PLEASE CAP THE ZODIAC DROP RATE

I've been fairly lucky on my drops so far, I know AV/Haukke/ampador are going to be miserable.

Actually Alex are light years easier then the pain in the arse Zodiac quest that is rng intense.
Alex you can purchase maps with hunt seals, soldiery and do the daily quest for them, easy pz

Go to MLN. Alexandrite a'plenty. You have been advised.

So my luck with rng yesterday: three runs of Hullbreaker, no item.Take a break at the casino and win the 10,000 mini cactpot. Instead of Hullbreaker I switch to AK for a change of scenery. No luck, although I did get the Demon Wall card. Decide to run High roulette and hope I get one of the Dungeons I need. AK again. No drop again. Decide to try my luck against Rowena and finally get her to drop the Louisoix card for me. I mean I like getting cards but I would prefer my Zodiac items.

I have yet to get a single card from anything, in spite of pony farming and having one Zodiac drop left....am I doing something wrong? Is there a quest that unlocks the ability to get these cards? My FC seems to be nothing but people "lucky linking" these things in FC chat.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Caoihmin

I have yet to get a single card from anything, in spite of pony farming and having one Zodiac drop left....am I doing something wrong? Is there a quest that unlocks the ability to get these cards? My FC seems to be nothing but people "lucky linking" these things in FC chat.

---

Nope, welcome to the land of RNG. Just gotta deal with it and hope for cards to drop to you randomly before you toss your controller.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Caoihmin

I have yet to get a single card from anything, in spite of pony farming and having one Zodiac drop left....am I doing something wrong? Is there a quest that unlocks the ability to get these cards? My FC seems to be nothing but people "lucky linking" these things in FC chat.

---

Actually, yeah, I think you have to do the Triple Triad quest that unlocks the ability to play Triple Triad before you'll see the cards. It's one of the intro quests in the Golden Saucer. You should probably do that if you haven't.

Guess I'll head to the casino and see if I missed that quest. I only spent a few minutes in there opening day. Bright lights, Big headache.

So 2ish months later, and I realised I still haven't once done my high level roulette at any time since doing the drops. I subconsciously just do not want to ever run any of these dungeons ever again.

GG, SE.

I'm currently going through my second relic quest now and I find myself becoming physically tired from playing the game these days because I've been stuck on the same two dungeons for a while now (Halatali HM and Sastasha HM). I just finished my 28th run of Halatali HM (currently sitting on 36 for Sastasha HM) and it's just getting ridiculous. I get that these are supposed to be rare and everything, but come on... You'd think after going 10 runs without obtaining the item, it would automatically give it to you at that point.

All this is doing is making players loathe dungeons that they may have thought were interesting before and even going so far as to push them away from the game altogether or any of the other content it may offer. I'm currently working on my PLD and during my hunt for Zodiac drops, I've managed to get 2,000 light for my shield, bumping it up to Nexus, and I'm currently around 1,100 on my sword. At this rate, I'm going to finish the light on my sword too before I get these last two drops.

This is insane and I'm never touching this quest again after this one (I should have just stopped after getting my first Zeta on SCH).

Sorry, almost a month and still 9/16 zodiac KI. I have to agree, RNG is way too much. :p

I'm on my Atma -> Animus right now. All I want to know is this: is Animus as big of a disappointment as Atma, considering how long it took me to get the dag-blasted Atma stones?

And is Zodiac much better than Zeta/much better than Novus/much better than Animus?

Thanks~

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kikoten

I'm on my Atma -> Animus right now. All I want to know is this: is Animus as big of a disappointment as Atma, considering how long it took me to get the dag-blasted Atma stones?

And is Zodiac much better than Zeta/much better than Novus/much better than Animus?

Thanks~

---

Not sure in what sense you consider Atma a disappointment, but I can at least say that Animus is a real i100 weapon whereas Atma is not. Atma says it's i100 but has the same weapon/magic damage stat as an i90.

