Please, for the love of the 12, Address Drop Rates for items buyable with gemstones

As the title says, Farming for materials needed is *so* painful because the drop rates are SO LOW off of virtually every mob that has a drop that can also be purchased with bicolor gemstones. It's really, really demoralizing. For an actual, real world example, I had to take down 13-15 of a particular mob before seeing my *first* drop of an item. That's really not fair.

And for those who say "Just buy them with the gemstones" I still have special items (orchestrions, exclusive items etc) that I haven't finished picking up yet. even though I've fully finished rank 3 in both expansions with this feature.

I doubt they're going to adjust drop rates. If they were interested in doing it, they would have done it long ago.

With that in mind, I tend to keep most of my retainers as DoW/DoM - the skins and other items add up quickly if I keep sending my retainers out and they're expensive at the start of an expansion so what I don't need I can sell at a very nice profit.

It also doesn't hurt to buy them off the MB if they're at a decent price. Players who haven't hit Rank 3 in all zones tend to buy up the crafting materials when they're about to cap on gemstones plus there are the random drops that players who don't use the items will list. That helps to keep the prices down this far into an expansion.

While there's some appeal to doing your own farming, sometimes it's better to buy what you need for the time savings. Would I rather spend an hour farming crafting material drops or helping friends with a mount farm (or pretty much any other content in the game)? I'd rather do the latter of course. Or I could be spending that hour crafting items to sell on the MB for far more than what I paid to buy the materials.

You need to send out a retainer to collect them, only way to not get frustrated.

I've only got 4 retainers, and am on a limited income, so getting more is out of the question for me. I keep one of each of the gathering classes, and one a battle job, and that *should* be more than enough, but what I'm hearing is people saying "just spend more gil" or "just change your retainers", rather than, "Hey, the drop rate is borked for those who *want* to farm it, can we please address that?" I can see where you're coming from, and you're not wrong, but you're not really addressing the issue of why the drop rate is so abysmal if I want to get mats. *Especially* for recipes with multiple monster drop ingredients. I'm at end game on my main, and I don't savage raid, or do current level EX's, nor is any of the difficult content accessible to me due to my disabilities, so I'm just trying to make the most out of what I *can* do in this game. More and more I feel excluded, and this isn't helping.

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Originally Posted by Mel0hDee

I've only got 4 retainers, and am on a limited income, so getting more is out of the question for me. I keep one of each of the gathering classes, and one a battle job, and that *should* be more than enough,

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It should indeed be enough, and it is in fact enough unless you need those ingredients right this very moment. Send out the retainers to get the hard-to-get stuff, while you gather other components, and soon enough you will have what you need.
Yes, the drop rates are bad for some items, but the drop rate doesn't matter much when you send a retainer to get it.

OP, you mentioned in your original post that you would prefer to spend bicolor gemstones on other things. That’s fair enough, but consider this: a FATE takes only a few minutes to complete and you get a guaranteed 7 crafting items from it if you spend all of the gemstones on mats. You can also put up a PF invitation for people to join you to have things go faster. Is this better or worse than targeting a specific monster for their drop, in terms of time spent per drop? I’d imagine it’s better and certainly less monotonous considering you can do it in any zone.

I wouldn’t think of it as how you’re spending your gemstones necessarily, but rather simply how much time it takes you to get X number of crafting mats.

I consider monster drops to be an occasional bonus, and not really the primary way to get something. FATEs (active) and retainers (passive) seem much more efficient.

And Jojoya’s points about using the MB are also valid. It helps to think of the MB as a way to spend gil to avoid spending time on things you don’t like, so you can spend time making gil doing the things you DO like.

