How MMO Farming Can Be Made Fun | Asmongold Reacts to Preach 

Preach is an invaluable addition to the FF community he highlights most of the underrated side content and brings them to the players attention. I know there are existing guides on treasure maps but sadly most of them did not take off

the best way to do treasure maps is half drunk with a group of friends on discord. Nothing about it is overly demanding and there's nothing you can 'ruin' if you mess up the mechanics. But you can still do your entirely weekly gear token grind in in a couple of hours so you don't ever have to choose between this or progressing your character. It's not an either/or proposition, which is great. it's simple but brilliant from a design philosophy. The whole thing isn't over-designed, it just exists as a way for players to have some fun with other players

If you make it fun and NOT MANDATORY, you can get people interested in all sorts of systems. Also, shout outs to the chocobo plushie.

God I love Preach covering and discovering FF systems and why people love them. I hope he gets to open dialogue with the dev team like Asmon did with Rich because he is super insightful about everything concerning MMOs.

Preach stops playing WoW and switches to FF14 and his hair grew back.

Asmon is going to love that little plushie even more when he goes through the Omega raids.

It's funny I pulled up this video to have something to watch as I was farming deepsight weapons in Destiny XD

What's amazing about the monotonous gathering grind in FF14 is that you're not in direct competition with everyone else. And you pick the specific thing you want to gather from each node.

I know it's not the focus of the video, but I always enjoy the pure adulation Asmon has whenever he sees chocobos. If you go back to see even his reaction to the Stormblood trailer, he takes a moment to appreciate the chocobos kwehing there too.

The unique crafting material rewards you actually get out of the Treasure Maps aren't even particularly important for gameplay as they're only used in making housing items and glamour gear. It's 100% optional content, no power to be gained by doing it or lost by ignoring it. The only things you get are effectively fun and gil.

This is the reason I enjoy eureka. There are times I find myself craving the vanilla wow levelling experience. It's not very often, and not for very long, but sometimes I want to have combat where accidentally pulling more than 1 mob can kill me, and I have to balance consecutive pulls with not dying. Pulling the biggest mob I can reliably kill and be hyper aware of mobs I don't want to pull. It's thrilling if I'm not forced to do it. Eureka scratches that itch when I want it.

I have kids and don't have more than 1-2hrs a day with free time. So the casual approach that FFXIV is giving their players really makes it possible for me to play an MMO and enjoy it in a very small amount of time.

there is some misconception out there where some people think that FFXIV didnt had any content so the players leave the game and played another games time to time, like Preach said, its not FFXIV didnt had any content to engage in the game, but the game are designed so people can choose what you want to do or not, there are reward in the games by doing those activities, but if you didnt think you want that specific reward you can skip it, most of the rewards didnt had anything to do with your characters power/progression except leveling your other jobs, so you didnt need to do it over and over again if you dont want to, yeah some people think its not good if they didnt had any short of repeated mechanism in the game to keep people playing the game so you gonna run out of content soon, but from my experience on FFXIV its kinda like win-win situation for me, because of it i can played others games without worry that i gonna fall behind laters,

Such a cute plushie that Asmon got. Maybe he'll get to see that thing in FFXIV someday.

that plushie is the sweetest thing ever can't wait for asmon to do "that" alliance raid kweh

1. Gambling: if you win then you get benefits. If you fail, then you get drawbacks more. It's random. Your life is affected by the game you play. 2. Fun games: enjoy casual and/or highend contents. The thing is we don't lose anything if we fail. The game isn't exhausting to play. That's the difference between gambling and fun games.

I do treasure maps all the time, they're just fun to do with friends. And if you actually are the person who just likes to grind, they're not to shabby for gil.

Turns out, making a game fun and engaging makes people want to keep coming back to it. Weird how that works.

Dude in chat saying “I fish in ff15” 😂 Man I fished my ass off in XV it was pretty damn good actually.

Didn't discover treasure maps until Shadowbringers, I always just sell the maps cause I thought they were the same thing as the lower tier ones where you can just go to a spot and open a chest for some so and so rewards. It wasn't until my FC started doing them and getting me into it did I ended up in a rabbit hole

I love running treasure maps in FFXIV!! They are so addicting. I haven’t even started a profession in ff and I will still run 7 maps in a row lol

Its the reason I enjoy enchanting in classic you either pay by gold or you do dungeons for items you disenchant, its not fast but it atleast make you play the game in a en engaging way instead of zooming around watching the minimaps for nodes.

Farming is hella fun. If you do it in small bursts, not everyday.

It's kind of amazing when you play other games than WOW you realize just how much bad stuff you tolerated over the years and realize just how much nonsense and crap you put up with it because it was WOW.