Zodiac is not better than Zeta; Zeta is better than Zodiac.
Zeta i135
Zodiac i125
Nexus i115
Novus i110
Animus i100

But otherwise, yes, upgrades by 10-15 iLvs for a weapon are much better.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by synesthetic

Not sure in what sense you consider Atma a disappointment, but I can at least say that Animus is a real i100 weapon whereas Atma is not. Atma says it's i100 but has the same weapon/magic damage stat as an i90.

---

I guess it was a disappointment because when I went from Zenith to Atma, I was expecting a stat boost, and to actually feel stronger. Instead, I found out I had to get 9 books to actually get those upgrades, so I said screw it and put my ambitions to bed for a while. Now I've gotten back into the grind, so I was just wondering if I somehow get Animus, will it actually feel like an upgrade, and not a letdown in the sense that my weapon transforming into Animus means not actually feeling stronger.

This thread is discouraging. I came back recently after a year long break.

I farmed Atma non-stop when it came out and got it within a week (though I died a little inside). Then I did Animus.
I heard they raised the Atma drop rates, which is good. And Yoshida said he understood the complaints and wouldn't make it as bad going on.

Animus books were great. No RNG other than having to wait for certain fate spawns (which isn't exactly RNG either).
I'm fine with RNG in stats or combat mechanics. I hate ring when it comes to rewards.

Back then, I accepted Atma for what it was, but I *really* hoped they would make it more like the books going forward.
Especially since complaints back then were that the Atma could take a few minutes to eight hours in one zone. Worse if you're unlucky.
My average was 6-7 hours of pure farming per zone.

I restarted as a NIN now that I'm back and now I'm not sure if it's worth doing with the expansion around to corner or if I could finish.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Allyrion

This thread is discouraging. I came back recently after a year long break.

I farmed Atma non-stop when it came out and got it within a week (though I died a little inside). Then I did Animus.
I heard they raised the Atma drop rates, which is good. And Yoshida said he understood the complaints and wouldn't make it as bad going on.

Animus books were great. No RNG other than having to wait for certain fate spawns (which isn't exactly RNG either).
I'm fine with RNG in stats or combat mechanics. I hate ring when it comes to rewards.

Back then, I accepted Atma for what it was, but I *really* hoped they would make it more like the books going forward.
Especially since complaints back then were that the Atma could take a few minutes to eight hours in one zone. Worse if you're unlucky.
My average was 6-7 hours of pure farming per zone.

I restarted as a NIN now that I'm back and now I'm not sure if it's worth doing with the expansion around to corner or if I could finish.

---

There's enough time to start a relic from scratch and finish it. Even more so considering the 3.0 relics won't be released until a couple of weeks after launch, and i130 will be the best for a lot of the new content (and still extremely good by level cap).
There's also still hope that Yoshida will follow through with his comment on people who've finished their zetas getting some kind of compensation.

Is it worth it though? Depends on your tolerance for grind.

Farming up a full set of atma can be done within a day or so.
Animus book FATEs aren't tied to other FATEs' anymore, and have respawn times of around 30-90 minutes, from what I've seen.
I can't say what materia for a Novus sphere scroll will be like on your server, but it's probably still modestly expensive for a 3-stat build, and extremely expensive for a 2-stat.
Nexus light grind still sucks, but how much lights are given per message was all bumped up a tier.
Zodiac is a major test of patience and luck. But if you can get through it, you're done. You're also going to need ~1mil gil; 400k minimum from buying quest items, and then more from buying crafted turn-in items. Hopefully you have a crafter friend, or can find someone willing to craft with given mats.
Zeta light grind isn't so bad. Inflated numbers compared to Nexus' grind, but lots of tiers in between so it doesn't feel like such a chore. Also a lot of people do this step (or Nexus) while farming zodiac drops for their next relic.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by BobbinT

Sorry, almost a month and still 9/16 zodiac KI. I have to agree, RNG is way too much. :p

---

Yeah... After getting this one, I'm never bothering with this again, lol. I'm currently saving up my Poetics to get my NIN an i130 weapon (already have the tomestone). I don't mind that they expect the relic questline to take a long time to finish. Hell, I played FFXI, so that's not what bothers me.

