Thoughts on fixes for occult crescent

So there's a lot of issues i'm seeing with occult crescent in general and I thought i'd put forth some ideas to fix it. Feel free to break them apart or offer some additional ones.

Phantom Jobs tied to phantom mastery - The problem with having the jobs is you don't get to play how you want to play until after you've already cleared everything in the entire content because of the xp grind. If SE delinked phantom mastery from phantom jobs and make it more like prestiging with phantom xp it would allow more player freedom.

Atma grind and fate train - If you're going for atma in OC it can be frustrating that after 20 mins the fate you want finally spawns and you still don't get it. Coupled with the insane pace to keep up makes it very unfulfilling. I suggest making multiple fates spawn at a time and giving a small window before the fate starts so players can choose the zones they need more frequently and everyone has a small window to get there before it starts.

Gold farming and mob tagging - Most mainstream mmos have done away with mob tagging at this point. Everyone getting credit for a hit in oc won't hurt anyone and if anything ill promote cooperation. That and maybe add gold to the mobs around a ce when it spawns so people can grind a little gold out while waiting for ce's. Additionally you could add a couple gold to treasure chests.

Silver and gold requirements - I know mmos are supposed to be grindy but its especially bad in OC given the lack of variation in content. Making the above changes to gold and making more variation for silver will make it a lot more bearable but also make it so turning old notes and job stones gives more silver. 10 silver for every turn in including gear upgrade mats is criminal. Might I suggest 20 for notes 50 for job stones and 100 for upgrades?

Forked tower entrance - Regardless of where you stand on the issue we can all agree that the drama around it started with se's decisions regarding entrance. If they want to keep the current entrance requirements then the fights need to be easier to accommodate randoms or there needs to be a q to allow premades. Personally I think if they had an easier version like dalriada with +1 gear upgrade stuff and instanced the current version like dr with +2 gear upgrade stuff it would be best. At a minimum premades do need a way to go in with just their premades. It currently takes way too much time to get an entire raid into one instance and then wait for weather which is the core of the issues surrounding letting randoms in.

Let me know what yalls think.

I'd argue that Forked Tower is the issue that needs addressing most. The entry method has caused a LOT of friction in the community (apparently both in-game and otherwise) and has prompted a thread that has devolved into arguments that are unlikely to end any time soon.

That aside, I feel they should increase the Atma drop-rate too - I can't be the only one who found their enjoyment of the new content tarred by how awful the drop-rates are.

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Originally Posted by Carin-Eri

I'd argue that Forked Tower is the issue that needs addressing most. The entry method has caused a LOT of friction in the community (apparently both in-game and otherwise) and has prompted a thread that has devolved into arguments that are unlikely to end any time soon.

That aside, I feel they should increase the Atma drop-rate too - I can't be the only one who found their enjoyment of the new content tarred by how awful the drop-rates are.

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Yeah its pretty bad. I got all mine around phantom mastery 4-5 which is HOURS of grind in. I had like 8 pieces of yellow rock candy by the time I finally got my last blue rock candy to finish the quest. Hopefully with more fates available to choose from you could target your lowest ones more frequently but a buff in general would also be nice. One hundred million percent they need to address forked tower though. I've never seen content design promote so much fighting. Which is saying something because I play wow. We can be awful to each other over the dumbest things but this takes the cake.

I think one of the most disappointing aspects is that it's only gonna be an extra map. We won't have a lot of places where to use our phantom jobs skills unless you're doing Forked Tower and whatever next Tower will be.

I'd like to try that focked tower, if only for the 5 records & lore. Never saw people run it and it seems the old discord I used for BA is dead.
So either make it like CLL/Dal (but would require difficulty change) or make it like DR (with maybe a normal version ?)
BA for all it's faults worked thanks to :
-no entry cost
-linked to a "difficult" and regular fate
-no CE to lock players in
FT seems to have all the flaws, but added more problems to enter with less total players, minimum players requirement and a less frequent/shorter/uncontrollable entry period.

Jobs prestige-ing seems like a good idea. right now it's "master and forget", but they already shot themselves with the current system.
I see that as getting the full levels for ~5k xp for 1 star mastery and the another 6k/7k for 2/3 star mastery bringing traits. (balancing the mastery buff at 1/3)
That leave openings for additional stars/mastery instead of leaving dead jobs

I haven't been around gold farming yet but it seems obvious war/Canoneer is made for that. The players didn't even the chance to "optimize the fun out of it", SE did it for them.

The turn-in for 10 silver is just insulting.

