People not rolling in duties - can we do something about it?

There's a reason why this happens. and it's down to the loot system itself. you can obtain 1 item in a week, and this week for example I want the shaft from a12

if I roll on the shaft straight away. i'm probably rolling against 7 other people to win it. gives me what a 12.5% chance of winning the item.

if I wait however till the cranks and springs have been won. now there's only 4 people that can roll against me for the shaft I want. so my chance of winning now goes up to 20% maybe less if everyone has passed one of the drops.

so generally speaking i'm not going to roll on that shaft until the other 3 items have been won because waiting improves my chances just that little bit and i'd rather wait a couple of minutes than have to run the fight for a "n"th time that week.

what makes it worse though is my mate over there only wants the crank form a12 this week, and like me he won't roll on the crank till the rest of the stuff has been won in order to maximise his chances of winning.

and now we're at a stale mate. cos I wont roll the shaft till the crank has been won, and he wont roll the crank till the shaft has been won and perhaps some other guy won't roll the spring until the crank and shaft have been won and thus are we all stuck there waiting till the last second.

as a result I tend not to mind it so much because I know and understand exactly why people do it. to increase the chances of winning the item they want that week.

why not just let people need roll on ONE item. regardless of drops. if 2 shafts drop you can only roll on one. and you can't roll anything else from that fight regardless of whether you win or lose with that one roll...

that way people would roll faster. and loot would be won faster. but as long as people can roll on everything. then people will wait till the other stuff is won.

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Originally Posted by Andres_Lonegrief

there have been times where the guy who didn't roll was running around, so it was quite clear. Other were spamming emotes or chatting. Also, if it was something from real life it wouldn't happen so often.

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I had an experience in LoTA, after the weekly lot lockout was removed. BLM piece drops, I need on it and wait. Everyone except me, another BLM, and a DRG in our party drop the instance, nothing has been said. So after about 30 seconds I get up to use the restroom. I don't make it back until after the loot has dropped and they have left, and look back at the chat log. Nothing was said for the first 4 minutes, after which the BLM said something like "OMG it's a direct upgrade for me why can't you just let me have it?" (He was wearing a HQ crafted item in the slot, with a higher ilvl, better secondary stats, and materia slots) After it dropped to me he expressed his disgust and left.

When there are no loot lockouts, it wouldn't be unreasonable to cut that last chest's timer in half or so. But when there's a weekly lockout, just get up and do something else.

I usually just roll on what I need then go sit my happy tail down by the exit if I see nothing happening. Honestly all it really takes to get people to roll is to sit and show you don't plan to leave.

This happens primarily in Alex and I've been guilty of this for the reasons posted above.

It's simply because of stalemates between people. If I have my eye on a first and second choice of item, I will lot the thing I want the most first and pass anything I'm not interested in. If other people have the same idea, then I'm more than happy to wait it out and lot the second choice item with a second to go.

It sucks, but if it means I'm more likely to get the item I have my eyes on, be done with that run for the week and do something else, then I'll happily do it.

This would easily be fixed by lowering the amount of time the loot is in pool, cos I'll never understand why 5 minutes is the norm. You really don't need that much time to decide.

To be honest in normal dungeons I can understand the timer cus people rushing and you can't really check but Alex and such, seems like a shorter time would work out cus there is no rush, the fight is over a quick item search should be all that is needed for those to know which one they need.

just give me the ability to change into a crafter then I can wait with these selfish people.

The reason people do this (besides the obvious selfish intent) is because they know it's hard to actually work out if it's them. A number of times I've even seen the very person that's not rolling call out for people to roll in chat as a way to distract from their actions.

The fairest solution to this would actually be to have a way of easily identifying who has and hasn't rolled. Losing the guise of anonymity would greatly reduce this practice.

There is one other issue that needs to be raised though. The loot in Alexander effectively encourages this behaviour due to how the loot lockout works. Four items drop per boss, yet each player can only take one per week. This results in people passing on the items they don't want in hopes of locking out other members of the party from rolling on the item they DO want. If everyone wants different items though then everyone is waiting on everyone else and you end up with half the party not rolling. I see this happen constantly and it's more an issue with the system itself than individual players.

Well if they would do a table in the style of a ready check where they mark who rolled on what.
That way people couldnt hide that they havent rolled.

