Ifirit, how it could have been done better.

[Ava]

WoW also has a lockout.. I'd rather do Ifrit 100 times a week than 1 time for a guaranteed drop.

10 - 15 hours doing Ifrit and only saw 5 items? I'm guessing you wiped a lot or had breaks. We see a drop pretty much every other run, though sometimes not at all for a few runs, then back to back for several runs. Duplicates are the only issue I have.

We did around 6-7 hours solid no wipes at all, the second group had a hard time and we wiped some, yes. I'm not exactly sure how many drops we had, but only 2 people actually got "new" drops. A sword and my fists. I assumed the number ~5-6 considering the rate at which others were seeing drops, but they were likely all duplicates.

I don't understand what point you're trying to make mentioning lockouts. (Let me elaborate). Are you arguing that SE should appeal to the audience of people that want to do 100 Ifrits in a week? Good luck getting those monthly fees from people lol.

[RemVye]

We did around 6-7 hours solid no wipes at all, the second group had a hard time and we wiped some, yes. I'm not exactly sure how many drops we had, but only 2 people actually got "new" drops. A sword and my fists. I assumed the number ~5-6 considering the rate at which others were seeing drops, but they were likely all duplicates.

I don't understand what point you're trying to make mentioning lockouts. (Let me elaborate). Are you arguing that SE should appeal to the audience of people that want to do 100 Ifrits in a week? Good luck getting those monthly fees from people lol.

Are you trying to say they should appeal to the audience of people that want to log in for one night a week beat the newest instance / boss and then log on next week?

I'm really not saying anything.. for myself, the fight is fun - albeit a little too easy at this point but still fun. I personally would rather do 100 Ifrit fights than 1 and be locked out.

Edit: Oh and even in WoW's lockout system you might not get your drop. You could get the same drops for weeks on end. So I would def rather try my luck at 500 Ifrit attempts in a month than 4 chances at my drop in WoW.

[Ava]

Are you trying to say they should appeal to the audience of people that want to log in for one night a week beat the newest instance / boss and then log on next week?

I'm really not saying anything.. for myself, the fight is fun - albeit a little too easy at this point but still fun. I personally would rather do 100 Ifrit fights than 1 and be locked out.

Edit: Oh and even in WoW's lockout system you might not get your drop. You could get the same drops for weeks on end. So I would def rather try my luck at 500 Ifrit attempts in a month than 4 chances at my drop in WoW.

That's exactly what I'm saying. Those people's monthly fee is worth just as much as yours, and there are more of them than you. Hence why WoW, Rift, and soon to be SWTOR are among the only widely successful MMORPGs. They appeal to that very crowd - the majority. Now, of course, they can't ignore the group that wants to do Ifrit 100 times in one week, so they should still provide hardcore content, but it should come AFTER the casual content because the casuals will bring in the $$$.

Edit: An example of making Ifrit both casual and hardcore without removing the "uniqueness" from the game (crafters wont be happy but this is just an off-the-top-of-my-head suggestion) would be to use the token idea I mentioned above and instead of buying weapons, perhaps you can use the tokens to "unlock" the weapons and allow you to apply materia to them. They could maybe incorporate crafters in with it by using an enchantment type system but I don't think the UI could support that right now. Either way, they don't need to segregate the casuals and hardcores, just make the content multi-tiered so casuals can do it and get stuff, but hardcores can do it and get even more/better stuff.

[RemVye]

That's exactly what I'm saying. Those people's monthly fee is worth just as much as yours, and there are more of them than you. Hence why WoW, Rift, and soon to be SWTOR are among the only widely successful MMORPGs. They appeal to that very crowd - the majority. Now, of course, they can't ignore the group that wants to do Ifrit 100 times in one week, so they should still provide hardcore content, but it should come AFTER the casual content because the casuals will bring in the $$$.

Ok that 100 times was an exaggeration, so let's drop that. You're starting to make it sound like its necessary; which it's not. You have just as much chance to get your drop on the first attempt as you do in WoW on your first attempt.

