Novus Meld Failure - Remove Please

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Originally Posted by Giantbane

With a 100,000 people attempting that meld, there's something like an 80% chance for it to happen to someone. There are more than 100,000 people playing the game. Why is it acceptable for some people to just get screwed for no other reason than RNG hates them.

And that's only failing 16 times in a row, you'll see 10 in a row a lot more frequently.

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Because that is how reality is. And an RPG is a second "reality".

And having a system of; fail 3 times in a row, then you get 100% success on your 4th. It makes no sense when it comes to an RPG.

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Originally Posted by Giantbane

With a 100,000 people attempting that meld, there's something like an 80% chance for it to happen to someone. There are more than 100,000 people playing the game. Why is it acceptable for some people to just get screwed for no other reason than RNG hates them.

And that's only failing 16 times in a row, you'll see 10 in a row a lot more frequently.

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The RNG is not an entity nor anything with a semblance of thought. It doesn't hate people, it just does what it's been programmed to do. Unless the probability was a 100% chance of success every meld, then someone will be the unlucky person. Having a few unlucky person does not justify removing any sense of risk from the system.

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Originally Posted by CGMidlander

The chances look perfectly reasonable to me. (Especially compared to overmelding.)
You also don't lose your alexandrite upon failure.

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lol 10/10 would laugh again

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Originally Posted by Amberion

Because that is how reality is. And an RPG is a second "reality".

And having a system of; fail 3 times in a row, then you get 100% success on your 4th. It makes no sense when it comes to an RPG.

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A lot of things in RPGs get explained away to make sense, like Tokens. Say you fail a meld with your materia on your scroll and all that is left is an untradeable unsellable powder of the materia you tried to meld - by using that powder in conjunction with a meld of the same type you get a boosted chance (if SE feels nice - 100%, if SE wants to torture us but still give hope - say something like 30% and you get two powders if it fails again).

The reason why I say of the same type and tier is because it would be pretty unfair to fail a useless tier I to then put in a great tier IV.

Defending Novus meld failure is like defending getting kicked in the nuts. There's a possibility you'll never get kicked in the nuts on your way to work and everything will be great, or there's the chance you could get kicked in the nuts 10 times before you get there. The question is, why would you want to put in the chance of getting kicked in the nuts at all? The people that defend it were never kicked in the nuts or had expensive nut-kick cushioning undies on that other people can't afford and then say "I don't see how getting kicked in nuts is such a big deal."

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Originally Posted by Gaddes

Defending Novus meld failure is like defending getting kicked in the nuts. There's a possibility you'll never get kicked in the nuts on your way to work and everything will be great, or there's the chance you could get kicked in the nuts 10 times before you get there. The question is, why would you want to put in the chance of getting kicked in the nuts at all?

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Except it's nothing like that because you can't spiritbind a new set of nuts.

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Originally Posted by Barboron

Except it's nothing like that because you can't spiritbind a new set of nuts.

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LOL, well maybe you could, who knows...

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Originally Posted by CeeTwo

How many handouts do people want these days? No... Just no.

You want the weapon? Go earn it like everyone else that finished it had to. You don't NEED the weapon, if you don't like the quest, don't do it.

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On many servers, buying all the materia for the 'optimum' melds still will cost 10+ million gil, even if you don't fail any.

Some of you really need to learn what a hand out is...

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Originally Posted by Jerichai

On many servers, buying all the materia for the 'optimum' melds still will cost 10+ million gil, even if you don't fail any.

Some of you really need to learn what a hand out is...

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You, like many others, are making a very fundamental mistake. You are trying to value a novus weapon. A novus weapon will only cost as much money as the player is willing to spend on it. Which can range from 0 to upwards of millions of gil. Or if you feel you need to spend gil for materia, you can at least break even by selling unwanted materia obtained from spirit bonding.

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Originally Posted by CeeTwo

The weapon will continue to be upgraded passed 110... derp.

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And secondary stats will continue to have a much smaller impact to overall effectiveness compared to the sheer power of primary stats and weapon damage.

Sure, two stats may represent the 'optimal', but most people can show you the loss of melding three stats is practically negligible.

Honestly, now that the nexus step is out, I think people are probably better off just getting to that step ASAP as the gain in weapon damage in primary stats outweighs trying to get a future more points in secondaries with Teir IV (yes I realize your secondary choices scale too, but the same principle applies as it does at the Novus state).

