White Raven earring given out at The Rising event 2018

Rewards are nice and all, but I think that you people forgot why this thread was even made, really. It's not about the reward, it's about it being 'exclusive' previously but made open for a wide number of people.

The only real problem is that there were any items made 'exclusive' in the first place though. Personally I am against exclusive or limited rewards in any MMO game. Heck, in any game. Which is why event-tied rewards in games like Pokemon are horrendous idea as well. They should never have begun with that. And similarly, item mall (which really shouldn't even have been implemented in a subscription-based game) should be separated from the game. In-game rewards should stay in-game, not be put on the item mall. They should be re-obtainable, like bought from the merchant during future iterations of the event, possibly with whatever token is earned in it rather than gil.

"Limiting" rewards leads to situations like this. Some people don't care about others getting the same stuff they did, because they know they don't actually lose anything out of it. Others feel somehow harmed for whatever reason. And those that didn't get the rewards the first time around are going to complain that they don't have access to the item or that they have to pay (outrageous) prices for the rewards that others got for free. It's fine for physical limited editions, like the statues, plushies and what not. Those can be gotten from those that bought them originally. Ultimately everything in the real world is "limited edition" since everything will stop being produced once better products are made, and that's fine. It's not fine for digital stuff that on top of being "limited time only" for obtaining is also going to disappear in a couple of years when the servers are gonna be taken down.

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Originally Posted by Naoki_Yoshida

But we did, however, decide that the fifth anniversary of the rebirth was the perfect timing to provide at least a glimpse into how the game was back then.

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I guess that is why you made the event impossible to even join? The Rising recruiter is a metaphor for the "shambles" of 1.x.

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Originally Posted by kikix12

The only real problem is that there were any items made 'exclusive' in the first place though.

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How else could it have been done? People knew full well going into the Nael fight that the event was limited time, as it had already been announced that the servers were going to be closed to make way for ARR. We aren't talking about a seasonal event that is scheduled with a start and end date, the end date for the Nael "limited event" was literally the game shutting down for good. The 1.0 content cannot appear ever again in their original form because they are from an entirely different game, that is why the rewards are "exclusive".

Nobody on either side is arguing for timed exclusives, they are a bad idea, but that doesn't make the earrings in this event right either. Its an unfortunate quirk of the transition from 1.0 to 2.0 that made items such as the manderville earrings and white ravens earrings "timed exclusives", the real argument is not respecting the time and effort that players went through by not putting them in content with similar theme and difficulty like T9 Savage, or UCoB, instead putting them in the easiest content imaginable.

The arguement being put forward (because it needs to be made clear apparently):

- White ravens earrings have a place in ARR and beyond, the rising event is not it.
- The rising event earrings could have easily be named something else, and very much should have been.
- Forced expiration of rewards is disrespectful to those who took the time, money, and energy to gather them.

Nobody is asking for more timed exclusives, in fact the opposite is true, people are asking for rewards and content that hold value permenantly.

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Originally Posted by Lambdafish

people are asking for rewards and content that hold value permenantly.

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You're in the wrong game then. Or hold a viewpoint that doesn't work with this game.
When Stormblood came out and HW content was made unsyncable, Yoshi-P himself, in one of the LLs preceding the release, encouraged people to run the HW Extremes and Savages unsynced now that it was made easier. In this game, the value you speak of it itself is the most time gated thing of all because in three weeks we'll get a new patch, with new gear, and even UwU will already be made easier.
The content these earrings came from is five years old. How hard do you think it would've been to get them had the content remained accessible, with the game's current policy of reducing difficulty as time passes to allow for bigger audiences to throw themselves at it? With unsync and max Echo? Would you say it had been as easy as... a series of FATEs, perhaps...?

