Stop relying on RNG for loot drops.

[Elusana_Celah]

The more time you waste grinding for things such as glamor, the more subscription payments SE has gotten from you since you are still grinding away with their gambling system rather than maxing out everything in their game in a week and moving on to the next MMO.

[Gilthas]

The more time you waste grinding for things such as glamor, the more subscription payments SE has gotten from you since you are still grinding away with their gambling system rather than maxing out everything in their game in a week and moving on to the next MMO.

True, but it's also true that if you go too far with the grind, players will leave too because the game is no longer satisfying.

Personally, I no longer feel like doing Ex fights for mounts. DoH and DoL content also no longer interest me because of the grind. And so on and so forth.

[Elusana_Celah]

True, but it's also true that if you go too far with the grind, players will leave too because the game is no longer satisfying.

Personally, I no longer feel like doing Ex fights for mounts. DoH and DoL content also no longer interest me because of the grind. And so on and so forth.

Well SE isn't innovative, they just want to rehash an overused and boring MMO content concept because it works. Unfortunately it works. I'm not a supporter of RNG and RNG has a tendency to make me red in the face from anger and frustration. The coil RNG is the most poorly designed game system I've ever seen in my life.

>If one person has cleared for the week, the rest of the party is forced to one chest. If 5 people in the party have cleared, there is NO chest.
>If you try to clear FCoB out of order like you do T12 first, you can't get any loot from T10-T11.
>Regardless of if you win loot or not, you get thrown into this lockout anyways just for winning the content.
>It discourages community organized runs and forces you into statics so you can assure that you are getting 2 chests for that week. You could try it in party finder but then you got the RNG of if the players are patient to work through the content and actually good enough to beat it.

Regardless of the chest lockout, it's still RNG on what drops. You could clear T13 and see the same weapon drop for 5 weeks in a row meaning your static essentially gets NO weapons for 5 weeks straight. Then when all is said and done, congratulations on your loot that's going to be obsolete in 3.0 :3

Frankly, that is very very poor game design and Yoshi should be ashamed of himself for either thinking of that or approving that into the game. I hope 3.0 does NOT consider a system that retarded or chances are people will get fed up with the game period.

[Purrfectstorm]

Token systems are boring and RNG systems are exciting. However, RNG can be frustrating, which is why it's nice to have both. But I don't think we need token and RNG systems for everything.

Also, I think some items should be rare. However, if items are too rare, players won't even bother trying to get them and they'll be reserved only for players who do the content a few times (for some unrelated reason) and get really lucky (this might be ok, but it won't motivate players to "farm" the content). Another thing to look out for is if too many items are rare, the game can feel too grindy and players will get frustrated and bored with that too.

But as a game developer, you are limited in how much content you can release so you have to find ways to get players to "waste their time." And as a player you hope you're "wasting" this time in a way that is actually fun, since you are, you know, playing a game.

I am personally fine with having to "compete" with other players for a loot drop. However, if you have a competitive system and rare loot drops, it minimizes the impact of trying to get veterans to run old content to help newbies. If you have to run the content 100 times then you want to run it with experienced, geared players only and preferably with the same group so that each person gets a turn at the loot.

This is one advantage to an endgame static, if you lose a tank body piece one week you are guaranteed it the next time it drops. If you run endgame content with a PUG then not only is it harder to consistently win but you might lose the same piece of loot 10x in a row to a different tank.

I agree with the OP in a sense - the loot system needs to be reworked in some ways. But I don't agree it should be reworked by getting rid of RNG. Maybe drop rates should be improved on some things. Maybe there should be more loot that is actually interesting in some way. And maybe BiS items should come from more sources than tokens/Coil (e.g. crafting).

The most obnoxious thing for me is the difficulty finding capable players to farm content if you have to run that content 100+ times. In this way, the loot system isn't the ONLY problem, it's also the fact that one bad player can wipe the entire group. If gear was > mechanics you could have a good or well-geared player make up for a bad or under-geared player. This doesn't mean the game needs to become easier per se. It's possible to design hard encounters that don't require 100% perfect coordination. Enemies might do more damage, for example, and failed mechanics might make them do even more.

As it is now, farming a lot of endgame content is only possible in PF with "Watch a video, know the fight, have cleared" kind of requirements. Maybe that's fine, maybe it's not, but I think it's a persuasive argument against the "make veterans have to play the content forever so new players can find groups" design philosophy.

