Why IS the savage lockout system the way it is?

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Originally Posted by KuroMaboroshi

It is perfectly possible to clear any content in the game without a static, all the way up to Ultimates, if people are willing to put in the effort. There are entire communities dedicated to running Savage and Ultimate content without the need for a group with set raid times and members. Is it more difficult than with a static, less reliable and will require more time? Probably, but it is not the barrier some people claim it to be. It's perfectly fair if someone finds it too much effort and therefore decide not to do it, but anyone pretending that not having a static is somehow an unsurmountable barrier to clearing content and getting loot from it is deluding themselves.

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This goes in line with my earlier comment. The most difficult thing in the game isnt the content it's finding people..

It's the nasty attitude towards party finders and raid finders and all that stuff...

You look on the jp side and quite a number of people have cleared various ultimates in pugs groups and clear savages frequently with the raid finder.. On the na side though... thats borderline impossible just because of the na community.

Noone uses the raid finder on na because its notorious for being a trap.

So no it's not dillusional at all to say content can't be done without a static group at least not reliably... party finder "farm" groups can't even clear an ex trial half the time let alone farm it... hence wide the party finder is seen as such a gamble. And everyone drops and abandons so quickly because there's so many "trap" groups.

All of this is kinda beside the point though.. point being that if the game let players play together and help friends, fc memebers and the like. Participation in higher content would be higher because players would naturally be more comfortable playing around people they are familiar with. Especially when the alternative is the party finder and all the crap that comes with it...

The solution they came up with for the chest scenario was making an option in the PF drop down to set a restriction for 2 chest only. The thing is that the way they are doing the lockout impacts everyone, not just statics. Going in to do more practice runs or because someone finds the content fun shouldn't penalize those who have not gotten a reward yet. It doesn't even matter if someone uses the RF in Japan or the PF system in the US, the result is the same.

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Originally Posted by LianaThorne

Half correct.

It's so that people don't blow through the new content within the first couple of weeks and cry later that there's nothing else to do. Its meant to stretch the content, I doubt the majority of people base their sub on savage gear alone. I'd apply the word predatory to the housing system we have though.

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The problem with the Stretch is that they go to a point where it goes on too long, late comers wait for the lock to come off, early adopters are burned out and bored.

Honestly, 5-6 months is way too long for a lockout and I feel it the lock should come off a little sooner and the echo added when they planned to remove the lock originally.

They should look at taking the lock off at 4 months in, echo activated at 6 months in, strikes a better balance that way.

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Originally Posted by JanVanding

The problem with the Stretch is that they go to a point where it goes on too long, late comers wait for the lock to come off, early adopters are burned out and bored.

Honestly, 5-6 months is way too long for a lockout and I feel it the lock should come off a little sooner and the echo added when they planned to remove the lock originally.

They should look at taking the lock off at 4 months in, echo activated at 6 months in, strikes a better balance that way.

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After playing through savage and running a static, it became apparent why the PF actually ended up the way it is in the USA. The thing is people are going to get penalized for being benevolent to others because that is how the system was setup. People who play have different goals and time availability, and sometimes a player cannot get a static that fits his or her goals perfectly right away. If that person likes the people who they played with and wants to keep doing content with them, but also wants to fulfill their own goal of progression and joins another static with a raid schedule that doesn't conflict, why should their actions punish others?

The fight design doesn't even allow for the same kind of clear selling that existed in WoW and some other MMOs, either. Mechanics like Light Rampant would wipe the group if so much as one person flubbed, and the same happens on p4s with the curtain call and pinax. That's why I'm looking around for anything official on this choice for the raid lockout because it would not take much to change it, and so far the only thing they did was add a two chest clear option on the PF, which doesn't really do anything.

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Originally Posted by Elesh

which specific component of savage loot rules do you want to know the reasoning for? There are a number of components and each has rational behind it...

