F.A.T.E.: Free Advancement Through Easymode

I'd really like to call it Free Advancement Through Exploitation...

That could be fine, if a fate was MUCH rarer. Finding a fate could be like stumbling on a treasure coffer while XPing, free loot. Fates are essentially free XP, but I'd like the frequency of fates to be scaled back dramatically.

My friends and I have taken to calling the parade of magictek mechs 'The FATE Train.' It's a preposterous immersion breaking silliness. It will be fixed. My fear is how much damage will be done before it does.

Lastly, people might feel obliged to defend this system by saying 'You play your way, I'll play mine.' That's akin to saying put in a switch in player settings where I can go immune to damage so I can play 'my way.'

You are exactly right... I haven't logged back in after the first week of its release date because people only spam FATES.

I agree Fates are silly in their current state. The problem is what's the alternative? Soul crushing "fill up the buckets with water, talk to ten people then get back to me, set the table for the feast, go dance for three people" quests? Or mindless easy mode dungeon sprints with 3 other people who mine as well be bots for all the social interaction you will have. Once you start going down the easy mode, instant gratification road there is really no way to fix problems like this without a major overhaul.

Given that there are no quests for a second class or +45, there is no way this can be done in the current incarnation of the game.

The problem is how piss aweful dungeons are. The encounters are fun, but the rewards are pathetic.

Monster experience is pathetic.

Boss/Mini-Boss rewards are pathetic.

Random loot chests are pathetic.

There REALLY is zero reason to repeat dungeons prior to the end-game dungeons for their scarce loot.


Seriously, when people first do dungeons in the lower tiers they're so horribly disappointed by the repeat rewards they swear off repeating ANY dungeon until 50, for good.

"Why would I spent 60minutes on a dungeon for a 1/6th of my level bar, and essentially zero loot, when I can spam Fates for 60minutes and almost make an entire level, and get about 2000 gil?"


Seriously, piss poor design for Dungeons, and don't get me started on how WORTHLESS Trials are, especially the story-blocking ones!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Fix fates? Your best bet is to make Dungeons ACTUALLY worth doing. :mad:

Fates is the only reasonable way to get exp after questing, everything else is far too slow and boring.

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Originally Posted by Spoolx

Fates is the only reasonable way to get exp after questing...

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This pretty much. No point in complaining about them, they are here to stay and the only decent way for dps to level once quests are done, not even mentioning the lack of quests in the 47-49 range. Dungeons can be fun, but waiting half an hour or more to just get in? I could be be having fun doing fates. Leves? Three to six a day? That's why i quit 1.0, just not fun being so limited, and once done felt like zero point to keep playing. Mob grinding? Ugh, don't get me started, but i've noticed a lot of people who like doing that also complain about fates.

My only real complaint about fates is if you aren't in a group, good luck getting any medal. I personally am not a fan of raiding, and find it silly most of the time (huge boss, even if human sized normally, story wise you beat them, but then farm them, etc, not to mention the elitist crowd flocks to them), but i'm not asking them to be removed. Fates shouldn't be removed or changed too much, other things should be buffed up for a reason to them.

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Originally Posted by rabbitzero

...they are here to stay and the only decent way for dps to level once quests are done...

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I would always rather see it in the way that if one thing is way, way above other options, -that one- is the problem rather than everything else being lacking instead. I do understand many people wouldn't want the time and effort it would take to get to the top slower than what they do now. Plenty of MMOs already provide such a smooth, effortless and downtimeless ride to the max lever already after all. And yeah, FATE groups sort of feel like an exploit in the current situation. Such huge rewards.

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Originally Posted by Spoolx

Fates is the only reasonable way to get exp after questing, everything else is far too slow and boring.

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dungeon is reasonable

FATE is easy mode.

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Originally Posted by Spoolx

Fates is the only reasonable way to get exp after questing, everything else is far too slow and boring.

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Ah yes.

Add solo able content so I won't have to group and socialize. Check.

