Yoshi P: Please Consider a Better Raiding System in 3.0 - Beyond Statics

[Meier]

TL;DR
They should do a Destiny Raid loot system.....Everyone gets their own stuff may not be what you want but its something. I stopped raiding cause of the crappy loot system, Months without a drop from a raid sucks.

They did this in 1.0 and there was 0 drama. We would either get a random primal weapon or grade 5 dark matter(They could use something else now, I'm sure), and once in a while a token (you'd need like 15 to turn in for weapon of your choice)

Why they changed it...I'll never know.

[Zumi]

TL;DR
They should do a Destiny Raid loot system.....Everyone gets their own stuff may not be what you want but its something. I stopped raiding cause of the crappy loot system, Months without a drop from a raid sucks.

Nah this isn't a good system. I did the nightfall strike with 2 friends, we both got warlock exotic gear on our titans. Getting gear you can't use isn't fun.

[Kiara]

They did this in 1.0 and there was 0 drama. We would either get a random primal weapon or grade 5 dark matter(They could use something else now, I'm sure), and once in a while a token (you'd need like 15 to turn in for weapon of your choice)

Why they changed it...I'll never know.

Agreed.

And Yoshi P even improved the first version of that system, later on, when it was a 100% guaranteed Token, which made it even more palatable and friendly for LS / Friends to go in repeatedly for chances for the drops / farming.

[Ibi]

I like the sound of this flex raiding system in WoW, what was it about?

Flex lets you take 10-30 people into a raid, and the boss health/damage and loot drops will scale accordingly.

A boss with 10 mil health that hits for 10k per hit and drops 2 items with 10 people, for example, might have 25 million health, hit for 12k, and drop 4 items with 20 people.

It also allows for a group of 12 people, who'd get 2 drops 100% and a third drop 40% of the time.

One thing I also appreciated from Final Fantasy XI was its flexible party sizes

Most end game content in FFXI was much easier than Coil though. If you took a full alliance of 18, even fights that dropped extremely good gear (Proto-Omega in Limbus, for example) would let you bring 6+ people who'd never seen the fight before, provide explanation/direction on the fly, and clear with ease.

Most groups would be hard pressed to do that with even one person in Final Coil.

[Zumi]

If SE did flex raiding they would have to take way more time programming the raid because you have to set HP/Damage/Boss mechanics/amount of loot dropped for every possible number of people if it was like 8-24 for example that is 16 different variations of the same raid that have to program. Not sure of they have the budget for it because blizzard who does this has about 20x as many subs that is a lot more budget to work with.

[Kiara]

Flex lets you take 10-30 people into a raid, and the boss health/damage and loot drops will scale accordingly.

A boss with 10 mil health that hits for 10k per hit and drops 2 items with 10 people, for example, might have 25 million health, hit for 12k, and drop 4 items with 20 people.

It also allows for a group of 12 people, who'd get 2 drops 100% and a third drop 40% of the time.

Most end game content in FFXI was much easier than Coil though. If you took a full alliance of 18, even fights that dropped extremely good gear (Proto-Omega in Limbus, for example) would let you bring 6+ people who'd never seen the fight before, provide explanation/direction on the fly, and clear with ease.

Most groups would be hard pressed to do that with even one person in Final Coil.

Thanks for the info Ibi.

It sounds like a good system to have, no?

Re: Final Fantasy XI (early days), I think the aspect that appeals to me the most is the ability for more than just "1 static" (fixed # of 8 people) to participate in most of their end game content (Level 75 era).

Just in principal, obviously a large-scale raid like Dynamis (64 players) was the ultimate flexiblity (you could go with fewer), but it was great to raid with multiple objectives (like taking on Dynamis Lord / clearing the Raid; Rare Currency; Cool Gear; go after Side Path NMs ("Sub Bosses") for your Attestations for your Relic, etc.

Or you could drop and invite players as needed in fixed fights (like for Sky, Sea, or when Kings were up (Nidhogg, etc.)).

It was the ability to participate with your LS / Guild and other Friends and get participation with a group of players outside of a dogmatic fixed "8 People Only!" mentality.

[Kiara]

If SE did flex raiding they would have to take way more time programming the raid because you have to set HP/Damage/Boss mechanics/amount of loot dropped for every possible number of people if it was like 8-24 for example that is 16 different variations of the same raid that have to program. Not sure of they have the budget for it because blizzard who does this has about 20x as many subs that is a lot more budget to work with.

Hi Zumi,

So for the flex system you're talking about, did they actually scale and increase the number of Chests depending on group size? (so like 1 chest for 8, 2 chests for 16, 3 chests for 24 players?)

Thanks.

[CianaIezuborn]

Hi Zumi,

So for the flex system you're talking about, did they actually scale and increase the number of Chests depending on group size? (so like 1 chest for 8, 2 chests for 16, 3 chests for 24 players?)

Thanks.

WoW flex loot is based off the group size, # drops = (# players) * .2 with the remainder being a percentage chance at an additional drop. Example being 16 folks would get 3 drops and a 20% chance at a 4th drop. If you've killed a boss for that week, you can't loot that boss and your presence isn't counted for # of drops.

So almost the exact same loot system that FBoC has now. It's rarely taken advantage of in WoW either, and from what I'm reading it's rarely taken advantage of in FF14 also.

Flex raiding has it's own issues, particularly in the balance department. The only way to get a truly well balanced encounter is to have a set raid number, WoW admits this with Mythic being a set group size and is considered the 'real' raid tier.

[Kiara]

WoW flex loot is based off the group size, # drops = (# players) * .2 with the remainder being a percentage chance at an additional drop. Example being 16 folks would get 3 drops and a 20% chance at a 4th drop. If you've killed a boss for that week, you can't loot that boss and your presence isn't counted for # of drops.

So almost the exact same loot system that FBoC has now. It's rarely taken advantage of in WoW either, and from what I'm reading it's rarely taken advantage of in FF14 also.

Flex raiding has it's own issues, particularly in the balance department. The only way to get a truly well balanced encounter is to have a set raid number, WoW admits this with Mythic being a set group size and is considered the 'real' raid tier.

Thanks Ciana. Good to know.

At least with that flex system it sounds like more (or fewer) people in your FC/LS/Friends can participate, so your not always locked in to only have exactly 8 people for any raid.


I wonder if any other recent MMO's have a system that has the latitude to rotate in more than a fixed number of people (or you can run the same raid more than 1 time per week), without impacting the # of chests / rewards?

While I realize FF XI had simpler Boss battles, they at least had a system that afforded the flexibility for a variable number of players to run raids per week (or even rotate / drop and add to party as needed during the fight).

[Velhart]

They did this in 1.0 and there was 0 drama. We would either get a random primal weapon or grade 5 dark matter(They could use something else now, I'm sure), and once in a while a token (you'd need like 15 to turn in for weapon of your choice)

Why they changed it...I'll never know.

Were you around for 1.xx? Everyone and their mother complained about the loot system in 1.xx. No one enjoyed spamming primals/Aurum Vale/Cutter's Cry all day and night for no Darklight or weapons to drop. It is still one of the worst systems made and Yoshi-P at the time had to go out of his way to justify it. What is even more funny is they did add a token system to primals in 1.xx, except that itself was a very rare drop, just as rare as the weapons itself and only one person would get it in that run. You had to collect 10 of them to get a weapon of your choice.

Why they changed it? Yea, it is a great mystery. >_>

That being said, with how many jobs we will have in the upcoming years, the loot system is going to become chaotic if developers do not create a proper token system to counteract this. Thankfully they already confirmed one was in development for the expansion. How they will screw it up? We will just have to see.