It would be nice if every time you failed the success rate would increase, so eventually it would be guaranteed. Just that little tidbit would be nice. As it stands Novus is more time-consuming than Nexus, but that's not saying much I guess.

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Originally Posted by Giantbane

Are you seriously so stupid as to not know that "RNG hates you" = "you are very unlucky"

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If you'd read a few topics about ATMA or just RNG based drops, you'll see that some people seriously believe the RNG is out to get them and them only. But that's okay, rely on the ad hominem. It just cements the fact that you've got no arguments nor any understanding of the necessary balance in a risk vs reward system.

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Originally Posted by Barboron

You, like many others, are making a very fundamental mistake. You are trying to value a novus weapon. A novus weapon will only cost as much money as the player is willing to spend on it. Which can range from 0 to upwards of millions of gil. Or if you feel you need to spend gil for materia, you can at least break even by selling unwanted materia obtained from spirit bonding.

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I'm not trying to value Novus. Personally, I'm not bothering with the relic questline because I value my enjoyment of FF14 to taint it with RNG riddled slog-fests that provide no skillful challenges or encourages large group play (outside of randomly cobbled together FATE groups or SB parties). This is of course a personal view point, and if you enjoy the kind of activities in the Atma to Novus levels of relic advancement, more power to you.

What I am trying to say is the gil or time required to achieve what people have dubbed an 'optimal' Novus is still a fairly large investment. I just get tired of people throwing out terms like 'hand-outs' because some people dare to suggest slightly less punitive RNG systems.

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Originally Posted by Barboron

You, like many others, are making a very fundamental mistake. You are trying to value a novus weapon. A novus weapon will only cost as much money as the player is willing to spend on it. Which can range from 0 to upwards of millions of gil. Or if you feel you need to spend gil for materia, you can at least break even by selling unwanted materia obtained from spirit bonding.

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Besides all that, people will always assign some kind of 'value' to anything they do or try to obtain. In many respects it's how we decide to do something. Things like trying to decide if something is fun enough, or provides enough character advancement, or time efficient enough is still assigning a value to something. It does have to be currency based for it to be of value.

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Originally Posted by Dwill

If you'd read a few topics about ATMA or just RNG based drops, you'll see that some people seriously believe the RNG is out to get them and them only. But that's okay, rely on the ad hominem. It just cements the fact that you've got no arguments nor any understanding of the necessary balance nn a risk vs reward system.

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I blame FFXI for the spawn of RNG and his evil son RNGeus - that or trying to get the original phoenix in WoW; now if you would please give them proper respect by facing north on a firesday while the moon rides high in the sky so I may properly HQ this craft that'd be appreciated.

I suppose while I said I hate RNG it really is because I know there are seldom any safety nets from insanity - put in some safety nets and I'd really not care. Yeah I know rare items are meant to be rare - if it is supposed to be epic make the net 500 attempts lol, I don't think the feeling of true hopelessness belongs in games.

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Originally Posted by Dwill

If you'd read a few topics about ATMA or just RNG based drops, you'll see that some people seriously believe the RNG is out to get them and them only. But that's okay, rely on the ad hominem. It just cements the fact that you've got no arguments nor any understanding of the necessary balance in a risk vs reward system.

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No, they're just unlucky and that's their way of expressing it. It was an idiot statement. You may as well tell me the sky is blue and then get confused why I thought it was not terribly appropriate.

More to the point, it doesn't have to be guaranteed, but why create a system where you may NEVER win when you don't have to. Sure it's astronomically unlikely for that to happen, but it IS a possibility and it can happen. Why would you leave that in for a player to experience?

If you're going to have pure RNG systems, particularly for this type of thing where you basically have no input other than "press button", it's good to at least establish a floor. Be it 5, 16, or however many fails seems like too many, put a bottom on it that can't be crossed.

The other problem is that this system is built on top of the other massive RNG fest of spiritbinding where you also have something like a 50% fail rate (elemental and primary stat materia i'm looking at you). Which is further compounded by the fact that the stats themselves aren't really equal, some (det) are much better than others (skill speed).

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Originally Posted by Jerichai

Sure, two stats may represent the 'optimal', but most people can show you the loss of melding three stats is practically negligible.

Honestly, now that the nexus step is out, I think people are probably better off just getting to that step ASAP as the gain in weapon damage in primary stats outweighs trying to get a future more points in secondaries with Teir IV (yes I realize your secondary choices scale too, but the same principle applies as it does at the Novus state).

