Tomes vs random drops

[Kaurie]

You can get somewhat of an idea. Just look at gearing outside of tomestones. For example Mhach when released. There are complains about the tomestone system... but there is hate towards the rng drops.

What happens with those dungeons if the gear isn't relevant anymore, because without currency roulettes aren't needed anymore? Who would want to go ARF/Neverreap if they only drop ilvl 170 gear?
Who does lvl 50, if they only drop ARR gear?
So the 3.4 dungeons give 260 gear now.. what do the 3.45 give?

People already complain about burnout. A rng system only reinforces that.
Even if we assume someone's really only doing experts to cap their tomes... that's about 12*5 = 60 times the same 2 dungeons to cap tomes from 11/01/16 (3.45) to 01/24/17 (likely 3.5).
With rng that will only become more, with fun waiting for and fighting over loot every single run (unless premade group, which is better because of loot distribution then anyway).

RIP dutyfinder with a rng system and no currency.

Someone said it eloquently earlier in the thread, that an RNG system is not necessarily bad, it's how the RNG system is implemented. I don't think that the FFXIV dev team has found an RNG system that works well, but there are systems in other games of the genre which do.

Personally, I haven't run Neverreap in 1.5 years, and I've done ARF 5 times ever. I don't do 50 roulette. So, I guess from a personal perspective, I don't think they are doing a great job of encouraging me to want to run those instance. The only things in this game that I currently feel encouraged to run are expert roulettes (up to this week, now I have all my scripture gear I need, so I won't be capping any more), and Savage raids.

I'd rather systems which don't encourage burn out. I think RNG with small and frequent rewards is the way to go. FFXIV seems to excel in low drop rate, high reward, weekly lock out type RNG. I think a system which does not have a lockout, drops frequently, but only has a chance at small upgrades is more enjoyable. That way, every time I log in, I can obtain an upgrade and feel that my time was justified - even if it's just for a small boost. Instead of gaining major upgrades every week (i.e. every week I seem to gain ~20 INT and a bunch of secondary stats), I could gain a minor upgrade every day (i.e. +2 INT per day).

[Neophyte]

I'd rather systems which don't encourage burn out. I think RNG with small and frequent rewards is the way to go. FFXIV seems to excel in low drop rate, high reward, weekly lock out type RNG. I think a system which does not have a lockout, drops frequently, but only has a chance at small upgrades is more enjoyable. That way, every time I log in, I can obtain an upgrade and feel that my time was justified - even if it's just for a small boost. Instead of gaining major upgrades every week (i.e. every week I seem to gain ~20 INT and a bunch of secondary stats), I could gain a minor upgrade every day (i.e. +2 INT per day).

And where's the big difference to the tome system?

With daily/weekly lockout: You either do the same two dungeons (more than once) on a daily basis to progress (hopefully, because of RNG) or you fall behind other players with much more time on their hands to get their daily drop for sure. 20 days not running the same dungeons over and over again? The people who did are now +10-20 ilvls above you.
Also: If you're done, you're done (like now with scriptures).
Difference: You can catch up with a looooooot of time.

Without daily/weekly lockout: You either do the same two dungeons over and over again or you fall behind other players with much more time on their hands. 20 days not running the same dungeons over and over again? The people who did are now +10-20 ilvls above you.
Also: If you're done, you're done (like now with scriptures).

Actually, your system can be implemented with tomestones, too.
Like this:

• Buy base body armor (ilvl 250) for 525 tomes.
• Pay 30 tomes to upgrade the ilvl by 1 and raise the stats by 1-2 points.
• After having paid 825 tomestones you have an ilvl 260 armor.
• Instead of getting one big upgrade 260->270, you get ten "smaller" items from 24man runs (rng drop, 10 runs minimum for the full upgrade) and/or rng dropped form hunts (something like 10%) to level it one by one again. Drops in stacks of 10 in savage.

[Kaurie]

And where's the big difference to the tome system?

With daily/weekly lockout: You either do the same two dungeons (more than once) on a daily basis to progress (hopefully, because of RNG) or you fall behind other players with much more time on their hands to get their daily drop for sure. 20 days not running the same dungeons over and over again? The people who did are now +10-20 ilvls above you.
Well, difference: You can catch up with a looooooot of time.

Without daily/weekly lockout: You either do the same two dungeons over and over again or you fall behind other players with much more time on their hands. 20 days not running the same dungeons over and over again? The people who did are now +10-20 ilvls above you.


