How to fix FATES (and to a degree marks) in three easy steps

[deekapowski]

1. Add complications and variables. Players don't mind having to use a strategy. As a rule, half the FATEs should not be able to be completed with only 1 class, much less one person. You can give the baddies any level of variables. That would stop the pure thoughtless-fest. For example a boss that multiplied when you used aoe or fates that required actions like putting out burning buildings complete with rescuing and healing people. At the end of the day, a rpg should be about more than how much damage you can dish/take.

2. Create a hard mode. All those fates where the guy stands there and waits for someone to open the FATE? Yeah. Plenty of opportunity to make FATEs specifically for the level 50s who want extra challenge (they show show on the map as a different color) instead of having a bunch of fully decked pcs completely negate the new guys who are using the FATEs to level. On its own, level sync is not a challenge it's a replay.

3. FATE Actions. FATEs are supposed to be people coming to together, but has anyone made a friend through a FATE? (Not a FATE party, an actual FATE). Do people work together during a FATE or is it mindless? I can't be the only person still upset they never made anything in this game as cool at the THM ARC fire arrow combo they had in the 1.0 cut-scene. Allow different combinations to create different effects.

[Felis]

FATEs only need 2 things

1. more chain FATEs
Like the one in northern Thanalan, where it start easy and the difficulty increase with every next FATE in the chain. And at the end a hard boss fight.

2. more variety
In moment we have gathering FATEs, escourt FATEs, protect FATEs and "hitting the enemies with the weapon until they die" FATEs. There need to be more mechanics in the FATEs. The one during christmas was interesting where you need first a buff from a tree before you can attack the enemies. Maybe also a FATE like the battle against the spriggan golem in copperbell mine HM. An NPC would give you a bomb that need to be placed at the feet of the boss to do dmg on the boss. A tank need to tank the boss (of course) and another group kill the adds so that the bomb group can do the work.

I can't be the only person still upset they never made anything in this game as cool at the THM ARC fire arrow combo they had in the 1.0 cut-scene.

That was an CNJ, not THM.
THM spells were Astral element and Umbral element. Fire, Lightning and Ice were originally CNJ spells.

I think that scene symbolized the Battle Regiment.

[Ultimatecalibur]

The main problem FATEs seem to have is lack of decent non-XP rewards currently. GC seals are worth very little and easy to collect elsewhere and the Gil rewards barely cover repairs.

1. more chain FATEs
Like the one in northern Thanalan, where it start easy and the difficulty increase with every next FATE in the chain. And at the end a hard boss fight.

There are 7 Fate chains that I know of and few are paid very much attention. The lowest level one is Attack on Highbridge (level 24) in East Than and The Hive (level 32) in South Shroud is another. I rarely see either of these chains done. I can not count how many times I've seen Attack on Highbridge: Denouement (this starts spawning when the Attack on High Bridge fates are failed and will keep spawning until completed, and only then will Attack on Highbridge: Prelude start spawning again) or Breaching the Hive (First fate in the Hive chain) timeout. More Fate chains will not do anything unless people are actually doing them.

My suggestion would be to give the following Fates the following Allied Seal rewards for successful (Gold) completion:

Lazy for You - 10
Attack on Highbridge: Act I - 1
Attack on Highbridge: Act II - 1
Attack on Highbridge: Act III - 3
It's Not Lupus - 10
Breaching the Hive - 2
Clearing the Hive - 3
Defending the Hive - 2
Keeping the Hive - 3
Svara's Flight - 1
Svara's Fear - 1
Svara's Fall - 3
Svara's Fury - 3
The Eyes Have It - 20
Dark Devices - The Plea - 1
Dark Devices - The Bait - 1
Dark Devices - The Switch - 1
Dark Devices - The End - 2
Go, Go, Gorgimeria - 20
He taketh It wiith His Eyes - 60
Steel Reign - 60

[Saccharin]

1. Add complications and variables. Players don't mind having to use a strategy. As a rule, half the FATEs should not be able to be completed with only 1 class, much less one person.

More interesting mechanics come with problems. First of all, open world content can't be too challenging because you have lots of uncoordinated people. Do you want taunt wars with multiple tanks trying to take control of the boss and wiping rest.

There's also the repetition. FATES are basically grinding content whether it's for XP, ATMA or seals. While complex FATES might be fun at first you'll likely get sick after to 100th one.

Group FATES only work when there's enough people to group with otherwise they are just there until they despawn. Improved scaling tech is a better solution.

2. Create a hard mode. All those fates where the guy stands there and waits for someone to open the FATE? Yeah. Plenty of opportunity to make FATEs specifically for the level 50s who want extra challenge (they show show on the map as a different color) instead of having a bunch of fully decked pcs completely negate the new guys who are using the FATEs to level. On its own, level sync is not a challenge it's a replay.

ARR just isn't that kind of game and people just need to accept that. Most MMO players just aren't into that kind of thing. Carbine just launched Wildstar as this hardcore MMO but it'll come back to kick them on the arse later, mark my words. If you want to get frequent updates you want to cater for as many players as you can. If you put in hardcore content then you also have to have a more forgiving version because creating content for a small amount of your player base just doesn't make business sense. The brutal, or was it savage, version of Coil is SE testing how multiple dificuilties work out. If only a very small percentage do it then it's just not viable.

3. FATE Actions. FATEs are supposed to be people coming to together, but has anyone made a friend through a FATE? (Not a FATE party, an actual FATE). Do people work together during a FATE or is it mindless?

We need better grouping options I think. In Rift you can set your party to public and at the top of the screen, when there's an open world event and an available party, you can join it. To do this they would have to make parties much bigger, eight is just not big enough. Keep instanced content for at most eight people because frankly anything larger and you struggle to recruit later down the line. The days of 40 man raids are gone.

