Reworking Normal Raid Currency

There was a reddit thread https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...ge_how_normal/ that was discussing how to better handle raid currencies and I had a thought that gained some traction so I thought I'd post it here to get more opinions.

Every Normal raid boss drops four tokens everyone can roll on. These tokens are ALL the same currency. Weapon tokens still only drop once per week.

Chests / Legs cost 4 tokens

Head / Hands / Feet Cost 2 tokens

Belts / Acc's cost 1 token.

You get 4 tokens per week (upon killing 4 bosses if you win your rolls) and you determine how you want to spend them. Want to bump your ilvl up quickly? Aim for Acc's and the belt.

Want better stats? Weeks 1 and 2 are devoted to Chest / Legs.

It would take the exact same time if you were doing the "optimal" pick up route. There is small deviance in the fact that you have roughly a 50% chance at a token for each boss, but it's manageable.

No more fighting over 4 chest slots tokens that everyone wants.

What some others have said:

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It would also make it easier for them to just move tokens and pages to the Currency menu, reducing inventory bloat in the process. They could also make all old raids simply drop "Old-Raid Token", simplifying the process for acquiring gear that will only matter for glamour when the next expansion comes.

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Allow the tokens to be exchanged for other things like a second minion per tier so players have a reason to keep running them. Or maybe have two versions of each raid amount, and the normal version could cost 100 tokens, but the savage version is flashier.

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I like this, since it gives people choice while also giving incentive to run all four bosses.

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There needs to be a huge token/currencies crunch. Something like that will inevitably also effect how loot is distributed for raiding. A new player or even a veteran who's returning after a few months of break is going to find it really confusing how to get certain gear because just about everything in the game is purchased with tokens now.

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I fully support this there is no need for all the inventory bloat every new raid tier and it will help the earlier fights stay more populated longer

It gives incentives to run all four encounters every week, true, but let's say that I'm done gearing one job and now I want to move to another, but here's the catch - let's say the only thing I need is the top. BiS for this tier or what not. Before I'd have to wait an entire month for it. Now all I need is a week, getting my token from each separate encounter.
Running all encounters for a week vs. running the one encounter for a month, is the consideration that makes me think they won't do it. The illusion of shortening the content's lifespan

I sure hope they do, mind, especially with them peppering extra drops into the different fights like minions, orchestrion rolls and crafting mats.
Also, while I don't see them homogenizing the drops for the current tier, I certainly see no reason for them to not do that for older content. Even if someone wins all 4 tokens, it's old content people probably already run unsynced or through roulette in the first place.

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Originally Posted by Deceptus

No more fighting over 4 chest slots tokens that everyone wants.:

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It's not really a problem if you pre-form your party though and discuss before what pieces people want. Anyway it would likely cause the content to being run less often, afterall once you have your tokens for the week there is little reason to run it anymore, resulting in longer queue times. Now RNG isn't great, but it's that carrot that causes players to keep running the content to get what they need, I don't think it taking the savage route is the best option.

If they're all the same token, why would anyone do the later 3 fights? Wouldn't they just spam the easiest/quickest fight for tokens and not step into them at all after that?

edit: I get it now. I assumed your post meant AFTER the weekly lockout is removed, which it is at the moment. But my point doesnt change. After the lockout is removed, you'll run into the issue i described.

I think this is a tad too simplistic. As others have said, this means you could get a Chest piece in a week, whereas before it would take a month.

The different kinds of tokens should still work, but it can afford to be consolidated.
If the Chest and Leg tokens drop from the same encounters, and you need the same amount, then why aren’t they just one then?
Head, Hands and Feet?
Belt and Accessories?
You only need three types of token.

Token A:
1x for Accessories or Belt
Can drop from encounters 1, 2 and 3.

Token B:
2x for Head, Hands or Feet
Can drop from encounters 2, 3 and 4.

Token C:
4x for Chest or Legs
Can drop from encounters 3 and 4.

Yes, technically being from 3 and 4 means you could get a chestpeice in two weeks, but this is somewhat balanced against encounter 3 being able to drop all possible tokens, so there’d be a lower chance of getting the chest/legs token from 3 than from 4.

So in summary:
Encounter 1: Drops token A
Encounter 2: Drops tokens A and B
Encounter 3: Drops tokens A, B and C
Encounter 4: Drops tokens B, C and Crystalloid
Nice ramping up in terms of difficulty and reward.

