Relax savage raid loot restrictions.

It's very possible this has been brought up more than once. But I was unable to find a specific thread by using search. I think it's safe to assume SE wants to have as many players involved in raiding as possible. And I think they've done their best to adjust difficulty allowing raiders from both ends of the spectrum to enjoy success. But I also think changing how loot lockouts work could get more people raiding and keep them raiding. I know plenty of people who complain they would like to raid with more than one group. They would like to help out other groups. They would like to join more pf groups. But the main thing that stops them is messing up loot for others. I think this hurts the raiding community and the game. So much learning is possible when a more experienced player joins groups with less experienced players. I'd like to see SE take a serious look at making this system less restrictive when it comes to players who've not yet received loot for completing a raid.

they always unlock the loot later on - closer to 4.0 you'll be able to queue for A9S-A12S regardless of clearing the previous one or not that week and loot on as much gear that you can.

Gotta be honest here, the frequency of a player who successfully farms Savage mode stuff being nice enough to deal with learning groups is fairly low. At least, low in the sense that a patient player like that wouldn't already be doing it. If the only incentive for motivation to help is gear for the vet, then patience is likely going to be thin. I don't think that's what you were trying to imply though.

If the learning group is only trying to get Savage mode done for the loot and not to actually learn how to properly clear it, then they were destined to fail from the start. If said group has a problem with the reduced loot (they still get stuff mind you), when faced with either finally beating it or dwelling in failure, then SOL for them.

While reduced/removed loot restrictions isn't a big deal of a thing to ask for at this point in time for Alex Savage, when you try to paint said experienced player as some saint while asking for more loot, it doesn't exactly make your argument stronger. Combine that with said learning group's mentality that I mentioned, and you just have your typical "I want more loot" request under the guise of trying to help others. Again, your objective for more loot availability isn't that big of a deal with where we are with Alex Savage, but your reasoning (fluff) gives off a vibe of desperation and misguided thinking.

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Originally Posted by DrWho2010

they always unlock the loot later on - closer to 4.0 you'll be able to queue for A9S-A12S regardless of clearing the previous one or not that week and loot on as much gear that you can.

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Problem solved then.

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Originally Posted by DrWho2010

they always unlock the loot later on - closer to 4.0 you'll be able to queue for A9S-A12S regardless of clearing the previous one or not that week and loot on as much gear that you can.

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It doesn't sound like they're asking for the ability to loot repeatedly for themself. They're asking for a change in how the number of loot chests appear when players who have already cleared for the week join a party to help.

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Originally Posted by aesteval

It doesn't sound like they're asking for the ability to loot repeatedly for themself. They're asking for a change in how the number of loot chests appear when players who have already cleared for the week join a party to help.

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Yeah, but what he said also solves that problem too. Since it's free reign loot at that point, that obviously means said experienced player isn't bound by loot rules that exist currently (nor would the learning group).

To clarify, yes I'm talking about loot received by players who've yet to receive any for that specific week's lockout. And I thought about the fact that all restrictions are lifted eventually. But that's way down the road from when raids are released. By that time the pool of raiders is reduced by people taking breaks or playing less. Also, there are usually nerfs and echo added to the raids so the usefulness of info used to clear before those nerfs is reduced. I'm not arguing for the ability to get all the loot I want all the time. The idea is for more skilled/experienced players to be able to help out other groups/pfs without affecting possible drops for those who have not received loot that week. I'm not painting anyone as a saint or assuming the intentions of specific players. There are too many variables with player interactions to address all of that. Even if a complete jackass joins your party to "help", learning can still happen.

I think the 0-1-2 chest rules are meant to prevent people from abusing them to gear up an alt raid group. For example if you're guaranteed chests for the uncleared person, even if those who cleared for the week can't loot, a group of 8 can gear up an alt group faster than a normal group. Every week they clear with their first group, then do 8 alt runs with 7 cleared characters and one alt, the alt group gets a total of 16 chests per week (and guaranteed 1 gobcoat/twine/dip per char per week, which is kinda broken for progression?).

I think the only time the 0-1-2 chests rules should go away is when the weekly lockout restriction is lifted.

That's interesting, I'd not thought about that possibility. And that would be pretty advantageous. Would assume that's why WOW makes those drops account wide instead of per character. At the same time, that doesn't really affect the specific group of players I'm arguing for. And SE seems to have no problem with those groups selling clears, gear runs, and mounts for large amounts of gil, amassing a fortune. I don't really think one of those is more abusive than the other.

The loot lockout system was quietly a very large part of the reason there was that big exodus from small servers during Gordias and trickling into Midas. There wasn't really a lack of clear-capable players (at least not at launch); but with subbing across groups actively penalized, it was hard for groups to get subs when needed, or to even temporarily replace weak links or leavers. Static attrition was an impossible battle to win on servers with no pug scene.

