Poor Savage reward system

I still believe that the reward system for Savage should be somewhat similar to the Normal mode. Perhaps only drop two chests period regardless of whether or not all players have not cleared that week, but only allow those who have not gotten a gear piece that week for that raid to roll. If you get a clear, but roll low and miss out on gear that clear, then just hit the raid up again for another clear. This would solve two problems: the first obviously being the gear issue, and the second would be more play time in that respective raid. More often than not, players will only do a Savage raid until they get that weekly clear, then not touch it again until the next week, moving on to the next raid in the tier. The main idea for Savage raids is to give players a challenge outside of normal dungeons and trials, but with how difficult Savage raids are outside of static groups, it should be rewarding to all who manage to complete them. I know some players who have cleared the same raid a few times, never getting any gear, and have basically said 'Screw this', and never touched Savage again. The current reward system is obviously catered directly towards static groups who will work together to help each other, while most others who are forced to use the PF system are essentially every man for himself. In short, the current reward system, even with the need/greed/pass system in place, is completely unfair. At the very least, they should drop 4 coffers for a clear, one for tanks, one for healers, and two for DPS. Only tanks can roll on tank coffers, healers on healer coffers, and DPS on DPS coffers.

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

That's what the books are for. Free upgrades for clearing x amount of weeks.

They aren't going to guarantee everyone gets a drop every week. They want the content to stay alive.

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It takes far too long relying on pages to upgrade. If you're unlucky with the last floor, it'll take upwards of four months just to pick up a weapon and chest piece for a single job. That's ridiculous when there are nineteen jobs divided amongst five roles. Especially when statics will easily be done within a month or two. The current system heavily discourages PF despite it often being the only option for people who don't have consistent schedules to work with.

I'm just for keeping it simple with 2 or 3 chests, one drop per week per raid. If you don't get your chest drop for the week on first attempt you can go back in and try to get it, then resulting in your lockout of getting further loot from said fight until next weekly reset. Only one book drop per fight per week, period.

Will still force people to farm but open up room to start saving up books to gear other classes/spend on your main if your RNG is garbage.

Its the way it is solely to keep you subbed, and nothing else.

Its not designed for you to get the items in a timely manner, its designed to keep you playing on the same content, over and over.

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Originally Posted by Oizen

Its the way it is solely to keep you subbed, and nothing else.

Its not designed for you to get the items in a timely manner, its designed to keep you playing on the same content, over and over.

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That doesn't make it okay though. When something is broken, the solution is to fix it, not go "well that's just the way it is now."

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

That doesn't make it okay though. When something is broken, the solution is to fix it, not go "well that's just the way it is now."

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*looks at the state of video games*
*looks at the state of entertainment*
No. I think this is a solution "everyone" is happy with. :^(
Edit: This guy can explain it better. It's only 45s or so. You don't have to watch the entire thing. <3

This content is supposed to last 16 weeks. It's intentional that it takes longer to get than normal mode gear, because normal mode gear will slowly be replaced by tome gear (12 weeks for the whole set), whereas savage gear is not getting replaced by anything that's more time gated. You can also supplement savage gear with upgraded tome gear and use excess tomes to gear up alts.

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

That doesn't make it okay though. When something is broken, the solution is to fix it, not go "well that's just the way it is now."

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You really expect a lot from Square Enix huh

I think this reward system is bad only if you clear Savage in PF and have poor roll.
You can end up clearing for 8 weeks and get no roll while someone else could drop one piece every fight, which is unfair.

So like someone said, there should be a middle ground.

HOWEVER... yes, the current system is infinitly better than the old one for sure.

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Originally Posted by Oizen

You really expect a lot from Square Enix huh

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Sorry for having standards and expectations?

I realize forums can very quickly transition into an echo chamber of complaining, and people can get out of hand with their reactions to problems they experience, but the entire point of feedback is to point out problems so that they can be addressed, not to trash the developers for reasons XYZ.

Often times, the harshest critics of a given media are that media's biggest fans. It's not out of hate that I say the system doesn't work, but out of love and respect for the development team in wanting their product to be the best and most successful it can be. That means addressing flaws and giving feedback when something does not work because no one is going to come fix your leaky roof if you never tell anyone it's leaking.

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

I realize forums can very quickly transition into an echo chamber of complaining, and people can get out of hand with their reactions to problems they experience, but the entire point of feedback is to point out problems so that they can be addressed, not to trash the developers for reasons XYZ.

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One person's feedback is another dev's harassment. lol

I raided in ARR when there were no "tokens", "pages" or "manifestos." If something didn't drop for your job, out of luck. Or if someone did drop for your job but the other tank/healer took it... out of luck.

