1% or less drop rates and how they hurt the game

It sucks but that's just the way it goes. If it does drop, you'll then have to compete with 7 other people.

I'd prefer to have that tracks your progress even if it's as insane as needing 100 Levi Ex kills for a mirror.

Why they got rid of the 1.x system where you could trade in tomestones after some wins?
If you havnt gotten the weapon you wish for, after the 10th win you can choose one for free (trade in for stones).
Currently we are having same old RNG without any failprove system to backup "unlucky" players!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Gardes

Make players get a broken mirror piece every time they win a levi ex fight. Collect 20-30 of them and bring them to someone (gerolt?) to fix it and turn it back into a whole mirror piece. Take it to rowena's lackeys like usual. Back in 1.x, players can defeat garuda 10 times to get an item every time to exchange it for a garuda weapon of their choosing.

Grant players an atma affinity every time they finish a fate and not get atma. Effect keeps stacking until they zone out or get an atma. After 30 or so fates, players will have 15% chance of getting an atma in that zone. If they are unlucky they can keep going and keep doing fates to increase the drop rate even higher.

But yea, mounts kinda dont need to be tweaked (I dont have them btw).

---

I hope one of the Devs transmitting that to Yoshi-P and his team...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Yukiko

Why they got rid of the 1.x system where you could trade in tomestones after some wins?
If you havnt gotten the weapon you wish for, after the 30th win you can choose one for free (trade in for stones).
Currently we are having same old RNG without any failprove system to backup "unlucky" players!


I hope one of the Devs transmitting that to Yoshi-P and his team...

---

I really wish they would bring this back too.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by AmyNeudaiz

snip

---

There is no way to progress in the main story if you don't do quests hence no rng in main scenario and is non optional.

If nightmare mount does not drop after your 1000th attempt, you do not lose your riding skill. Nightmare is not the only mount in the game as you still have your chocobo. Same for exclusive minions like baby opo opo. These are mere embellishments to your character that does not impede progress in whatever you are trying to achieve.

Atmas are also optional because there are Levi weapons and weathered weapons as options. If you do not do second coil there is no need for them. If you do second coil guess what, you now have more options. This is a tried and tested method that works for every mmo out there and I don't really know how to make myself any clearer.

i stoped farming levi after 40ish kills? , 0 mirror droped..i wanted the mirror for glamour not for real upgrade..( i felt bad for ppl needed the mirror to upgrade the weapon ><) ..after a while..i started to hate levi ex (and i really love the fight / music ) , and paying monthly to do something i hate....is stupid , if i can avoid it.

i hated farming brayflox to no end until i got animus but at least i was advancing , every Brayflox put me 1 step closer to my animus .....u cant say the same for levi or any other RNG drop.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Yukiko

snip

---

That's the way it is, ff14 is all about luck, you can be clearing content all the time but if you are unlucky you will lose all the roll and get nothing.

It's the carrot on the stick that keeps everyone subbed and paying in hopes something finally drops. The primal token system in 1.X especially Garuda's was a great idea to combat this, back in the early 2.0 info days they mentioned they would add something similar for other rare drops like Darklight, which had a similar less than 1% drop rate. The idea was some items would still be rare drops but after running a dungeon say 50 times you'd have enough tokens to buy one of those rarer drops and maybe any piece of gear from that dungeon.

I guess that idea eventually turned into the tomes system, still it's not quite the same and nowadays everything relies too heavily on tomes farming anyway. If you could buy a mirror after say 100 runs, that one piece of Coil loot that never dropped for you after 30 or something runs or an Atma after 100 FATEs that'd be great, but then apparently people would unsub en masse, clearly that's what would happen instantly in a day.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by skaterger

I don't really know how to make myself any clearer.

