RNG and luck or, how to lose motivation by trying to make overall progress

There is a factor that is being used more and more every time, and on which one is more dependent the day to day, the RNG or the luck, whatever you want to call it.

From the beginning, all Primal mounts could be obtained by drop, or by tokens every time you win the Primal, today the primals of ARR can be solo done unsync, which were released with Heavensward, can still be a challenge for some players, and it is true that the Stormblood are not much more difficult nor by the way.

But the real problem is that the game is completely dependent on the RNG factor for a long time. Today you can find people who got their first mount from Tsukuyomi, for example, in their second or third run, while others have had to fight and win up to 99 times to get access to the mount. Personally I'm going to talk about my case, because in general view, I think I have enough "bad luck" or maybe my RNG has the same value as a plastic coin.

Just today, after defeating Suzaku for 99th time, I got the opportunity (now I must wait for the patch where you, SE, implement the trade-in option) to have the Primal saddle, and with this add up to 9 saddles obtained in the same way, overcoming wipes, people with bad attitude, and parties with good people, you can find everything.

I've been playing for many years, and every day it's harder to find energy and motivation to keep progressing in the game.

Palace of the Dead was added time ago, with limited items obtaniable just by luck, the formula was repeatead again with Heaven on High, including the rewards for RNG, and you also did the same with Eureka and the generation of random statistics by RNG again.

Now, with the Blue Mage, you have created a limited class that depends COMPLETELY on the luck / RNG factor, seeing people who already have all the spells learned in less than a day, and I completed more than 25 runs to Tam Tara and still don't learn Mind Blast, and I'm pretty scared to try to get all of them.

It's a real shame that all the content that is being generated, depends more and more on the luck factor, than on the dedication and time that must be sacrificed to feel fulfilled to get in the form of reward all the effort.

Thank you SE for the effort and work on this game, it's really awesome, but it really needs a rework.

Sadly, it seems that the Developers have determined to use RNG as a reason to pad out content instead of interesting content.

I too have cursed my own luck with the Primal mounts, 99 totems on 4 mounts already and rolls on average of 20-50. While my friend got all the mounts already with average of 20 runs each primal.

And what makes it worse is if you are performing very well and contributing more to the fight (not dying, know mech and not getting carried) but still get nothing.

The rolling RNG is really bad for the feeling of progression because you have gained nothing if you lose the roll.

I think there should be some mechanic in place that for every instance you were outrolled for a particular item, your next roll for said item should have a compounding value added until you get the drop, which then resets. Then you'll feel like you are actually progressing.

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Originally Posted by Rst001

There is a factor that is being used more and more every time, and on which one is more dependent the day to day, the RNG or the luck, whatever you want to call it.

From the beginning, all Primal mounts could be obtained by drop, or by tokens every time you win the Primal, today the primals of ARR can be solo done unsync, which were released with Heavensward, can still be a challenge for some players, and it is true that the Stormblood are not much more difficult nor by the way.
...
It's a real shame that all the content that is being generated, depends more and more on the luck factor, than on the dedication and time that must be sacrificed to feel fulfilled to get in the form of reward all the effort.

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I can definitely empathize.

The game has added a "safety net" since ARR, now having trade-in tokens for some content to cap the max number of runs. It wasn't always like this. Some drop rates get buffed after a few patches too.

MMOs typically use one or a combination of 3 mechanics to increase content longevity: Trade-in Currency, RNG drop, RNG roll. I kind of understand because it takes months to produce content that is consumed in a couple of hours or less.

I'd definitely be happy if there's a new loot mechanic that keeps content active with less morale hit. I join sometimes late in the patch cycle so I appreciate active "old" content.

Till that day, I limit my runs and take it easy. If it drops, yay; if it doesn't I run again if I have time otherwise leave it for next.

RNG and I are have a kooky friendship; Roll dismal single-digits, only to have my legendary rarity 9X roll get out rolled. It's a running gag I think. Some private joke between RNG and me. I'm sure one of us is tickled pink.

