Not sure what the intent was, but locking the field records behind skirmishes and low RNG was far the best idea. This type of thing happens very frequently in FF14 and it’s never well received. I totally get the idea of trying to maintain the relevance of content that will potentially die, but there HAS to a better idea then this.
As I type, I’m one of thirteen sitting in Bozja waiting for a handful of skirmishes to pop that almost certainly won’t drop the item I’m after. There’s nothing fun about this and I feel bad for the people who haven’t already spent 100+ hours here farming for memories that never dropped. The people who are simply trying to enjoy the only content we are gonna get until Endwalker or catch up.
CEs spawn and if it’s not Castrum or one of the few that’s needed for field records, it’s mostly ignored. Then there’s the instance hoppers who pop in long enough to ask about a specific skirmish before leaving. Something has to change. “You’re part of the problem”, is something I’ve heard during debates in Bozja. How can you blame anyone for not wanting to keep grinding things we wasted a ton of time grinding months ago, for weeks/months.
My thought, stop the pointless low RNG/waiting game and start allowing records to be bought with clusters or rewards from clearing skirmishes. Even using coins would be solid idea. It would better motivate people to actually play instead of AFKing their way through the content...just my opinion.