Fate grinding should return

I've recently resubbed to the game and have been leveling a number of alts - most of them DPS (I want to eventually main Sage, but that's a while off, and I need a distraction until them). As far as I can tell, queues for DPS on the leveling roulette tend to average about 8-15 minutes - it can be more; it can be less, but that's about what you wind up with at most hours of the day.

Simply put: fate grinding is faster experience that. In fact, I'd go so far as to say it is much faster experience than that. I might gain - at best - three quarters of a level in a single dungeon over the course of 30ish minutes (40 including the queue). Provided that there are 2-3 people working fates in an area, I seem to average at least half that time for a full level. In fact, the experience gains seem to be almost incomparable.

The essential element, of course, is that it's not faster if you're solo - especially after about level 35ish, when the boss fates become very difficult (if not impossible) for a DPS job to do alone. Stack 2-3 additional people into that mix, though, and it's cake.

I just think it's a shame that we can't go back to the days when people zerged fates to level. I know that a lot of you found it boring... but so is sitting in queues for 10+ minutes, just to run the same 2-3 dungeons over and over again. At least I met people when fate grinding; at least the scenery changed a little; at least the action was pretty much constant.

That's all.

Buying a boost is probably the best option. I think even SE has suggested it. :)

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Originally Posted by SturmChurro

Buying a boost is probably the best option. I think even SE has suggested it. :)

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Yeah, but I don't really want to boost. Firstly, because I never really feel as comfortable with the job as I'd like to be. Second, because I don't feel like I've earned anything (this isn't an indictment of boosting - I have boosted a few jobs myself; not attacking anyone for doing it). Thirdly, because it's kind of contrary to the goal of playing the game (I don't really care for Shadowbringers' endgame [again, that's just me]) - rushing to the end just seems... contrary to what I'm trying to do. But so does sitting in queues.

I must admit I did enjoy a F.A.T.E. farm from time to time back in 2.x and it was better than sitting in queues.

You can use squadrons though if the queues are long, I'm not sure what the minimum level is though but they aren't too slow in the dungeon and better than a slow DF party to be honest.

I want to add one other thing. This is, to a degree, selfish, stupid, and irrelevant, but fate grinding made the world feel alive and populated in a way it just doesn't now. Even if I wasn't actively leveling, I loved seeing people out and about in the world - not just loitering in cities, waiting for their next group to pop up.

I would love to see them do something to bring ppl back into the world but idk about fates. Now if they revamped the system and gave us new objectives instead of the same 5 fates again and again, or made it so that fates had some sort of impact on the world. Maybe add a ranking system in or use campaign from ffxi as a template for more. That would make them much much more worthwhile.

As it stands now tho, fates are about the most boring, underdeveloped and overused content in the game. I mean, they even had to bribe us to do fates in ShB by adding tokens and locking away items behind them, so that alone I think is a huge tell what the population at large feels about them at this point.

I remember back in ARR people whined and whined that they were too easy so the response from SE was to bloat them up with HP in HW and onwards which basically killed the efficiency of fate grinding. POTD was pretty much the final nail since it provided people with an even lower effort way to get exp. Killing weak trash in a room that looks the same as every other room is way better than fate trains in the overworld though amirite guys?

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Originally Posted by hobostew

I remember back in ARR people whined and whined that they were too easy so the response from SE was to bloat them up with HP in HW and onwards which basically killed the efficiency of fate grinding. POTD was pretty much the final nail since it provided people with an even lower effort way to get exp. Killing weak trash in a room that looks the same as every other room is way better than fate trains in the overworld though amirite guys?

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I hate POTD. People are always in such a rush; are so absolutely angry if you, say, go for an item or explore an unnecessary room. It makes me never want to go back.

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Originally Posted by hobostew

I remember back in ARR people whined and whined that they were too easy so the response from SE was to bloat them up with HP in HW and onwards which basically killed the efficiency of fate grinding. POTD was pretty much the final nail since it provided people with an even lower effort way to get exp. Killing weak trash in a room that looks the same as every other room is way better than fate trains in the overworld though amirite guys?

