All Greed on Alliance loot

[kikix12]

Why does there need to be a 'compromise'?

Instead of getting irked at the word "compromise", I suggest actually reading the post to the end and thinking about what's being suggested.

I'm not talking about a compromise between players and developers where both sides lose. I'm talking about a compromise between the players that want everything they can get their hands on and the players that want to get the items they actually need.

The players that genuinely need something, will be able to get it without having to compete against everyone and their mother. The players that do not need it but want will be able to get stuff they wouldn't have a chance of ever getting due to someone else having need privilege despite not needing it. Though it works at that time in both sides.

But you already can't turn lighthouse gear in for seals or desynth, so that isn't an issue. Why would someone be needing it multiple times?

You can't...yet. There are people that don't care about the gear there at all cause they have better gear anyway. They run it for whatever other reason (like the minion). But since they're there, they may just greed on everything else anyway.

The problem with this solution is that it requires a bunch of server resources to track if you've already gotten it or not, to solve a problem that doesn't really exist.

The resources you are talking about are actually miniscule. It's a simple flag. A few bits of information (bits as in binary unit) for piece of gear. Whenever you type a full phrase in chat you are using more resources than doing that for an entire raids drop list.

The easy fix is to put it back to how it was before. That's worked pretty well for two decades in MMOs.

That's not a fix. That's returning to a state that was broken for different reason. And there are many things that worked "pretty well" for all sorts of thing. Bikes worked pretty well for few centuries. Were our ancestors supposed to stay with bikes? Pretty sure you're glad they didn't, and invented cars, trains and the like.

[Penthea]

But all content they do before that is need/greed. These now just work differently than everything else because reasons.

Yea this is my point. Everything up to the first unlockable alliance raid is need/greed/pass, and that is quite a lot of content. New players will go to the alliance raid expecting the same loot system they have been exposed to, and...then they'll find there's no need button despite the fact that the gear states only certain classes can equip it.

There isn't even an obvious in-game reason for it. The loot aren't special tokens, special gear or anything different. Nothing indicates why alliance loot is treated differently. Having no need button for no apparent reason could very much look like a bug to someone who isn't aware of the change.

[FudoMyoo]

I am ok with this change, at least I can go to 24 man raid using the job i like and loot for my other classes?

[Tridus]

The resources you are talking about are actually miniscule. It's a simple flag. A few bits of information (bits as in binary unit) for piece of gear. Whenever you type a full phrase in chat you are using more resources than doing that for an entire raids drop list.

No it's not. Storing it as a flag requires creating a value to flip the flag bit in, and you'll need a flag bit for every piece of loot this applies to (a frequently growing list). That also provides you with no audit trail for when the item was acquired in the first place, making it hard for GMs to respond to support tickets about it without a secondary audit log being created somewhere.

You then need that value loaded for every player in every instance. You'll need to persist it back out every time someone wins an item. You'll need to communicate it to every client so that the client knows if they can hit need or not (when client/server communication load is already an issue). You'll need to know which bit corresponds to which item, so the item database will need a value to use to correlate those.

Meanwhile, a chat message is sent from one client, relayed to some others, persisted to logs for enforcement purposes, and promptly forgotten about. The server doesn't have to refer to it again, doesn't have to keep it in memory, and doesn't have to keep it in sync with the client.

Also, someone has to spend the time developing and testing that, as opposed to something players actually want.

That's not a fix. That's returning to a state that was broken for different reason. And there are many things that worked "pretty well" for all sorts of thing. Bikes worked pretty well for few centuries. Were our ancestors supposed to stay with bikes? Pretty sure you're glad they didn't, and invented cars, trains and the like.

No, it wasn't broken. It worked fine at what it was intended to do: support the etiquette that came about in MMOs over the years where someone on the job in question gets priority over someone who wants to gear an alt. That worked fine. There weren't tons of threads complaining about how bad it was (in fact ,there was none). It's still the default system in every other roulette in the game.

If it's good enough for nearly the entire game, it doesn't sound very broken to me. Not to mention that your proposed fix is to put it back to how it was, except in a more complicated way. Your proposal lets people need again, exactly how it was before, except they can't do it twice, which was hardly a problem in the first place.

Meanwhile, this change has done something that almost never happens: get the community in multiple languages to agree on something in overwhelming numbers. SE decided to find a problem that didn't exist, fix it by reinventing the wheel, and apparently thought that wheels would work better if they were triangular and there was seven of them.

[Indefiinable]

Ok how about this. There are as many tokens on offer each run as there would be pieces of gear. We all greed on them and win 1 or not you then trade that token for whichever piece of gear you want. Still means some people may have to run multiple time as was the case with the need system but at least you can get any piece of kit you need/want. Then when the new raid comes out they lift the restriction on how many tokens you can greed on just like they do with gear.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

That's not a fix. That's returning to a state that was broken for different reason. And there are many things that worked "pretty well" for all sorts of thing. Bikes worked pretty well for few centuries. Were our ancestors supposed to stay with bikes? Pretty sure you're glad they didn't, and invented cars, trains and the like.

