Loot System for Savage

[Stasya]

What content will you do once you have BiS?

Ultimate, they release it and don't even unlock savage (because there is literally no other way to farm gear and i doubt new criterion will change anything) just so more people can enter.

I assume this is a bait post, like you cant do savage in bis too? Criterion?

[GartredZW]

Ultimate, they release it and don't even unlock savage (because there is literally no other way to farm gear and i doubt new criterion will change anything) just so more people can enter.

I assume this is a bait post, like you cant do savage in bis too? Criterion?

You don't need BiS to do Savage. Otherwise you wouldn't be able to clear to get it in the first place.
Ultimates release months after Savage. you've got enough time to just save up books without winning a single roll to get your BiS for whatever class you're going to do Ultimates with.

What people don't seem to realize is that BiS isn't a gate for the vast majority of players. It's an achievement. What people are asking for by wanting Savage gearing to be quicker is for the achievement to be easier. "I want the Necromancer title, but I don't want to have to wade through all 200 floors. They should just let me start on floor 160 and still get the title." This is what these complaints sound like.
This is one of the few aspects that actually feels like an MMO. Getting a weekly clear, and getting nothing for it. (except not really nothing. you get the book) And just going "Oh well. Maybe next week." It's not easy losing out on loot a few weeks in a row, but you'll manage.
Another aspect of MMOs that has a place in FFXIV because of this system is Character Identity. You can't just gear up every single class as much as you want to. You have to specialize, and choose your favorites to build your unique character. You can get all of them into raids immediately with enough crafting or gil if that's what you want. And barring the astronomically small percentage of players who want to resub only on the Ultimate patches, and get clears with seven different jobs all back to back without any prep time, It's good enough, and works perfectly as intended.

[Chiru_Kai]

You don't need BiS to do Savage. Otherwise you wouldn't be able to clear to get it in the first place.
Ultimates release months after Savage. you've got enough time to just save up books without winning a single roll to get your BiS for whatever class you're going to do Ultimates with.

What people don't seem to realize is that BiS isn't a gate for the vast majority of players. It's an achievement. What people are asking for by wanting Savage gearing to be quicker is for the achievement to be easier. "I want the Necromancer title, but I don't want to have to wade through all 200 floors. They should just let me start on floor 160 and still get the title." This is what these complaints sound like.
This is one of the few aspects that actually feels like an MMO. Getting a weekly clear, and getting nothing for it. (except not really nothing. you get the book) And just going "Oh well. Maybe next week." It's not easy losing out on loot a few weeks in a row, but you'll manage.
Another aspect of MMOs that has a place in FFXIV because of this system is Character Identity. You can't just gear up every single class as much as you want to. You have to specialize, and choose your favorites to build your unique character. You can get all of them into raids immediately with enough crafting or gil if that's what you want. And barring the astronomically small percentage of players who want to resub only on the Ultimate patches, and get clears with seven different jobs all back to back without any prep time, It's good enough, and works perfectly as intended.

"Welcome to Final Fantasy 14 where you can play every job and switch between jobs at will! It's so amazing and what sets us apart as an MMO!"
....
"No no, not in savage, there you have to get only 1 job to BiS which takes 12 weeks, maybe slightly less if you're lucky. Tough luck for you if you want to do 2 completely different jobs for ultimates that require BiS, gonna take you 6 months to do that and you might as well just wait for the next raid tier."
"Oh you went on a vacation? in AUGUST?! Are you *crazy*? Guess what loser, your timing for BiS and possibly viability for ultimate is now delayed by how many weeks you went on vacay and didn't complete savage raids. How DARE you have a real-life and not log in weekly. SMH."

[GartredZW]

"Welcome to Final Fantasy 14 where you can play every job and switch between jobs at will! It's so amazing and what sets us apart as an MMO!"
....
"No no, not in savage, there you have to get only 1 job to BiS which takes 12 weeks, maybe slightly less if you're lucky. Tough luck for you if you want to do 2 completely different jobs for ultimates that require BiS, gonna take you 6 months to do that and you might as well just wait for the next raid tier."
"Oh you went on a vacation? in AUGUST?! Are you *crazy*? Guess what loser, your timing for BiS and possibly viability for ultimate is now delayed by how many weeks you went on vacay and didn't complete savage raids. How DARE you have a real-life and not log in weekly. SMH."

