Episode VI: FFXI - Return of the DD!!! -

[Ulth]

Again, I'm not trying to say this isn't a problem and sweep it under the rug. It is a problem, but the problem isn't just "high ACC is hard to get." The problem is also partly the playerbase not wanting to do anything that isn't the easiest, safest, most idiot-proofed strategy. Those strategies tend not to be fun, though, and severely limit who and what can come. The only real way I see of actually addressing this problem in a way that would have any real effect would be to incentivize bringing unpopular jobs. Unfortunatley, that would never get implemented. I've brought the suggestion up before, and people were very... upset at the thought of people getting bonuses for doing new and different things.

I can see why you would get flak for suggesting mechanics that incentivize having different jobs. Whenever I hear stuff like that I picture the VW system which is something I despise, or needing a token thief for treasure hunter. An incentive I could see working is something like in escha where the NM's health scales per player over 3. Just have that change so as unique instances of jobs don't count. That way you don't get strategies like "blm all the things" or "sam onry", but also not getting the rigged tokenism that comes with the voidwatch system.

[Vae]

All square ever had to do was make a system where if you had 2 sources of the same damage, the enemy would become immune to that damage. There were more than enough jobs/weapons to spread out and make everyone able to deal damage. And poor DRG wouldn't have been screwed so hard. (sam w/ polearm womp womp.)

2 GK's? Immune to GK damage. 12 BLMS? well guess what no MB'ing scrubs. 7 Kraken blood weapon DRKS? lots o' zeros. 8 failwagon RUDRAALLTHETHINGS THF/DNC scrubs? Rudra does 0 QQ moar.

It would've changed the entire scope of the game, for the better.

YEAH, it would've been HARD AS SHIT to make sky/sea/HNM work at 75, maybe a little more forgiving pre-2011ish. 1 source per party.

It would've put a stop to that 3 war/nin double bard rdm ONRY merit parties too.

It was always so god damn boring; SAM ALL THE THINGS. RNG ALL THE THINGS. BLM ALL THE THINGS. RUDRA ALL THE THINGS. BST ALL THE THINGS. SMN ALL THE THINGS. It would've been so simple to fix, the mechanic ALREADY existed to identify jobs in party (corsair).

[machini]

Honestly, something for instanced content, like Unity, Delve, Skirmish, Geas Fete, etc, that would work is simply keep a running tally of the party/alliance compositions for each successful completion, and then increase drop rates when not using things that are not the most preferred jobs.

If everyone is bringing WHM PLD BRD COR GEO BLU BLM THF to virtually everything, and then you and your party clear it with RUN SCH DNC WAR DRG RDM, it would see that none of those jobs are in the top 8 (or whatever you call the cut-off), and then increase drop rates accordingly. That would require keeping a running count of who's doing what (not as hard as it sounds, but still a good bit of information to store). Instead, you could simply say "There are X unique jobs in this alliance, increase drop rates by 10% for each unique job over six."

Even when dealing with content where the difficulty scales up as the alliance size increase, this is a good system. And if for nothing else, it would get people into content simply to fill out alliances to increase drop rates. Sure, you and your group can clear something with 3 people that would normally take six, so why bring 3 other people to fight with drops over? Unless bringing three random people who are on jobs you're not on increases the drop rate?

I've done plenty of clears of Delve for LS mates where myself, a GEO, and a WHM can trio the damn thing, and since difficulty doesn't (didn't?) drop under six people, we could seriously just bring three other people along, have them sit in a corner (if we were mean), and still clear it easily. I'm sure there are far better groups who can do such a thing with far more difficult content.

You think you'd have seen 18 man alliances for Vagary with DRG, WAR, MNK, and PUP tagging along if each unique job increased the drop rates by some amount? Hell yes. "Hey guys, you and 12 other random strangers are gonna get free clears, just don't touch the Tartarus Platemail when it drops" would have been happening left and right if those 12 extra people increased the droprate by 120%.