To Square Enix, these are the reasons why I am currently unsubbed from the FF14.

[KaldeaSahaline]

So you choose to disregard the basic principle of business as a whole?

Just like you chose to ignore all my counterpoints above?

being in the programming field you should know the amount of time and testing it takes to implement things that seem like nothing to the consumer, however can take time on the back end. I'm surprised this has note ven crossed your mind.

Completely irrelevant to an end-user. My understanding of the backend has absolutely no bearing on my expectations as a consumer. People should not be saying oh its ok Yoshi, we know you have spaghetti code to deal with. Not our problem, it's his job to identify solutions and implement them in meaningful and timely ways regardless of the challenge.

Like any other game phases / patches are meant to implement changes based on feed back. What your suggesting is for people to give it 100% percent, and then come up with more creative solutions later on which in turn can burn out creative minds and make them work harder rather than at a steady step that would be comfortable to the staff.

No. I am expecting the devs to actually use their brains the first time around they design their content to make sure its actually:

1) Fun
2) Well designed
3) Scalable

We keep getting features that not only miss a mark, but often multiple/all. Then they can FURTHER iterate on pain points, or if there are limited pain points, they can IMPROVE/expand the content.

The problem is that they're constantly fixing existing content because it just isn't well designed, fun, or scalable. It severely limits their ability to design new content, let alone GOOD new content. Not only that, but we're also riding an incredibly rigid content development template that is getting stale.

[Remyogic]

We keep getting features that not only miss a mark, but often multiple/all.

Who's "mark"? Yours? What gives you the right to define the "mark" for me?

The game has ~600k active characters and there's what, a couple hundred people between forums, twitter, youtube, reddit that are outraged? Heck, I'll round it to 1,000 just to overcompensate. That is LITERALLY .167% of the player base! I'd say they are hitting "marks" pretty well.

[Aerlana]

The game has ~600k active characters and there's what, a couple hundred people between forums, twitter, youtube, reddit that are outraged? Heck, I'll round it to 1,000 just to overcompensate. That is LITERALLY .167% of the player base! I'd say they are hitting "marks" pretty well.

"A complaint is worth twice a compliment"

And not only people writing on forums/reddit/elsewhere that get angry/happy. Large majority stay silent. But get their own thought... my FC get a 100% unhappyness about the app and get bored by the content, their playtime fell off... not only mine. Where we could. And dont count that majority we had from ARR release to now have left the game. 2 other sometime spoke on forum, long time they left this.

Also, i am not the one who speaks for them, but instead of what you think, there isnt only 0,2% unhappy with the way FFXIV is taking...


Yeah there are also many people liking it, never said all was unhappy. But not because "some are happy" that "those happy are in the good mind"

You speak manytime "the feature is not there so no way to complain" ... i dont see why? the feature is there soon, probably close after 4.3 and we know what we will have at first, we just dont know what they will add to use the mogcoins...

Try to not see only on your garden...

[KaldeaSahaline]

Who's "mark"? Yours? What gives you the right to define the "mark" for me?

Correct. My mark. I'm not defining it for you, I'm defining it for me, and for anyone who happens to agree with me. I apologize if you mistook that for anything else.

However, rather than be emotional, why not try to demonstrate where I am incorrect in my analysis?

For instance - take the few example systems I've detailed below and give me some insight into how each of these was either well designed, scalable, or fun; in your own words of course.

• Chocobo Racing
• LoV
• Diadem (1 & 2)
• Eureka
• Materia
• Dungeons
• Squadrons
• Retainers
• Airships/Subs/any other menu content

[Talraen]

Correct. My mark. I'm not defining it for you, I'm defining it for me, and for anyone who happens to agree with me. I apologize if you mistook that for anything else.

However, rather than be emotional, why not try to demonstrate where I am incorrect in my analysis?

For instance - take the few example systems I've detailed below and give me some insight into how each of these was either well designed, scalable, or fun; in your own words of course.

• Chocobo Racing
• LoV
• Diadem (1 & 2)
• Eureka
• Materia
• Dungeons
• Squadrons
• Retainers
• Airships/Subs/any other menu content

Ooh, I want to get in on this.