RNG in this game sucks, and it sucks even more that almost everything is locked behind it. Wasted several hours trying to farm a dungeon for a necklace (just for glamour) as Monk, then I told my bf "I bet if I change class the thing will drop". It sure did, but thankfully the melee was kind enough to pass on it. I remember having to get 99 tokens from Thordan to get the bird (even after the drop rate was augmented). Also it sucks rolling the miraculous 90-94 and still loose the item with 95+. Or perform like a God in content just so the shittiest player who kept wiping can get the mounts, weapons, or gear.

RNG is discouraging. SE should really revamp it, or replace it with another kind of thing that also keeps the people playing, the content active and that's not demoralizing. I mean, come on... in Orbonne Monastery EVERY SINGLE BOSS drops stuff for DRG/NIN when sometimes there's no single player using that job. We have 15 jobs to gear up, and even if some of them share the equipment, the RNG is just stupid.

Leveling dungeons drop a piece of gear every time you clear them, so why can't the rest of dungeons do the same? It would make a favor to everyone, and you could still farm your tomestones or Savage drops to get better gear. And to not "abuse" of it, it can have some daily restriction, who knows, but something that makes our lives just a little bit easier.

Don't even wanna mention the RNG in Eureka or now with BLU... that's another story...

Or housing...

Suzaku and Seiryu were nice and gave me their mounts around run 20.

Byakko decided to be a dick and make me farm to 99.

At this point, I don't even know if I want to EX farm anymore and I've been extremely lax about doing Seiryu, only having about five clears presently.

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Originally Posted by Rosentretter

RNG in this game sucks, and it sucks even more that almost everything is locked behind it. Wasted several hours trying to farm a dungeon for a necklace (just for glamour) as Monk, then I told my bf "I bet if I change class the thing will drop". It sure did, but thankfully the melee was kind enough to pass on it. I remember having to get 99 tokens from Thordan to get the bird (even after the drop rate was augmented). Also it sucks rolling the miraculous 90-94 and still loose the item with 95+. Or perform like a God in content just so the shittiest player who kept wiping can get the mounts, weapons, or gear.

RNG is discouraging. SE should really revamp it, or replace it with another kind of thing that also keeps the people playing, the content active and that's not demoralizing. I mean, come on... in Orbonne Monastery EVERY SINGLE BOSS drops stuff for DRG/NIN when sometimes there's no single player using that job. We have 15 jobs to gear up, and even if some of them share the equipment, the RNG is just stupid.

Leveling dungeons drop a piece of gear every time you clear them, so why can't the rest of dungeons do the same? It would make a favor to everyone, and you could still farm your tomestones or Savage drops to get better gear. And to not "abuse" of it, it can have some daily restriction, who knows, but something that makes our lives just a little bit easier.

Don't even wanna mention the RNG in Eureka or now with BLU... that's another story...

Or housing...

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One of the things I might polish and dredge up again I was hoping to get a solution to these item drops, increasing pools, and glamour woes in one fell swoop (hopefully). I wrote a post on it here, but the tl;dr was:

All items of a content could be converted into essence of "said content name" (like materia, but you don't need to 100% spirit bind it). After collecting a number concentrated essence of that place (based on the total number of items available from the content) you unlock the appearance of all items from that area. On top of that you can take any new orb you obtain and use it to "create" an item of your choice (for example you've unlocked that area, now you get a drop for paladin chest piece but you wanted bard shoes - convert the paladin chest piece into an orb that you can use to summon forth the bard shoes). Helpful also because you can stack and farm gear from a place a bit easier (it'll all take up one slot rather than each item is a slot, making seal farming easier too).

From that system you'd have a lot more glamour slots based off a single variable (completed "x area?" yes/no), people can have an expected maximum amount of attempts to get something, you can go as any job you like to get gear you want (given that you're prepared to unlock the zone), and theoretically it should all work under little extra added code (since part of the system is based off items and conversion like materia - the extra code being a log that just stores a bunch of yeses and noes). On top of that you could add more costly conversion of like 3 orbs = any item of your choice without having already unlocked the area (say you didn't want to get 20 orbs for the gear set from The Vault, so rather you bypass that requirement and just spend more to go straigh to what you were looking for). Also the primal tokens, and other side items like music rolls, could be managed through this too, just further reducing inventory clutter (cost to "summon" the mount and music rolls being different than the gear ofc).