This would enable you to get over the course of two weeks either:
All of the right side and belt OR all of head, hands and feet OR a chest piece or legs

The minimum amount of time to get a full set simultaneously would be:
Four weeks for Chest and Legs (encounters 3 and 4 x4weeks)
Five weeks for Head, Hands and Feet (2 x4weeks / 3 and 4 x1week)
Five weeks for Belt and Accessories (1 x4weeks / 1 and 2 x1week)

Or if two weeks is still too quick for a chest peice, up the tokens required to 6x for Chest/Legs, this would bring all categories up to six weeks for simultaneous completion.

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Originally Posted by Seraphor

I think this is a tad too simplistic. As others have said, this means you could get a Chest piece in a week, whereas before it would take a month.

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While you would get your chest piece in a month it would still take 5 weeks to complete your set.

The same way it is right now. Just with my system you don't have to worry about carrying 7 currencies to do it. You just need one currency.

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Originally Posted by Nora_of_Mira

If they're all the same token, why would anyone do the later 3 fights? Wouldn't they just spam the easiest/quickest fight for tokens and not step into them at all after that?

edit: I get it now. I assumed your post meant AFTER the weekly lockout is removed, which it is at the moment. But my point doesnt change. After the lockout is removed, you'll run into the issue i described.

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Easily solved by not completely removing lockout. Instead of removing lockout restrict it from one roll a week per boss to two. Two and a half weeks for a complete set isn't demanding much and still allows for catch up.

I though this was going to be about turning primal totems into currency.

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Originally Posted by Deceptus

Easily solved by not completely removing lockout. Instead of removing lockout restrict it from one roll a week per boss to two. Two and a half weeks for a complete set isn't demanding much and still allows for catch up.

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I don't think many people would like this option. I see a ton of people gearing up their Alts ONLY when the lockout is removed and they can freely grind the raids until their fingers fall off. At some point there has to be a complete removal of the lockout when the iLvl isnt as relevant (and right now, that point in time is now when most people have full genesis 390 gear on their main anyway).

I would only run old raid then for the tokens.
And if the keys are a new type por every raid, that's the basically the same as today.

I'd rather these tokens get changed to appear in the quest inventory, or currency.

I really, really do like this proposed change. I understand the developers want to extend the lifetime of the content, but the single most frustrating thing about FF XIV (to me) is the need to run the same fight over and over again and pray I get lucky on my lot. It is also the very thing that keeps me unsubscribed between patches. Doing the 4th fight five, six, seven, or even 8 times a week because my rolls aren't good enough, it makes me want to take a long, long break from the game. Personally, I would take this suggestion further, and give lesser datalogs or something. So that, after X weeks / months, regardless of your luck, you get what you want.

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Originally Posted by Eli85

I really, really do like this proposed change. I understand the developers want to extend the lifetime of the content, but the single most frustrating thing about FF XIV (to me) is the need to run the same fight over and over again and pray I get lucky on my lot. It is also the very thing that keeps me unsubscribed between patches. Doing the 4th fight five, six, seven, or even 8 times a week because my rolls aren't good enough, it makes me want to take a long, long break from the game. Personally, I would take this suggestion further, and give lesser datalogs or something. So that, after X weeks / months, regardless of your luck, you get what you want.

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tome gear, crafted gear, Alliance gear, and recently, Eureka gear. you dont have to suffer RNG if you dont want to.

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Originally Posted by Nora_of_Mira

tome gear, crafted gear, Alliance gear, and recently, Eureka gear. you dont have to suffer RNG if you dont want to.

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Tome Gear: Gated behind twelve weeks to get a whole set, minus weapon. A weapon adds another 3 weeks to the total. 15 weeks in all.
Crafted Gear: Pay Gil to win, or make it yourself (Hope you penta melded your set lol)
Alliance Gear: RNG determines if a piece you can use shows up, then hopefully there's not one more of your job in the party, cause there's an extra layer of RNG.
Eureka Gear: You really going to say this isn't determined by RNG? Really?

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Originally Posted by Nora_of_Mira

tome gear, crafted gear, Alliance gear, and recently, Eureka gear. you dont have to suffer RNG if you dont want to.

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Do you really think stats are the only reason one wants gear from normal raids? Come on now...


That is also one of the worst defenses of a system. Just do A,B,C doesn't change the fact that D is fundamentally flawed.

