Please fix/tokenize Darklight drops

[Ravidrath]

So a while ago I went to a GDC talk by someone from WoW, and they mentioned that on quests, they adjust the drop rate with each kill so it never feels "too random."

So, for example, say you have a quest to kill things for a particular drop. The creature might have a natural drop rate of 10%, and if it doesn't drop, the game will quietly bump the drop rate up on the next one to 15% behind-the-scenes. Each subsequent kill will increase the drop rate 5% until it's 100% or until the item drops, after which it will reset the drop rate to its normal rate.

So... could something like this work for FFXIV's raid content?

1. Each player would have a hidden "affinity" rating for that particular event. The higher your "affinity," the higher your chances of getting a drop would be, and this rating carries over across runs.

2. Every time a chest is opened or a drop opportunity occurs and you don't get the drop, your affinity increases, and with it the chance that the next opportunity will give you a drop.

3. Whenever a valuable item drops into your inventory, your affinity resets to zero.

What I like about this system is that it keeps some of the essential randomness that keeps these games rewarding, while also making it feel like there is no such thing as a "wasted run." All without resorting to tokens.

And... hell, part of me thinks this might be even better if it were a global "karma" value for all events, to encourage people to help others with old content. In this scenario, say you do a bunch of Ifrit runs with new members and didn't get a drop, Aurum Vale runs after would benefit from that.

[Enfarious]

So a while ago I went to a GDC talk by someone from WoW, and they mentioned that on quests, they adjust the drop rate with each kill so it never feels "too random."

So, for example, say you have a quest to kill things for a particular drop. The creature might have a natural drop rate of 10%, and if it doesn't drop, the game will quietly bump the drop rate up on the next one to 15% behind-the-scenes. Each subsequent kill will increase the drop rate 5% until it's 100% or until the item drops, after which it will reset the drop rate to its normal rate.

So... could something like this work for FFXIV's raid content?

1. Each player would have a hidden "affinity" rating for that particular event. The higher your "affinity," the higher your chances of getting a drop would be, and this rating carries over across runs.

2. Every time a chest is opened or a drop opportunity occurs and you don't get the drop, your affinity increases, and with it the chance that the next opportunity will give you a drop.

3. Whenever a valuable item drops into your inventory, your affinity resets to zero.

What I like about this system is that it keeps some of the essential randomness that keeps these games rewarding, while also making it feel like there is no such thing as a "wasted run." All without resorting to tokens.

And... hell, part of me thinks this might be even better if it were a global "karma" value for all events, to encourage people to help others with old content. In this scenario, say you do a bunch of Ifrit runs with new members and didn't get a drop, Aurum Vale runs after would benefit from that.

That's not a bad alternative, I think, I'm not sure how it'd work in a cross content way, if say you went to do Ifrit and have all the drops already if your cross content rate caused a drop in Ifrit it'd be kinda sad to think that now it's reset just before you go for AV, but if it only was affected if you actually opened a chest that'd be cool.

[Ravidrath]

That's not a bad alternative, I think, I'm not sure how it'd work in a cross content way, if say you went to do Ifrit and have all the drops already if your cross content rate caused a drop in Ifrit it'd be kinda sad to think that now it's reset just before you go for AV, but if it only was affected if you actually opened a chest that'd be cool.

Yeah, making it cross-content and good could be difficult, but I think the benefit to the community would be important. If I were to have my druthers, I'd roll it out on an individual basis first and then adjust to be global if it seemed to be working out.

You could also have both: affinities for specific events, and a global "karma" rating that basically tallies all events you've ever done and has a very subtle pull on things all the time. Like... 1% per 1000 points, or something.

Also, to make it work correctly, all raid drops would need to be passable... which obviously isn't the case now.

[Enfarious]

Yeah, making it cross-content and good could be difficult, but I think the benefit to the community would be important. If I were to have my druthers, I'd roll it out on an individual basis first and then adjust to be global if it seemed to be working out.

You could also have both: affinities for specific events, and a global "karma" rating that basically tallies all events you've ever done and has a very subtle pull on things all the time. Like... 1% per 1000 points, or something.

Also, to make it work correctly, all raid drops would need to be passable... which obviously isn't the case now.

I think that raid drops would have to not be passable, but rather that each person would get thier own chest, like in Primal fights, I wouldn't want to do CC 22 times then have DL drop to someone else in a pick-up that's never been in before. Each player getting their own unique chest so that their "karma" rating only affected their own drops seems a better way to go about this.