Cosmic Exploration on Dynamis needs an adjustment

[Daralii]

I kept an eye on the status report and noticed everyone in Dynamis is on stage 5 now, but also fairly equal in standing otherwise. Does this mean there is some failsafe in place after all or was the duty spawn time and the power of anime in your favour this time?

(If there'd be some sort of failsafe for attempt >9000 this would be at least *some* relief but of course the point remains that it shouldn't be so damn imbalanced that people require it at all. You all are already giving 110% for this.)

I think you automatically succeed at the 4th attempt if the first 3 fail, but that's a very long time to wait just because SE insisted on a needless DC.

[ServerCollaps]

Especially with the 8-hour lockout - I could live with an 8-hour wait, it's not the end of the world for me, but the fact that it also locks us out of the mech ops and red alerts is just... horrible. I can't understand why this design choice was made.

I guess this kind of "punishment" is needed to make more people participate in these events. Most people probably dont care about the fates, unless you take their beloved critical alarms from them

[Turkborne]

Yeah but people who don't craft/gather are getting roped into this to help clear these stages. That's the level of desperation and it shouldn't be making people call in favors with friends to "clear" these and get the server's progress going. They should be scaled enough so the population can clear it without feeling like they're being punished for being on a lower population server, especially when SE did ask people to move there.

[oreorion]

I guess this kind of "punishment" is needed to make more people participate in these events. Most people probably dont care about the fates, unless you take their beloved critical alarms from them

That would be fair enough, but if they have to take the alarms away they should have shortened the wait somewhat. If we lose a fate at 6 in the afternoon, there are going to be way less people online at 2 AM, and even those that are probably think "ah nobody's going to be here, so what's the point of showing up?" and so we're stuck for 16 hours (or a whole 24 if people are at work or aren't awake at 10!) without any of the mech ops or red alerts. 4 or even 6 hours would make that way less painful.

[Midnight2198]

We literally had 2 of our 5 instances break! This is ridiculous and should have been obvious from the start. I literally HAVE to go to zalera to even be able to do my daily/weeklys in a timely manner. Maduin is not scaled correctly for the upgrade FATE's and needs to be patched. Immediately. If we can't go to other moons, make ours worth staying on!!

[Feronar]

Also, suspending Mech Ops and Red Alerts during the 8 hour wait for the construction FATE to begin is bad. When we have to wait 3 failed FATEs for the mercy mechanic to kick in, and there are 2 construction phases back to back, that means 2 full days of no Mech Ops and no Red Alerts.

[TiamatXIII]

I'm absolutely willing to tolerate that being on a smaller server means slower progress in things like Cosmic Exploration. We just don't have the people! But locking out mech ops and red alerts for 8 hours per failure feels extremely bad, like we're being punished by having our toys taken away for not being able to assemble a 300-strong force at 3 in the morning or in the middle of the workday. It makes it very disheartening to show up and try our best at these 40-minute fates (which are, honestly, not nearly interesting enough to merit running for that long) and then be told that our best is not good enough so no bulldozers for you.

[Feronar]

They should rethink the whole construction FATE thing. Instead of having a single FATE that unlocks a moon base stage when completed (or after 3 attempts), perhaps it could have a construction phase that lasts a hard fixed 24 hours. During that time, there would be a construction FATE every hour, starting exactly on the hour. The FATEs would be scaled for the number of participating players. Each player would be granted the full reward for participating in one, while participating in additional FATEs during the same construction phase would grant diminishing returns. The time to the next FATE and the time to the final FATE would both be prominently displayed, both in-game and on the Cosmic Exploration status page on the Lodestone.

This would allow players to participate at times that are convenient for them, and ensure that people don't miss out because the FATE happened at an inconvenient time. The diminishing returns would ensure that players don't feel pressured to do an excessive number of FATEs, while still giving people a reason to stay and do a couple more FATEs.

I noticed this event seems like pretty much a reskin of Ishgard Restoration... IN SPACE! Perhaps this could be applied to the rest of the Cosmic Exploration series, and to future similar events. If there is ever an "FFXIV Classic", it could also be applied to Ishgard Restoration.

[Nana_Bear]

So all this time and they still haven't fixed these issues? GOOD GRIEF.

It simply isn't fair when high-pop worlds/DCs have a huge advantage over low-pop ones like this. It's even WORSE that failing the build "Fate" means you're locked out of Red Alerts and Mech Ops for EIGHT HOURS, either because someone on the dev team didn't realize LEAVING the Build Fate banner up would block those other two from manifesting, or something thought it *should* be a "punishment." I'm guessing it was probably the former, but couldn't they hotfix to move the "Fate" bar to another location on screen, and leave the top of screen for the other two?

Also, IMO, small pop-worlds and "Fates" that pop in the middle of the night on a weekday ought to be scaled up, maybe with progress going twice as fast or something?

I'm on a higher population world. So far we've not had a build "Fate" fail, thankfully, but I look at what's happening to folks on Dynamis, on Chaos, and some other DC's, and I'm like what the heck? I mean, why do we even HAVE "server and world standings" on lodestone in the first place, when this is so UNEVEN, and UNFAIR to the smaller-pop worlds/DCs?

BTW side note, it also kills me that the dang rabbit who gives individual "stellar standings" for 24 hrs for single players, is programmed to vague-book us ON our standings. Like, right after he "activates" for his next 24 hour period, he'll tell me "You're in the top 10%." Then ten minutes later he says something like, "Well we have your name recorded, so keep trying." WHAT? Why on earth won't he give us actual NUMBERS of where we stand? Because it makes a big difference if you're "Now in the top 15%," or "Now in the 50 percentile." And there's NOWHERE ELSE that I've found that gives ANYTHING on WHERE we stand---can't find anything on Lodestone or anywhere else. It's incredibly DEmotivating and discouraging to me, and to others I've spoken with about it.

And yet I see all the time on Lodestone character page people's ratings for Crystalline Conflict.... WHY do we not get that for THIS particular "contest"?

Honestly, the "contest" aspects of this whole Cosmic Exploration thing, are NOT well-planned. At ALL. It's so frustrating.

But of the two, I'd take getting the "Fate" issue (especially RAs and Tech Ops) fixed, over the individual standings things, because the former is affecting entire worlds... and as many have said here, worlds SE was BEGGING people to MOVE to in the first place. I just can't even. WHY? Folks on those worlds DESERVE a fair chance at meeting these arbitrary goals, dang it.

My heart goes out to all of you getting hit with these build "Fate Fails" and especially the lock-out for RAs and Tech Ops. It's like they're punishing you for not crossing the finish line in the race, when they started you 200 yards back from the others running it. It's just not fair.

[oreorion]

But of the two, I'd take getting the "Fate" issue (especially RAs and Tech Ops) fixed, over the individual standings things, because the former is affecting entire worlds... and as many have said here, worlds SE was BEGGING people to MOVE to in the first place.

This is part of why I'm so confused they've done nothing to acknowledge this problem at all in the time CE has been out. I remember someone saying in shout chat during one of the fates that for some of their friends, CE being so unbalanced for low pop servers was what got them to transfer off of Dynamis. If they really do want people to move to Dynamis so badly, then why didn't they at least check to make sure their new content worked properly with Dynamis amounts of players?? Did they think they could manifest 400-player instances by just making it exactly the same and believing hard enough? I get the DC is named Dynamis, but I don't think it works that way.