By A Whisker - FATE / FATEs in Daily Mark bills

[NationOfZealots]

I keep getting this particular FATE, (amongst others) in Outer La Noscea for the Daily Mark Bill from Grand Company, but the spawn rate for it is still incredibly low - why? Please message me about why this particular FATE is one of the slowest spawning FATEs in the game? I don't pay a monthly subscription to artificially wait around for content to appear. Square Enix's previous argument of "completing other FATEs in the area" has been shown to be an incorrect observation many time and a failure by development staff to listen to players regarding this artificial delay in game progression. I can do other content while "waiting" such as crafting however I still end up waiting longer than is more than necessary.

A cry for update of the FATE system was first asked over 3 years ago: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...unts-and-FATEs

I seriously suggest you look into this ASAP because this is an unwarranted omission and dramatic oversight by Square Enix to address the beginner-level development ethos that lead to such a massive eyesore amongst the other great content in this game - meaning the longer this is not addressed, the more of a clearer bottleneck it will be for new players questioning the legitimacy of waiting for your content and legacy players expecting underwhelming systems in the future.

However if you willfully won't, as history shows, fix this so FATE-required content is prioritised over FATE that are not - FFXIV will lose subscribers and furthermore because this is part of 2.xx content, it means Square Enix seriously puts in doubt what players can expect further in the game's lifeline, if they can maintain subscription amongst the ignorance. This is even an opportunity to introduce a new 2.xx quest. Is it because Yoshida never "owned" the daily mark bill system to the extent that no one is allowed to even diagnose this constantly reoccurring issue from players? Is Square Enix afraid they will get harrassed from players who seek action on new content only and therefore any commitment to diagnosing bugs from previous expansions as bad? Square Enix needs to be more accountable on such a simple subject.

Please address this immediately for 4.2, I am sick of this affecting my game play.

(I'm posting this here because I was advised by your in-game Support Desk to do so, I'm aware there is a FATE section but I am just following directions from the badly handled customer service support.)

[Enkidoh]

That FATE is hardly the one with the lowest spawn rate that is required for Hunts though (Giant Seps in Central Coerthas is probably the lowest, it can take two to three hours to spawn at least). However, SE learned from this and the Stormblood and Heavensward Hunts do not require FATE NMs, only the original ARR ones do. Like most older content that it in the game that is now either regarded as obsolete or difficult to do, SE aren't going to change it. And if you think two to three hours is bad clearly you've never played FFXI and it's weekly respawn NMs.

Also SE have stated in the past that each zone only allows a certain amount of FATEs to be active at any one time, so ones with low spawn rates will be reduced even more if certain other FATEs are being ignored. So try going around doing other FATEs in that zone for a bit and see if that helps.

[NationOfZealots]

That FATE is hardly the one with the lowest spawn rate that is required for Hunts though (Giant Seps in Central Coerthas is probably the lowest, it can take two to three hours to spawn at least). However, SE learned from this and the Stormblood and Heavensward Hunts do not require FATE NMs, only the original ARR ones do. Like most older content that it in the game that is now either regarded as obsolete or difficult to do, SE aren't going to change it. And if you think two to three hours is bad clearly you've never played FFXI and it's weekly respawn NMs.

Also SE have stated in the past that each zone only allows a certain amount of FATEs to be active at any one time, so ones with low spawn rates will be reduced even more if certain other FATEs are being ignored. So try going around doing other FATEs in that zone for a bit and see if that helps.

There are many FATEs in this position - Giant Seps is definitely one of them.

If daily mark bills are considered obsolete - why are they not removed from the game entirely if it is such a difficult thing to have to service? This is Final Fantasy XIV, not another random game with entirely different developers, let's not pretend that is the distraction from what is being discussed.

SE have certainly stated that "to be active at any one time, so ones with low spawn rates will be reduced even more if certain other FATEs are being ignored. So try going around doing other FATEs in that zone for a bit and see if that helps. "

This is untrue and deceiving and it is an old lie that continues to be spouted as fact even by legacy players. I do these daily mark bills every day and unfortunately the clearing of said "other" FATEs iss not taken into consideration of the actual balance. I can complete several "other" FATEs, sometimes the same ones over and over and over and the FATE I need still does not spawn. I have learned to come back to these rather than actually wait. However I am thinking of the bottlenecks that it artificially creates, several newbies in our LS on Gungnir still question the reasoning behind artificially waiting. FATE balances are a thing, it is not as if there needs to be massive restructure by developers, it only requires (as I've said and is always failed to be acknowledged) certain limited backend changes so these FATEs spawn more and for good reasons. This will not take away from Ultimate content or lead to a delay in new content. It is an oversight that has just failed to be acknowledged (otherwise there would be no bug reporting on this forum or at all).

