Conflicting tasks ruining the game?

[Colt47]

I'm not sure if anyone else feels this way, but after coming back the game seems to have a problem with telling the player what they should be doing instead of letting them decide what they want to do.

To elaborate, the game has an expert roulette composed of two dungeons that reward lore tomes. Lore tomes are used to purchase the highest level gear outside of pure raiding in the game and the dungeons are the easiest way to get lore. Furthermore, a lot of the end game "keys of the castle" content require a certain gear level or push the community to enforce a specific gear level, so there's a lot of incentive to stay on top of gear level.

However, that expert roulette has a total of two dungeons in it and it becomes a slog every patch to have to go through the motions. Void ark is very much the same as a catch up instance: Everyone is going to run it to the point of exaustion instead of getting to go around and do things that are actually enjoyable, like EX / Savage, older content for glamour, etc.

Also, something just seems wrong if the community has to set it's own gear level restrictions just to try and make a hard fight more passable and to accomodate people who may not have run the content as much and thus turn a clear party into a learning group for the night. Usually it just turns into a game of "how high can I set this to keep noobs out?" sort of deal.

Yeah I don't know, it just feels like the designers want us to do a dozen things, but then have emphasized just one or two of them as being the absolute best choice that needs to be done first all the time thanks to tome farming. Anyone else feel the same?

[Lambadelta]

There might be only 2 expert roulette dungeons, but there are more than 2 dungeons that reward lore. Go do those?

[Belhi]

What you say is true if your focused on absolute efficiency. However with the Lore cap only doing the Expert dungeon Roulette is rather pointless as you will likely cap halfway through the week. Why not do other stuff. Sure you will get less Lore per run but you will be getting no Lore for running content once you hit the weekly cap. Me personally I rarely run an Expert dungeon more than twice a week. Instead Ill do the trial roulette, a few lvl 60 roulettes, Void Ark from my Mhachi Matter, some Midas, a few days of Vath dailies and a few Frontlines and that will be more than enough to hit cap. In fact the trial roulette is the only roulette I do every day.

[Melch]

End game gear should be obtainable only by doing the hardest content. Tomestones gear should only be fillers.

[Colt47]

There might be only 2 expert roulette dungeons, but there are more than 2 dungeons that reward lore. Go do those?

It's not so much about what awards lore, but rather what awards lore in significant quantity so as to help people with limited time reach cap. As Belhi puts it, it's about efficiency to make time to do other things in the game.

I used to agree with Melch's stance, but with time it's become apparent that approach to end game has it's own issues.

[Cnidarian]

Another one of these threads >.>

I'm just going to post the list I've posted before of all the ways you can obtain Lore in this game currently:

DREX
DR 60
DR Trials
DR Frontlines
DR Mentor
Thordan Normal
Sephirot Normal
Bismarck EX
Ravana EX
Thordan EX
Sephirot EX
Alexander Gordias Normal
Alexander Gordias Savage
Alexander Midas
Alexander Midas Savage
Void Ark
Aetherochemical Research Facility
Neverreap
Fractal Continuum
Saint Mocianne's Arboretum
Pharos Sirius (Hard)
Antitower
Lost City of Amdapor (Hard)
Treasure Maps
Seal Rock
Vath Beast Quests
Diadem
3.0 S Rank Hunt Mobs

As for using "limited play time" as an excuse to only run DREX, well let me ask you this, if your time is so limited that you can't do anything but DREX, what exactly do you need the lore gear for in the first place? Also, with the current state of crafted gear, a lot of the i220 gear even without melds is stronger than the i230 lore gear. You also have the option to use the i220 Midan gear which for some slots are better than the i230 lore gear. Currently the highest ilvl requirement in the game is i205 for Sephirot EX. If you don't meed the ilvl requirements people post in PF, then start your own party with a lower ilvl requirement.

Outside of Midas Savage, you essentially do not need any gear higher than the i210 set. I'm not quite sure where you are getting the idea that "the designers want us to do a dozen things, but then have emphasized just one or two of them as being the absolute best choice that needs to be done first all the time thanks to tome farming." Yes, DREX is the most efficient, but it is not the only viable way. This is the same as people who cried when the 210 relic step was released and all they saw was that they had to run Alexander Gordias normal 800 times to get their items. They ignored the fact that A, you get Esoterics from running Gordias and B, that there were multiple alternate methods of obtaining unidentified items instead of Gordias normal.

[FabricioRF]

Yeah, nothing wrong with "Expert" Roulette yielding more tomes than the hardest content in the game. lol

[Cnidarian]

Yeah, nothing wrong with "Expert" Roulette yielding more tomes than the hardest content in the game. lol

Remove the tome bonus and they don't really yield more tomes than the hardest content in the game for people who have it on farm. You also get i240 gear from that hardest content in addition to tomes, so the reward is still greater.

[FabricioRF]

Remove the tome bonus and they don't really yield more tomes than the hardest content in the game for people who have it on farm. You also get i240 gear from that hardest content in addition to tomes, so the reward is still greater.

They do.

Anyways, my question is: why does expert HAVE to be the only efficient way? Why the other methods can't yield more tomes? We're limited to 450 a week, anyway.

[MomomiMomi]

...

Don't know why you have such an issue with people wanting the alternate methods to be as rewarding as DREX.