The system in place now is much better, but not perfect. The pages at least gives you progress, even if the gear you want doesn't drop. The gotchas to that are the tomestone upgrade pieces. However, in theory, you can get the same ilvl gear from the pages anyway. And BiS is nice, but let's be honest with ourselves. If you already are clearing P8S, what are the drops in P8S going to do for you at this point?

Its either loot lockout or content lockout. Lockouts in most MMO's outright lock you out of the instance once you clear it and you can't run it anymore. FFXIV system is the better of the two allowing people to help other players clear even if it means only getting 1 chest.

The current system is perfectly fine.

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Originally Posted by dspguy

I raided in ARR when there were no "tokens", "pages" or "manifestos." If something didn't drop for your job, out of luck. Or if someone did drop for your job but the other tank/healer took it... out of luck.

The system in place now is much better, but not perfect. The pages at least gives you progress, even if the gear you want doesn't drop. The gotchas to that are the tomestone upgrade pieces. However, in theory, you can get the same ilvl gear from the pages anyway. And BiS is nice, but let's be honest with ourselves. If you already are clearing P8S, what are the drops in P8S going to do for you at this point?

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To be perfectly fair they do make clearing P8S or whatever tier easier on subsequent attempts (although subsequent stacks of Echo we'll get overtime will also help) although i agree with the sentiment. Even more so since by the time next tier rolls out the crafted gear will once again catch up in terms of stats required for the final tier.

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Originally Posted by Raoabolic

One person's feedback is another dev's harassment. lol

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Then don't go into an industry that produces public media, or join a team of designers working on a live service game that consumers pay a monthly subscription to. You can't just take every piece of feedback as harassment. That's simply, factually untrue.

We pay for this game to continue its service. If a system does not feel fair or well balanced, it's not greedy to want change. We may not be entitled to that change, but we are entitled to address it. Telling people they're being greedy or harassing the development team for having a discussion about a flawed system is irrational and in poor taste. Fact.

sure we are entitled to address this problem. I still don't believe we are going to get any change to the system.

For a moment, let's placate the white knights and just assume that SE is really happy with this current system (for whatever reason) and doesn't want to make any large changes to it. (Meaning we can't ask for sweeping changes)

Sure. Ok. But answer me this:

Why can't I join P5S PF parties for practice without sabotaging their loot because I've already cleared this week with my static? I'm not looking for an extra book or more loot, I just wanna practice in PF. But if I've already cleared, I either am told that I'm not welcome because I've already cleared and thus the party would get less loot, or the party does welcome me in and they all get barely anything out of clearing the raid because I have a clear this week. Just make it where I can't roll on loot or get a book if I've already cleared that week, but my 'cleared' status doesn't impact other people. This is a tiny change that gives HUGE QoL.

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Originally Posted by Ransu

Its either loot lockout or content lockout. Lockouts in most MMO's outright lock you out of the instance once you clear it and you can't run it anymore. FFXIV system is the better of the two allowing people to help other players clear even if it means only getting 1 chest.

The current system is perfectly fine.

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"Other MMOs are worse, so this barely passable system is perfectly fine."

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Originally Posted by dspguy

And BiS is nice, but let's be honest with ourselves. If you already are clearing P8S, what are the drops in P8S going to do for you at this point?

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Well this patch will be different since Criterion dungeons will supposedly need BiS and those are dropping in 6.25.

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Originally Posted by Reinha

This content is supposed to last 16 weeks. It's intentional that it takes longer to get than normal mode gear, because normal mode gear will slowly be replaced by tome gear (12 weeks for the whole set), whereas savage gear is not getting replaced by anything that's more time gated. You can also supplement savage gear with upgraded tome gear and use excess tomes to gear up alts.

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Upgraded tome gear also has to be won from drops in savage and has the same issue.

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Originally Posted by AwesomeJr44

Why can't I join P5S PF parties for practice without sabotaging their loot because I've already cleared this week with my static? I'm not looking for an extra book or more loot, I just wanna practice in PF.

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You can practice in 0 chest parties which there are plenty of. The chest penalty is an incentive to play with people who have not yet cleared so they have a chance to clear as well. If chests were not reduced, there would be an incentive to only play with people who have already cleared that week.

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Originally Posted by dspguy

If you already are clearing P8S, what are the drops in P8S going to do for you at this point?

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The ultimate (6.3 planned?) and the criterion savage dungeon in 6.25 will both be gear gated and require savage BiS to attempt. With bad rolls, you aren't going to even have half the gear to do criterion savage by the time it drops if you have to rely on books to gear up.

