Trophy Crystal grind feedback

The point I want to make here is offering suggestions that will add motivations for players to grind, instead of just old-school "grind a lot for little rewards" that discourage players from grinding. Of course, the game is cool at not asking players to not too focused on grinding and let them taking break, but I think it is reasonable to offer solutions for people who actually want to grind, while players who take break can still chime in occasionally and get some well-earned rewards for their contributions toward the liveliness of the content.



Back to the topic, after you get 28k Crystals from the series milestone and reach lv30, it will require 20k EXP for a mere 1k crystals. It doesn't feel like a grind many players want to do since too much efforts for little rewards.


For anyone interests in getting Hellhound stuffs or perhaps the reskinned Virtu gear for whatever reason, this becomes super grindy as these items require a large amount of crystal (10k crystal/hellhound weapon). In case you just want to buy all current one-time items (job actions and barding/minion), it requires 30,500 crystals, so you will have to grind 60k EXP to get them all.



I feel like challenge logs should update to provide trophy crystals, so that people will have motivation to pvp for weekly goals. Perhaps 1,000 per "participation x times" goal and 1,500 (or 2,000) per "win x times" goal.



Daily frontline should net you some crystal too. Prefer 500 crystals per pop.



Additionally, allowing to trade wolf marks into Crystals. 20k mark should yield you around 5k crystal (4:1 ratio).


Also, to prevent players hoarding crystals and buy off new rewards of next season day one, next series should use a different type of currency and convert the outdated one into wolf mark, not so different from how tomestone works.


In addition, series milestones should have crystal rewards scaled properly. If I grind 2,000 exp for 1,000 crystal, I believe grinding 5,000 exp should give more crystals sound reasonable enough.

I agree, after reaching lvl 30 myself I've been doing a healthy amount of Frontlines, CC, and I've been playing the majority of the day and I've gotten a level and a half. I think a challenge log incentive would be great as well as a daily one to incentivize and lessen the grind for a lot of people, on the plus side PvP has been super fun so I think this would also keep more people around for some more staying longevity for PvP.

I also agree with trading Wolf Marks into crystals, there isn't much to buy with them once you have everything and 15k per Materia X is just not worth it imo, turning it into Crystals would be much better.

I'd add a challenge log for FL and CC that each give 1k trophies per week, to start with
And increase frontlines exp gain, it is only slightly higher than CC for much longer games.

3rd, increase EXP gained from wins in CC to incentivize winning, because the "optimal" thing to do if you're just grinding out your levels is to give up if your team is getting stomped instead of stalling to try and get a come back, which isn't good design imo

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Originally Posted by Momo_Kozuki

I feel like challenge logs should update to provide trophy crystals, so that people will have motivation to pvp for weekly goals. Perhaps 1,000 per "participation x times" goal and 1,500 (or 2,000) per "win x times" goal.


Daily frontline should net you some crystal too. Prefer 500 crystals per pop.

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agree that this would be a nice incentive to keep some more activity over the long term.

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Originally Posted by Momo_Kozuki

Additionally, allowing to trade wolf marks into Crystals. 20k mark should yield you around 5k crystal (4:1 ratio).

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if they did this they might aswell abandon wolf marks alltogether and just make everything cost crystals, so i'd have to disagree unless you want to argue for exactly that.

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Originally Posted by Momo_Kozuki

Also, to prevent players hoarding crystals and buy off new rewards of next season day one, next series should use a different type of currency and convert the outdated one into wolf mark, not so different from how tomestone works.

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i think the cap works just fine for that purpose. pve (and tomestones) are different in that the time it takes you to gear up via tomestones is actually intentionally designed to keep you weak for a while and than have you progressively get stronger. as pvp power level is normalized and the stuff you get for crystals is just cosmetic in nature it doesn't really matter if someone has a slight headstart, no reason to add new and additional currencies (as at least the "old" crystals would need to stay for a while) just because you can.

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Originally Posted by Momo_Kozuki

In addition, series milestones should have crystal rewards scaled properly. If I grind 2,000 exp for 1,000 crystal, I believe grinding 5,000 exp should give more crystals sound reasonable enough.