Didn't you read when I said that you can make every job savage ready by just crafting or buying gear? And yes. You shouldn't just be able to fully gear out all classes on current content. Pick your favorites and specialize a bit. I don't know how many people plan to Ultimate raid day 1 with two different jobs at the same time, but I can guarantee that they're not enough to upend the entire loot system for.
Also, are you surprised that taking time off from the game might not leave you with enough time to do what you want exactly when you wanted? I'll use an analogy again: "I want to play Dawntrail on launch, but I'm still in Heavensward because I took a break from the game, and now the game is forcing me to either waste time going through the rest of the story, or buy a story skip."

After this past month or so, it's pot calling the kettle black, but you don't actually need to be week 1 on anything if you're not ready. That's the beauty of this game. You can always be sure that you'll have something current to do for endgame regardless of whether it's just released, or a month away from being outdated, and soon enough everyone is going to be on equal footing again when the next tier releases.

[Chiru_Kai]

Didn't you read when I said that you can make every job savage ready by just crafting or buying gear? And yes. You shouldn't just be able to fully gear out all classes on current content. [...]
Also, are you surprised that taking time off from the game might not leave you with enough time to do what you want exactly when you wanted? I'll use an analogy again: "I want to play Dawntrail on launch, but I'm still in Heavensward because I took a break from the game, and now the game is forcing me to either waste time going through the rest of the story, or buy a story skip."

You can be savage-ready, sure. But BiS is a prerequisite for ultimates.
And yes, if you are an ultimate raider you actually might want to have multiple gearing options for multiple jobs.

"You shouldn't just be able to fully gear out all classes on current content."
Why not? No seriously, come with a good, provable, factual answer.
The only reasons that are given are "because it burns people out", and it's nonsense, because it's not proven with facts whatsoever. It's an assumption.
Here's why: there's plenty of non-savage loot or grind mechanics in this game that do not have weekly restrictions. You can grind them endlessly. Do people complain about it not being timegated if they burn out on it? No. Because if you get burnt out on a specific type of content, you can go do other content in the game, or heck, you can go play another game for a while.

What DO you hear tho? "it's too slow", "it feels bad to lose rolls", and my favorite: "it burns me out having to be forced to wait weeks before I reach my goal".

Another argument is "it provides incentive to log in". And to that I've already argued: no it doesn't. Making something a chore, does not make for content. It just turns it into a chore, and chores are not what games should strive to be. Chores are notoriously unfun and they demand discipline, not reliant on motivation or fun-factor, but rather because you *have to*.
I'm also not saying it should be easy, but it's okay to apply the Normal Raid or Extreme loot systems to savage and literally nobody will complain.

"I want to play Dawntrail on launch, but I'm still in Heavensward because I took a break from the game, and now the game is forcing me to either waste time going through the rest of the story, or buy a story skip."
False analogy. Savage loot mechanics are the equivalent of, say, being 300 quests away from finishing Endwalker. But you can only do 25 quests per week because of arbitrary reasons. So yay, 12 weeks to finish.
You start playing 3 months before Dawntrail comes out. If you do it right, you will finish just in time. But oh no, you took a vacation, or something happened IRL, and now you can't do it anymore. Then you complain about the 25 weekly limit for quests being a silly arbitrary limit and you hear arguments like "it's to prevent people from burning out" and "it provides incentive to log in weekly".

[GartredZW]

- snip -

Could you at least try to read what I said before responding? I'm repeating myself.
I never said anything about burn out or incentives to log in.
What I did point out is how limited loot is the only thing in the game that maintains a sense of character identity, which is hanging on by a thread in this game. For those of you who've never played another MMO. Character Identity helps you to feel better about your character by creating specialized traits that most others don't have. In other words, you're a Jack of all trades, master of one.
The fact that raid loot is limited serves to force the player to specialize, and actually grow in one aspect of their character's ability. You can be level 100 on 21 combat jobs, but Sage is the one you're the best at.