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Originally Posted by AwesomeJr44

"Other MMOs are worse, so this barely passable system is perfectly fine."

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I don't think other MMO's are worse for having a lockout system. I'm perfectly ok with either lockout system. FFXIV is simply the better compromise, but lockouts are a necessary thing.

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Originally Posted by ThaCa

The system isn't too bad if you have Static, but definately atrocious if you do stuff via PF. I guess if you want to play multiple Jobs it does take too long to get them geared.

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This system and 450 tomestone lock is bad even if you have static.

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Originally Posted by AwesomeJr44

Why can't I join P5S PF parties for practice without sabotaging their loot because I've already cleared this week with my static? I'm not looking for an extra book or more loot, I just wanna practice in PF.

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If the ability to roll on loot was not impacted by the other people in the party -- even if you yourself are limited to rolling only on your first clear -- you can still immediately cheese it.

Say everyone in the static has two characters, their main and an alt. You're off to do your reclears for the week; you can have one person run as their real 'main' character, and everyone else runs their alts. You clear the fight, and the person on their main rolls on (and gets) all the loot. Now the next person logs out their alt and logs in their real/main character, and you run again; the first person having gotten their loot has no impact on the loot that drops, so now static member #2 rolls on (and gets) everything. Now static member #3 logs out their alt and logs in their main, and...

Yes, it seems ludicrously high-effort to run a fight eight times in a week just to funnel the maximum amount of gear to your group, but:

1. If it were possible, people would do it -- whether or not it's healthy/sane.
2. If people were doing it, other people would potentially end up pressured to do it just so their static can be 'optimal'.

That said, as I've noted in other threads, I do still think it'd be reasonable to allow one person in the party to have cleared already before deducting chests. Allowing just one does not open the door to that sort of absurd gear-cheesing, but it makes it easier for a static to find a sub when someone's missing, or for someone who already cleared to pop in and help a clear party.

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Originally Posted by VerdeLuck

The ultimate (6.3 planned?) and the criterion savage dungeon in 6.25 will both be gear gated and require savage BiS to attempt. With bad rolls, you aren't going to even have half the gear to do criterion savage by the time it drops if you have to rely on books to gear up.

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I seem to recall reading that the Criterion dungeon savage mode will require i620, though I cannot find a source anywhere for any ilevel requirement for Criterion to sanity-check myself there. (If anyone else has an actual source on the ilevel requirement, please correct me if I'm wrong on this.)

In which case, you could meet that ilevel requirement solely with a set of unaugmented Lunar Envoy gear, no need for savage stuff (much less savage BiS). Which is still potentially annoying, I grant, but it's also perfectly achievable.

Edit: As for ultimate, I may be wrong on this (I have a migraine, so frankly, take anything I say today with a grain of salt), but I could swear it actually just force-syncs you to a specific ilevel. For instance, Dragonsong's Reprise syncs you to ilevel 605, but the savage BiS last tier -- even with the i605 Asphodelos weapon -- still averages out to i600 (as that was the max for every other piece of gear). Yes, substats matter -- hence specific ultimates still having calculated BiS sets to maximize the benefits -- but I don't think you actually strictly speaking have to be in savage BiS for a given tier to queue in.

(I mean, you have to clear the tier to queue in, so chances are you're in BiS at some point there regardless, but still.)

I did just log in and checked my saved DSR gearset (e.g. last tier's BiS) and confirmed it's only i600, not i605.

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Originally Posted by VerdeLuck

The ultimate (6.3 planned?) and the criterion savage dungeon in 6.25 will both be gear gated and require savage BiS to attempt. With bad rolls, you aren't going to even have half the gear to do criterion savage by the time it drops if you have to rely on books to gear up.

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6.3 is about 4 months away so by thay time you shouldn't have issues with gearing up. Criterion savage won't have the ilv requirement since you can only attempt those as full party which ignores ilv requirement anyway. It's very unlikely that it will require BiS anyway since it's meant to be comparable to existing savage which requires 610 for last room.

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Originally Posted by Oizen

Its the way it is solely to keep you subbed, and nothing else.

Its not designed for you to get the items in a timely manner, its designed to keep you playing on the same content, over and over.

