Realistically, the problem isn't the drop rates at all. You guys need to stop saying the drop rates are the issue, while at the same time talking about how common it is to have one person get 4-5 of the same thing.

The issue is the drop distribution. And the distribution is what SE claims is awesome, and allows you to earn [SIZE="6"]FIVE TIMES AS MUCH LOOT[/SIZE]. Obviously, that's a complete crock, because the devs have no idea what the players consider "loot".

the devs look at the loot pool and see: a couple of awesome, rare pieces of armor, weapons, or magian trial items, crafting resources that give good, but not as awesome as the actual armor, crafted armor versions of the NM drops, and awesome, rare crafting resources like high level logs and ores.

What they forget is:

1: Players have NEVER wanted or hoped to get rare crafting materials like logs and ores from difficult nms. They have always been the "junk drop" that end up getting thrown away or sold to vendors for pocket change.

2: They killed crafting when they introduced synergy, so the number of crafters who actually benefit from being able to procure rare, high level source materials is rather low, because the number of high level crafters who actually profit at all from their craft, let alone profit against the initial investment required to use those high level logs/ores, is miserably close to none of them. Except for cooks and dragon meat recipes, high level crafters pretty much have to get lucky, or level a completely different craft (synergy) to turn a profit.

3: By forcing the entirety of the random loot pool to be divide up into individual rewards that can't be traded around, it completely negates the backwards logic that we could possibly leave VW with five times the reward of previous NM systems. They intended for this system to prevent 1 person from getting the entire pool, but in reality, this system makes 1 person getting the entire pool (in terms of reward value) the only common result, and eliminates the players' ability to at least assure the one person who gets the reward can actually benefit from it.

No matter how awful drop rates were in the past, at least the players had some control over who got what when something did drop, VW eliminates that one saving grace of a low drop rate system.

It feels like their intention was either to create a system that prevented ninja lotting (if you want to believe they were trying to be benevolent), or more likely, to create a system that prevented the players from being able to use DKP type systems to determine who gets rewarded, because people who didn't have the time to devote to a group constantly whined about "The horrible HNMLS leaders who always played favorites always". It seems like their thought process was "This is more fair than letting those awful, greedy players try and divide loot like civil adults, because a few random people are greedier than normal"

Basically, the devs have absolutely no idea what types of systems players use to determine fairness of drop distribution, and just assumed that "We're the devs, we know best" when they obviously don't know what they're doing, at all, and have continued to prove the fact that they have no idea what they're doing every update since abyssea.