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Originally Posted by Mel0hDee

I've only got 4 retainers, and am on a limited income, so getting more is out of the question for me. I keep one of each of the gathering classes, and one a battle job, and that *should* be more than enough, but what I'm hearing is people saying "just spend more gil" or "just change your retainers", rather than, "Hey, the drop rate is borked for those who *want* to farm it, can we please address that?" I can see where you're coming from, and you're not wrong, but you're not really addressing the issue of why the drop rate is so abysmal if I want to get mats. *Especially* for recipes with multiple monster drop ingredients. I'm at end game on my main, and I don't savage raid, or do current level EX's, nor is any of the difficult content accessible to me due to my disabilities, so I'm just trying to make the most out of what I *can* do in this game. More and more I feel excluded, and this isn't helping.

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So why is the drop rate abyssmal?

Because every player who kills the relevant creature has the potential to get those materials and put them up on the marketboard for sale. It promotes the interactive player economy expected in a MMORPG.

Because it incentivizes more players to farm FATEs for the gemstones, which again can increase social interaction. It's rare not to run into other players when FATE farming and joining forces to clear them faster.

SE has left you the option of farming the items yourself if you want to but it will be at a loss of time efficiency. That may or may not change in the future as they try to rebrand the game as a RPG that you can play alone or with friends instead of a MMORPG but for now that's the situation.

Being disabled myself and playing with others who also have disabilities, pulling out the disability card as an excuse doesn't work well with me. There's a lot more to the game than just current Savage raiding and EX trials. Yes, some disabilities make it more difficult to participate in combat based content but there's a very simple solution to that: make friends. My hardcore raiding days are a decade in the past but I'm still able to play well enough to help carry others through Normal content. I don't mind doing it because they are my friends (and family in a couple of cases).

You don't need to feel alone and excluded. Come play with us on Marilith. Data center travel makes it easy if you don't want to transfer your character from Exodus. Reply in the thread if you're interested and I'll work out getting in contact with you in game. If one of your disabilities is social anxiety and that makes you hesitant, it's one of mine as well. I completely understand. Playing MMORPGs has been one of my challenges to myself to fight back against it. We're not going to give you grief over it. Certainly they're used to my occasional stony walls of silence lol.

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

Being disabled myself and playing with others who also have disabilities, pulling out the disability card as an excuse doesn't work well with me. There's a lot more to the game than just current Savage raiding and EX trials. Yes, some disabilities make it more difficult to participate in combat based content but there's a very simple solution to that: make friends. My hardcore raiding days are a decade in the past but I'm still able to play well enough to help carry others through Normal content. I don't mind doing it because they are my friends (and family in a couple of cases).

You don't need to feel alone and excluded. Come play with us on Marilith. Data center travel makes it easy if you don't want to transfer your character from Exodus. Reply in the thread if you're interested and I'll work out getting in contact with you in game. If one of your disabilities is social anxiety and that makes you hesitant, it's one of mine as well. I completely understand. Playing MMORPGs has been one of my challenges to myself to fight back against it. We're not going to give you grief over it. Certainly they're used to my occasional stony walls of silence lol.

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I'm sorry you feel my *mentioning* my disability is me "pulling the disability card" but that's not a great way to induce me to want to server hop to be with you. I was simply stating -why- so much of this game's content I cannot do. Yes, there is a *lot* of other content as well, but it's sad when I can't even discuss my issues without someone calling it "pulling a X card".

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Originally Posted by Mel0hDee

but what I'm hearing is people saying "just spend more gil" or "just change your retainers", rather than, "Hey, the drop rate is borked for those who *want* to farm it, can we please address that?"

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Yes, the drop rate sucks, but what is much worse is enemy density, there are not enough enemies to kill, you always have to do them one by one because they are so far apart, and then you have to wait for respawn because they are all dead.

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Originally Posted by EorzeaWanderer

consider this: a FATE takes only a few minutes to complete and you get a guaranteed 7 crafting items from it if you spend all of the gemstones on mats. You can also put up a PF invitation for people to join you to have things go faster. Is this better or worse than targeting a specific monster for their drop, in terms of time spent per drop? I’d imagine it’s better and certainly less monotonous considering you can do it in any zone.

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It is far more efficient to do FATEs (and you get other bonuses like experience if you are leveling a job). It is still more efficient to do FATEs than killing enemies for drops. Even if you were in a ShB zone. Not guaranteed drops plus waiting for mobs to respawn (even though they are quicker to kill), a player would still be better off just doing FATEs.

