FATEs desperately need a fix

This week I decided to level up some jobs, and I started the usual PotD/Dungeon runs. PotD may be boring after 30 consecutive runs, and dungeon queues may be really annoying as a DPS (especially out of roulette).
So I decided to check out FATEs. I'm on Ragnarok which is one of the most populated EU servers. FATEs are completely dead, even at prime time. FATE exp is good, but everyone is ignoring them, making them the least rewarding activity in the game. At low levels there is no FATE active area. Even at the most grindful levels (see 60-61) the FATE area is dead. I think its time for the devs to acknowledge that current FATE design is a problem. Soloing a good portion of FATEs is impossible, and the very rare players grinding will avoid the bigger ones because it's impossible for small groups to complete them. I think the time-effort/reward equation is unbalanced when talking about FATEs. I have some fix ideas, but I would like to know what the community thinks about that matter

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Originally Posted by CapricaLangley

I think the time-effort/reward equation is unbalanced when talking about FATEs.

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Yep that's about it: in ARR fates were worth the time because of the time/reward ration being pretty decent (people still farmed dungeon, but fate grinding was still pretty much a thing). But after HW, the ratio became too unbalanced with fates giving too little exp for such a big amounts of exp required, and the trend is still going with SB despite their (poor) attempt at improving it with the random exp boost.

Basically, if they want people to do more fate grinding, all they have to do is to make them more worthwhile, enough to be on par with dungeon farming. Or else they'll stay dead as they currently are.

did all the bots from the fringe disappear? ragnarok was packed with them until a few days ago at least.

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Originally Posted by Faliandra

did all the bots from the fringe disappear? ragnarok was packed with them until a few days ago at least.

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The problem is that at night you can notice the two/three bots farming alone in the fringe. But they are the only ones.

I blame the instances for SB Fate grinding failure. Before its reimplementation, I'd see decent sized teams grinding on fates. Now that they are back. Sometimes I see a group do a fate and the next not a soul for miles.

But PoTD and Frontline have destroyed Fate XP, because their yield is better despite the pain they are. (Though PoTD xp fails after lvl 59)

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Originally Posted by TitaniaZero

(Though PoTD xp fails after lvl 59)

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Problem here is that it doesn't fail, because average queue + dungeon time is worse than PotD for DPSs

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Originally Posted by CapricaLangley

Problem here is that it doesn't fail, because average queue + dungeon time is worse than PotD for DPSs

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I dunno. I'd take a long queue over quick overdone PoTD runs any day. ~300k+ for a 15 min PoTD run is maddening to me. So I guess it's my opinion that it does fail. Considering that one is getting more than that at 59 or less.

Eitherway. These sources are still superior to Fates which is why Fates are not so well loved. (Even if they are a slight better grind than PoTD. Only slightly...)

I do a lot of fates solo (currently all the Stormblood ones). I have no issue about it. The only fates I skip when soloing are the 30 minutes ones with big boss, else everything is good to solo, at least with my faithful chocobo :D

However one thing annoying is the upscaled fates. There is no indicator on the map that a fate is upscaled, and the only way to know is to go check.
If it's a simple monsters fate, it's easy to guess by looking at the number of fate monsters presents.
If it's a boss fate, the only way to know is to start damaging it to see how fast you can lower its HP.
And in both cases you still need to move near the fate to check.

So I wish that fates would have an upscale indicator, something like a number (x) at the end of the fate name. So as to not waste my time to go for a Fate that will be too difficult to complete because of the upscale (and that still reward the same amount of Exp regardless of the upscale).

The FATE scaling thing is a great idea, but I wholly agree that a marker would help FATE grinders.

The only drawback is we may see the harder FATES avoided unless the rewards started scaling along with it.