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Originally Posted by Calysto

I'd like to try that focked tower, if only for the 5 records & lore. Never saw people run it and it seems the old discord I used for BA is dead.
So either make it like CLL/Dal (but would require difficulty change) or make it like DR (with maybe a normal version ?)
BA for all it's faults worked thanks to :
-no entry cost
-linked to a "difficult" and regular fate
-no CE to lock players in
FT seems to have all the flaws, but added more problems to enter with less total players, minimum players requirement and a less frequent/shorter/uncontrollable entry period.

Jobs prestige-ing seems like a good idea. right now it's "master and forget", but they already shot themselves with the current system.
I see that as getting the full levels for ~5k xp for 1 star mastery and the another 6k/7k for 2/3 star mastery bringing traits. (balancing the mastery buff at 1/3)
That leave openings for additional stars/mastery instead of leaving dead jobs

I haven't been around gold farming yet but it seems obvious war/Canoneer is made for that. The players didn't even the chance to "optimize the fun out of it", SE did it for them.

The turn-in for 10 silver is just insulting.

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To be honest, I'm not going anywhere near Forked Tower unless they address the method of entry. As said in another thread, it's current entry method is a complete shambles. Either the raid needs to be puggable, with randoms, and contain mechanics which reflect that, OR the raid should require savage-esque coordination and organisation and allow players to create premades to challenge it.
SE needs to pick one.

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Originally Posted by Calysto

I haven't been around gold farming yet but it seems obvious war/Canoneer is made for that. The players didn't even the chance to "optimize the fun out of it", SE did it for them.

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Yeah I feel that adds to the problem with the system in general. There's really no room for exploration. Like theres always gonna end up with a defined meta but in bozja or eureka I could mix and match what I wanted as I went through the zone and found some fun combos in the process. Like lost slash coupled with inner release and nascent. The insane self heal on that was hilarious. Funneling you into subjobs and forcing action combos did kinda just take the magic out of the duty actions. They could fix it if they made it so freelancer was able to pick and choose actions from subjobs you mastered so you could build what you want. If they coupled it with prestieging for phantom mastery they might actually have a system on their hands. But then you run into the issue of devaluing the current system of sub jobs so they kinda developed themselves into a dead end.

To be fair the Meta gold farming strat can Include WAR but doesn’t remotely need WAR and only needs one tank

It can also sub some canons for time mages, oracles or samurais but that’s basically “high action damage is good”

I said this in another thread, but a possible solution for the gold farming would be some sort of exchange system. So many silver = some gold. Would still be faster to do the gold farming, but it would allow for different methods of grinding. Could also work the other way (trade gold for silver). Your point about gold in the treasure chests would be good as well.

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Originally Posted by Infindox

I said this in another thread, but a possible solution for the gold farming would be some sort of exchange system. So many silver = some gold. Would still be faster to do the gold farming, but it would allow for different methods of grinding. Could also work the other way (trade gold for silver). Your point about gold in the treasure chests would be good as well.

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Hell yeah I support this. Exchange with a small "tax" like 100 of one gets you like 90 or 80 of the other sounds hella fair. I think their fear is everyone would just gold farm and fates would be dead so they'd have to balance the "tax" to keep the rates fairly consistent each way. Whatever the conversion rate i'm 100% behind having any exchange at all.

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Originally Posted by YovelaLindswood

If SE delinked phantom mastery from phantom jobs and make it more like prestiging with phantom xp it would allow more player freedom.

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It would, but it wouldn't make sense. I think this is just something we need to accept, and it's only an issue for completionists really. Normal people can level just what they actually want to play.

Now you can say "they should have just made it Lost Actions", but I appreciate that it's something a little different. My thought process on this is it's just the gimmick this time, and they might come up with a different way to do it next time that similarly fits with the lore or source material of what they're doing.

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If you're going for atma in OC it can be frustrating that after 20 mins the fate you want finally spawns and you still don't get it.

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Well yes but I feel like people are just impatient. The complaints about this abruptly stopped after a week or so; I suspect because it's no longer a problem. The individuals just felt impatient in the moment and came to the forums to complain it was impossible, then they got their Atma and are now silent.

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I suggest making multiple fates spawn at a time and giving a small window before the fate starts so players can choose the zones they need more frequently and everyone has a small window to get there before it starts.

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They could do that, but I think the biggest issue is just scaling. When you're in an instance with a few others remaining, you can kill a CE faster than a FATE, and that's sad. CE's are about 5 minutes, even with solo scaling.