As for housing.. lol... they should start /every/ player with an FFXI mog room (account wide if each character is too much of an ask), and then allow everyone to upgrade it over the story, quests, progression. To the point of large houses and further that we have now, so two room apartment, apartment with balcony, house with garden, etc, etc.

Another RNG thing I'm struggling with is getting On the Rocks from Pharos Hard. I've had to have run that dungeon 30+ times and I haven't seen the music roll. Only three have been sold on my server, too. That's just terrible drop rate, but I doubt it'll be increased.

well technically RNG is a 50/50 endeavor. You either win it or you don't.

Seriously though RNG is sadly the easiest and cost effective way to keep ppl in the grind. While the primals/savage are an example of RNG done fairly, with there being a hard cap to you eventually attaining desired loot the worst case of RNG I've seen is in Eureka. Multiple RNG gates have no reason to exist in modern gaming period and any attempt at pushing it as hardcore content is just lazy imo.

Yeah I understand the rng based reward for current and relevant content because there's only so much you can do to make it interesting before people get bored and stop doing it for the "fun" part of it instead of the reward it offers. The BLU rng is another head scratcher for me as well because it's a piece of content that's irrelevant on arrival so I really don't get gating things on the job behind rng.

For a game which strongest feature is the armory system - all classes in one character it has an amount of unjustifiable grind and content elongation through timesinks.
Yes, MMORPG have to make their content last and last, but there are much better ways to incentive this than merely locking things behind low drop rates, RNG progression and grinding in general: Replayability, Progressing goals, achievements, challenge modes, etc.

This is by far the game i see the best candidate to break the mold in terms of "MMORPGs have to have grind", which has been the estandar for way too long and has put the genre as a whole and gave it it's stigma of "only for people with too much free time".

I would literally cut all the grind in half at the lowest, and some even further. Some rewards need to stay rare, but what is relevant for gameplay purposes and overall performance, should be much, much faster to acquire. Specially stuff like tomestone gear (which in stormblood had the first set basically for half the usual price and was so much better) and relic related stuff, even raid gear, should have some sort of "player only" drops that guaranteed a drop at every single instance and not just the weekly one at the end of the set of trials. Yesterday i ran 8 Omega runs, all i got was a single bolt, that is not fun.

Being able to gear up multiple classes faster enforces replayability, less grinder content reinforces enjoyment, people should be rewarded for participation and their skills at different play sets, not because they lucked out or throwed endless hours into something.

Just ask how many people had actual fun finishing their relic, and then ask them when they are starting the next one. The game needs to address this: Gearing up one class should be a matter of days/week, not weeks. Gearing all classes shouldn't take more than month and a half, giving players time enough to actually enjoy their rewards making them much more worthy of obtaining, and replaying content to acquire more for more classes. As game, this has literally everything it needs to stop being a grindy mess and become a player regulated progression game, where is the player who decides it's pace and not the weekly lockouts, constant tomestone grinding, weekly drops, RNG... Let players be rewarded by their skills and completion of challenges, not by a random factor.

As for the negative: Some people would burn through the content, honestly, i see this as more of a upside: First off all, most people that do get left without content to do are being dishonest, at this point is quite literally impossible in this game to run of stuff, there are achievements and rewards and progression everywhere, they are just not interested in those because the grind for their main classes and optimization already spent most of their game time, so players kinda focus on one or potentially 2 main activities, while they relegate the rest of the game to the background, and further, many of them don't even play certain features or explore other possibilities, there is people that level classes but never gear them and is not because they lack the motivation to do so but they lack the time and focus.

Also, there is actually people that DO most of the content the game has to offer and like, i knew one who got all his relics for all his classes at the beginning like, right in a month or something like that (Also completed like 7 zodiacs in total during its PATCH)... Yeah, there is that kind of people, and the game shouldn't be designed in any form, shape or color around them, they are literally "unsatisfiable" as they are people with little to no responsabilities and unhealthy amounts of free time.

