[dev1007] Voidwatch: Obtaining Spoils

[Mirabelle]

I think what SE doesn't realize is how getting a rare/ex drop that you already have is actually more frustrating than nothing at all. We are conditioned to see nothing drop thanks to SE's long lasting fascination with crappy drop rates. So when something actually does drop we get excited, only to find its something that we have to discard. Meanwhile our got the item we wanted and already has one. This creates havoc emotionally and, as threads like this testify to, a lot of anger.

I'd suggest SE talk to some gaming psychologists before they design these crappy solutions.

I accept that SE wants us to have time sinks and also the Skinnerian value of random drop rates. But I'd be much happier if the system could determine it you already have a rare/ex item in your inventory and will either substitute an alternate item or drop no item at all. And I'd be much happier of time sinks were of the type where you do a lot of different things for an item, not a billion of the same things.

[detlef]

Well, if you aren't going to allow the pooling of drops, then the logical alternative is to increase drop rates on rare items to compensate.

[Insaniac]

There is no practical actualized "reward" to ANYONE in that alliance. The Voidwatch battle system is *excellent*. And the loot distribution *totally fails*. It's a shame. But what's more shameful is that the development team either doesn't realize it .... (yes, see that elephant in the middle of the board room, team?), or is too proud to admit a mistake.

Not pride. Not ignorance. They know exactly what they are doing. They want us stuck as long as possible because it saves them money thinking up new ways to stall us. They figured out a way to make a .2% drop rate seem reasonable to people who don't realize that a r/e item that drops once every 20 fights does not have a 5% drop rate when you consider that there have technically been 360 loot pools.

I don't even get my hopes up for VW loot any more nor are any of the rare drops something I ever expect to get. Has anyone after thousands and thousands of Qilin chests seen anyone walking around with the dagger? Has anyone seen a single one of the aura weapons? I've only seen the NQ versions. I already did my time trying to get a dagger and going 0/150. Never again.

[Frost]

Reminds me of the 18 hour Pandemonium Warden fight that Square Enix thought was "normal" or "okay"...

Until the media got wind of it...

Stuff like this really shows how amateur they are as an MMO provider. Sad part is that their audience isn't teens anymore, we're adults. Some of us are even in the field of game design, or aspiring to be. Ironically some are so because of Square's titles we played when we were young.

A lot of this just shows "what not to do".

How do you go form the Abyssea paradigm to this? I am so confused.

With FFXIV failing as hard as it is... You'd think they'd try to make their customers happier. You know?

This dynamic is akin to say, a car company that sells exploding cars to encourage people to buy new ones.

It doesn't work that way.

[Tamoa]

Lol. Btw nobody cares, voidwatch has been a fail system from start. The gear that comes from it sucks and the only reason for it to exist is metal plates. And if you are serious about getting an empy you need to go away from VW because it's much better to farm clink clink and buy from bazars.

Incoming NMs with more retarded moves, even less accessible, with more junk drops and more metal plates for level 99. *You can have this*. I'm getting 50 plates per day from selling currency.

Nobody cares? Then why are there several threads across several FFXI forums complaining about the current voidwatch reward system? Why does this thread even exist if nobody cares?

And if everybody "goes away from VW" to farm gil, soon there won't be any plates for you to buy.

[MarkovChain]

You didn't understand the idea behind voidwatch. It's not endgame is a newstyle of bcnms.

*It's designed so that the majority of players don't care.(crap gear)
*It's designed so that a minority will be getting gil from selling plates and mats. (low drop rate)
*It's designed so that empy upgraders don't care (impossible to get your plates only from VW even if you spam VW for several years)
* It's designed so that it's impossible to collect all the drops from the ally = it is anti-linkshell friendly = they want it a shout event.

It means that SE is wanting a very small part of the players to get the final levels empy and they don't want linkshells to spam VW unless it's for money making; the last post from camate means that they want to make it easier to organize /shouts groups.

When I say that nobody cares it means that if you want an empy you don't have to care if someone will do VW or organize VW runs yourself. The supply is here becuause the market regulates itself. Out of the population of a whole server there will be a minority that will upgrade empy and and a minority (that keeps changing every day/week) that will farm metal plates and the rest of the server doesn't care. There will always be a few apportunists that will join random shouts and it's enough to maintain a supply for several empyreans on a given server. That's why they don't want to increase droprate or loot distribution. It would unbalance their idea of making level 95(+) empy not available to everyone.

[Monchat]

His post was more to show the complete paradox of voidwatch, where doing VW seriously decreases the chance of getting metal plates ( from the individual point of view, not the server).

I think a step forward to fix the crap drop system is to remove ex flag on items so people can sell or trade them. Next they need to simplify the proc system, and make it actually do something. Unfortunately I think the only kind of new content (besides old endgame II) we will ever get from now on is voidwatch of fail. Fail gear, fail drops, fail proc system. The only thing great we got this year is dynamis II imo, even though the drop from the new NM suck almost as much as voidwatch drops, with exceptions.

[MarkovChain]

Dynamis NMs drops are more useful than voidwatch. Refresh grip, tripple attack ring, accuracy ring, double attack belt..

[Darkvalkyr]

Reminds me of the 18 hour Pandemonium Warden fight that Square Enix thought was "normal" or "okay"...

Until the media got wind of it...

Stuff like this really shows how amateur they are as an MMO provider. Sad part is that their audience isn't teens anymore, we're adults. Some of us are even in the field of game design, or aspiring to be. Ironically some are so because of Square's titles we played when we were young.

A lot of this just shows "what not to do".

How do you go form the Abyssea paradigm to this? I am so confused.

With FFXIV failing as hard as it is... You'd think they'd try to make their customers happier. You know?

This dynamic is akin to say, a car company that sells exploding cars to encourage people to buy new ones.

It doesn't work that way.

At the rate FFXIV's developing, they have a better chance than XI in the long run.

Seriously though; I can see SE going "If the ones who want it didn't get it, then assume it as if it never dropped from the NM at all!" which is completely untrue - in this situation, friends who want to help friends get hurt bad because this system is so anti-friendly helping behaviour. Not only do we force each other into jobs just because of procs, we spend ages getting items that constantly taunt us while the ones that want them don't.

I don't jump into VW a lot, and now I really don't want to. I have more fun still in Abyssea or other older content.

[Mahoro]

I don't even see low drop rates as a stall tactic. At the rate pickup groups do Voidwatch, even the pickup group organizers are in no danger of capping out on drops between Voidwatch updates. If they doubled the drop rates, that would still be the case. I can count on one hand the number of Bastok/Sandy/Windy tier 4 bodies I've seen drop, and I don't need most of my fingers. Body drop rate on Jeuno Tier 3s seems higher, but weapon drop rates on Zilart Tier 3s may be even lower.

This is an event designed for the 18-man shells that *l* happily let fall apart a year ago. Barring re-making them, you're kind of stuck not doing Voidwatch (efficiently/at all).

Fixed for you, but I agree with the overall sentiment. I don't really see the dev team's fear of letting more people get what they want. If they think people will burn through the content and never touch Voidwatch again....well, look at Abyssea. You can "beat" Abyssea in a couple days per job you want to gear. Besides, people will be farming VW for Plates for a long time.