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Gold farming and mob tagging - Most mainstream mmos have done away with mob tagging at this point.

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I think mob tagging in general is a good feature because it prevents others from bothering to pile on your mob and stealing the bulk of your credit. That said, in Bozja, getting items from mobs resulted in the entire party getting them, even if they were elsewhere in the zone, whereas being in a party in OC seems to prevent gold dropping solo.

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Everyone getting credit for a hit in oc won't hurt anyone and if anything ill promote cooperation.

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Context could be applied and it not happen in OC. The issue is if some players go and interrupt a party that is farming somewhere in the zone and multiple parties start fighting over credit.

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Making the above changes to gold and making more variation for silver will make it a lot more bearable

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Variation could be good but the problem is also that MMO players will do what is most efficient in many cases, so it could be SE just deciding which one they would prefer you do (obviously, CEs, which they put a lot of work into similar to dungeon bosses).

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Forked tower entrance - Regardless of where you stand on the issue we can all agree that the drama around it started with se's decisions regarding entrance.

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They just need to do what worked before:

• Forked Tower (Normal) should be a general queue like CLL without going to the location, to increase turnout. Or queued outside the instance like Delubrum Reginae.
• Forked Tower (Savage) should be queued outside like Delubrum Reginae (Savage) and have Party Finder available.

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Originally Posted by YovelaLindswood

So there's a lot of issues i'm seeing with occult crescent in general and I thought i'd put forth some ideas to fix it. Feel free to break them apart or offer some additional ones[...]

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My personal list would be as the following

Phantom Job (PJ).

• The grind - Instead of gaining experience based on the PJ you have active, I'd personally have player accumulate Phantom EXP as some sort of 'currency' that you can grind on any job & setup, then later redistribute them to XYZ existing PJs whenever you like to. Might as well introduce something similar to an 'armory bonus' that increases the more mastered PJs you have, too. This way you won't feel pressured to use PJs that you dislike, AND if you're somehow unlucky, you can keep banking your Phantom EXP for when you actually acquire said PJs.
• The mastery bonus - Instead of giving us dmg & healing up, I'd rather have them to give us dmg & defense up, similar to how Eurekan elemental bonus works. This way DPSes without self sustenance would've at least have a chance to survive if they're very VERY unlucky not have any healers in their party (or they have but kisses the floor perpetually). This is also coupled by the fact that healing potencies are already pretty strong at base, I see no reason to boost this component that only benefits healer, tanks, and some DPSes but c*cks ones like NIN PCT and BLM.
• The actual actions - A band aid suggestion here is to have Freelancer come with 1 duty slot initially, then gains 1 additional slot for every 3 PJs mastered, topping at 5 Duty Actions at 12/12. These can later be filled with any phantom actions from any PJs with a caveat: (1)Cannot pick more than 1 of the same tier skill/trait; (2)Only two actions will have regular cooldown, the other 3 will have 50% longer cooldowns, and; (3)Each PJ can only supply up to two actions/traits. Additionally, a pure copium wish is to restore some form of interaction with jobs' regular kits. The way they disable interactions from actions such as Reassemble and Lance Charge but somehow leave the damage% buff untouched makes me think they don't want us to experiment too much which kinda defeats the essence of LAs/PJs being a separate system from the rest of the game IMHO.

Relics, CE, & FATEs in general.

• The RNG - I'm actually fine with the rate% they drop. What I'm NOT fine with is the lack of bad luck proof & the usefulness of the demiatmas once you turn in the quest. What I'd do is to put an NPC that can trade 5 unneeded Demiatmas for 1 that you need. Also let Demiatma continue dropping even after your turn in the quest. I think it'd be nice to give them additional purpose such as:

  1. Collect 1 each of all type demiatmas to trade for 1 Arcanite. Now you have more than just 'tomestone grind'.
  2. Additional NPC to trade demiatmas for silver and gold coin.

• Battle High specifically - I think it'd be nice if you can trigger this the same way like Bozjan duel system. Say, if you do CEs flawlessly, you have a chance to trigger BH. But in times you didn't end up getting one, you gain a stack of some buff. This buff's purpose is to ensure you have higher chance to trigger BH after next CE. This stacks up to 4 times, at which point you will 100% trigger BH after clearing your 4th CE flawlessly.
• The FATEs frequency - This is somewhat tied to the demiatma rates and the general instance pace. I feel like their intention on forcing only 1 FATE to be active at all time only creates a boring pseudo hunt train situations. I'd very much like prefer to have at least 3 FATEs active at all time with a caveat all 3 has to be on different demiatma zones.
• FATE scaling - Oh God... lmao... (I shouldn't need to explain this part, should I? Do better, Squeenix).