In the end, a change like this would do far more good than bad, many players would come back (i do know quite a few that would if they had faster gearing) many more would experiment with other classes, options would open for everyone, instead of grinding through content to gear one class, multiclass gearing would become something, people would expand to other areas of content, give it enough rewarding goals, progression bars, strictly coded player paced progress through all the game and people would do it, and probably repeat it if its rewarding enough which would also help with the massive amount of dead content we have.

The game is kinda built around the multi-class feature, yet it progresses as if players had 1 or 2 classes... It's contradictory.
People after a duty should say: "Great, i got what i wanted, now for the next goal!" instead of saying: "Im glad thats over, i'm not touching this quest/duty/fight/trial/raid again".

If people geared up faster, it would also mean more people would be able to tackle more challenge, it's been said plenty of times that people that do raid and harder content are few and i believe a huge culprit, more than the difficulty curve (or lack of it) is the gearing progress and that they also play other content, and i really don't understand that rationale, why would someone had to sacrifice time between activities just so they appear to be "worth" based on timesinking alone instead of skill or learning? Faster gearing means people have more time available to try the rest of the game outside the grind cycle. Faster gearing means rewards are instantly more meaningful as they can be used and they don't get "outdated" as fast and that is also a massive issue, most rewards today will be irrelevant next patch/expansion, converting all that time invested in time wasted.

Yes, the threadmill cannot stop, we know it, but it should definitely slow down quite a notch. There is no logic in months worth of grind for gear that will be replaced weeks after. Most of the people i play with usually finish their grinds after the next patch.

Let players choose, if someone wants to get all 15 gear sets of X raid in 3 months, they should be able to. If someone wants to just quickly gear up 1 class because it's their priority and then tackle new content with their gear, they should be able to. Right now rewards are just too slow, too random or too short lived and some are all 3 at the same time, and entering 2019 that's not good anymore... Even by MMORPG estandars, especially in a MMORPG that has such a strong multi-class system and massive amounts of content waiting to be replayed and revisited for achievements, glamours, pets, mounts, challenge, etc. that could use faster and more meaningful, player controlled, progression. Reward players for playing, not for time wasting, be respectful of our time. And yes, i know this sounds as if i wanted "everything given away", but honestly, i do have a job already and sinking 2 hours of my free time to not be rewarded is not exactly making me feel like touching this game for next 3 days or so and i believe is a sentiment many of the players that are right now unsubscribed to this game would share.

"Man, the game is good, is pretty and the world and story are cool, but i cannot do it man." I've heard it way too often as a way to describe why they don't play.

Slow down the mill, release the drops, soft up on the RNG, promote replayability, give more achievements, more goals, let players progress as they want and not as the threadmill demands, let them explore the world beyond their lockouts. I bet most people would be willing to re-do fights just for the fun of them if the grind wasn't so nauseating, like, i have 40 zurvan totems and i cannot stand the sight of him, sad, because is a really fun and pretty fight. I would probably play it and many other content if the reward was worth and my experience in said content wasn't so emotionally torn by frustration and the feeling that i could have been playing a much rewarding game during all that time. I still don't have that bird. I have not even tried since 3.5 honestly.

Damn, i bet even the diadem would see people coming back to it if rewards were a bit better and their achievements would a bit less grindy to get.

RNG rolls are bad game design, Time Sinks are bad game design. Stop it, it's 2019.

Trust me, I can completely sympathize with RNG being a twat — as an avid primal mount farmer, this expansion was rougher on me RNG-wise than Heavensward was (I can’t really count ARR as I didn’t start playing until Nov 2015; I did, however, earn most of them through synced farming, because it was easier to find synced groups back then via DF queuing). I did Susano 160 times for the mount, told myself I wouldn’t do that this expansion, and subsequently had to buy Shinryu because I could never roll over a 50 (and when I would roll an 85+, I’d get beat — not by a 99 — but by a guy rolling 1 or 2 points above me), while winning Byakko, Tsukuyomi, and Suzaku at nearly 90 totems each. The only ones I had decent “luck” with were Lakshmi and Seiryu, but those were still 50~60 runs a piece.