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yes and no. while i agree that 20k exp for 1k crystals is excessive and no on one would be hurt if level 11-20 for example gave 2k crystals instead of 1k there is no reason for it to scale proportionally, and yes i know you did not say it has to be proportionally but you would now at least need to define what you think "scaled properly" means, it isn't necessarely wrong for a game to give you the first few things at an easier rate before starting to let you work for all the rest.


to be clear, while i might sound overly critical here i'm totally in favor of offering some extra rewards here or there (like you said, dailies, the weekly challenge log, maybe at least 2k or even 3k crystals at max rank) because yes, i also see the problem of people just dropping out once they feel the rewards aren't worth the effort, i just think the deeper implications of your proposed changes to crystals (outside of the pure acquisition aspect) aren't thought out to well.

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Originally Posted by Momo_Kozuki

I feel like challenge logs should update to provide trophy crystals, so that people will have motivation to pvp for weekly goals. Perhaps 1,000 per "participation x times" goal and 1,500 (or 2,000) per "win x times" goal.

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Originally Posted by Reimmi

I'd add a challenge log for FL and CC that each give 1k trophies per week, to start with

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So simple, yet so genius.

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Originally Posted by Reimmi

I'd add a challenge log for FL and CC that each give 1k trophies per week, to start with

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Aren't the trophies only from ranked CC? (It's late, I may be misremembering.) If so, while an FL (or casual CC) challenge in the weekly challenge log would be cool to keep it active, I do think any challenge that awards trophies should only involve ranked CC.

I do think this is the right solution overall, though. Something like "Win 3 ranked Crystalline Conflict matches as a tank." "Win 3 ranked Crystalline Conflict matches as a healer." and "Win 3 ranked Crystalline Conflict matches as a DPS." -- each could give 1k, so you get 3k per week if you aim at doing it on three different jobs, one for each role. Or "Participate in 5 ranked Crystalline Conflict matches as..." if you don't want to make it dependent on wins. (Which, to be fair, at lower ranks can be really hit-or-miss depending on the team you get.)

Alternatively, if folks want it to be good for advancement too (at lower levels) and not just outright give trophy crystals, it could work like the Eureka challenge log, where it could give you a chunk of seasonal XP scaled to your current malmstone level; that would make it good for advancement for folks just starting out, but also help with the crystal grind for those already above malmstone 30.

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Originally Posted by Packetdancer

Aren't the trophies only from ranked CC? (It's late, I may be misremembering.) If so, while an FL (or casual CC) challenge in the weekly challenge log would be cool to keep it active, I do think any challenge that awards trophies should only involve ranked CC.

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No, I was able to get progress for Series Malmstones by doing just Casual CC. Got like 2K before I abruptly stopped after buying the minion.

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Originally Posted by RobynDaBank

No, I was able to get progress for Series Malmstones by doing just Casual CC. Got like 2K before I abruptly stopped after buying the minion.

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Huh! Good to know. I don't think I've gotten any series XP from Frontlines, but if you get the series advancement from casual CC as well, then yeah, the weekly challenge log entries should be for any Crystalline Conflict match, not just ranked.

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Originally Posted by Packetdancer

Huh! Good to know. I don't think I've gotten any series XP from Frontlines, but if you get the series advancement from casual CC as well, then yeah, the weekly challenge log entries should be for any Crystalline Conflict match, not just ranked.

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Frontline gives Series exp too.

And yes, 20k exp for 1000 trophy crystals is pretty awful.

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Originally Posted by MomomiMomi

Frontline gives Series exp too.

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...I grant I may have just been spamming ranked CC enough that brief forays into the other stuff doesn't really register much on the series XP bar anymore, then; I stand corrected. (Well, I sit corrected, since I'm at a desk.)

You also get series exp from Frontlines.

I disagree at the moment..

We have no idea if they will add rewards to buy with those in upcoming series.
The only thing we know is that the series 1 rewards will be added to the pool.
If they make the currency easier to obtain, they will be just like wolf marks in a couple months: people would already have all the collectible/glam items they want, and won't play PvP anymore because there is no carrot anymore.
Or worse: they would be frustrated playing series 2, because they would gain more crystals from playing the series than what they need to purchase items they want.