You never addressed the statement I made about Ultimate raiders with multiple classes. The players who want to raid Ultimates Day 1 on multiple jobs are an incredibly small portion of the playerbase. Why should the loot system be completely upended just for them? I'll add on to this and ask how many people have their hearts set on Ultimate raiding day 1 with multiple classes, and doesn't have a static to run through raids to be able to get all the loot they need for two classes, and then some in the time between the Savage patch and Ultimates.
If I was a designer tasked to fix this issue, you know what I'd do? well first I'd just say there's nothing to fix. This is a feature, not a bug. But if I had to do something, I'd just make Ultimates ilvl sync you down to the level of pre-raid BiS. (710 in the current patch) Would that fix the issue? Would that make the complaints stop? If not then why keep bringing up Ultimate raiders since they're not who you have in mind for your issues with loot.

As for the Randomness, this has been a staple of the MMO genre ever since it's inception. Many players have fond memories of when they defied all odds and won a piece of loot against twenty other people. The fact that it takes a while, and that it's random adds to the satisfaction of when you actually do get the loot.
This is genuinely something that we think makes the game better. That's why this system has endured through MMOs for roughly 30 years now. Before you try asking for it to be changed, ask yourself why you're even playing an MMO in the first place if this is your idea of a core fundamental mechanic.
I know this might seem like the appeal to tradition, but what I'm saying is that this is a method of reward distribution that has proven time and time again to have an audience, and I'd like that aspect to not completely be destroyed despite the fact that BiS is not necessary for 99% of players (rough census data for how many people have cleared TOP)
You still have dungeon loot, EX trial loot, and Crafted gear that's uncapped and non-random. You've even got Normal raids, Alliance Raids, and Tomestones for just non-random weekly capped gear.

And finally, you can't just change an analogy, then address that and expect the message to be properly addressed. That's called a strawman. MSQ quests are time gated simply by the fact that they take time to complete. A lot of time in fact. You completely alter the analogy to just be about artificial time gating when my point was about how much time something takes in general.
The analogy I put forth was as a response to how when prospective Ultimate raiders start the patch late, they will surely be behind for when the Ultimate patch drops. (And that's only if they have the worst luck imaginable, and can't get a single piece of loot relying instead on Books)

[Chiru_Kai]

"What I did point out is how limited loot is the only thing in the game that maintains a sense of character identity, which is hanging on by a thread in this game."
That is an opinion, not fact. Irrelevant.

"For those of you who've never played another MMO."
I've played plenty of other MMOs. And FFXIV is not that, hence why I play FFXIV. And many of us do.

"In other words, you're a Jack of all trades, master of one."
This makes 0 logical sense.

"You never addressed the statement I made about Ultimate raiders with multiple classes. The players who want to raid Ultimates Day 1 on multiple jobs are an incredibly small portion of the playerbase."
Yes, and? The people who do Deep Dungeons consistently are a small portion of the playerbase too but they got a whole new Deep Dungeon last expansion. How many people are playing it these days?

"I'd just make Ultimates ilvl sync you down to the level of pre-raid BiS. (710 in the current patch) Would that fix the issue? Would that make the complaints stop? If not then why keep bringing up Ultimate raiders since they're not who you have in mind for your issues with loot."
You would make it even easier than what people would want.
Then there is no effort involved in getting multiple classes to 710 and there is no reason to get higher ilvl gearsets. Players want SOME challenge, but not TOO MUCH that it becomes unattainable. This is very simple: can you get all 7 savage gearsets and therefore all jobs to BiS (likely around 730 ilvl) between the release of savage, and the release of ultimate? If not: make it so. If yes: great, that's what people want. Simple. Why do you have to change it into 710 ilvl and make it even easier than what people request? Makes no sense.

"As for the Randomness, this has been a staple of the MMO genre ever since it's inception."
It's not so much about the randomness. It's about the weekly limit.
If I do a normal raid and don't get the Leg piece, I will just do it again, and again, and again, until I DO have it. This is 'easy' for normal raids (god knows many people struggle with even that mild level of difficulty). Try implementing that for savage and 99% of players will STILL struggle to get BiS for more than 1 job.
'tradition' and 'we've always done it this way' are non-arguments for progress unless you can come up that these mechanics are 100% tied to the longevity to an MMO. You know you can't prove that, so don't bother.

"And finally, you can't just change an analogy"
The analogy did not involve weekly limits that cannot be broken, therefore it is a false analogy. I merely fixed it, and I kept it mostly the same. Hopefully it shows how dumb the whole argument is.
Not my fault you don't like it.
Savage loot IS timegated artificially for no reason whatsoever.