SE, no one likes FATEs. Just stop.

[Altena]

Ok, yes this thread was sparked because of the addition to FATEs in Diadem, but this thread is not about Diadem.

You guys hyped FATEs up to be some amazing dynamic quests that pop randomly which would have you fulfill objectives in an open world to achieve some goal. That goal originally was meant to effect the open world in some way - such as NPCs would get captured, or Aetherites would be inaccessible.

Pre-Launch - You hyped FATEs up to be some amazing dynamic events (similar to GW2). You also teased Primal fates, which would allow free companies to gather their members and summon them. You also said we would get FATEs that would effect the outside world, such as an outpost would be overrun by beastmen, and we had to take back the camp if we didn't succeed in defending it.

2.0 - FATEs came with the reboot of the game. They turned out to be lackluster, and nothing more than an overglorified "kill x mob" or fetch quests. FATE chains were attempted, but not truly utilized, and they ended up just being normal FATEs that instead of having to move to the next one - you can just stand there and wait for the next one to pop while you zerged down a bunch of slightly different monsters. The mini stories you added to some were OK but in the end meant nothing, as nothing actually came of it..

The extent of FATEs at this point were to supplement dungeon and side quest / fetch quest grind. Which was fine for their purpose, however nowhere near the level of hype that you had given us.

You then gated a few of the relic steps behind grinding these fetch quests on capped EXP jobs in order to force people to do them. Newsflash - no one did them, because we actually hated doing them and they weren't fun. They were just some boring overglorified fetch quest that we were forced to do.

3.0 - It seemed like you accepted the fact that your unique "story" based FATEs were a disaster. There was literally no improvement over these fetch quests, and they were just boring grindy quests that people did because they gave EXP.

Future - Please.... I am asking you nicely... Please actually do what you originally said you would. Pop a FATE on an Aetherite camp where beastmen will invade and you have to defend the camp. If you fail the FATE then you are no longer able to teleport to that Aetherite, NPCs would move outside the camp, and you would have to achieve various side FATEs in preparation for a massive boss FATE at the camp in order to take it back..

On a bare minimum level, please get your FATE designers to play Guildwars 2 for 3 months, and copy + paste their "Dynamic Event" models if you have to.

And for the love of god -
STOP FORCING THESE STUPID FETCH QUESTS DOWN OUR THROATS.

Nobody likes them.
They are not Fun.
They are a waste of time.
And they are ungodly amounts of boring.

Your answer to making content more interesting should not default to your version of "Dynamic Events". Because your FATEs are far from dynamic and about as interesting as a side quest I can pick up from an NPC that tells me to kill 6 ladybugs..

[Astral145]

Short Answer NO.

I can see epic fates or maybe long drawn out fates where we have to invade to free NPCs...

But A BIG HAIL NO to closing off warp points just for the sake of closing them for some fate event. Not everyone is into that and this is a theme-park MMO so it wouldn't work.

Dynamic fate like content will need to be updated on a constant basis and stay relevant for the life span of the expac (roughly 2 years) and will need to be turned off when a new expac drops.....

Fates are design to be a drop and forget kind of content... we do get some tweaks here and there but its basically there for getting exp while waiting on dps queues and used for other content like relics.

[ShadowHunterrX]

I like fates sooooo. Fates and doing something else at the same time is the formula to succes !

[seekified]

I agree with OP, really - the only thing FATEs have been successful at is making sure a lot of players hit level 50 without having any idea what they're doing.

The original concept for FATEs was good, and I know from having played Firefall that "invasion" style world events that lock you out of various things until they're completed can definitely work if implemented correctly. We know from S ranks that having a (supposedly) powerful monster spawn that gives rewards is a great way of bringing the server together, even if it unfortunately results in a lagfest. Primal FATEs would achieve the same thing.

But by the Twelve, stop adding RNG-based FATE grinding to anything actually related to endgame progression!