Chocobo Racing
I really love the way they designed genetics in chocobo racing (i.e., realistically). The abilities and the way you customize them are pretty interesting as well. I had a lot of fun with this content for a while, though as I've gained in rank I have hit a bit of a wall where it's not really worth trying to advance. But I got plenty of fun out of it, so I'm pretty pleased. A bit annoyed that I can't really complete the win-based MGP challenges anymore though.

Lords of Verminion
I admit I haven't actually finished all the tutorials, because I suck at LoV (good at making an initial plan, terrible at reacting to changes on the battlefield). However, the depth of strategy here is pretty cool and I used to spend quite a lot of time statting out good combos of minions. I am impressed at how well they made this clearly mouse-driven style of game work with a controller. Even though I've kind of run out of ways to really enjoy it, the 10,000 MGP weekly challenge keeps this somewhat relevant for me.

Diadem
I never did Diadem when it was current, but I have looked at it after the fact (duoing from my FC house) and it seemed like an interesting idea. I can see why it failed on a combat level, but I do think the gathering was a neat idea as an alternate way to get some rarer items. The spoils have also been pretty useful as another option for getting various materials.

Eureka
I initially resisted Eureka because the idea of FFXI-style grinding wasn't appealing. By the time I decided to try it, everyone had moved to the NM train model. I've only recently started actually participating in Eureka, but I have to say I find it strangely compelling. There's a lot of downtime on the NM train, and my attempts to level outside of it have been pretty terrible, but the camaraderie of waiting on NMs and the level to which people go out of their way to help low-level nubs like me has been pretty great. I really misjudged this one.

Materia
Materia has gone through so many forms, all the way back to the strategic conversions of 1.0. Now that they've added materia to most dropped gear and allowed for materia removal, this system has really become something amazing. I'm pretty lazy with updating my combat gear, but in leveling crafting and gathering on alts the system as it stands now has been hugely helpful. I finally don't feel like my materia is just going to sit there waiting for the perfect time to be used. There are tons of ways to get good materia as well, and it seems pretty well-balanced between allowing you to easily get decent materia and it taking effort to get grade VIs and crafting overmelds.

Dungeons
While I appreciate the early dungeon design with the alternate routes and such, they quickly became frustrating because no one ever uses them. Most of my alts still don't have map completion on a number of ARR dungeons. The newer dungeon design cuts out the fat and just leaves a great experience with fantastic bosses (Genbu being one of my all-time favorites in terms of neat mechanics), awesome visuals, and usually great music. I still love the Stormblood boss theme to death. I hate the type of speed running that was in vogue in the 2.x series, and I think they've done a good job of limiting that sort of thing to a fairly reasonable compromise. I have no complaints about dungeons.

Squadrons
I love squadrons to death. Initially leveling them up isn't terribly compelling, but once you unlock the weeklies and are strategizing what items to go after, doing missions just to hit synergies for cheap bonus items, and recruiting new wacky characters, it gets pretty fun. I am anxiously awaiting 4.3 for the squadron glamours. But the reason I love squadrons is command missions. There is no better way, in my view, to level a character to 50. Gaining 2+ levels per run, being able to kill everything without anyone complaining about taking your time... it's bliss. If you like the old school dungeons, this is the way to experience them.

Retainers
I have a lot of retainers and a lot of characters and I make the most of them. Now that ventures are a currency and not an item, I have a ton (over 2k on my main at one point) and I use retainers extensively to gather items, especially for FC projects. I spend my red gatherers' scrips getting them better gear (because how many hi-cordials do you need, really?) and spend a lot of effort customizing and glamouring them all.

Airships/Subs
I only got into the airship game after Stormblood released, as I moved servers and started my own FC. I've personally built every type of airship and sub piece, and capped all their levels, and enjoyed doing it. It's laid back content you can do whenever without much pressure, and you can get pretty cool stuff at relatively little cost beyond the initial building. Every now and then I send my retainer squad out to get a bunch of dark matter clusters for repairs, but otherwise it's a well-oiled airship/sub machine that provides me with a ton of weird mats, materia, and crystals to do with as I please.

Overall I'm very happy with the direction of this game. I never really thought about all these systems separately, but it is kind of amazing how much different cool stuff they've made here. I'm also a big fan of hunts, maps, chocobo companions, and gardening. There's a ton of stuff that you can do at once, which makes me feel like I'm being efficient even when I'm not really doing anything. Now if only I could get off my lazy butt and actually customize my housing a bit...

