[LilithAngel]

The Latest Evolution in Equipment—Announcing the Evolith System! (11/04/2009)

We're pleased to announce a new system that promises to offer adventurers unprecedented customization options for their equipment! Named the "Evolith" system for the curious stones whose powers must be harnessed to reap the benefits, it will be introduced in a version update coming as early as late November.

Read on for the details!

Introducing Evolith
Little more than nondescript rocks at first glance, the substance known as evolith has long escaped the notice of the inhabitants of Vana'diel. Closer investigation, however, has revealed that these ancient stones harbor elemental power to rival that of crystals. With advances in the emerging discipline of synergy*, the time has come that their latent potential may at long last be tapped...

*Synergy is a new form of synthesis conducted using a "synergy furnace."
This system will be introduced in detail in a future Topics article.

With each piece of evolith possessing unique properties (*see example screenshots), adventurers may mix and match them in various combinations to bolster compatible equipment with the exact combination of attributes they desire.




*Development screenshot—subject to change.
Evolith 101
Adventurers may enhance their equipment with evolith through the following procedure:


1. Acquire evolith
- Evolith can be obtained by completing new NM hunting regimes accessible from "Hunt Registries" that will be introduced to certain areas alongside the Evolith system.
- Note that each piece of evolith is defined by a unique shape, size and elemental affinity.



2. Choose the base equipment you wish to enhance
- A vast assortment of equipment will support evolith, from several hundred existing items spanning a wide range of levels to new equipment slated to be introduced alongside the Evolith system.
- You may check whether or not a particular piece of equipment supports evolith by trading it to one of the "Synergy Engineer" NPCs that will be dispatched to certain cities.

3. Prepare your equipment
- A maximum of three evolith-holding "slots" may be etched into a given piece of equipment via synergy.
Note that each slot will have its own shape, size, and elemental affinity, to correspond with the evolith itself.
- The etching process will require the use of dedicated items.
- Similar to augmented items, etching evolith slots into a piece of equipment will render it untradeable and unauctionable.

4. Confirm compatibility
- Ensure that the slot is of the same shape and elemental affinity, and is large enough to hold the piece of evolith you wish to attach.

5. Attach evolith
- Evolith may be attached to a compatible piece of equipment via synergy.
- It is possible to outfit a piece of equipment with as many pieces of evolith as slots it contains.



*Development screenshot—subject to change.
The Finished Product
Should your synergy be successful, congratulations! The help window for your newly evolith-enhanced equipment will appear like this:


*Development screenshot—subject to change.
- Evolith Replacement and Slot Removal
Should you wish to replace an attached piece of evolith with one offering different benefits, this may be done at time via synergy. It is also possible to remove evolith slots entirely—thereby returning the equipment to its original state—through synergy using a dedicated item. Note that in both cases, the previously attached piece of evolith will be lost.

With countless varieties of evolith in existence, the possibilities are endless. Seek out the combination that best suits your playing style, and the equipment of your dreams can be yours!

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Ah, so that's where those fancy new weapon designs are coming from.

I doubt HQ or R/E will qualify here, but if I were able to layer Snapshot onto certain weapon like bows, knives, axes or guns that would be really cool. I'm sure these will be random drops varying by NM, but hell, that's better than just a random augment. A random drop could still be useful for something else later.

[ShepardG]

Argh! and/or Curses! You be a quick one Lilith!, a quick one indeed!

Anyway, wow, they are digging this augment thing over at SE ! It's odd though as they said this won't be hitting until "as early as LATE novemeber" which means double update month...?

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

SE clearly wants me to subscribe through December. And EU players to miss Dynamis events twice this month.

[KingOfZeal]

A more direct impact on augments... I like it. But..

Might Strikes Ability Delay -1? So you can modify 2-hours now? Should be reasonably interesting. There's also nothing that says they are 'random' drops from nms. From the way it was worded, it sounds like you have to kill a specific NM and as a reward (separate from the drop system) you get the Evolith. Curious on what these NMs are like though -- soloable, low-man, giant alliance, and where they are located - are we talking about Sky/Sea, or Gustaberg/Saturabaruta/Etc?

I'm sure it's going to be interesting regardless. I can see the usual mad dash of people camping all the possible NMs for the next 3-4 months to figure just what everything is/does, leaving people like me who don't have much time for things like that to just sit back and watch the carnage, wishing that the time we can do what we want will be tomorrow.... I'm personally ok with that though. I'd be more ok with it if the stones weren't EX -- I think there could be some serious advantages for making them tradable and AH-able.