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Specifically behind the choice with the way they handled one person clearing impacting everyone else in the group. It sounds great on paper and if someone is following ye-old MMORPG rationale it seems like it makes sense, but it does cause a lot of problems in terms of social structure. In NA the only way to really prog effectively in savage is to run with a group of people and when folks group together, they build relationships with those that they run with. However, people also have goals that they want to achieve and sometimes those goals do not align with the group they are with. This problem is easily handled if someone isn't a raid lead, but if the person in question is a raid lead and has responsibility on their shoulders that is where it becomes ideal to keep supporting that group while seeking another to meet those goals.

The current system makes taking on more responsibility in management a dangerous gamble and given that a single character can run every job, it discourages the kind of thing that most other MMOs have to deal with. E.g. World of Warcraft has to literally lock people out of going into an instance after clearing to prevent alt gear farming. In this game someone could technically do that under a personal lockout system, but it'd be strange.

Edit: Actually WoW moved to a loot based lockout on most content even with their focus on hardcore.

A lot of the loot system for savage is just to keep subs up and to keep people doing content. Those players that are late to the raiding scene (even by a week) would be left out entirely since if they didn't already have the clear, they would never get into a farm party.

Incoming unpopular opinion:
The moment a player clears a raid tier, they should stop the gear grind. They don't need it. The concept of BiS is plain silly. If you just beat the hardest enemy the game has to offer at that time, why pursue BiS at that point? There is nothing to use that new gear on. And... by the time a new "hardest enemy" is out there, new gear comes out anyway. On top of that, you can get gear 10 iLvl higher than the previous raid gear on Day 1.

it honestly unlocks way too late

there should be 0 loot restrictions come 6.1

16 weeks or so is plenty time to clear the tier

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Originally Posted by dspguy

Incoming unpopular opinion:
The moment a player clears a raid tier, they should stop the gear grind. They don't need it. The concept of BiS is plain silly. If you just beat the hardest enemy the game has to offer at that time, why pursue BiS at that point? There is nothing to use that new gear on. And... by the time a new "hardest enemy" is out there, new gear comes out anyway. On top of that, you can get gear 10 iLvl higher than the previous raid gear on Day 1.

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I know it's unpopular but I'd like it if there was some way to give loot weight to a player who hasn't gotten the drop yet. It's pretty bad to go even this late into savage trying to get drops and they're won by someone who's farming for BiS on their 4th job instead of the person who never got the drop on their main job. Even just restricting players who've gotten that particular coffer to greed after they've won it once would be appreciated. Before anyone mentions it yes I know there is the books for trade in but clearing weeks and weeks in a row without loot while other people are gearing their 3rd or 4th job feels awful.

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Originally Posted by dspguy

A lot of the loot system for savage is just to keep subs up and to keep people doing content. Those players that are late to the raiding scene (even by a week) would be left out entirely since if they didn't already have the clear, they would never get into a farm party.

Incoming unpopular opinion:
The moment a player clears a raid tier, they should stop the gear grind. They don't need it. The concept of BiS is plain silly. If you just beat the hardest enemy the game has to offer at that time, why pursue BiS at that point? There is nothing to use that new gear on. And... by the time a new "hardest enemy" is out there, new gear comes out anyway. On top of that, you can get gear 10 iLvl higher than the previous raid gear on Day 1.

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More like an out-of-touch opinion, as DSR is tuned for i600, so naturally clearing savage and farming the gear towards BiS is the admission ticket to ultimate while the tier is relevant.

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Originally Posted by technole

More like an out-of-touch opinion, as DSR is tuned for i600, so naturally clearing savage and farming the gear towards BiS is the admission ticket to ultimate while the tier is relevant.

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Not even just that, it makes almost all unsycned and open world content easier. Theres no reason not to pursue BiS if you are capable of it.

I mean there's two aspects to this whole thing that people are talking about. One is the rate at which people can get loot and the other is the way the lockout system functions. Gearing rate is probably more of a hot topic safe opinion piece and ends up eating the majority of the conversation. The implementation of the lockout system given the game design is the more questionable thing, as they did move from the WoW instance lockout system to the soft instance lockout system a long time ago to try and make it more lenient for people who want to reclear with others.