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If there is one thing that seems to be the same in every game ever it's that players whine and moan that it should be better, while putting in 8 hours a day for a decade. Then, when the devs listen and change stuff another group either finds something else to whine about, or people who liked it the old way start whining instead.

I used to have this at work all the time until I learned to just ignore them, people would moan about something so I'd sort it out and the next day, or even later the same day, they would find something else to whine about. It never ends.

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Originally Posted by TeraRamis

I hate POTD. People are always in such a rush; are so absolutely angry if you, say, go for an item or explore an unnecessary room. It makes me never want to go back.

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But that is because, just like doing fates, speed running POTD is the most efficient way to do it since the exp you get comes from finishing the 10 floor run. Even hunting silver chests and leveling up your aetherpool is slowed down by killing everything and popping every chest. If you are just slowly meandering around, looking at all the rooms and killing all the things you are doing the equivalent of just pulling one pack of mobs at a time or not using aoes, which is also the type of play style that is going to get you booted from a dungeon or make you enemy #1 in your party.

If you want to take your time and see everything, you have the option to do it solo so you don't waste 3 other ppls time, making this a non-issue.

I farm fates in ShB areas now and again since I still need to cap those places on the gemstones. Older ones, I just find a bit dull to do solely for exp. I will sometimes do them when I am in a que though.

I love the FATE system, it adds some personality to a very very bland overworld. From Fighting off a giant elephant with the anata to impressing said anata for a personal spar, to fighting Spiked-Butt in ishgard.

But I don’t like being forced to do it for relics and Yo-kai idk how they can compromise it. Maybe rare fates or exclusive rewards Beast tribe style? Idk but I do love then concept

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Originally Posted by Jirah

I love the FATE system, it adds some personality to a very very bland overworld. From Fighting off a giant elephant with the anata to impressing said anata for a personal spar, to fighting Spiked-Butt in ishgard.

But I don’t like being forced to do it for relics and Yo-kai idk how they can compromise it. Maybe rare fates or exclusive rewards Beast tribe style? Idk but I do love then concept

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One of my favorite fates involved rating the Redbelly fort in South Shroud. I think multi-stage, heavily group-dependent fates are the best. It really feels like something epic is going on.

Date grind is really boring imo, but the world feels empty without them ^^

2.0 era fate trains were decent, and I would like to see fates be an alternative to leveling, but I highly doubt they will do that because SE needs a steady trickle of players to do dungeons to ensure new players have as short a queue time as possible.

Again, I agree options are great, but unless they make all dungeons solo(trust/squadron capable), I think the devs hands are tied.

You can still do it, i did Fate lvling while completing my gemstones ranks, and got 2 classes from 70 to 80, ppls just arent interested in it anymore.

I can understand that. Fates zerg in coerthas for leveling was in fact more fun and similar feeling to fate train in Eureka. It feels more MMO than silent dungeon runs.

If no one is doing fates and I mean no one. Most jobs can solo fates in under 4 mins with a bird. The boss one's are even easier. I get it is not the 60 seconds or less fate train. But it is still a minuscule amount of time and if someone sees a fate going down they usually pop over and finish it with you making them faster. One of the keys is to do fates in areas where daily best tribe quests are since they generally have the odd person roaming for extra help.


It would take a complete rework of servers. But congregating players onto one server and then instancing the zones out to make the real world fuller would probably keep old zones more active. We don't need X amount of Northern Thanalans across all worlds. We need maybe one or two. They would probably have to discuss S ranks and reevaluate how they spawn. A korean MMO that flopped had an interesting idea about those types of mobs where they were their own instance not really hindering game play of the people in the zone.

We're already grinding FATE a lot for relic for example through bozja or worldmap, ShB had its reward system with fates...
I think we're good if that.

