Revamp of Raid Loot

Many people are frustrated with the current system for obtaining the best amour in the game. I believe this is largely due to 2 facts:

1 - Itemization is greatly restricted, there is not enough sharing of armor between classes, resulting in an extremely high number of items being thrown into the pool of each chest.
2 - There is no "token" or all/all gear system available to smooth out progression.

A side effect of these two issues and the way they have itemized the loot is that it is nearly impossible to make a viable itemized set of gear. You can't really stack Det or Crit to a huge degree that will have more than a moderate effect on your playstyle. I realize that if that were allowed a lot of people would flock to one set of gear that would be deemed "best" by world-first groups. If they did a good enough job balancing the stats (which I think they have proven they can do) it would be a non-issue.

I do come with some solutions, I would propose a moderate re-vamp of the loot system. I will start with the core concept behind a version of the token system I think would have net positive effects in several areas of the game.

Have a set of items drop (10 in total), that would be something along the lines of "Dreadwyrm Wrist Mold," or "Dreadwyrm Chest Pattern." These completely replace all of the Dreadwyrm armor and accessories that drop in Final Coil (this is applicable to any set of raids).

You would take your Dreadwyrm Boot Diagram, and turn it in with a token that costs 495 poetics and a rare desynth mat (let's say it costs 350k gil on the MB) for your Dreadwyrm Boots of ________. If you turned in the items on WAR, you get the Fending boots, Turn it in on NIN, you get the Scouting boots, etc.

Next, you introduce a new set of armor, wherein each piece is uniquely titled, they are not part of a specific set. These armor pieces and accessories can be worn by multiple classes, grouped in the following way:

ARMORS:
Plate - WAR | PLD | DRG | DRK
Leather - NIN | MNK | BRD | MAC
Silk - BLM | SMN | SCH | WHM | AST

ACCESSORIES:
STR/DEX
VIT
MND/INT

These new pieces of armor would fit into the lore as to why the boss you killed would have them, and would be distributed in such a way that it would give each job an even shot at something across the board. In some cases, the Silk Robe from Final Coil might be total garbage for BLM, and amazing for a WHM, but they both have Dread Robe to fall back on. A few examples....

Ancient Allagan Robe
BLM/SMN/SCH/WHM/AST
Def: 85 | mDef: 104
MND 48 | INT 48 | VIT 55 | Det 50

Vest of the Dark Dragon
BRD/MNK/NIN/MAC
Def: 89 | mDef: 102
STR 53 | DEX 53 | VIT 56 | SkSp 21 | Accur 19 | Det 15 | Crit 29

Breastplate of Blinding Fire
DRG/PLD/WAR/DRK
Def: 190 | mDef: 185
STR 55 | VIT 55 | Det 20

In the case of the robe, the def and mdef values are slightly tweaked, as well as offering an above-cap Det bonus in exchange for no other secondary stats. It also offers MND and INT for both caster dps and healers.

In the case of the vest, again the defenses are tweaked for a little differentiation and strategy needed in itemization - obvious it includes DEX for the ranged classes and NIN to have access to it. In addition, it offers small values of 4 secondary stats, instead of moderate values of 2.

In the case of the breastplate, it offers str and vit (higher STR than Dread mail and armor, lower vit), as well as inflated values of both Def and mDef by having just a single under-cap secondary stat. Obviously this Chest piece is garbage for a DRG trying to push as much DPS as possible, and a WAR that is trying to do the same. Great for a PLD that is attempting to give healers breathing room, and also great for a progressing DRG in the current or next set of raids.

How would these sets of gear interact? I would propose:

T10 - 1 Dreadwyrm Mold | 1 New Armor | 1 Carboncoat
T11 - 1 Dreadwyrm Mold | 1 New Armor | 1 Allagan Tomestone
T12 - 2 Dreadwyrm Mold | 1 Carbontwine
T13 - 1 Dreadwyrm Mold | 2 New Armor | 1 Dreadwyrm Weap | 1 Carbontwine OR 1 Carboncoat (random 50/50)

Hear me out.

- Less RNG. The number one concern. While you can still get 4 weeks in a row of Blackened Silk Boots from T10, you will also always get a random Dreadwyrm that you can give to whomever is not receiving the New Armor drops. IN ADDITION, the new armor is applicable to a number of classes, if not ideal. So if the Bloodied Leather Greaves drop and are best for your NIN, NIN gets them the first week. Oh shit, they dropped in week 2 as well? No worries, they might not be a home-run for your MNK, but they will certainly be an upgrade for him to use in the interim.

- More itemization. With Ironworks, Dread, and the special new armors, you can really get into stacking stats that you want, centering around the unique stat distributions of the New Armors.

- The involvement of desynth to the mold process would have 2 effects. First, it would increase the amount of people doing desynth, gathering items to desynth, and the rewards for desynthing in general. Second, it would cause raiders to have a need to farm gil to order to pay for the rare mats that would be coming out of the desynthing. Another reason to log-in and play more than raiding.

