Provenance Watcher~

[Duelle]

Would you rather have a week lockout like they do on WoW, but guaranteed drops? You can only kill the boss once a week only to have the fight reset.

Its a MMO they have to stall your gear progression somehow either lockouts or crap drop rates and in FFXI's case its crap drop rates.

Guaranteed drops with a lockout timer would actually be bearable in this case. This leaves the matter of who gets what drop to the shell or group running the fight instead of to the whims of the RNG. Sure, things like politics work their way in there, and players may end up developing the whole routine bit of running everything they can right after reset, leaving those who missed out because of work and other things trying to get a run together the other days of the week.

It'd still be a step forward, because after the abyssmal rates in VW, this last fight should really reward those who participate for working their way up there.

[Camiie]

Would you rather have a week lockout like they do on WoW, but guaranteed drops?

Good lord yes. It's the pure dumb random luck factor that's by far the most grating part of loot acquisition. You can be highly skilled, well read, extremely dedicated, and as effectively geared as possible while having all your progression i's dotted and t's crossed and your reward, more often than not and BY DESIGN, is a punch in the gut followed by a kick to the teeth. Or perhaps more fittingly a box full of logs to the gut and a trashcan to the face.

[Mahoro]

Once again you are trying to defend the event. Trying to turn it into yet another event that a LS should be doing. Some FFXIosaures still use point systems I see. You are getting nowhere, only a minority of your members will get anything. This event has been designed so that you can "spam" it, so people best way to do it is either getting lucky in a pickup or buy it in a bazars. I'm willing to bet meteor is going to sell for 20 M gil, aka nothing.

You state "only a minority of your members will get anything." If you are implying some kind of favoritism in a large LS setting, you likely don't understand rule one of how to make a fair DKP system, considering your already extreme bias toward large LS's. If you are implying that only a couple people will walk away with scrolls, this is the same result as would occur in a PUG. Would you prefer the PUG where 15 other people lot on Meteor against the only 3 guys who have BLM?

You also don't seem to realize that no single option excludes others. That is, someone in a LS can supplement LS runs with PUG runs. They can spend DKP in a LS setting to "call dibs" automatically, they can get lucky in a PUG lotting against 17 other people, or they can buy it in bazaars (if they can find any). The bazaar thing can be a solution to anything though, can't it? Just farm Dyna and hire others to get you ra/ex gear and buy all non-ra/ex stuff in bazaars.

At any rate, the opportunity for everybody to get loot is always present in VW. With these last fights, they made it so that there are individual chests AND group pool drops. Best of both worlds to me. I wish all VW loot dropped that way. Although of course the drop rates are low again and people are getting logs, of which I am absolutely not a fan.

[Arbole]

I like how there are much harder fights than T3 Zilart, yet they all still drop riftsand (/sarcasm). I'm pretty sure there are more empyreans out there than god knows what trial is needed for riftsand. Also, nothing released since T3 zilart drops HMPs besides the other T2 expansion bosses. I'm pretty sure there's a file somewhere that contains an HMP coinpurse... I also don't like that crystal petrifacts were put into my HQ slot for VW chests. SE likes to artificially inflate the crap out of things we don't want. They can't even say that all the logs and rocks we get are helping woodworkers or goldsmiths, as AH prices are crap and it's almost always better to NPC your junk loot than to let it pool up while you wait for your mere 7 slots of AH space to be sold. /rantover

[Windwhisper]

worst part is that scrolls dont drop in personal reward chest but only in pool, which totally beats the point on personal chests. Now people mercenary the scrolls instead ( i cant blame them for it, but the little man who beat the battle has only a chance to obtain it if he pays for it). I dont call that balanced.

[MarkovChain]

You state "only a minority of your members will get anything." If you are implying some kind of favoritism in a large LS setting, you likely don't understand rule one of how to make a fair DKP system, considering your already extreme bias toward large LS's. If you are implying that only a couple people will walk away with scrolls, this is the same result as would occur in a PUG. Would you prefer the PUG where 15 other people lot on Meteor against the only 3 guys who have BLM?

The best loot distribution is free lot for anyone, it's the only way to satisfy anyone, and the only way to keep members. Don't act like I'm a LS free noob that doesn't want to get implied in large scale farming. This crap is not endgame it's a 18-man BCNM. I've done countless of point based system like sky dynamis lamebus etc it just doesn't work and people quit when they get their shit. Best thing I did was Einherjar where the lotting rule basically free lot for everyone, and the LS last like 2 years, 33 odin.