[KaldeaSahaline]

Ooh, I want to get in on this.

Chocobo Racing
I really love the way they designed genetics in chocobo racing (i.e., realistically). The abilities and the way you customize them are pretty interesting as well. I had a lot of fun with this content for a while, though as I've gained in rank I have hit a bit of a wall where it's not really worth trying to advance. But I got plenty of fun out of it, so I'm pretty pleased. A bit annoyed that I can't really complete the win-based MGP challenges anymore though.

So, based on what you're saying it's "fun", but lacks the well designed/scalability marks.

I won't argue against your definition of fun, but what I think Chocobo racing should have been is basically FF14's iteration of Mario Kart or Crash Team Racing. A side activity that is simply fun to play with friends during downtime. It didn't need all the progression systems and stuff that drove it further to a solo adventure.

In order to be well designed it'd need good modes for solo matching, team matching, as well as allowing people to grab people out of PF/FC/LS's to to go up against. Allow people to spectate and bet and set up their own prizes. As far as rewards go, this REALLY should have been the system where you unlocked new colors, some bardings, etc, rather than the menu content it was placed in.

Lastly, scalability is important. I would have liked to have seen a crisply made level editor UI so people could craft their own tracks and a means to share them among the community. Not only that, but time trials or battles could work.

Lords of Verminion
I admit I haven't actually finished all the tutorials, because I suck at LoV (good at making an initial plan, terrible at reacting to changes on the battlefield). However, the depth of strategy here is pretty cool and I used to spend quite a lot of time statting out good combos of minions. I am impressed at how well they made this clearly mouse-driven style of game work with a controller. Even though I've kind of run out of ways to really enjoy it, the 10,000 MGP weekly challenge keeps this somewhat relevant for me.

Based on your response, I don't see "fun" mentioned, it's definitely not scalable, and well designed is up for debate.

For me, LoV could have gone 2 different routes. The route I care significantly less about would have been a pokemon styled approach.

The better approach I would have liked to have seen is SE to leverage some of their existing IPs. Namely FFT. I envisioned a system that was basically like editing FFT teams and battling out in scenarios and against other players, almost like a really neat version of FF chess.

Diadem
I never did Diadem when it was current, but I have looked at it after the fact (duoing from my FC house) and it seemed like an interesting idea. I can see why it failed on a combat level, but I do think the gathering was a neat idea as an alternate way to get some rarer items. The spoils have also been pretty useful as another option for getting various materials.

So not fun, not well designed, nor was it scalable. Got it.

Eureka
I initially resisted Eureka because the idea of FFXI-style grinding wasn't appealing. By the time I decided to try it, everyone had moved to the NM train model. I've only recently started actually participating in Eureka, but I have to say I find it strangely compelling. There's a lot of downtime on the NM train, and my attempts to level outside of it have been pretty terrible, but the camaraderie of waiting on NMs and the level to which people go out of their way to help low-level nubs like me has been pretty great. I really misjudged this one.

Like many mentioned, the only reason it's "fun" is because it's an activity that is so trivial it allows downtime to socialize. So does AFKing in town, but that's hardly what I would considered well designed fun content.

The Magia board being nothing but a binary if/then statement doesn't lend well to it being well designed either, and it certainly isn't scalable as we've seen now that people have moved past the content.

Materia
Materia has gone through so many forms, all the way back to the strategic conversions of 1.0. Now that they've added materia to most dropped gear and allowed for materia removal, this system has really become something amazing. I'm pretty lazy with updating my combat gear, but in leveling crafting and gathering on alts the system as it stands now has been hugely helpful. I finally don't feel like my materia is just going to sit there waiting for the perfect time to be used. There are tons of ways to get good materia as well, and it seems pretty well-balanced between allowing you to easily get decent materia and it taking effort to get grade VIs and crafting overmelds.

So you are saying that the process of overmelding is fun? The ridiculously prohibitive cost and tedium and low % success rates on binary/boring stats was fun to you?

It definitely isn't well designed with how many clicks it takes to get through the process, and with how basic materia itself is, it's certainly not fun putting in bland +stats that do absolutely nothing to your gameplay either.

Overall I'm very happy with the direction of this game. I never really thought about all these systems separately, but it is kind of amazing how much different cool stuff they've made here. I'm also a big fan of hunts, maps, chocobo companions, and gardening. There's a ton of stuff that you can do at once, which makes me feel like I'm being efficient even when I'm not really doing anything. Now if only I could get off my lazy butt and actually customize my housing a bit...