Speed up leveling, it's boring to kill things by myself repeatedly. Check.

2 weeks later

AK runs are boring and I have to do so many of them to finish. Check.

12 weeks later
I am tired of the endless grind in this game with no content. When is next MMO out? Priceless.

A MMO has grind because without it you would finish it far faster than new content could be economically developed.

But don't despair. The outcry to remove party requirements and slow leveling which together built social interaction to alleviate the grind boredom has led to fast leveling and grind at the end with strangers followed by an efficiently reached lack of content.

But you feel elite quicker right?

I'm kinda confused, how is doing 500 dungeons better than doing 2000 FATEs?

I don't understand the argument of "FATEs are too easy, you'll get bored".

Well by that logic, I'd rather be bored 12 weeks down the road than being bored RIGHT NOW doing the same dungeon again, with minimal progression.

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Originally Posted by pandabearcat

I'm kinda confused, how is doing 500 dungeons better than doing 2000 FATEs?

I don't understand the argument of "FATEs are too easy, you'll get bored".

Well by that logic, I'd rather be bored 12 weeks down the road than being bored RIGHT NOW doing the same dungeon again, with minimal progression.

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I think it's just a preference of playstyle. I'd rather group with people and do a dungeon rather than stand in one spot and spam Blizzard 2 for a few minutes.

Unfortunately dungeons just aren't viable enough to do through the Duty Finder due to queue times and the 50/50 chance you're going to get grouped with people that don't have a clue what they're doing. (thanks to FATE spam)

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Originally Posted by pandabearcat

I'm kinda confused, how is doing 500 dungeons better than doing 2000 FATEs?

I don't understand the argument of "FATEs are too easy, you'll get bored".

Well by that logic, I'd rather be bored 12 weeks down the road than being bored RIGHT NOW doing the same dungeon again, with minimal progression.

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FATEs are a symptom, not the disease.

MMOs need grind. If they don't have it you finish content well before a reasonably sized development team could possible finish developing more.

Grind used to be party based open world monster grinding or dungeon runs in the "old" days. Sure, it was repetitive and even tedious but slow enough even compared to our current slow 1.5sec global cooldown that a party could communicate constantly through keyboard (pre-teamspeak days). Believe it or not, social interaction alleviated boredom, sort of like playing a table top RPG or poker with your friends.

WoW began the downward spiral. A portion of MMO players and non-MMO gamers didn't like MMOs precisely because of the slower less intensive combat, party requirement, and learning curve.

Initially WoW was notably easier than EQ, EQ2 (launched at same time roughly), and FFXI. It leveled faster, it had more solo content. This brought in more new players who were attracted to the Blizzard name and the concept of a "casual" MMO. Blizzard noted the phenomena and proceeded to at various times lower the difficulty, speed up the leveling, and add more solo content.

Over time Sony (EQ, EQ2) and others saw the revenue Blizzard was producing and ignored their previous experience like lemmings. They knew that maintaining a lead in content while removing the grind would exponentially increase development costs or be impossible. Nonetheless, $$$$$. So a chicken or the egg problem was created. In order to get large sub numbers you make the game casual and quick to level. But, if you do that everyone reaches max and leaves unless you add more content quickly. This is much harder to get funding for and as more MMOs try and fail it just gets harder.

Meanwhile, the developers and the players lose touch with the original poor yet surprisingly effective solution that worked for a smaller but sustainable player base. Social interaction.

At this point I don't think it is a recoverable solution. Investors are no longer interested in minor profits from a sustainable small scale MMO. Graphics and eye candy have significantly raised development costs. The players have been trained to expect the carrot (levels, gear) without the stick (grinding, party play, harsh penalties for failure).

Even if EQNext or FFXIV ARR were built like graphically overhauled old-school MMOs despite investor misgivings, they would fail. FFXIV 1.0 and Vanguard being prime examples of attempts.