Don’t even get me started on things like the Cassie Earring. I’d gladly trade my luck with the stupid Shiver emote for an opportunity to have that. And I farmed HoH 21~30 about 100 times for the hairstyle, but all I got was junk and minions I already owned (my alts have a bunch of primal minions though, at least). I finally just bought it and gave it to the alt I wanted to have it.


Sadly, the RNG is in this game to provide incentive — to dangle the tantalizing carrot above player’s heads to entice them into the content repeatedly. Especially for things like Ex primals. Even with the token exchange, the developers rely on the hope that “my next roll will be the lucky one” to keep people going well past 99 with the most current primals that cannot be purchased yet (and boy, do some do just that — thinking of the guy with 500+ Suzaku runs). People continuing to run means that players who missed the content when it was relevant still have a fairly decent chance to get a party for it. I don’t think it’s going to go anywhere, unfortunately. :/

You have to suffer for better looks and glamour.
Its not like you have to gring gear with rng, which cripples your progression in the game. You are dropping glamour that has no effect on your character other than looks, this is not something that necessary to do, and the mounts should never be treated like the list to check, its an ultimate reward for your hard work, they cant just giveaway it like trash eq. They walked it around making the mount drop based on pure RNG, and they decided to put resources elsewhere, instead of creating separate system that will only bring more problems and bugs.

If you are dropping mounts because you have nothing to do anymore, then i hate to be that guy to say this, you already finished the game and playability for you is now really low, SE cant do nothing about it.

I understand there is a need for making the content last and that RNG is not simply good or bad. I just wish that even if you failed the RNG there is some kind of progress that you know you are making (e.g increase rolls every time you lose a roll until you actually get the item). Its not to say that things like totems don't help, its just that the unfairness of RNG makes it very demoralizing to play.

This also applies to non-static savage runs, where someone can get 2 pieces of gear in one week while you are trying to collect 12 datalogs over 12 weeks, the potential difference is treatment and unfairness really puts me off the game sometimes.

I'm a believer that things like the mounts should be available for in-game purchase, with totems, as soon as the mounts are released. Thinking that people will only grind those 99 totems once the purchase is available is inaccurate. Some people might, maybe at most a relative few, but I'm more certain of two things to counter that: 1) people are more likely to farm content while it's relevant if the thing is more guaranteed in that way, and 2) people are farming so much later due to the fights being, theoretically, easier to down quickly thanks to higher gear.

If Yoshi and his team wants better return in later patches then I recommend using those same patches that are supposed to introduce mount purchases to instead halve the totem cost on those mounts, AND THEN add two or three additional items, not too pricey, to blow a little more life into the totem grind. It'll be annoying for some people who want all the things, but it will entice the higher skill level players to keep playing with everyone else. I would very much wager this if I were a gambling woman (Hint: I'm really, really not).

I loathe and despise rng as it is, as a thing, but know that it has a place in design. When done right it adds gratification when someone finally obtains the reward they worked towards. When done incorrectly, you just have an unfriendly, unwelcome grind. To top this off, that's only talking things like loot drops, prizes, or casinos (a la., Gold Saucer). If it weren't for crafted bardings being a thing already I would suggest a few *job-based bardings infused heavily with the primal's theme. Yes, some of these prizes are horrific, and need buffed drop rates such as some of the Triple Triad cards. Compare immediately to progression.

* By the way, where's the Bard Barding for my Bardy Bird?

One of the things that turned me off from Pagos, despite completing four weapons there, and eventually led me to quit my active achievement hunting, was excessive rng on progression. I hear Pagos is better about it now, but it's too late. Pyros is rng-heavy too in getting the abilities you want within the time frame you're there, and again for getting the secondary stats people want - something I compared to Heavensward's Diadem and a couple examples from WoW, all things people gravely disliked when implemented. I often make cracks at the amount of rng behind jobs like AST (Spire and Ewer for days when you need a single Balance or Spear), MCH (1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, Oh time for Heavy Shot again, 1, 1, 1 . . .), and BRD (Whenever you're ready to proc Straighter Shot, aannnd... now you did while the boss cannot be hit), yet none of these compare to BLU right now.

