Magian Torture Center Now Open for Business.

I love the concept of the Trials of the Magians (even if my plot to have it called the Trial of the Moogles™ has failed badly). I love the idea of killing stuff to fulfill requirements to improve your weapons and armor. I love the idea of progressive upgrades even if the weapons aren't really progressive upgrades to current levels of gear. Progressive upgrades may be more apparent after the next update and the expansion of the system and the increase in the level cap. Anyway, that is off the subject. The problem I have with the trials of the Magians is the camping of the NM's part of the system. I can deal with everything else, including the farming mobs under certain weather conditions. I just hate camping NMs. I always have hated it from the first time I found out that people camped them.

Now, it is better than competitive camping of NMs because you can always team up with other people to kill the NMs, but that was never my real complaint. The real complaint is the absolute waste of time waiting for an NM to spawn. You have to wait an hour at least, and that is just for the window to open. Then after that you have to hop that it actually spawns. The worst part is that you usually can do anything else in that time. You have to stand around for the 5-15 minutes waiting for the damn thing to spawn if it is going to spawn. We still have no idea what determines the real chance of the NM to spawn. For example if your name is Iceblazek, the chance of Triple Black Stars to spawn is so abysmally small that you might as well just move in with the Crawlers in Rolanberry Fields. He could be like the boy that was raised by wolves, except by Crawlers...

I like the "kill X mobs" even if it is "kill X mobs under X weather" because it can be done at your own leisure. I completed the last couple of trials for my Kurodachi much more quickly than the first couple of trials because I could do them at my own speed. I didn't need to wait for a stupid NM to spawn. I didn't have to leave and come back later because I didn't want to wait at least another hour for a chance for it to spawn. I actually like the fact that you have to get the tier 3 VNM drops to upgrade the Occasionally Attacks Twice weapons. It is hard work, but it is something that everyone can do with relative ease. If I could just skip the stupid NM trials I would be a happy man.

Even with all my complaining, I love the Trial of the Magians. It is something that SE has needed to add to FFXI for a long time. Long term upgrades are very good for the game I think. It's kind of like a more manageable version of Salvage without having to dump 10 million into the body piece. I actually like the idea of them taking this further. They just need to make sure that relics and mythics upgrade as well as the regular weapons upgrade. I have never invested the time in a relic or mythic because I prefer medium term goals in a video game. Relics and mythics are long term hardcore goals, and most other gear are either grinds or short term goals. I think Trial of the Magians weapons manage to split the difference both in terms of effort and reward. If you want to take the short cuts like not getting the VNM items, then you can get the less powerful version of the OAT weapon. I wouldn't suggest that, but I am sure that someone out there can justify it to themselves.

SE, I can't wait to see what you are going to do next with Trials of the Magians just don't make me camp anymore stupid NMs...