Silver & Gold farming, Mobs, and Chests.

• I personally don't have issue with these. I do wish they can actually drop something. Maybe bronze/silver or even gold chests. Speaking of chests, I was initially hoping that they'll be completely random but turns out they have fixed locations. I feel this is very immersion breaking for a supposed 'exploration zone'. If I have the magick wand, I'd make them completely random & place random feeble to deadly traps around some chests (Finally Ranger have more use outside FTB lol) that will also disrespects tank's invulns.
• Chest's loot table are also a huge problem IMHO. I think it'd make more sense to have the pot FATE chest loot table swapped with the regular chests. That way you don't flood the marketboard with all those 'used to have value but now inv garbage'-loots too fast. Except Aetherspun Golds. I think those are alright to stay the way they are.
• Silver coins specifically - please actually give us more than 10 coins per dupe field note/soul shards lol. Anywhere from 20 to 100 per pieces would be appreciated. At the very least this will also give us reasons to try to prep those CEs that drops those.

FTB

• Do it in CLL/Dal/DRn/DRS style. No quarter.

P.S. if you dislike locking party slots to only tanks for gold farm, be the change you want to see by using Thief-kite strat. It still locks 1-3 slots to at least a tank (any tank!) and 1-2 healers but you’re leaving 5 other to be FFA. It’s also very comfy & more reliable. Oh yeah well, about cannons, I don’t really know what would alleviate that. Sorry.

Phantom jobs:
More use for skills like thief’s outside the tower.
Give us an area with traps so ranger can shine, give us treasure coffers only thief can open.
Make these coffers give gold for example so we have another method and can actually explore this zone.
Make it so we can actually use abilities on more bosses. Why can’t time mage slow the cast of the statue CE boss for example?
Why does steal only give us gold? Why not let it raise the changes of obtaining atma or silver or even unique CE Boss monster drops for crafting?
I like the idea of them but man do they have room for improvement.
Go more out! Bozja allowed some really fun things if you did right, here the whole thing feels way too safe.

Fates:
Change the scaling so they don’t die so quickly. I don’t have the solution here but I think something should be done.

Tanks OPness
Honestly just either nerf the heck out of this role already or make it so ignoring mechanics gives doom and also give the other roles some defense scaling.
It’s not even funny how that role just walks over content that is brand new and I am honestly tired of all the excuses like „it’s not savage“ at this point.
A single role shouldn’t be that strong, period and content outside savage shouldn’t be made pointless especially when it is brand new!
The whole gold farming Method has been reduced to a pure tank show to a point were I just click away as soon as a strategy in this game begins with WAR and even if I don’t want to think like it, every time I see a WAR the thought crosses my mind of them playing on easy mode the entire time.

Forked tower:
Just… scrap this thing and build it anew at this point.
Change the entrance system or adjust it to CLL levels and give us two versions but do something instead of waiting.
It’s crazy how much damage this thing has done to the whole game and community.
This tower has become a beacon of „we don’t play our own game“ for the devs and is a huge embarrassment.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

They just need to do what worked before:

• Forked Tower (Normal) should be a general queue like CLL without going to the location, to increase turnout. Or queued outside the instance like Delubrum Reginae.
• Forked Tower (Savage) should be queued outside like Delubrum Reginae (Savage) and have Party Finder available.

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I don’t mind the whole cipher entry in the zone… it adds to the setting. But maybe have it be less a lotto and more get there and put in your cipher, you got your spot. And have that in-zone version be the Normal/Story mode version. Savage version being queued outside, and with PF, makes sense.

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Originally Posted by Infindox

I said this in another thread, but a possible solution for the gold farming would be some sort of exchange system. So many silver = some gold. Would still be faster to do the gold farming, but it would allow for different methods of grinding. Could also work the other way (trade gold for silver). Your point about gold in the treasure chests would be good as well.

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I agree but the exact rate would need to be fine-tuned in accordance to farming methods and established value. Look at it like this, despite the names, Silver is objectively treated as being more valuable than Gold, it takes 600 Silver for 1 Sanguine Cipher, but 960 Gold for the exact same item, this is a trend that permeates through out the shop, 1000 Silver for a glam item/Phantom Job vs 1600 Gold for the same, 40 Silver vs 50 Gold for a pot/coffer, so on.