Now, if the issue is "I want to kill mobs for drops instead of doing FATEs" that's a different issue. But if the issue is "I want to get more drops" - send out a retainer, then go do FATEs as well.

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Originally Posted by Mel0hDee

I'm sorry you feel my *mentioning* my disability is me "pulling the disability card" but that's not a great way to induce me to want to server hop to be with you. I was simply stating -why- so much of this game's content I cannot do. Yes, there is a *lot* of other content as well, but it's sad when I can't even discuss my issues without someone calling it "pulling a X card".

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I thought the point of your thread was to discuss crafting material drop rates on open world mobs, not your health issues. Your health issues have nothing to do with the drop rate so why bring them up? That's why it comes across as pulling the disability card. Your disability is not relevant to the topic.

A game forum is generally not the best place to try to get into a discussion about health problems unless it's to discuss reasonable accommodation that facilitate participation (such as the color blind filters and specific mechanic marker shapes that help those that are color blind) or to ask others for advice on how to adapt to content made more challenging by the health problem based on their own experiences.

Even if I'm coming off harsh when it comes to the disability card, my offer is genuine when it comes to helping you feel included in content. Sometimes it's our fears holding us back from trying to be included because we're afraid we'll make a mistake and others will start yelling at us (something I deal with frequently in my own struggles with social anxiety). That can mean taking the risk to show ourselves that we can do something instead of allowing the negative inner voice convince us it is not possible. The best way to start is to join a group that understands what it can be like even if their issues aren't exactly the same as your own.

Perhaps you don't feel comfortable with me now. I understand, I tend to get way too blunt on occasion. But at least reach out to try to find a similar group that will help you feel included instead of allowing yourself to feel more and more excluded when that shouldn't be happening.

I mentioned them because farming monsters for drops is generally a thing I can do and not feel like the game doesn't want me here. Your response was more harsh than I would have cared for, and I'm not going into details of my illnesses, just that they prohibit me from actively taking part in large swaths of the game. I just want to be able to actively take part in a game I enjoy, without having to spend hours either FATE farming when that's not something I can consistently do, or be told I'm playing "wrong" because I'm not as efficient as possible with my retainers. I'm not here to min/max, I'm here to try to relax. I was merely stating that I wish the drop rates could be improved. and it felt like everyone dogpiled on me.

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Originally Posted by Mel0hDee

I was merely stating that I wish the drop rates could be improved. and it felt like everyone dogpiled on me.

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I'm sorry that you ended up feeling that way.

It probably would have gone better if you had simply said "I wish the drop rates are better, I prefer to do my own farming" and left it at that.

You're not alone. Others have expressed the concern about the drop rates over the years. But SE sets the drop rates considering all possible sources of an item, not a single source, and how much they feel is appropriate to be getting into circulation. We now have gemstones to supplement the drops and what we might get from retainers if we feel like we don't have access to enough.

I know you said that you also want the gemstones to purchase other things but consider this: time you spend farming drops through the creature kills to get what you need is time you're not spending farming gemstones. If FATE farming is the faster way to get the items you want, it's better to use the gemstones to buy what you need. You'll then have more time left for additional FATE farming to get the other items you want.

If numbers help to make more sense out of that: let's say your goal is 60 skins and that normal drop farming yields an average of 2 skins per minute. That's a half hour to get what you need and you will get 0 gemstones during that time.

Skins cost 2 gemstones at the gemstone vendor. FATEs reward 14 gemstones and take about an average of 2 minutes to clear (can be faster if you find a FATE farming group to join). That's 7 skins every 2 minutes, or about 18 minutes to get the 60 you need. That leaves you with 12 minutes leftover to continue farming gemstones for the other items you want to buy.

Now those numbers are just for example. I don't know how many skins you get a minute or how fast you clear FATEs solo. You'd want to check your own times to figure out which is the better way for you to go.