Please Eliminate or Reduce A Lot of the Pure RNG Design

[Chibilidawg]

Examples: Atma, Overmelding, TT Card Drops, or Zodiac.

Increasing Droprates is a nice sentiment but there are still those unlucky people who go 100+ FATE's without an Atma drop or buy 200+ Triple Triad matches without a Gaius Card or run 50 Aurum Vale's with no Zodiac item or lose 20 Grade IV Materium on a high-probability meld.

Please, we need scaling RNG (or whatever the term is); we need an increased drop rate per attempt up to a ceiling on certain contents.

Pure RNG has its merits for certain achievement items like minions, mounts, & vanities or things like Hunt Logs but I believe it to be too severely relied upon in a few other places.

I'm not asking for it to be eliminated altogether, just in key areas like where fair progression can be halted (e.g. relics).

I'm glad you guys are improving the looting systems for Heavensward but we also please need revisions to how you handle RNG in other areas as well.

A lot of this reliance is despised/loathed in MMO's & developers need to catch on more & more in general... please be the example SE!

Just because it's been worse historically in other titles or the system's seen widespread use... doesn't mean that it's a good or healthy approach to game design (at least, in some contents or features).

Also--humbly--may you please come chat with us on the PVP Forum & let's have a discussion if you could, sincerely please.

RNG is used to keep people hooked into the game. If you end up making things without RNG, the second you clear content and get your fat loot on the first try, you simply stop playing and paying until the next content, and smart developers don't want that...

For visibility on the others who don't finish reading threads:

"Pure RNG has its merits... but I believe it to be too severely relied upon..."

In other words, SE should keep it in some places, but they've overstuffed this game with it (imo).

Even the title of the OP includes, "in a lot of places."

Both explicit & implicit: not all.

[BlueThunder]

RNG is used to keep people hooked into the game. If you end up making things without RNG, the second you clear content and get your fat loot on the first try, you simply stop playing and paying until the next content, and smart developers don't want that.

RNG is part of an MMO experience, sure it can be frustrating, but its also what keeps us coming back to keep trying to get what we want.

[Riepah]

Yes. Yes, please. I beg you, so very hard. Besides the rampant spam, the RNG in this game is the very worst thing about it for me.

RNG is part of an MMO experience, sure it can be frustrating, but its also what keeps us coming back to keep trying to get what we want.

As BlueThunder is a fellow member of my FC, I can tell you that he's only fine with RNG because he's one of the luckiest people I've seen.

[Malevicton]

Well they've already announced that they're redesigning the loot drops. TT packs are part of a casino, so I don't really mind that being rng (plus you don't need those 2 specific cards for anything but completion).

[StrejdaTom]

RNG is kinda core system of every MMO if you want people to stay longer than one month. Other solution is to use high numbers like - kill 400 sahagins, get 1 atma.
I would rather stay with RNG.

Even with their ultra fast pace of implementing new content they cannot do it fast enough to keep people in game without RNG.

[SpiritMuse]

The problem with "pure" RNG is that if you're unlucky you can do everything right and still not win. That doesn't feel fair.

I do think the way to go is weighted RNG. Where the longer a thing fails to drop, the greater the chance. That way you can get lucky and get it quickly, but if you're unlucky you can keep going at it and eventually be guaranteed a drop.

Most importantly, you will KNOW you will get it eventually, even if it takes a long time, as opposed to the current system where you continually have to keep hoping you'll get lucky and there is a chance you may never get your drop.

[Naliee]

[Zfz]

I'm fine with capped RNG. As games tend to serve the "busy" player more and more, it does make sense to shift away from uncapped RNG.

But that is with regards to compulsory RNG. Like materia overmelds on crafter and gather gear. You simply cannot progress (at one stage, before tradable higher-tier gear was available) without suffering through the RNG.

The Relic though, is itself a completely optional content not necessary for gear progression. I'd love to see its drops capped somehow, but I wouldn't mind if it's kept at its current state since realistically we could all progress through the game without ever touching the Relic quest line.

[kyuven]

Plain and simple this isn't going to happen. Human beings will persist so long as there is a *chance* at getting what they want.
They want you to keep playing and spending money. That is their goal. That will always their goal, that will never not be their goal. Naturally, a FUN game keeps you playing, but players will always earn things faster than the developers can create them.
Thus the conundrum. They need to keep people playing from one month to the next, but if they make quests require too much "stuff," i.e. have mat/quest item lists a mile long, they run the risk of it appearing daunting to players.
Which would you prefer? Having to do 50 fates within a zone to get the atma you need, or a CHANCE you would get it on the first?
Statistically, most human beings would choose the latter. And the latter can and will take longer than the former. And if it's really not clear why they would want you to spend more time playing the game, I really don't know what to tell you.
Cuz there's something important to remember: If you finish everything in game, you will leave. You will cancel your subscription until the next "big thing," which you will complete and then leave again til the next one. They are not making money off you during this time. This is bad for them.
Moreover FAIL chance is also important, but for a completely different reason. If you can't tell by now, Materia is probably the most financially lucrative item type in the entire game. Crafters need it, gatherers need it, people working on zodiac need it, and min maxers need it. If there was no fail chance, it wouldn't be nearly as valuable as it is.
If you want a comparison, there are MAAAAANY games that offer a system similar to materia that has no fail chance and can be removed. They're, proportionally, worth much less than the equivalent materia (barring ones that are raid drops) since you can pop em out and resell em, and they never break.
In short, the RNG is here to stay because the benefits of it outweigh the detriments. After all, you'll get what it's gating eventually. You just need time.

Now, if they start adding "lucky boxes" with prizes greater than allagan coins, THEN I'll be pissed.

[Elmeron]

I agree with this thread. I have found myself slowly playing less and less as I've discovered end-game mechanics seem to have RNG designs or designs meant to increase sub-time vs. fun-time in everything!

From the relic quest-line, to the gold saucer (I don't mind RNG to a point, but when I spend 3 days trying to get cards from one NPC it goes beyond that "certain point" into realms of ridiculousness), to cross-class skills requiring you to level up more than one class (I thought this was an option originally for those who liked making alts in games to see the other classes, but instead it basically forces you to level up other classes to get skills deemed "essential" for endgame content), to crafting (I am sorry, but crafting should be purely skill-based), loot drops (I would have zero problem with RNG loot drops, but with the way FFXIV has a crap-ton of classes and plans to add more with the expansion, it is a problem; I've seriously only seen loot for my class drop once in WoD and that happened to be the first time I did WoD and without even thinking I had put greed for another item, and since this was before the patch I could only get 1 piece of gear per week so I was out of luck... I was pretty unhappy to say the least lol), and who knows what else I'm missing.

RNG-like designs are stuffed to bursting into FFXIV, and if this were the only problem, it wouldn't be so bad. With RMT and how little legitimate economic options there are to make gil within the game (sorry, but dungeon grinding for gil and soul-bonding for materia are not actual game mechanics like crafting, so in all reality you are very limited in the ways that you can make gil unless you think crafting is fun, which I don't...), it's not really difficult for me to imagine people wanting to buy gil so they can get what they want without spending possibly weeks or months dealing with RNG instead.