Why does this game make major things so easy and minor things so hard?

[Vaer]

Cause they are abusing the fact that a lot of people think "they are just cosmetics, you don't NEED them," so they make them painful because usually people give it a pass if it isn't battle "content." Not the first game to do so. Mounts are usually a pain to get in most games. They know people want these things (People even spend real money on the cash shop on cosmetics) so they use them as carrots for content that people might not otherwise do and it works. When they added the garo gear/mounts, there were a ton of people doing PvP.

Back in the early 2000s, it was the actual gear that took forever to get, but cosmetics didn't really blow up back then like now. Now the gear is easier to get but the cosmetics have taken their place.

[BillyKaplan]

Just hoping the bandwagon, really. Like people already said, the actual playing of the game when it comes to this sort of thing is getting the thing, in which case I'm kind of amazed you didn't see the problem with your own comparison, OP. "Savage is easy to unlock but I can't get this ferret minion". ...really? You compared running Savage to getting a minion? A thing that's completely passive and just runs after you vs. learning and succeeding and farming the current hardest battle content in the game? A better comparison would've been getting the mount or what not from aforementioned Savage, imo. And then you see it's a lot more comparable albeit in casual vs. hardcore tiers.

[Shihen]

If I want to go into savage, I just need to beat four easy missions, and add one piece of gear to bring me up to the needed Ilvl to enter. Yes, it is hard to complete when it's in there, but I can get into it absurdly quick and easy.

If I want a little moai minion to follow me around, I need to have one specific craft at 70, geared with HQ basic whites, spend probably a couple weeks or more to garden one item, and I need to find another piece called the colossus slab which apparently no one at all as found yet, as it might be gated behind lolsubmarine missions.

If I want a piece of absolute minimum ilvl gear from expert dungeons for glamor, I need to farm the dungeon for weeks and get lucky. Same for a minion from it.

If I want to make a silly little level 1 dress, I need to do maps with a party, which spawn another map, which then may give me a tiny chance of material popping that I need to win a lot against from 8 other people.

I mean, I get what you're saying but it feels like you're trying to connect unrelated points to say it. You already know the value of the item is in the cosmetic appeal and rarity, and that it has nothing to do with ilvl or being a minion. There's tons of cosmetic gear that is super easy to get, you just picked these examples from practically brand new content. They're just there to give people something to do after tomestones until the next content cycle. After that the drop rates always get a significant boost and become very easy to pick up.

[Vidu]

The fact that making a dress requires maps to do RNG doors to get RNG maps to do RNG doors to get RNG loot is really stupid. There's no getting around that. The whole system with Canals is awful and just designed to be as annoying as possible.

Yeah, but thats one dress locked behind that (okay, to be fair: a bit more than only one dress, but thats not changing the point I want to make now).
There are other dresses in the game - some a lot easier to obtain (MGP, vendor in Ul'dah, cheap, undyeable versions of more expensive gear), some just slightly less grindy (stuff that requires mats from old maps - it drops more frequently now - or mats from diadem). Some quests are just handing out gear aswell, events are prominent for that too. And over time the're making the mats for the new stuff a lot more accessiable aswell - when the new stuff isnt the new stuff anymore. Just look at what happend to some of the rare drops from Aquapolis, like the wool top: they got added to the yellow scrips vendor. They were special for a while and offered people who didnt craft but got lucky a way to earn some gil aswell - and now they're "easy" to get.

Same goes for mounts and minions - there are those that are easy to obtain and then those that are locked behind a grind. Everyone can have a mount or minion - maybe not a very specific one, but its not that you cant have a little pet running behind you all the time.

