Instead of nerfing FATEs, buff everything else.

[coffeerox]

This type of reasoning was brought up in the Diablo 3 community concerning Barbarians being so overpowered and therefore Barbarians wanted Blizzard to buff everyone else to be overpowered rather than nerfing Barbarians. It doesn't work. Not only would Barbarians need to be nerfed but the other classes still needed to be buffed to bring it all in line with the game. I concluded that the only reason why you would want something overpowered is that you enjoy it being overpowered and you like exploiting it so you'll do or say anything to keep it that way, even destroy the game balance in the process.

Fortunately the game designers are not stupid. They may have not anticipated the Fate being used like this, but that doesn't mean they'll leave it the way it is and also, at the same time, they won't keep the exp rate of the other methods lagging behind either, so take from that as you will.

[PiedPiper]

I'm a legacy player, I only had to level one class in the new system. I really enjoyed playing through the story as acn, was a decent pace to learn 2.0 and a bit about the class (Stopped at 40 and finished on a 50 so i could get into endgame content).

I personally did not enjoy fate grinding, but its fast, way faster than dungeon grinding. Personally, I dont' get why people want it to take a long time to level, you realize that for every class you level, you are looking at 60 CM runs (or equal amounts spread accross ak and garu spam) to gear up. That's easily 40 hours of grinding the same 3 instances. Why should people have to grind 50-60 hours just to get to that grind?

I would love to see dungeon exp made equal to fate exp (including things like DD, cus... why would I do dungeons at an increased rate if DD would still be faster). Many have said this will "destroy the community cus too many 50s lololwhatever." Buffing dungeon exp will have the oppostie effect. FATEs don't teach you your class, dungeons do. Dungeons are at least party play.

And, if we're honest, someone who only has one 50 and just got there is mostly in the dark about their class compared to peopel doing titan and coil. There will always be a learning curve for fresh 50s, at least grinding dungeons rather than fates will give the players that made that choice a head start. I want to get my friends into the game, and I want to play with them, which means I want them 50 ASAP. Geting at least one 50 will keep you in the game longer.

Also, fate grinding and the such is meant for after your first 50 (since you can't do anything worthwhile without having done the story anwyay). At that point you've gone the "slow" way once already. Quickly fate/dungeon grinding just keeps peopel more interested and flexible at 50, not "nubcakes flooding the community."

[Eralyn]

Having finally having actually needed to fate grind I can say the rate of exp gained from doing it is a perfect rate of progression. The time played to EXP gained ratio feels right to me which just supports the idea of buff everything else. It would be really nice if there were more quests to do an more areas to play in to get the exp a natural way as well making things like leves and dungeons worth while as more alternatives. I think the best thing possible would be to balance out the content so that every activity is a decent way of leveling so people can play however they want and the best way to do it is buff everything up to the level of fates and add more content and quests (though this may be difficult due to the youth of this version of the game).

[Tolmos]

Fortunately the game designers are not stupid. They may have not anticipated the Fate being used like this, but that doesn't mean they'll leave it the way it is and also, at the same time, they won't keep the exp rate of the other methods lagging behind either, so take from that as you will.

You're right, they aren't stupid. Which is why they have not only not nerfed FATEs, but they have also shown no interest in doing so in the future. On top of that, they have already announced that they will be buffing dungeons. So all together, they are taking the right course in leaving FATEs as they are and buffing dungeons to be on par with them.

All is right in the world.

[The_Last_Dragoon]

Fates really aren't that "attractive" of an option, it's just that players are drawn to the fact that it is indeed leagues ahead in both experience and the farming of gil or seals. What I feel really needs the boost is Leves since they are limited questing options that practically function as the game's dailies, but due to their pitifully insignificant Exp & Gil rewards, people completely ignore them because they are seen as a waste of time.

I know that they want to keep Fates attractive so that they can actually get completed, but when that's the ONLY logical way to do anything, it gets extremely repetitive and boring due to the influx of players flocking to regions like Coerthas in order to farm them 24/7.

[Sylari]

This type of reasoning was brought up in the Diablo 3 community concerning Barbarians being so overpowered and therefore Barbarians wanted Blizzard to buff everyone else to be overpowered rather than nerfing Barbarians. It doesn't work. Not only would Barbarians need to be nerfed but the other classes still needed to be buffed to bring it all in line with the game. I concluded that the only reason why you would want something overpowered is that you enjoy it being overpowered and you like exploiting it so you'll do or say anything to keep it that way, even destroy the game balance in the process.

That's a false equivocation though because FATEs are not an issue of overall game balance and FATEs being strong doesn't act to the detriment of other players like having overpowered/underpowered classes do. FATEs make dungeons obsolete in the same way barbarians made some of their counterparts obsolete, but it's not a comparable situation at all outside a very superficial level. Secondly, tinkering with class balance in such a way directly impacts the flow of content given that encounters/dungeons/raids are balanced around a certain baseline... FATEs being what they are is pretty much a self inclusive problem. Thirdly, the problem in your example is one of the problem class outstripping everything on its own while other classes aren't necessarily having issues themselves... the analogy breaks down there because even if you ignore FATEs, dungeons, leves and grinding simply aren't remotely efficient either.

[coffeerox]

That's a false equivocation though because FATEs are not an issue of overall game balance and FATEs being strong doesn't act to the detriment of other players like having overpowered/underpowered classes do.

quite a nice long post you got there, even though you missed the point entirely. The first sentence that I wrote talked about the REASONING that players used. Therefore this is psychological and having to do with how players think. It's the exact same thing, people think exactly the same way about this issue as they did on D3.

[CrimsonJenn]

The thing is, unless they buff dungeons to the point where they are leagues ahead of fates the majority of people still wont do them. The reason being is because the success and experience rate is determined by the skill of the party as a whole where as with fates i can cast aero on 4 targets, walk away and get gold almost 90% of the time with my "effort". FATES in their current state will stranglehold the other functions as long as their THIS easy - i'm not asking for them to whip out ultima on a level 1 or anything, but it wouldn't hurt to make them more challenging and attractive. As of right now they're nothing more than a "leveling tool" rather than the activity they should be. Human beings will always take the path of least resistance and that will almost always be FATES in this current incarnation.

[Eralyn]

@CrimsonJenn
On the other hand a large portion of the players find FATES super boring and making dungeons good will still take away a lot of the players from the FATES. Even if it isn't the ultimate solution, I think it is a good first step. Also if players want to level with FATES still I don't see anything wrong with that; what I do find wrong is that it is the only choice currently. It is also hard to make challenging material when you can zerg it in open world

[Ragingfungus]

Couldn't agree more I actually really enjoyed dungeons but they just don't get you anywhere. I'd love to see optional and repeatable quests added to them so you get to the end and just get a big lvl chunk.