[Ryel]

I have to agree with this, as every time we see FATEs added to something they always seem like wasted potential.

The number of 1.0 systems that were removed with the promise of turning them into FATEs in 2.0+ is sad considering none of those iterations have lived up to their initial expectations.

Remember Hamlet Defense? It was shelved in 2.0 under the notion that they would be re-added via FATEs, and here we are on the verge of 4.0 with no content that has come close to emulating that style of play.

How about Caravan Security?(AKA chocobo escorts) another feature that is a shadow of it's prior incarnation.

I feel like the developers are getting mixed feedback from FATEs due to the practice of gating highly desirable rewards behind grinding them or forcing them to be parts of other content and thinking this means that people like the FATEs themselves. More often than not however the player response to the FATE parts of those quest tend to be overwhelmingly negative (according to forum history) and yet for some reason they still seem to be the go to answer for altering content systems.

Just because a large number of people completed things like 2.0 Relic doesn't mean they enjoyed FATE grinding.

Just because prior to Palace of the Dead it was the most efficient means of getting exp doesn't mean players enjoyed FATE grinding.

Just because it's now shoved in Diadem as an alternative to sitting still in one area and AoE blowing up dinosaurs doesn't mean we enjoy FATE grinding.

Please take a careful look at the FATE system and reconsider how these are implemented because more often than not they are wholly underwhelming.

[dalta]

il take fate grinding over doing level 15-49 dungeons anyday. the HW fates really dont give enuth exp though. and i havent tryed the new diedem yet but i feel they should give seals aswell as those box's though

[RLofOBFL]

I somewhat agree.

[Arthem]

But A BIG HAIL NO to closing off warp points just for the sake of closing them for some fate event. Not everyone is into that and this is a theme-park MMO so it wouldn't work.

In a game where there really isn't much to do outside of daily roulettes and weekly raids, I'd gladly welcome incentive to actually do other content in the game. Even better if they overtuned these fates a bit to make them somewhat challenging so it wasn't just a braindead zerg of weak mobs. Besieged in FFXI worked on the same premise, sort of, and not only was it enjoyable to do, you had a good reason to do it because of this. Taking camps back sucked, sure, but it was all the more reason to protect the city (or in this case, the aetherytes/npcs) so that we wouldn't lose them.

[JunseiKei]

F.A.T.E.s are generally easy for even bad players to complete, while dodging apparently eludes some players still.

So, no. Enjoy the F.A.T.E.s~

[Zojha]

Okay, so instead of the standard fetch and kill quests FATEs are...

...you want standard fetch and kill quests that you need to do in order to maintain access to an area?
And that somehow isn't forcing them down people's throats...? >_>

I mean, we can hopefully all imagine how the idea would turn out: There would be a standard "Kill Monsters" FATE where monsters attack NPC that gets failed when NPCs die like in Highbridge. Then they'd start a couple other standard FATEs around the area and in the end pop Gorgimera in the camp. Nothing new, only difference being that both ignoring it and helping out is more annoying.

We know from S ranks that having a (supposedly) powerful monster spawn that gives rewards is a great way of bringing the server together, even if it unfortunately results in a lagfest.

Kinda like having a powerful monster spawn that gives i280 BiS weapons. Yes, they indeed learned that >_>
Or more generally, they learned that they can sell any trash with the right rewards. So there's no point in revamping FATEs if that's what it's going to boil down to anyway.

FATEs are either trash mob fights (the kill ones, the fetch ones AND the escort/protect ones), "boss" fights that cannot be properly designed in a trinity game because you have no real arena nor fixed group size nor composition to work with (which means a healer will make anything faceroll that isn't designed to require one and their lack anything impossible that is), and right click to win FATEs where you gather stuff.

It doesn't matter how you chain or combine them or what you lock behind them: They're mechanically as engaging as grinding random open world mobs and fetch quests. Of course that's going to get boring quick >_>