Patience, not having time, kids...it's not about any of that. It's about having fun! Preach has kids and still spent an entire day grinding maps. He didn't have to be patient...because it was fun. Regardless of your patience, time or kids, you play games to have fun. Even if you had all the time in the world, no kids and the patience of Job, why would you want to spend your time grining boring bullshit. Especially when you could be having fun!

12:06 rift used to have something like this where u would search for high tier rifts and make raids and beat it together was awesome

For me, it's actually weird hearing that people don't know about treasure maps at least in a general sense because they pop up in various spots throughout the game. Hell, they are a rewards for doing Wondrous Tails! Of course, I feel like MOST PEOPLE hear about treasure maps through their Free Company (Guild) because it's a very common community thing that really helps to bring people together in a fun environment where everyone walks away with something at the end of it. Before Endwalker, my FC would run map runs every Friday night which were so popular some weeks that we actually had to make two separate groups. This along with hitting up all the clubs and bars in the game has died down a little bit recently with the world mostly opening back up but if anyone ever wants to put a run together we keep a scheduling board in our discord where people can sign up. The best thing about treasure maps is that they're always relevant because many of the mats that you can obtain are used to craft items that are used for GLAMOUR which is the true Endgame so whether they're worth a little or a lot of money they are worth something and I've never come away from a full round of treasure maps (which is where everyone brings 2 maps with the general rule being that you role need for your maps and greed for everything else) without making at least 200-300k gil for level 60 maps and 500k plus for level 80 and higher maps.

Keep in mind too that it's much harder for bots to farm map rewards. This leads to significant difference in market value for these items. A lot of FF's systems make bottong difficult, and as a Crafter/Gatherer "Main" it's pretty obvious what is bottable and what isn't simply by their value over time. It's not JUST fun, it's ALSO good for a stable in-game economy.

I was hyped when I saw preach post the video, and now I'm hyped to see Asmon react to the video.

Hmm, might be time to get an FF sub, never played it but it does look fun

@Asmongold your statement of "Do people still want to do this after they get the reward" is so on point. I will occasionally look for map parties despite not needing gil. I don't have any crafters leveled, so I don't need the mats that drop. It's just souch fun to run them.

I love having the OPTION for mindless farming. For FFXIV, that's gatherers scrips and timed nodes. If I'm watching my daughter I can log in, pull up timed node timers and teleport to a zone, go to the node and play with my daughter until it pops. Then, gather it, go to the next one and play with my daughter.

My savage team saves up maps and will run a bunch of them from time to time. Part of this is because not everyone likes to farm to work on professions to earn Gil... but they need potions and food to raid. One night of maps will give enough gil to buy all the food and potions for a couple weeks of raiding. We also get the high-end crafting mats that the group crafters want real bad as well. It is a win/win system. There is also quite often a super rare minion or glamor item that can drop from the final boss. The current map tier is the Golden Wings. You can use them in citys as a cosmetic item only or for the fasion event at the Golden Saucer.

On the topic of farming towards a reward: The systems I've enjoyed most were the ones that allowed you to farm "passively". Simply by playing the game any way you want, you will be able to get rewards that build towards late game goals. Like a certain amount of materials for example. There should be the option to grind the materials as well though! Because as you slowly creep closer towards the goal by playing the game, you might think to yourself "oh I already have over 50% (for example) of the materials! Let's grind out the last bit to get that reward!". Some might grind from the start to get the rewards they want ASAP, others might get it pretty much passively after a long time of playing.

I don't get how asmon can agree with preach so much here and like lost ark at the same time

That mote farming took me back 15 years. Damn those were the carefree days.

0:38 BGM Pog

Farming less boring with friends

Every FC I've been in has map nights and everyone shares their maps with each other. It's so fun! It's a lot like BDO boss groups, but more happy.

I think a example of fun grinding would be Pso2. When everybody gets together and tries to proc a "burst" which essentially is a timed event that doubles or quadruple exp and you get all these mods swarming on you while techno music is hyping you up and everyone has fun nuking them all down and collecting literally hundreds of items when the burst is finished. Grinding can be made fun if done correctly

I fully agree with Asmon's idea of "Do you want to keep doing the thing after you get the big reward" treasure maps for me are just like that. I don't need gil and there isn't anything I want from them right now but I still love doing them because it is just some quick fun. They are also good for people who don't want to do proffessions to get gil to be able to get consumables instead of having the only way to get them be like "Oh i need to fix up 50 of this rare fish" FF14 is really good with having multiple ways to get things you want/need. Like just getting gil. You can get it from dungeons rewards. Just putting stuff on your retainer to sell. doing these treasure maps. Framing materials or crafting. You aren't locked into a few dailies or high end crafts to make money in the game and I think that is the hall mark of a good game myself. Having choices on how to complete your goal.