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Originally Posted by Chocolys

I do a lot of fates solo (currently all the Stormblood ones). I have no issue about it. The only fates I skip when soloing are the 30 minutes ones with big boss, else everything is good to solo, at least with my faithful chocobo :D

However one thing annoying is the upscaled fates. There is no indicator on the map that a fate is upscaled, and the only way to know is to go check.
If it's a simple monsters fate, it's easy to guess by looking at the number of fate monsters presents.
If it's a boss fate, the only way to know is to start damaging it to see how fast you can lower its HP.
And in both cases you still need to move near the fate to check.

So I wish that fates would have an upscale indicator, something like a number (x) at the end of the fate name. So as to not waste my time to go for a Fate that will be too difficult to complete because of the upscale (and that still reward the same amount of Exp regardless of the upscale).

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Same. I ignore Boss FATES with adds or local mobs that share the fate as draggro gets to be too much. Trash FATE's can be done solo with position right either way. Single Boss too though if it looks like they are going to take too long I just leave.

Something else I have noticed is if I start a FATE any passer by will usually stop and join in. At 60 5 regions, 10 FATE's is a million experience from achievements. After that it's more about opportunity. If I am there, fine. If not I don't seek them out.

The Boss Fates need fixing as well, as they are very difficult to solo and now that the initial rush is over, no one will be doing them outside of Ixion / Foxy Lady (which are their own irritating kettle of fish). So if I want the TT card and achievement from say, the Tall Tale fate in the Lochs I am now SOL because no one does it anymore.

It'd be nifty if I could go farm some item or something which I could pop in a one of the ARR/HW achievement fates which would make it solo-able. Or, an item which would make those fates consistently spawn so I could schedule a run with my FC.

Tbh I think fates are gonna be dead for awhile. PotD is good because its cross-server and is always active, whereas fates are heavily based on your server being active when it comes to fate grinding.

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Originally Posted by Chocolys

FATE scaling idea

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Now this is a good suggestion. A blue arrow up for scaled up FATE, a red arrow down for scaled down FATE. Next to their icons. No icon at all when it's just normal.

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Originally Posted by Lilseph

Now this is a good suggestion. A blue arrow up for scaled up FATE, a red arrow down for scaled down FATE. Next to their icons. No icon at all when it's just normal.

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Sorry , that will be not so good idea. The fate scaling system what now is in place , scales around the people who killed it earlier. So if 1 killed it earlier it will scaled to 1 person. With your blue arrow system , every fate killed by 1 person will get a blue arrow and it wil be useless for the start. Blue arrows everywhere !

The more difficult and time consuming FATE's should give much more gil as a reward than they do at present.

fates in SB is the fastest way to level imo , fates with bonus give insane amount of xp

Don't worry, in a couple of months these area's will be packed once again, because we are all grinding for that new relic. Please look forward to it.

I agree, fates need a major fix, or something to make them worthwhile, as it stands right now I don't even see the point of putting them in the game tbh, they just go unnoticed and unused, I would love to see something added to make fates worth doing again as I enjoyed fate grinding as a way to level up!

Having FATEs be a good source of XP is, seriously, one of the worst things Square could do. Being a usable source while you wait for your Duty, but not replacing Duties outright, is how they should be. Like they are now.

Anyone who played during ARR will know the pain of trying to get into dungeons when FATEs were just straight up better.

They could have just done it like Guild Wars 2 and made FATEs scale both up and down according to the number of players who are currently participating rather than the number of players that participated in the previous FATE.

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Originally Posted by Rivxkobe

Having FATEs be a good source of XP is, seriously, one of the worst things Square could do. Being a usable source while you wait for your Duty, but not replacing Duties outright, is how they should be. Like they are now.

Anyone who played during ARR will know the pain of trying to get into dungeons when FATEs were just straight up better.

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I'm okay with that, but for example at level 63 you get 145k for a Ruby Sea FATE which takes 6-7 minutes if you are alone, while a dungeon grants you more than 2 million EXP in roughly 20 minutes. To me, they don't need the same time/exp ratio, but they should at least be something worth doing while waiting for queues (thing that they ATM are not)