Don't think that I'm ignorant enough to believe WoW is unsuccessful, but the fact is that game is dying. RIFT has a crowd but it's basically WoW 2.0 with slight variation and most people I've heard said it's the same thing (I thought it was identical as soon as I played for 2 minutes in the beta. Beta for 4 hours was all I had played that though.) As for SWToR... who knows how that's going to fair, it's got a lot of copies pre-ordered but you never know.

Ifrit is casual, you just have the OPTION to do it as many times as you like. Luck can be on your side and you get all the drops in 7 runs... or against you and it takes 150+.

We all know there is a problem with the loot distribution, but making an auto drop + lockout system would be donkey sh*t in my opinion. Locking people out of the limited content that exists would be playerbase suicide, in my most humble opinion.

[NoctisUmbra]

Ok that 100 times was an exaggeration, so let's drop that. You're starting to make it sound like its necessary; which it's not. You have just as much chance to get your drop on the first attempt as you do in WoW on your first attempt.

Don't think that I'm ignorant enough to believe WoW is unsuccessful, but the fact is that game is dying. RIFT has a crowd but it's basically WoW 2.0 with slight variation and most people I've heard said it's the same thing (I thought it was identical as soon as I played for 2 minutes in the beta. Beta for 4 hours was all I had played that though.) As for SWToR... who knows how that's going to fair, it's got a lot of copies pre-ordered but you never know.

Ifrit is casual, you just have the OPTION to do it as many times as you like. Luck can be on your side and you get all the drops in 7 runs... or against you and it takes 150+.

We all know there is a problem with the loot distribution, but making an auto drop + lockout system would be donkey sh*t in my opinion. Locking people out of the limited content that exists would be playerbase suicide, in my most humble opinion.

The Logic Train has a new conductor today.

[Ava]

Ok that 100 times was an exaggeration, so let's drop that. You're starting to make it sound like its necessary; which it's not. You have just as much chance to get your drop on the first attempt as you do in WoW on your first attempt.

Don't think that I'm ignorant enough to believe WoW is unsuccessful, but the fact is that game is dying. RIFT has a crowd but it's basically WoW 2.0 with slight variation and most people I've heard said it's the same thing (I thought it was identical as soon as I played for 2 minutes in the beta. Beta for 4 hours was all I had played that though.) As for SWToR... who knows how that's going to fair, it's got a lot of copies pre-ordered but you never know.

Ifrit is casual, you just have the OPTION to do it as many times as you like. Luck can be on your side and you get all the drops in 7 runs... or against you and it takes 150+.

We all know there is a problem with the loot distribution, but making an auto drop + lockout system would be donkey sh*t in my opinion. Locking people out of the limited content that exists would be playerbase suicide, in my most humble opinion.

Not sure where you are reading anything about lockout. I never mentioned a single thing about lockout at all. In fact, I would agree - there should not be a lockout. Ifrit is casual in the sense you can do it whenever/however many times you want, but when someone does 10 Ifrits and only gets one drop which they can't use, while other people toss out their duplicates that person could use, well it's not so casual anymore.

[RemVye]

Not sure where you are reading anything about lockout. I never mentioned a single thing about lockout at all. In fact, I would agree - there should not be a lockout. Ifrit is casual in the sense you can do it whenever/however many times you want, but when someone does 10 Ifrits and only gets one drop which they can't use, while other people toss out their duplicates that person could use, well it's not so casual anymore.

I brought up lockouts because you were talking about WoW's raid and loot system. If you were to make Ifrit auto-drop every run, it would only take one day (maybe up to 3) to get everything.

As stated dozens of times already, we know there is a problem with the current loot system. We are spinning in circles here, the simple solutions (in my most humble opinion)...

A.) Do not allow duplicate weapons to be in the chest as a reward
*Prevents the items from falling to the ground, allows for the players to have a higher rate of success for obtaining the items

B.) Lower the drop rate and create a "group" chest (similar to batraal)
*Players can distribute the items as they see fit, drop rate is low so the time for you to get 7/7 weapons will be increased.
*For a "hard" fight there should not be auto-loot. Ifrit is the same as any NM in the game, they have a chance to drop loot and maybe you get it on your first kill.. sometimes it takes up to an hour or more and 50+ kills to get that drop.


