Trophy Crystal grind feedback

[Momo_Kozuki]

The point I want to make here is offering suggestions that will add motivations for players to grind, instead of just old-school "grind a lot for little rewards" that discourage players from grinding. Of course, the game is cool at not asking players to not too focused on grinding and let them taking break, but I think it is reasonable to offer solutions for people who actually want to grind, while players who take break can still chime in occasionally and get some well-earned rewards for their contributions toward the liveliness of the content.



Back to the topic, after you get 28k Crystals from the series milestone and reach lv30, it will require 20k EXP for a mere 1k crystals. It doesn't feel like a grind many players want to do since too much efforts for little rewards.


For anyone interests in getting Hellhound stuffs or perhaps the reskinned Virtu gear for whatever reason, this becomes super grindy as these items require a large amount of crystal (10k crystal/hellhound weapon). In case you just want to buy all current one-time items (job actions and barding/minion), it requires 30,500 crystals, so you will have to grind 60k EXP to get them all.



I feel like challenge logs should update to provide trophy crystals, so that people will have motivation to pvp for weekly goals. Perhaps 1,000 per "participation x times" goal and 1,500 (or 2,000) per "win x times" goal.



Daily frontline should net you some crystal too. Prefer 500 crystals per pop.



Additionally, allowing to trade wolf marks into Crystals. 20k mark should yield you around 5k crystal (4:1 ratio).


Also, to prevent players hoarding crystals and buy off new rewards of next season day one, next series should use a different type of currency and convert the outdated one into wolf mark, not so different from how tomestone works.


In addition, series milestones should have crystal rewards scaled properly. If I grind 2,000 exp for 1,000 crystal, I believe grinding 5,000 exp should give more crystals sound reasonable enough.

[Awful]

I agree, after reaching lvl 30 myself I've been doing a healthy amount of Frontlines, CC, and I've been playing the majority of the day and I've gotten a level and a half. I think a challenge log incentive would be great as well as a daily one to incentivize and lessen the grind for a lot of people, on the plus side PvP has been super fun so I think this would also keep more people around for some more staying longevity for PvP.

I also agree with trading Wolf Marks into crystals, there isn't much to buy with them once you have everything and 15k per Materia X is just not worth it imo, turning it into Crystals would be much better.

[Reimmi]

I'd add a challenge log for FL and CC that each give 1k trophies per week, to start with
And increase frontlines exp gain, it is only slightly higher than CC for much longer games.

3rd, increase EXP gained from wins in CC to incentivize winning, because the "optimal" thing to do if you're just grinding out your levels is to give up if your team is getting stomped instead of stalling to try and get a come back, which isn't good design imo

[Akiudo]

I feel like challenge logs should update to provide trophy crystals, so that people will have motivation to pvp for weekly goals. Perhaps 1,000 per "participation x times" goal and 1,500 (or 2,000) per "win x times" goal.


Daily frontline should net you some crystal too. Prefer 500 crystals per pop.

agree that this would be a nice incentive to keep some more activity over the long term.

Additionally, allowing to trade wolf marks into Crystals. 20k mark should yield you around 5k crystal (4:1 ratio).

if they did this they might aswell abandon wolf marks alltogether and just make everything cost crystals, so i'd have to disagree unless you want to argue for exactly that.

Also, to prevent players hoarding crystals and buy off new rewards of next season day one, next series should use a different type of currency and convert the outdated one into wolf mark, not so different from how tomestone works.

i think the cap works just fine for that purpose. pve (and tomestones) are different in that the time it takes you to gear up via tomestones is actually intentionally designed to keep you weak for a while and than have you progressively get stronger. as pvp power level is normalized and the stuff you get for crystals is just cosmetic in nature it doesn't really matter if someone has a slight headstart, no reason to add new and additional currencies (as at least the "old" crystals would need to stay for a while) just because you can.

In addition, series milestones should have crystal rewards scaled properly. If I grind 2,000 exp for 1,000 crystal, I believe grinding 5,000 exp should give more crystals sound reasonable enough.

yes and no. while i agree that 20k exp for 1k crystals is excessive and no on one would be hurt if level 11-20 for example gave 2k crystals instead of 1k there is no reason for it to scale proportionally, and yes i know you did not say it has to be proportionally but you would now at least need to define what you think "scaled properly" means, it isn't necessarely wrong for a game to give you the first few things at an easier rate before starting to let you work for all the rest.


to be clear, while i might sound overly critical here i'm totally in favor of offering some extra rewards here or there (like you said, dailies, the weekly challenge log, maybe at least 2k or even 3k crystals at max rank) because yes, i also see the problem of people just dropping out once they feel the rewards aren't worth the effort, i just think the deeper implications of your proposed changes to crystals (outside of the pure acquisition aspect) aren't thought out to well.

[RobynDaBank]

I feel like challenge logs should update to provide trophy crystals, so that people will have motivation to pvp for weekly goals. Perhaps 1,000 per "participation x times" goal and 1,500 (or 2,000) per "win x times" goal.

I'd add a challenge log for FL and CC that each give 1k trophies per week, to start with

So simple, yet so genius.

[Packetdancer]

I'd add a challenge log for FL and CC that each give 1k trophies per week, to start with

Aren't the trophies only from ranked CC? (It's late, I may be misremembering.) If so, while an FL (or casual CC) challenge in the weekly challenge log would be cool to keep it active, I do think any challenge that awards trophies should only involve ranked CC.

I do think this is the right solution overall, though. Something like "Win 3 ranked Crystalline Conflict matches as a tank." "Win 3 ranked Crystalline Conflict matches as a healer." and "Win 3 ranked Crystalline Conflict matches as a DPS." -- each could give 1k, so you get 3k per week if you aim at doing it on three different jobs, one for each role. Or "Participate in 5 ranked Crystalline Conflict matches as..." if you don't want to make it dependent on wins. (Which, to be fair, at lower ranks can be really hit-or-miss depending on the team you get.)

Alternatively, if folks want it to be good for advancement too (at lower levels) and not just outright give trophy crystals, it could work like the Eureka challenge log, where it could give you a chunk of seasonal XP scaled to your current malmstone level; that would make it good for advancement for folks just starting out, but also help with the crystal grind for those already above malmstone 30.

[RobynDaBank]

Aren't the trophies only from ranked CC? (It's late, I may be misremembering.) If so, while an FL (or casual CC) challenge in the weekly challenge log would be cool to keep it active, I do think any challenge that awards trophies should only involve ranked CC.

No, I was able to get progress for Series Malmstones by doing just Casual CC. Got like 2K before I abruptly stopped after buying the minion.

[Packetdancer]

No, I was able to get progress for Series Malmstones by doing just Casual CC. Got like 2K before I abruptly stopped after buying the minion.

Huh! Good to know. I don't think I've gotten any series XP from Frontlines, but if you get the series advancement from casual CC as well, then yeah, the weekly challenge log entries should be for any Crystalline Conflict match, not just ranked.

[MomomiMomi]

Huh! Good to know. I don't think I've gotten any series XP from Frontlines, but if you get the series advancement from casual CC as well, then yeah, the weekly challenge log entries should be for any Crystalline Conflict match, not just ranked.

Frontline gives Series exp too.

And yes, 20k exp for 1000 trophy crystals is pretty awful.

[Packetdancer]

Frontline gives Series exp too.

...I grant I may have just been spamming ranked CC enough that brief forays into the other stuff doesn't really register much on the series XP bar anymore, then; I stand corrected. (Well, I sit corrected, since I'm at a desk.)