What bothers me is how many RNG hoops you have to jump through just to advance in it (see: Atma farming, Alex farming (if you're going through F.A.T.E.s instead of grinding for tomes/seals all the time), and the Zodiac drops). The moment a quest turns from something skill based to something luck based is when you start having problems. This system is holding up players from joining static parties because their ilvl isn't high enough on their weapon, so they either have to spend 3 weeks saving up Poetics or possibly spend 3 weeks just trying to get these godforsaken drops before they're able to advance in the quest and get something decent.

Either way, you're being left behind. I can think of two players just off the top of my head that got all of their Zodiac drops in the first day they started farming for them, so if you have a friend like that, suddenly the gap between the both of you has increased and you're stuck continuing to repeat the same dungeons over and over again for possibly the next month just to catch up. He's not going to sit around with his thumb up his ass and wait for you because you're having bad luck. He's going to join a static for FCOB without you and tell you, "Let me know when you finish!" or something similar.

Whoever thought "let's leave their advancement up to chance" was a good idea didn't think this through long enough. That's for sure.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by TetsuyaHikari

snip

---

lol not really. Already have 3 zeta. This set is for my 4th one, and I'm still planning to get at least 2 more set maybe.

But I do felt each set I do felt like become worse and worse in term of RNG drops. ^^;

RNG needs to go away from this game completely.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Evangela

RNG needs to go away from this game completely.

---

Name one MMO that's completely devoid of RNG. lol

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Evangela

RNG needs to go away from this game completely.

---

RNG itself can be fine at times, but when your game starts breaking its own rules regarding RNG, then issues arise. I'd be more comfortable with FFXIV's RNG system if it was a Quasi Random system rather than a Pseudo Random system. In other words, something which actually presented in a random manner rather than something which pretends to be random, but actually isn't because it's following an algorithm which requires the player to meet unknown specifications to perform certain tasks.

Quasi Random:

A sequence of n
-tuples that fills n-space more uniformly than uncorrelated random points, sometimes also called a low-discrepancy sequence. Although the ordinary uniform random numbers and quasirandom sequences both produce uniformly distributed sequences, there is a big difference between the two. A uniform random generator on [0, 1) will produce outputs so that each trial has the same probability of generating a point on equal subintervals, for example [0,1/2) and [1/2, 1). Therefore, it is possible for n trials to coincidentally all lie in the first half of the interval, while the n+1st point still falls within the other of the two halves with probability 1/2.

This is not the case with the quasirandom sequences, in which the outputs are constrained by a low-discrepancy requirement that has a net effect of points being generated in a highly correlated manner (i.e., the next point "knows" where the previous points are). Such a sequence is extremely useful in computational problems where numbers are computed on a grid, but it is not known in advance how fine the grid must be to obtain accurate results. Using a quasirandom sequence allows stopping at any point where convergence is observed, whereas the usual approach of halving the interval between subsequent computations requires a huge number of computations between stopping points.

Pseudo Random:

A pseudorandom process is a process that appears to be random but is not. Pseudorandom sequences typically exhibit statistical randomness while being generated by an entirely deterministic causal process. Such a process is easier to produce than a genuinely random one, and has the benefit that it can be used again and again to produce exactly the same numbers - useful for testing and fixing software.

To generate truly random numbers requires precise, accurate, and repeatable system measurements of absolutely non-deterministic processes. Linux uses, for example, various system timings (like user keystrokes, I/O, or least-significant digit voltage measurements) to produce a pool of random numbers. It attempts to constantly replenish the pool, depending on the level of importance, and so will issue a random number. This system is an example, and similar to those of dedicated hardware random number generators.

A pseudorandom variable is a variable which is created by a deterministic procedure (often a computer program or subroutine) which (generally) takes random bits as input. The pseudorandom string will typically be longer than the original random string, but less random (less entropic, in the information theory sense). This can be useful for randomized algorithms.