Also, the items you can purchase with trophy crystals will for sure still be the same when season 2 starts in 6.18. So people who will grind the second season will at least have something more to gain from playing the season.

So I currently don't think it's healthy for the mode mid/long term to simplify it.

Another thing to keep in mind with the hellhound weapons. Previously, you had to participate in at least 2 seasons to get one of those weapons.
So you had to wait for months to get just one of them, on top of having to grind each season's ranking.
Now you can at least farm for it if you reaaally want it.

My point: Unless they adjust the reward pool in each patch cycle (which I doubt at this point), I think the current rate is sufficient.

If 6.2 comes out and they add new items to buy for dozens thousand crystals, then I will agree that something would need to be done.
But I would be surprised if that happens, especially considering the price of the Virtu gear and hellhound weapons.
I think they designed it this way on purpose because there is no plan to add a lot more in 6.X.

I'm barely even grinding before 30, let alone when I actually reach it.

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Originally Posted by Reimmi

3rd, increase EXP gained from wins in CC to incentivize winning, because the "optimal" thing to do if you're just grinding out your levels is to give up if your team is getting stomped instead of stalling to try and get a come back, which isn't good design imo

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Yes please

I dont have any issue with the EXP or the pass itself
but the final level (the infinite one) should really be 10k exp needed not 20k

As much as I appreciate any reduction in how much PVP I have to play per amount of rewards, I would like to see it tilted towards getting more series EXP than more crystals. (And also more clarity about what is going to happen to the "series malmstone" rewards once the series is over, and how much in general is permanent.)

For me at least, grinding up to get the Archfiend set is going to give me more trophy crystals than I have plans for right now, and I get the impression that the Virtu collection is permanent and they can't be adding that many more sets on a regular basis.

It amazes me how people still want something nerfed that already has been nerfed to the ground. Some people used to play a year in The Feast for 1 simple Hellhound weapon, now you get several in a few days. It is extremely easier than it was. If you get everything in a week, you would be here complaining that there are no rewards in PvP and that PvP doesn't have any incentive to play it.

I would still like if there is an upgraded Hellhound version with particles effects with wolf collars, it could be a 'PvP relic' type of thing to grind longterm for, then the grind is similar to PvE analogues.

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Originally Posted by Commander_Justitia

It amazes me how people still want something nerfed that already has been nerfed to the ground. Some people used to play a year in The Feast for 1 simple Hellhound weapon, now you get several in a few days. It is extremely easier than it was. If you get everything in a week, you would be here complaining that there are no rewards in PvP and that PvP doesn't have any incentive to play it.

I would still like if there is an upgraded Hellhound version with particles effects with wolf collars, it could be a 'PvP relic' type of thing to grind longterm for, then the grind is similar to PvE analogues.

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Enduring bad mechanics is not a badge of honor. You just that, endured even worse grind back then.

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Originally Posted by Commander_Justitia

It amazes me how people still want something nerfed that already has been nerfed to the ground. Some people used to play a year in The Feast for 1 simple Hellhound weapon, now you get several in a few days. It is extremely easier than it was. If you get everything in a week, you would be here complaining that there are no rewards in PvP and that PvP doesn't have any incentive to play it.

I would still like if there is an upgraded Hellhound version with particles effects with wolf collars, it could be a 'PvP relic' type of thing to grind longterm for, then the grind is similar to PvE analogues.

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PvP relic would be pretty cool that's an interesting idea and would be fun to mess around with, the other point about people playing a year in the Feast while I respect the people who have faithfully grinded their Hellhound gear out there, but there were many that didn't. I'm not lumping everyone who got the OG armor and weapons cheaters/win traders but that's what stopped me back in the day from going into ranked Feast back when I was on Primal, you were gated by the people who controlled it for years and I never did ranked again until this PvP revamp.

I know that the old rewards were more of a hassle and annoying but I'd rather SE went this route while rewarding people to play PvP more and more, more incentives means more longevity, which means insta ques, whole days of PvP it's been super nice. I don't wanna go back to the old Feast ques that were 25 mins+ and even then you'd get the same people AFKing, but I do think a PvP relic is something I'd like to see and grind for in the long term.

