put it out to pasture. (permanently, wink, wink, nudge nudge).

UNLESS ...SE were to combine them into one armor set. It would have to be a Magian-like (Magian 2.0?) system to warrant such a wide volume of changes without a huge story-line to accompany it.

...and let's face it. Copy/Pasta code upgrades (or CTRL+C/V Hit jobs, as I like to call them) is SE's bread and butter for FFXI development at this point.

So eat up, and enjoy it! ...because we're the beta testers/QA now.

(Personally, I wish more things got better than got worse with FFXI, as each year goes by, but here we are. Just gonna keep on, keeping on).

By your logic, Empyrean +2 = AF/Relic +4. And that's obviously not the case.

I just think of AF/Relic get a +4/5 and Empyrean stays at +3, and the end, people would feel let down. They should all be relatively on equal footing for what they are good for, but yeah, +4/5ing the 2, and not the third I think would make people feel it's incomplete. Idk, just seems logical to keep them all at the same + level eventually.

No, that's not my logic and I'm not really sure how you're misunderstanding me.


*edit*
How about some RP?

I'll play AF/relic and you play empyrean armor.

We're standing next to each other shoulder to shoulder, mostly. We both take 4 steps forward. At the end of those steps, you're 2 feet ahead of me.

This is basically where we're at with +3, yeah?
109 > 119 > +2 > +3

It's not meant to be bulletproof, but I hope the comparison makes more sense. They easily could have buffed the +4 to compete with empyrean, but they also wanted to milk the content. Even if they're clearly struggling even with the bite-sezed updates.

Okay I wasn't going to weigh in on this but since I got like two dozen reports on this section of the thread:


I am sorry, man. You are entitled to your opinion on this but I am here to tell you that you are in fact extremely, mind-bendingly wrong here. I was ON Cactuar, I know what a world without wikis looks like and it is *** awful. No one knows anything, the baseline player is so, SO bad - because there isn't any reasonable way for them to know things like "what is a skillchain". What few people do figure ***out in this environment generally hoard that knowledge to maintain an advantage.

Sacrificing everyone else's QoL so a handful of people get to play explorer is so guanopsychotic I hesitated even chiming in here, but I really just want the reports to stop.

Also, complaining about this here of all places is ridiculous. I'm annoyed I can't mine the dats any harder than I already do.

On-topic, Neo-limbus looks like the exact kind of thing that my friends and I would have eaten up, about six years ago. Hope y'all enjoy it!