Extreme Trial Mount Drop Suggestions

I've been playing the game since beta and remember the times of having no safety net in place for mount drops. I remember what a wonder it was to see a Nightmare Mount running around because of how rare it was. Still, back then I suggested ways to increase the drop rate if the party performed well enough or something to make it easier. They gave us the ability to buy mounts with 99 totems afterward and I'm grateful that it is indeed better than what it was. That being said, I'd never done 99 runs of any fight, usually opting to unsync the content during the following expansions. During EW, however, I wanted to attempt farming them on-content. Even spreading out 99 runs over a month and a half, it was draining and I have no feeling of accomplishment to counterbalance it. And that's being a streamer, which has allowed me to have a guaranteed group every time. Any time I farmed off stream (and I'm sure many of you can relate) there's always that one person that leaves after the first clear of a "loot/farm" run which then causes a domino effect of subsequent leavers, adding hours to the time required to get back into the fight at times.

I've done every relic step. I've waited 8 weeks for my Savage mount/gear. I've shiny hunted in Pokemon and I've ruby farmed in Monster Hunter. I'm no stranger to grinds or being at the mercy of RNG. None of those have left me even close to as dead inside as 99 runs of Zodiark.

I think mounts should still be rare. I think the grind is fine. I don't want to diminish the sense of achievement and I'm fine with keeping content alive with this. That being said, I think it could use a tweak to still be grindy, but stop short of being soul-crushing. I know there are a lot of people suffering from Stockholm Syndrome of having bad systems in other games, but I don't think that others should suffer just because it's not as bad as it could be or just because we've suffered in the past.

So here are some suggestions:

1. Drop the totem requirement to 50.
2. Don't increase the mount drop rate each patch, but increase the totems dropped by 1 with each level of Echo.
3. Make no changes to the drop rate but make it a personal loot item. No more rolling against 7 (potentially random) other players.

I prefer the first option because I think Rathalos Ex was a great balance of grind, difficulty, and feeling of achievement. I freaking love that mount and I wouldn't have that drop rate changed at all. But it's not up to me. I will concede to the will of our community. What say you?

Speaking as someone who doesn't even have the confidence to tackle extremes/savages in their entirety, having to do a single one up to //99// times sounds absolutely ridiculous, and I cannot fathom how the entire playerbase hasn't just collectively said "thanks but no thanks."

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Originally Posted by SuperIchi

Speaking as someone who doesn't even have the confidence to tackle extremes/savages in their entirety, having to do a single one up to //99// times sounds absolutely ridiculous, and I cannot fathom how the entire playerbase hasn't just collectively said "thanks but no thanks."

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A lot of the fights really aren't that hard when you've seen the mechanics(for extremes at least, I personally don't do savages). The problem is, a lot of people tunnel vision and don't watch for visual cues, or adjust for things like Tidal Wave that knocks you around. Then there are the ones who "cleared" it by getting carried - even during a synced run - for older content, and expect that same level of activity when doing current end game ones and still be able to do fine.

Just this weekend I've joined 3 EW EX2 "farm" groups where we couldn't even get past the transition part due to healers/tanks not doing what's needed to complete it.

And right now, the Shinryuu EX farm party I'm in, only 4 of the 8 people can actually live to get to the second phase.

I agree with them needing to reduce the number of runs! I'll echo what I already said on twitter, but I've been getting every EX trial mount when they were relevant since Stormblood. I already finished my grind of 99 totems for the two current EX trials (I saw the 2 mounts drop around 24 times total and never rolled above a 30) and it wasn't a process that really took any skill. It was just a mindless grind where I don't even get my reward for it for another few months. I'm fine with some form of a grind still existing as people want to have the newest mounts to flex. But 99 is just excessive. It's weird that Diamond gave 2 per run but the 2 new trials didn't. Diamond wasn't even a very long or challenging fight. Either reduce the number of runs needed or bump the totem drop to 2 per run.

The way Shadowbringers handled things was pretty inconsistent. You have Diamond which is a fairly short fight giving 2 totems, but then only give 1 for Ruby+Emerald who are both significantly longer. A check point doesn't mean it's okay for me to spend double the amount of time as Diamond for half the reward. Just blanket give all the EX trials 2 totems for the sake of consistency. It's not like I'm against grinds or spending a lot of time on something, I did Eureka+BA pre nerfs when they came out, I've cleared 2 of the Ultimates 7 times each, I got my Bozja relics the hard way, got all the TT cards and have several Zodiac weapons. But I don't think anything would be lost by reducing the number of runs I have to do for an EX trial mount. The fewer times I have to see someone that spent the whole time on the floor win the mount over me the better.