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Originally Posted by Reimmi

I'd add a challenge log for FL and CC that each give 1k trophies per week, to start with
And increase frontlines exp gain, it is only slightly higher than CC for much longer games.

3rd, increase EXP gained from wins in CC to incentivize winning, because the "optimal" thing to do if you're just grinding out your levels is to give up if your team is getting stomped instead of stalling to try and get a come back, which isn't good design imo

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An increased reward for winning would be good, though I do feel that they need to keep the exp for losing we currently have as a baseline. But a nerf of, say, 200 to make it 500 for a loss wouldn't be too bad.

I think it's a too early to call tbh.

while you are accurate in that there only 28k "free" or easier to gain TC through the Series Pass...
We don't know how often often nor how many items will be added to the Wolves' Den vendor with each patch.

Right now we assume that the series 2 pass with patch 6.2 will have a similar structure with at least 5 new unique rewards at the equivalent "malmstones" and another 28k TC. However, I don't realistically expect them to add the same amount of items to the vendors in patch 6.2 and most of the inventory will carried over and be the same.

In essence, I think the psychology behind the 20k exp for 1000 TC is more so that anyone grinding ranked CC still slowly gets drip fed something through the process.
While grinding the 20k exp for 1000 TC for enough crystals to buy everything either through FL or casual CC seems like an endeavor into madness as there will inevitably be another large injection of easier to get TC with each Series Pass with less and less items to buy with TC over time.

There definitely needs to be more rewards, more desirable ones at the least.

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Originally Posted by Momo_Kozuki

The point I want to make here is offering suggestions that will add motivations for players to grind, instead of just old-school "grind a lot for little rewards" that discourage players from grinding. Of course, the game is cool at not asking players to not too focused on grinding and let them taking break, but I think it is reasonable to offer solutions for people who actually want to grind, while players who take break can still chime in occasionally and get some well-earned rewards for their contributions toward the liveliness of the content.



Back to the topic, after you get 28k Crystals from the series milestone and reach lv30, it will require 20k EXP for a mere 1k crystals. It doesn't feel like a grind many players want to do since too much efforts for little rewards.


For anyone interests in getting Hellhound stuffs or perhaps the reskinned Virtu gear for whatever reason, this becomes super grindy as these items require a large amount of crystal (10k crystal/hellhound weapon). In case you just want to buy all current one-time items (job actions and barding/minion), it requires 30,500 crystals, so you will have to grind 60k EXP to get them all.



I feel like challenge logs should update to provide trophy crystals, so that people will have motivation to pvp for weekly goals. Perhaps 1,000 per "participation x times" goal and 1,500 (or 2,000) per "win x times" goal.



Daily frontline should net you some crystal too. Prefer 500 crystals per pop.



Additionally, allowing to trade wolf marks into Crystals. 20k mark should yield you around 5k crystal (4:1 ratio).


Also, to prevent players hoarding crystals and buy off new rewards of next season day one, next series should use a different type of currency and convert the outdated one into wolf mark, not so different from how tomestone works.


In addition, series milestones should have crystal rewards scaled properly. If I grind 2,000 exp for 1,000 crystal, I believe grinding 5,000 exp should give more crystals sound reasonable enough.

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Agree with everything you said, as it stand now the grind asked is absurd and feel unrewarding (20k xp for 1000 crystals, who thought it was ok ?).

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Originally Posted by Syln

Agree with everything you said, as it stand now the grind asked is absurd and feel unrewarding (20k xp for 1000 crystals, who thought it was ok ?).

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They seem to really like to implement massive grinds initially to stretch out the rewards they have. "Respecting your time". :p

The biggest problem I have with the Trophy Crystal grind at the moment is that there's no incentive to play CC after grinding the Crystals and getting the rewards even if you enjoy the content. What do you do then when you overcap on Trophy Crystals after you finish the grind? There's nothing in the store that you can buy once you clear out all the rewards because the rewards aren't renewable (most are just one time unlocks for Framer Kits, Orchestrion Roll, or Minions). You only need to buy the gear once for the glamour too. There's nothing like Materia, Venture tickets, Ingredients, or the like.