There's already a reason to do fates in ShB: the Shared Fates system, which gives you pretty nice rewards for doing so. (hope that comes back for Endwalker) And most people I know do use fates to cap off a level if they are close. But their are definitely other, better ways to level that Fates should only be supplements to getting exp when you've exausted your other options for the day.

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Originally Posted by TeraRamis

I want to add one other thing. This is, to a degree, selfish, stupid, and irrelevant, but fate grinding made the world feel alive and populated in a way it just doesn't now. Even if I wasn't actively leveling, I loved seeing people out and about in the world - not just loitering in cities, waiting for their next group to pop up.

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Populated I'll give you but alive nope... one of the reasons people hate fates so much is because there lifeless. Nothing ever happens. Winning or losing losing fate doesn't change the zone or the world in any way..

Oh look a bunch of monsters attacking the settlement and stealing all the food. If you totally ignore that fate and let the monsters run riot. The settlement will be just fine. If you help them out and clear the monsters out the settlement is still just fine.. there is zero difference and that is both incredibly boringnand incredibly lifeless.

Fates would be so much more interesting if they shaped the world in some way.. ffxi had things like campaign battles and besieged. Which was essentially just an older version of a fate. But they shaped the world.. if you lost besieged you lost the candescance. If you won the besieged monsters in the open world would be easier and in fewer numbers. You'd see less trolls in zaylohom for example if you just smashed a level 8 besieged against them...

Fates suck though they have sucked since 2.0 pretty much which is why people hate them so much. And it's also the big reason the diadem never succeeded. Because it was basically just a fate zone and everyone hated fates.

IDK about everyone else, but I've been leveling by doing fates and I still see a decent amount of people who are also doing fates, especially once I hit the Stormblood zones. So even though it's not as popular as it once was, it is still around.

Thanks to the broken EXP system, jobs starting later and later, and horrid level curves Fates aren’t popular anymore. Thanks “Road to 70” one of ff14 content that undermines its other content like the moogle tomes

Fate grinding is boring af anyway.

Plus, with the trains, you've got no shot in hell at getting a good score.

my number one issue with fates: they are EVERYWHERE

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Originally Posted by MicahZerrshia

But that is because, just like doing fates, speed running POTD is the most efficient way to do it since the exp you get comes from finishing the 10 floor run. Even hunting silver chests and leveling up your aetherpool is slowed down by killing everything and popping every chest. If you are just slowly meandering around, looking at all the rooms and killing all the things you are doing the equivalent of just pulling one pack of mobs at a time or not using aoes, which is also the type of play style that is going to get you booted from a dungeon or make you enemy #1 in your party.

If you want to take your time and see everything, you have the option to do it solo so you don't waste 3 other ppls time, making this a non-issue.

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Ah yes. Getting items to help in the PoTD run and leveling your aether weapon and armor isna waste of time. Wtf. I have yet to be kicked from a PoTD group as I went for a silver chest. Low aether and no items = longer run.

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Originally Posted by AngelCheese77

Ah yes. Getting items to help in the PoTD run and leveling your aether weapon and armor isna waste of time. Wtf. I have yet to be kicked from a PoTD group as I went for a silver chest. Low aether and no items = longer run.

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It's been awhile but I have had a run or two where the people started complaining that I popped a transformation potion to kill all enemies to grab some silver chests. Thankfully these are few and far between.

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Originally Posted by TeraRamis

I just think it's a shame that we can't go back to the days when people zerged fates to level. I know that a lot of you found it boring... but so is sitting in queues for 10+ minutes, just to run the same 2-3 dungeons over and over again. At least I met people when fate grinding; at least the scenery changed a little; at least the action was pretty much constant.

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Put up a PF. Shout in zone chat. There will be some who will join you just as they come and go from the Memory farming FATE parties.

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Originally Posted by AngelCheese77

Ah yes. Getting items to help in the PoTD run and leveling your aether weapon and armor isna waste of time. Wtf. I have yet to be kicked from a PoTD group as I went for a silver chest. Low aether and no items = longer run.