And I get that this became the debate now, Darrcy aptly placed the goalposts a couple of posts back with their disdain of the undersized party option. But let's be honest here, does anyone really think they're going to change that? From a developer's point of view, it makes zero sense. Let's say UwU became unsync-locked, you can't undersized it.
That content is dead once it stops being relevant and the hardcore crowd moves on.
There are two reasons why HW Ex trials are still ran so much: 1. you can cheese through them (farming or WT), 2. Mentor roulette. You wouldn't have been able to get this many people in there without enabling undersized party. I mean, Ex trials are a big part of why Mentor roulette even exists, because people don't run that content willingly. And the sort of content we're talking about here won't make it into the Mentor roulette anyway.

With this in mind, the devs seem to keep on making content more accessible, mostly by making it easier (nerfs to content, or buffs over time to players via gear and level). In light of this policy, the earrings themselves fall well in line with everything else.
Now, if you want to argue against that policy, I won't stop you. I'm a guy wearing the bunny outfit, after all, I know what it's like to push rocks up a mountain. But this debate has long since stopped being about the earrings and the event. Let's at least all be honest about that

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Originally Posted by BillyKaplan

You're in the wrong game then. Or hold a viewpoint that doesn't work with this game.

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This is distinctly possible now. And if so, then so be it; those of us whom are unhappy will gradually lose interest and find other games that satisfy that particular itch. But the game wasn't always like this, and even Yoshida's opinion seems to flipflop. Sometimes within the same interview.

Insofar as the game not always being like this: Even ignoring the undersized party toggle, there used to be structure and cohesion to the endgame setup. You needed to beat Garuda to do Ifrit, to do Titan. You needed to do Leviathan and Moogle, and then you could do Ramuh. You needed to do Ramuh to do Shiva. You needed to beat Twintania to access Second Coil, Nael to do Final Coil. There were people that complained about that, and there were people that pushed back. I'm not sure the situations - then and now - are necessarily any different, they've just swapped positions. I have no way of knowing if "you're playing the wrong game" was a valid argument then. It probably was.

And with regards to the voices in control of the game, as of two months ago:

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ただ、今現在でも“絶バハムート討滅戦”に挑戦されている方もグローバルでもたくさんいらっしゃるので、制限解除の対象にはせずにおいておきます。あまり数を増やしすぎても、「いつになったら次に行けるんだ」という感覚をうけてしまいますしね。
Yoshida: Even to this day, we have a large amount of people around the world, still challenging Bahamut (Ultimate) and we are going to leave the ultimate fights levelsynced. Also, If we have too many of these ultimate fights, some players might think "When are we going to catch up and be able to challenge the next ultimate fight".

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If Yoshida and the development team would be more open and properly communicate their stance, we could make our decisions about how seriously or casually to take the game. To gauge how much of a time investment anything was actually worth. But we don't get that, so we try to leave feedback to improve the game experience for ourselves and those like us - and the result, ultimately, is this thread. And others like it.

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Now, if you want to argue against that policy, I won't stop you. I'm a guy wearing the bunny outfit, after all, I know what it's like to push rocks up a mountain. But this debate has long since stopped being about the earrings and the event.

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They're the same debate as far as I'm concerned. One of them is simply the symptom (White Ravens), while the other is the root cause.

Ship done sailed on the former - sailed the moment they deleted the threads that were created ~2 months ago when the information was first datamined - so we either start a new thread to continue discussing this, or we just keep using this one and hope the community team is keeping tabs so they can more easily pass the sentiments on to a place where it might have some effect.

We'll see how the level-sync thing goes when we hit 5.0. And even if the fight on-level will be synced level and ilvl wise, he didn't quite say he won't allow unsyncing of it. After all, fights on-level can be made quite easier as you increase ilvl, I took his comment to be more about that. The context of people currently hitting UCoB furthers cements it, because then progress people have made goes out the window as they get better gear. But if it's still with a hard level cap, it won't matter as much if at all. But I wouldn't take it as a promise they'll never make it more accessible like they did anything else.
That said, I fully expect it to be something running it unsync will make easier, not cheeseable. People still wipe on Seph Ex after all, that's how well that one aged ♥

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Originally Posted by Rogatum

Leaving the earrings aside or any exclusive reward for that matter at the door. I cannot be the only person that feel it is slightly worrying that SE has to provide incentives via rewards to get people to take part in content. I do not know it just seems that SE has a lack of faith in their content / class design if they need to use carrot on a stick to get players to become engaged. Do not get me wrong rewards are awesome, but I cannot say that I have ever engaged in a content simply for a reward. Probably the only person that feels this way since I guess that is the bases of game design.