The issue with that system is that it still has the same impact as the full instance lockout system when it comes to working with others. The system should only lock a person out of getting more loot for the week, not punish the entire group someone is running with. The amount of time needed to run more than one character at end-game level is just way above other popular MMOs due to having to unlock aetherytes, aether currents, all the story quests, Hitting baseline gear levels to participate in end game, etc. FFXIV just doesn't encourage making alts.

Heck, swapping to a personal loot system would likely be a better compromise on gearing than not since it should open up conditions for allowing more flexible static raid schedules. Also praying that cross data center integration improves conditions for end game activities because Crystal is pretty awful on it.

Lockout is to satisfy the revenue management people who bother YoshiP constantly on what are you doing to keep people subbed. He's probably also able to defy CEO Matsuda's NFT pushes because "hey I make enough of our money here". You can't really have your cake and eat it too just because it's a sub game. The lockout is normal MMO staple to prevent unsubbing, being done quickly, gear inflation, and overall raid economy.

There is no personal loot except for casual alliance raids because savage is to encourage near-same skill level to clear, versus a 7-to-1 carry, and one person getting 2-chests no matter what happens, that's never going to happen.

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Originally Posted by technole

Lockout is to satisfy the revenue management people who bother YoshiP constantly on what are you doing to keep people subbed. He's probably also able to defy CEO Matsuda's NFT pushes because "hey I make enough of our money here". You can't really have your cake and eat it too just because it's a sub game. The lockout is normal MMO staple to prevent unsubbing, being done quickly, gear inflation, and overall raid economy.

There is no personal loot except for casual alliance raids because savage is to encourage near-same skill level to clear, versus a 7-to-1 carry, and one person getting 2-chests no matter what happens, that's never going to happen.

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That's not the kind of game FFXIV is. They already admitted to that by making the lockout system a halfway compromise and if you think for a second that it makes a lick of sense to force someone into making two characters under the current game design JUST to run events with two groups you are out of your freaking mind.

Yes, I've seen people do it. I've ran with those kinds of people who had to make two characters so they could run and commit with two different savage runs, because they liked the people in one run but also wanted to commit and do the tier more quickly. They have burned hundreds of extra hours to pull that off whether they want to admit to it or not.

In games like WoW you can burn rubber and have two characters at max level incredibly fast, with the only lockout being the side content, and if you are good on your main in that game than that usually gives enough good word to get into the hardcore content even if you're "under geared" by most standards.

In this game you got to complete the MSQ, unlock aether currents, sometimes do side content, and most certainly need to do the main normal raid at a minimum to do the end game. Level + story skip helps but of course you're paying for that out of pocket and it still means having to go through MSQ plus current normal end game content. This also doesn't take into account that in WoW, the crafting is a joke and can be done one handed while in this game you kind of need at least one craft at 90 to get free melds and that is before needing to get full crafted gear to jump start the new tier. Depending on how hardcore that person is, they may also require pentamelds to do it. And yes, you can get free melds from a friend, but lets face it: they aren't always around and you still need gil to do repairs. Like for any other side content I could see an alt making sense, but savage it just turns into a hot mess.

So yeah, the system is a complete misfit to the game proper and I'd gladly take someone up on this discussion, but so far no one seems to have given a lick of thought to how THIS game actually plays vs those that they are drawing their ideas behind.

Money.

/thread

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Originally Posted by technole

More like an out-of-touch opinion, as DSR is tuned for i600, so naturally clearing savage and farming the gear towards BiS is the admission ticket to ultimate while the tier is relevant.

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Sure, for that small percentage that is planning to move into DSR. It's not out-of-touch, it's valid from a purely cynical viewpoint.

I asked on the balance about which Alliance Raid gear was worth getting, for example, the Healer chest piece is arguably the second best one in the game (first being savage). Since I'm not planning on doing savage, that means it's the best available to me. I was looking for other pieces similar to that.

I was told "If you're not doing savage then it doesn't matter. Just look at ilvl." except, that's my content, getting the best within the content that I play;

It's exactly the same with people who are just going to do savage and not go to ultimate. You could argue that it sets you up whenever the next tier opens up, but there are typically catch up mechanisms that are much easier than spending a couple of months gearing up.