The exact exchange rate is something to be discussed, but it not only cannot be 1:1, it also needs to trade Silver for a greater amount of Gold for it to even be viable, and Gold for a lower, maybe even less than half, amount of Silver, the goal should be to make it less efficient than normal farming, and exist as an alternative if you absolutely cannot stand the normal farming method for that currency.

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Originally Posted by Carin-Eri

I'd argue that Forked Tower is the issue that needs addressing most. The entry method has caused a LOT of friction in the community (apparently both in-game and otherwise) and has prompted a thread that has devolved into arguments that are unlikely to end any time soon.

That aside, I feel they should increase the Atma drop-rate too - I can't be the only one who found their enjoyment of the new content tarred by how awful the drop-rates are.

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While the entry method is bad for people trying to enter it, I'd argue the real problem is just the difficulty. If we had the exact same entry conditions but it was a Dalriada it would be mostly fine.

If all they do is make it easier to get in, like letting you pick an instance and giving priority to full parties when selecting who goes in the tower, then Occult Crescent still sucks for 90% of the people playing it.

I don't think the atma drop rate needs to be fixed, but the distribution is a major problem.

It seems there is only 1 CE that drops Verdigris (Calamity Bound.) I have not actively pursued farming demiatma just yet, and I've still gotten 7 malachite, 3 Azurite, 2 of Realgar, Orpiment, and Caput Mortuum. I have ZERO Verdigris. I'm about to start bicolor gem farming in Kozomauka out of desperation.

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Originally Posted by Fawkes

While the entry method is bad for people trying to enter it, I'd argue the real problem is just the difficulty. If we had the exact same entry conditions but it was a Dalriada it would be mostly fine.

If all they do is make it easier to get in, like letting you pick an instance and giving priority to full parties when selecting who goes in the tower, then Occult Crescent still sucks for 90% of the people playing it.

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Agreed, that would only result in another chaotic situation I guess.

The best thing would probably be two versions like so many people already say.

One unchanged but being able to queue in from the outside and through a 48 man PF.
Make it drop more silver than a CE to give more reason as well.

One without the rez limits and body checks and scaling to the number of players like CLL did so you can go in with less people given that the zone itself has not that many to begin with.
Make the mount drop from the „savage“ version and done.

That also seems to be what the Japanese playerbase seems to favor from what I have seen.

The best and most logical course of action is to simply nerf the mechanics in forked tower. Specifically, anything where one person can end the entire run like the super traps and certain boss mechanics. The raise limit can stay, it adds tension and now you're only hurting yourself with your mistakes, fair and square.

Allowing it to be queuable directly like DRS is nice and all, but it doesn't solve the problem because,

• This will kill organic pugging of the content from within OC. That was clearly the intent, misguided as it might be. Their vision for these field ops has always been that old school mmo vibe where you're organically partying up with people you encounter in the wild. Changing this would basically be admitting their vision was flawed.

• There will be zero reason to enter forked tower from inside the instance since it will now be strictly worse than using the duty finder. Its related weather pop will become useless (except for a geomancer buff lol). Everytime it comes around it will be a reminder of their folly as it gets ignored and passes by.

• There is a large demographic of casual players who will not attempt it regardless as long as it requires external voice chat. This will change nothing for them.

Premade groups are already trivially clearing forked tower. For them, making it like DRS would merely be a quality of life buff that saves time. It's nice, but it's still just time at the end of the day. If anything, this will allow them to consume and abandon the content quicker. The casual demographic has a much more existential need for a fix that targets them.

It needs to be realistically puggable to the end with nothing but basic text macros. It needs to be easy enough that veteran players will not mind joining random instances and running into each other organically. Casual players will get to dip their toes in some much needed content, and veterans will get to flex how hard they can carry these fights. This is the healthiest option that benefits the largest number of people.

All they need to do to fix the Current OC zone is add EXP to non Phantom jobs so there is a reason to stay in the zone after getting your gear.
The gold farm is the wrost part.
Lets kill the same mobs for hours on end, and your reward is only good to farm faster. Ya I know I came from FFXI and that was a thing but it isn't now.

But being able to grind gold + get EXP on normal jobs would be great reason to go in, and setups like 6+ Warriors / Cannons will not be the only vaild party

I main Warrior but my hubby doesn't so I will not be doing these types of parties. But if I could get exp on a job 90+ atleast We could go dual or even form a casual party and feel like we are getting progess on something beside gear that doesn't look gear and in 2 patch will mean nothing.