Pseudorandom number generators are widely used in such applications as computer modeling (e.g., Markov chains), statistics, experimental design, etc.

My problem is the dungeons I really enjoy like tam-tara hard mode and haukke manor hard mode I got in one shot. The dungeons I hate like halatali hard mode and hullbreaker and qarn I had 30 attempts each or more. I finished my Zodiac but it took a very, very long time because so much RNG disappointment left me unable to do anymore dungeons I had to wait until my mood felt like doing it. I have never supported dungeon grinding with RNG in any MMO.

Eh. Same as it was with atma when that was relevant. SE didn't bother then either, they just increased the drop rate a little whenever they seemed fit to do so. :/ Feel your pain, but I doubt it'll happen, not because the players request it anyway.

I had a really bad drop rate with alexandrites. Now I'm doing second round of dungeon drops while doing lights on my second relic. I just started so I have no idea how many times I will have to do them.... but I'm know as being unlucky when it comes to rng

I did only found that dungeon drop was RNG based when I get to it, and really, if I have known before I would NEVER have started the quest in the first place. Final Fantasy XIV RNG is a nightmare, and Dungeon Item drop based on RNG was totaly unnecessary. After 28 disgusting runs in Aurun Valley I gave up th relic quest. Pay subscription to this? I don't think its worth paying anymore. The only thing SE is doing is making me hate the game, made me see how stupid, pointless and disgusting things this game has.

RNG without safeguards is a blight. The more someone keeps failing, the closer they should inch towards success - it's not right that someone gets lucky on their first run and somebody else runs 97 Wanderer's Palace (met someone in DF who was at that many) without getting their drop.

Some people claim that without RNG, there would be no "sense of accomplishment". I ask you, what the hell have you "accomplished" when all you did was get lucky? People who worked much harder than you have the same, if not more of a right to be rewarded as well.

RNG in this game is a way to make you lose to something you have no control. Now let me put this, 56 minutes to form a party, another 40 or so to beat the place, for nothing; now repeat this process 28 times, knowing that it was only the first of 16 places; I should be happy and say how cute and helpfull the game is? I'm sorry but I have total right to be upset about the game system, I don't felt like I have accomplished anything, I feel like a fool, because I'm feeling upset and I'm even paying for it.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ronivan

I did only found that dungeon drop was RNG based when I get to it, and really, if I have known before I would NEVER have started the quest in the first place. Final Fantasy XIV RNG is a nightmare, and Dungeon Item drop based on RNG was totaly unnecessary. After 28 disgusting runs in Aurun Valley I gave up th relic quest. Pay subscription to this? I don't think its worth paying anymore. The only thing SE is doing is making me hate the game, made me see how stupid, pointless and disgusting things this game has.

---

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Riepah

RNG without safeguards is a blight. The more someone keeps failing, the closer they should inch towards success - it's not right that someone gets lucky on their first run and somebody else runs 97 Wanderer's Palace (met someone in DF who was at that many) without getting their drop.

Some people claim that without RNG, there would be no "sense of accomplishment". I ask you, what the hell have you "accomplished" when all you did was get lucky? People who worked much harder than you have the same, if not more of a right to be rewarded as well.

---

RNG is broken when it's "just RNG", this goes back to the 1974 D&D game. Do note that the Loot in the original D&D wasn't RNG (it was up to the GM, which may have included RNG'ing who gets a reward, eg the original "need/greed" system) just the combat mechanics were RNG (eg you roll a 3 and miss, monster rolls a 2 and hits for 2 damage.)

Final Fantasy's game mechanics originate in Ultima and Wizardry CRPG's, which in turn were loosely based on D&D (which is to say loosely based on Tolkien lore, but their own approach to mechanics.) A bunch of these mechanics still exist in FFXIV that were originally in FFI which were cribbed from Ultima or Wizardry. The Random Loot drop is certainly from Ultima, but so is the fixed reward. The "random battle"'s come from Wizardry, while FF's style of party battles originated with Ultima 3 (Exodus.)

