The logic behind weekly loot limits on latest Raid?

I'm trying to understand why this limitation exists at all. The armor drops from the raid are non-tradeable so there's no "farming" issue here, why bother locking it to a single piece of armor per week?

All this does is make it so that the queue is hours, literally hours to get into a single run. I had to wait 70 minutes for my first run this morning which didn't even have the armor I was looking for. I then waited another 90 minutes for a second run, and actually rolled 98 on the armor I hoped to get, only to have it grabbed up by a "Need" roll (I was playing healer as my DPS is not quite 100 yet).

All this to say, the weekly loot limit is doing nothing, at least for me, but ruining the raid and forcing me to not even bother doing it - which in turn just makes the queue that much worse for everyone else ... endless loop. I'm not waiting hours upon hours upon hours more just for a tiny chance at the armor I want, and even if I AM playing the right DPS role to be able to roll Need I still doubt my chances.

The biggest frustration, though, is as far as I can tell the weekly loot limit is pointless. Just some fake reason to try and drag out the content and literally no one is fooled. Anyway that's today's rant about yet another mechanic that's been around for years and years and is doing nothing for anyone. Back to leveling stuff I guess. Blue mage has been fun at least O.o

Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't loot restrictions just lifted for savage content? I will agree that savage loot restrictions are in place for WAY too long but based on what you described I have no clue what you're talking about.

edit: I just realized you're talking about the newest alliance raid. Haven't done it in weeks but I agree, there's no point in it being locked for this long.

Seems they are talking about the alliance raid. There are weekly limits on normal and savage raids as well so "latest Raid" makes the post confusing.

The reason the queues are taking longer is because it's not Tuesday, the raid has been out for some months now, and we're in the tail-end of a patch lull (a time between major patches and raid tiers when the least amount of people are playing and this is reflected in the amount of people participating in content across the board). Added to this, you were in the queue on one of the two days with the least activity (Thursday and Friday), at a time that wasn't peak hours for the region you're playing in.

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The reason the queues are taking longer is because it's not Tuesday

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This is 100% exactly the point I was making, the simple fact that the Aliance Raid still has its pointless loot limitation is the reason everyone does it on reset day and then it's pointless trying to get a raid any other day of the week. I'm sorry but that's dumb design, what happens for anyone who's busy Tuesday O.o they have to wait another week to get a reasonable queue time or just give up on the loot? Besides, the queue times are only half the issue I'm referring to, the other half is the fact that due to the loot limitations even so far and long after the raid's been out, not many people want to bother with this raid to begin with and those who do are desperately going to try and snag up the same, popular pieces of equipment, it's pointless. All of it is just a scheme to pretend there's some sort of longevity to the content when really it's more like you're just being forced to barely partake.

Again I ask the question, if the armor is account-locked right away, what is the point of having these dumb weekly loot restrictions at all? Is it to create some form of silly prestige for the few people who grab up that equipment on day2 of its release? If that's truly the only reason then why not just make the gear purchaseable via the raid's specialized currency alongside the rare yet present random drops. At least that way, the poor unfortunate souls who didn't land their gear within the first week will still find people replaying the raid to grind out the gear they want.

[Edit] re-reading this I see the word "pointless" a lot XD seems that the general trend of feelings I get from this mechanic O.o

Agree. Based on ilvl, isn't like it's even a huge advantage to have it.

I guess the most logical reason is just business. By limiting one/week, they artificially extend the lifetime of said AR. You may have to run it a couple of weeks to grab specific pieces you need. You may have to run it extra few more to get stuff just for appearance's sake.

The same kind of logic that kept glamours restricted for 10+ years.

It's a tricky balance. If they unlocked loot too soon after the raid launch, then everyone could just go get what they wanted and stop running the raid. Then the queue would take even longer.

I'm going to be honest once alliance raid is out I don't get why theirs a loot restriction on either savage or the new alliance raid, most savage raiders will have full bis by the time alliance raids come out.

I get it, I been on the south end of RNG at times too.

Fortunately, SE isn't trying to trick or fool anyone here, and fortunately it isn't pointless. It's doing what it's designed to do, what most things in MMOs are designed to do, keep people doing the content, as there are always new players filing in.

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Originally Posted by Shinku_Tachi

I get it, I been on the south end of RNG at times too.

Fortunately, SE isn't trying to trick or fool anyone here, and fortunately it isn't pointless. It's doing what it's designed to do, what most things in MMOs are designed to do, keep people doing the content, as there are always new players filing in.

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I respectfully disagree, it's in fact doing the opposite as I see it, or at the very least making no difference other than dragging things out. It's keeping people doing the content for more weeks in total but in terms of total playtime within said content or number of times spent doing the content (in this case being the latest alliance raid), the time spent should work out to about the same. The difference here is SE is forcing that time to be spread out over weeks or even months due to the limitations. Meanwhile, anyone who wants to try and grind out the equipment they want for whatever the reason, well they simply can't.

I equate this approach more closely to that of how so many mobile games have the presence of some form of "energy" system, where you can only perform a set number of actions before you are forced to close the game down and come back later. Effectively, this loot restriction seems to be meant to accomplish the exact same thing. The problem here is, this is not some F2P mobile app that I got on a whim, I paid for this game AND every month, and yet SE is still trying to limit the content I chose to play and when? Sorry but I will never agree with that.

As for the argument of "if the loot was open from the start, everyone would get what they want in week 1 and never run the raid again" >> valid and extremely solve-able. Just put the raid into the alliance roulette earlier.