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While I don't disagree that may be the intent. Just how effective is it, I wonder. Most people raid in statics largely due to the loot system and generally inconsistencies of randoms. In a static setting, you gear exponentially faster than a pug. One would think if this was solely implemented to keep people subbed, they'd also take measures to slow down static gear distribution. Furthermore, the fact it takes so long to gear a second or third job is often a huge motivator as to why people won't continue with Savage. They don't want to wait months to play another job. So they just don't bother whatsoever. In fact, one of the reasons for Ultimate is due to the sheer number of raiders who quit in odd patches. Several of which have cited the precise reasons I've said as to why. Since they can't flex jobs or roles without taking a pretty sizable gear hit, it's less fun.

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Originally Posted by Packetdancer

Edit: As for ultimate, I may be wrong on this (I have a migraine, so frankly, take anything I say today with a grain of salt), but I could swear it actually just force-syncs you to a specific ilevel. For instance, Dragonsong's Reprise syncs you to ilevel 605, but the savage BiS last tier -- even with the i605 Asphodelos weapon -- still averages out to i600 (as that was the max for every other piece of gear). Yes, substats matter -- hence specific ultimates still having calculated BiS sets to maximize the benefits -- but I don't think you actually strictly speaking have to be in savage BiS for a given tier to queue in.

(I mean, you have to clear the tier to queue in, so chances are you're in BiS at some point there regardless, but still.)

I did just log in and checked my saved DSR gearset (e.g. last tier's BiS) and confirmed it's only i600, not i605.

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Ultimate only ever syncs you down to the duty's average iLvl, it doesn't force any gear up to the average iLvl.
The reason why DSR is set to iLvl 605 is to avoid Asphodelos weapons from getting synced down, as a synced down item doesn't take any materia into account.

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Originally Posted by Jaquan

6.3 is about 4 months away

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That's the problem though isn't it? if you are unlucky on rolls and rely on book drops as is suggested in this thread, you will get BiS at 16 weeks. Chest and Weapon are 8 each. So if you were to clear every single week including week 1, you would get BiS just before 6.3.
That seems pretty unforgiving.

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Originally Posted by Nezerius

Ultimate only ever syncs you down to the duty's average iLvl, it doesn't force any gear up to the average iLvl.
The reason why DSR is set to iLvl 605 is to avoid Asphodelos weapons from getting synced down, as a synced down item doesn't take any materia into account.

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Sorry, yeah, I didn't really explain what I was thinking there clearly. (Honestly, I'm not sure I'm explaining anything well here today; migraine has scrambled all thoughts.)

What I was trying to say is that I do not think that you are locked specifically to needing to queue in with savage BiS.

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Originally Posted by Jaquan

To be perfectly fair they do make clearing P8S or whatever tier easier on subsequent attempts (although subsequent stacks of Echo we'll get overtime will also help) although i agree with the sentiment. Even more so since by the time next tier rolls out the crafted gear will once again catch up in terms of stats required for the final tier.

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Of course BiS "helps" but helps what exactly? Either you can clear it or you cannot clear it. My earlier comment is mostly borne out of the silly notion of BiS. It is an unpopular opinion, but people should care about "Better In Slot" instead. If chest is "BiS" does that mean don't upgrade your chest until you get the BiS? What if the non-upgraded tomestone chest is better than what you current have? Should you stick with the i610 crafted piece? Or the i600 raid piece?

It should be about "what is the best DPS I can put on the floor right now" as opposed to "what is the best DPS I can put on the floor in the future."

The only way I even get to set foot in EX/savage content is by pugging it. It's a long and grueling process on its own, but potentially getting screwed out of gear at the end on top of everything else is.... aggravating, to put it mildly. They really need to change the way the loot system works to be something a lot less static-centric.

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Originally Posted by dspguy

If chest is "BiS" does that mean don't upgrade your chest until you get the BiS? What if the non-upgraded tomestone chest is better than what you current have? Should you stick with the i610 crafted piece? Or the i600 raid piece?

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Yes, because it often just isn't better. You're wasting 2 weeks of tomestones on a piece that is 100% going to get replaced and, if it has skill/spell speed for example, might not even be an upgrade since it changes your GCD.

I literally had the case last raid tier where replacing my crafted tank ring with the tomestone one was a DPS loss until I had almost full BiS. The fact that I had spent 375 tomestones on an item that made me deal less damage despite the 10 ilvl increase was actually pretty funny.

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Originally Posted by Velvet_Lunarfang

See that's an excuse. Time keeping is archaic and not needed today. Content will ALWAYS be alive people will still play it. Let everyone gear up as they should be able. Not take months to gear up 1 I repeat 1 class.

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I would agree, if engaging these enemies that drop chests wasn't just a matter of opening a window and clicking a few buttons to engage. (Of course, I'm not commenting on the difficulty or ease of defeating these enemies in savage content).

