Sortie revamped

I keep hearing from everyone I chat with about this game that sortie is an absolutely terrible grind which they loathe.

Please rebuild it.
When only the upstairs existed, it was still interesting. You could push to get every box & NM in the zone.
Once you added the basement (EFGH) that was no where even close to possible anymore. It effectively ruined the hard work you put into the event.
When Aminon was added it got even worse since the only way to get GOOD points each run is to push for 9 bosses or as close to that as possible every run.

I suggest breaking the event up into multiple parts.
Take a page from Incursion & Vagary.
Killing Aminon resets the zone, destroying all temp items and leveling up sortie just like Grrk-Frut the Charlatan does for incursion. After reaching the highest sortie level, instead killing Aminon 100% drops a Mesosiderite and the zone's level resets to the lowest level. On the highest level sortie, the NMs are enraged like how they were after releasing primes.
The sortie level can also act as a multiplier for gallimaufry.
Instead of requiring everyone to own a prime weapon on a specific stage for -ites, each level drops ONLY a single type of {Eikondrite,Octahedrite,Hexahedrite,Mesosiderite}. As such the highest level with enraged bosses would drop none of them aside from Aminon.

Other changes I would suggest are to change the old cases. Create an Old Case +2. Instead of old case rarely granting ??? earring+1's, change that to occasionally granting an Old Case +1. Same thing for Old Case +1 & ??? Earring+2's.
Along with the change to Old Cases, I suggest a change to ??? Earrings. Remove the [Exclusive] tag on them. Let us trade them and bazaar them. It will greatly incentivize players to do the event.
Players who don't need any more prime weapons or empyrean gear upgrades could continue spending gallimaufry on old cases praying for the double upgrade to an Old Case +2. Players who get the wrong earring could trade with someone who has the earring they desire.



Another possible addition would be to completely remove the floor lockout on rewards while increasing party size from 6 to 18. This way more can enjoy the event at the same time and the group can split off complete their own tasks while still getting the full benefits of the group: even if you are assigned to one of the less rewarding tasks.

Personally i enjoy sortie myself, but i do agree, that the requirements for +3 isn't really good for the average party, and the +1 / +2 rate is abysmal. Sortie is ok if your in those groups hitting 50-80k per run, but those groups have the gear and experience to do it. The average pug group or new group your looking at 20/30k maybe if that? The whole point of endgame is to get better at doing content, to grow, but sortie does seem off putting to a lot of those who are either newer or do not have good groups. I do enjoy the grind, its like all the old content like mythics relics etc, before they got easy. But at the same time, i feel sortie is a bit harsh for a game thats receiving minor updates now, Prime weapons are good, but they feel more like trophies now to me

I would love to see the level-adjustment suggestions you recommend happen to Dynamis Divergence! That would be fun, to fight Dynamis mobs up to level 160! ...maybe we'll see that in Beaucedine or Xarcabard one day. :D

But to your point, I agree with you. Sortie is not fun, and the feeling of doing 8 or 9 boss sorties every day for over a year is making me physically ill. There is not KI stacking, or ways to get bonus gallimaufry and currently uses very specific party combinations.

Also, Sortie doesn't feel like it is finished. It has no gil sink and no crafting element to it? ...I wish after a certain point, we could just teleport to boss rooms, like Start -> Boss A > B > C > D > E > F > G > H > Aminion and then leave or aim for Aurumn coffers. The 10 minute walks between bosses is very boring.

Also, I know someone who augmented all empy armor to +3 in a year ...and only ever say ONE +2 earring. It's kind of ridiculous.

I strongly feel the key item/entry item needs to be adjusted.

I understand the desire for FFXI to be unique, and for all content to be different feeling, which I 100% agree with, but being unable to go more freely is a bit cumbersome.

The Ruspix plate is far too restricted. It should be able to be used a bare minimum of once per week under any circumstances.

I personally have been doing enough sortie to get two +3 items, two stage 2 prime weapons, as well as 231,947 Galimaufry and still don't even have a +1 earring for my associated job.

Desired changes:

1.) Ruspix Plate availability once per week at minimum under any circumstances. (Every 4 days would be well balanced IMO.)
2.) +1 Earrings should drop 50% more frequently. (Or more.)
3.) Ground Floor enemies should not be so insanely difficult. (This is what the basement should be for.)
4.) NQ Earrings should sell for 5k gil a piece, +1 should be 10k gil a piece, +2 should be 20k gil a piece.
5.) It wouldn't hurt if items dropped from chests more often overall, or some exchange rate for useless items for gil or more Galimaufry... or any kind of exchange.

It would be even better if SE assigned at least 1 person to visit the FFXI and FFXIV forums once per week to give feedback to players leaving feedback to show they still even visit either of these forums and care at all about their games and fans.

My experience with Sortie, as someone who used to run with a group that would do a couple of basements and then clear nearly the whole upstairs, was: Sortie is fun, in small doses, and it's the height of tedium as a daily event.

I'd be happy with the event if it were just changed so you could get a gallimaufry multiplier for every day you skip, up to maybe x5. If you're targeting the item drops for Empyrean upgrades of Prime weapons, you still need to run daily, but if you just need the points you can relax and do two runs a week, and spend the rest of your play time doing things that aren't so repetitive.

(I mean, really, once you have a static group that knows what's going on, how different is every run, really? Aside from things spawning in different places, everyone is going to the same place to do the same thing, barring accidents. And after a while you learn how to mitigate the accidents too. I mean, yes, that could describe a lot of events, but somehow Odyssey and Dynamis feels more engaging, since you're just rushing in and carving through mobs, or sneaking around to avoid them. Not... "run here, run to there, tap this door, NOW you can engage with exactly this many mobs, remember to kill them the right way, go here, go here, sneak and invisible and go here, find this."

The Gallimaufry multiplier for days skipped, up to a 5, or even 7, for once weekly Gallimaufry farming, would be the perfect solution for Sortie. There is literally no downside to it and only advantages, for the players and for SE.

Daily Sortie is a soul-crushing grind. It has alienated many long-time players who would like to pursue Prime Weapons and +3 items for their 10+ jobs, but cannot sink 1-2 hours daily, for the rest of their mortal existence, into this. (Including gathering time, looking for members / static members being late, one nominal hour easily becomes 2 hours.) Among players who have completed a prime weapon, burnout is high.

If anyone from SE is actually reading this: the inscription on stage 2 prime weapons, "slowly devours your soul", describes Sortie. The time requirements and the sheer repetitiveness make Sortie the worst content you have created in a very long time. It's almost designed to drive players away from FFXI.

Player fun is of course not your priority. You're a business, and you want to maximize subscriptions - as many as you can get, for as long as you can get them. However, current Sortie does not serve your profit interests. It made, and is making, people give up on FFXI, because the final goal of making prime weapons is out of reach and simply not compatible with having a real life for many players with jobs and families.

Allowing one Sortie run per week with 7x the Gallimaufry reward would require people to maintain a monthly subscription, just like the current system, and would not make the time gate component of completing prime weapons any shorter.

The only difference is that many would come back to FFXI and you would be selling more subscriptions. Please reconsider the current system. It makes no sense from a business point of view.