The whole Trophy Crystal thing is supposed to last for a long time through multiple patches so you still have things to buy by the start of a new series. Assuming every series will start introducing new items into the game, there will always be a reason to clear the series to get a new gear or emoticon, but that just causes a buildup of excess Crystals. Until we know for sure there are more rewards you can buy that isn't just a one -time unlock, I don't think there needs to be an easier access for Trophy Crystals.

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Originally Posted by SturmChurro

They seem to really like to implement massive grinds initially to stretch out the rewards they have. "Respecting your time". :p

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Respecting time in the context of the quote doesn't mean that everything in the game is obtained in 5 minutes. Completely different point :p

What is it with people saying "respecting your time" every time there is something optional to grind for?...
The game needs some grindy achievements to stay alive, especially in PvP which was deserted for so long...

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Originally Posted by Garnix

What is it with people saying "respecting your time" every time there is something optional to grind for?...
The game needs some grindy achievements to stay alive, especially in PvP which was deserted for so long...

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Absurd grinding is not needed and never has been, it was there yes but certainly wasn't needed back then. I did a lot of fucked up grinding back in wow and all i can say is that it's one of the most unimaginative and cancerous way to retain player.

So yes i do not like either the "respecting your time" buzz phrase, even more when it's use by corporate morons that actually doesn't do it at all (Just to make it clear i'm not talking about FF14 here) but that doesn't mean i want to have to win around 200 frontline to get 1 weapon skin, it's just silly .... even more when said weapon skin aren't some prestigious item, no it's the exact same that you could buy before but it just ask you to grind 10 times more for some arbitrary reasons.

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Originally Posted by Garnix

What is it with people saying "respecting your time" every time there is something optional to grind for?...
The game needs some grindy achievements to stay alive, especially in PvP which was deserted for so long...

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If it's too grindy I just won't do it. Congrats, they lost me either way. Just that this way, they lost me and I'm unhappy with the outcome.

Meanwhile my current milestone be like...

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...sHeXUCJa0U.png

I'm going to step out on a limb here and guess that the final reward step is just a way to give people who play PvP for the fun of it a little something. The series ranks up to the armor set are the real intended grind and the rest is gravy. If someone's goal is to get All The Things then yeah, it's a lot of time for little return/progress toward All The Things. I wouldn't be surprised if they keep All The Things around but add Only A Few Things next series so we have a greater amount of disposable trophies to use to buy All The Things going forward.

I was one of the knuckleheads who ground out the Conqueror title when it first came out and understand what a PvP grind entails. They suck; there's no other way to say it. I'd like to suggest trying to shift your frame of reference and do PvP play for the fun of the activity and let the rewards come as an almost passive result of playing rather than playing to reach a goal. The destination's the same, but the journey's much easier to handle.

I'd love some Series Rank on Challenge log victories

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Originally Posted by Syln

Agree with everything you said, as it stand now the grind asked is absurd and feel unrewarding (20k xp for 1000 crystals, who thought it was ok ?).

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The exact same people who advocated for an exchange of 20K wolf marks for a single wolf collar.

They literally got what they asked for.

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Originally Posted by Syln

Agree with everything you said, as it stand now the grind asked is absurd and feel unrewarding (20k xp for 1000 crystals, who thought it was ok ?).

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Or – most likely – you can wait until next season when progression resets and you're back to only needing 2000 EXP for 1000 crystals. Put the extra work in if you want everything now, but I don't think it's all going away immediately.

If nothing else, they did say the rewards would still be purchasable next season, so we'll have that much time to see what happens, what is permanent and whether or not they bring out another whole set of gear to spend crystals on. I don't think there's any need to be grinding the high levels for crystals at this point unless you're desperately trying to acquire something that can't wait.

Finally got level 25 for the armor. Looks better in-game (on regular sized bodies). I'll still finish up the whole thing, but, I'll probably just end up holding onto a lot of this currency. As other than the weapons, it really is portrait cosmetics of the jobs I play (which are few) that I would even want to buy. Really just WHM and RDM.