---

Except all of your examples are completely different from my points:
A) There's story behind Relic
B) The weapons are extremely powerful
C) They are progress
And to respond to your irrelevant points:
1) I never mentioned "losing" anything. Not obtaining Atma doesn't make you Lose your other weapons. Point invalid
2) Dungeon drop Minions/Mounts do not progress your character and have no story. Point invalid
3) Levi/Soldiery weapons are inferior to Novus weapons and sometimes severely inferior, points to Sch. Point invalid
4) Even if you don't do Coil that does not exclude you from "needing" to make your character stronger. Getting stronger is 90% of an MMORPG. Point invalid

To parrot your words "I don't know how to make myself any clearer"

I will completely agree with the OP on this issue....the game designers seem like they cannot develop a functional game design in regards to achieving gear. World of Warcraft had Legendary weapons that was extremely difficult to get but with time and work you could get them but not at the retarded rate the designers made on this game. I am amazed that Yoshi P being the hardcore gamer that he supposedly is could not come up with one logically method for earning gear from all the games he stated he played and do a similar system. To all the people who state that this is a Final Fantasy game and it is suppose to be like this....really? I understand making people earn things in time, but this isn't 1987....there is a reason those type of games no longer exist. People want to earn items in a game but do not want to spend a ridiculous amount of time to get them because of poor game design or laziness.

Ahh, am I the only one feeling all nostalgic about these "desire sensor" threads like MH has?

Like stated you could have made a suggestion to go with the complaint.
It would be good that the game had an adaptive rng that activated higher odds when your severely over the normal number of attempts.

I mean if you're doing your 1000th fate without an atma drop for example the rng would be replaced withs something more feasible.
It wouldn't change anything at all for most players but ensure that lottery level of unlucky-ness would not happen for a small fraction that is going through that.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Madruck

snip

---

Can't help but look back on WoW where they were once luck based game, and they started to lose a lot of subs because people just aren't getting gear even after pouring in effort. They realizes that and quickly turn it into token based gear system.

SE in the other hand implemented an alt ways of getting gear like mirror from Levi Ext, oil and sand from SCoB that upgrades weathered to non-weathered gear that are at least comparable to high allagan but even those are luck based.

I understand MMO is all about grind but to an extend that luck wins all to me is not very fair.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Marcusow86

Can't help but look back on WoW where they were once luck based game, and they started to lose a lot of subs because people just aren't getting gear even after pouring in effort. They realizes that and quickly turn it into token based gear system.

SE in the other hand implemented an alt ways of getting gear like mirror from Levi Ext, oil and sand from SCoB that upgrades weathered to non-weathered gear that are at least comparable to high allagan but even those are luck based.

I understand MMO is all about grind but to an extend that luck wins all to me is not very fair.

---

Did you even play Wow? Tomes in ffxiv are comparable to badges in Wow. Marks that allowed you to obtain tier loot had a 100% drop rate from the end boss from a raid, same as oil/sands in ffxiv. In fact, there were 3 different types of marks and only 3 classes could roll for each type whereas sands/oils could be rolled by all classes. In 2.1, ffxiv also had the primal focus quest which gave you an i90 weapon for killing all 3 primals and was repeatable weekly. The only thing that I think wow did better was that lockout was character based and each character only had 1 class. So you could run multiple times per character every lockout.

I understand you are trying to get your point across but spreading misinformation is not the way to do it.

Guess you were never on the waiting end of getting a Ridill before then

I don't really see a problem with mirrors and pony drop rates. It took me several hundred ex primal kills to get a nightmare mount. I had lost the roll on mounts around 6-8 times before I got one. I wasn't even farming it either. Sure I wanted one. I could have easily never gotten one. The fact it was so rare made it a nice surprise (as I wouldn't have ever in my right mind expected to have gotten one that day).

Perhaps, now that novus weapons are available and gerolt weapons are easier to get (more geared people around to run with and do turn 7) they might want to up the mirror drop rate. The only reason I say that is because, it's less desirable to get a mirror now. If it had a higher drop rate, people might actually try to farm it. At 1% or some such drop rate, it isn't logical to ever farm it unless you run with 7 other people that will let you have it if it ever drops. It would be a exercise in frustration merely because of the math involved (1 in 800?). If you happen luckily to win a drop of one, odds are you probably don't even "need" it and maybe it would just be a placeholder until you get a better weapon. So therefore, I think it should be a bit less rare (5%? so 1 in 160?). Sure some people might "need" it and not feel like farming a novus or something... But, with the drop rate being what it is, if you "need" it, it's almost a shorter grind to actually do the novus quest instead of trying to win the mirror lottery. And if you do happen it win it, you certainly aren't going to ever want to change it out for something else for a while. Where as if you got a animus/weathered gerolt(both i100 like mirror) you could upgrade it.