I just kind of gave up after the first few. It's clear you didn't understand the exercise. You label these things as "cool", but the gameplay forms you list are either zerg content (i.e. not engaging) or menu content (aka click this, get that), and that getting stuff for minimal effort makes you feel efficient, even when you're not really doing anything.

I appreciate the time you took to respond though regardless, as I suspect the person I originally did won't.

[Talraen]

So, based on what you're saying it's "fun", but lacks the well designed/scalability marks.

I won't argue against your definition of fun, but what I think Chocobo racing should have been is basically FF14's iteration of Mario Kart or Crash Team Racing. A side activity that is simply fun to play with friends during downtime. It didn't need all the progression systems and stuff that drove it further to a solo adventure.

In order to be well designed it'd need good modes for solo matching, team matching, as well as allowing people to grab people out of PF/FC/LS's to to go up against. Allow people to spectate and bet and set up their own prizes. As far as rewards go, this REALLY should have been the system where you unlocked new colors, some bardings, etc, rather than the menu content it was placed in.

Lastly, scalability is important. I would have liked to have seen a crisply made level editor UI so people could craft their own tracks and a means to share them among the community. Not only that, but time trials or battles could work.

I can't agree with you here. I don't think it's fair to expect a side activity to be on par with the best kart racing series of all time, or the best kart racing game outside of that series. (Side note, I appreciate the CTR love! Great game.) What you're describing sounds pretty awesome, but it also sounds like a completely different game they should sell on its own. Particularly the level editor part.

For an MMO side activity, I expect something which is fun to do, doesn't demand constant attention, and can be played for a very long time. (Note that I wish MMO stuff wasn't all designed to last forever, because who has time for that? But it is what I've come to expect and it seems like everyone else wants it.) I think chocobo racing hits all of those notes.

Based on your response, I don't see "fun" mentioned, it's definitely not scalable, and well designed is up for debate.

For me, LoV could have gone 2 different routes. The route I care significantly less about would have been a pokemon styled approach.

The better approach I would have liked to have seen is SE to leverage some of their existing IPs. Namely FFT. I envisioned a system that was basically like editing FFT teams and battling out in scenarios and against other players, almost like a really neat version of FF chess.

I have some of the same arguments here, especially since you're literally comparing Verminion to a different game the same company made (FF Tactics). I would love to see a Tactics-style side game in FFXIV, and I don't think the existence of Lords of Verminion prevents that. It's a totally different thing. They were looking for something relatively quick and action-oriented, and they did an OK job. Not great by any means, but not terrible. I do think the game lacks any compelling reason to play it, though I think that's largely a symptom of its unpopularity. Why invest in something most people don't care about? I hope they try more stuff like this in the future, hopefully with better results.

Like many mentioned, the only reason it's "fun" is because it's an activity that is so trivial it allows downtime to socialize. So does AFKing in town, but that's hardly what I would considered well designed fun content.

The Magia board being nothing but a binary if/then statement doesn't lend well to it being well designed either, and it certainly isn't scalable as we've seen now that people have moved past the content.

That's a fair analysis, but so what? If there's one thing I learned from Eureka, it's how much difference the downtime in a game like FFXI actually made to its enjoyment. FFXI was extremely obtuse and anti-player, yet people still loved it, and Eureka taps into a lot of the reason why that was the case. Why is that a bad thing? If it's designed to be fun, and it is fun, doesn't that make it well-designed?

The Magia board is a bit extraneous, but I don't know what design for that sort of thing would have actually worked well. The only thing I can think of would be to more heavily restrict how often you can change it, and I think that would have just made people mad. It doesn't really add anything to the content (except justifying a few quests), but I don't think it detracts either.

So you are saying that the process of overmelding is fun? The ridiculously prohibitive cost and tedium and low % success rates on binary/boring stats was fun to you?

It definitely isn't well designed with how many clicks it takes to get through the process, and with how basic materia itself is, it's certainly not fun putting in bland +stats that do absolutely nothing to your gameplay either.

