How SE is alienating talented players

[Agoven]

Whine much?

[Perrin]

IMO Speed Runs (while commendable) shouldn't have an increased drop rate as this would all but eliminate any chance for a pick up party. Speed Runs should maybe have a special item (or title) but not the main gear every one wants to do the content for.

[Matsume]

Someone posted a brilliant idea in another thread: Make All Mobs Defeated Achievement

Let me explain to you how this provides the best of both worlds with an example:

Normal Run = 3/5 Chests; Iron, Silver, and Electrum Chests
Speed Run = 4/5 Chests; Iron, Silver, Electrum, AND Mythril Chests
All Mobs = 4/5 Chests; Iron, Silver, Electrum, AND Cobalt Chests

In this case, speed runs require that you forgoe half the mobs in the dungeon thus making it impossible to get the all mobs chest simultaneously. Likewise, killing all the mobs in the dungeon requires more time than is required for speed runs thus making it impossible to get the speed run chest simultaneously.

In this case, players would have reason to do both speed runs and full mob runs because they unlock different chests that contain different loot. Also, one serves as a stepping stone for the other. That is, killing all the mobs helps the players get a better understanding of the dungeon which can lead to speed runs thereafter.

Perhaps this can be a groundbreaking novelty system for future end game instanced raids, where in choices are made by the players in real time that determine the outcome of the rewards. Also, implenting an instance where in more than one strategy leads to different results as far as chests are concerned will break the monotony of doing the same thing over and over again.

This can be done for a much bigger dungeon with many more than 2/3 paths to choose from for ex:

a 5 boss dungeon with 20 chests.

5 chests can be picked up along the way to bosses (1 chest on the path to each boss with varying pop requirements like the lily room)

First boss drops 1 chest guarentee

Second boss drops 1/2 chest guarentee
One extra chest possible from second boss if certain conditions are met

Third boss drops 1/3 chest guarentee
Another two chest chests possible from third boss, conditions to spawn one of two
extra chests negate the possibility to spawn the other one.

Fourth boss drops 2/4 chests guarentee
Another two chests possible from fourth boss, again, conditions required to spawn
one negates the possibility to spawn the second.

Fifth boss drops 3/5 chests guarentee
Fifth boss drops one of two extra chests depending on "speed run" and "all mobs cleared run"

Timers would be required.

Most importantly though, critical thinking skills and decision making will be priority. The 5 non boss chests would require something along the lines of killing the 4 lilies to spawn them while the extra boss chests would be in direct conflict with one another: you wont be able to get speed run chest if you clear all mobs, etc.

So that in the end obtaining ALL the chests in this dungeon would be impossible. Maybe 15/20 max. Or 10/20 on average.

How does that sound?

[Yelta_Sumasu]

I would enjoy multiple ways to run a dungeon, with different rewards depending on how you do it. Even just what they did with Toto-Rak at least gave a reason to run all 3 ways a few times and I am a little sad they didn't expand on that in either of the new ones. I sort of even like the idea that you cannot, by design, do 100% of a dungeons content in 1 raid.

Don't get me wrong, I like both the new raids and really, Cutter's Cry is a lot of fun!

[Madruk]

First of all, triple melded armor is superior to the Heavy Darklight Gear. We've gone over the stats and benefits, and triple melded Sentinel Boots + Figthers Breechers >> Heavy Darklight Flancguard (yes, I have triple melded Sentinel Gear). Similarly, a case can be stated for helm+chest piece etc. The DD gear is pretty sexy though. Regardless, to say the gear is actually worth getting, sadly is not necessarily true. We are merely trying to obtain it, because it is the only thing to do in the game.

How did you come to this conclusion? Sentinel BP and helm suck. What are you going to put on the helm, triple mind? You'd have to double/triple meld the bp in defense alone just to come up with the same defense the heavy has, not to mention all the other stats. The heavy gauntlets are the equiv of a 7 meld.

I'll agree with the flanchard though. It looks good but I think I'd rather wear even a double meld pants/boots.

[DeadRiser]

Lol speed runs. Finishing the dungeons for some linkshells is still what's in the process.

I'd rather longer lockouts with a better reward system. This grinding for gear gets a little old, especially when the next patch, no one wear's what they won because there is better gear.

[Andrien]

Not enough content for long lockouts.

Low drop rate is justifiable for a 15min wait.

[Biggs]

The kind you do with people you can stand, and actually enjoy playing with all patch long.

Not the ones you do out of convenience with a bunch of assholes, spamming the content 100 times a day so you can get your gear in a couple weeks and be done until the next patch (with content and the people, both of whom you are sick of by then) so that you have more free time to craft yourself a few more hundred million gil.

Done and Done sir.

[darkstarpoet1]

Not enough content for long lockouts.

Low drop rate is justifiable for a 15min wait.

this was my only argument against long lockouts myself.

right now let's say they add a 72 hour lockout. you can complete cc, av, and ifrit in a little over 1 hour if you are in a skilled group that has already been doing speed runs. no, my group has not been doing speed runs because we're only running 2 hours every other night and not daily. we are also trying to make our own strategy and not follow youtube videos from start to finish like alot of other groups have seemed to do.

so are you saying that the good crews should only get in and play for 1 hour every 3 days? if there was more content in the game where they could do multiple things in a day i'd agree to longer lockouts, but not at this point.

[kro]

With a 72 hour lockout, it would take a really long time to get enough practice in to complete the dungeon successfully, let alone a speed run.

Sure, if you know what you know now a longer lockout with higher drop rates would be great. But that initial process of learning how to run the dungeon efficiently would be way too long. And with only one chance every 72 hours, every group going in would have to be a separate 8 man static and the whole swapping in members thing for a few runs would cease to exist.