- The Poe req. on the Dread Molds will also make sure raiders don't gear up too fast by buying Ironworks and Dread armor super quickly along with the more available new armor slots. Gearing will also be smoothed out among raid groups as the molds and new armor should end up getting fairly distributed in a reasonable group.

- T13 is heavy on drops because its hard, and you should be really rewarded for that. The crazy RNG on the weaps is sucky, and awarding the party with the New Armor for beating the final turn makes sense. The best people should be getting the most and best loot, and they should be able to start in with advanced itemization quicker.

My final sentiment would be to increase Dreadwyrm and New Armor item levels to 135, making them edge out the Ironworks gear by a smidge. Not just because "Rait should be stronker than newb," but just to guarantee that the lop-sided stats for the New Armor would still likely be an upgrade from an i120 irons piece.

I wouldnt have an issue with something like this at all honestly. My only concern is you gave the caster coat 50det and the other classes got pooped on. lolol

I just dislike the idea of having 4 secondary stats on a single piece of gear, limit it to two and that would be fine imo.

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Originally Posted by SinisterJointss

I wouldnt have an issue with something like this at all honestly. My only concern is you gave the caster coat 50det and the other classes got pooped on. lolol

I just dislike the idea of having 4 secondary stats on a single piece of gear, limit it to two and that would be fine imo.

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Stats were examples of where I was going. Maybe the Leather pants would have +100 crit with no other stats, and the Healing gloves get a less advantageous stat distribution. It would be up to the players to use crafted armor, ironworks, new armor, and dreadwyrm to find a great set of armor for themselves.

The new item drops looks interesting, but it all comes down to min/maxing. If they're BiS, they're amazing and highly sought after. If not, then its useless junk. While breastplate of blinding fire may be ok for a DRG in progression, that's really no different and just hopping into WoD and grabbing the chest in the meantime, or any class picking up a non-bis poetics piece, or getting a garbage dreadwyrm piece. You can gear up with all augmented ironworks gear and have more than good enough gear for all raid content. People want BiS for all their gear, and they complain when that BiS is gated by RNG.

You claim that your options give choice to the player, but that's actually a fallacy. There are three options in raid gear at the moment: poetics, WoD, and dreadwyrm. However, there's only once choice when it comes to BiS. IMO adding extra "versatile" armors are ok, but I feel they pretty much serve the same purpose as i120 poetics/WoD gear, just a stopover until you get your BiS.

Pretty much all complaints are people not seeing the specific dreadwyrm BiS piece that they need. My suggestion would be to simply allow members to select a piece of loot to "re-roll" once per week. That way you get another chance if you get your 20th ring of fending or whatnot. It would require all 8 players to select the loot to reroll, and if it succeeds, none of those 8 players can select another piece of loot to reroll for the rest of the week.

I'll actually fire back on that one.

The examples I gave might not be illustrative of the greater idea. I think the more impactful portions of the new armor are the primary stat weights - granting more str/mnd/int for sacrificing vit are almost definitely going to make them BiS after you have broken i120ish. those extra 3-4 points of primary stat are going to be worth 9-21 points of all of those secondary stats, while getting rid of vit you don't really need once you get to those magic numbers for the current end-game meta. The secondary stats, while maybe off from BiS on certain classes in certain circumstances are going to overshadowed by the primary stat boosts. I would definitely argue that WoD would be WELL below the i135 new armor on primary stat value merit ALONE. Throw in some wacky secondary starts to really det out your MNK or give your BLM an insane amount of cirt, and you have another level to the puzzle of figuring out BiS.

Please don't focus on the specific values of each stat, just focus on the theoretical changes to how items stats could be layed out. Sacrificing VIT for STR, sacrificing secondary stats for defense, sacrificing defense for STR, etc. As long as the stats remain in-line with an overall "power" rating, there should be a relative amount of balance with gearing.

I wish the Demon dragoon belt will stop dropping.

why DRG gears drop so often?

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Originally Posted by Ehayte

I'll actually fire back on that one.

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The way the game currently is designed, is that each piece of gear is put into one of two categories: BiS or not BiS. If your new armors are BiS, then everyone will want them (any it looks like it's a fairly low RNG drop in your proposition), if they are not BiS, then it's trash. If you're bumping up the new armor and all dread pieces to i135, then great, you pretty much just made BiS for all classes comprised of coil loot, actually giving people more to complain about now.

There's not a lot of creativity right now in gearing, and adding additional loot that may or may not be BiS will not solve that problem.

There's really no point to trying to change the system we have currently. Just isn't going to happen, its already planned as likely is the heavenward raid system as well. It sucks, getting the same drops and getting screwed every week (thanks for never dropping my fending pants and warrior axe coil) but we just have to suffer for now at least and hope that they made a nice system for expansion.