There may not be a solution anymore. You can't go back in time. So we will see the continuing trend of MMO launch after MMO launch failing after 6 months or a year as a player based trained by the industry jumps onward to the next game and sustained revenue becomes the domain of cash shop swimsuits and vanity gear.

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Originally Posted by mooney6023

FATEs are a symptom, not the disease.

*snip*

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I can see what you mean, but I don't think this really is the problem here. People are complaining about lack of endgame content but thats because there is a lack of endgame content, not because people are reaching endgame too fast.

Regardless of what path you take to 50, I'd much rather everyone get to 50 and so my friends and I can play together.

The problem is that there is ONE level 50 dungeon (people run Palace for money), and frankly it is so hard to get a group together to even do the primals, that I'm willing to bet 90% of players won't reach bahamut, or don't even know that endgame raid exists.

So for most, there are 2 things to do. Bash head against titan, or run AK.

Thats the reason for endgame ennui, and making it take ages to get to 50 is not the solution.

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Originally Posted by pandabearcat

Regardless of what path you take to 50, I'd much rather everyone get to 50 and so my friends and I can play together.

The problem is that there is ONE level 50 dungeon (people run Palace for money), and frankly it is so hard to get a group together to even do the primals, that I'm willing to bet 90% of players won't reach bahamut, or don't even know that endgame raid exists.

So for most, there are 2 things to do. Bash head against titan, or run AK.

Thats the reason for endgame ennui, and making it take ages to get to 50 is not the solution.

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The first Guild Wars did reaching to max level quickly pretty fine back in the day. Then again more than half of that game's PvE content was "endgame". FFXIV isn't designed that way judging by the content that they have both in the combat stuff and crafting. Hence I doubt they designed it to be too easy and unchallenging for people to reach to the top at such a fast pace.

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Originally Posted by pandabearcat

I can see what you mean, but I don't think this really is the problem here. People are complaining about lack of endgame content but thats because there is a lack of endgame content, not because people are reaching endgame too fast.

Regardless of what path you take to 50, I'd much rather everyone get to 50 and so my friends and I can play together.

*snip*

Thats the reason for endgame ennui, and making it take ages to get to 50 is not the solution.

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We're not connecting here. And I guess it speaks to the different POV.

IMHO, fast leveling is why you have to wait till 50 to play with your friends. Slow leveling, 50 in 6-9 months leveling, and you would certainly be able to maintain a manageable level gap for party play. Gear would be useful long enough for it to be meaningful before 50 too.

I realize the developers were against slow leveling, fine. But I think after playing this game it was a mistake. They have fallen into the same trap, everyone is reaching max level and no matter how many level 50 dungeons they have launched only a few or less will be run and months will pass before more content is added.

Meanwhile 50 levels of content was breezed through at mach 9. A dozen dungeons saw 1-2 runs per a player on average and tons of non-50th level loot was untouched. That's an amazing amount of development man hours, tuning, and art design that could have been replaced with GC gear expansion attainable via FATE seals.

If they were trying for this speed of leveling and completion they would have been better served by cutting the lower level content substantially and adding all that content to the endgame.

for the love of god!

make some friends and enjoy the damned thing.

the base of this bickering is generational mismatch. younger demographic and older demographic want different things. what will happen in the end is my older demographic will be phased out. {That's too bad!}

live with it. or wait until the next generation change in 10-20 years.

When you see more than a hand full of people at lvl 50 with full AF gear on the 2nd week of release, there is a problem....the content is too easy, leveling was too fast.

My suggestion is, lower FATE reward a bit, and increase dungeon rewards a lot more (ie. exp, loot), else even the casuals get bored of the game very quickly, unless they put in new content every month.

After some of the keyboard smashingly stupid dungeons ive healed, I for one, welcome some mindless FATE xp grind.

Seriously Tanks/dps Dont stand in the big red circles, it is BAD! you'd think after my warning and 6 times getting hit by big AOEs they'd get the hint.

Other than that, my only suggestion would be make each sidequest repeatable on a class that hasnt done them yet.