I've talked about the page solution before, but slightly different so stick with me here:

Under what I was proposing, all floors drop pages just like Savage raids. However, I would suggest that the pages are used to exchange for the items that drop in raid, and are dropped to your inventory after every clear with the restriction that you can only exchange pages from a floor if you have not already received a loot drop from that floor that week, and if you exchange pages for, say, a shaft, you now are locked out from rolls on floor 4 for the rest of the week. The system might be more complicated to digest at first, but would allow Square to not have to alter too much of the current system while adding in a sort of pity timer to drops. Say if you've fun floor 4 10 times and didn't get your drop, for example, now you've still got that shaft you needed without having to still keep running and hoping RNG favors you this time.

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Originally Posted by Deceptus

Tome Gear: Gated behind twelve weeks to get a whole set, minus weapon. A weapon adds another 3 weeks to the total. 15 weeks in all.
Crafted Gear: Pay Gil to win, or make it yourself (Hope you penta melded your set lol)
Alliance Gear: RNG determines if a piece you can use shows up, then hopefully there's not one more of your job in the party, cause there's an extra layer of RNG.
Eureka Gear: You really going to say this isn't determined by RNG? Really?

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my point is that there other options. If you do a little bit of all of the above (or 3/4) then you will have little to no issues seriously gearing up for content. As for the Eureka gear, I know its RNG but you can literally buy enough logograms to get all your actions required to unlock the gear. Not having the gil to do these things isnt the point, its the fact there's other options than normal raid loot RNG to supplement the unfairness of bad RNG.

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Originally Posted by Eli85

Do you really think stats are the only reason one wants gear from normal raids? Come on now...


That is also one of the worst defenses of a system. Just do A,B,C doesn't change the fact that D is fundamentally flawed.

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yeah, I assumed you wanted stats because you said "need to run this content", i shouldn't assume. My point was that you have other options than Normal raids if you want gear this late in the expansion. If you're just running it for glam, I dont expect SE to really care what people think is fundamentally flawed.

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Originally Posted by Nora_of_Mira

yeah, I assumed you wanted stats because you said "need to run this content", i shouldn't assume. My point was that you have other options than Normal raids if you want gear this late in the expansion. If you're just running it for glam, I dont expect SE to really care what people think is fundamentally flawed.

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You are really misrepresenting the word 'need' in this context. Need is not used in the sense of 'I feel compelled to further my character progression, thus I need to do this.' It is rather used in the context of to achieve reward A I need to do B, as a conditional imperative.


Regardless of the reason why a person wants to run content, the reward system remains fundamentally flawed, and that should be corrected. Further, if SE doesn't care, that is just being irresponsible, and will just lead to less revenue. Like I said, I'm a player that plays only in the first month of new content because the reward systems are so broken in normal and alliance raid content, and I promise you, I'm not the only one. So go ahead, be dismissive of legitimate concerns, because less concurrent players is better for the game, right?

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Originally Posted by Eli85

So go ahead, be dismissive of legitimate concerns, because less concurrent players is better for the game, right?

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what I'm taking away from this is: If loot was given to all players in a perfectly fair and timely manner, they wouldn't unsub after a month when they got everything they wanted? Isn't that what you said you're doing because you're not getting gear?

FFxiv cant operate like a single player game and give you loot for completing objective A all the time, thats what the MSQ is for.

I am curious what was the reason why they made it that way in the first place?

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Originally Posted by Nora_of_Mira

what I'm taking away from this is: If loot was given to all players in a perfectly fair and timely manner, they wouldn't unsub after a month when they got everything they wanted? Isn't that what you said you're doing because you're not getting gear?

FFxiv cant operate like a single player game and give you loot for completing objective A all the time, thats what the MSQ is for.

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"A perfectly fair and timely manner" does not equate to fully geared out in a month. I will answer for myself, rather than other players: I do not mind a system where it takes me 2-4 months to fully gear out, so long as I do not feel the need to grind the same fight over and over for a drop. It's easier to explain this by referencing WoW and Personal Loot. No actual loot drops from the boss, but when you kill the boss, you roll against the boss, and if you win, you get a random piece of loot off the boss' loot table. So there is no going back and grinding the same boss over and over; you kill the boss once a week, then go on to other activities. So to make this really clear: the reason I don't stick around long term, is because the gear sets that I want, I have to grind the same fight over and over until I get lucky. That's a really bad system. I like the content, I like the rewards, but because of how the game divvies up that reward, I just get really frustrated and put the game on the back burner. I do not want that frustration to exist in the game any more.

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Originally Posted by Deceptus

Eureka Gear: You really going to say this isn't determined by RNG? Really?

