Cosmic Exploration is Bad

[Kaurhz]

I doubt it's as inviting/approachable as you make it out to be given all this talk about needing to commit millions of gil and hours of time to see a tiny amount of progress on anything and the constant risk of failure with nothing to show for it. With that much gil and time requirements, the only thing separating it from other hardcore content is that there's no body checks ...oh wait, if there's not enough people doing it, certain events will literally fail and nobody makes prog. (I'm sure folks on Dynamis and Materia are loving that part, and this time they don't even get the mercy of data center hopping.)

Personally I can't even access Cosmic Exploration, but after everything I'd read about it, I don't feel like I'm missing out, and I can dump it in with the rest of the content that's beyond my ability to do.

Alternatively, it isn't as unapproachable and uninviting as people make it out to be. Look, there are some issues, e.g., scaling points on levelling, which is as much to do with Ishgard Restoration than it is to do with Cosmic itself since they're woefully unbalanced. Or something like missions not resetting cordials. leading to unnecessary waiting around between gatherer missions, or that the progression events are not scaled well for lower pop servers, which it looks like Dynamis and Oceanic have progressed stage 3 now, so that was probably as much to do with how early they triggered than anything else, so it isn't a massively insurmountable task. But it being hardcore or uninviting is not one of those issues, you can literally still go in there, comfortably get relics, level your DoH/L and progress your server.

A lot of the problem, at least from DoH stems simply from the fact people feel as though they have to do everything, e.g., A-3 missions and to a gold standard. Doing A-3 recipes, and even to a gold standard should present a modicum of challenge, just as they should with gatherers as well, it's good that some of the missions show you at least how crafting and gathering act as a cohesive system. and some facets of that content presenting a challenge does not make it hardcore or unapproachable content as a whole. In that regard A-3 is no more different from the presence of expert recipes in Ishgard Restoration, and people were not up in arms about that, so I don't see why people should be up in arms about this.

The problem we have with DoH is simply for the past 8 years or so players have been far too reliant on macros and using other third party tools, so they haven't bothered learning the fundamentals of crafting, and that the moment they are presented with non-conventional recipes, that don't have a macro on day-1 their entirely perception just crumbles. If people spent half as much time reading their crafting abilities, or looking at a guide, as to what they did by simply copying/pasting macros from a guide and calling it a day, then the reality is that most of these players would at least consistently get gold on A-1 and A-2 recipes, even without needing go through the whole ordeal of decking out their gear with melds. I'm sorry if this sounds insensitive but certain problems are player-based and are not content-based, and if people spent some time to ask "What am I doing wrong here" or "How do you approach these recipes" and some time to read those replies then they would be sat there cruising by, by now.. Rather than calling it insurmountable content.

and the bigger irony is some of these recipes are not much harder at all than the Ceremonial gear, and are expert recipes akin to what people had done for the Dragonsung and Crystalline tools.

It's almost sad that our bar for something being hardcore is something that expects we play the game and not just copy and paste a macro, or zergfest a legendary node with all of our GP, and instead need to manage it a little.

[Kuroka]

I'm sorry if this sounds insensitive but certain problems are player-based and are not content-based, and if people spent some time to ask "What am I doing wrong here" or "How do you approach these recipes" and some time to read those replies then they would be sat there cruising by, by now.. Rather than calling it insurmountable content.

IDK its just not fun to do constantly the math and check back and forth to look if im hittin the numbers and doing the same 29 commands over and over again just to make some materials lol

I can solve em, but my desire to use some spreadsheets to calculate my every move AND watch the time is about 0.

The very least they should remove the timelimits.

[Ekymus]

I disagree... Chaotic is exclusively savage content.

Cosmic (For quite a few issues it has), it still appeals quite heavily to casuals.. It is casual content that casual players can engage with quite extensively if they so wish... It is also just content that has some difficult counterparts for those desiring more of a challenge, but honestly to do everything, e.g., contribute to server progression and to do relics you barely need to engage with the more challenging components, and the relics progressively get easier.

Most of the A-1/A-2 recipes can be macro'd with relative ease, if you were also able to do the 3* recipes.

After first relic the rate of data logs increases by 50%, and then it increases by an additional 50% for every other relic, e.g., 100% when working on 4th relic.

Are you on dr*gs? I AM a casual player and I can NOT engage with Cosmic Exploration in its current state. It SUCKS because I can't use it to effectively level the one gatherer I actually like playing.

It shouldn't take my 2 days to get a level and a half in fisher because I fail at almost every mission repeatedly because they're only meant for omni-crafter/gatherers to actually do. That's not f*cking "casual", that's a hardcore Savage tier grind, and it sucks.

[ACE135]

Are you on dr*gs? I AM a casual player and I can NOT engage with Cosmic Exploration in its current state. It SUCKS because I can't use it to effectively level the one gatherer I actually like playing.

It shouldn't take my 2 days to get a level and a half in fisher because I fail at almost every mission repeatedly because they're only meant for omni-crafter/gatherers to actually do. That's not f*cking "casual", that's a hardcore Savage tier grind, and it sucks.

Serious question: If Fisher is the one (gatherer) class you actually like playing, why did it take you almost 10 months to level it from 90 to 96?

Besides that I have to admit that Fisher is the worst to do the missions with.

[Ekymus]

Serious question: If Fisher is the one (gatherer) class you actually like playing, why did it take you almost 10 months to level it from 90 to 96?

Besides that I have to admit that Fisher is the worst to do the missions with.

Because real life happens. Whether it took me 10 months or 10 years what's it matter? I fully admit I'm a casual player. Cosmic Exploration was supposed to be for casual players to level crafters and gatherers. It's not. It's a really bad experience and some of the worst content in the game.

[Daralii]

Sounds like another bait and switch like they did with Chaotic Raids.

"This is content casuals can do. Oops, teehee, we actually made it Savage difficulty!" (And yes, if you have to pentameld to barely pass, it might as well be Savage.)

Wouldn't be surprised if the number of participants dropped out long before it was all finished because a bunch of people realized this was more content for hardcore players again, and the only thing casuals get to do is farm gil elsewhere to buy the cosmetic items later. (Hey, that sounds oddly familiar too...)

The only casual vs hardcore barriers possible are your budget for gear and materia and that hardcores are more likely to be online when the phase progression happens. The main issues for me personally(as a turbo-casual) are that it's mainly just levequests on the moon, how the DoL not-levequests are designed and balanced, how the mech not-fetes are designed, the syncing and balancing, and that it's just something that's happening because the development formula says it has to.

[Colt47]

They basically assume that people are going to be active all the time and have up to date gear to do content even when the game has most people just kind of peacing out at this point and hoping the next expansion doesn't suck.

[hydralus]

They basically assume that people are going to be active all the time and have up to date gear to do content even when the game has most people just kind of peacing out at this point and hoping the next expansion doesn't suck.

They make content for people that do things other than play through the story quest and unsub for 2 years? Amazing.

[Ekymus]

They make content for people that do things other than play through the story quest and unsub for 2 years? Amazing.

I have been subbed for years at this point. No breaks. But I'm not a kid or some streamer whose job it is to play video games all day.

I have a limited amount of time I can play this game, maybe 10 hours or so a week. But in the last few months especially, the content has been exclusively for hardcore players that can invest 40+ hours a week into the game. This sh*t isn't fun and it's not for casual players. It sucks.

If you can't see that, then maybe you need to go outside some and touch grass.