So yea, while I don't think it's a "must" by any means, having more mirrors out there might make people do more leviathan ex. And, that would mean most stuff to do for the rest of us.

Wrong link**

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by skaterger

snip

---

I am mainly referring to the best gear in game where in WoW, you mainly gets it from faction or token that you mentioned can be rolled by 3 other classes. Where else in FF14, only luck will get you those, hard work will get you at best the 2nd best weapon in the game. And the worse of all, content lock. Combined it with luck to get the best gear in game = frustration. Nothing beats watching most of your raid member gets their gear and no gear drops for you.

FYI, a token that can be rolled by few classes (3 like you mentioned) vs a token that can be rolled by ALL in the raid have its differences.

Just my PoV

As we have a moogle hat to increase exp by 10% up to lvl10 it would be ideal to get an item or a piece of gear that every time u wear it will increase the drop rate for Fates (atmas/alexandrites/future drops) or even for Dungeons.

Having this it will at least motivate people into doing more fates as the chances of a drop are higher.

for those who played FFXIII know what a nightmare it was to get Trapezohedron of the Adamantoise with a 1% drop rate. For this kind of situations there was an accessory called "connoisseur" it helped to increase the drop rate by 10%.

Will it be possible to have a think and consider this if the Fate drop rates are not gonna be increased anytime soon?

I personally would be happy having something like this.

Room for thoughts

Drop rate is fine what it is. Let people finally work for there gear , then leeching and getting cared too some fights. I dont get the cry`s for*atma drops* anyway , as owner of 1 animus and 2 atma`s without days of fate farm. Every day 1 hour and see what will happen.

If you farm non stop for that 1 thing...... Yea own fault I guess :P.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Yukiko

Why they got rid of the 1.x system where you could trade in tomestones after some wins?
If you havnt gotten the weapon you wish for, after the 10th win you can choose one for free (trade in for stones).
Currently we are having same old RNG without any failprove system to backup "unlucky" players!

---

10% chance to get a weapon
20% chance to get a tomestone
70% chance to get a dark matter V (so you can at least repair your stuff)

They should let you buy them with Rowena's tokens. Even if it's like 30 for a mount. I hate the idea of stuff that you can't get just because of RNG. Most people give up on them because of the low drop and having to roll vs 7 players....

When droprates get too low they have the opposite effect of making people do content less, not more. If getting a Leviathan mirror was a realistic goal I would have done dozens of runs to get one, however I refuse to do hundreds of runs to get one so my kills are probably in the single digits despite beating it for the first time two days after the patch.

I always get supposedly rare drops from fights when I feel I truly performed better than others and if I see astonishing player in group that excel at what he does during the battle I know that 99% good drop will fall for him/his class. Same goes for Atma - if you don't just act like a bot in fate then you can get all your atma within a week by doing fates half an hour every day.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Adler

I always get supposedly rare drops from fights when I feel I truly performed better than others and if I see astonishing player in group that excel at what he does during the battle I know that 99% good drop will fall for him/his class. Same goes for Atma - if you don't just act like a bot in fate then you can get all your atma within a week by doing fates half an hour every day.

---

For the last time, as explained by Yoshida, Atma drops are

C
O
M
P
L
E
T
E
L
Y

R
A
N
D
O
M

The problem isn't the grind, but the heavy reliance of RNG for some of the end-game stuff.

You have to grind for tomes to buy gear. That's a good type of grind; you know if you beat a boss or do a daily, you will get a fixed reward. Sure, I have to do like 100 DF runs to get fully equipped but at least I can grind in confidence that my efforts will be rewarded.

RNG grind is different. You could get the item on the 1st kill. You could get it on the 100th, or the millionth. The billionth. You have no idea what kill it will be, because the God of RNG is in control of your destiny. And he is a cruel god.

IMO 1% on anything is ridiculous. Even 5% may be pushing it. However, as another peroson stated, with CT2 coming up and Ramuh weapons, there will be way less reason to even farm Levi for mirrors. I haven't been farming for mirrors, but the weapons themselves. I just unlocked him about a week or two ago and have about 20 wins and have only received one weapon so far.

