New claim system, the death of open world content?

[MeowyWowie]

New possession (claiming) structure.

Famitsu: Please tell us about later adjustments to monster claim (possession) structure.

Matsui: We’re making adjustments so we can drop the claiming system. This means others not in party can attack the same monster and RMT like players can try to take over so making it the party with the first attacker can only get the loot. For contents with alliance we’re thinking of a system where the loot is evenly distributed or changing amount of loot depending on amount of damage given.

Yoshida: I think it’s good where other players can help and with later alliance battle where few parties get together we really think we don’t need the claiming system. Contents that drop rare items will be more instance based in future, and will also lessen where you have to fight over to claim.

I don't understand how this solves anything. People will still fight for the initial claim to be eligible for drops.

In the Players Poll the 2nd, we were asked the following question:

9. If the current target claiming system were done away with, would you be in favor of a system that rewards skill, experience, and loot only to the party that first deals damage to an enemy? Or would you be in favor of skill, experience, and loot being distributed amongst all parties that contributed to an enemy's defeat?

Following the poll results, Yoshi said he neglected to add a third option:

I'm kicking myself for not having put in a third option combining the other two: Skill and experience going to all parties, and loot going to only the first party to deal damage to an enemy.

Source:

Why were we not asked if we'd prefer keeping the current system but improving it? It's as if Yoshi assumed that this is what we wanted and made up his mind before even asking this question. Why even put the "If" at the beginning?

The problems I see with the new claim system:

NMs and similar open world content:

I see 2 new problems arising from this change, and I don't see it solving any of the current problems.

First: Lack of challenge and/or more difficult to balance content:
This is self explanatory. If anyone and everyone is able to engage any given mob, balancing would be impossible. No content would be considered difficult as you could just throw countless bodies at it until it's dead.

Second: Player griefing:
Here's an example:
Fafnir pops and 2 rival linkshells are competing with one another. The competition for "claiming" is still there because of how drops work, so bots are still very likely. However, we're met with yet another problem on top of the one that already existed.

Fafnir has a special AoE move called Spike Flail, which is triggered when hate is pulled from behind. This ability has the potential to completely wipe an entire party. Linkshell A claims fafnir, and Linkshell B (knowing they won't get any loot unless they have the initial "claim") begins attacking Fafnir from the rear for the sole purpose of triggering this attack. What ensues is a constant MPK battle between the 2 linkshells which could have been completely avoided with a real claim system.

This will likely end up forcing SE to make all Open World content just simple "tank & spank" BS.

EXP grind parties and EXP exploits:

At the moment we're unsure how EXP will be rewarded with this new system. Here are two possibilities that I can think of, and their flaws:

Equal EXP, not affected by the number of people helping outside of the "original claim" party:

Let's say we're in a party of 6 people and we're fighting a raptor and a party of 3 people comes and helps us kill our raptor. The SP we get in our 6 man party is not influenced at all by the party helping us, our SP formula follows the same rule as it does now. Likewise for the assisting party. Sounds great right?

The problem is that this system is heavily exploitable. Our party of 6 R40 players are fighting the same raptor, but this time a R10 person comes by, casts 1 spell, and lets us finish the mob off. The lower rank players gets a massive amount of EXP for no effort whatsoever.

End result: Power-leveling will run rampant, worse than it is now.

EXP affected by all additional players attacking:

Here's the opposite end of the spectrum. For every extra player attacking, the total EXP rewarded is reduced for all players participating in battle. This can quickly lead to griefing as competition for EXP mobs gets larger and larger.

If this new system is supposed to counter the EXP mob competition it seems futile. A better solution would be increasing the mob count and respawn timers so that more EXP parties can be supported per camp.

Overall, I'm open to new things. I know this system works in other games. But correct me if I'm wrong, and I very well may be, but aren't these games all quested based leveling and highly instanced?

I can't see FFXIV turning into a heavily quest based progression game and I'd hate to see challenging open world content become a thing of the past. I just can't see the reasoning behind this decision. Perhaps someone can shed some light on this for me?

Please forgive me if some of my points are difficult to understand. I kinda just rushed through this post but I think the main message is there. Discuss.

[Arcell]

I think you've got some good points there, hopefully they've thought it through a little more than that or are withholding certain details. If not, hopefully this thread will force them to think a little harder before implementing such a system.

[syntaxlies]

GW@ doesn't have a claim system and it looks really good. The more members that show up and start attacking the more abilities the mobs will use. I saw a vid where a third guy shows up and the mob does this crazy aoe attack on them that it wouldn't normally do. Also, in GW2 there is no sp punishment so all members that fight still get full sp/xp.

so like your saying two partys try to exploit the system but then the mob doesn't something crazy that it only doesnt when being attack by 10+ people, could actually make the game really interesting.

[Koroma_tanuki]

All i have to really say about what you quoted is i completely disagree with you and it sounds amazing!! I espically like the part about rmt getting screwed out of drops and no mob stealing like in ff11 which was so rampant.

[DoctorMog]

Whatever they do, people will complain till they change it. Then people will complain some more, so I don't know why I even read these... ><

IMO the loot claiming and loot system needs to be whoever struck the monster first. With countermeasures against bots.
The Loot needs to have a loot master, this "falling evenly and into random peoples inventory" crap needs to end.

[MeowyWowie]

All i have to really say about what you quoted is i completely disagree with you and it sounds amazing!! I espically like the part about rmt getting screwed out of drops and no mob stealing like in ff11 which was so rampant.

I kind of agree with you. But even with this system, RMT can still bot like crazy and get the initial claim. I don't see any difference between the two really, except allowing for more ways of player griefing.

[MeowyWowie]

Whatever they do, people will complain till they change it. Then people will complain some more, so I don't know why I even read these... ><

IMO the loot claiming and loot system needs to be whoever struck the monster first. With countermeasures against bots.
The Loot needs to have a loot master, this "falling evenly and into random peoples inventory" crap needs to end.

Sorry if this came off as a complaint, which was not my intention. I'm just having a difficult time understanding what makes this new system better than the current one and just asking someone to explain.

[DoctorMog]

I must make one small point,

I see lots of low level RMT around, but VERY little high level RMT.

Seems between the complexity of playing a character and the difficulty of selling items in wards, the RMT are having a hard time getting characters leveled and making money.

[syntaxlies]

off topiC: one thing that wuold hurt rmt would be pvp, you suspect someone of rmt just go kill them.

[Xatsh]

off topiC: one thing that wuold hurt rmt would be pvp, you suspect someone of rmt just go kill them.

Would hurt players too... Look at Aion's ganking problem

Rival linkshell claims X mob go kill them, Rival Ls is gathering for Dungeons Go kill them, Rival linkshell member just raised up at a Aetherit gate camp their body until you force them to just log off.

The kind of PvP you describe would basically kill the game more of less.