C.) No more weapons are obtained from the chest, instead an item (Horn for instance) is obtained which can be traded to a vendor for the item of your choice.
*Similar to option A, but this guarantee's you get the item you desire

D.) You get "tokens" for kill Ifrit and you use the tokens to purchase items
*Similar to option C, but now everything has a set duration... XX kills = weapon XX * Y = 7/7 weapons. "I have to kill Ifrit 100 times and I'll have them all"



I opt for more random loot measures (option A preferably or option B) rather than the latter options. Having this randomness increases the duration of the content.

You will always get those people who "just want the lance then im done" for example. If these people can choose their loot it will lead to less people are doing the content and it slowly becoming a struggle for newer people to complete the content. Yes - that's their choice if they want to do it a few times and never again, but with the current limited playerbase SE needs a looting system that will keep players coming online and playing together.

Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on your view) the current loot system accomplishes this task, but in a manner that is not befitting to the current MMO standard.

No need to fear, for your savior and mine, the great Yoshi-p has stepped up and decided to make alterations to the current primal loot system.

[Ava]

I brought up lockouts because you were talking about WoW's raid and loot system. If you were to make Ifrit auto-drop every run, it would only take one day (maybe up to 3) to get everything.

As stated dozens of times already, we know there is a problem with the current loot system. We are spinning in circles here, the simple solutions (in my most humble opinion)...

A.) Do not allow duplicate weapons to be in the chest as a reward
*Prevents the items from falling to the ground, allows for the players to have a higher rate of success for obtaining the items

B.) Lower the drop rate and create a "group" chest (similar to batraal)
*Players can distribute the items as they see fit, drop rate is low so the time for you to get 7/7 weapons will be increased.
*For a "hard" fight there should not be auto-loot. Ifrit is the same as any NM in the game, they have a chance to drop loot and maybe you get it on your first kill.. sometimes it takes up to an hour or more and 50+ kills to get that drop.


C.) No more weapons are obtained from the chest, instead an item (Horn for instance) is obtained which can be traded to a vendor for the item of your choice.
*Similar to option A, but this guarantee's you get the item you desire

D.) You get "tokens" for kill Ifrit and you use the tokens to purchase items
*Similar to option C, but now everything has a set duration... XX kills = weapon XX * Y = 7/7 weapons. "I have to kill Ifrit 100 times and I'll have them all"



I opt for more random loot measures (option A preferably or option B) rather than the latter options. Having this randomness increases the duration of the content.

You will always get those people who "just want the lance then im done" for example. If these people can choose their loot it will lead to less people are doing the content and it slowly becoming a struggle for newer people to complete the content. Yes - that's their choice if they want to do it a few times and never again, but with the current limited playerbase SE needs a looting system that will keep players coming online and playing together.

Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on your view) the current loot system accomplishes this task, but in a manner that is not befitting to the current MMO standard.

No need to fear, for your savior and mine, the great Yoshi-p has stepped up and decided to make alterations to the current primal loot system.

You're entitled to your opinion, but myself and most people I know would not pay a monthly fee for your game. I know a lot of this community is a part of a minority in terms of what people want in MMOs, and it's up to Square to decide who they want to appeal to.

Some napkin math:

If you have a group of 8 people in a game with 7 classes and each Ifrit had a 100% chance to drop 2 weapons, 30% chance to drop 3, and a 5% chance to drop 4 and people were able to pass loot to other, assuming you get zero duplicates (I disagree with no duplicates under this system, duplicates would be fine). This is a 100% chance that in 28 Ifrits everyone in the party gets every weapon worst case. Best case it takes 14 (not a math major so feel free to correct me). After seeing this math myself, I would re-evaluate and say Ifrit should drop 1-3 weapons, with duplicates possible.

If you think people want to do one encounter a hundred times for weapons, you're seriously out of your mind. Drop the XI mentality where only the hardcores can have ridills or adaberks or salvage sets etc. Even if you look at the most hardcore guilds in other games, you would lucky if you found anyone with even over 20 kills of a single boss during a single content cycle. It's not something people like to do, it promotes burnout and people wont pay a monthly fee for that.