New mounts are ugly as sin and are not worth the death of my dwindling sanity. Stopping at Landerwaffe. Legit if it wasn't for the two per run of Diamond, I wouldn't have the Gwiber. And it's not because the fight is hard, it's the easiest of the weapon Extremes. It's the unforgivably bad parties I've been mostly saddled with while all the good players unsubbed until EW dropped.

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Originally Posted by Drakanous

None of those have left me even close to as dead inside as 99 runs of Zodiark.

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This. I've had exhaustion problems with some of the old trials - Emerald and Diamond come to mind but neither of em came as close to how annoyed I am with Zodiark in particular.

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Originally Posted by Drakanous

Make no changes to the drop rate but make it a personal loot item. No more rolling against 7 (potentially random) other players.

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I would actually prefer tying the mount to an achievement ex. killing the boss X number of times, or have a faux hollows kind of thing where you have an NPC that tracks if you've done special achievements for each boss, ex. not get a single vuln stack, kill it in less than X seconds, etc. and get some special currency for those special achievements that you can trade for more tokens or something.

Alternatively, make it so that if the mount drops, everyone in the party gets it.

I agree completely as someone who loves to collect mounts in game it really does that to get to the point where you are just not enjoying the grind when it takes this long and by no means do I want the mounts to feel like free hand outs but I feel like at the very least reducing the amount needed to buy a mount to 50 and at least doubling the drop rate(which feels like 1% at best atm) should be a obvious direction for the game to move in. I am likely to do more than that cause I will join and help friends get the mount but after you have the mount and are just helping it doesn't feel as depressingly grindy after you got yours. It doesn't help that the pf isn't getting any better at doing mount run either so I generally try to avoid it entirely now and just do full fc runs even then it took over 50 runs to get my WoL mount and that is with 8 people some who had it and some who didn't. Extremes have always been some of my favorited content in the game but the grind lately to just farm up totems because it feels like the chance of seeing a mount from a on patch extreme is next to 0 is starting to take all the fun out of it.

It is annoying how long it takes to get the EX mounts. Personally I didn't get any ShB mounts cause they were too grindy for me at the time. But I probably would have if I wasn't busy with Savage, Ultimates, and Bozja.

Regardless of my subjective feelings on it, I understand why they make it so grindy. It's to keep the content relevant for as long as possible, to allow late-comers the ability to easily find PF groups. Basically they break it into 4 waves: The people who grind super hard for the actual mount drops or 99 totems; people who grind slightly more casually and get their 99 totems in a few months; people who wait for the increased drop rate; and new players or ultra-patient people who just wait for the next expac to farm it unsynced. That way, if a new player (or a veteran who couldn't play for a while) starts doing an EX fight at any point within a year of release, they won't have to wait very long to find a decent group. And it gets gradually easier as it gets less populated, so it's never impossible to farm.

If the devs are primarily worried about the health of PF, and allowing people to find farm groups for months and months, they're going to be very hesitant to buff the drops rates or totem cost. It's the same thing with Roulettes. They give the veterans a reason to grind old content for 100s of hours (tomestones for the gear treadmill/exp for alt classes + amaro mount) so that there's always a ready supply of party members. As long as people are willing to farm 99 totems (begrudgingly or not), the system is working perfectly - i.e. it's keeping players in the game, grouping up for relevant content, for as long as possible.

At least they aren't pure RNG drops. And at least they get easier to obtain over time. So I dunno. It would be nice if they lowered the totem cost a little bit, to like 80, but I don't think the devs need or want to make it much faster. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I have seen 10+ mount drops in Seat of Sacrifice and didn't get a single one. It's extremely soul-crushing when the people that got the mount leave and you didn't get it after hours of farming it.

Dropping the mount total to 50 seems like a reasonable move. And I'm not just saying that because doing Byakko EX 99+ times eroded my will to play this game for a year. The Rathalos mount is also 50 tokens to exchange for the mount, so that already has precedent.

