Lockouts vs % Droprates - Pros, Cons, Comparisons and Discussion.

I'll start out impartial by listing out the pros and cons of both lockouts and % based drop rates then move onto my personal opinion.
(To avoid confusion, by % based drop rates I mean for example 5% 10% 15% ect per chest to get a piece of gear per run)

Lockout Pros:
Extends content by preventing you from getting too much too fast
Creates tight "static" communities
Helps curb the competitive difference between casual and hardcore

Lockout Cons:
Content extension is artificial
Prevents larger groups from playing together
Creates a curb between the lucky and unlucky

Percentage based Pros:
Extends content by making you have to play more to get more
Large groups can play together freely
Allows players to enjoy new content without restriction

Percentage based Cons:
Creates a gap between those with a lot of time and those with little time to play
Makes players run the same thing several times to get gear
Makes older content less relevant (Why farm mythos when you can farm <insert-high-level-content>)

Personally looking over the top 3 pros and cons of both systems I lean more towards % based drop rates. I don't mean anything extreme, however. I personally think 2 Chests with 1% lowest or 10% highest for an item is a good balance. (Now onto my anecdotes)

With that said I think the effects on the community would be game changing. People would become more social because running outside of your current static (FC or not) would become more common place and that would foster more friendships between people. This from what I saw in 1.0 creates a stronger community that makes the game just that much harder to unsubscribe from which would just be good for business.

On the other hand there is a negative effect I can't stop seeing on the community that has been because of lockouts. Small statics have caused a lot of xenophobia between players. People get very unfriendly with people outside of their statics even within a FC. Also I see a lot of people getting so left out from their FC because of statics not letting them in that they end up leaving the game over it.

I really do hope the devs try to use % based drop rate in dungeons instead of lockouts in the future and if a community rep relays this or has relayed similar feedback to the dev team I would absolutely be thrilled to know about it as well.
Anyways, those are my thoughts but I would love to hear others' pro/con lists and thoughts as it would benefit to hear from other players not just myself. (But please keep it civil!)


EDIT:
These to me are some replies that really stood out to me here so I'm replying here on the OP to advance the subject.

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Originally Posted by Mook_Mook

...we [are] forced to pick and choose and leave people behind and take some people some weeks, its just a hot a mess, having anything less than a multiple of 8 is detrimental as people must seek else where for groups...

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This is a common issue I hear about, and I hear about it often as well as experience it. It's one of the biggest drawbacks of locking out players from participating instead of a CT style lockout or % based.

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Originally Posted by AiChyan

I much prefer lockouts. Its easier to manage my time around those lock outs and have ample time to do other stuff.

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That is indeed a good argument for lockouts and it does make me think - since Coil 1-5 were unlocked I did next to nothing but farm it. I just had no time for anything else.

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Originally Posted by skaterger

I would much prefer a system where there is a loot lockout but not restricted to 1 piece of gear. This means that you can roll for as many pieces of loot the first time you attempt that content for that week. Once you have downed the boss, you can run it as many times as you want but you can't roll on any loot. This would solve the problem of not being able to help fc mates/friends who have not done the content for that week while not letting a player gear too quickly through multiple runs.

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A Crystal Tower style lockout in my opinion would be really beneficial to the community and would effectively foster the same kind of "Play with my friends and FC" as RNG drop rates without the much hated frustration of low drop rates. I feel it would kill some of the fun of getting a drop, but that's opinion.

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Originally Posted by MapleDeepDish

A healthy game has both content types, in my opinion. In XI pre abyssea we had dynamis, limbus, Assault/Nyzul/Einherjar on lockout. Then sky, sea, BCNMs, HNMs, SCNMs as continuously farm-able content. And yes, this game is young yet and I believe it will eventually have both in abundance. But for its first year of development, they have decided to go totally to the lockout side. As such, it just seems to make more sense for Free Company comradery, friendship and morale to have it be a loot only lockout system.

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I never played XI but I do hear a lot about the diversity of content it had in it's prime. I'm hoping FFXIV gets the same treatment where we will not be limited to 1 set of highest tier armor and 1 way to get it. To me this is the best outcome as it makes (almost) everyone happy.