There are 3 groups of people:

1) They need a specific item. (my alt at a9)
2) They need 2-3 different items in whatever order. (my alt in a10)
3) They don't need anything and just roll occasionally and leave with low rolls or leave right away. (my main on some floors if helping friends)

Group 1 doesn't want to lose a needed item to someone of group 2 or 3.
While group 1 is biggest on tuesday, it shrinks 'till monday while group 2/3 gets bigger.
Group 1 waits a bit usually, they get an advantage by waiting.
Group 2 usually doesnt wait that long.
Group 3 do whatever they want.

Neither 1/2/3 talk about loot and what group they are.

That I can still need on bolts although I would only gear classes I don't play isn't that fair-play, too. But since no one can check this...
I don't mind if I'm 2/3 that 1 use their one advantage: They can cope with waiting for a specific item.

That's the system you get with people mentioned above randomly matched together, weekly lookouts and at worst 1 specific needed item for up to 8 players per run.

Probably already suggested but, the chat lot mentions who rolls, find whose name isn't in the chat log and politely ask them in chat to roll, once everyone's eyes are on him he's likely going to roll.

For the sake of fun, what if loot items were displayed one at a time, with the next items displaying after the previous one has been distributed. This creates an interesting dynamic where people are forced into pursuing a primary or settling for a secondary.
Somewhat hilariously, even though this solves the problem of indecision, it actually forces loot rolls to take the extra few minutes of time consistently rather than the potential short and sweet current system.
So, lesser of two evils or something of the sort. I personally side with everyone who doesn't mind waiting a few minutes watching youtube or checking forums.

I'd prefer them to change dungeon drops into personal ones - tired of watching people need roll on items whenever they can, even when it's 200 ilvls below them.

And with raids (Alex, etc..) they could just merge all tokens into one and drop one for everybody (normal difficulty) - too often I'm required to run same floor over and over since my luck is horrible.

as touched upon by others, if possible find out who didnt roll. first just make it a general "whoever didnt roll needs to". if still nothing, wait abt 30 seconds and say "[name] roll, youre wasting out time". if STILL nothing you can actually report them. i reported a loot squatter recently on the off chance and the GM not only contacted me since i had convincing evidence but also took me seriously (shout out to nice gms btw). seems like theyre willing to investigate anything that interrupts the flow of the game

Personally, instead of a global loot timer and the potential problem that comes with it:

- Loot automatically assigned to a random player while respecting the class priorities. For example if it is a healer item, it will be randomly given to one of the healers.
- Once an item has been assigned, the player can choose ACCEPT/PASS for it. If PASS then it will be randomly assigned again to the rest of the players, again respecting class priority.

Optionally: Allow in-dungeon trading of loot obtained from the current dungeon.

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Originally Posted by Jeibird

as touched upon by others, if possible find out who didnt roll. first just make it a general "whoever didnt roll needs to". if still nothing, wait abt 30 seconds and say "[name] roll, youre wasting out time". if STILL nothing you can actually report them. i reported a loot squatter recently on the off chance and the GM not only contacted me since i had convincing evidence but also took me seriously (shout out to nice gms btw). seems like theyre willing to investigate anything that interrupts the flow of the game

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it's easily possible to find out who hasn't rolled the problem is everyone is doing something different with the system. for example people like me go into a12 with a specific drop in mind ie. the shaft. so as soon as the loot is dropped everything that isn't a shaft is passed on. so typically when it comes to those items. i'm not the guy holding things up.

as for the shaft I do want I won't roll on that until the others have all been won for reasons stated above. in my earlier post. and ill often say that if someone calls me out. i'll just say ive passed everything cept "x" so of the 4 items 3 of them aren't me holding back the loot.

then you have people that go in there with 1 or 2 options for items. so maybe they their first choice is a shaft, but there second is a spring. what these people do then is roll on the shaft, and they won't roll on the spring unless they lose the shaft. and if they lose the spring aswell then they might finally roll on the crank...

then you have people who simply hit need on everything straight away, don't really care whatthey get as long as they get something....

the problem is there is no right or wrong way of doing it. the system itself is the problem not the players. this is why I suggested earlier players should only have 1 need roll per run. this would make players roll faster as if you need the shaft you automatically pass the other 3 items...... regardless of whether you won or lost the one you used your need roll on the others would be passed. until you beat the content again and get another need roll.

in a system like this i'd roll pretty much straight away because it wouldn't matter. if players chose different items they'd automatically pass the one I wanted so my chances would be the same regardless of whetehr I rolled straight away or waited a couple of minutes.

would also be a better system even after they remove the weekly lockouts as players could still only choose 1 item per run, and people wouldn't be needing everything just because they can.