FATEs only need 2 things

1. more chain FATEs
Like the one in northern Thanalan, where it start easy and the difficulty increase with every next FATE in the chain. And at the end a hard boss fight.

Yes, they need to be more involved and tell a story not that some vegetable monster has appeared and he looks evil so must be killed. Give us a story. SE have done a great job with the patch main story. I liked the FATE in the Highlands that started at Camp Dragonhead and ended at the Steel[?] Vigil and the big dragon. These are the kind of FATES I want to see.

2. more variety
In moment we have gathering FATEs, escourt FATEs, protect FATEs and "hitting the enemies with the weapon until they die" FATEs. There need to be more mechanics in the FATEs.

We need to have fewer FATES but yes more variety. Being open world content the complexity has to be limited. One shot mechanics for example just don't work well with many uncoordinated people.

The main problem FATEs seem to have is lack of decent non-XP rewards currently. GC seals are worth very little and easy to collect elsewhere and the Gil rewards barely cover repairs.

This isn't an issue with seals but rather there need to be seal dumps for a want of a better word. I finished doing my ATMA chain and managed to accumulated a lot of seals. I dumped them mainly in ventures. there needs to be more seal dumps. Maybe crafting mats. Just a suggestion but stuff like that.

My suggestion would be to give the following Fates the following Allied Seal rewards for successful (Gold) completion:

Hell, hell no. It doesn't matter the conversion ratio. Hunts were given a separate currency for a reason, SE didn't want to tie them to FATES - remember those things people said they were sick of grinding. Currently the hunts are broke and the way to 'fix' them isn't to stop doing them. SE will get round to fixing them. Be patient.

[Ultimatecalibur]

This isn't an issue with seals but rather there need to be seal dumps for a want of a better word. I finished doing my ATMA chain and managed to accumulated a lot of seals. I dumped them mainly in ventures. there needs to be more seal dumps. Maybe crafting mats. Just a suggestion but stuff like that.

You can buy the former Philosophy crafting mats (which also drop in the 2.2 and 2.3 HM Dungeons) with GC Seals, but that doesn't change the fact that if I really wanted to get GC seals farming the Mor Dhona Grand Company Leve quests would be the fastest method to gaining them if I wanted to spend them on something. The GC seals from fates are nice, but not a real reason to do them post 50.

Hell, hell no. It doesn't matter the conversion ratio. Hunts were given a separate currency for a reason, SE didn't want to tie them to FATES - remember those things people said they were sick of grinding. Currently the hunts are broke and the way to 'fix' them isn't to stop doing them. SE will get round to fixing them. Be patient.

Most of the players that are "sick of grinding" Fates are saying so because Atma drops are Lottery drops and some players who started grinding fates at the beginning of 2.2 still have not won their 12 Lotteries. Many of those same players were also saying that they were "sick of grinding" BrayfloxHM for Myth tomes, does that mean no more dungeons should be created? No it means that you need to either add another source of the sought after reward or a comparable alternative.

Allied Seals were created (and their rewards chosen) to give players a reason to collect them and do the content (Hunts) that reward them. The problem comes in that so many players are trying to do the content that rewards them. Adding the Fates that I listed to the amount of content that rewards Allied Seals and you will see a lightening of the load on the Hunts.

[Nabian]

There are alot of problems with FATES and Hunts but honestly it sums up to one complicated thing (or a few I guess but mostly this one). The primary issue is scaling. Especially hunts where at times there are upwards of 300-400 players attacking a single mob. How do you make a fight challenging when there are 300 players attacking it. If you scale the damage of the mob to be "more challenging" it won't be possible for a single player to tank the mob, or a single hit would instantly kill numerous players.

Based on that tanks would be shafted in that, if your dead you don't get rewards. Just increasing the HP of the mobs doesn't really increase the challenge it just makes the fights take longer. Especially when so many are attacking. I like the idea of extra mechanics such as the snowman event during Christmas but that still won't fix the issue as you'd have 200 players attack while the other 200 were trying to get the buff. As much as people hate the idea I think there needs to be a limit on the number of players attacking a single mob. Perhaps make claiming mobs actually important. Give us the ability to form our own alliances and make the bosses difficulty for a 18-man alliance. After that..the first team to hit the boss gets the claim.

Or

another alternative would be to have hunts and fates spawn using rare/ex drop items. For example have S rank hunts require drops from SCoB to pop the mob. If you pop the mob it's exclusive for your party only. I personally don't like the current Hunts system but at the same time...it certainly has made getting oils/sands/alexandrite/myth completely mindless. For example...about 2 hours after reset I had already capped my soldiery for the week while farming Hunts. With hunts its way to easy to get the rewards. Also...the rewards are kind of backwards imo....1k for vanity items yet i90 myth gear cost 40-50 seals?

Here are some potential suggestions:
1) Make FATES/Hunts party exclusive with claiming system
2) Make FATES/Hunts require rare drops to pop
3) Increase HP of monsters in FATES/Hunts *we already tried this and it didn't really change much*
4) Add interesting mechanics *I doubt this would help much...but it might ease the monotony*
5) Place a cap on weekly seals/sands.
6) Add high level fates in low level zones (i.e., level 50 fates outside of town).
7) Have monster HP scale with the number of players in the zone (not just the ones engaged in the FATE/Hunt)

[Electrowitch]

The whole Fate System BS needs to be completly removed from the game. It´s Fate´s fault that we have to deal with so many noobs and incapable players in endgame. When should they learn how to play their Job, when they can easily button smash spam all their way to endgame? The game needs a System that prepares players with game mechanics. And no, Guildhests don´t do this good enough