Nobody would farm hagun with their LS at 75, same problem here. I've done plenty of point system based event and it just doesn't work in the long run. It's not necessarily because people keep everything for them, it's because it's impossible to give everyone what they want, which leads to frustration, and also leads to those that got anything to leave. But hey, keep thinking you are not wasting your time. Do you have a relic 99 ? A mythic 99? An empy 99 ? Meteor ? Arise ? 250 millions ? A full nyzul set ? I bet the answers to those question are no to all, which totally confirms what I'm saying. Doing EVRYTHING in a event which is what you imply just doesn't work. You need a LS for one specific event at best.

[MarkovChain]

At any rate, the opportunity for everybody to get loot is always present in VW. With these last fights, they made it so that there are individual chests AND group pool drops. Best of both worlds to me. I wish all VW loot dropped that way. Although of course the drop rates are low again and people are getting logs, of which I am absolutely not a fan.

And they took the ironic decision to put rare/ex into individual pool, and tradable items like meteor into the common pool. It's liek metal plates, your never going to seriously farm meteor, your best bet is to buy it in bazar w.

[Kaisha]

I understand that this stuff should be hard to get, but I think they should lower the recharge on KIs to enter the catarae fights to equal that of your Voidstone and if it isn't already, add Arise and Meteor to the personal loot.

7 conundrums a week, that's minimum two honest attempts at the Watcher assuming horrible luck getting the KIs or crystal petrifacts off the normal VW NMs that everyone is still 0/150 on for their desired drop.

I can live with that.

[Mahoro]

The best loot distribution is free lot for anyone, it's the only way to satisfy anyone, and the only way to keep members. Don't act like I'm a LS free noob that doesn't want to get implied in large scale farming. This crap is not endgame it's a 18-man BCNM. I've done countless of point based system like sky dynamis lamebus etc it just doesn't work and people quit when they get their shit. Best thing I did was Einherjar where the lotting rule basically free lot for everyone, and the LS last like 2 years, 33 odin.


Nobody would farm hagun with their LS at 75, same problem here. I've done plenty of point system based event and it just doesn't work in the long run. It's not necessarily because people keep everything for them, it's because it's impossible to give everyone what they want, which leads to frustration, and also leads to those that got anything to leave. But hey, keep thinking you are not wasting your time. Do you have a relic 99 ? A mythic 99? An empy 99 ? Meteor ? Arise ? 250 millions ? A full nyzul set ? I bet the answers to those question are no to all, which totally confirms what I'm saying. Doing EVRYTHING in a event which is what you imply just doesn't work. You need a LS for one specific event at best.

As I've told you before, doing events with a LS does not impede any of the goals you just listed. Once again, you assume all of someone's time is spent doing EVERYTHING with a LS, which is quite far from the truth. There are plenty of people in my shell who have many of the things on your list. All of your examples can either be achieved from endless Dyna farming or side Nyzulling, which are obviously not done in an LS, so I'm not sure what you are trying to prove.

Regarding your question about Meteor/Arise, we haven't even started farming Prov Watcher yet, but plan to incorporate it very soon. So people are free to buy Meteor from bazaars (but oops, none available yet!). We do Dyna at MOST once a week, and people can farm all they want 26+ remaining days of the month. I also farm Neo-Nyzul on the side, and don't understand why you continually raise that example as it is something a small group does ONCE a week...

Doing every event freelot for anyone is one of the quickest ways to cause frustration possible. People want predictability and the ability to make progression toward a goal, and point systems allow for that. Why do you think so many people were crying for SE point systems in VW? In your examples, nothing is stopping people from leaving once they get their shit freelot, so I'm not sure why you think THAT scenario is so superior to a LS based environment, where the effort you make in one event carries over into the next.

Do you honestly think that frustration would be alleviated in an "18-man BCNM" where everyone freelots Meteor and Arise over the people who could actually use it? Do you think the people who lost a freelot E. Body, N. Legs, V. Fork, etc. in Odin in your example were magically free of frustration because they knew they were guaranteed to get it in the future, and they knew the guy who did it would stick around? You also assumed only one person in my shell would lot stuff at a time, which is false. Multiple people who meet the points/mainlot requirements can cast lots, not just one person.

You call Prov Watcher an 18-man BCNM, but it is essentially no different from any other VW fight except for two drops falling into the group pool. Bahamutv2 and other events were 18-man BCNM's too, and doing that freelot or PUG would have been the quickest path to frustration for anybody who wanted the Helm or Staff. Your arbitrary labeling of an event does not carry any weight, nor do the assumptions you make in every single post.

[Tamoa]

I think Pchan's got it backwards - I see it as far more likely that people will jump ship once they get what they want if everything is freelot. In a point based ls, people are much more likely to stay after getting an item they want, building points for the next item they want.

Besides, I hate how so many people just assume that in every endgame ls, the leader gets everything first, followed by everybody who's kissing the leader's ass. If you're in a ls like that, then leave - and if you don't, you get no sympathy from me.