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Wait, so you can meld another stat onto it and bypass Class IV Materia alltogether?!
Awesome. Since I don't raid cutting edge, I have no reason to minmax to this extreme extent.
700K Det IV materia combined with "OMG RNG FAIL BECAUSE WE CAN CODE IT LAWL!" sounds like no fun at all.

Thanks for the input!

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The other problem is that this system is built on top of the other massive RNG fest of melding where you also have something like a 50% fail rate (elemental and primary stat materia i'm looking at you).

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You mean spiritbonding? Unless you can EZmode craft Ilvl 90 (most people can't), you have 3 layers of RNG when it comes to Class IV materia:

-Getting the materia you need
-Getting a Class IV version of said materia (small chance depending on on level, even ilvl 90 is not guaranteed)
-Melding it successfully.

Looking at the insane prices, I honestly wonder how many people go the RMT route...

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Originally Posted by Granyala

You mean spiritbonding? Unless you can EZmode craft Ilvl 90 (most people can't), you have 3 layers of RNG when it comes to Class IV materia:

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yes, spiritbinding. typing too fast ;)

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Originally Posted by Jerichai

And secondary stats will continue to have a much smaller impact to overall effectiveness compared to the sheer power of primary stats and weapon damage.

Sure, two stats may represent the 'optimal', but most people can show you the loss of melding three stats is practically negligible.

Honestly, now that the nexus step is out, I think people are probably better off just getting to that step ASAP as the gain in weapon damage in primary stats outweighs trying to get a future more points in secondaries with Teir IV (yes I realize your secondary choices scale too, but the same principle applies as it does at the Novus state).

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You can also rework your Novus/Nexus now. So even if you go the 3 stat route, you can just remove the *extra* stat and put on those expensive Tier IV materia at a later date when you have them.

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Originally Posted by Giantbane

You can also rework your Novus/Nexus now. So even if you go the 3 stat route, you can just remove the *extra* stat and put on those expensive Tier IV materia at a later date when you have them.

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Selective rework or do you have to "reset" it and start from scratch?

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Originally Posted by Giantbane

No, they're just unlucky and that's their way of expressing it. It was an idiot statement. You may as well tell me the sky is blue and then get confused why I thought it was not terribly appropriate.

More to the point, it doesn't have to be guaranteed, but why create a system where you may NEVER win when you don't have to. Sure it's astronomically unlikely for that to happen, but it IS a possibility and it can happen. Why would you leave that in for a player to experience?

If you're going to have pure RNG systems, particularly for this type of thing where you basically have no input other than "press button", it's good to at least establish a floor. Be it 5, 16, or however many fails seems like too many, put a bottom on it that can't be crossed.

The other problem is that this system is built on top of the other massive RNG fest of spiritbinding where you also have something like a 50% fail rate (elemental and primary stat materia i'm looking at you). Which is further compounded by the fact that the stats themselves aren't really equal, some (det) are much better than others (skill speed).

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It is a statistical impossibility to even think that someone would never successfully meld and should not be taken into consideration. That would be like asking for CRT to have a floor as well because someone with 20% has a probability that he could never crit anything ever.While the systems (Novus and Spiritbinding) could use improvements right now, you can't disagree that people are grossly over exaggerating how terrible they are.

And yes, certain stats are worthless for certain jobs (Skill Speed for Dragoons, Spell Speed for Summoners) but that's a whole other topic.

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Originally Posted by Granyala

Selective rework or do you have to "reset" it and start from scratch?

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Have to get the scroll again and the gems for the melds you want to redo but it was nice of SE to not make a 100% rework.

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Originally Posted by Giantbane

Selective. You get a filled in sphere scroll, and you remove the ones you don't want. Then you use alexandrite and materia to fill in the rest just like you did the first time.

For example, given 33crit, 23det, 19acc. You remove the 19 accuracy, then using 19 alexandrite you can meld another 11 Tier IV crit and 8 Tier IV det to change it to 44 crit, 31det.

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This ^ lol

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Originally Posted by Granyala

Selective rework or do you have to "reset" it and start from scratch?

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Selective. You get a filled in sphere scroll, and you remove the ones you don't want. Then you use alexandrite and materia to fill in the rest just like you did the first time.

For example, given 33crit, 23det, 19acc. You remove the 19 accuracy, then using 19 alexandrite you can meld another 11 Tier IV crit and 8 Tier IV det to change it to 44 crit, 31det.