Actually, your system can be implemented with tomestones, too.
Like this:

• Buy base body armor (ilvl 250) for 525 tomes.
• Pay 30 tomes to upgrade the ilvl by 1 and raise an stats by 1-2 points.
• After having paid 825 tomestones you have an ilvl 260 armor.
• Instead of getting upgrade items from hunts (or 24 man), you get with x>10 runs and rng dropped form hunts ten "smaller" upgrade items to upgrade your body further level by level.

Agreed, I'd be supportive of small incremental upgrades being purchased with tomestones. While I'd prefer it as a drop, it is a decent compromise.

I don't really care if people out ilvl me if I am not playing in a hardcore fashion. For example, in WoW I am ilvl 840 and 849 on my two characters, which is far below what many others are now, but I am just enjoying my time as I gear up. In FFXIV, where I play more hardcore, I am the max ilvl possible, so that I can perform the best for my raid team. In other words, if you are the kind of player who needs to perform the best for your raid team, putting in that extra time to get there faster is not a big deal. If you are the kind of player who does not need that, you'll have fun incrementally getting better every time you log in, without having to worry about not being the top tier.

[Neophyte]

Agreed, I'd be supportive of small incremental upgrades being purchased with tomestones. While I'd prefer it as a drop, it is a decent compromise.

I don't really care if people out ilvl me if I am not playing in a hardcore fashion. For example, in WoW I am ilvl 840 and 849 on my two characters, which is far below what many others are now, but I am just enjoying my time as I gear up. In FFXIV, where Iplay more hardcore, I am the max ilvl possible, so that I can perform the best for my raid team. In other words, if you are the kind of player who needs to perform the best for your raid team, putting in that extra time to get there faster is not a big deal. If you are the kind of player who does not need that, you'll have fun incrementally getting better every time you log in, without having to worry about not being the top tier.

Then again, what's the difference to tomes? If you don't care about keeping up with others, you can log in whenever you want and get your (let's say incremental) upgrade with tomes. Just treat them as a "lucky" drop and upgrade your gear by +1. I guess you won't be unhappy with a 100% drop chance just by coincidence on your "drop items", so what's the difference? ^^

All this only boils down to ones question, and that's why the title of this topic is irritating. It's not RNG drops vs. tomestones, because tomestones can co-exist in a RNG system as the so-called "safety net" items (like the primal tokens) some people mentioned. They are literally the same as the tokens, a 100% guaranteed "drop" after a kill/clear, just across more than 1 content.
They could even work with RNG in terms of "by completing you may achieve a random ammount of tomes".
The one difference is: The lockout.

And that's why the topic should be: RNG drops VS. (weekly) lockouts. You either have RNG or a lockout or both.
Tokens/Tomestones are not the system, they are only parts of an RNG/lockout/RNG+lockout system, for example to soften it or as an instrument. Tomestones are pretty equal to an alexander normal loot drop: you can trade it for gear and you can't get more than X per week. The only difference ist that tomestones are guaranteed, you don't need to roll on them).

Both (or all three) different systems serve on purpose: We don't get everything as soon as it releases. SE won't change that.
So, even if the ex dungeons would drop ilvl260 they would be weekly gated, like e.g. Mhach was at release. So back to running 5+ times the dungeons a week. Up to 40 times? 60?

[Kaurie]

Then again, what's the difference to tomes? If you don't care about keeping up with others, you can log in whenever you want and get your (let's say incremental) upgrade with tomes. Just treat them as a "lucky" drop and upgrade your gear by +1. I guess you won't be unhappy with a 100% drop chance just by coincidence on your "drop items", so what's the difference? ^^

The difference is that tomestones work like a chore. You go and do a dungeon with 0 chance or 100% chance to get your item at the end. You're not doing it with hopes of obtaining the item, you're doing it to check off your list. The difference is that you obtain a big upgrade to your gear weekly, and then nothing. Rather than receiving frequent small upgrades to your gear. I said I do care about keeping up with others in FFXIV - and am relatively ahead of the pack (I am ilvl 266 atm, just needing good rolls on twine in my raid team to upgrade my chest/legs, and for a lucky drop or a couple more runs of A10S to obtain the pages for my 270 boots).

All this only boils down to ones question, and that's why the title of this topic is irritating. It's not RNG drops vs. tomestones, because tomestones can co-exist in a RNG system as the so-called "safety net" items (like the primal tokens) some people mentioned. They are literally the same as the tokens, a 100% guaranteed "drop" after a kill/clear, just across more than 1 content.
They could even work with RNG in terms of "by completing you may achieve a random ammount of tomes".
The one difference is: The lockout.

The issue is that places like Sophia/Alex have gear drops, in addition to their currency drop. Experts just have the currency drop. If your first expert per week dropped a random 260 gear piece that would be something, I guess. Still not a method I would use, but it's closer anyway.

