Reward Tiering

Reward Tiering is a setting of the randomizer upon generating a seed. Reward Tiering is a concept that generally applies to all Rewards in the game, including events (such as collecting Job Crystals or an NPC giving an item), chests, and also all shops. All Rewards are considered part of one large pool per seed.

Collectibles refer to the placed item, ability, job crystal, or magic yielded from a Reward.

Example:

Tiering introduces the concept of assigning a Tier of 1 through 9 to all individual Rewards and all individual Collectibles in the game, such that newly generated Collectibles will be placed in Reward locations that match its Tier value:

High Tier Rewards: Mirage Village, World 3, Rift of Dimension, The Void
High Tier Collectibles: Mimic Crystal, GilToss Ability, Ragnarok
Mid Tier Rewards: Crystal from Black Chocobo, Karnak Escape Treasure Chest, Wind Crystal
Mid Tier Collectibles: Mix Ability, Ninja Crystal, Fire Bow
Low Tier Rewards: Tule Beginner House Treasure Chest, Wind Shrine Treasure Chest
Low Tier Collectibles: Leather Armor, Mythril Dagger

Such that in the above example:

Example:

Because the Reward event “Crystal from Black Chocobo” is a Tier 4 location, a Collectible of a Tier 4 value was chosen to be randomly placed there.

This generally is what occurs among the pool of all Rewards. A few notes:

There is a general flow of Tiering progression from World 1 (beginning of the game) through the Void (the end of the game), with some intentional deviations to encourage certain actions. For example, most Treasure Chests in the Wind Shrine are Tier 1, but defeating the boss and accessing the Wind Crystal event gives a few Tier 4 checks, to reward the player for overcoming the boss and hastening party progression. Areas locked behind Key Items such as Mirage Village, the Pyramid in World 3, and Moogle Village all have high tier Rewards

You can review the list of reward tiers here, and Collectible tiers for items, abilities, magic, and crystals.