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Originally Posted by Shougun

Have to get the scroll again and the gems for the melds you want to redo but it was nice of SE to not make a 100% rework.

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Good to know, thanks.

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you can't disagree that people are grossly over exaggerating how terrible they are.

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Yes, people always exaggerate in RNG discussions. However, given the 2.35 spirit bonding chances, I think Novus should be looked at again.
If getting a Class IV materia is such a royal PITA, it should NOT be possible to be lost due to some "derp RNG".

keep the Materia, destroy the Alexandrite if you really feel the need to beat your players up.... (at least for the class IV tier), but imho, getting 75 gems and getting 30? ish Class IVs is more than enough effort for a simple item. At least it is for HONEST players.
Sure RMTers just snooze through it and burn a few Euros/Dollars, but systems should NOT be balanced with filthy cheaters in mind!

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Originally Posted by Dwill

It is a statistical impossibility to even think that someone would never successfully meld and should not be taken into consideration. That would be like asking for CRT to a floor as well because someone with 20% has a probability that he could never crit anything ever.While the systems (Novus and Spiritbinding) could use improvements right now, you can't disagree that people are grossly over exaggerating how terrible they are.

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I think a lot of it has to do with cost. There's a serious potential for blowing more $$ worth of materia than a house costs. And well, you saw how happy people were with that...

But no, the potential for some players to get the short end of the stick isn't as bad as atma or overmelding. But it's still another pure RNG system "press button and hope for the best!". They're getting ... old.

Either way, you may have a few hundred thousand players attempting stuff like this. It's very likely someone's going to have a very bad time. Why do that to a player who's paying the same money as everyone else when they can't impact the outcome?

But your crit example actually highlights a better (IMO) way of implementing this sort of thing. Killing something has no bearing on whether you crit or not, you just kill faster when you do crit. So even if someone was so extraordinarily unlucky as to never crit, they would still get the result they're looking for eventually (kill the monster). So you have an RNG factor, but you can still win even in the absolute worst case.

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Originally Posted by Giantbane

I think a lot of it has to do with cost. There's a serious potential for blowing more $$ worth of materia than a house costs. And well, you saw how happy people were with that...

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But then the actual problem is the ability to farm Class IV materia and not the RNG melding.
I doubt that anyone sheds a tear when a class III goes *poof*.

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Originally Posted by Granyala

But then the actual problem is the ability to farm Class IV materia and not the RNG melding.
I doubt that anyone sheds a tear when a class III goes *poof*.

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Except the poor :/

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Originally Posted by SDaemon

Except the poor :/

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I doubt people that poor would even attempt the Novus stage.

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Originally Posted by Granyala

I doubt people that poor would even attempt the Novus stage.

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Oh....I guess I should stop now then :/ hmmm what to do with 75 alexandrite. well damn.....

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Originally Posted by Giantbane

I think a lot of it has to do with cost. There's a serious potential for blowing more $$ worth of materia than a house costs. And well, you saw how happy people were with that...

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Like Granyala as said, if anything, the problem is not cost as much as it is the difficulty to reliably get Tier IV materias.

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Originally Posted by Giantbane

But no, the potential for some players to get the short end of the stick isn't as bad as atma or overmelding. But it's still another pure RNG system "press button and hope for the best!". They're getting ... old.

Either way, you may have a few hundred thousand players attempting stuff like this. It's very likely someone's going to have a very bad time. Why do that to a player who's paying the same money as everyone else when they can't impact the outcome?

But your crit example actually highlights a better (IMO) way of implementing this sort of thing. Killing something has no bearing on whether you crit or not, you just kill faster when you do crit. So even if someone was so extraordinarily unlucky as to never crit, they would still get the result they're looking for eventually (kill the monster). So you have an RNG factor, but you can still win even in the absolute worst case.

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Statistical impossibility should not be considered too much when making a system like this. Yes, extreme bad luck may happen to a few persons and they may cancel their subscription because of it. The thing is that making the Novus much easier to obtain will mean that people will finish it much faster and if the history of MMO as taught anything, it's that if a player doesn't have a carrot at the end of the stick, they stop playing. So financially speaking, it is better for Square Enix to tie their systems to a RNG (a reasonable one obviously and not that it never happened but I have yet to hear people quitting over the Novus phase of the relic so I think it is reliable to a degree).

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Originally Posted by SDaemon

Oh....I guess I should stop now then :/ hmmm what to do with 75 alexandrite. well damn.....

