Quote Originally Posted by linay View Post
There is always a most efficient way of achieving a goal. Flexibility means you can sacrifice that efficiency if you value other things and it won't be such a detriment to your goal. If you want the most efficient method, then of course you've limited yourself to whatever is the most efficient method available.

And again, time gating is only a problem if you limit yourself to the time gated content. The only time gate you cannot overcome is the weekly tomestone cap and weekly raid drop, which has nothing to do with the roulette. You can do the roulette and supplement it with other contents if you want to continue farming whatever it is you want.
Nearly all content in this game is time-gated content unless one ignores any and all rewards. Raids, Trials, Dungeons, challenge logs, PvP, side-content, etc., is all in some way time-gated. While not all players will care about the cappable rewards, most do consider reward systems as at least a nod to the intended direction of the game, if not a blatant pointer.

Your comment about there always being a most efficient means likewise seems a bit disingenuous. Is it most efficient by .3%? By 3%? By 30%? The difference in perceived obligation between those is huge. 0.3% isn't noticed, period. 3% is noticeable under constraint. 30% is noticeable even to the most casual pursuit of a goal. The question isn't whether a most efficient means should exist, but rather whether it should be so much more efficient that it's apparent and significant to everyone. No one's railing at the fact that a meta may exist, for instance, but merely that it may effectively forces out everything else for what seems too large a portion of the player base. As the differences in performance increase, so does the operant conditioning. Our relative freedom then diminishes proportionately.

I don't think the comparison with the requirements to do Ultimate is valid. For one, being well geared and using the right job is either a duty or a party requirement. To say that they're "not strictly necessary" would be to ignore item level requirement that the duty has as well as the attitude of many potential group recruiters. The roulette is not a requirement in that way as it's entirely a personal choice. It's an activity that gives you incentive, but doesn't require you to do it to achieve that incentive.
I was only explaining the use of a term you took issue with. No more, no less. Clearly, our warrants differ, but that's better discussed in a more direct context. See below.

If all you care about is efficiency, then feel free to do the roulettes. But if you also care about something else, that you can also do that other thing in place of the roulette or in addition to the roulette. Tomestones, for example, you can cap easily if you're active at doing hunts or Eureka (in Stormblood) or even treasure maps. You're not required to do roulettes every day to cap tomestones. Or you can just do 5 expert roulettes for 5 days and not touch the other roulettes. That gives you plenty of time to do other things.
Again, the reason I posed the question about roulettes, and how much systems should condition their players towards particular choices in the duration and locations of their playtime, is that as the game is increasingly streamlined, efficiency increasingly takes priority over engagement. We see this in the developers' designs and that does trickle down into player and community perceptions as to the shape and therefore intent of the game. (They then make requests for efficiency over engagement in ways that are easier for the devs to meet than requests for engagement over efficiency, and the feedback loop spirals on.)

I like that they exist. I just feel that given their current efficiency bonuses, they take too large a part in the game. Or, if you want to look from the surrounding content inward, I feel that too many other systems have seen their rewards stagnate as to be made increasingly less a part of the seemingly intended experience, which then narrows the game -- excessively, in this case.

I feel that excessive narrowing of the game harms the experience. While some structure is certainly a boon, and in catching up there are some parts that must be dispensed with to focus on a more core shared experience between players, when the shape of any game centers seemingly on efficiency or just the tools to accomplish something, it makes the means seem that much less important. Sure, players can go against the grain and ignore the signs and try their best to perceive things purely on their own criteria, but most experience games largely through their shape and apparent intent.

Now, is that all centered on Roulettes giving X bonus tomes? No. But I think we need to be less eager to ignore the fine details in favor of stark changes alone. Most losses veteran players will have noted to their experience over the years, especially if playing more than a single or few jobs, can better be attributed to the dozens of cuts of indirect changes than any one direct change.