The cross-server PF should help with the sub problem moving forward, so I'd tend to believe that the loot lockout isn't the kind of dire problem it once was. But yeah it does make it tough to try raids on alt classes, or to just help a weekly clear group because fights are fun, or to get practice or whatever.

The system in place is an artifact of wanting Binding Coil to feel like "one dungeon" with "checkpoints", and ought to be given a fresh look on that basis alone. Even if ultimately they just keep the lockout but maybe change the bars to 3 and 6 players instead of 1 and 5.

It would matter a lot for groups aiming for world first, especially if they take more than 1-2 weeks to clear. Sure some top raid groups already do alt raids to help with progression if a different job is required (elysium's world first a8s clear group switched drg for mnk for a7s-a8s), but currently they'd still get 2 chests (1 gobcoat/twine/dip) per group per week, while if you remove the 0-1-2 chests rules like I explained before, they can gear up the second group many times as fast as a normal group (1 gobcoat/twine/dip + 8 gears per person per week from a9s-a12s). In terms of gearing speed this matters to everyone trying to reach max ilv BiS sets. The only time when this stops to matter is when almost everyone can "farm" those loots (i.e. when the weekly lockout restriction is lifted.

Edit: I'm not even talking about content sellers, I'm talking about progression raiders being able to gear their alts up to 8 times as fast as a normal group.

I also don't think that the loot lock system was put in place to deter content sellers (because it clearly has never succeeded at doing that, only worsened the problem). It was put in place to add some integrity to early gear progression and to extend subscription cycles.

Like it or not, we are playing a subscription game. Weekly and daily locks are the bread and butter of this genre because of their effectiveness at extending subscriptions. Progression walls are also the bread and butter of this genre and having a bunch of helpers fast-track people's progression with no gear penalty is not going to entice people to stay subbed.

So I agree with having some type of lock-out system. What I don't agree with is how long it stays in place. I think the raid tier should be completely unlocked every odd patch. The world-prog race is over and coats / twines have been added to hunts so they can be farmed anyways. At that point, I don't think the raid locks are really extending anyone's subscription anymore -- early prog raiders are already BiS by that point due to the manifesto system. I'd argue the influx of raid activity would do more to keep people subbed than weekly locks at that point in the patch cycle.

They may unlock it in 3.55 since they unlocked it in 2.55 in 2.0. Give people time to get 270 gear for every class.

I don't see a reason why they can't just use the 24man system for 8man raids.
Chests always spawn, but it is limited to one drop per player, per floor, per week. Done and done.

Preventing the gearing up another group really shouldn't matter, and carries and sells happen regardless of this backwards system. Even so, there's no reason for this when they already have a much more fair system in place for another type of raid content in the first place. As it currently stands the 24m system is more fair as the 8m system is one which: discourages new players from running with those who know the content because the players who have cleared; and can potentially teach, are somehow arbitrarily limiting the amount of chests that spawn, or outright removing them altogether.

For me, it makes no sense no matter how one tries to frame it.

8 man loot lockouts are only there to throttle the groups pushing for hard progression. If it wasn't for them it would be grind floor 1 until everyone has everything, grind floor 2 until everyone has everything, etc etc
the different loot styles are for the different target group types
the normal mode 8 man, and 24 man raids are made to be done by pugs, so a loot system that promotes repeated runs like it has is beneficial. People that have cleared it will go again to get the items they want inflating the player pool and integrating proven players with less skilled players regularly and the gear is basically just catch-up gear so distribution speed isn't much of an issue
the savage raid is meant for a tight-knit group so it rewards tokens to buy gear after time has passed guaranteeing everyone will eventually get gear but the lockout purposefully slows gear progression to "two to three pieces of gear per 8 people" at best until tokens are built up. They want the savage gear to be very slowly distributed

how long they keep the lockouts in place is another question to answer entirely though

Savage's Loot Restrictions seem pretty harsh imo.

1/4 odds of loot per run with a weekly restriction seems fine.
1/4 odds of loot on first clear only each week seems extreme.
Lowering the number of chests that spawn for groups who have someone that already has a clear that week just seems excessive.

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Originally Posted by Aniya_Estlihn

I don't see a reason why they can't just use the 24man system for 8man raids.
Chests always spawn, but it is limited to one drop per player, per floor, per week. Done and done.

Preventing the gearing up another group really shouldn't matter, and carries and sells happen regardless of this backwards system. Even so, there's no reason for this when they already have a much more fair system in place for another type of raid content in the first place. As it currently stands the 24m system is more fair as the 8m system is one which: discourages new players from running with those who know the content because the players who have cleared; and can potentially teach, are somehow arbitrarily limiting the amount of chests that spawn, or outright removing them altogether.