There is something adorable about Asmon, how he can be happy, genuinly happy, just with a pluche.

I once had a lost canals of uznair run (Stormblood room gauntlet) where we got raindbow fake-out on every single door all the way to 7. It was absolutely wild.

instantly feel the tears in the dark area omg the end of endwalker is just so powerful

I farm maps every Friday night with my FC. You get maps from gathering professions. You can buy them off the market board also. They are very profitable for group maps. Make sure you do 8 man groups. I have found using less then 8 it can cause portals to spawn less

@1:05 Asmon must needs complete Stormblood and do the raids!

i remember playing TERA few years back and if we talk about grinding levels in the game like 1-50 1-60 it was hell of a lot of fun cause you had avatar weapons they were some unique weapons for every class and you aqquired them at lv 20 all the way to 48 level and every 6 levels you got new one so you grinding some mats FROM monsters doing your story quests and you dropped avatar weap mats on ground once you were done with how many you needed you crafted avatar weapon they had really higher value cause they dps was a few times higher than regular weapons thus making lv up a lot more fun and easy made me make all diff chars to 50-60 just to try all those weapon out and you know see all those diff glows they had thats something thats missing from mmos nowdays the feel that grinding matters PS all those weapons became obsolete once you hit lv 50 cause then you grinded a new set

Love when he brought out the plushy. I thought he was joking. But it's great when Zach shows up to an Asmon stream every now and then.

I will say that D2's Dares of Eternity did come close to this exact thing. I do wish they did more with it.

I hadn't done treasure maps beyond the solo ones because I'd have to join a party finder to do it, I can't just queue up. A bit too social for me.

1:00 that was so sweet lol

Damn preach got his hair back after quitting wow

This is something I noticed in LostArk, people react much better to rewards; everyone learned mechanics in event guardians because they give huge buffs, so they want to see the big numbers

Asmond getting that Chocobo plush, just cause it made him feel better is adorable.

Love Maps in FFXIV - got 5 I need to clear out some day lol

Really enjoyed doing maps when I played. Wish more games did gathering/crafting the way ff14 does.

I love doing treasure maps. Have gotten so many random cool items and stuff for my character. I just sell all the crafting materials to the crafters after

An advantage of maps is you CAN still do the farming the normal way (if you want a more relaxed and monotonous method while doing something else, or you want to target farm something specific), but this is ANOTHER way to farm them (and given they're generated by the people farming the normal way, the prices aren't going to go too low, while if they go too high nobody will buy them so the price balances reasonably well).

The main point is that farming is not compulsory. You don't have to do it, at least in Final Fantasy. You can just do whatever you want, play whatever job you want at anytime, and do whatever you find fun. You will still reach high/max item level (as long as you like raiding too). You don't feel like "I have to" do this and do that.

my FC has a map day and i always look foward to it, it is really fun, we have a bet pool on the times someone guess the side right, want mindless content, well eureka, diadem

Maps are still simple enough that they can be done while doing other things too, my FC has a player that will do Maps with us while also playing D&D, we've also set it up to do lvl60/70 maps one day and 80/90 maps the next day so that it gives players who aren't in later content yet or even people leveling other jobs can get experience.

FF14 is such a GIGACHAD MMO

33m bozja/eureka is a good example of large group content not required

Treasure hunts can be incredibly fun if you run it with a group of friends. When I go on Treasure Hunts with friends it always boils down to just us bantering and talking about our lives etc A little cheesy? Yeah but the it’s really one of those underlying social moments that not too many people talk about in this game

The Angel wings that drop from the last boss sells for 85 million.

Maps aren't my thing but it's definitely chill content or screw around with chat content. Doing chat polls for doors and such.

An often overlooked piece of functionality when comparing systems like these is the social functionality. Preach might not be demonstrating it very well, but he was doing all this with a group.

What’s really happening is we are tired of grinding for hours in a game, getting bored, going to another game, just to grind some more and repeat the cycle, and it puts a bad taste in our mouth with farming/grinding.

4:15 competitive games dont do this at all people just log on to play because it's fun

The pause at 1:15 made me realize Preach has a Lalafell WW2 poster...hilarious.

I have some history with treasure maps, I was hellbent on getting some drops that I could only obtain through treasure maps (due to free trial) so I could craft a coat. It took me months and I hated doing it, but I couldn't deny the hype of being able to solo the treasure chest enemies, and thus I got my Uraeus Coat ready for the opening cinematic of Heavensward to be my chest for Dark Knight, and it is to this day until I find something at least AS cool and that covers the chest :P Now Palace of the Dead is my demise for the goddamn Wind Silk Coatee, I would craft it but there's ONE ingredient out of the free trial (Bot buying the game out of poverty and as a stupid self imposed challenge)

It really comes down to "forcing" people to do things. Because certain things were mandatory you had 2 options, either do it or fall behind. When you make majority of the content optional and the actual important parts mandatory then people feel way less forced, pressured or grinded down by majority of the game.