In terms of crafting, I do enjoy the materia system. I generally don't do a lot of penta-melding because I craft for fun and not to make money, and I can't afford it. But I'll do a lot of +1 melding or +2 on accessories to gain some slight advantage. The fact that it has a prohibitive cost is what makes it interesting. If it was trivial to max-meld everything, you'd just do that and move on. On the other hand, while I was crafting my two-star crafting gear, I had to decide how much to rely on grade 5 materia (which has a chance of loss upon removal), how much to overmeld, and which pieces were better off as yellow scrip gear compared to the previous crafted set. That's interesting because it requires real choice and there are real risks. Because I craft fairly conservatively, I waited a long time to do this and spent very little (probably lost a few dozen grade IV materia and little else). But if you wanted to be on the bleeding edge of crafting, that was an option as well. That's the epitome of good design to me.

For all other purposes than crafting, I can take or leave materia melding. I find the requirements a bit annoying for gathering, and I don't do any combat content that's hard enough for it to matter whether I melded my gear or not, honestly.

I just kind of gave up after the first few. It's clear you didn't understand the exercise. You label these things as "cool", but the gameplay forms you list are either zerg content (i.e. not engaging) or menu content (aka click this, get that), and that getting stuff for minimal effort makes you feel efficient, even when you're not really doing anything.

I appreciate the time you took to respond though regardless, as I suspect the person I originally did won't.

I'm sure it's coincidental that the four you skipped were the ones I unabashedly loved.

If the "exercise" was to justify content you don't like in terms you've defined, then I would say I "understood" it but made no attempt to actually do it, because that's silly. My point is just that content you find terrible is enjoyed by other people. This game is well-designed for me, perhaps it is not so well-designed for you. And perhaps if they changed the design to your tastes, people like me would like it less. Would that be better or worse? That's a complicated question and I have no idea. But it's not as simple as "this is not engaging, therefore it is bad" because both halves of that premise are in question.

I do appreciate your response as well though, because it's always good to see things from multiple perspectives. And your original question helped me appreciate the game more by thinking about it in the first place. And because now I want a chocobo-based Mario Kart clone really bad!

[MomomiMomi]

In terms of crafting, I do enjoy the materia system. I generally don't do a lot of penta-melding because I craft for fun and not to make money, and I can't afford it. But I'll do a lot of +1 melding or +2 on accessories to gain some slight advantage. The fact that it has a prohibitive cost is what makes it interesting. If it was trivial to max-meld everything, you'd just do that and move on. On the other hand, while I was crafting my two-star crafting gear, I had to decide how much to rely on grade 5 materia (which has a chance of loss upon removal), how much to overmeld, and which pieces were better off as yellow scrip gear compared to the previous crafted set. That's interesting because it requires real choice and there are real risks. Because I craft fairly conservatively, I waited a long time to do this and spent very little (probably lost a few dozen grade IV materia and little else). But if you wanted to be on the bleeding edge of crafting, that was an option as well. That's the epitome of good design to me.

For all other purposes than crafting, I can take or leave materia melding. I find the requirements a bit annoying for gathering, and I don't do any combat content that's hard enough for it to matter whether I melded my gear or not, honestly.

You wrote quite a lot here to basically say "you either do it or you don't." I don't see how that's an interesting decision to make. Good design should assume that the players will want to choose to do it, and make the process of doing it fun and interesting.

The interesting decisions should come in the form of which materia to meld, not if you will meld or not.

[KaldeaSahaline]

I can't agree with you here. I don't think it's fair to expect a side activity to be on par with the best kart racing series of all time, or the best kart racing game outside of that series. (Side note, I appreciate the CTR love! Great game.) What you're describing sounds pretty awesome, but it also sounds like a completely different game they should sell on its own. Particularly the level editor part.

For an MMO side activity, I expect something which is fun to do, doesn't demand constant attention, and can be played for a very long time. (Note that I wish MMO stuff wasn't all designed to last forever, because who has time for that? But it is what I've come to expect and it seems like everyone else wants it.) I think chocobo racing hits all of those notes.

Here we can agree to disagree. I see absolutely no reason that they can't do something like this. In fact, it's almost NEGLIGENT to design something in the same space, but NOT use the benchmark as inspiration.

I.e I would NEVER ever think to create a "party kart" game and not look at Mario Kart/CTR for some ideas of good/bad.

For me, side content needs to be fun enough to stand on its own, if it isn't it failed as "side content".