I agree 100% with this assessment. The current lockout systems is soooooo detrimental to a positive community attitude. I feel like SE probably is aware of what it is doing, but has made a decision based on years of whining and crying about "boohoo RNG is evil" and has just given people what they asked for even if it contributes to a fractured, exclusive community. Be careful what you wish for, if you will. RNG is a necessary component in MMOs, whether you like it or not.

I can definitely agree, our FC doesn't have enough for two groups and people cant always get on, are we forced to pick and choose and leave people behind and take some people some weeks, its just a hot a mess, having anything less than a multiple of 8 is detrimental as people must seek else where for groups. I just dont know what to do about it.

The lockout system is fine. I rather not have to run something 300+ times and not get it like salvage bodies which had a 1% drop rate in FFXI.

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Originally Posted by Zumi

The lockout system is fine. I rather not have to run something 300+ times and not get it like salvage bodies which had a 1% drop rate in FFXI.

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Now I do respect someone who would rather have lockouts over a 1~10% drop rate but to call it "fine" would be rather willfully ignorant. There are too many problems on both sides of the fence.

Why does it have to be 1%? Whenever someone is in favor of lockouts its always "1% droprate sucks". Where is it written it cant be a 10% droprate. With the chest holding other things if it doesn't have the high end gear. Even ignoring the community aspect, you really prefer doing a run of something once a week to being able to run it again to try for different/more loot? If the raid is well designed/fun, I would rather be doing it more. Which also means groups could practice fights more. Which I suppose, from a developer perspective, is something they don't want as that would lead to groups mastering things more quickly. But I still maintain that is better than the situation many groups were in before 2.2. Log on on Monday, or whatever your coil day happens to be, beat the turns, then see you all next week. I just think playing the game is more fun than not playing it.

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Originally Posted by AmyNeudaiz

Now I do respect someone who would rather have lockouts over a 1~10% drop rate but to call it "fine" would be rather willfully ignorant. There are too many problems on both sides of the fence.

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Not a very good host to discussion about the pros and cons of something when you can tell someone their opinion is ignorant.

Ask yourself why you do endgame content.

If it is because it is fun, then it is drop lockout that is the best system because you can keep having fun.

If it is because of drops, then being handed the items in town would be the best approach, since it allows you to have fun with items without wasting time on boring content.

In no situation is RNG drops desireable.

I much prefer lockouts. Its easier to manage my time around those lock outs and have ample time to do other stuff.

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Originally Posted by Malamasala

Ask yourself why you do endgame content.

If it is because it is fun, then it is drop lockout that is the best system because you can keep having fun.

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Its not a "drop" lockout only though. Its a full participation lockout. Which means that no, on a per week basis, no, you cannot "keep having fun".

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Originally Posted by Malamasala

In no situation is RNG drops desireable.

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Amen, preach it!

What I like about the content lockouts is that I now have more free time to do something else.

The most RNG thing I can think of that already exists in this game are the primal and Nightmare mounts. I'm planning to hunt those in pursuit of my tank mount achievements (just to see whether I'd get all 5 mounts before I'd get both my Lion and Bear mounts).

If Coil didn't have a lockout, I wouldn't be able to spend time on that. Or chasing my new master crafters. I'd say a lot of the time I have has been spent on progression trying to learn the fight, as such I haven't found much time to do anything else. So I'm quite glad for the lockouts.

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Originally Posted by RumiP

Not a very good host to discussion about the pros and cons of something when you can tell someone their opinion is ignorant.

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I didn't really mean it in an insulting manner, I am trying to invite more discussion than just "it's fine".

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Originally Posted by AmyNeudaiz

I didn't really mean it in an insulting manner, I am trying to invite more discussion than just "it's fine".

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The poster in question made their opinion clear. They believe things are currently fine. You assumed they did not have complete knowledge of how the system currently is. You do not know that. They may very well know exactly what you know, but made a deduction different from you. They are not ignorant.

I also think the current lockout system applied to the current coil dungeon is fine. That is my opinion, and it is based on my experiences. A system like CT originally had, applied to coil, would remove my will to participate in the game.

This has been debated a lot, it really comes down to, with the lack of lockout on the instance itself and the drops, people are going to farm them, and farm them hard, people are going to run out of content FASTER with basically unrestricted access to drops. Which for the longterm health of the game is not a good thing at all.