This would be a horrible idea, imo. Instead they should adjust FATE's so that the mobs have more HP, and so that there are less mobs so that they aren't dying instantly without people being able to get credit due to people spamming them. There aren't enough quests worth enough XP to level your jobs without lot's of fates & dungeon grinds. Dungeon's are a pain to get into for a vast majority of the player-base and not everyone will or should roll a healer/tank as that would mess up queue's more all around.

Your idea would be better suited as a new form of content altogether, but not tied to FATEs.

They could always "borrow" from rift and make hard mode level 50 versions of the lower level dungeons so the content created doesn't sit there unused.

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Originally Posted by mooney6023

We're not connecting here. And I guess it speaks to the different POV.

*snip reasonable discussion because of the godawful post limit*

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I -did- do every dungeon at least once or twice, shouldn't that be enough? Do you expect the average player to enjoy doing the same thing over and over? I think not. But grind is a given in mmos like you said, its just the shift to max level grind rather than leveling grind.

Grind is boring no matter in what form, and while its sort of true that "mmo's need grind", its more that "mmo's need a reason for you to keep playing, and artificial content lengthening is cheaper than actual content creation". You may be right that its not cost effective to churn out content at the rate in which we'd like to consume it.

Anyway we sort of ranted off topic, FATEs are easy, FATEs are quick, if they want people to do dungeons, dungeons need to not suck. More exp, more interesting mechanics, better loot.

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Originally Posted by pandabearcat

*snip*

Anyway we sort of ranted off topic, FATEs are easy, FATEs are quick, if they want people to do dungeons, dungeons need to not suck. More exp, more interesting mechanics, better loot.

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That is, in the end, probably the best possible solution for diffusing the FATE debate without hindering playstyle choices.

FATEs are currently abused, but I think as the population get's a class to level 50 and goes in different directions the participants of popular FATEs will drop and the difficulty/time sink vs reward ratio will be more reasonable. I strongly suspect that a significant portion of the population will not chain level every class in order to max out everything and thus after this initial rush FATEs will self regulate.

Dungeons are definitely lacking rewards. The first time I ran Daezemel's Darkhold (SP?) I received 25k exp total (mobs and all) and a shield for a clean run with no deaths. That same 30+ mins in FATEs or even crafting would have netted more income and experience. (though I guess the shield would sell for 15k+ if I was willing to part with it)

1/4 to 1/3 a level of XP for running an at-your-level dungeon and something valuable dropping off trash would be enough to stimulate dungeon grinding.

I miss exp parties from FF11. Was hilarious fun. Even with all the funny encounters. At least you knew when you headed out that you will get whats called "Adventure" hehe.

Now this game would reward it even more but ppl dont do it since they have fates. On some days i go out with a friend and our 2 Chocobos and just grind exp/farm, you have no clue how much gil (from selling things on market) and exp you can get with this on the right mobs. Also Dungeons give a lot of exp too, not sure why ppl say they dont. Just yesterday i was in the Lv 43 Dungeon and one single mob granted me 1750 exp. In fact there are well known websites that suggest leveling trough dungeons, especially from ~42 to 45 or something.

There are other ways to level, but as long as fates are what they are, noone will go them.

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Originally Posted by Senchai

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The problem to this experience, as high as it is... Is the simple fact that alot of people have horrible wait times and not alot of time to play the game. Taking my own personal experiences and laying them out. Keep in mind that this example is WITH a tank in my party too, as I am dps. It took 67 minutes to get into a dungeon, and even without wipes it took about 35ish minutes. So rounding it to a nice and neat 100 minutes. 100 minutes to get not even half a level and not even a green on that run for my off-class that I was playing on. Lets turn this around and pick out any fates in Drybone, most of them give 4-5k each and on average they only take about 3-5 minutes to do. Even putting the worst of the variables up there, 5 minutes for 4k experience comes up to 80k experience minimal, this is not including the 12k that you could get from the end of the chain on High-bridge. At lower levels this is enough to level you up... twice i believe.