That's a fair analysis, but so what? If there's one thing I learned from Eureka, it's how much difference the downtime in a game like FFXI actually made to its enjoyment. FFXI was extremely obtuse and anti-player, yet people still loved it, and Eureka taps into a lot of the reason why that was the case. Why is that a bad thing? If it's designed to be fun, and it is fun, doesn't that make it well-designed?

The Magia board is a bit extraneous, but I don't know what design for that sort of thing would have actually worked well. The only thing I can think of would be to more heavily restrict how often you can change it, and I think that would have just made people mad. It doesn't really add anything to the content (except justifying a few quests), but I don't think it detracts either.

The magia board detracts because of opportunity cost (much like most other content forms I discussed above). The fact that something SIGNIFICANTLY better COULD have existed is why it's awful. In my opinion, Eureka had a few opportunities to really push the envelope and they dropped the ball. It's literally nothing I (and a lot of others) wanted. I didn't want more FATEs. I didn't want mindless mob grinds. I didn't want an illusion of choice less pitiful than the old level up stats we used to have. I wanted weather to matter. Mob AI to react to weather and have interactions with elements. I can go into examples, but I've done that in other threads.

I even built my own concept of Eureka a while ago (long before it came out) and posted it on these forums. To me, it had a significantly more engaging core design, but like all development had some issues. Fortunately, I have the luxury of sharing the concept with players to get feedback rather than pushing it live and hoping its well tuned/received.

As far as fun goes, Eureka itself isn't fun (again IMO). Killing nameless/mindless mobs and spamming one move over and over isn't fun. It's only fun because of the social aspect, Eureka can't get credit for that. Maybe it isn't fair to be that way, but I just cannot justify it.

I'm sure it's coincidental that the four you skipped were the ones I unabashedly loved.

I honestly didn't read them. I'm sorry for that, I got busy at work. I will put some effort into it tomorrow though if i get time (busy day tomorrow sadly).

If the "exercise" was to justify content you don't like in terms you've defined, then I would say I "understood" it but made no attempt to actually do it, because that's silly. My point is just that content you find terrible is enjoyed by other people. This game is well-designed for me, perhaps it is not so well-designed for you. And perhaps if they changed the design to your tastes, people like me would like it less. Would that be better or worse? That's a complicated question and I have no idea. But it's not as simple as "this is not engaging, therefore it is bad" because both halves of that premise are in question.

I do appreciate your response as well though, because it's always good to see things from multiple perspectives. And your original question helped me appreciate the game more by thinking about it in the first place. And because now I want a chocobo-based Mario Kart clone really bad!

The exercise I was hoping for was a more structed approach to my criteria. I.e. going itno specific details/examples as to how something is fun, well designed, and scalable. While your response very briefly touched on "fun" (subjectively speaking of course), you ignored the other aspects.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

That's a fair analysis, but so what? If there's one thing I learned from Eureka, it's how much difference the downtime in a game like FFXI actually made to its enjoyment. FFXI was extremely obtuse and anti-player, yet people still loved it, and Eureka taps into a lot of the reason why that was the case. Why is that a bad thing? If it's designed to be fun, and it is fun, doesn't that make it well-designed?

The Magia board is a bit extraneous, but I don't know what design for that sort of thing would have actually worked well. The only thing I can think of would be to more heavily restrict how often you can change it, and I think that would have just made people mad. It doesn't really add anything to the content (except justifying a few quests), but I don't think it detracts either.

Considering the sheer number of players who AFK, I am hard pressed to call Eureka well-designed. Even should I choose to contribute, things die at some a breakneck pace, I often spam the same 3-5 buttons endlessly. What fun I have in Eureka comes from jumping into Discord chats or 'trolling' shout. The content itself is absolutely mindless.

I generally don't do a lot of penta-melding

How can you have an opinion on a system you do not actively participate in? As someone who does overmeld on crafters, gathers and combat jobs, I assure you, it feels absolutely dreadful. You have as little as a 5% chance to meld a single piece, thus you can spend over thirty minutes literally watching your gil blow out only to get nothing out of it. This says nothing of the sheer grind required to obtain higher level Craft and Gather materia—nevermind the abysmal Spiritbonding system. Good design does not have players screaming profusely at how unfair their luck is after blowing up 65 materia on a supposed 17% chance. There is no skill or effort involved. You click through menus, sacrifice a Lalafell and hope RNJesus doesn't hate you.