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It's human nature. Connects to prestige. Humans naturally seek prestige in some form it's often considered humanities biggest motivator. Be it accomplishment. Reward. Recognition, Praise, Game or any other element associated with prestige.
The reason humans seek it is because all these things associated with prestige generally provide dopamine hits and feel good which then drives people to seek more and more.

If you enjoy something it's just a bonus. But the driving reason to do something is for those hits and any prestigious elements they offer. You might for example love cooking and thoroughly enjoy it. That's great. but there's nothing better than having the people you just cooked for tell you the food was absolutely amazing. That little recognition of your efforts is a huge buzz.

It's also why it can absolutely destroy you if you put your heart and soul into making an amazing meal and don't even get so much as a thank you for it.

Or people with work. The only reason most people go to work each day is because of the pay cheque at the end of the month... if you look at various career studies some job sites do apparently less than 17% of people actually enjoy there jobs. I dunno if that just British or a global average though just something I read on reed.

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Originally Posted by BillyKaplan

We'll see how the level-sync thing goes when we hit 5.0. And even if the fight on-level will be synced level and ilvl wise, he didn't quite say he won't allow unsyncing of it.

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Indeed, and that's what I mean. Even a large portion of this thread was spent by people trying to argue both sides of his comments about 1.0/Legacy exclusivity, and those comments left far less open to debate than the Ultimate quote.

I would like to point out that Sigmascape had been out for a couple months at that point, though. Whether they were doing it for the challenge, prestige or the glamour weapons, those people were (are?) doing outdated content.

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That said, I fully expect it to be something running it unsync will make easier, not cheeseable. People still wipe on Seph Ex after all, that's how well that one aged ♥

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Tethers too hard, pls nerf. We've been able to duo Seph EX with tanks for a while now though, to be fair. It's just a matter of the number of tethers not adjusting if you have fewer than 8 people, but once HP is high enough you'll still live through most of it.

It'll be the same for Ultimate. It's definitely not going to be the case of "it's 5.0 and I have my free i470 AF gear, time to steamroll Ultimate Bahamut!", but when we're casually dealing 12k DPS and our healers are sitting at 80,000+ HP pre-Echo it's just a matter of time.

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Found another quote from Yoshida that basically mirrors a sentiment I posted before:

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No it's imposible, I couldn't beat it. But I do want the special weapon from the encounter, so I will probably start it around 4.2. And I think it would take me at least 3 months then before I beat it. I have been doing all the raids before, but this content is so ridiculously difficult that I don't think anyone could do it. I am not hardcore enough for this. However i think we will see the world first soon.

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Specifically in the case of Ultimate you'd have been exchanging all Materia melds (VIT particularly) for +5 ilvls, which would most likely yield a net loss and become harder pre-Anemos gear, but yeah. Same general idea of "it's harder than I like so I'll wait until it's easy to try" though.

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Originally Posted by kimoi

I guess that is why you made the event impossible to even join? The Rising recruiter is a metaphor for the "shambles" of 1.x.

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It's been up quite often on Coeurl.

You know what piss me the most? No matter how long we 2.0/3.0/4.0 player play the game we will never be considered "Lagancy" specially thos who started on ps3 never had a chance at 1.0
Heck i seen allot of people compare Veteran to Lagancy.
Hey but is ok for Lagancy to bitch even tho nothing 1.0 is exclusive, only exclusives would be "Lagancy"