I'll grant you that. Lockouts really take away the need for groups to have much in the way of hard and fast planning of "event nights" or what have you. But if there weren't lockouts, I can pretty much guarantee that FCs would just go back to doing what linkshells in XI did. Have a schedule. OK guys, this month we're doing this and this on Mondays and Thursdays 7-10 and this on Saturday 6-10. I was involved in multiple endgame linkshells in XI and I still got plenty of stuff done on my own time. Because if you don't have a limit on how much you can run, you don't feel the need to run things every day.

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Originally Posted by AmyNeudaiz

Now I do respect someone who would rather have lockouts over a 1~10% drop rate but to call it "fine" would be rather willfully ignorant. There are too many problems on both sides of the fence.

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Way to go keeping it civil calling someone wilfully ignorant right off the bat. Now neither system is desirable but if I had to choose, I would rather prefer the lockout system. The drop rate system in addition to the problems you already mentioned, is going to make content obsolete faster than the alternative. Think moogle ex, how many people actually do the fight once they got what they wanted from there? And coil is supposed to last us for 6 months. The drop system is also going to screw over people who have a fixed amount of time to play per week as they can go for months literally without ever seeing anything drop while those that have hundreds of hours to spend banging their heads on the wall will eventually get what they want. If you think the rng system in atma is bad, this is a gazillion times worse.

I would much prefer a system where there is a loot lockout but not restricted to 1 piece of gear. This means that you can roll for as many pieces of loot the first time you attempt that content for that week. Once you have downed the boss, you can run it as many times as you want but you can't roll on any loot. This would solve the problem of not being able to help fc mates/friends who have not done the content for that week while not letting a player gear too quickly through multiple runs.

First off, Amy did say she respected the opinion of being pro lockout. The "willfully ignorant" part probably could have been reworded to something like "calling it fine is completely ignoring the community issue." And thats what we really have a problem with here, I think. The end of your post, skateger, I would echo 100%. Why can't we have that system. Where you can run something with friends as much as you want, but the game only lets you have access to the loot of the content once a week.

I'll say a second time, I didn't mean that to come off as insulting, I was trying to invite discussion. I apologize for coming off as rude that's not my intent.

Those who don't like lockouts have % drop process to earn atma weapons.
Those who don't like RNG have guranteed but lockout limiting rewards.

I see benefit of having both intermixed in a single IP.

A healthy game has both content types, in my opinion. In XI pre abyssea we had dynamis, limbus, Assault/Nyzul/Einherjar on lockout. Then sky, sea, BCNMs, HNMs, SCNMs as continuously farm-able content. And yes, this game is young yet and I believe it will eventually have both in abundance. But for its first year of development, they have decided to go totally to the lockout side. As such, it just seems to make more sense for Free Company comradery, friendship and morale to have it be a loot only lockout system.

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Originally Posted by AmyNeudaiz

I'll say a second time, I didn't mean that to come off as insulting, I was trying to invite discussion. I apologize for coming off as rude that's not my intent.

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I understand what you meant if it's any consolidation. "Ignorant" shouldn't be an immediately rude or misgiving word, to be ignorant simply means you're not currently aware of something. And to be aware of something you just ask about it. Simple as that.

The "abolish lockouts" people would quickly change their tune when it takes 30+ clears to get something besides 80 Gil.

I've played games like that before, it doesn't end well.

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Originally Posted by Duuude007

Those who don't like lockouts have % drop process to earn atma weapons.
Those who don't like RNG have guranteed but lockout limiting rewards.

I see benefit of having both intermixed in a single IP.

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Again, its not really about not liking loot lockouts. Its about my 15 person FC constantly having to shuffle who gets to actually do coil with the group this week and who gets condemned to the purgatory of party finder. Its about friends in my 3 linkshells looking for people they know and like and want to play with to come and do runs with them and there being nothing but the sound of crickets. Then, "sorry, already did it with my static" or "can't, my static will be doing it on Friday." There's no way around it, that's just dumb, and very effective at cordoning off people into specific little 8 man groups

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Originally Posted by Moheeheeko

The "abolish lockouts" people would quickly change their tune when it takes 30+ clears to get something besides 80 Gil.

I've played games like that before, it doesn't end well.