RNG in current RPG/MMORPG's really does need to move away from the reward systems. Loot rewards should be based on a cooldown, where anything that is required to complete a quest (eg as with the relic weapons) just fills a "progress" meter of sorts, so that at the minimum you do the actions required once, and at most, you can repeat the actions required 2-4 times to complete it. Back when people bought a single computer game and took 3 months to finish it, RNG loot was tolerated, because you were rarely actually looking for a specific piece of loot because there were no gameFAQ's/guides/walkthroughs to tell you they even existed. But now people want to finish a single quest in under 2 hours and have no patience to grind the same dungeon for a specific piece of loot that has less than a 2% chance of dropping.

Even in reality, you have a better chance of buying a winning scratch ticket then you do of getting a random loot item.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by sayafrost

I had a really bad drop rate with alexandrites. Now I'm doing second round of dungeon drops while doing lights on my second relic. I just started so I have no idea how many times I will have to do them.... but I'm know as being unlucky when it comes to rng

---

I've seen it exactly twice in F.A.T.E's. Hence I'm still on this step a month and a half later. The Atma's were just as bad but 6 of them I got on the first or second try.

I don't know if I'll ever upgrade to Zodiac... I'm still stuck on those stupid books. I don't mind the 27 dungeons, leves, and fates so much, but the 900 random mobs all over Eorzea? Many of which don't even have 10 or more spawns in the game, I consider myself lucky I've never found myself competing for what few spawns there are. I wouldn't even mind that so much except you can only have 1 book at a time, so you run all over Eorzea, only to come back to the same places to kill the mobs that were 1 field over. Would be nice if I could just save and wait and buy all 9 books at once and just clear the open world mobs one zone at a time.

all that, and then all this rng and spirit bonding crap I have to look forward to when I'm done?? I'm fairly certain I'll only be doing this for one relic and that's it. I wouldn't even be mad if they nerf it once I'm done, because I wouldn't wish this madness on my worst enemy...

Thanks to RNG and bullshit like that i dont even play this game anymore.

And people where complaining about grinding out bonus stats, abilities, or talents for customization. Which aren't even RNG. Yet they got them Zeta's or are hunting them.
#coffeebreak

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Amatsuhira

And people where complaining about grinding out bonus stats, abilities, or talents for customization. Which aren't even RNG. Yet they got them Zeta's or are hunting them.
#coffeebreak

---

http://www.quickmeme.com/img/e0/e09b...e8488debde.jpg

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Amatsuhira

And people where complaining about grinding out bonus stats, abilities, or talents for customization. Which aren't even RNG. Yet they got them Zeta's or are hunting them.
#coffeebreak

---

I don't think you understand the culture of these forums. They don't want to grind ANYTHING. They wan't the entire game to be catered to people that only play 6 hours a week, and if you play 10 hours a week. Well sorry buddy your SOL. They aren't happy with having some things that are easy and some things that are hard. Or having some things that are quick and some things that are grindy. No, ALL of it has to be easy and NOTHING can be grindy. I seriously wouldn't waste your breath. We are outnumbered my friend. as long as less than 75% of people are doing things like zodiac weapon and final coil. SE will always cater to the majority.

It would be nice if SE would at least comprimise a little, but probably won't happen. Expect the next relic weapon to be significantly easier to get. I myself will just enjoy the game for what it is, a decently fun game till you get to the end of the story where it quickly becomes too easy and boring.

I have run Snowcloak so many times now that I cannot remember if I ever HAD any 1/1. I know for a fact that I had to run AV like 8 times, same with Amdapor. If I did have any 1/1 it was few and far between and I'm still not done after 3 weeks of suffering. Then I hear of people on their 3rd or 4th Zodiac I want to eat their faces because the odds that I would fail THIS hard at RNG are 1 in over a million. Anyone that goes 72 runs or more without a drop is in the same boat it's just disgusting... If you want to gate content by time then I have to agree that progression is the way to go. Sure it may take me 2-3 weeks to get it done but at least I can SEE with my own eyes why that is the case and not just because whatever deity there might be wants to see me suffer.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Whocareswhatmynameis

They don't want to grind ANYTHING.

