Please Make Older Minion Mats Available Elsewhere

[sarehptar]

Over the last two and a half months, I have been on a quest to craft all the craftable minions for myself and my FC mates. While the newer crafted minions require a bit of extreme farming and luck on rolls, that's a time-gate I'm willing to deal with. Instead, it's the older minions that are proving to be an absolute nightmare.

The Atrophied Atomos, Steam-Powered Gobwalker, and especially the Iron Dwarf all have such ridiculous mat requirements that it can take months to be able to craft even one of these minions.

1) Glazenuts. Actually the most reasonable part, but if you aren't able to shell out hundreds of thousands on the MB, get ready to wait at least one real world week's time and gardening effort just to get one mat.

2) The Timeworn Wyvernskin mats, which... never... drop. Myself and two FC mates have been completing Wyvernskin Maps every single day for more than a month now, as well as purchasing extra maps on the MB. Between us and our alts, we've opened over 100 Wyvernskin maps--not a single Atomos Corpulence drop. These maps are now outdated and very few people are doing them, so MB prices are high (typically 40k-50k a map) and prices for the rare drops even higher.

3) Field and Airship venture mats are gated behind 18 hour explorations with RNG rewards. You have no idea when you will get the mats you want; just have to keep mindlessly sending your retainer and air ship out and waiting 18 hours... over and over and over again...

RNG is RNG, I know--but why are minions that haven't been relevant in five years still only accessible via RNG maps/explorations with terrible drop rates? We're now two expansions past the point where these minions were released--it shouldn't still take months to make them, as the maps they are tied up with grow increasingly less relevant and available on the MB.

From someone who is well beyond the point of frustrated with this: Square please make Atomos Corpulence, Exquisite Buttons, Iron Giant Cores, and Iron Giant Scraps available outside of just treasure maps/ventures. Make Atomos Corpulence a rare drop from Atomos in the Crystal Tower raids. I'd go back and do those if given the reason! Make Iron Giant Cores drop from the MSQ Garlean bots. Make Exquisite Buttons purchasable from, say, the Pixie beast tribe--seems like something that would catch their fancy.

Just... please... I can't look at another Wyvernskin map...

[Jojoya]

Some crafting materials are intended to be rare to make the crafted item more valuable. They're not intended to be crafted for groups of players at one time.

Minions are always relevant. There are always players wanting to add them to their collections, just like you. Therefore there is value in keeping the drops rare.

Make use of world visit to shop for the materials you need. But I would say give up on Atrophied Atomos unless you're willing to spend the gil. The Corpulence has always been extremely rare even compared to other rare materials.

[sarehptar]

But I would say give up on Atrophied Atomos unless you're willing to spend the gil. The Corpulence has always been extremely rare even compared to other rare materials.

And this is the problem. These are crafted minions, not 1% drops from savage content. After this many years, there's just no need for this item to still be so rare. There are plenty of other rare crafted items that are relevant right now for crafters to make their gil. Making these mats available elsewhere isn't going to hurt any crafter's income or devalue the item--no one is asking for these mats to be free for anyone who wants them, just to make the mats accessible via other routes than outdated treasure maps that no one does anymore. Plenty of other rare minions have had their difficulty decreased over time and have been made accessible via alternate routes (Heaven-on-High for Dwarf Rabbit, etc.).

The difficulty of crafting these early Glazenut minions is rising as time goes by and fewer people do and gather Wyvernskin maps--someone who got it early actually has a less "valuable" minion than one crafted today, which seems like a glaring design flaw to me. The fact that Square didn't repeat this type of crafting requirement for any other crafted minions after this group really says a lot.

[DrWho2010]

It says that while some things get nerfed throughout the lifetime of the game, some rare things remain rare and probably will never change. it's possible things could change if you can get enough attention for the devs to notice you. Wind-up Calofisteri/Scathatch minion drop rates were horrid until enough people complained. There hasn't been mention of it for some time but many people don't have the rare Pod 316 minion from Copied Factory either. will the devs make it a standard drop once the next 24 man nier raid is released in 5.3? and will there be another rare minion to get too?

As for glazenuts - oh you have to wait a week to grow one. such sadness.
Airship/Submarine drops? gotta keep some things rare too.

[Esmoire]

I am in favour of them doing something about old treasure maps. Like... maybe some kind of way to open them up as level 80 versions. What I don't like about them is the enemies they summon are a pushover, but then in HW and SB, if you get a portal, the dungeon is synced. There is a huge disparity, where the trash isn't fun to fight, but you want many hands available in the event there is a portal. I'd like maybe a way to fight level 80 trash instead, and maybe scale the drop rates up.

Though I think glazenuts themselves are fine. You are supposed to engage with the gardening system to get them, and there should be some kind of market for people who take gardening seriously. It's a little clunky and could use some love, but the general premise is fine. Same with blood peppers, or jute. For what it's worth, we know they are working on... some kind of farm system, so maybe growing them will be more streamlined in the future.

[Liam_Harper]

And this is the problem. These are crafted minions, not 1% drops from savage content.

It's not a problem. Crafted minions don't have to be all handed over on a plate. Having a few rare ones gives a collection something to aim for.

A few hundred k for mats is peanuts anyway, you could sell one lv80 3 star craft, or a few bits of furniture, or run Zonureskin maps, or run a hunt train and sell the materia and so on. Gil is basically just there for vanity items anyway, so put it to use. I'm surprised they're so cheap tbh.

[Duskane]

haven't they already put some of the older map mats in the scrip vendors?
Steam-Powered Gobwalker isnt very hard to make at all tho since a4/s is a joke unsync and im sure you can get some people to help plus get the mount at the same time

they should just let people Unsync older maps tho

[RyuSaarva]

How about we don't make every single item worthless?

[sarehptar]

It's not a problem. Crafted minions don't have to be all handed over on a plate. Having a few rare ones gives a collection something to aim for.

A few hundred k for mats is peanuts anyway, you could sell one lv80 3 star craft, or a few bits of furniture, or run Zonureskin maps, or run a hunt train and sell the materia and so on. Gil is basically just there for vanity items anyway, so put it to use. I'm surprised they're so cheap tbh.

This is what I don't understand--how is asking for another relatively time-consuming way of getting something the same as asking for it to be handed over on a plate? My suggestions were literally to make the items rare drops from raids/dungeons or require you to complete quests to get them, not to make them 10 gil vendor items... This isn't a zero-sum game of going from one extreme (stupid artificial RNG difficulty) to completely free handout...

Also, the gil is definitely not the point. I'm an omni-crafter sitting on more than 100 million gil currently. Me and my FC just thought it would be fun and neat to craft these in-house, grow all the gardening plants and collect the mats ourselves to make them. But after two months of unsuccessfully attempting to do this, it's really put a damper on the fun of trying to craft these minions ourselves. There's "rare minion" and then there's "you might as well give up on this because you'll never be able to craft it except by sheer dumb chance."

There are no other crafted minions like this in the game and it's not like these are exactly super popular well-loved character minions we're talking about here. How many people are using their Atrophied Atomos or Iron Dwarf as a status symbol? There's literally nothing to gain for anyone by keeping this one particular set of minions so difficult to create, when, as you say, there are plenty of other expensive items for people to make their gil from and show off as their fancy rare minion of the week.

[DrWho2010]

rare stuff be rare yo