Hmm. I actually think there needs to be less gear sharing, not more. Even in the 1~50 grind, casters and healers sharing gear was not fun. As another poster alluded to, we already have the problem of gear having useless secondary stats for some jobs, or being stuck with the same glamors across classes, etc. I would be in favor of a token system to help smooth out drops... but not as something you lot on. Otherwise, all tokens will always go to DPS first.

Each member should get their own individual loot from chests that are tradeable within a certain allotted time frame(And only done so within the dungeon. Only the item can be traded nothing else). That way everyone gets something that week, and have the possibility of trading it to another member for something they need if said person is willing to do so. Or, you know, just everyone gets their own junks without trading. Regardless, everyone wins in some shape or form.

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Originally Posted by stoxastic

The way the game currently is designed, is that each piece of gear is put into one of two categories: BiS or not BiS. If your new armors are BiS, then everyone will want them (any it looks like it's a fairly low RNG drop in your proposition), if they are not BiS, then it's trash. If you're bumping up the new armor and all dread pieces to i135, then great, you pretty much just made BiS for all classes comprised of coil loot, actually giving people more to complain about now.

There's not a lot of creativity right now in gearing, and adding additional loot that may or may not be BiS will not solve that problem.

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A. The way my proposal is set out would only make the RNG worse on Dread and New Armor if they were all as job-specific as everything is today. Basically with the new system there is a 100% chance something you can use (whether you have it or not is a different matter) will drop, and a 34% chance on the second item. It is much much much better than the standing system in terms of the same gear dropping over and over. With 3 armors for each slot being added, and the dread drops narrowed down to 1 per slot, that would be 40 items to spread across 4 turns instead of the current 58.

B. I think the paradigm of BiS will shift as your iLVL goes up under this. At lower iLVLs, high vit and traditional stats will be very valuable, as your iLVL increases you will be able to use the New Armor slots to drop vit for or stats, etc. Having a VIT nerfed BP @ i111 might not give you the survivability you need to challenge T13, so it wouldn't be BiS until you could support VIT in other places. Conversely, a Def/Vit buffed BP that has lower stats might be ideal for someone who has gotten a lot of i135 accessories, but no added vitality on their left side.

C. If the new armor and dread is i135, then the BiS set will certainly NOT be all Dread, because you will DEFINITELY want to trade 5 vit for 7 str on a MNK when you have 6800 hp in T13 to push your DPS. Silly.

Much like how tomes are a universal currency for players to exchange for their choice of class gear. Why not have a higher tier token system where 1 drops from a coffer, players can use said token to exchange items from a vendor. Make different tokens for different loot tables.

I wish T13 was heavy on loot for DRG. All it has is the spear and pants. The pants are trash.

There are two major issues I have with your proposal.

1. Cost - Getting gear from raid should not cost the player in either poetics or gil. I primarily raid, and as such, have a very meager weekly income. I am almost always broke, and many other raiders I know are perpetually broke as well. Repairs and consumables are already a burdensome cost to raid. Poetics are supposed to be an alternate and supplemental gear path, and linking poetic costs to the raid drops defeats the purpose of this alternate gear path. Getting an upgrade under this system turns what should be an exciting moment into a chore.

2. I don't like the idea of that many classes sharing gear. A dragoon shouldn't wear the same gear as a paladin, and a Scholar definitely should not be wearing the same gear as a black mage. Classes should have more distinction not less.

A simple but effective system would be a simple token system that drops say "Dreadwyrm Heavy Boots" that can be exchanged 1:1 for tank boots. Break the categories into something along the lines of Tanks/Healers/Melee DPS/Ranged DPS. Now, each class can have a unique set of armor without inflating the loot tables. The only real issue with the RNG right now is that the loot tables have too many different drops, and the addition on ninja only made it worse.

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Originally Posted by Makado

There's really no point to trying to change the system we have currently. Just isn't going to happen, its already planned as likely is the heavenward raid system as well. It sucks, getting the same drops and getting screwed every week (thanks for never dropping my fending pants and warrior axe coil) but we just have to suffer for now at least and hope that they made a nice system for expansion.

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I'm 100% sure I've read from an official source that in addition to being split into Normal and Hard Modes, Alexander raids will also be introducing some version of a token drop system when it arrives in 3.0.

Yeah that's what I was saying that we have to wait until expansion to get a new loot system that is nicer, they won't change the current one in the middle of its release.

Also my Axe dropped tonight from coil. Just need the elusive pants!!

They already have the best way to improve upon raid loot rngcrap.

Use the shiva ex method.

Each specific turn will drop 2 coffers as it does right now with the same rng and whatnot BUT also drop a specific token for that turn. You exchange lets say 5 tokens for whatever item from that turn you need loot from.

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Originally Posted by Makado

Yeah that's what I was saying that we have to wait until expansion to get a new loot system that is nicer, they won't change the current one in the middle of its release.

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Yeah dude, I'm just using Dreadwyrm and Ironworks as examples because everyone knows what they mean. Of course I am talking about something to be implemented in the future.