Giving Totems to the ARR Primals might also be nice for newer players, maybe, if only so you can trade for Nightmare if it drops. In that particular case, I'd say 20 Totems from Ifrit, Garuda, and Titan each would be a reasonable trade-in.

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Originally Posted by SuperIchi

Speaking as someone who doesn't even have the confidence to tackle extremes/savages in their entirety, having to do a single one up to //99// times sounds absolutely ridiculous, and I cannot fathom how the entire playerbase hasn't just collectively said "thanks but no thanks."

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Extreme and savage bring a new aspect to gameplay, competency. Savage more so. Getting better at the fight on one job or multiple jobs is part of the fun. And you get friends to come with you.

trying to grind on content drop is just a waste of time imo for EX mounts. as much as you "need" it you don't really "need" it. but that's just me. I am not really feelin the style choice this expansion either for the EX mounts so my motivation is low even though I like to collect mounts. I know it'll just get easier over time so I'm taking it chill for now.

100% support this idea. 99 is waaaay to high.

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Originally Posted by SuperIchi

Speaking as someone who doesn't even have the confidence to tackle extremes/savages in their entirety, having to do a single one up to //99// times sounds absolutely ridiculous, and I cannot fathom how the entire playerbase hasn't just collectively said "thanks but no thanks."

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The thing about fights in this game in general, but even mroe so EXes and Savage, is that they become authomatic the more and more you do them. So while when you're still clearing them, or even more when you never cleared any, farming them may seem like an imossible prospect, the fight actually becomes easier and easier the more you do it. So much that people (not me, I suck and I still need to focus) end up just farming them while watching something on the second screen.

The most daunting part about farming is the rng: when it seems the mount never drops, when it seems in every party you're the only one who never wins loot, when people just get the mount and leave, and so on.
The token system kinda makes up for the RNG but it needing so many tokens means that you have to be super unlucky to use them. Also, it means that instead of getting weapons with them you have to save them "just in case", which sucks.
So I totally agree for halving the cost of the totems, 99 is way too many.

Why would they ease the grind when it keeps you playing the game? Gotta get that sub money somehow.

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Originally Posted by ShinPunnyD

Alternatively, make it so that if the mount drops, everyone in the party gets it.

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That just means the drop rate will become microscopic to balance things out.

I liked the Hades EX model of dropping two tokens per-clear. I did the fight on-content for the 50 clears. I enjoyed it and the time to do the fight was warranted. The exaflare safe spot cheese was hilarious, was beautiful as a healer since i can just stand there, handle bleeds and do damage.

They won't do this again unless the fight has that difficulty and time it takes to clear, but I hope they make more of these kind of extremes so they can.

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Originally Posted by technole

I liked the Hades EX model of dropping two tokens per-clear. I did the fight on-content for the 50 clears. I enjoyed it and the time to do the fight was warranted. The exaflare safe spot cheese was hilarious, was beautiful as a healer since i can just stand there, handle bleeds and do damage.

They won't do this again unless the fight has that difficulty and time it takes to clear, but I hope they make more of these kind of extremes so they can.

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Diamond Weapon also drops two tokens.

When I first found out that you needed 99 tokens I thought it was a joke.

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Originally Posted by SuperIchi

Speaking as someone who doesn't even have the confidence to tackle extremes/savages in their entirety, having to do a single one up to //99// times sounds absolutely ridiculous, and I cannot fathom how the entire playerbase hasn't just collectively said "thanks but no thanks."

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Mainly because the fights aren't actually difficult, it's just a slightly longer dance to learn than hard mode equivalents.
Once you know how a fight works, very rarely would it ever change. They don't really rely on randomness too much in regards to fight mechanics so you always know what to expect every time.

Which in turn, makes farming it easy, but monotonous and draining, like Drakanous was complaining about.

I'm fine with 99 totems, but I do wish the mounts were available with totems from release.

Many people I know, including myself, just don't bother with current EX beyond farming a weapon, because it seems silly to burn so much time on it when you can stomp it later with Echo, gear and a boosted droprate. I'd actually prefer to run more while it's current because at least there's some faint hint of a challenge, but it feels like wasted time.

Instead of having the mounts be pure rng at first, they could have the mounts cost 99 totems on release, then lower the cost to 50 on a later patch.