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I wouldn't mind because I am a farm minded player. I have run old coil so much I am literally only missing 4-5 pieces since no restriction and some of those drops took a lot of farming.
But those are my thoughts on that

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Originally Posted by AmyNeudaiz

I wouldn't mind because I am a farm minded player. I have run old coil so much I am literally only missing 4-5 pieces since no restriction and some of those drops took a lot of farming.
But those are my thoughts on that

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You would mind when the playerbase gets reduced by 90% because people get to run 25 with no loot and say "forget it" that's what Aion did, they went from 20+ packed servers to 4, yes FOUR, two for na and two for eu, and to this day even though that way of gear drops is gone most people won't go back.

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Originally Posted by AmyNeudaiz

I wouldn't mind because I am a farm minded player. I have run old coil so much I am literally only missing 4-5 pieces since no restriction and some of those drops took a lot of farming.
But those are my thoughts on that

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I think he meant assuming your successful runs in old coil had a very very high probability of dropping no gear of value. But again, I feel like the atma anger might be seeping through here. Not all RNG has to be a 1% droprate. Would you have a problem with a system where the chests at the end of a coil run had, say, a 10-15% droprate for the allagan/high allagan gear and then if it didn't contain a piece of said gear, it had high level crafting mats-hq crawler cocoons, hq gold ore-things like that.

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Originally Posted by Huntington

I understand what you meant if it's any consolidation. "Ignorant" shouldn't be an immediately rude or misgiving word, to be ignorant simply means you're not currently aware of something. And to be aware of something you just ask about it. Simple as that.

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It's not that they said Ignorant, it's that they said "Willfully" ignorant. Quite a large difference between the two.

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Originally Posted by AmyNeudaiz

I'll say a second time, I didn't mean that to come off as insulting, I was trying to invite discussion. I apologize for coming off as rude that's not my intent.

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My apologies too. I had already typed out my reply before i saw your clarification.

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Originally Posted by Malamasala

In no situation is RNG drops desireable.

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RNG is best thing in mmo that i enjoy .. i farm atma endlessly .. becasue its feel good to beat that RNG and see atma window
pop on my screeen.

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Originally Posted by Malamasala

Ask yourself why you do endgame content.

If it is because it is fun, then it is drop lockout that is the best system because you can keep having fun.

If it is because of drops, then being handed the items in town would be the best approach, since it allows you to have fun with items without wasting time on boring content.

In no situation is RNG drops desireable.

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Why one or the other? I have fun with friends in coil, and the drop after the kill is a nice addition to help me to contribute more for harder fights. Also there is RNG in Coil. You are guaranteed drops from chests, but you are not guaranteed to not have the same DRG loot every week XD

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Originally Posted by Malamasala

In no situation is RNG drops desireable.

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Thats your opinion, and you are entitled to it. Doesn't make it true for everyone.

Personally I like a mixture of lock outs on certain content, RNG on other things. Why does it have to be one or the other? Options on how you want to play the game are better, giving options for both preferences. There has to be artificial time sinks to extend the content due to the fact that, even tho they would love to be able, you cannot create content on a daily/weekly basis and have it to a high quality. One dungeon takes a lot of work to create.

But, no matter what system they put in place players will complain about it, even if it was the exact same people asking for it in the first place!

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Originally Posted by MapleDeepDish

A healthy game has both content types, in my opinion. In XI pre abyssea we had dynamis, limbus, Assault/Nyzul/Einherjar on lockout. Then sky, sea, BCNMs, HNMs, SCNMs as continuously farm-able content. And yes, this game is young yet and I believe it will eventually have both in abundance. But for its first year of development, they have decided to go totally to the lockout side. As such, it just seems to make more sense for Free Company comradery, friendship and morale to have it be a loot only lockout system.

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this game already showed us the rout they taking on content release and its similar to game we know (World of warcraft) there is single endgame will be release eventually that will take "Top of content" which contain most powerful loot and so on. we will never going to have big table to eat from .. its only what they put in front of you its the thing.

Updated the OP with some key talking points.


I've started to lean more in the middle between the two, lockouts vs % based although I still am adamantly against our current incarnation of lockouts (preventing us from playing again for a week). I don't see much of a problem with CT style lockouts where once you obtain an item you can't roll again. Even if some players would stop helping others once they got their loot, it would be a valuable community tool and foster bonds between players more so than now. I'd take someone maybe helping maybe not over always not being able to help once they got their loot/win.

I'd be happy with a change to either of the two as opposed to our current system.