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When it comes to pomanders, they are useful but not enough to go out of your way for one esp with the rng, and even the best pomanders are not going to make up for the time you spent needlessly running around 9 floors, not to mention you will get an insane amount anyway just by popping the chests you pass as you look for and open the cairn. And aetherpool is static and doesn't decrease, so even when it comes to silver chests, you are slowing yourself down by checking every room since the majority of the time you find nothing or fighting your way through 3 extra rooms for 1 chest that may or may not get you a point. Pop the chests you pass along the way and you are good to go. POTD floors 1-60 is about leveling jobs so prioritizing speed is how you optimize the entire run.

Run through, doing what is needed and getting out, will level your job and your aetherpool much faster than meticulously checking every nook and cranny, and I say this after leveling+ 20 jobs on multiple characters in potd.

As someone that's been doing the Zodiac books over about the past week or so on an alt, I can tell you that at least on my server people are still out there doing FATEs. Lost a good two or three of what I was clearing other FATEs to spawn because others got there first.

It's not like it was in its heyday, but it will never be like that again now that there's Deep Dungeon and Bozja. DPS queues are the devil, which is one of the reasons things like Deep Dungeon were created. They don't have role requirements until the fixed party floors, so any combination works.

There was an extra rush of FATE running when ShB came out because they gave an extra goodie for running them. I still see folks out and about. So they can do more things like that to encourage activity.

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Originally Posted by TeraRamis

I just think it's a shame that we can't go back to the days when people zerged fates to level. I know that a lot of you found it boring...

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Considering is was basically the only efficient way to level at ARR launch and even for a patch or so afterwards...yeah, you better believe I find Fates boring even now. I haven't liked them for 7 years. That said, I wouldn't have an issue with them making Fates an actual leveling alternative so long as it doesn't dwarf everything else. As long as the time spent and exp gains are the same for most sources I wouldn't care. I'm guessing POTD and HoH will always be an outlier of sorts.

Easy fix, make fate grinding meant something for players. (I know, I know GC seals & experience points).

How about adding other rewards like tomestones, make "normal" fate drop exclusive mounts & exclusive gears (like Ixal, toad suit, odin etc) & perhaps maybe treasure maps?

Edit: adding big chunks of gold might also inspired some players to do it. I really love fate grinding to see the beautiful outdoors but I'm lacking the motivation to do it other than lvling subjobs.

Personally I wish battlecraft leves went beyond lv58 and leve sharing was actually encouraged, because my problem with fate grinding is that I'm at the mercy of what the game lets me do when it wants.

Wait... do fates not give good XP anymore? I just returned so im not sure what changed. I myself will not boost because i want to learn my character and not just have it appear as higher level. BUT if i was still used to the game then i might boost xD

Grind fates while you wait for your dungeon queue. Problem solved.

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Originally Posted by ReynTime

Personally I wish battlecraft leves went beyond lv58 and leve sharing was actually encouraged, because my problem with fate grinding is that I'm at the mercy of what the game lets me do when it wants.

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This isn’t a bad idea; I would also say increase the xp gain significantly to where roulette is still the best, but after that have them be equally competitive with fates and running additional non roulette dungeons. Basically “do whatever you want as long as your putting in time and a reasonable effort”

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Originally Posted by GeorgiaB

Wait... do fates not give good XP anymore? I just returned so im not sure what changed. I myself will not boost because i want to learn my character and not just have it appear as higher level. BUT if i was still used to the game then i might boost xD

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The exp is half decent but it's soundly beaten by other things such as Palace of the Dead and Heaven on High. As a result, not many people do F.A.T.E. battles anymore meaning they take longer, further reducing the exp per hour.

As a obligatory thing? Nah
Wish they beef up faiths to be like in Bozjan and Zadnor that would make things interesting.

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Originally Posted by Takamorisan

As a obligatory thing? Nah
Wish they beef up faiths to be like in Bozjan and Zadnor that would make things interesting.

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Either that or delete them.
It's just boring.