- at this point I'll stop replying to the quote and just speaking in general again -

They've created all those "systems" (I'll call them systems because I need the word content for another thing here) in the game: Dungeons, Raids, Primals, Crafting, Gathering and Fishing, Gardening, POTD, Treasure Maps, Airships/Submarines, FATEs, Quest, Achievements... and all of them need rewards to make them worthwhile. Needing rewards isnt a problem here - before someone comes in and says "They should just create content thats fun enough so you'll do it without a reward", its a very human thing to look for the carrot.
Rewards for dungeons, raids and primals is esay - their primary rewards are gear. The devs can safely assume that a waste majority of the playerbase is going to do at least the dungeons, so they'll get tomestone gear. Since most people will be doing dungeons, gear thats needed for progression can be a reward - it locks basically no one out of further content.
Not so much with the other things I've mentioned - not everyone enjoys crafting, gathering, fishing... not everyone runs treasure maps and not everyone has access to a garden or an airship. But (some) people still leveled their crafters and geared them up and want something to do for/with them now. Some people got their fisher to level 70 and can ask "Okay, and what now?". People are getting treasure maps and need a reason to bother opening them. FCs are putting the effort in to build vessels - what for? I'm standing infront of my garden and asking myself "What is worth planting?" - and that cant be something thats needed for real progression, so it has to be cosmetical.

There are cheap, but still good looking options for glamour/mounts/minions in the game - if you want something very specific though it might be locked behind something that looks like an aweful grind to you, because it comes from content you werent intrested in until now - and that you're still not intrested in, but now you want that reward. Go and earn it (or pay someone for it).

Lets look at the Moai Minion the OP mentioned again. And look at it from my perspective:
1) Have BSM at level 70 - check, done months ago
2) Have the gear for BSM - check, done months ago
3) Get the mastercrafter book VI for BSM - eh, an hour max of red scrips
4) Get the Royal Fern - check, done that weeks ago because I predicted it would be the new blood pepper
5) Get the Colossus Slab - okay, submarines are my guess, not sure yet.

If you look at it from the perspective from someone who wasnt intrested in crafting and gardening til now and is only intrested because they want this minion, that probably looks awful because its a lot of effort for a minion.
If you look at it from the perspective from someone like me, who spend their preparing for crafting endgame-crafting-gear, its a nice little extra thing I'll be able to make. A nice little extra reward for all the effort I already put into it. Something less boring than the 100 frying pan the BSM can make.
Keep also in mind that you can juyt buy it - eventually.

You're looking at this like a level 15 character who just did Sastasha looks at the current Savage-mount and goes "I want this now!" and then gets told what they have to do to reach that.

[RiyahArp]

you just picked these examples from practically brand new content.

You can look at 50% of the achievements in game if you don't want new stuff. If you wanted any of the original gold mainhands for miner or botanist, the axe or pick of the luminary, you need to gather a total of 21,960 items in ARR lands. If you only wanted one of the titles from one region, like Meadowcaster, thats 7,320 items gathered. Generally most of the game's swimwear is tied behind desynthing big fish, which means you need to spend a lot of time trying to catch one, then maybe a 30% or so chance it desynths into the correct item instead of sand.

But even with new things, in practice this means items are often virtually unavailable for months till supply is corrected. We're still waiting for tokens to be swapped in for doggos.

Keep also in mind that you can juyt buy it - eventually.

You're looking at this like a level 15 character who just did Sastasha looks at the current Savage-mount and goes "I want this now!" and then gets told what they have to do to reach that.

I have all the things but the items. The problem is that despite all the work I constantly do to level and gear, they keep gating these ingredients behind dumb crap. If colossus stone is in subs, it may be purchasable; if its locked up in thief maps or a tiny percent drop in expert, the price may be so ridiculous as to be unaffordable, or the supply may simply not exist unless i spend weeks to months grinding a low percentage drop.

A lot of the time element in getting certain things is out of wack; the effort is actually longer and needs more persistence than doing many other activities in the game, thorugh artificial roadblocks.

[Tridus]

You're looking at this like a level 15 character who just did Sastasha looks at the current Savage-mount and goes "I want this now!" and then gets told what they have to do to reach that.

Well, no. I cherry picked the maps specifically because maps are awful. Something like the Ex mounts have RNG, but also have non-RNG. Even if you never see it drop, you're still making (slow) progress towards it. Tomestone and scrip stuff is never wasted time in terms of getting closer to your goal. Gathering stuff to craft and levelling crafters to make it also do that.

