Dev Tracker - Discussion

Laughs in Salvage bans.

I know people that keep dozens of stacks of upgrade stones from Sortie even after they became NPC-able on the off chance SE will allow them to be exchanged for something.

Hope always dies last.

I know this is wrong, but I can't help myself and I just keep them...

I lost hope in ever getting something more from them.
been npc'ing everyone other than starstones a while now.


+20 empy armor +2s
+38 empy armor +3s
+3 stage 2 weapons
+2 stage 3 weapons
no stage 4 weapons

only another 17 starstones & 10 sapphires before I'm cap'd on all that random crap.
i did the math wrong previously so it turns out i still need sapphires and another 10 starstones than i thought i needed.

Me too... it's a problem

But why keep the old cases? Just pop em if you need +15 +1's, or sell em if you dont.

Here's my collection:
Stage 5 Horn
Stage 4 Gun
Stage 4 Spear
Stage 3 Dagger
Stage 3 Shield
54 Empy armor +3s

This is very very overdue tbh

100%

As is cost reduction for emp+3 to 50k :)

I'd even be happy if gob took 2 sapphire and 20k to +1 it without the midnight wait sometimes.

All of the stones should be put to more use frankly...

And sure, outdated systems need more QoL due to being so heavily outdated, not just AF/Relic. But maybe with time. It's shocking that they're giving us a bone at all, so hopefully more player surveys in the future

Well, for the day when they allow us to exchange 10 NQ earrings for 1 +1 and then 10 +1 for one +2, of course! Or the day they implement any similar system! (read: in 20 years... or never :( ).

Mans sitting on nearly 10 million gil of old cases, wasting 26 inventory spots, all for hope that unopened NQ cases will become an upgrade currency.

At this point I'd settle for 200 NQ cases in exchange for a single +1 of my choice. Seriously.

I have 10 or more of every +1 except the single job I enjoy the most. There exists only ONE SINGLE job I strictly don't play and it is my only +2.

These are not exaggerations. These are straight up facts.

Well, Omen came out in what, 2016? It saw Ou added in 2017, swart drops added a little over two years later in 2018, and then boss scales were added to regular mobs in 2021, and now finally a cards adjustment in 2025.

Sortie's almost at the two year mark now, and the only adjustments we've seen so far were the 100k muffin cap bait and switch and the one-time RoE for a +2 case. It really seems like SE is happy with Sortie as it stands, even if the reward structure feels frustratingly bad to myself and many other players.

+2 earrings are the only thing that absolutely needs adjusting. I've been running 4 boss clears for nearing 2 years and 8 boss clears for maybe 6 months. We do a bunch of other objects including naakaul too. I got my first+2 earring a couple weeks ago. I fully expect I will never get a SMN+2 earring and will likely win the lottery before I get a perfect roll on a SMN+2

the Sortie RoE's should be monthly at the very least. Giving a one time use for those was biggest middle finger they've ever given out to the playerbase.

"but what about..."

No, the biggest middle finger. Bigger than the muffin uncap.

Wait, there are +2 ears in Sortie!?

Making people pay for inventory is the biggest middle finger.

Bigger than "paying for inventory"
There is literally no reason to need to play 15++ jobs and min-max each one.

SE screwed everyone once by making Pulse Weapons useful after so many years, and people tossed them without ever thinking they'd be used again. FOMO > Logic

Here, let me share a story to make you feel better. For a while before the Voracious Resurgence finale was released, I was doing Sortie runs with a static group; top floor objectives, naakuals in the basement, top floor bosses. We got a few old cases +1 out of it, that was nice.

Now, my main character's main job is summoner. Never get to use it for anything serious, but it is. But for a lot of my time in the static, I was using a side character instead, because I'd foolishly split up my jobs in a way where only one character had geomancer built.

One say, we get a lucky old case +1 out of a box, and hey, wow, it dropped a +2! Summoner +2, amazing!

On the side character.

Who is not summoner main.

It would, in fact, be about a year and a half later when I would finally unlock summoner for that character.

Still using an NQ earring on my actual main summoner...

So many people with similar stories. I have a single +2 earring between my two characters, DRK on my alt. Not only is that a job that character doesn't play, it's the only job that isn't even UNLOCKED. At this point I just find it amusing and sort of a perverse badge of honor.

The reason you hear so many similar stories is because nobody bothers to list all the times they get an earring they can equip. It's like a combination of 5 different biases making people circle jerk about random bad luck.

If you only have 1 job unlocked, the chances of getting that earring is ~4.5%, it's not exactly like hitting the powerball or anything. In a game with thousands of players, we should expect to hear this story all the god damn time.