[ChameleonMS]

Outer La Noscea is a bit of special case because it does have 3 fates (Miner in the Mirror, Stopping the Shakes and Full Metal Alchemist) which are basically always up. Then there is the relic related fate, Schism, which had it priority upped a while ago. I remember during Anima stage (way back), this fate was on like a 6 hour timer.
Other ARR zones with Beast Tribes also have very similar behaviour as Outer La Noscea.

Can SE make improvements, sure. There are what 6 or 7 maximum number of fates active in the zone. With 3 basically consumed at all times and another with priority you frequently looking at greatly reduce chance of getting the fate you want to spawn. I have been doing the daily hunts a bunch in ARR zones for the last couple months to get my mount speed.

To keep my sanity, I go with: Complete up to 5 fates in the zone to try and trigger the needed fate. Failing that, I just teleport back to that zone 1 or 2 more times between roulettes to see if the needed fate is present. Failing that get a new bill the next day.

[NationOfZealots]

Outer La Noscea is definitely a unique zone however I do argue it is probably one of the smallest in the game (definitely when FATEs are concerned) plus on my server the 2 FATEs that spawn from each other are often completed by noobs wanting the beast tribe drop. Make It Rain and I'm a Rock, Not a Number are the other two that also require extensive waiting around. Outside of this zone, I would cite a minor handful of FATEs in the game need to be changed to resolve the initial question, a majority already perform adequately.

South Shroud's What Gored Before is a great example where I can teleport and know I can expect to have it finished within 5 minutes due to its frequency. I figured those minority number of FATEs that have actual progression bottlenecks be handled in different ways such as NPC initiation, tie it to spawn conditions etc.

SE have shown they can alter individual FATEs with little repercussion and if they can fix it before 4.2 it would make gameplay so much smoother. I'd be really happy to actually go through each FATE that seems to be holding back the Daily Mark Bill system, if requested.

[TarynH]

They should just change the old Hunts to be more in line with HW's and SB's. Having FATEs in them was dumb to begin with. I'd rather hunt two more sets of monsters. Then again, they don't offer much of anything to be worth doing at the moment. While we're on the subject, I'd actually like to see more hunt pages added to all three.

[NationOfZealots]

They should just change the old Hunts to be more in line with HW's and SB's. Having FATEs in them was dumb to begin with. I'd rather hunt two more sets of monsters. Then again, they don't offer much of anything to be worth doing at the moment. While we're on the subject, I'd actually like to see more hunt pages added to all three.

Great ideas, redditors suggest replacing the FATEs in DMBs with B marks, I'd welcome any change that removes FATEs from DMBs however players on the Atma book step won't, it too is the most common complaint of that quest line.

I tried to acknowledge a change in FATEs primarily as history shows is a recurrent go-to by SE for certain new content, so by acknowledging it now it can be future proofed and not seen so much as "oh no not FATEs again". A brazen idealistic suggestion of mine has been to change loot tables for FATEs to not cap at such a low, low amount therefore they can be more attractive to many for their completion reward (assuming "finish other FATEs first" is still an untruth.)

[Enkidoh]

They probably made FATEs to be a requirement to get players actually doing them (this is the same reason why other content like the quests to unlock Crystal Tower, beast tribe dailies, relic weapon upgrading, Wonderous Tails etc, even the main scenario in 2.1 originally requires things like FATEs, to actually give players a gentle but firm nudge towards content SE considered players were ignoring.).

Unfortunately in this case most of the FATEs featured have very low spawn rates which kind of defeats that purpose, which in most likelihood is why the SB and HW ones did not require FATEs. But that's just my speculation.

Either way, it's clear SE do not go back and alter old content to bring it in line with newer content that is improved over the earlier version I'm afraid (look at CM/Praetorium as an example of this).