As for Ramuh weapons, I remember it being stated that he will mostly drop accessories, but that the weapons would still drop a fair/moderate amount.

Everyone wants a rare item, most people aren't willing to put in the time it takes to get it. Welcome to the world of mmo's. If you don't like it maybe you should pick up a console rpg. I wish there was more rare items in the game. I hate seeing carbon copies of the same job same gear running all over the place.

Quote:

---

1% or less drop rates and how they hurt the game

---

Hasn't hurt Everquest/Everquest2/World of Warcraft/Lord of the Rings Online/etc.

It isn't going to hurt this one either.

Rare drop in an MMO...no way! My biggest problem is how fast we can grow out of rare battle gear. There is no staying power. Soon I can get a 110 SMN book, then my Tital Wave Grimoire will just be taking up an inventory spot =/

I'm fine with the rarity of the mounts, but the weapon is pretty insane since it's actually easier to get the T7 and Animus weapon than it is to luck out and get a mirror. It's only an i100 weapon after all.

The dev's really should put failsafes in for people who get completely bent over by RNG trying to obtain progression related gear.


Every time you complete a FATE in a zone you get an atma shard... collect 100 shards and you get your piece.

Along the way, you have a 2-3% chance to get a complete piece of atma. If you get your complete piece of atma, go ahead and discard your shards because they are now worthless.


This way, you have your people who get completely screwed by RNG, but they still progress as they grind.

You also have your lucky few who get their shard completing one of the first 5 FATE's in the zone that they particpate in.


Everyone is happy! Yay!


(as far as things like rare mounts and minions, let them continue to be completely random... they are vanity and serve no real purpose outside of showing off)



- I don't know if anyone else said anything like this, I only read the OP.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Welsper59

I just want to point out that, let's say you do need 50 wins to obtain a mirror, and all 8 players are a static. It doesn't seem... odd to you that all 8 players can expect an upgrade after an exact number of wins? I mean, it's essentially an optional upgrade in general (meaning it's along the lines of wanting aesthetic goods in that it is not mandatory to progress). It wouldn't feel weird to anyone if they were to implement this system in general? Or are you folks just being selective about this perspective and considering that goods such as primal mounts should not be part of this expectation system? Or perhaps gear in general, as a string of bad luck is possible for coil weapons, I'd say they would probably wish that you could expect such a thing after X kills. I'd say that kind of cheapens your efforts and the reward itself once you can plan it out. It really seems like the worst thing to happen to the MMORPG genre is expectations on a mathematical timeline.

---

Hi Welsper,

Good question. In regards to getting Tokens for Wins and making incremental progress, we already have that in the form of Tomestones, and knowing each Win of a [Primal / Dungeon, etc.] will move you one step closer to getting that upgraded Armor, Weapon, etc. They've had that in a variety of MMOs before XIV. If you want to make it more "random" without total guarantees, you could have, say, 2 - 4 Tokens drop 100% per Battle, so those still have to be lotted on (so not everyone gets 1, but it's guaranteed that *some* people will in general).

It existed in 1.0 already (and was generally well-liked by everyone I talked to (various LSs, on the forums)) (Garuda 1.0).

The opposite - traditional Low % Drop Rate, Random Number Generator method - is far more awful than a "mathematical timeline" you're opposed to, people who grew up with it are just used to it.

There's nothing worse feeling than killing a Boss 100+ times in a row (or clearing a Dungeon hundreds of times) to never see your desired item drop, but then through RNG, surprise! someone got the drop on their very First Win. How fair is that? Some people enjoy the "Lottery!" feel. Others do not.

In 1.0, when Ifrit first debuted (before Tokens, before guaranteed drops) one of my JP friends went on a 78 Win streak against Ifrit (when it was hard to beat), and NEVER got a weapon. I helped a LS member beat Ifrit and they got an Ifrit Weapon (and their desired one) on the very first win (no joke). I know someone in my FC that has farmed Atma for WEEKS (over 250 FATEs) (they checked their Achievement progress), and never got even one Atma. And I know I've gotten an Atma on my very first FATE in Western La Noscea. I feel awful for my FC mate.