Personally the savage gear really is not worth it, the stat increase it comes with doesn't make anything much easier (you won't notice much of a difference except Ultimate if your party of 8 has all the BIS)

Heck even Ultimate isn't worth it other than bragging rights, eventually that weapon will be tossed to the wayside.

You will hardly ever notice a difference with other content except your HP.

Why try frustrating savage battles when you got tomestome with upgrades or alliance gear that is much easier to go for like the 590-595 gear? The damage increase isn't that far from Savage gear overall. Savage isn't fun its more like I'm going to my 9-5 job of painstaking nonsense. Also that gear will get outdated by better gear because there will be no end to the gear for a very long time since we're heading all the way to 7.0 and beyond.

The only time I will ever take this content even seriously if we're at the endgame of this MMO, and I mean like the actual end because it at least it wouldn't be a frustrating waste of time by then.

I know they like to entice people with mounts, and such to get people to do Savage, but really you're better off until the Savage raid becomes outdated and easier to deal with if you're just partying with random groups.

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Originally Posted by Kaliesto

Personally the savage gear really is not worth it, the stat increase it comes with doesn't make anything much easier (you won't notice much of a difference except Ultimate if your party of 8 has all the BIS)

Heck even Ultimate isn't worth it other than bragging rights, eventually that weapon will be tossed to the wayside.

You will hardly ever notice a difference with other content except your HP.

Why try frustrating savage battles when you got tomestome with upgrades or alliance gear that is much easier to go for like the 590-595 gear? The damage increase isn't that far from Savage gear overall. Savage isn't fun its more like I'm going to my 9-5 job of painstaking nonsense. Also that gear will get outdated by better gear because there will be no end to the gear for a very long time since we're heading all the way to 7.0 and beyond.

The only time I will ever take this content even seriously if we're at the endgame of this MMO, and I mean like the actual end because it at least it wouldn't be a frustrating waste of time by then.

I know they like to entice people with mounts, and such to get people to do Savage, but really you're better off until the Savage raid becomes outdated and easier to deal with if you're just partying with random groups.

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In NA completing the tier on PF is mostly a game of how much pain you can take doing PF per week, and when you burn out that is where you are left. With this tier it was basically week 3 P3S or bust from what I got. I broke through p2s pretty early but then flubbed out on p3s because of taking time to get a static started and organized. By that point I was catching people up who didn't do savage the first two weeks so the boat sailed on clearing quickly.

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Originally Posted by LeonKeyh

Sure, for that small percentage that is planning to move into DSR. It's not out-of-touch, it's valid from a purely cynical viewpoint.

I asked on the balance about which Alliance Raid gear was worth getting, for example, the Healer chest piece is arguably the second best one in the game (first being savage). Since I'm not planning on doing savage, that means it's the best available to me. I was looking for other pieces similar to that.

I was told "If you're not doing savage then it doesn't matter. Just look at ilvl." except, that's my content, getting the best within the content that I play;

It's exactly the same with people who are just going to do savage and not go to ultimate. You could argue that it sets you up whenever the next tier opens up, but there are typically catch up mechanisms that are much easier than spending a couple of months gearing up.

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It is out-of-touch, DSR dropped barely a month ago, anyone who didn't clear savage well before 6.1 did not have access to i600 and i605 weapon. So without clearing P4S well before, you aren't even geared enough to go into DSR day one and that leaves you out of options for a raid group until you get caught-up, if you are behind just a few weeks most groups can accommodate that or feed a clear like a i605 weapon coffer. This is the major incentive to clear savage well before the catch-up patch.

You can claim catch-up mechanism all you want, but that is not how it works for anyone targeting ultimate. There are plenty lot of people who clear the current savage but may do DSR at another time. Many don't do ultimate with the same raid group, or maybe they are trying to clear a previous ultimate. Most actually save the savage BiS in their inventory until they are ready to do the content because all of them are ilevel-locked forever. The "BiS" will never expire for each instance, except for when relic weapon stage comes out that could surpass a stat.