Yoshi P, is this what you wanted? (Terra Branford Blues)

[Zanarken]

So if they know what the mean will be for the overall experience, maybe just chop it off based on standard deviations.

Here is the problem:

From the programmer's perspective it is a consistent random formula because when you look at ALL PLAYERS drop rates, there is a clear pattern and enough drops are happening per hour (or whatever criteria they are using as the barometer) that the devs feel the system is balanced. Programmers however... tend to be the absolute worst people at designing any kind of content involving randomness because they look at it purely from a mathematical perspective, not from the individual user experience level. This is because of the unique way engineers think about problems; they tend to take a top-down approach rather than a bottom-up approach. They tend to start with "this is how our numbers will work" rather than "this is how the user experience should be".

As such, you have individuals like yourself who get completely screwed in the process. I'm in a similar predicament. Meanwhile, there are those who are blessed by the RNG gods, who have everything imaginable showered down upon them. It has become so commonplace they believe they are entitled to it & that everything is working as intended. The mere mention of a safety net, or any mechanism that might curb this disparity is quickly struck down by these individuals.

[Chek]

Feeling the OP. Farming Swift for the 5 star card (countless windows played), Terra (40~ish Dragon's Neck fights) and Gaius (1k+ matches won and a few Praetorium's thrown in) and I'm feeling some serious burn right now.

[Madigari]

It just wouldn't be FFXIV without RNG. The game's motto should really be changed to "Progression is for the lucky." They can't even stop themselves in press conferences. They had to throw RNG into their PAX audiences.

Personally, I'm having a similar problem with Moggle Mog XII card. I have been running nothing but Thornmarch HM and Thornmarch EX since I got my Zodiac (though far, far fewer of the latter), because I thought, "Well, this will be nice. The Mahatma are easy to fill, and I can run whatever I'd like for them, so I can do my Zeta while I farm for cards." A week later, I've never had HM in bonus window, I've only made two "successful" (read: running once or twice) EX "farm" parties, the card has never dropped for me, yet I'm almost done with my 8th Mahatma.

MEX might be a higher drop rate, but every time I get a MEX party going, it takes 2+ hours for it to fill because everyone hates the fight, they only want to farm it for two runs, then everyone who gets their card (sometimes in both runs) drops after the second time because they're so sick of running Thornmarch from spamming HM that they want to be done with it forever. Meanwhile, I, who didn't get my card, am now faced with the option of grinding MHM for another unproductive week (or more) or wasting my entire available gameplay time trying to find more people who A) watch the enemy HP bars/can control their urge to kill every moogle they touch before all of them are weakened; B) actually want to do the fight; and C) will hopefully stick around for longer than it takes for them and them alone to get their card, because when one-two people leave the party, everyone else drops out like they're abandoning the Titanic.

I genuinely consider leaving this game over this card. It might sound like an overreaction to some, but when you only have so much time to play the game, spending all of it grinding your wheels and getting nowhere on content that is meaningful to you is extremely demoralizing. Yoshi, it's really time to take RNG off your friend list. It's a toxic relationship that's starting to affect people around you.

[Osteichthyes]

A lot of people would say that the RNG grind is just a part of playing an MMO, but it is a little ridiculous at this stage. The whole premise of "We don't want you to collect all the legendary cards too quickly" is completely moronic. You can't even use them, so holding them behind low drop rates just artificially extends playtime. In order to actually collect all the cards is looking to be a monolithic waste of your life for something that literally has no effect and can't even be used for fun. If this method of item acquisition continues I foresee a lot of people jumping ship.

It consumes so much time to gather the over-expensive MGP to buy the packs that only give the same 3 cards that have terrible trade in values in order to get that stupid card that only comes from the packs, I have to ask why? I've dropped over 75k on card packs, and I haven't got anything higher than two stars (all gold packs). Why is playtime being valued so much higher than fun content?

[ServerCollaps]

I loved the game, but that's past tense. I'm a pretty loyal player, but when I was farming Gaius after probably 15+h of game time and seeing people get their cards in under an hour, I seriously started to think about quitting for a few months.

dont beat the garlean for the gaius card, beat him for the mgp
you'll get plenty of them on your way to the 1mil

I got my first card after 1.5k wins, but I didnt care because I knew I had to beat him 10k times anyway
I just got my 6th gaius card and I'm not even half way to the cloud card =/

same with kan-e-senna, I'd to beat the npc several 100 times for my first senna card, yesterday I got my 21th and it just became some free mgp, nothing else

theres no point in hurrying with all these cards, you still have months of time until new ones get released

[Gallus]

The problem isn't getting gaius card or terra's card, it's the way you are supposed to get them. Potentially 1000 Ultros & Typhoon battles? Thank you, but I think I'm gonna have to pass. It's the same damn old thing, they release new content with ridiculous rate drops (not even 1%, probably 0.5% etc. we are getting to sick levels), and then, they trash it out a few months later. Wanna bet something that Terra's Branford card will be almost given for free in a few months once it goes onto the "outdated content shelf"?
I'm honestly starting to get tired of the same thing over and over again, they have millions of ways to keep people busy without forcing them to get through these brutally horrendous drop rates which involve spamming a boss hundreds of times. As much as I like this game, and as much as I think Yoshi is such a cool person, I'm at the verge of cancelling my sub, I strongly feel they are making a brutal abuse of the RNG.

[CompSci88]

Congrats Octopus. Finally you got it.

[Riepah]

Completely agree - pure RNG is disgusting. Anything that you can't influence at all should have a safeguard implemented so people can't get heavily screwed over. Grind is fine - but grind should be fair and proper, you should be inching closer to your goal if you are dedicated, no matter how unlucky you are. What should be rewarded is work and dedication - not just random luck.

[QuinceTaru]

Momoko, I know you've been playing since the beginning, so this is especially meaningful. I really wonder about the lengths to which they will test our passion for, and our loyalty to, the game. This recent trial combined with how the RNG has ramped up over the patches, I've put serious thought into quitting as well, but I've bitched out every time. Maybe we're just suckers and SE knows we'll always come crawling back in the end.

I feel you pain i stopped doing dragons neck after 200 runs, if it wasnt for my friends in game i would have been gone a long time ago Good friend make the RNG drops not so bad!

[Riepah]

Good friend make the RNG drops not so bad!

The problem is that the nature of RNG makes playing with friends a pain in the long run. If one friend gets their drop after a while, and the other still didn't get it after ages of trying, the former friend will eventually get tired of rerunning the RNG content over and over after they got what they needed, and would instead like to focus on RNG grind of something they didn't get yet.

Zodiac is a good example of that. The fastest way to complete it is to run solo - because if you run it with friends, and you get your drop before your friend, you're stuck re-running a dungeon that has become worthless to you until your friend gets the drop as well. Rather than promoting playing together with people, it promotes selfishness.