That's RNG.

I think it has its place in MMOs (it's a "staple"), but it doesn't mean it's ideal. Incremental progress is encouraging and a good thing for many players and something I'd want to see.

i have a solution to ALL these issues!!

Levi mount= 200 completed levi ex wins (similar to tank mounts)

garuda, titan, ifrit= 200 completed wins for each mount.

Mirror= 100 completed wins using same levi ex weapon (instead of getting a regular mirror, you get a mirror for that particular weapon you won 100 times with)

Now this may seem like something everyone and their mom can do but think of how difficult and the amount of time it would take to achieve all of it? you need 800 total wins for each mount and even more total wins for each mirror.
Factoring in how many times parties wipe and how unlikely it is people would gather that many wins in a small amount of time, i think it's a perfect solution added onto the already 1% drop rate. Noone would complain because NO VICTORY GOES UNCOUNTED!
that's really all they can do to keep things hot and interesting! I'd personally farm the crap outta ifrit. (has no mount)

If you are able to consistently beat content a nice number of times (50+) you should be able to purchase its rewards eventually with the use of tokens earned from said wins. Garuda was a great example of this, weapons weren't guaranteed but tokens were, you could then save them for yourself or pool them and give them to a friend to help them get their weapon faster, which were some pretty decent weapons back then, some only second to Relics. It was teamwork at its best, you know, something this game really needs. Tokens wouldn't cheapen anything at all, no people won't unsub in a blink, only silly people believe that would have any impact on subs.

I just had this idea. What if we can get it to gain some traction.

What if we could collect experience points and trade them in for items. For example like 500k exp for 1 atma, or 1 mirror. That could move people into other zones to feel free to farm fates, or run dungeons, or do maps or what ever while also ensuring that everyone gets an equal shot at second tier gear and items.

Currently, at 50 we dont use exp for anything. And coming from FFXI (one system that sorta worked IMO), the merit system was a cool way to keep exp parties alive and players busy while they werent raiding or anything. And since we dont lose experience in this game this becomes a track-able objective for everyone to do, not just those who play for hours on end.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Felis

10% chance to get a weapon
20% chance to get a tomestone
70% chance to get a dark matter V (so you can at least repair your stuff)

---

Is that a suggestion for 2.x or was it to point at 1.x?
I am not sure, because Garuda given 100% 2 tomestone to each player. I do not know what you will say with your comment?
There is a reason why garuda and Skirmish was most liked in playerbase...

lol rng is the best way to keep you subscribed for longer
Don't expect to see any changes soon

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Velereux

lol rng is the best way to keep you subscribed for longer
Don't expect to see any changes soon

---

Speaking personally, it detracts from my positive feelings about the game. So it's not really encouraging *me* to stay subscribed. I can imagine others feel similarly.

Levi should have had 2 mirrors. One always drops. Silver mirror 95% of the time and gold mirror 5%.

10 silvers = 1 gold.

People would grind him and have a progress indicator based on RNG lots for silver.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Giantbane

Speaking personally, it detracts from my positive feelings about the game. So it's not really encouraging *me* to stay subscribed. I can imagine others feel similarly.

---

Giantbane hit it right on the head, this flawed game design is what causes alot of players to regard the game in a negative light and makes them chose to unsub and go to another game. It is funny that all these players who say that people who leave won't be missed if they leave......kinda funny to have a Multiplayer game where the name MMO comes from with a low player pop.....games do not last long with that type of model last time I checked!

Slapping a low drop rate on something and calling it "done" is incredibly lazy game design in this day and age. SE have tried to not do it too often, for the reasons that have been mentioned in this thread. The backlash from Atma more than likely caused them to realise that people are sick and tired of being bent of over a RNG barrel for the sake of extending content/subs. Mirrors and Atma were some real Tanaka-channeling stuff straight out of the dark days of XI.

Totally agree with mirrors/mounts/atma being something you should be able to work towards over time. I might actually have some tangible reason to go back and do EX primals more often, seeing as they got outdated in a single patch cycle (seriously wtf is with that?). It might actually be compelling to work on the Animus bow if I didn't dread going through the RNG again with all of my being.