Maps are special, because maps are a giant pile of RNG mechanics blended together and then excreted out into something resembling a system. Maps are effectively a lottery. Some people will win said lottery and get lots of stuff fairly quickly, which is great. Some people will lose said lottery and have a lot of time wasted for nothing.

So it's more like saying "I want to craft that dress because I levelled WVR, geared it, and gathered all the other materials", and then being told that what I have to do to get it is park myself in front of a slot machine and keep playing it until it works out. That's lame, and it got worse because Canals are even more RNG heavy than Aquapolis was.

(Also, why can't I hold a stack of 50 maps and do them all in one shot, when it comes to the items on lower level maps? I mean, seriously. Who designed this nonsense?)

[SendohJin]

you can always buy the mats from other people who do maps instead of doing it yourself.

[ko_]

you can always buy the mats from other people who do maps instead of doing it yourself.

Yeah that only works if you're already rich. Which shocking enough.. not alot of people are. Like I'm not for example. So that only works for some people. It's not a catch all answer.

[Skivvy]

Yeah that only works if you're already rich. Which shocking enough.. not alot of people are. Like I'm not for example. So that only works for some people. It's not a catch all answer.

Don't take this the wrong way, but you are also very new. With MMOs, you have to realize that when you first start out, it's going to be an uphill battle for a bit. Be that either gearing (which were some of your other concerns in the other thread), or in this case finding a decent source of gil. Gil in this game is surprisingly easy to make, you don't even really have to try that much. But yes, when you're new, a lot of things can look daunting. You just have to set your course and choose what you want to work on.

It does suck that certain drops are locked behind events I'll never have access to (submarine/airship/etc), but that's why I stash away gil to fall back on if I need to buy random items. Although, I'm quite cheap and I normally just end up waiting several patches until they're no longer the hot item :P

And just before anyone calls out my DoL/DoH as being my source of income, I am SO damn lazy with making gil. I hate gathering, I hate crafting. I only ever started leveling crafts so I could craft my own glamours / mend my own gear, and later on, craft my own furniture. Then recently I decided to take them all up just so I could condense to one set of gear. I level via leves, so not making money there!

My DoL jobs were also leveled with glamour in mind (fishing my own swimsuits, level 70 miner body, etc). The only crafted/gathered items I tend to sell are my failed glamours/furnishings, or excess materials that I've ended up with after my crafting is done.

[loreleidiangelo]

Well, no. I cherry picked the maps specifically because maps are awful. Something like the Ex mounts have RNG, but also have non-RNG. Even if you never see it drop, you're still making (slow) progress towards it. Tomestone and scrip stuff is never wasted time in terms of getting closer to your goal. Gathering stuff to craft and levelling crafters to make it also do that.

Maps are special, because maps are a giant pile of RNG mechanics blended together and then excreted out into something resembling a system. Maps are effectively a lottery. Some people will win said lottery and get lots of stuff fairly quickly, which is great. Some people will lose said lottery and have a lot of time wasted for nothing.

So it's more like saying "I want to craft that dress because I levelled WVR, geared it, and gathered all the other materials", and then being told that what I have to do to get it is park myself in front of a slot machine and keep playing it until it works out. That's lame, and it got worse because Canals are even more RNG heavy than Aquapolis was.

(Also, why can't I hold a stack of 50 maps and do them all in one shot, when it comes to the items on lower level maps? I mean, seriously. Who designed this nonsense?)

I actually like maps since I think too many things in this game are guaranteed and having some randomness thrown in for things that aren't essential isn't so bad. That said, I agree completely on the "why are maps counted as a unique one-only item" complaint. You can only mine/harvest them every 18 hours anyway, so if a group decides they want to have one day a week designated as "map day" you have to have like 4 retainers or bog down a friend with mail or whatever to work around 7 days of map acquistion. It's pretty dumb.