Used to do these maps all the time with my FC, it was actually really fun :D and you can buy them on the TP!

Variety is king. Treasure maps are a good fun farming method, but there are so many different kinds of farming in FF. For those who want the minless grind, the Diadem is there for you. Do you like very visable progress, the next pvp update might be for you. Variety beats everything.

chocobo plushie is a cool little guy

Bro, my dude looked so happy with the plushie

2:52 LOL.. Literally speaking; the LAST time I played (12+ months ago), I had just finishing making my Frozen Shadoweave Robe (to complete the set) and was so sick (and bored to heck) of grinding while getting ganked by groups of Horde, who were always farming as well, that I never logged back in... LOL my toon is sleeping in her new robe that doesn't even have gems socketed to it, b/c I'm done!

31:39 I'd say I think it's a good farming system, considering that I do Treasure Maps all the time and I don't think I've ever once done them to farm materials*. *Obviously I'm thrilled whenever I get some of those mats but that's not the specific reason I'm doing them.

lol almost every new feature in todays mmos was previously in Ultima Online. Ultima online had treasure maps you dug up with spawns 20 years ago

"The Idea of island expeditions was really badass, it was the implementation that was problematic" that and sadly most of blizzards ideas in recent memory. Torghast sounded awesome, but most of the difficulty comes from unavoidable damage and there isn't near enough variety, so it feels pretty boring after the first few times. Warfronts, so incredibly easy that you had to actively try to lose. Could have been awesome if they were actually difficult/had a pvp mode. Current M+ running Halls of atonement gets old after the 50th time. Though there is potential in SLS4. Covenants sounded cool, but really just punished players who wanted to play more than just one type of content.

And what I like, is if you want to turn your brain off and farm? You can still do that in XIV. The amount of hours spent in reaping tones of Upland wheat during Shadowbringers was really nice.

its like a rogue like inside a game for farming

I didnt know what were treasure maps or how they were for like about a month ago :D and then on my first run I opened all gates for our party. Was hype as fuck. I didn't know what are hunting trains either for a long time. I thought hunt meant the hunting board but then someone took me to one and then all made sense.

yup treasure dungeons can be a tease

I usually 3 man the new treasure maps since warriors self healing is so strong now xD

Part of the reason I tend to be poor in most MMOs is I get bored really easy grinding for money or materials for my friend harvesting nodes is a very Zen thing she could just put on music and go chop down trees harvest or etc. One of the games I think that did it best was monster Hunter world ice p*** that game is nothing but a grind but they do it in such a way it doesn't even feel like it you literally do the same thing over and over and it never gets old and the best part is if you ever get tired of using one type of weapon you just swap it out for one of the 14 other types and it's a whole new experience to me the only downside was the dependence on the gems that you would have to put in for the weapons sometimes certain ones were just so rare but I think they did it right I'm not sure what it was that made the grind so enjoyable

Treasure maps are the easiest way to make millions without having to think or know anything before hand, it’s great for a free companies to do together

Tank swap to chocobo at the start. amazing move. 👍

so true, Lost ark dailys are slowly melting my brain.

I know BDO is infamous with the grinding stuff and combat. But the lifestyle farming was fun in a relaxing way and my favorite part of the game (Okay I know even that aspect is p2w as well)

i think the more powerfull or better a reward is, the more mandatory it will feel to get it. no matter what style the content is. there are ways to dress it up to make it more fun though.

this is basically how you do good rng. Its fun rng

5:30, such a great and disturbing pause there

Reminds me of Diablo 3, would just come back home after a long day and just casually chill with friends online playing Diablo 3. Literally just shut my brain off while playing.

In 2019 Durango came out ( mobile game ). The game had beautiful music , great concepts , fun multiplayer. The grind for materials didn’t really feel like a grind. It was even relaxing when just being at your base the tamed island. Sadly the game couldn’t make enough money in time since it was Free game to start with and no ads , and many didnt buy any in game stuff since even farming items felt relaxing in a way. It really was a beautiful game.

Destiny 2 tried something somewhat similar with the Dares of Eternity activity. Even with the random element it can turn very grindy very quickly.

I beg people to do map farming in FF14 for mats to make money. I enjoy doing them immensely and the bonus of money and cosmetic crafts is great. A big map party being involved is just so fun because its not hard, and is very social.

For me, it's REAL simple. A good system respects your time, a great system is an enjoyable time, a bad system demands your time.

This 100% took inspiration from old school runescape clue scrolls

Jrpgs have conditioned my brain to enjoy farming, so now I often go out of my way to overfarm