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If a lost Class III for ~20K is a financial problem for you, waiting for a fix to the crappy RNG / abandoning Novus might save your sanity. :D

I don't know why people don't just round out their weapons with all the stats they use. You can replace armor pieces to get those "best" secondary stats you wanted without spending millions of gil.

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Originally Posted by Granyala

If a lost Class III for ~20K is a financial problem for you, waiting for a fix to the crappy RNG / abandoning Novus might save your sanity. :D

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meh the spread I'm using will only cost me a couple hundred thousand. So my sanity isn't really in jeopardy. All the same losing a tier III will still be a bummer and set me back some time.

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Originally Posted by Dwill

Statistical impossibility should not be considered too much when making a system like this. Yes, extreme bad luck may happen to a few persons and they may cancel their subscription because of it. The thing is that making the Novus much easier to obtain will mean that people will finish it much faster and if the history of MMO as taught anything, it's that if a player doesn't have a carrot at the end of the stick, they stop playing. So financially speaking, it is better for Square Enix to tie their systems to a RNG (a reasonable one obviously and not that it never happened but I have yet to hear people quitting over the Novus phase of the relic so I think it is reliable to a degree).

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You can implement a maximum failure limit without just handing the item out. 16 fails for a single slot seems unnecessarily punitive. Even 10 is excessive.

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Originally Posted by Giantbane

You can implement a maximum failure limit without just handing the item out. 16 fails for a single slot seems unnecessarily punitive. Even 10 is excessive.

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Honestly, they should just make Tier IV materias easier to acquire. The RNG for Novus isn't to blame really. I'm sure a lot less people would have a lot less issue with the current Novus system if Tier IV materias could be obtain more reliably seeing as it is quite time consuming even getting the one you want.

The failure is fine, it is the materia market that needs to be balanced. It is too difficult to get teir IV materia, and the drive to have IVs of Det is universal. We either need an easier time making Det IVs or be allowed to change our relic stats in the Nexus phase with a Animus-like book quest (not requiring materia).

The later is an idea I've been playing with; If we could change our relic stats in the Nexus phase with a Animus-like book quest (not requiring materia) we could make the Novus with whatever is cheap, spend the time it takes to make the Nexus, then do a book grind of FATES, Dungeons, Mobs, etc., to put on a +1 to a specific stat (having then to decide which stat to nerf by -1). This would curb demand on the market as well as maintain it at appropriate levels. Doing 31 books to get max Det is not appetizing to anyone, but if you can't afford the materia, you can spend the several months or weeks getting the Nexus and doing book quests.

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Originally Posted by Makado

I don't know why people don't just round out their weapons with all the stats they use. You can replace armor pieces to get those "best" secondary stats you wanted without spending millions of gil.

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Switching around gear isn't going to give you the det you'd have maxing out det on your novus. It's a special case where because making 1 det cost 1.5 alexandrite worth just wouldn't have worked you have the possibility of getting more out of it because of the 1/1 ratio.

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Originally Posted by Jerichai

I'm not trying to value Novus.

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You just did, you said 10million+.

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Originally Posted by Jerichai

Besides all that, people will always assign some kind of 'value' to anything they do or try to obtain. In many respects it's how we decide to do something. Things like trying to decide if something is fun enough, or provides enough character advancement, or time efficient enough is still assigning a value to something. It does have to be currency based for it to be of value.

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Anything that's considered a value then, is it weighted in gil? Like Odin's sword for example? No, because it can not be bought, sold, or exchanged. While materia and other mats can, the prices fluctuate which goes back to what I said, an item will only hold as much value as the player trying to obtain it will put into it. And while it can have the sentimental value, pretty much reiterating my previous point, you put a currency value on. Which is fair enough as long as the understanding for players whom do put on this value that this value is what it is worth to them and means little to nothing to any other player which is why most complain threads about relic costs are so flawed in their argument because they try to say it costs to much in terms of gil.

It's kinda too late now, would be unfair to those of us who have already botched soo many materias. After paying almost 2 mil in materia and lost half of it I decided to go a cheaper route cause it wasn't worth it.

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Originally Posted by Alukah

I would be fine with the current system if they implemented a proper spiritbond system, something that doesn't require people gimping a party with low level gear or in most cases, crafter/gatherer gear in a dungeon.

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And why would I want gatherer/crafter gear to Spirit Bound for my Novus?