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Yet, you can get the entire set in 3 days as opposed to 15 weeks.

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Originally Posted by Alucard135

Yet, you can get the entire set in 3 days as opposed to 15 weeks.

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Provided you've done all the relic steps up until that point. Before the pagos nerf, that was taxing.

Let me get minions and cards this way, too.

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Originally Posted by Eli85

"A perfectly fair and timely manner" does not equate to fully geared out in a month. I will answer for myself, rather than other players: I do not mind a system where it takes me 2-4 months to fully gear out, so long as I do not feel the need to grind the same fight over and over for a drop. It's easier to explain this by referencing WoW and Personal Loot. No actual loot drops from the boss, but when you kill the boss, you roll against the boss, and if you win, you get a random piece of loot off the boss' loot table. So there is no going back and grinding the same boss over and over; you kill the boss once a week, then go on to other activities. So to make this really clear: the reason I don't stick around long term, is because the gear sets that I want, I have to grind the same fight over and over until I get lucky. That's a really bad system. I like the content, I like the rewards, but because of how the game divvies up that reward, I just get really frustrated and put the game on the back burner. I do not want that frustration to exist in the game any more.

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So if you lose the roll against the boss, you don't even get any loot and if you win, it's random, so it might not even be the item that you want/need? And there's no second try possible? I do not understand how that is a better system.

If you do not want to run a boss multiple times a week, then you don't have to. Just treat it as you losing the roll for that week if you don't get any loot.

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Originally Posted by linay

So if you lose the roll against the boss, you don't even get any loot and if you win, it's random, so it might not even be the item that you want/need? And there's no second try possible? I do not understand how that is a better system.

If you do not want to run a boss multiple times a week, then you don't have to. Just treat it as you losing the roll for that week if you don't get any loot.

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Unfortunately human psychology doesn't work that way. When you can obtain it, you will want to excise all opportunities to attain it, even if it's to your detriment.


For myself, like I have said previously, I run the raid a few times, thoroughly enjoy it, but then unsub for a few months until more content comes out. A better system that doesn't frustrate me would keep me subbed.

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Originally Posted by Eli85

Unfortunately human psychology doesn't work that way. When you can obtain it, you will want to excise all opportunities to attain it, even if it's to your detriment.

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Maybe, but in the end, you can take control of yourself.

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For myself, like I have said previously, I run the raid a few times, thoroughly enjoy it, but then unsub for a few months until more content comes out. A better system that doesn't frustrate me would keep me subbed.

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Try running with friends so you can lessen the amount of runs needed.

Sure you could pre-form like some have said but that is not at all the point.
The current loot system needs improvement and i agree with OP on some points.
I can go months without any sort of gear because RNG is a bitch in this game. And it is annoying as hell because i play multiple jobs.
And i am one that does not like to have to bother people just so i could obtain gear. People miss the point that keep insisting "just form a party with friends".

A token system would be best.

Normal Raid loot should've been reworked when they introduced same ilv crafted pieces. You've less incentive for dedicated players to do Normals meaning the quality of every run will most likely be bad. But the weekly lock nature of the loot tend to make players gravitate toward pieces of their choices making the competition for them not so harsh. During the weekly stage, the problem lies in Chains and Shafts being locked to a specific floor of the raid, on top of 4 Shafts being needed making you take 4 weeks to complete a chest piece rather than 2 if you'd desire so (like pants), essentially getting rid of part of the freedom the system implies with every other piece they offer.

Specially post weekly unlock, the desired token of gear can require a minimal amount of runs or infinite, you actually need an average higher amount of runs of Normal modes for its loot than Savage (thanks to pages being guaranteed). It's very weird. I don't get why Crystaloid needs are lowered but everything else isn't. And you'll constantly have all 8 players competing for all drop pieces while still needing 2~4 to form a somewhat outdated loot (since crafted now are not only faster to obtain but can be upgraded to a higher ilv);

It all just strikes as odd and make players not want to do normals when the idea of the system was to have the run Normals for a while for the loot, it's slowly causing people to just simply avoid the content. But it can end up leading into frustration and a sense of unfairness. A simple tweak like adding a guaranteed double drop of each piece could already soften the issues. Its been years crafted gear of the same ilv had been introduced and now it can be upgraded as well to add on the system, would be nice to see and update for the Normal loot as well, having songs and other special dropsin certain turns certainly made it all more interesting because you populate those fights with players not looking for gear, but the special loot instead.