And that's why the topic should be: RNG drops VS. (weekly) lockouts. You either have RNG or a lockout or both.
Tokens/Tomestones are not the system, they are only parts of an RNG/lockout/RNG+lockout system, for example to soften it or as an instrument. Tomestones are pretty equal to an alexander normal loot drop: you can trade it for gear and you can't get more than X per week. The only difference ist that tomestones are guaranteed, you don't need to roll on them).

Frankly, I disagree. It's RNG vs Tomestones vs RNG+Tomestones, and Lockouts vs No-Lockouts vs Lockouts+No-Lockouts.

Both (or all three) different systems serve on purpose: We don't get everything as soon as it releases. SE won't change that.
So, even if the ex dungeons would drop ilvl260 they would be weekly gated, like e.g. Mhach was at release. So back to running 5+ times the dungeons a week. Up to 40 times? 60?

I agree, longevity is important. I find that the current system supports a very high need to run something with a very sharp drop off half-way through the patch. I'd prefer slower incremental upgrade possibilities. Potentially, I'd prefer a system if gear in experts drop at ilvl 250, Alex NM 260, Alex Savage 270 and tomestones could be used to upgrade the gear 2x. So you could get your 250 drops in expert and upgrade them to 260 without raiding, or you could get 270 with Alex NM or 280 with savage (or something along those lines). This is in addition to tomestones being a currency to purchase the ilvl 250 gear that drops in expert, as well. This idea is not fully fleshed out though.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

Someone said it eloquently earlier in the thread, that an RNG system is not necessarily bad, it's how the RNG system is implemented. I don't think that the FFXIV dev team has found an RNG system that works well, but there are systems in other games of the genre which do.

Personally, I haven't run Neverreap in 1.5 years, and I've done ARF 5 times ever. I don't do 50 roulette. So, I guess from a personal perspective, I don't think they are doing a great job of encouraging me to want to run those instance. The only things in this game that I currently feel encouraged to run are expert roulettes (up to this week, now I have all my scripture gear I need, so I won't be capping any more), and Savage raids.

I'd rather systems which don't encourage burn out. I think RNG with small and frequent rewards is the way to go. FFXIV seems to excel in low drop rate, high reward, weekly lock out type RNG. I think a system which does not have a lockout, drops frequently, but only has a chance at small upgrades is more enjoyable. That way, every time I log in, I can obtain an upgrade and feel that my time was justified - even if it's just for a small boost. Instead of gaining major upgrades every week (i.e. every week I seem to gain ~20 INT and a bunch of secondary stats), I could gain a minor upgrade every day (i.e. +2 INT per day).

You not doing Neverreap or ARF doesn't mean they aren't done. One of the most frequent complaints I here regarding WoW is how dead most content is outside the current expansion. What you're advocating would only transition that same issue to FFXIV. There would be no reason to queue for anything except whatever's current. All the old dungeons still get fairly good queues despite some being several years old. It's also a bit silly to complaint about burn out running the same two Expert dungeons when the most optimal means of capping is to do all your roulettes. Granted, I do agree the two dungeon format they've stuck with for Heavensward needs improvement. Just not at the expense of rendering all old content obsolete.

More enjoyable for you, perhaps. I don't fancy having no control over my upgrades nor do I find RNG in anyway rewarding. Why? Because I'm not progressing. I am simply crossing my fingers and hoping lady luck was kind this time. If I get it on the first few attempts, sure, it's exciting to some extent. On the other hand, if I had to run Xelphatol 10+ times. I'll just get utterly sick of it. In fact, I stopped queuing for Alexander Normal because of that very reason. I no longer need gear from it unless I level up other classes and don't just craft 250 gear. It's needlessly tedious to roll against people and hope this time, I'll get lucky. Now I would necessarily be opposed to smaller upgrades at a more frequent pace, but FFXIV is never going to do away with weekly caps due to farming.

I don't really think that would be a good system to implement. Only because there was already a very heated debate about speed-runs here not too long ago. Adding i260 loot will only increase the pressure to speed-run Expert roulette, and, while its a common practice, it's not something that everyone should be pressured into doing. I just see this as something to already fuel the current abuse towards those that don't want to do speed runs or do Big Daddy pulls in Gubal HM/Xelphatol.

This. Healers refusing to DPS wouldn't just get judgmental groans. They would be straight up kicked from the party. As would any tank who dared to pull less than the entire room. Queue times would also slow considerably since it'd be far more efficient running with friends you know will handle the dungeon fast.