---

Please stop using "grind" as a synonym to "RNG". Grind is completely fine, but one person finishing the grind after 1 run while another person puts in 50 times the effort and gets nothing due to RNG is not.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Riepah

Please stop using "grind" as a synonym to "RNG". Grind is completely fine, but one person finishing the grind after 1 run while another person puts in 50 times the effort and gets nothing due to RNG is not.

---

Almost everyone gets a couple drops in 1-2 runs and almost everyone has a couple dungeons they have to run 20-30 times. Some cases more extreme then others but still, why cry about it? The zodiac and zeta steps combined are still easier than the not RNG nexus step. especially before they nerfed it.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Whocareswhatmynameis

Almost everyone gets a couple drops in 1-2 runs and almost everyone has a couple dungeons they have to run 20-30 times. Some cases more extreme then others but still, why cry about it? The zodiac and zeta steps combined are still easier than the not RNG nexus step. especially before they nerfed it.

---

Because you're unable to visualize any progress..

It's like the experience bar, let's assume that it takes 5000 kills to gain a level in the game on average.
Instead of having enemies give 1/5000th of the exp needed to level per kill, if instead you rolled a RNG and had 1/5000 chance of leveling up upon killing a monster it should result in similar pace of progression for the entire player base as a whole. (technically, RNG needs to be less than 1/5000, but let's just assume it's accurate)

With an EXP bar, you can see how far you're from the goal, how far you've come. However, with an RNG system, you have nothing to gauge your progress upon. That's what drives people to insanity.

People need metrics, numbers, whatever it is to gauge their starting point, final goal, current position..


Navigating the World is a much less daunting task when you have a map, even if it doesn't change the path traveled. Why do you think they show the World map with current position on airplanes? It's not for the pilots.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Whocareswhatmynameis

Yea because no1 ever complained about the animus books, or alexander part, or the nexus part. Don't try to fool people into thinking this is anything less than people don't want to grind stuff.

---

no that's a given, it's part of the game.. But the Zodiac part seems to be the most exacerbated, I've heard of people going for 100+ runs without getting the loot, now that wouldn't be fun no matter what.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by GenJoe

Because you're unable to visualize any progress...

---

Yea because no1 ever complained about the animus books, or alexander part, or the nexus part. Don't try to fool people into thinking this is anything other than people don't want to grind stuff.

The reason there so many threads about zodiac is it's the only step that hasn't been nerfed yet.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Whocareswhatmynameis

Yea because no1 ever complained about the animus books, or alexander part, or the nexus part. Don't try to fool people into thinking this is anything other than people don't want to grind stuff.

The reason there so many threads about zodiac is it's the only step that hasn't been nerfed yet.

---

I'm fine with grinding stuff, in fact, despite being completely ignorant/lacking first-hand experience with these RNG dungeon drops that are apparently ahead of me, I'm looking forward to that compared to the books. But no one's asking for the grind to be removed, that's like someone asking you to turn the volume down a little and you responding by yanking the volume to 0 and crossing your arms in a huff.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Seig345

I'm fine with grinding stuff, in fact, despite being completely ignorant/lacking first-hand experience with these RNG dungeon drops that are apparently ahead of me, I'm looking forward to that compared to the books. But no one's asking for the grind to be removed, that's like someone asking you to turn the volume down a little and you responding by yanking the volume to 0 and crossing your arms in a huff.

---

Well your one of the rare breed that is like me then. No1 even cares that atmas are RNG anymore cuz the upped the drop rate like 10x what it used to be. Make the zodiac item drop rate 75% - 80% and i guarantee all these dam threads would sink to the bottom. they wouldn't care that they had to run a dugneon 4 times while thier friend only did it once.

If they made it where the item dropped 100% but you needed 20 of each one for the quest. You would get twice as many threads. That's 320 dungeons and having a progress bar wouldn't mean jack.