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Originally Posted by Maero

Sure you could pre-form like some have said but that is not at all the point.
The current loot system needs improvement and i agree with OP on some points.
I can go months without any sort of gear because RNG is a bitch in this game. And it is annoying as hell because i play multiple jobs.
And i am one that does not like to have to bother people just so i could obtain gear. People miss the point that keep insisting "just form a party with friends".

A token system would be best.

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I don't disagree with improving the system, just not in the way Eli85 described it as I understood it.

That being said, why do you consider it a bother to other people? It's an MMO, so playing with other people is a normal thing to do. It's also not like you're necessarily the only one getting something out of the run, so it never hurts to just ask or even announce that you are running something and see if other people want to join.

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Originally Posted by linay

Maybe, but in the end, you can take control of yourself. Try running with friends so you can lessen the amount of runs needed.

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That we all do, and I take my time to other games. *Shrug*

I want, no need this so bad. As it is, you either have to discard any raid items you don't absolutely need or you need extra retainers. And I only have 2. There's no reason in my mind the raid stuff shouldn't at least be in the currencies instead of inventory, and having the all pupose token would make things just so incredibly better. At it's current state, raid items feel like nothing more than a gimmick to force player to run raid hundreds of times.

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Originally Posted by Endeleon

I want, no need this so bad. As it is, you either have to discard any raid items you don't absolutely need or you need extra retainers.

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Lets be honest, this is the real reason every normal raid has 7 currencies attached to each iteration. I have a retainer for nothing but currencies that don't go into the "currency tab".

I think normal raids should work similar to savage raids (and savage should be changed slightly to be less wonky).


Go in, do your fight, get an individual token and a chest for the raid. Chest has ~2 pieces of gear from that fight and any ancillary things like orchestrion rolls, minions, whatever.

You only get one token per week, and you only get one piece of gear per week (similar to how alliance raids work, where you can do it multiple times to get a piece of gear you actually want and not see 5 belts drop and go "wtf???", or you can say "eh, I dont care enough, got my token") but having done the fight doesnt lower anyone elses reward possibilities if you run it ahai , and doing fights later in the tier doesnt reduce your rewards for earlier fights.

Each raid in the tier gives the same tokens. While current, it would give something like "Deltascape Medal" or "Sigmascape Token" or "Alphascape Credit". Some named thing. When the raid isnt current, all its tokens, in currency and further dropped become "Stormblood Credit" which can be spent on any of the previous vendor pieces.

If 14 ever itemized horizontally (making secondary stats useful and giving people 6 months worth of gear with different stat weights they had to spend some amount of time figuring out how what was best and not just 2 different pieces each ilvl where one is CLEARLY better), you could keep multiple sets of tier tokens 'current'.

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Originally Posted by Barraind

I think normal raids should work similar to savage raids (and savage should be changed slightly to be less wonky).


Go in, do your fight, get an individual token and a chest for the raid. Chest has ~2 pieces of gear from that fight and any ancillary things like orchestrion rolls, minions, whatever.

You only get one token per week, and you only get one piece of gear per week (similar to how alliance raids work, where you can do it multiple times to get a piece of gear you actually want and not see 5 belts drop and go "wtf???", or you can say "eh, I dont care enough, got my token") but having done the fight doesnt lower anyone elses reward possibilities if you run it ahai , and doing fights later in the tier doesnt reduce your rewards for earlier fights.

Each raid in the tier gives the same tokens. While current, it would give something like "Deltascape Medal" or "Sigmascape Token" or "Alphascape Credit". Some named thing. When the raid isnt current, all its tokens, in currency and further dropped become "Stormblood Credit" which can be spent on any of the previous vendor pieces.

If 14 ever itemized horizontally (making secondary stats useful and giving people 6 months worth of gear with different stat weights they had to spend some amount of time figuring out how what was best and not just 2 different pieces each ilvl where one is CLEARLY better), you could keep multiple sets of tier tokens 'current'.

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Working in something like that for non savage raids would be great. IMO the normal versions of the raids are never BIS when they're added and generally the gear mainly acquired by players that either play more casually and don't do savage or players that have leveled multiple jobs and just want to keep the gear on the jobs they play less often up to a relevant level for current content. It could also be helpful to players that decide to transition to using a different job as their main.

I get why they do things the way they do, but I continue to feel that anything that works as a currency should not take up inventory. I would think additional sub menus for each expansion in the currency tab would be all that's needed to accomplish this, but perhaps it's more complicated than that?

I like that idea very much @Gemina