Can't wait to see what all the possibilities are, in any case.

[Karinya]

It's hard to tell from a small area, but the background in that screenshot of the red book looks a lot like Sarutabaruta.

Anyway, it's nice to be able to see what the evoliths do before you decide which ones to add to your gear, but since they're Ex, they could be a real inventory buster. But I expect it will be better received then FoV, anyway.

I suspect that most of the existing evolith-able gear will come from the ranks of AH junk that nobody currently uses -- but might if they can add new stats to it. There would be no point in further cementing the desirability of hauby or SH.

[Armando]

SE is finally catching on. I like.

No idea what MS Ability Delay -1 means though. Maybe it's something like Weapon Delay -1% under Mighty Strikes?

[Feba]

Originally Posted by Karinya

It's hard to tell from a small area, but the background in that screenshot of the red book looks a lot like Sarutabaruta.

Looks more like inside the city to me, judging from the flattened terrain and the wall. Plus it sounds like FF12's hunts-- you get a bounty, then go kill it.

Anyway, am I the only one feeling like SE is using us as a testing ground again; only this time for FF14's equipment system?

[KingOfZeal]

I'm pretty sure the book is inside windy as well. In fact, if I didn't know better I would say it's right outside the MH in port, near the OP taru and north of where the Explorer Moogle is or would be...

As far as "MS Ability delay"... I thought it could be weapon delay as well (which, a -1 on delay makes NO sense since it would essentially be the exact same timing, though I can see it meaning -1 [second], which might make a little bit more sense). But the wording seems to indicate the actual ability (if read as "Ability Delay" instead of "MS Ability"), but that also doesn't make much sense -- what's the good of 1 second off a 7200 second ability?

Perhaps I should stop asking questions like this and just sit here and twiddle my thumbs while I wait.

[Kailea]

oooo this looks fun! ^.^ cant wait to try it out.

[Durahansolo]

Originally Posted by LilithAngel

NM hunting regimes

Since it says Regime, and there is a picture of a book up there, IT KENT B!?!


(FOV Related?)

I'm interested in testing it out though and the cool thing is that if you decide you don't want the augments later on then you can just remove them.

(Showed up tardy to the party.)

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Originally Posted by Karinya

I suspect that most of the existing evolith-able gear will come from the ranks of AH junk that nobody currently uses -- but might if they can add new stats to it. There would be no point in further cementing the desirability of hauby or SH.

Have to disagree here.

Anything that sees long-term use or are things you don't intend to part with anyway stand to benefit more from than gear you'd sell off after a few levels.

We also know what gear is affected from the FoV Augments, so I don't think we need to speculate what will work here and what won't. And what we know from what's shown here tells us these augments either should be applied to a specific weapon type or are activated under a certain condition, like Mighty STrikes or having a light elemental summoned.

For example, they could add "Sharpshot: Snap Shot +5" or "Addendum White: Cure Potency +5%" or "Lance: Penta Thrust Accuracy +8"

Wishful thinking, perhaps, but even if its not stuff THAT awesome, it could still benefit existing gear greatly.

[DakAttack]

Pental what???

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Originally Posted by DakAttack

Pental what???

Yeah, let's play Spell Check Nazi! Why comment on new, exciting info when we can just do that?

Originally Posted by Feba

Anyway, am I the only one feeling like SE is using us as a testing ground again; only this time for FF14's equipment system?

Yeah, you probably are the only one.

FFXIV looks to be taking notes from Monster Hunter's weapon system more than anything else this far. This, too. Except in FFXI we're getting these funky stones instead of monster parts.

Monster Hunter is tremendously popular in Japan right now, so I can't say I'm surprised to see other developers borrowing from it. Its not like they do that with other parts of this game, am i right?

FoV = WoW EXP quests minus the silly "lore"
Chocobo Racing - Horse Racing Sim
Chocobo Ranch - Nintendogs
Chocobo Raising - Tomagotchi
Pankration - SMT/Pokemon
Adventuring Fellow - Blow-up doll
Moblin Maze Mongers - Dungeon Maker

[Ziero]

It seems like these things will be added to FoVs, probably have to buy the regime with Tabs, which means there's a limiting factor to how many of these things you can attempt.

And with the Mighty Strikes thing, it most likely means you get an ability delay reduction when MS is activated. Which isn't all that useful since most abilities should be popped before MS. Still, this looks to be a rather interesting new system, and it's much nicer to have control over what Augments you can have compared to the randomness of FoV's system.