1% or less drop rates and how they hurt the game

[Welsper59]

Hi Gardes,

Definitely agree. Back in 1.0, many of us actually suggested systems like what you said, and as noted, Garuda 1.0 dropped Vortex Items that after you collected X# of them you trade it in for a Weapon of your choosing.

I think there's room for *both* systems, for sanity and catering to both extremes:

* Keep the Rarity / Super Low Drop Rate for that "Winning the Lottery!" feel and grinders.

* And, add a Token System for each Win, with a balanced/fair # of Tokens needed to trade in for that same Rare Item.

This way, you can grind and hopefully see it drop (traditional), or you know that eventually, maybe after 50 Wins (50 Tokens), you will get that item as well.

This satisfies players who enjoy making incremental progress towards a larger goal, instead of relying on pure blind Luck / RNG only.

There's no harm in this, and it's baffling Yoshi P and the Dev Team don't consider it. This should help make FF XIV a more enjoyable game overall.

I just want to point out that, let's say you do need 50 wins to obtain a mirror, and all 8 players are a static. It doesn't seem... odd to you that all 8 players can expect an upgrade after an exact number of wins? I mean, it's essentially an optional upgrade in general (meaning it's along the lines of wanting aesthetic goods in that it is not mandatory to progress). It wouldn't feel weird to anyone if they were to implement this system in general? Or are you folks just being selective about this perspective and considering that goods such as primal mounts should not be part of this expectation system? Or perhaps gear in general, as a string of bad luck is possible for coil weapons, I'd say they would probably wish that you could expect such a thing after X kills. I'd say that kind of cheapens your efforts and the reward itself once you can plan it out. It really seems like the worst thing to happen to the MMORPG genre is expectations on a mathematical timeline.

[Vallug]

I agree mostly with this post, I do not wanna do relic and I will get around to coil. But if I want to progress I should not have to rely on such a low drop rate against the entire party.

[AmyNeudaiz]

I like things taking a long time to get, I'm quite enjoying getting my Animus slowly. It's something to keep me busy in game when I'm not doing anything with the FC. But that said, anyone who read even half of the Atma threads would know I absolutely loathed the Atma portion. Progress over a long period of time is okay, but randomized progress.... (Thanks for the offer, but I'll have to pass)

[skaterger]

None of the so called "1% drop rate" items you mentioned are mandatory to progress in the game. You should not get handed items just because you pay a subscription. The nightmare mount will lose its allure if everyone and their mother is running around with one. If you really want it then be prepared to work for it. Choice is never a bad thing. It only becomes an issue when players like the OP mixes up want with need.

[Giantbane]

If you want to prove this is running people away from the game you are not helping your case. They cannot just gate everything behind tough battles, eventually with a few days/weeks people hammer these fights down and have them on farm. Then they start selling runs to others who cannot quite get it done, then you have hundreds/thousands of people with relic weapons in no time at all. Sound familiar?

A good chunk of the community as well as the devs were not too elated about this, so now we get low % drop rate, so you either have to be lucky or dedicated to obtain these items. But it feels oh so good when that magic day finally arrives.

Too much RNG is a bad thing. Novus isn't *too* bad because at least the alexandrite can be acquired primarily from non RNG methods (and probably should, the fate drop rate is worse than the atma garbage). But atma sucks. 12 1% drops to continue the quest line create a great deal of disparity between player experiences.

Running the same thing over and over and over again and failing, not based on skill or time spent, but because of some arbitrary number roll you have nothing to do with is just not fun. It can easily erode one's enjoyment of the game if you're one of the unlucky ones (though no fault of your own).

I don't mind mounts being subject to the 1% drop rate, since they're just vanity items. But I don't think core gameplay items (like gear) should be tied behind such a heavy RNG gate.

[Gormogon]

I agree mostly with this post, I do not wanna do relic and I will get around to coil. But if I want to progress I should not have to rely on such a low drop rate against the entire party.

Everything outside of coil in 2.2 feels like a punishment for not taking the coil route. How things changed from one major patch to the next.

[AmyNeudaiz]

None of the so called "1% drop rate" items you mentioned are mandatory to progress in the game. You should not get handed items just because you pay a subscription. The nightmare mount will lose its allure if everyone and their mother is running around with one. If you really want it then be prepared to work for it. Choice is never a bad thing. It only becomes an issue when players like the OP mixes up want with need.

Everything in this game is optional that's not a valid argument.

Running the same thing over and over and over again and failing, not based on skill or time spent, but because of some arbitrary number roll you have nothing to do with is just not fun. It can easily erode one's enjoyment of the game if you're one of the unlucky ones (though no fault of your own).

I just want to echo this because I almost quit over this feeling. Before doing Atma I played this game religiously doing probably 5-10 dungeons a day + all of my roulettes, Primals, Coil 1-5 farming, ect ect but after burning myself with the Atma grind, I nearly quit all together. I barely got back into playing this game seriously again this past week.

[Welsper59]

Everything in this game is optional that's not a valid argument.

Context is important. Otherwise, you should probably just stop breathing. It's kinda optional for you to live... I mean, the world does go on when people die.

[skaterger]

Everything in this game is optional that's not a valid argument.

No not really. That's why you never see quest items to progress the main story gated behind rng because that would be totally unfair.

[AmyNeudaiz]

Context is important. Otherwise, you should probably just stop breathing. It's kinda optional for you to live... I mean, the world does go on when people die.

Yessum, as you said. Context. Need I remind you this is a forum for a video game?

No not really. That's why you never see quest items to progress the main story gated behind rng because that would be totally unfair.

If you consider anything but the main story to be optional let's just skip everything else in the game and see what you miss out on.
Class Quests
Job Quests
Relic Quest
Coil
Crystal Tower
Hildibrand quests
Grand Company quests (and the rewards from it)
Most level 50 dungeons and some lower level dungeons
Side Quests
Levequests
Guildhests
Crafting
Gathering
Gear
Potions/Food
Gil
+Many more things

But to predict your retort and let's say you only count story as considered non-optional? Well you just dug yourself into a hole here because relic is considered one of the main side quests in the game. I mean even ignoring all of that, look at how powerful the weapon is. Second best in slot for all jobs and for some jobs it's a vastly improved upgrade versus the Soldiery weapons, Scholar being a prime example of that- my main job and the only reason I did that absurd Atma grind.

You can't just write everything off people don't like doing as "optional".