For me, it makes no sense no matter how one tries to frame it.

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Because in that case everyone can loot the gobdip (which is a really huge upgrade for early progression groups) at the same week. By the third week everyone in the group would have near max ilv weapons, and that might trivialize some dps checks in the fights. Also I think the raid difficulty was tuned with the assumption that every floor would give each group 2 loots (and the gobcoat/twine/dips from second/third floor), so if they change it to something like the 24 man raids, they'll have to tune the difficulty under assumption that every floor would give each person 1 loot (8 loots for the whole group) excluding the coat/twine/dips. Honestly I think that might work, though the fights might be more difficult.

By gearing up another group if you meant the thing I posted in the previous page, then that absolutely matters during the first few weeks since that potentially allows someone to gear up a char many more times faster than they can now. It's not even related to selling carries, it's about the world first race. Allowing the uncleared people to get 2 chests regardless of the number of cleared people in the group is just broken as fuck during the first few weeks of the patch. I'd say it's better to just completely remove the weekly lockout restriction at odd patches like Brian said.

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Originally Posted by ZhaneX

Lowering the number of chests that spawn for groups who have someone that already has a clear that week just seems excessive.

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It's harsh but required to prevent people from gearing alt groups ridiculously fast, as I posted earlier. Yes if only one person has a clear it's a bit harsh for the other 7 to get only 1 chest, but what if it's the other way around? What if 7 have cleared, would you still give the last person who hasn't cleared 2 chests? That'd give that person up to 16 gears, 1 weapon tomestone and 3 upgrade items in a single week.

I still stand by how I think they should have done it..

1-4 people already cleared = 2 chests, but for every person cleared there would be a 25% chance that the 2nd chest would drop no loot.
5-8 people already cleared = 1 chest, and with every extra person there would be a 25% chance that the 1st chest would drop no loot.

So you would get something like-

# not cleared = chest 1 / chest 2
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7 not cleared = 100% / 75%
6 not cleared = 100% / 50%
5 not cleared = 100% / 25%
4 not cleared = 100% / 0%
3 not cleared = 75%
2 not cleared = 50%
1 not cleared = 25%

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Originally Posted by Altena

I still stand by how I think they should have done it..

1-4 people already cleared = 2 chests, but for every person cleared there would be a 25% chance that the 2nd chest would drop no loot.
5-8 people already cleared = 1 chest, and with every extra person there would be a 25% chance that the 1st chest would drop no loot.

So you would get something like-

# not cleared = chest 1 / chest 2
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7 not cleared = 100% / 75%
6 not cleared = 100% / 50%
5 not cleared = 100% / 25%
4 not cleared = 100% / 0%
3 not cleared = 75%
2 not cleared = 50%
1 not cleared = 25%

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That gives an RNG chance to get more loot out of the zone with alts. At a higher loot per player ratio then the standard 8/8 party could get. As in you could have 5 people who could lot and 3 that can't and still get 2 chests.

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Originally Posted by Cetonis

The loot lockout system was quietly a very large part of the reason there was that big exodus from small servers during Gordias and trickling into Midas.

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No. The lootsystem was the most unrelevant reason for the "big exodus".

It was the very high demand to player and groupskill, that killed so many groups.

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Originally Posted by Zumi

That gives an RNG chance to get more loot out of the zone with alts. At a higher loot per player ratio then the standard 8/8 party could get. As in you could have 5 people who could lot and 3 that can't and still get 2 chests.

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Well yes and no..

If you break it down, each player has roughly 25% chance to recieve a piece of gear. (2 items drop, 8 people in the party). Yes RNG can favour you and you can get 2 pieces to split between 6 people, however RNG can also screw you over and you get the current system that is now.. In terms of statistics, it should work out about the same amount of gear per character.

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Originally Posted by KarstenS

No. The lootsystem was the most unrelevant reason for the "big exodus".

It was the very high demand to player and groupskill, that killed so many groups.

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Which the server raid communities would have had no problem coping with, if they weren't hard-locked into whatever group arrangements came out of the musical chairs game prior to the tier launching. Unless you're telling me other servers somehow had fewer capable players than Mateus does.

When you can't get subs because nobody wants to screw their group out of loot - you lose nights to one absence or a bad level 3 day, you can't consider replacing a weak link, you can't convince people to stick with the server when someone else gives up, and so on. The "players must commit to one group and only one group" dynamic was a critical element of the problem.

In the extreme case, if the tier had been unlocked in 3.1 save for needing to clear A2S to unlock A3S etc., there absolutely would have been multiple A4S clears and a much healthier community.

In the very minor case, even if they had simply chosen not to impose a chest penalty on prior floors when someone enters A3S or A4S, the leading groups could have borrowed the better members of the slow ones to build a pool of people progressing on those fights, instead of silo'd groups that were completely on their own.