Yoshi P: Please Consider a Better Raiding System in 3.0 - Beyond Statics

Issue: End Game Raid System (Lockout and Loot) engenders an extremely rigid, non-community behavior for players.

With a weekly lockout and a chance to loot all chests available only to 8 players who haven’t completed the raid for the week, Yoshi P’s current system promotes a very specific grouping of ONLY 8 Players (of specific jobs), and that’s it.

The system is inherently unfriendly towards any Free Company or Linkshell or groups of friends who have more than 8 people that want to play together.

This is *not* a request for large-scale raiding (although that would help alleviate some of the issues), as Yoshi P has spoken on that matter, but rather a call for an Improved System for Raiding in 3.0 and beyond, for the health of player base and Free Companies / Linkshells / Community in general.

As an example, in 1.0, the highest end content did not have 100% drop rate for rewards, and as a result, it did not have any Weekly Lockout. With a lower drop rate and no weekly lockout, *and* a 100% Token Drop, players were able to have LS and groups of friends with *more* than 8 people and rotate people in, so that everyone in your particular group had a chance to raid together.

This is just an example of type of method different from what we have now. I just hope for a better system in 3.0 to enable players beyond a fixed # to raid together.

Just look at each Server’s Sub-Forum here on the FF Forums and on Reddit: It’s FILLED with threads of players asking and asking and asking for Statics to join, so that they might participate in end game content together.

Currently FC and LS groups with more than 8 players have to resort to either forming another group with exactly another 8 players (of the right jobs), or those that are the “odd number out,” have to go look for static groups on their own. Players are *pushed away* from their own FC / LS / Group of Friends because of the inherent design of the Weekly Lockout and Loot System.

I sincerely hope Yoshi P and the Dev Team can consider a better Raid System in 3.0, where players can come together and raid consistently without needing exactly 8 people each week.

Perhaps it’s taking a cue from a system Yoshi P put in 1.0 for Primals (before the servers went down for 2.0):

* Low Drop Rate on the actual featured Items.
* 100% Token Drop Rate per win.
* No Weekly Lockout.

Players could earn enough Tokens (if they were unlucky with drops) to eventually trade them in for an item of their choosing from that battle.

While the current Coil chests drop something of value 100% of the time, the current Loot Pools are so gigantic and the Random Number Generator is so random, that for many, it takes MONTHS to ever get the item they wanted, let alone NEVER seeing something drop (e.g., I never got my Tank Body from T9 (nor the Sword) (never saw them drop in all the runs I did, even after Echo Buff and no lockouts). It’s almost like having a “low drop rate” system anyways.

I’m not saying the above is the ideal solution, but I do hope the Dev Team can improve upon our Raiding System now to accommodate FC / LS / Groups of Friends to be able to do end game raids together beyond just an “8 Person Static Only!” mentality.

This can only help the health of FF XIV and allow a real feeling of Community to grow in 3.0 and beyond. Thanks.

No thanks to low drop rate / no lockout out on new content this promotes no life gameplay. Nobody wants to go back to the 1% drop rates of 1.0, where you spam a bunch of easy content over and over. I think the system we have now is fine.

Have a FC for fun and a LS for raids, that solves most issues to gather 8 members.

We compete enough with the RNGods as it is. Please, no more. No more.
Think of the children.

Didn't they already change the lock-out so that players that already cleared content can re-do it with another group (at the cost of less rewards)?

Sorry OP, but reducing the exclusivity (and therefore organizational drama) of raiding would 'reduce the content's lifespan' - ie, make it less profitable to sell raids.

Like WoWs flex raid system for the player requirement thing? I mean... that would be nice, but it's not exactly an easy task to take. It actually requires a complete rewrite of how the dungeons/raids are designed. Given the strict timeline that FFXIV has with its 1-3 month content release, this would be a system that is FAR from fruition. Maybe if they did things like Blizzard (6-13 months before content patch releases), then we'd see something like that happen sooner, but even for WoW... it took over 11yrs for some players to see lol.

As far as loot goes, I don't think this is an issue for the grand majority of people that actually do endgame during its time to shine (pre-echo, pre-nerf, pre-DF, etc). And in reality, they're the ones who have the most say on that matter. I mean, you, the OP, might be one of them, but it really doesn't seem like an issue.

They just need to add FC level content.

16 - soloable mobs in the open world that randomly drop an item used to pop (drops craft materials)
8 -4 manable mobs force popped in the open world that an item used to pop (drops i140 accessories)
4 - 8 man team instance mobs (Coil level) (drops i150 gear and accessory upgrade items)
1 - 24 man mega boss (extremely though 30 minute timer, 15min fight) - drops a single i155 weapon

Rinse and repeat to learn/farm. No lockout restrictions.

Tokens
I love this. Maybe not every win though.

Example:
Dreadwyrm piece = 30 Tokens
5 Tokens/Week

So if RNG is not your side for that piece you just cant get, then it will take about a month to earn it. I feel like that's not to much time nor to little.

Quote from OP:
"it takes MONTHS to ever get the item they wanted, let alone NEVER seeing something drop"

I feel like this sums up the point of doing the raids in the first place, its suppose to take a long time to get the best gear. Will some people always get lucky and get all their pieces fast? Yes, this is going to happen with any system we implement.

Many people have to form their own statics due to limited members in FC/LS or FC/LS already has statics established. Even if we increase the raid size from 8-12 this trend will continue at some point.

However I agree that a Token system would only compliment the current system.

Some members of your static already got their items? Great another member can join and possibly earn some loot
Raid night and your a few members short, you have some other members who could join, but they have already gotten items? The token system will give incentive for those players to continue helping

The lack of Guild content at endgame is in my opinion the #1 problem with the game. It is crazy hard to run a guild in XIV that is more then a social casual guild.

FFXIV actually promotes not being in a guild which is just wrong when you consider this is a mmo.


SE needs to do one of the following:

1) Remove lockouts and reduce drop rates on content. (1.0 method)
2) Remove lockouts and make only the first runthrough have garenteed drops. (aka coil where you are garenteed 2 chest with gear, every additional run has a 20% Chance of gear 80% chance of darkmatter)
3) Add large scale content with rewards that are equivalent to other BIS pieces, aka something like WoD Savage that drops I130 gear that comes out the same time as coil. (Not gear that is dated by 3months)

Yes the masses of casuals hate RNG. But something has to change atm FFXIV has to rate in the bottom 3 AAA mmos for guilds. Coming from XI which endgame was almost 100% based around guild gameplay at least before they nerfed it to the ground.

Casual players need content they can enjoy, but SE has taken FFXIV to the extreme to where Guilds are a social channel instead of a group of players you complete the game with.

A LS should be for social aspects of the game. A Free Company should be about completing content... that is what a guild is all about. A mmos content should foster guilds to form, the things that bond players together and honestly keep them playing alot longer. XIV is failing hardcore at this aspect.