I'll be blunt and say this is a piss work analogy. Cars are an objective improvement while bikes shifted to a more recreational activity. The current Greed only change does nothing but hinder progression, directly punishing players who only want a specific few pieces. While flawed, the old system was objectively better because it allowed some degree of control from the player. Now we are at the mercy of RNG entirely.

[Penthea]

I am ok with this change, at least I can go to 24 man raid using the job i like and loot for my other classes?

You'll find it okay until you keep losing gear you want to people who don't even have a class who can equip it unlocked.

[Cerbolt]

The greed change makes me sad

[Kradus]

I'm gonna pitch in here and say that the change should certainly be reverted, as it already took over a week to get the Yafaemi set for ninja while playing one and being able to need, it'll only get worse if other people are able to roll for that same item while not playing that class.

[kikix12]

No it's not. Storing it as a flag requires creating a value to flip the flag bit in(...)

Of course the feature will need to be programmed. Since everything is stored on server (inventory and class data), client will have a function that checks the flag for given character and a function for turning the flag on. That's very little resource. That's why flags are used everywhere possible. They are the least resource intensive means.

(...)and you'll need a flag bit for every piece of loot this applies to (a frequently growing list).

Um...Sure, you could make it like that. But why?! Instead of making it part of every item, just make it check the flag as part of the drop. Item drops, check the flag. Whatever item that is. Will also help people like me that don't remember whether we already have that minion or orchestrion roll.

That also provides you with no audit trail for when the item was acquired in the first place, making it hard for GMs to respond to support tickets about it without a secondary audit log being created somewhere.

Not really sure what you mean here. A time-stamp for when the flag was turned on?! If yes, then why would you really need it?! What support ticket could you send that requires it?!
"I never got that item before but I cannot need on it!"
That's about the only one I can imagine. But that actually doesn't require any information on when the flag was created. It requires information on whether a player aquired that item, and that is readily available already. They have logs that save what player obtains, when, from what source. That's how they check whether the item was obtained legally, whether a claim that there was agreement for player X to get drop Y in a party with player Z saying he's fine with that but then rolling for it anyway and so on. That relevant information is already there.

You then need that value loaded for every player in every instance.

And?! Eight bits is still just eight bits. And you know...again...it's all server-side (well...between the main server and the instance server). The only information between the server and the player is "You can/can't choose Need." and "I choose Need/Greed/Pass.".

You'll need to persist it back out every time someone wins an item.

Not really. If a player won by "Need" just flip the flag. That's, again, very little information. Yes, it's additional information, but small one and done between servers.

You'll need to communicate it to every client so that the client knows if they can hit need or not (when client/server communication load is already an issue).

Again, that's just a 1 or 0. You can need or you can't need. The client does the rest.

Also, someone has to spend the time developing and testing that, as opposed to something players actually want.

Like everything. And you can say only for yourself. You cannot say how few or many players would prefer the system as I suggested it. And compared to some of the other stuff that players ask for (like making gender-locked glamour unisex) a flag is a very basic function don't purely with a limited amount of text. The workload is nowhere near the same.


You also seem to be forgetting something very important in what you said. Checking whether you can Need an item based on class is actually...checking flags. Yeah. It needs to check whether you can need it as well. And it needs to do that for every class that can equip the item. Obviously, towards all players. And then, once players roll, it needs to deal with the Need/Greed priority. A necessity that does not exist if everyone rolls greed for whatever reason.
Sure, there is no turning the flag on upon winning, since the flag is changed based on players changing of class (which cannot happen in instance). But that's just about the only real difference in how the two checks work.


I won't respond to the rest of your post because it shows your conservative nature. You seem to assume that things cannot be made better and every change is for the worse, unless you asked for it, so there really is no point in discussing it, seeing as I believe in that everything can be made better.

I'll be blunt and say this is a piss work analogy. Cars are an objective improvement while bikes shifted to a more recreational activity. The current Greed only change does nothing but hinder progression, directly punishing players who only want a specific few pieces. While flawed, the old system was objectively better because it allowed some degree of control from the player. Now we are at the mercy of RNG entirely.

That analogy was not about greed only and the old system. That analogy was between old system and a system where need is accessible for a given item only until you get it for the first time. I'd appreciate it if you did read the actual beginning of a discussion instead of responding out of context.

And cars have tons of negatives. They are more convenient and faster. And that's about all. There are also drawbacks. They cost more to use, they are more dangerous when used improperly, they cause pollution, they are loud. they need a lot more space, they increase distances between point A to point B because they need sizeable enough roads to divide the locations etc. So no, the analogy is not a bad one. You just don't realize how many negatives cars have.