Sure, some people get their skills quick enough, or faster than average, and some of us get the skills way slower than average on the other hand. No one should have to run Tam-Tara normal mode more than two or three times for a single skill that is at the very end of the dungeon, just to progress a single quest for the job. No one should watch a skill being used a dozen times to learn it, now that we have the job crystal that allows learning it.

It's nice wanting people to play a game for longer, but they have to want to play the game at all, you know? Think more payoff and rewards, if not more legitimate content, rather than repeating something ad nauseum.

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Originally Posted by SleepyNeko

I understand there is a need for making the content last and that RNG is not simply good or bad. I just wish that even if you failed the RNG there is some kind of progress that you know you are making (e.g increase rolls every time you lose a roll until you actually get the item). Its not to say that things like totems don't help, its just that the unfairness of RNG makes it very demoralizing to play.

This also applies to non-static savage runs, where someone can get 2 pieces of gear in one week while you are trying to collect 12 datalogs over 12 weeks, the potential difference is treatment and unfairness really puts me off the game sometimes.

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Thats also the reason why they decided the rng will be better for this kind of stuff.
They want to sqeeze some more subs out of people stubborn enough to collect some rare stuff in the game.

Without it, every content would be dead 1 week after release and people would complain that they have nothing to do besides obtaining their various weekly rewards...which is another complain of "bad gating". You can't have an MMO without timesinks.

Rng is getting a bit unreasonable at this point. Its outdated and tacky IMO. I dont think they should move completely away from it, but atleast tone it down a lot.

Been doing blu for a week and the rng is burning me out. Been doing primals everyday now and I've only gotten 2 spells. Did garuda for 2 hours today and died once.. Thats when the party got the spell.

Do something here, SE. This is about as fun and engaging as watching my marriage fall apart.

People love gatcha and lockboxes though

Unfortunately, the rare drops are a necessary evil since their reward system for EX primals is pretty bad. If it weren't for these mounts no one would bother doing them after the first month or two since they keep outdating the only progression reward (weapons) they have after that amount of time with easier to get/less effort alternatives. After the weapons get dumped on the only thing keeping people there after they clear are the mounts and maybe the crafting material but you can buy those from people actually farming and save yourself the trouble anyway.

Maybe a weekly quest that has you kill each existing current expansion primal one time for a reward. In ARR they had something similar, and even had ways to upgrade the weapons that some of them drop or just something different than weapons, like accessories so we would have more choices to gear.

Their reward system just doesn't cater to longevity so they have to find some other traps to throw at you whether it's lockouts, lockboxes in lockboxes in lockboxes or just 2% cosmetics so you play longer than a week to prop up their subscription model after going through all the content.

On their end they probably don't see a problem, since they're making wads of cash even with the system like this for the past 5 or so years.

The fun part is that there is an easy solution to solve the rng without removing the rng: each time you fail to achieve something through, say, rng you get a higher chance to get it until you eventually reach a 100% of chance.
That way you still have the element of randomness but the more you play, the higher the chance to obtain what you want. For instance the spells for blue mage, the more we try to learn it the higher the chance, and after say 10 runs you finally manage to get it at 100% change.
This can probably be applied to everything, including crafting and raiding, and it would still force people to keep playing in an attempt to increase the RNG to 100% to a reasonable point where you will have it no matter what.
The tokens from primals are a sort of that idea but it's 99 runs to get one...instead of that, it should have a 100% chance to drop it after, say, 25 or 30 runs - however considering I don't collect mounts I don't know and I'll never bother with it.

...although considering how actually little of content there is without the rng I suppose this will never happen so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Honestly I don't mind the BLU spell RNG when it's just me having to solo things. But when you add waiting times for group and time constraints, it's not fun anymore. I volunteered to help carry a group through Stone Vigil and swap to BLU for my turn. After 45 mins the group got theirs but I had to log without getting my turn. Not the groups fault but it does kill the motivation to even bother.