[Aivi_lo]

I'd love to be able to trade my 100+bits of diamond dust for a pony. Sadly I don't have a static or group so I have to roll against 7 new people each time

[Zantitrach]

The coil RNG is the most poorly designed game system I've ever seen in my life.

>If one person has cleared for the week, the rest of the party is forced to one chest. If 5 people in the party have cleared, there is NO chest.
>If you try to clear FCoB out of order like you do T12 first, you can't get any loot from T10-T11.
>Regardless of if you win loot or not, you get thrown into this lockout anyways just for winning the content.
>It discourages community organized runs and forces you into statics so you can assure that you are getting 2 chests for that week. You could try it in party finder but then you got the RNG of if the players are patient to work through the content and actually good enough to beat it.

Can't have done many MMO's have you?

[Vaer]

Doubt it's going to change. Everything they add has some sort of RNG to it and if it's some sort of steady progression it would still be a ton of work. (i.e. Nexus relics when they were first released, Fenrir)

Even if they did add some kind of token system, they would probably make you do like 10-20 runs for each piece anyway. I mean I guess it's better than rolling dice and fighting over loot but it would probably still be quite a bit of work to guarantee a piece most likely.

[Hiruke]

Why? You re not entitled to get the mount. Its pureley cosmetic. It doesnt run faster than a regular chocobo.

So? It's clearly meant to be something people want. Why not make it an attainable goal, rather than pure lottery? Does this healer I carried through their first attempt/win on Shiva EX ever deserve a mount? I hope so, because they got one. Good system!

the aim of this mount grind is to ensure that enough experienced players will be running the EX even when the 3.0 will be released . This way, new players will always get a team to do this kind of content.

Bolded for hilarity. If you think this is the goal, then this has been a MASSIVE FAILURE. I don't know if you've, you know, been in DF or PF pretty much ever, but the only primal you can reliably down without specifically recruiting people you know aren't terrible (as opposed to the open casting call of DF or PF) is whatever the most recent/relevant one is. You still fail Shiva at least half the time in DF, and you're super lucky if you can clear literally any other EX primal. And this is if you're a competent player mostly carrying as much as you can. I can't imagine what the win rate is for people who are themselves terrible.

See Ultima. It doesnt drop any mount. GL trying to get a DF for Ultima s Bane as a newcomer nowadays.

The low drop rate of EX mounts is cool and same with TT cards. Old HM / EX trials wont become empty

Sure, they're unwinnable with most randoms, but hey. At least you can get in there to fail, amirite? Also, I don't know about you all, but I'd love to continue doing trials long after they aren't relevant anymore, because they are the most fun fights in the game. If SE really wanted people to do these fights, and actually care about winning, trials would have their own currency you can't obtain in dungeons/anywhere else, and only the EX versions would give that currency, preferably in the form of an EX trial roullette. Or some other objective that you can obtain repeatedly (that is exclusive/relevant), rather than a mount you get then peace out.

Can't have done many MMO's have you?

This is absolutely irrelevant to whether or not it's good design, and a poor excuse for lack of innovation if something that is a "staple" of a genre is determined to be, you know, not good.

[Staris]

True, but it's also true that if you go too far with the grind, players will leave too because the game is no longer satisfying.

Personally, I no longer feel like doing Ex fights for mounts. DoH and DoL content also no longer interest me because of the grind. And so on and so forth.

players leave more often when they get all the loot they want and get bored.

[Kumabear76]

Although I have had many moments where I wanted to scream at the unfair RNG, it is there for a reason. Let's look at things from the other perspective.

If RNG did not exist, then everyone would have every thing they wanted in a very quick amount of time. That's when you get the majority of players looking around saying "I'm bored" or "There's no endgame content", and un-sub. Developing new content for any game, especially and MMO, takes an extremely large amount of time and resources. Having mass subscription exodus's because of boredom kills the financial backing to develop more content.

I don't think the RNG is so much the problem. I think the player base's mentality has changed over the years. Back during Everquest and earlier MMO's, RNG wasn't seen as some evil force working against you. Players understood it was a gamble and were extremely proud of their loot hen they got it. In today's MO scene, many players expect their drops and are profoundly upset when they don't get it.

Now just to clarify, I'm not saying RNG is perfect, but I am saying it's better than the alternative.

Also, there was a previous post where someone did Garuda Ex over 100 times and no pony. TBH, I'd be pissed. Not gonna lie. So I understand your frustration. But to those who whine about not getting a drop after 5-10 attempts? No, I have no empathy for you.