What if instead of simply fighting these bosses... you had to farm drops from world contested mobs - something like S-ranks. You had to pop them in the zone and be the first to engage and you'd get at token. Once you have X tokens, you can get into the instance and get 2 chests. Even if you already cleared it for the week.

I get why time-gated it for a week might be extreme, but what if the other option was a grind in order to get more drops during the week?

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Originally Posted by dspguy

I would agree, if engaging these enemies that drop chests wasn't just a matter of opening a window and clicking a few buttons to engage. (Of course, I'm not commenting on the difficulty or ease of defeating these enemies in savage content).

What if instead of simply fighting these bosses... you had to farm drops from world contested mobs - something like S-ranks. You had to pop them in the zone and be the first to engage and you'd get at token. Once you have X tokens, you can get into the instance and get 2 chests. Even if you already cleared it for the week.

I get why time-gated it for a week might be extreme, but what if the other option was a grind in order to get more drops during the week?

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This just seems to be "what if this system people don't like was worse?". Which, yeah it can be much worse than it is now I guess, but, that's not the point.
The point is that the system sucks for those who can't commit to a static schedule or can't find a static to raid with. There's a large number of people who use PF to clear this content because of that.
The rewards structure shouldn't be designed in a way that screws them over for doing the same content but in a different way. There's plenty of ways to change gear drops that wouldn't affect statics, but would make PF raiding much more tolerable.

Limiting people who already have earned specific drops to greed on those for future runs, so that first time players have a better chance to get geared up on 1 job instead of 1 player being BiS on 3 jobs and other players not having it on 1 job.
Reducing the cost of items purchased with books to reduce the maximum amount of time that it takes you to gear up in the worst case situation, where you don't get a single item drop during a tier and you have to purchase everything through books.

Both of those would go a long way to make the bad system better, and wouldn't affect static players' ability to feed gear to their DPS or portion gear out at a normal rate, nor would it let them cheese the system to have extra gear early in the tier either.
There's probably plenty more possible solutions, aside from giving theoreticals about how it could be worse as to why it's ok as it is now.

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Originally Posted by dspguy

What if instead of simply fighting these bosses... you had to farm drops from world contested mobs - something like S-ranks. You had to pop them in the zone and be the first to engage and you'd get at token. Once you have X tokens, you can get into the instance and get 2 chests. Even if you already cleared it for the week.

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If someone spots an S-rank, calls it out on a hunt linkshell, and some other group comes along and goes "Oh, hey, an S-rank!" and kills it, the amount of vitriol and salt that erupts is the stuff of legends.

If in addition those S-ranks dropped tokens that let you get additional drops of savage gear per week, you would not only see the existing levels of vitriol, but you would actively incentivize sniping those mobs as soon as you saw them -- and statics would feel like they had to go snap them up the instant anyone reported seeing them.

There would be bloodshed. People would be ripping out the hearts of their rivals and eating them, while baying at the moon.

More seriously, we have seen on other games when things like that happen, a group that wants an advantage will go to absurd ends. Including trying to get their rivals actually banned. And if you think I'm making that up, that's a real-world example; folks figured out how to game New World's automatic ban system and would use that to kick the opposing faction offline prior to PvP 'wars' over contested territory, so they could more easily seize new towns.

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Originally Posted by Semirhage

"This content is objectively unfun because I can't clear it"

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No, I just think its not fun at all.

Why put yourself through that amount of stress when it stops being fun? I wouldn't bother, and do something else.

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Originally Posted by Kaliesto

No, I just think its not fun at all.

Why put yourself through that amount of stress when it stops being fun? I wouldn't bother, and do something else.

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No, they're correct. You're whinging due to incapability. Also your earlier point was wrong, half is not small by any means

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Originally Posted by FireMage

No, they're correct. You're whinging due to incapability. Also your earlier point was wrong, half is not small by any means

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Sure keep attacking me because you'll hurt from what I said, sounds like you all need to get a grip when the opinion is not the same as yours.

Also yes Savage Players is small, you're not counting the huge amount of casual players else that PF list would be skyrocketingly large.

I don't consider one page of PF Savage to be big, if it was 3 pages then yes that is a significant.

Welcome to the ignore list, could have chose your words better.

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Originally Posted by Kaliesto

Sure keep attacking me because you'll hurt from what I said, sounds like you all need to get a grip when the opinion is not the same as yours.

Welcome to the ignore list.

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Someone needs an echo chamber

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Originally Posted by FireMage

Someone needs an echo chamber

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Get a life, how about stop being rude?