While I can see (even though I completely disagree) their point on not adjusting earrings, they really should've done something about empy+2 and +3.

Offering an additional route with less Gallimaufry required and a much bigger number of sapphires/starstones should've been done by now, and yet... will it ever happen?


Speaking of earrings, which changes would you guys propose if you could?
I have my own ideas about it

Reroll
Trade an earring and a certain number of stones to re-roll an earring. Different number and types according to NQ, +1 or +2.
Each time you reroll you can pick the new roll or keep the old one.

Exchange
Allow to trade a certain amount of earrings of any same tier, to pick an earring of your choice, of the same tier.
Like I dunno, 10 NQ earrings of any job, to pick 1 NQ earring of your choice. Maybe add some stones to the cost.

Upgrade
Allow to trade a certain amount of earrings of same type and job, to upgrade it to the same earring but higher tier.
Like trade 5x NQ BST earrings to get 1x +1 BST earring. Maybe add some stones to the cost.

~4.5% of the already tiny chance of getting ANY +2 earring out of a +1 box, so yeah it is a pretty tiny chance of being lucky enough to get one for a specific job.

What's the +2 earring rate anyway? I've seen 2-3% tossed around, so just supposing we go with that, 3% would give a ~0.135% chance of a specific +2 earring (1 per every ~740 +1 boxes). 2% would give a ~0.09% chance of a specific +2 earring (about 1 per 1111 +1 boxes). Especially for players who aren't doing Aminon daily for that guaranteed +1, it feels like an absolute miracle. With those odds, that's why I'm particularly amused at my "luck" of managing my only +2 on the only one of 44 jobs I haven't unlocked across my two characters.

I'm also not saying IT'S A CONSPIRACY RAAAAAA or any such nonsense. I know luck is luck, odds are what they are. But it's far more entertaining to give your unlucky DRG-loving friend a hard time for opening hundreds of boxes and getting +1s for 20 jobs and DRG isn't one of them. Same reason Shepherd's Chain refusing to drop for me, the LS PUP (or even any friends when I'm around) for years has become a running joke for our crew. Griping about bad luck on drop rates is an intrinsic part of FFXI. Complaining about your crap luck while facing Southeast on a Full Moon on Firesday is also the best way to fix that luck!

Funnily enough, of the 6x +2 Earrings I got, 2x were for PLD and 2x were for DRG.
Two jobs I don't play, out of the 16/22 jobs I have geared up and ready.

I know I know, it doesn't mean anything, but it's funny isn't it? XD

I do like to think that Yoshi-P sent some XIV staffer on a special project to go slum it in FFXI and work on a special formula to scan people's job levels and inventories and weight Sortie earring drop rates to favor the jobs they don't play. Gotta be the answer.

While this is interesting, I think the #s you're talking about are different from the ones I'm talking about. I'm not talking about the % chance of getting a specific +2 from any individual +1 case, I'm talking about the chances of getting that job's earring when you do finally get a +2 out of a +1 case (since that's what people were referring to earlier).

The same thing would be true of the +1/+2 situation. How about this then: 1/1111 chance of getting a +2 SMN (if you don't like SMN) is really low, right? Well...how many +1 cases do you think are created every day for every character on all servers? Probably a hell of a lot more than 1111, so...this situation should be, statistically, happening every day for someone on some server.

It's not worth putting too fine a point on it but also...there aren't 44 jobs for your 2 characters because:
6 of them start unlocked
You can't double-count the same job twice, since you're talking about a property that is already "inclusive or"

It's really more like 1/16 chance of landing on a job you could have not unlocked, though I suppose having THF at level 1 is effectively the same thing...

I know it's just a bunch of people complaining and I also say stupid ***like "Of COURSE Meki would get a DRK+2 earring and male would get a COR+2!" but with the way some people talk around here, you wouldn't be able to tell they're joking...

I'd be more than happy if I'd be able to trade earrings and stones in exchange of gall.

We do 9 boss+ most everyday and rarely get a +1 besides Aminon.

My last two +2s were December and February both Duplicates. (THF and BLM). The system is terrible. Im personally chasing Earrings at this point and have more primes for my main jobs than +2 earrings lol.

And the fact that you're still "chasing earrings" is why they'll wait 10 years to change it

Stop chasing earrings now, and they'll fix it in 5 years instead.

It's your 12.95 you feel free to keep bashin your head against the wall, just stop trying to figure out why your head hurts.

They can't stop chasing earrings, because they want the gallimaufry anyway. Clearly the reward structure is fine as is, you aren't entitled to an earring just because it exists.